Toffee takes time. Peanut butter has come today.

Banoffee is still going to have to wait. I've found a couple of different ways to prepare the toffee: I tried it the quick and fast way, which turned out well enough, but the long and time consuming way is supposed to be the more-recommended of the two and it's, well, long and time consuming and I just don't have the time currently.

But believe me, it's going to be worth it.

I'm headed to California for the weekend and I asked my brother if he wanted me to bring anything for him. Mom's peanut butter cup balls, he answered.

Well, that's not going to happen (they will probably melt between Phoenix and LA), but I'll post the recipe here in case I feel like making it when I arrive. (Looking it over, it's a very vague recipe, and one that we make differently now. I'll clean it up as best I can.)

Peanut Butter Cups

1 c. butter
1 lb. powdered sugar
2 c. old fashioned peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla
3 c. rice cereal
melted chocolate

Combine the butters, sugar and vanilla well in a large bowl. Then with hands mix in the rice cereal.

Next, you can either form the peanut butter mixture into balls and then cover with the melted chocolate, which is extremely messy and THE reason my mom only made these once in a while (because, really, fat content is not an issue).

OR you can spread the peanut butter mixture on the bottom of baking pan and pour the melted chocolate over it, cutting into bite size squares once the chocolate has cooled down. Much easier, better for portion control. And it's quicker, and that's all that really counts in my book when it comes to anything with peanut butter and chocolate in it.

And you can do it, too!

I know I promised a Banoffee post (yum, banoffee) but I'm still experimenting with recipes. In its place, I offer a fast and easy cake decorating post.



I made the above cake for my friend Lisa's birthday last week, with a total decorating time of one hour - which is four hours less than my normal decorating time.

I started off a few days ahead of time by baking a milk chocolate cake with pudding (from a mix) in 2 - 9" circle pans. I let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a wire rack for an hour. Then I leveled them, loosely wrapped each in plastic wrap, placed in the clean pans and froze until I was a ready to decorate.

When I was ready to decorate, I prepared a cardboard base (a plate is fine, too) and placed one layer on it. Then iced the top of that layer, placed the other layer on top of that, and iced the sides and the top. I used Pillsbury milk chocolate frosting (it was the cheapest kind).

I purchased these to use in the middle because I knew that I would be short on time (and I don't know how to make roses yet). Then I drew curlies around the edges and a rim around the bottom edge with vanilla-flavored ready-to-use cookie icing. I put it in the refrigerator overnight and took it to work in the morning.

Point for pie!

"I've got steaks and baked potatoes and sour cream and chives and salad and fresh baked pie. I would have made a pot roast - I make a terrific pot roast - but I didn't know whether you ever had pot roast, whether you like pot roast. Anyway, there wasn't time 'cause it really should be made the day before. You can't go yet! You gotta stay for supper, that's all there is to it."

"What kind of pie?"
--The Way We Were

I've never seen The Way We Were, just a trailer during the special features of The Natural, but it included this quote, which I have never forgotten. I love pie! I have pie for my birthday instead of cake. Sometimes I force my sister Monica to have pie for her birthday, too, even though she doesn't like pie so much. I always have a strawberry pie and either a peach pie or a homemade banana cream pudding pie. I do not like banana cream pie from restaurants or stores (I feel the opposite about pumpkin pie) but luckily homemade banana cream pudding pie is very easy to make.

Jell-o (R) used to make a No-Bake Banana Cream Pudding Pie mix but stopped in 1997. I've been meaning to write them a letter expressing my disappointment in that turn of events but I've never got around to it. (I've also been meaning to write a letter to Mariah Carey, suggesting that she wear more clothes. I need to get my priorities in order.) Since Jell-o doesn't make the mix anymore, I had to come up with a just-as-easy, if-not-easier alternative.

Banana Cream Pudding Pie
1 large box of banana cream pudding mix
Suggested milk amount on the pudding mix, less 1/4 - 1/2 cup (this will make the pudding thicker and therefore easier to set)
Whipped cream
Graham cracker pie crust
1 or 2 bananas

The Jell-o mix included graham cracker crumbs to make your own crust but, really, it's probably easier just to get the crust ready made. If you do prefer to make your own, melt 6 tablespoons of butter and mix with 1-2/3 cups graham cracker crumbs and 1/4 cup sugar then press against the bottom and then the sides of a pie tin.

