Tres Leches Cake

I found this in my draft file.  I have no idea what happened to the photos but thought I might as well post especially since Cinco de Mayo is right around the corner.  I'll add photos when I make this next time.  Yep, another Pioneer Woman recipe. I read about this on her blog forever ago and it intrigued me. I ran across another woman who had made it and thought I'd give it a go.

Reminded me of the jello cake my Mom made in my youth:)

But back to the Tres Leches cake. I made it with only a couple minor changes for our family spring fling and people liked it. The brownie fruit pizza was a bigger hit, but maybe we're a chocolate family?? I brought the leftovers to work and had a Hispanic woman try it and she said, "YUM, good job and you aren't even Spanish"?

My cousin Melanie said that she used a can of coconut milk in place of the Evaporated milk and added a touch of Malibu Rum for a grown up version of this cake, I might try that the next time.

At any rate, this is a solid recipe and really very easy so give it a try.

1 C Flour
1-½ t Baking Powder
¼ t Salt
5 whole Eggs Divided
1 C Sugar, Divided
1 t Vanilla
⅓ C Milk ~ I used 2%
1 can Evaporated Milk
1 can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
¼ C Heavy Cream
_____
FOR THE ICING:
1 pint Heavy Cream, For Whipping
1/3 C Powdered Sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated.

Separate eggs into two different bowls.

Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow. Stir in milk and vanilla. Add flour, baking powder and salt and stir very gently until combined.

Beat egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff.

Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.

Bake for 25 to 35 minutes (her directions said 35-45 min but my cake only took 25 until it was done) or until a toothpick comes out clean. Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool~I didn't turn my cake out, I left it in the pan for easy transport.

Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher or bowl. When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times. Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can~I didn't read the "all but 1 C", I dumped it all on. It was still tasty, just a little wet, "I" might like it better following that rule.

Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes. To ice the cake, whip 1 pint heavy cream with 1/3 C of powdered sugar until thick and spreadable.
Spread over the surface of the cake. Decorate cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries. Cut into squares and serve

Easter Cupcakes

We had a few desserts for Easter.  Claire was in charge of cupcakes.  She did another awesome job:)

Brownie Bites

We're going UNtraditional for Easter and having a Mexican Buffet and I thought a bunch of little desserts would be fun so I'm making Brownie Bites as one of them.  The photos are a re-post and I love them this way.  BUT an easier option and one I'll be doing this weekend is to simply push a Rolo in the middle of each one OR drop a few mini M&Ms on top~sorry no photos.  The possibilities are endless actually.  Any of your favorite candy can be pushed in the center for a fun surprise.

Make a regular box of brownies but cook them in mini muffin tins. Top with cooked fudge frosting (probably the best fudge frosting I've ever tasted) and bag up in snack size ziplocs.

Fudge Frosting
1/4 C Butter (1/2 C)
4 T Milk (1/3 C)
2 T Cocoa (4 T)
Bring to a boil. Add
1 t Vanilla (2t)
1 3/4 C Powdered Sugar (3 1/2 C)
Whisk until smooth. Top your brownie bites.

NOTE...I double this recipe for a pan of brownies or cake and have some left over. The parenthesis have the double measurements.
I use this pan and another one that holds 12. Spray them well with cooking spray, you don't want them to stick. The regular box of brownie mix fills these 36 tins perfectly.  If you're pushing candy in the middle, only fill them about 1/2 way.
Fill your tins about 3/4 full of batter.
Here's a snack size bag of walnuts I had in the freezer. I broke them up with the base of my ice cream scoop and mixed it in with the left over batter. I used this batter to fill the other 12 cups because I know someone who likes brownies with nuts best:)
I used my cooling rack because these need to come out of the pan pretty quickly or they'll stick.
Time to make the frosting. Melt butter, milk and cocoa together until it boils.
This is what the frosting looks like when it starts to boil. Kind of oily and separating. Remove from heat. Add your vanilla.
Add your powdered sugar and give it a sturdy whisk quickly. Get those lumps out.
Your frosting is nice and shiny and not too thick. You can't let it sit, or it will harden.
A dollop of frosting on top of each brownie.
I sprinkled nuts on top of the nut ones so I could easily tell them apart but you want to do that quickly before the frosting starts to set up. Let the brownies set up for about 1/2 hour.

