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Pecan Pie Trifle

November 23, 2011 No Comments

Ok, I’ve got one more last, LAST minute Thanksgiving day dessert! It’s a Pecan Pie Trifle–layers of chunked pecan pie, whipping cream/cream cheese mixture, fudge, caramel and toasted pecans. Doesn’t that sound like pure evil?! Well, it is! Very rich, delicious evil.

You can make the cream cheese mixture or go really simple and do just homemade (or even store bought…I suppose) whipped cream, which I think I might do next time to cut back on the richness of it. And I also did a ganache and homemade salted caramel sauce which I highly suggest doing but when your short on time a store bought, high-quality hot fudge sauce and caramel sauce will work just fine!

Enjoy!

Pecan Pie Trifle

Ingredients

3 c. Heavy Whipping Cream
1 c. Powdered Sugar
2 T. Pure Vanilla
2, 8 oz. Packages Cream Cheese, softened
2 c. Sugar
1 T. Vanilla
1, 2-lb. Frozen Pecan Pie, thawed and cut into 1-inch cubes
½ c. Chocolate Fudge Sauce (or ganache)
½ c. Caramel Sauce
½ c. Chopped Pecans, toasted

Instructions

For the Whipped Cream:

In a very cold mixing bowl, whip the heavy whipping cream at high speed until it becomes thick and stiff. Mix in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Set aside.

For the Cream Cheese Mixture

Beat the cream cheese and sugar on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the vanilla. Fold in ¾ of the homemade whipped cream.

To Assemble:

Place ⅓ of the pie cubes in the bottom of a large trifle dish or clear, tall glass bowl. Spread half the cream cheese mixture over the pie cubes, drizzle with ⅓ of both sauces and sprinkle with pecans. Repeat two more times, leaving a couple of tablespoons of both sauces and pecans to use for decoration. Spread the remaining whipped cream evenly over the top and drizzle with the rest of the sauce and sprinkle the remaining pecans on top.

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Breakfast, Recipes

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

October 3, 2011 No Comments

Pumpkin-Cinnamon-Roll-Pancakes-1 — Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes by Recipe Girl

It’s October! I am so excited about October for many reasons…craft fairs, pumpkin everything, Halloween candy galore, hot drinks, scary movies, bon fires…the list goes on and on. I think we should kick off October AND Monday morning the right way–with Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes! How delish do these look?! You might recall when I posted about the original Cinnamon Roll Pancake recipe on a previous post awhile back, but I think the pumpkin takes it to a whole other level! You better believe these are on the menu for breakfast next weekend!

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Ingredients

Cinnamon Filling

½ cup (1 stick) salted butter, melted
¾ cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Cream Cheese Icing

4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) salted butter
2 ounces cream cheese
¾ cup powdered sugar, sifted
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Pancakes

1½ cups whole milk
1 cup pure unsweetened pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
2 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons pumpkin pie spice (see Tips below)
½/ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar

Instructions

Prepare the cinnamon filling: In a small, microwave-safe bowl- heat butter, brown sugar and cinnamon for 40 to 60 seconds, just until butter is melted. Whisk the filling ingredients together and then pour it into a sandwich-sized zip baggie. Zip up the baggie and lay it on the counter while you prepare the pancake batter.
Prepare the Icing: In a medium microwave-safe bowl, heat butter and cream cheese 30 to 60 seconds, just until butter has melted and cream cheese has softened. Whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla and combine until smooth. Set the icing aside.
Prepare the pancake batter: In a large bowl, whisk together milk, pumpkin, eggs, oil, and vinegar. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, salt and brown sugar. Add the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture and stir just until all is moistened.
Check on your cinnamon filling: Open up the baggie again and give it a good stir to re-incorporate any butter that may have separated. You want the mixture to thicken a bit- it's best when it's similar to the squeezing texture of toothpaste (which will eventually happen if you leave it on the counter long enough, but refrigerate for a few minutes if you need to). Don't try to use the filling for the pancake swirl unless it has thickened as it will be too runny! Snip off a small piece of the corner of the baggie.
Cook the pancakes: Preheat a large skillet or griddle to medium. Use an ice cream scoop (or ladle) to add the batter to the pan. Use the bottom of the scoop or ladle to spread out the batter into a nice, even circle. Reduce the heat to medium-low. Pick up your cinnamon filling baggie and squeeze the filling into the corner. Starting at the center of the pancake squeeze the cinnamon filling on top of the pancake batter in a swirl (just as you see in a cinnamon roll). Cook the pancakes 3 to 4 minutes, or until bubbles begin popping on top of the pancake and it is golden brown on the bottom. Slide a thin spatula underneath the pancake and gently but quickly flip it over. Cook an additional 2 to 3 minutes, until the other side is golden as well. When you flip the pancake onto a plate, you will see that the cinnamon filling has created a crater-swirl of cinnamon. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, and repeat with the remaining pancake batter and cinnamon filling. Serve pancakes topped with a drizzle of cream cheese icing.