Start by mixing the pudding mix and milk and set aside to thicken. Slice one banana and set on the bottom of pie crust. Pour 3/4 of the pudding on top of the sliced bananas. If you decide to use two bananas, you can slice the second one and place on top of the pudding layer or the next layer, which is the whipped cream layer. Mix the whipped cream (however much you'd like to use) with the leftover pudding and then pour over the pudding layer. Cover with the plastic lid that came with the pie crust and refrigerate for at least an hour.

This is guaranteed all-around joy, unless you're feeding my friend Jina who doesn't like bananas for some reason.

Next time: Banoffee!

When life gives you cherries...

I've been taking a cake decorating break. It's been nice: I've had time for my other hobbies, I've had time to relax, so on and so forth. I'm going to start up again shortly (Janelle and I are planning on an entire Saturday to make our first wedding cake), but I think I need to confess something first.

I'm not a big fan of cake.

Cakes you buy at bakeries have too much frosting on them and that frosting is usually too sweet for me. And then the cake, well, it usually doesn't taste that great without any frosting. So I stay away from cake when I can. I don't have birthday cake these days; I have pie. (In fact my next two - at least - entries will be about pie.)

I also stay away from cherries when I can. Not that there's anything wrong with the way cherries taste, I just happen to have had an unfortunate incident in my youth when the cherries in my stomach ended up in an obliging front yard after a long and winding car ride.

I've confessed all of this because I need you to understand that the next thing I'm going to write is the absolute truth: My favorite kind of cake in the world is Chocolate Cherry Cake, as introduced to me by my college roommate Natalie, and this is how you make it.

Chocolate Cherry Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
20-21 oz. can of cherry pie filling
2 eggs
1-1/2 c. chocolate chips
1 c. sugar
1/3 c. milk
5 tablespoons butter or margarine

Mix the cake mix, pie filling and eggs together and bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes at 350*F. (Check the cake at 25 minutes)

After the cake is done baking and cooled down, in a sauce pan, boil the milk, butter and sugar for 1 minute. Remove from the burner. Stir in the chocolate chips until melted.

Pour the glaze over the cake and chill in the refrigerator until the frosting is set. Best served cold.

Paltry Devices

I'm going to have to ask that we keep this post on the down low. You know, just between you and me, because I would hate for the following to be well known. And you shall see why shortly.

My last two months of my college experience, I was roommates with a girl named Stacey. And it was Stacey who shared with me the following recipe. It's called several different things: when I bring it in to work, I call it "Caramel Oatmeal Bars". At home, we call it "Death by Caramel".

The name Stacey called it was... "Man Catching Brownies." Now, how valid that name is, I will not say, never having made it for a man I wanted to "catch".

Who resorts to such paltry devices?

Er... Anywhoo, I make them for me and my girlfriends. These bars are, after all, meant to be shared. And then stories about sharing need to be shared.

Man Catching Brownies

1-1/2 cups Flour
1-1/2 cups Brown Sugar
1/3 tsp Salt
1-1/2 cups Oats
1-1/8 cups Butter
2/3 tsp Baking Soda

Mix the above ingredients. Pour half of the mixture in the bottom of baking dish (any size). Bake for 10 minutes at 350*F.

48 Caramels
7-1/2 tablespoons Whipping Cream
1 cup Chocolate Chips

Melt the caramels and stir in cream. Pour on top of crust. Pour the other half of the mixture on top of the caramel. Sprinkle with chocolate chips. Bake for another 10 minutes at 350*F. Let cool before serving.

The Art of Ice Cream Cake

Juli previously asked how my family got along without an oven in my early years. The answer is simple: we didn't ever make anything that was made in the oven. I'm sure it was very frustrating for my mother, as we're big on turkey all year long. And we usually have a cake at least twice a month.

And I'm sure it was frustrating for others, too. I remember my brothers and I once being babysat by one of the older girls at church (I was either six or seven then) and her wanting to make Christmas sugar cookies. We rolled out the dough, cut out camels and bells and stars, frosted the cut-out dough (I didn't know you were supposed to frost the cookies after they baked), and then couldn't bake them because the oven didn't work. There have been other times at church activities when us girls would bake and I didn't really participate because I didn't know how to bake and then was accused of having a bad attitude. (Can you imagine that???)

So, you would see how it was impossible for my mom to make our birthday cakes. We always had our birthday cakes from a bakery on Las Tunas Drive in San Gabriel, CA, Julie's. I always had white cakes with strawberry filling. Unfortunately, Julie's no longer exists (I believe it's a tire store now). Which means we had to come up with new plans of action for my much-younger-than-me sister Monica.