Banana Walnut Chocolate Chip

Do you have a cake that you make that everyone always likes?  This one is it for my kids and it's kinda healthy or at least that's what I tell myself when they eat it:)  This one, they got a piece and the rest when to work where everyone loved it.

What you'll need:

White Cake Mix

2 Eggs

1/2 C light Sour Cream

1 C unsweetened Almond Milk (you can use skim or whatever for same result) 

4 really ripe Bananas

Mix up with your hand mixer and add

1/2-3/4 C chopped Walnuts

1/2-3/4 C mini Chocolate Chips (I used dark chocolate but any flavor would work)

Pour into sprayed bundt pan and bake about 35-40 minutes at 350.

Invert onto plate, frost with a little bit of cream cheese frosting and a sprinkling of walnuts and choc chips if you're feeling naughty and .  It's great without but if I'm bringing a dessert with nuts ANYwhere, I always put them on top so people can see them.  I don't want to make anyone with a nut allergy to get sick.

Gyro Kjome style

Another place I'd love to go, GREECE!  This is at the top of my list so we'll end the week here.

Now I realize this is not even close to being a recipe from Greece but for fussy teenagers, it's the best I've got.

What you'll need:

3/4 lb Beef Tenderloin ~ you could use a strip streak or even sandwich steak
your favorite seasoning~I simply used salt, pepper and garlic powder
Package of Flat Bread
Lettuce

Tenderloin

Sliced nice and thin. Let's hope my Father in Law doesn't see this because this is a crime in his opinion to do this to a piece of prime beef

Flat bread that I heated up in the oven for a couple of minutes. You could skip that step but I think it makes it just a bit tastier. And, if you wanted to melt cheese on the bread, now is your chance.

I cooked the meat to medium because that's about as funky as it gets with meat around here.

Serve with some fries and you've got dinner

Crab Boil

New Orleans anyone?

What you'll need:

A pot that will hold 3 gallons of water or more

1 3/4 gallons of water ~ I bought the gallon jugs so I didn't start with cold water to get it to boiling faster
2 packages of Zatarain's Crab boil
8 T Salt
1 T Cayenne Pepper
2 Lemons quartered
1 bulb of Garlic pulled apart ~ remove the flaky skin but leave the cloves intact
1 Onion sliced
2 dozen Baby Red Potatoes washed
1 lb of Shrimp ~ I used frozen that were thawed and without shell
4 ears of Corn on the Cob
2 lbs of Crab thawed ~ I used King Crab because it was on sale
Stick of Butter melted with 1 t of garlic powder
Loaf of crusty french bread

Put your water, zatarain's,
Cayenne pepper, lemons, garlic, onions and baby reds in the pot and cover. Bring to a steady boil.

Add shrimp and cook for about 5 minutes or until they turn pink. Remove shrimp from pot. It would have been helpful to have a basket that I dropped in with the shrimp but we were at the cabin and working with what I had on hand. Steve told me to do the shrimp first because they would absorb a lot of flavor that way and he was right.

Add corn and crab, cover pot and boil 8 minutes. Scoop out the garlic, potatoes, corn and crab or if you have a colander large enough, strain in that.

Dump the shrimp out onto newspaper covered with brown paper bag, toss the rest of the stuff on top and serve with garlic butter.

You can squeeze the garlic cloves onto crusty french bread and dunk in garlic butter for an OVER the top garlic bread.

Everything was seasoned perfectly. The corn didn't need even need butter. Eat your way through the pile. It was seriously YUMMY! This pile served 4 women:)

Red and White Lasagna

Next stop...ITALY!  I've always wanted to go, maybe some day but until then....