Notes

If you do not have pumpkin pie spice, use this combo of spices instead: 1 teaspoon allspice, 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon ground cloves, ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

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Pumpkin-Cinnamon-Roll-Pancakes-3 — Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Pancakes by Recipe Girl

Life

Birthday Cake Disaster

August 18, 2011 No Comments

The other day I had a request for a birthday cake. No problem, I thought, I can totally rock this…I’ll just do a cute little three-layer, 6-inch round cake like I’ve made before. Done and done. Or so I thought.

As I started to assemble the cake, the layers began slipping and sliding everywhere. I freaked. Why is this happening??! Crap! And then I started noticing how hot is was in my house…INSANELY HOT. I looked at the thermostat–80 freakin’ degrees!! I promptly turned the thermostat down to 75 but it was too little, too late…there was no recovering this cake. What to do??? A trifle was my only option and thankfully the person who requested the cake was more than happy to go that route. Whew! So I made a decent recovery and still ended up with something that tasted amazing and looked pretty. Gotta love baking in the heat of summer. Lesson learned!

P.S. The trifle consists of white cake, homemade raspberry filling and white chocolate almond cream cheese frosting. YUM.

Breakfast, Desserts, Recipes

Cherry Sweet Rolls with Almond Cream Cheese Glaze

May 8, 2011 No Comments

Let’s start with the obvious: today is Mother’s Day. I love my mom, she’s the best. Recently, she had been mentioning how much she loves those Hostess Cherry Sweet Rolls (sorry, this is the only pic I could find) from the grocery store and how they’re so good and she hadn’t had them in soooo long, etc, etc, etc. So that got me thinking, why don’t I make those cherry sweet rolls? After all, she deserved a LOT more than flowers from Wal-mart. I got to researching and quickly realized I’d be making this recipe up. Thankfully, I already had a great cherry filling recipe so I just needed the dough and glaze.

I didn’t have a ton of time so I settled on a quick dough recipe from Allrecipes.com for Ninety Minute Cinnamon Rolls. The only change I made was to throw in some vanilla. As for the glaze, I found two different recipes for cream cheese glaze that I combined because I couldn’t make up my mind on either one.

I made the cherry filling a little ahead of time which I recommend doing, maybe the day before, that way it has time to cool completely. I was still extremely short on time though, so the rolls only rose for about 20 minutes on the second rise. I was really nervous how these would turn out, but to my surprise the dough recipe worked perfectly and the fluffed up nice and big in the oven. The end result was a delicious, soft cherry-filled sweet roll, definitely better than the ones from the store! And my mom approved which was of course the most important part!

Enjoy!

Cherry Sweet Rolls with Cream Cheese Glaze

Cherry Filling

2, 14.5 oz. Cans Pitted Sour Cherries, drained with 1/2 c. juice reserved

1 c. Granulated Sugar

1/4 c. Cornstarch

1 t. Pure Vanilla Extract

Directions

Combine 1/2 c. reserved juice, cherries, sugar ad cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Cook over low heat until thickened, stirring frequently. (Be patient, it will take awhile but they will magically thicken around the 25 minute mark) Stir in vanilla and cool completely. Set aside.

Sweet Dough

3/4 c. Whole Milk

1/4 c. (1/2 stick) Unsalted Butter, softened

3 1/4 c. AP Flour

1 (.25 oz) Package Instant Yeast

1/4 c. Granulated Sugar

1/2 t. Salt

1/2 t. Pure Vanilla Extract

1 Large Egg

1/4 c. Water

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Heat the milk in a small saucepan over medium heat until it bubbles, then remove it from the heat and stir in the butter until melted. Let cool to lukewarm.

Meanwhile, in a mixer, combine 2 1/4 c. flour, yeast, sugar and salt and whisk well. Add water, egg, vanilla and the milk mixture. Beat well. Add the remaining flour, 1/4 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes.

Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Grease a 9×13 pan.

Roll dough out on a lightly floured surface, into a 24×18 rectangle. (It will be very elasticy and will not seem to want to roll out at first but be persistent and it will eventually roll out) Spread the dough with the cherry filling, to about an inch from the edges. At the edge nearest you, begin to roll the dough, using your fingers to tuck in the cherries as you go. Pinch the seam to seal and cut the dough into 12 equal size rolls and place into the pan, evenly spaced.

Bake for 20 minutes and let cool for about 10 minutes. Spread with glaze while still warm.

Almond Cream Cheese Glaze

4 oz. Cream Cheese, softened

1/4 c. (1/2 stick) Unsalted Butter, softened

1 c. Powder Sugar, sifted

4 T. Heavy Whipping Cream (or Whole Milk)

1/2 t. Vanilla

1 t. Almond Extract

Directions

Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Gradually add sugar, beating well after each addition. Add milk, vanilla extract and almond extract. Spread over warm rolls.

Makes 12 rolls