Christmas Gifts: Rum Cake

My family loves liquor. And a dessert that combines liquor and cake? A dream come true! So it should come as no surprise that rum cake is a staple at our holiday gatherings. I have tried several different recipes, from Emeril to Martha, but the best cake by far is the one that my Aunt Katherine makes-- A recipe that she learned from her aunt. And here I am sharing this beloved family recipe with all of you. Well, turns out this recipe isn't so secret... The beloved rum cake recipe is the one on the Bacardi Rum website. Oh well, it's still delicious!

I made mini versions of these cakes for my friends and wraped them in plastic wrap and put them into festive red boxes with tissue paper.

Bacardi Rum Cake

1 cup chopped, toasted pecans or walnuts
1 (18-1/2) ounce yellow cake mix
1 (1-3/4 ounce )instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup cold milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum
---Glaze---
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup Bacardi dark rum

 

Cake: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Grease and flour 12-cup Bundt pan. Sprinkle nuts on bottom of pan. Combine all cake ingredients. Beat for 2 minutes on high with electric mixer. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour. Cool in pan. Invert on serving plate. Prick top with fork. Drizzle glaze over top of Bacardi Rum Cake. Use brush or spoon to put extra dripping back on cake. 

 

Glaze: Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum. Note: The rum will cause steam. Be careful not to burn yourself.

The longer this cakes sits, the better the taste and it freezes beautifully.

Christmas Gifts: Rice Krispies

This Christmas, for the girls I work with, I put together a bag full of homemade treats. The bags were simple tote bags I bought from Michael's and I ironed on images of leaves, birds, and trees. They seemed to really like present. Here are the recipes to the snacks I put inside.

Homemade Rice Krispies

3 Tablespoons butter
1 package (10 oz) Marshmallows
6 cups Rice Krispies Cereal
1/2 cup milk chocolate

In a large sauce pan over low heat melt butter. Add marshmallows and stir until completely melted. Remove from heat.

Add Rice Krispies. Stir until well coated.

Using a buttered spatula press mixture into a 13x9x2 inch pan coated with cooking spray. Cool. Cut into rectangles.

Melt chocolate in microwave for about 20-40 seconds. Stir until smooth. Pour into a plastic bag, cut the tip off and drizzle over bars. Allow chocolate to set. Wrap in celophane.

Iced Oatmeal-Apple Cookies

These cookies are full of flavor, soft, chewy, and they stay that way-- they don't turn into bricks the next morning. They are one of my favorite go-to cookies and the only way to make an oatmeal raisin cookie.

Iced Oatmeal-Apple Cookies

*Makes about 2 dozen

4 Tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

1 large apple, peeled and grated

1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup golden raisins

For glaze

1 cup confectioners sugar

3 Tablespoons maple syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix butter and sugars together. Add egg and grated apple. Mix until well blended. Mix in oats, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix in raisins.

Scoop onto a greased cookies tray. Bake for 7-8 minutes. DO NOT OVERBAKE. That them out when they start to turn golden brown but aren't quite set. Let them cool completely.

For glaze, whisk together sugar and syrup until liquidy and smooth. Drizzle over cookies, let set.

Hawaiian Flan

When I first found this recipe I was skeptical. Usually, I'm not a big fan of flan. It's a Jello-y custard and I always think of old people without any teeth eating it. However, add pineapple to anything and I'll try it.

I'm glad I did make this. It's not my favorite thing ever... but it is pretty good. The best part is that you can eat it at any temperature. I prefer it best warm, my parents liked it room temperature, and my boyfriend, who is a flan fanatic, preferred it nice and cold--especially for the hot summer evening.

Hawaiian Flan
-Adapted from Joanne Fluke's novel The Strawberry Shortcake Murder

1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup water
6 eggs
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/2 cups pineapple juice
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 small can crushed pineapple
Whipped cream

Find an 8-inch by8-inch square pan (metal or glass) and get it ready next to the stove top. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine one cup of sugar and 1/2 cup water in a small sauce pan. Bring to a boil, stirring at first, then swishing it around until the mixture turns golden brown.