You'll need both of these Creamy Italian sauce and regular Spaghetti sauce. If you don't want to make it from scratch, you can use your favorite jarred sauce I'm sure. Alanna claims the Ragu Alfredo sauce is very good. I'm taking her word on that one.

This was seriously YUMMY.

We're going to pretend that we're making a 13x9 pan because that's what most folks want to do when they are taking the time to make lasagna. PLUS..you'll want left overs, I promise.

What you'll need:
3 C Red Sauce ~ I used my spaghetti sauce with ground turkey
1 1/2 C White Sauce ~ I used Creamy Italian Chicken sauce with chicken but you could use Alfredo
Box of Lasagna Noodles
1 Egg beaten
15 oz container Ricotta~I used low fat
1/2 bag of Spinach chopped
1/2 t salt
1 t pepper and garlic powder
1/2 C Asiago shredded ~ you could use Parmesan or any hard cheese like that
3 C Mozzarella shredded

Mix your egg, Ricotta, spinach, salt, pepper, garlic powder and Asiago cheese and set aside.

Spray a 13x9 pan. Put 1 1/2 C red sauce in the bottom of pan, top with dry lasagna noodles, single file.

Half of the ricotta mixture goes on top of the noodles.

Top with white sauce

Sprinkle with 1 1/2 C Mozzarella.

Another layer of noodles

Rest of Ricotta mixture

Rest of red sauce

Rest of mozzarella cheese

Cover and refrigerate over night. Take out of fridge for at least 30 minutes (you can go as long as an hour out of the fridge) before popping into a 350 degree oven for an hour uncovered. Serve.

Sauce

pasta

Beaten Egg

this is what the spinach mix looks like

spinach spread on top

cheese

White sauce

Noodles, not pictured

Spinach mixture, not pictured,

Cheese, not pictured

Noodles, not pictured

Red Sauce, not pictured

Cheese

YUM!!

Orange Chicken

How about China?

2 lbs boneless skinless chicken, chopped into bite sized pieces
2 eggs ~the second time I made this, I needed 3 eggs but they were small eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
white pepper
Crisco (for frying)
1/2 cup cornstarch, plus
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon gingerroot, minced
1 teaspoon garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed hot red chili pepper
1/4 cup green onion, chopped ~ I left these out
1 tablespoon rice wine
1/4 cup water
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil


Orange Sauce for Stir Fry ~ mix together and set aside
3 T Soy Sauce
3 T water
10 T sugar
3 T white vinegar
8 T Orange Juice
1 orange, zest of

Stir eggs, salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon oil and mix well. Mix in 1/2 C Cornstarch and 1/4 C Flour. Add chicken pieces, stirring to coat

Heat oil for deep-frying in wok or deep-fryer to 375 degrees Add chicken, small batches at a time, and fry 3 to 4 minutes or until golden crisp

Remove chicken from oil with slotted spoon and drain on paper towels; set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon oil to your pan. Add ginger, chili peppers and garlic and stir-fry until fragrant; about 10 seconds. Add green onions (I actually left this out because I forgot them). Add rice wine and stir 3 seconds. Add Orange Sauce and bring to boil. Stir 1/4 C COLD water into 1 tablespoon cornstarch until smooth and add to sauce. Heat until sauce is thickened. Stir in sesame oil and orange zest. Add chicken and give a good toss. Serve over rice or sesame noodles minus the chicken like we did.< This is the consistency of the batter, just thick enough to stick to the chicken. You should be able to stir the chicken around in the batter to make it stick.

Chop your chicken in pieces like this

Mix the chicken into the batter

Fry your chicken pieces in crisco until golden brown.

Grate your orange peel

Add to the sauce

Start the ginger, garlic and pepper paste in a pan with about a tablespoon of Olive Oil

Add the rice wine vinegar and orange sauce and bring to boil

Here is what your cold water and cornstarch looks like. Make sure you have the lumps worked out

What the sauce looks like after you add cornstarch mixture

Add chicken and give a good toss.

Serve over rice or sesame noodles like we did.