Baking and Cooking, Cooking and Baking

With Christmas just a mere day away, I thought I would share some delicious recipes my cousin, sister, Nana, and I all tested out last weekend. We had such a good cousin's weekend with our Nana. Nana, thank you for letting us make a mess in your kitchen! We love you!

Megan and I made our first completely from scratch cake and frosting! We found the recipe in a magazine from my Nana. It was just a classic yellow cake with a chocolate frosting. 

Ingredients for the Cake

3 and 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for dusting pans

1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 and 3/4 cups sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup milk

Directions for the Cake

Heat over to 325 degrees. Coat two 9 inch baking pans with nonstick cooking spray. Dust with flour and discard excess.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a small bowl.

With an electric mixer set on medium, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 2 minutes (this is creaming). Beat in eggs, one at a time. Beat in vanilla.

On low speed, alternately beat in flour mixture and milk, beginning and ending with flour. Spread batter into prepared pans, divide equally.

Bake at 325 for 40 to 43 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center of cakes comes out clean. Cool layers in pans on wire racks for ten minutes. Run a thin knife around pan edge and turn out cakes to cool completely on racks. 

Ingredients for Milk Chocolate Frosting

4 bars (1.55 ounces each) milk chocolate, broken up (we used 8 ounces of semi sweet chocolate chips, worked perfectly)

1 box (1 pound) confectioners' sugar

6 tablespoons milk

1/4 (1/2) stick unsalted butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions for Milk Chocolate Frosting

Place chocolate in a small saucepan. Melt over medium-low heat, about 3 minutes (we continuously stirred it to prevent it from burning, I highly recommend doing that). Cool slightly

Combine 1 cup of the confectioners' sugar, them milk, butter, vanilla, and salt in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed for 1 minute. Add melted chocolate and beat until smooth (we had to reheat the chocolate for just a minute, still stirring continuously on the stove).

Gradually beat in remaining sugar until good spreading consistency. 

Use a pastry brush to sweep loose crumb from one cake layer. Place layer, bottom side up, on pedestal. Spread frosting on top layer. Brush loose crumbs from the second layer; stack on first, bottom side down. Secure with skewers (we didn't do that). Then spin the cake around and frost it until you feel it's done. 

This recipe is from Family Circle magazine from December 2009. 

Mixing!

Checking the recipe.

Cakes pre frosting. 

Nana's glamour shot. 

Frosting of the cake. 

Granted it wasn't the prettiest cake, but it sure tasted good! 

I had found these delicious egg "muffin" recipe on Pinterest and I was dying to try it! We tested it out at Nana's and it was very easy and super tasty! 

Ingredients for Egg "Muffins"   

1/2 onion diced
1/2 tomato diced

Colby Jack Cheese 

6 pieces of bacon crumbled
8 large eggs
1/4 cup milk  or 1/4 cup of half and half (we used half and half because we wanted to make sure they weren't runny!)
1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/2 tsp baking powder
salt & pepper to taste

Directions for Egg "Muffins"Preheat over to 375

Cook the bacon

 Whisk together eggs, milk, oil and baking powder.  Season with salt and pepper.

Lightly spray a 12-cupcake pan with oil, we used cupcake liners and sprayed them lightly but, you can just spray the pan. 

Spoon the egg mixture in. We added the "extras" (bacon, tomato, onion) in separately because not everyone wanted it.
Sprinkle Colby Jack cheese on top.
Bake for 15-20 minutes.  

You can use any kind of  "extras" in these egg muffins. I think spinach would be delicious in it. Sausage, ham, basically anything you want.

Pre-oven shot.

Post oven shot.

Close up shot, one of the muffins spilled over. 

These were so good that my mom and I are going to make them for Christmas brunch. 

I also wanted to include a picture of my Nana's flourishing Orchids! They are gorgeous. 

If any of you test any of these recipes out, let me know how they turn out!

Merry Christmas Eve and since I won't be posting tomorrow, Merry Christmas! 

XXOO

Savannah

♥♥♥♥♥