Fun with Bundt pans!

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I have some fun pans to share. I recently discovered one of our local libraries has bundt pans for borrowing. How fun is that? So, of course we had to borrow some right away.

We loved the sandcastle and the traditional castle, but my favorite is the Cathedral pan! I'd wanted this for a long time.. But I didn't want to to have to keep it in the cupboard. Mine are full!

 Before I made a cake in it, I tried making a delicious black cherry jello. It sort of worked...

 As in, some of it went all over the table. Ugh.

 But the part that was solid was downright delicious! I've never been good at making jigglers.

 The next thing I tried was a blueberry coffee cake.

(I can hear Ruthy laughing from Oregon!) It was still delicious, but not fit for company.

 So, this time I went for a very old fashioned, simple pound cake mix. Nothing fancy. Any pound cake recipe will do. Maybe there's a rule we can devise here: if your bundt pan is fancy, keep the cake simple!

 Pouring it in along with our hopes and prayers. :D

 Looks so perfect.

 And la voila! Coming out of the oven...

 I'd let it cool, loosened the sides... and now, the moment of truth!!

 I let it sit for a moment, just like this, the essence of hopes not yet realized. Or Schrodinger's cat (that famous theory of superposition in quantum theory)  in a bundt pan. It's simultaneously broken yet whole in this moment of possibility!

 *GASP* It worked!!

 Now, a little dusting of "snow" for our cathedral.

 It's winter in our cathedral wonderland, but it's 100F here in Oregon.  My little guys were absolutely taken by this cake. Maybe more than the sandcastle!

Here's to a wonderful weekend and I hope there is a slice of perfect cake in your future! Feel free to visit my facebook author pages at Mary Jane Hathaway or Virginia Carmichael, or visit my personal blog at The Things That Last. Until next time!!

Double Chocolate Pound Cake with Ganache topping

Hi everybody! Here's the recipe I promised last week when I was still unpacking. We had so much fun this week trying new recipes and making cakes, but I'll share those in the coming weeks. For now, it's double chocolate pound cake!
But first...

 It's apricot season!! Oh my yum. These are so delicious. We can pick twenty lbs and they're gone in days. Okay, we do share them but still... So much fresh deliciousness!
                                               
And I love this picture. I had a reluctant reader who decided he WOULD NOT READ. I believe in leading kids to education, not shoving it down their throats, so I told him that was fine. He was only six after all. And so the months went on and he repeated how he would never read and didn't want to. But it happened anyway. You just can't NOT read when you're read to for an hour a night (oh, the wonderful books we've read!), spend hours in a library every week, live in a house where books outnumber people 100-1, and are surrounded by people reading ALL THE TIME. So, I had to snap this picture of my reluctant reader who now reads at a fourth grade level. In fact, he was reading the Redwall series by Brian Jacques last night. Makes my mama heart happy. :)

 So, the cake. A friend sent me her recipe after I taste it at a BBQ. It was SO GOOD.

You'll need these ingredients:

 1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

2 large eggs

 1 tsp vanilla

2 tbsp espresso powder

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

1 cup plus 2 tbs flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp salt

 1/2 tsp baking soda

For the ganache topping:

3/4 cup heavy cream

4.5 oz dark chocolate

Sorry I don't have pictures of the process. I know I took some, but I was also cleaning out my phone from the trip and somehow... That's why I love facebook. At least there was one photo of the cake!

Mix the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla together. Mix all dry ingredients. Mix sugar butter mix and dry ingredients together, then slowly add sour cream and milk. Cook at 350F for about 40-50 minutes. Check often because the color is so dark you won't be able to tell by looking and that last ten minutes can make or break a cake!

So, here's our recipe for next week! Goes right along with Ruthy's Christmas in July collections!

 Orange buttermilk pound cake in a Cathedral pan.
                                               
We actually checked out the pan from our library. How cool is that??

But a word of warning... it doesn't like all cakes. This poor lemon blueberry buttermilk cake was super delicious but not fit for company, hahahaha.

OK, see everyone next week! I'm at the end of a deadline and I ALWAYS cook like crazy. Stress relief... unless it looks like the cake above!

Stay cool and keep cooking!

Brown Sugar Pound Cake from "Southern Cakes"

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back with another repost. Right now we should be working our way up from the soft sands of Florence, Oregon to the Olympic Pesinsula. My kids have never stayed on Herstine Island and I'm excited to show them one of my favorite areas! I'll be sure to share pictures as soon as we're back (if I don't drop my phone in the water, of course).

So, about that recipe...I have another book I bought as a giveaway and decided I needed one, too. 

I let Ana choose which cake she wanted to make and she chose Brown Sugar Pound Cake with glaze. Hm. Not what I would have picked, but I was game! Preheat the oven at 325F and mix together in a bowl and set aside:

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

(I like this picture. It wasn't raining, can you tell? My little prism is casting rainbows!)

You'll need:
3 sticks butter
2 3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (eek, I'm almost out!)
1 cup milk

Oh, look! Rainbow bright! Ok, not quite, but I thought it was cute. His expression says, "Mama, you're killing me softly with this whole rainbows and butterflies stuff."

Yes, mothers are annoyingly bright and cheerful. We should be more down to earth, logical, cut and dried. He was right... Except, when I wasn't watching, I caught him talking to Thor.

And then a kiss for good measure! I mean, really! I hardly get kisses and THOR gets a smooch?

Anyway, beat butter in the mixer until fluffy. (For some reason, I only have one picture of Thor in action. Perhaps jealousy...)
When the butter is fluffy, add the brown sugar 1/3 at a time, then all of the white sugar. When that's mixed, add the flour, but only half. When it's incorporated, add half the milk. This is like the dump cake recipe that needed to be alternated. When the flour and milk are in, pour into a greased bunt pan, or two greased loaf pans.
After about an hour and ten minutes, check to see if the top is spongy when touched, and a toothpick comes out clean.
Set it on a wire rack for 30 minutes, and then carefully invert.

