Angel Food Loaf Cake

I know it's a little ridiculous to post a dessert recipe during a series on better health and loosing weight, but I don't care! LOL! Actually this recipe does play into that a little bit, as I found it on my search for smaller desserts. I wanted to make something special that would have little left overs and less temptations to eat more than I should. So here is my recipe for an Angel Food Loaf Cake that I altered a bit from this cookbook.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sifted cake flour

1/4 cup sugar

2/3 cup (5) egg whites

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

dash of salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp lemon extract

1/2 cup sugar

Preheat oven to 375 Degrees.

Sift Flour with 1/4 cup sugar 4 times.

Beat egg whites, cream of tartar, salt, vanilla, and lemon extract until egg whites are stiff enough to hold up in soft peaks but are still moist and glossy.

Add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar to egg whites,  2 tablespoons at a time, beating after each addition to blend. 

Sift about 1/4 of the flour mixture over egg white mixture and fold in lightly. Fold in remaining flour by fourths. 

Bake in un-greased 10x5x3 inch loaf pan in moderate over (375 degrees) for 25 minutes or until done. Remove from oven, invert pan, and let stand for 1 hour or until cool.

Yummy! But it needs a little something more......

PERFECT!!!

Mmmm... Chocolate =D

I need to get started on dinner, but I have failed at my weekly meal planning this week and have no idea what I'm going to throw together tonight. Plus, I'm feeling a little something coming on that is making me just want to eat things like these;

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen-blog/2011/05/cookies-and-cream-cheesecake-bars/

http://thefarmchicks.typepad.com/farmchicks/2011/05/peanut-butter-chocolate-bars.html

http://thepioneerwoman.com/tasty-kitchen/recipes/desserts/coffee-cake-literally/

You had to post that coffee cake today, Ruth! I've wanted it since I saw the pic on Facebook! LOL

http://www.bakerella.com/got-milk-i-hope-so%e2%80%a6/


My kids will survive one night of being fed chocolate cake for dinner... Right? I won't be scaring them for life will I? LOL

One last Advent/Christmas Post

I can't believe I forgot to blog about these days on our Advent scrolls! 

My little helpers

I planned it perfectly that one day we would make Christmas cookies for my parents and then the next day we could go to Stoneyridge, see the live nativity, get hot cocoa and then deliver the cookies to my parents in Lynden. The biggest lesson I learned doing this Advent scroll thing: Check the schedules of the places you want to go first. Just because you want to go there that day doesn't mean they'll be open. 



It's not really on...She's just pretending

Stoneyridge was already closed for the season, so we skipped that Advent activity. But, luckily there was another activity that we could do that day! 

Cookies all ready for Grandma & Grandpa



Movie train at my mom's house

Elizabeth loves to sit in boxes. She is definitely not claustrophobic. She loves small spaces and will fill them with pillows and blankets, then crawls in and gets comfy. 


Taking in the show

Our replacement activity was to go watch my nephew's band at their Christmas Program. It was the first concert for Zaccheaus and the second for Joshua and Gabriel. Having Elizabeth their proved to be challenging and we ended up leaving right after Joseph's group was finished. My favorite song was "Handel's Messiah". The boys' favorite was the Grinch songs.

Hey, Howdy, Hey!

Last Sunday was Zaccheaus' 5th birthday and we celebrated with a Toy Story/ Woody's Round-Up party.

The Party Table

My mom and I found the Toy Story buckets on clearance after Easter and I have stashed them away since then. Table cloth is from the Dollar Tree. Popcorn containers from WalMart and the toys we already had.

We played pin the tail on bullseye, which can be found at disney's site.

Congrats to Gabriel for being the winner!

The birthday boy enjoyed opening his presents.

And of course we had some cake!
I loved using this theme, since the new Toy Story movie just came to theaters. There were so many things available in the stores with the characters on it! Fruit snacks, crackers, ice cream and many more yummy things! I made the cake. Not perfect, but I'm happy with it as it was my first venture into fondant. Thanks to our family for coming over and all the lovely gifts. We are truly spoiled!

Fudgy Passover Brownies

Josh and I picked up this cookbook at the library recently and I have been trying a few of the recipes, today's attempt "Fudgy Passover Brownies"...

(note: I did a double batch)

These turned out really good. A little different than the boxed brownies I'm used to, but still really tasty. Plus, I'm pretty sure they were glutten free, so all you out there with wheat allergies; I have found a brownie you can eat!!! Here's the recipe:

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, at room temp

1/3 cup cream cheese, at room temp

1 cup turbinado sugar or granulated sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp "kosher for Passover" vanilla extract
1/2 cup matzah cake flour
2 Tbsp potato starch
1 cup finely chopped pecans

1. Preheat the oven to 325 F and butter pan
2. break up the chocolate into pieces (or buy chips like I did) and melt in double boiler, stirring occationally. Remove from heat a let cool a bit. (also can be done in the microwave)
3. in a electric mixer bowl cream together the butter and cream cheese. Beat in the sugar, eggs and vanilla until well mixed. Add in the cake flour, potato starch, cooled chocolate and nuts. Mix on low speed, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl occationally with a spatula.
4. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes our clean. Cut and serve warm.

As I'm typing this out I just relized I put twice as much butter and there was supposed to be! Oops! All the items we used were "kosher" and as you can see there is no wheat flour used. Also, we omitted the pecans because of the kids allergies. I'm definately going to file this recipe away and bake them again. Overall they got a thumbs up from the family...except for Joshua who wouldn't try them because he saw me put in "potatoes" LOL. Don't worry they don't taste like potatoes, just uses potato starch. Enjoy!

Cookie Exchange

I'm participating in the cookie exchange over on the Farm Chicks Blog and here is the recipe I shared...

Holiday Spritz Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cups Gold Medal® all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/4 teaspoon rum extract or vanilla
Food color, if desired

1. Heat oven to 400ºF. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, salt, egg, rum extract and a few drops of food color.
2. Place dough in cookie press. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. To decorate cookies after baking, use a drop of corn syrup to attach decorations to cookies.

Glaze w/ butter rum glaze
 
1/4 cup butter melted over med heat, remove from heat and stir in 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 tsp rum extract. Stir in 1-2 tbsp hot water until spreadable.
 
Do you have a recipe to share?

Busy...Busy...Busy

We've been sooo busy lately...Soccer, Home School, Church, College, ETC...



Just wanted to say we're all doing good and show some pictures off...



Gabriel and this other boy both wanted to be goalie and everytime the other team got the ball they both ran towards the goal and left the other boy to play defense all alone....LOL

The other day I got bored and made this cake. We had a chocolate cake mix, but no frosting and me being the sugar adict that I am... got adventurous and made my own. It has choc. fudge on top and buttercream in the middle. It ended up tasting like a giant hostess cupcake....yummy!!! Lets just say it did not look this pretty for very long. We all had a slice after our dinner and then after the kids went to bed, Josh and I just dug in w/ a fork. I think I had some for breakfast the next day....Man I should not make cakes....

The last few days the weather has been sooo nice. A scourching 60+ degrees and I couldn't stand staying inside all day any longer. So, my friend Tara invited us over to run and play at her house. We all enjoyed it so much. They had a huge play structure, a sand box and lots of room to run. The boys even flew their kites, as the wind was starting to pick up. All the moms hung out, chatted and sipped coffee. Such a wonderful time. I can't wait until I have my own yard to do that in...Someday, right?

Oh and check out the kiddos' pages for more pics and other happenings around here :o)