Carefully, pour the syrup into the pan you've chosen and tip it to coat the bottom and the sides. This is your caramel sauce. Run hot water in the saucepan you used and set it in the sink.

To make the custard beat eggs until they're light yellow and thick. Add the sweetened condensed milk, sugar, salt, and pineapple juice. Beat thoroughly. Pour on top of the caramel.

Find a larger baking pan that will contain your custard pan with at least an inch to spare on all four sides. Place the custard pan inside the larger pan. Slip both pans into the oven and pour hot tap water in the larger pan, enough to immerse your custard pan halfway up the side.

Bake one hour, or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove the custard pan from the water and let it cool on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. To serve, turn the custard out in a flat bowl or plate with a lid (so the caramel sauce won't over flow.) Place slices of custard in a dessert dish and sprinkle some of the crushed pineapple over the top. Then spoon on some of the caramel sauce and top with whipped cream.

Grape and Raspberry Cheese Tart

Don't you just hate those fancy cookbooks with the delicious looking high-end recipes that have expensive and hard to find ingredients? I find myself staring at the pretty pictures in those books knowing I will never be able to find or afford the equipment and ingredients needed to make them. This recipe started out as one of those recipes.

I found this recipe in my "Best-Ever Pastry Cookbook" I have been eye-balling it for several years now, waiting for the perfect time to make it. The recipe looked intimidating at first (that is why it took me so long to actually make it) with ingredients like "plain four" "vanilla essence" "apricot conserve" "farmer's cheese" and "caster sugar". But after deciphering the language it was rather easy: all-purpose flour, vanilla extract, apricot jam, cream cheese, and fine sugar.

I loved this tart. Usually I don't like tarts that much...they look beautiful, but they lack in the flavor department. This one has tons of flavor. The cheese filling paired with the raspberries and grapes is divine. It is a creamy and fresh filling contained in a flaky and buttery shell.

The original recipe is a bit different from what I actually made (as often happens when I cook). In the original it calls for individual tarts, only red grapes, and farmers/curd cheese (I still have no idea what that is). However, mine was delicious and I wouldn't change a thing...even if I could find and afford those fancy ingredients...

Grape and Raspberry Cheese Tart

* This is my simplified recipe based off Red Grape and Cheese Tartlets in the "Best-Ever Pastry Cookbook by Catherine Atkinson"


For the Tart shell
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cups butter (1 stick and 2 Tablespoons)
1 egg
1 Tablespoon chilled water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Filling
8 oz Cream Cheese
1/3 cup Milk
1/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1cup grapes**
1 cup fresh raspberries**
4 Tablespoons apricot jam***
1 Tablespoon water***

**You could use any fresh berry for this dessert but grapes and cheese go amazingly together.
***I didn't do the jam topping. Partly because I forget and partly because when I remembered I was too lazy to do it.

To make Pastry, put flour, cinnamon, and sugar into a food processor and mix. Add chunks of butter one at a time while the food processor is running until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs. Add the egg, water, and vanilla and keep processing until the mixture comes together into a smooth dough. Wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out pastry and line your tart pan. Prick the base with a fork. Bake for 6 minutes or just until dough is lightly browned. DO NOT OVER BAKE. Nothing is worse than a hard and brittle pie shell. Remove from shell and cool.

For the filling, beat cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and sugar together in a small bowl. Pour into cooled tart shell. Top with berries and grapes.

Put apricot jam and water into a sauce pan and heat over medium high heat, stirring constantly until smooth and glossy. Spoon glaze over berries. Leave to cool, then refrigerate until ready to serve.

Strawberry Shortcake

Here it is, the recipe I promised you. And let me tell you, it does not disappoint! This is one of the best strawberry shortcakes that I have had. The "shortcake" part is really just pound cake, but it is the best pound cake ever. It's dense and smooth almost like a cheesecake. You could use frozen berries, but fresh is best. The berries really take center stage in this dish.

One of the best parts of this dessert is that you can make it all days in advance and assemble whenever you are ready to eat. It will keep a couple of days assembled, but it is best fresh.