One year we had a Baskin Robbins' ice cream cake, which went over well but was very expensive. The next year, we tried to make our own. At the last minute. Which means we took the slab out of the carton, spread a bit of frosting on top and served. The next year, I took a little more time to plan and tried to melt two cartons of cookies n' cream ice cream in a 9x13 dish. That worked a little better, but I didn't give it enough time to melt and reset.

We gave ice cream cakes a break after that.

This past year, Monica asked for an ice cream cake again. And I gave it actual thought before I executed and came up with this, Snickers Ice Cream Cake.

This is what you need:

1/2 gallon chocolate or vanilla or caramel flavored ice cream
1 mix for white or chocolate cake, including eggs, water, oil as directed
caramel ice cream topping
salted peanuts
saran wrap
two baking pans the exact same size

On day one, I melted half a gallon of chocolate ice cream and poured it in a saran wrap-lined 9 inch round cake pan and put it in the freezer flat. (By lining the pan, you'll be able to pull the ice cream layer right out of the pan after it's set.) I made a white cake in a 9-inch round cake pan, only letting it cool in the pan for 5 minutes and then on a rack until completely cool (the rest of the cake batter I made cupcakes with), then leveled it with a serrated knife so that it was the same height as the ice cream layer. I wrapped it loosely but completely in saran wrap, placed it in the (clean) 9-inch pan and put it in the freezer. (Variations: chocolate cake with vanilla or caramel ice cream.)

The next day, I placed the layer of cake on a plate, drizzled caramel topping (I made my own, melting 20 caramels and mixing it with 2 tablespoons of milk) and salted peanuts on that layer. Then I pulled the ice cream layer out of the pan, pulled off the plastic wrap, placed it on top of the caramel drizzle, and then drizzled more caramel and peanuts on top of that.

Serve cold!

Don't stop me if you've heard this one before...

When I was in college, I may have loved this boy who may or may not have been called "George Thurmond" who loved my chocolate chip cookies. He used to devour them, with sound effects of rather a pornographic nature. "Herbal Essence commercial" is a politer way of describing it. Unfortunately, if he had known me better, he would have known that at the time I could not make a good batch of chocolate chip cookies to save my life. [I have since mastered the art: put the dough in the refrigerator for a hour or so. It's amazing how it helps!]

Yes, the secret comes out: the Pillsbury doughboy was a personal friend of mine.

Like boys that I may have loved, he fell to the wayside and he and I are no longer friends. I may have been hung up on him for a very long time. About a year after "George Thurmond", my roommates and I became friends with a group of boys who were everything to me: brothers, friends, neighbors, teachers. Every Monday night (and nearly every other night of the week) for two years, we would congregate together and sometimes I would make a special dessert.

One of my roommates at the time was Janelle, my best friend who will be featured frequently in this blog, who knew about the whole "George Thurmond" business.

One night I made an Apple Cinnamon cake, as an experiment, and received rave reviews. Of rather a pornographic nature. I was the first to notice: "Phil" *really* loved it. The words "Yipee ki yay" were used. And soon "Aaron" let me know that he loved it, too, although not so animatedly. Janelle, being the good-friend with-the-memory-of-an-elephant that she is, turned to me and said "Aaron just Thurmonded that cake."

To which I replied, "Phil also Thurmonded that cake like no one's Thurmonded that before."

Later on, this cake became known as Thurmond Cake, the food of legends, and now I will share the recipe with all of you.

Thurmond Cake

1 box spice cake mix (Betty Crocker is a personal friend, too)
21 oz. can apple pie filling
3 large eggs (or 3/4 cup egg substitute)
3 Tablespoons cinnamon sugar
Whipped Topping

Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease and flour 9x13 cake pan. Mix the cake mix, pie filling and eggs well. Pour half of mixture in cake pan, sprinkle with 1/2 of cinnamon sugar. Pour rest of mixture in pan, sprinkle with rest of cinnamon sugar. Bake for 28-30 minutes (check at 25 minutes). Let cool, and serve with dollop of whipped topping.

An introduction

I've decided that it's time that I had a blog. A blog with a purpose, as I am not very inclined to share things about myself. And after seeing Julie and Julia this weekend, I decided my escapades in the kitchen would be my purpose.

Before anyone gets too excited, I need to say that I was never one to sit in the kitchen as my mom or my aunts or my grandmothers cooked. I don't think our oven even worked until the kitchen was remodeled when I was eleven years old. Except for a semester of Introduction to Cooking in the 8th grade, most of my cooking experience came in college (which will likely be featured frequently).

These days, I mostly bake. And I mostly bake cakes for the express purpose of decorating them. I plan to document this process, and include recipes, for my own amusement. And possibly yours.