OK, I have to include this picture. Makes me laugh! He was inhaling deeply over the warm pound cake. I must look exactly like this, eyes rolling back into my head and all.

This is his "I'm ready for cake" face.

But we still had to make the glaze. So the cake was left to cool on a platter while we whipped up the glaze.

Melt one stick of butter and one cup light brown sugar on low heat until combined. Stir for five minutes, until it's smooth, not gritty. Add a 1/2 cup evaporated milk and bring to a boil. Take it from the heat and add 4 cups of confectioner's sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
(I have to say, this made A LOT of frosting/ glaze. Even my kids, who love frosting, barely made a dent in this. I may have to make cinnamon rolls on Sunday to use up some of this. So, maybe half the recipe? I think it would still be more than enough.)
  Anyway, after the powdered sugar is added, stir or whip (I used an egg beater) to blend it until it lost some of its sheen and turned thick.

Ta-dah! A bucket of Caramel Glaze! We'll never do without again!

So, hubby was putting up trim in the living room and I invited him into the kitchen for a cake date.
Isn't that sweet?
Mmm-hmmmm, we nibbled our cake and drank our coffee with pinkies outstretched while kids bumped into our knees and toddlers pulled at the table cloth. If we ignored the towering pile of dishes (strangely, he was really good at that) and the steaming stove, it was almost romantic!

Ahhhh, nothing says togetherness like cake.

The glaze set up almost immediately so it didn't run all over the plate, but I was watching!

Come on over, Serendipitous Saturday folks and grab a piece! There is a lot left over! Not as much as the glaze, but you can take some of that home with you when you go. Like Amish friendship bread, but sweeter and you don't even have to bake it.

And this is a gratuitous shot I took of the moon tonight. Isn't it lovely? I always ehard about the man in the moon, but my husband says in his country they say 'el conejo', which is the rabbit. See? He's sort of standing up right, with his two ears to the right? Yeah, me either...

Serendipitous Saturday Brings You Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Quick Caramel Glaze

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back for the weekend (I know you missed me!!) and I'm not deterred in the slightest after that pie fail. I have another book I bought as a giveaway and decided I needed one, too. 

I let Ana choose which cake she wanted to make and she chose Brown Sugar Pound Cake with glaze. Hm. Not what I would have picked, but I was game! Preheat the oven at 325F and mix together in a bowl and set aside:

3 cups flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

(I like this picture. It wasn't raining, can you tell? My little prism is casting rainbows!)

You'll need:
3 sticks butter
2 3/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
5 eggs
1 tsp vanilla (eek, I'm almost out!)
1 cup milk

Oh, look! Rainbow bright! Ok, not quite, but I thought it was cute. His expression says, "Mama, you're killing me softly with this whole rainbows and butterflies stuff."

Yes, mothers are annoyingly bright and cheerful. We should be more down to earth, logical, cut and dried. He was right... Except, when I wasn't watching, I caught him talking to Thor.

And then a kiss for good measure! I mean, really! I hardly get kisses and THOR gets a smooch?

Anyway, beat butter in the mixer until fluffy. (For some reason, I only have one picture of Thor in action. Perhaps jealousy...)
When the butter is fluffy, add the brown sugar 1/3 at a time, then all of the white sugar. When that's mixed, add the flour, but only half. When it's incorporated, add half the milk. This is like the dump cake recipe that needed to be alternated. When the flour and milk are in, pour into a greased bunt pan, or two greased loaf pans.
After about an hour and ten minutes, check to see if the top is spongy when touched, and a toothpick comes out clean.
Set it on a wire rack for 30 minutes, and then carefully invert.

OK, I have to include this picture. Makes me laugh! He was inhaling deeply over the warm pound cake. I must look exactly like this, eyes rolling back into my head and all.

This is his "I'm ready for cake" face.

But we still had to make the glaze. So the cake was left to cool on a platter while we whipped up the glaze.

Melt one stick of butter and one cup light brown sugar on low heat until combined. Stir for five minutes, until it's smooth, not gritty. Add a 1/2 cup evaporated milk and bring to a boil. Take it from the heat and add 4 cups of confectioner's sugar and 1 tsp vanilla.
(I have to say, this made A LOT of frosting/ glaze. Even my kids, who love frosting, barely made a dent in this. I may have to make cinnamon rolls on Sunday to use up some of this. So, maybe half the recipe? I think it would still be more than enough.)
  Anyway, after the powdered sugar is added, stir or whip (I used an egg beater) to blend it until it lost some of its sheen and turned thick.

Ta-dah! A bucket of Caramel Glaze! We'll never do without again!

So, hubby was putting up trim in the living room and I invited him into the kitchen for a cake date.
Isn't that sweet?
Mmm-hmmmm, we nibbled our cake and drank our coffee with pinkies outstretched while kids bumped into our knees and toddlers pulled at the table cloth. If we ignored the towering pile of dishes (strangely, he was really good at that) and the steaming stove, it was almost romantic!

Ahhhh, nothing says togetherness like cake.

The glaze set up almost immediately so it didn't run all over the plate, but I was watching!

Come on over, Serendipitous Saturday folks and grab a piece! There is a lot left over! Not as much as the glaze, but you can take some of that home with you when you go. Like Amish friendship bread, but sweeter and you don't even have to bake it.

And this is a gratuitous shot I took of the moon tonight. Isn't it lovely? I always ehard about the man in the moon, but my husband says in his country they say 'el conejo', which is the rabbit. See? He's sort of standing up right, with his two ears to the right? Yeah, me either...