This recipe is versatile. The original one calls for (2) 9-inch round cakes and you spoon the toppings over each individual piece when you serve. I made a sheet cake and cut it into three rectangles and stacked them. You could even cut out individual circles from the sheet cake and serve mini strawberry tarts.

Strawberry Shortcake Swensen (Adapted from Joanee Fluke's novel: The Strawberry Shortcake Murder)

*Note: This recipe makes a lot! It is meant for two 9-inch rounds, but it made one sheet cake and one 19 by 13in rectangle. (I made one for dessert and had mom take the other to her work.)

For Pound Cake
3 sticks butter (softened) (1 1/2 cups)
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour ( used All Purpose and it came out fine)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream softened butter and sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer. Add eggs one at a time, and beat until they are nice and fluffy. Then add the sour cream, baking powder, and vanilla. Mix it all up and add the flour, one cup at a time, and beat until the batter is smooth and has no lumps.

Pour batter into pan (either two nine inch cake rounds, two 13 by 9 inch pans, or a sheet pan). Bake for 45-50 minutes. ***NOTE*** My cakes in the sheet pan and the 3 by 9 pan were done after only 20 minutes!! Make sure to check early to see if they are done. You will know they are done when the edges are slightly brown and come away from the side of the pan and you can insert a toothpick in the center and it comes out clean. DO NOT OVER BAKE!!!

When cakes are done allow to cool in the pans on a rack for 20 minutes.

***The original recipe stresses to chill the cakes for 48 hours-- bake the cakes 2 days in advance, cool it, wrap it in plastic wrap and then foil, and freeze it until you need it. I can't wait that long. I let the cakes cool and then ate them right away. They were perfect.

Strawberries and Creme Fraiche
1 pint strawberries
1/4 cup white sugar
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup brown sugar

Wash and cut strawberries (into slices) sprinkle with white sugar. RESERVE SOME PRETTY WHOLE ONES FOR DECORATION. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Whip cream with brown sugar. When it hold a firm peak, fold in the sour cream. Refrigerate until ready to use.

Assembling

You can do this her way or my way or your way.

Her way: Simple and easy. Cut pound cake into slices, top with strawberries and creme fraiche, sprinkle with brown sugar.

My way: More involved, looks really pretty, can assemble beforehand. Cut sheet cake (or 13 by 9 rectangle) into 3 equal rectangles. Fit a piping bag (or zip-lock bag) with a large star tip and fill with creme fraiche. Lay one rectangle on your serving platter. Pipe bursts of creme fraiche on top. Cover with half of the strawberries.*See picture below* Top with another piece of pound cake and do the same with creme fraiche and strawberries and top with last slice of pound cake. Take a little creme fraiche and smooth on top of the last piece of pound cake. Use the piping bag again to make pretty swirls around the top border. Make one large dot of creme in the middle and place a large berry on top. Sprinkle with brown sugar.

*First layer*

Apple Crumble

In high school I entered an apple pie baking contest.  I placed third, out of at least 50 entries. Sadly, the recipe I used was lost. I have kicked myself for losing that recipe. It was a combination of several recipes, my own flare, brandy, and homemade caramel.

Going though my huge stack of recipies I found a new apple pie recipe. This crumble with its buttery topping and cream cheese bottom is a new favorite recipe. It may not be as good as that 3rd place pie, but it is pretty close.

Apple (Pear) Crumble
adapted from kraft desserts


* I didn't have any pears so I used 2 extra apples. But I am excited to try this recipe again with pears

Ingredients
3/4 cup crushed Nilla wafers (about 24) ** I used leftover snickerdoodles, it was wonderful
1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) melted butter
1 Ready to use pie crust
4 oz of cream cheese, softened
2 large baking apples, peeled sliced thinly
1 large fresh pear, peeled sliced thinly
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Whipped cream (optional)


Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a food processor blend cookies, brown sugar, and butter until well blended.

Spread cream cheese onto the bottom of the pie crust, sprinkle half of the crumb mixture on top. Set aside.

Combine fruit in a large bowl. Add sugar, flour, and cinnamon. Toss to coat. Pour fruit mixture into pie pan. Sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture.

Bake for 25 minutes or until brown. Cover with foil after 15 minutes if necessary. Serve with whipped cream.