Betty's Family Favorite Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting Recipe

In this video, Betty demonstrates how to make Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting, a favorite recipe in her family. It takes a little preparation, but you will find the procedure is not difficult, and it is *totally* worth the effort! Ingredients: 2 cups self-rising flour 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 2 cups sugar 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil (I used peanut oil.) 4 whole eggs 2 cups finely grated raw carrots 8 oz. can crushed pineapple, drained 1/2 cup chopped pecans 1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut Stir 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar, and 2 teaspoons cinnamon together. Add 1 1/2 cup vegetable oil and 4 eggs. Mix well. Add 2 cups finely grated carrots, 8 oz. crushed pineapple (drained), 1/2 cup pecans, and 1/2 cup coconut. Blend thoroughly. Pour this mixture into 3 prepared 9-inch cake pans. (To prepare the pans, spread butter on the bottom and sides, then place a circle of waxed paper on the bottom. Spread more butter on top of the waxed paper and sprinkle with a small amount of flour. Shake the pan from side to side, coating the bottom and sides with a light dusting of flour. Pour off any excess flour.) Bake the cake mixture for 30 to 35 minutes in an oven that has been preheated to 350 degrees. Watch carefully to make sure the cake does not burn. To test for doneness, insert a toothpick in the center of the cake, and, if it comes out clean, the cake is done. Cool. Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting (below). When frosting the cake, remove one cake layer at a time from its pan ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO-xkZMQn1c&hl=en

Culinary Family Traditions - Christmas Recipes

The holidays bring about numerous opportunities to gather with family to celebrate the season of sharing and giving. Throughout the years my family has collected quite a list of some favorite Christmas recipes.

These favorites have been enjoyed over and over again, and we have yet to grow tired of them.
We've shared some precious memories in pitching in and preparing the holiday meals.

Here are just a few of our family favorites:

Christmas Punch (One of Tammy's recipes)

Ingredients

1 1/2 liter of chilled 7-Up
About 20 scoops of green lime sorbet
2 Tbsp of lemon juice

Directions

Gather up your favorite punch bowl set. Make sure it is washed and cleaned for use. Pour the chilled 7-Up in the punch bowl. Scoop up 20 scoops of sorbet into the 7-Up. Add the lemon juice and then give the punch mixture a quick stir. Serve immediately.

Cheesy Potato Casserole (My Sister's Recipe)

Ingredients

32 oz frozen hash browns
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 cup melted butter
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 8 oz tub of sour cream
1 bag shredded cheddar cheese
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: 1 cup crushed corn flakes or potato chips

Directions

Mix onion, soup, sour cream, and cheese in bowl.

Place potatoes in 9 x 13 baking dish. Pour melted button on top. Then stir in mixture of remaining items.

Sprinkle corn flakes or potato chips on top. Bake uncovered @ 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.

Ambrosia Salad (My Sister-In-Law's Recipe)

Ingredients

2 cups shredded coconut
1 8oz container whipped cream, thawed
1 11oz can madarin oranges, drained
3 apples, peeled and chopped
3 bananas, sliced
1 8oz can pineapple chunks, drained
1 10oz jar maraschino cherries, drained
3 cups miniature marshmallows
Optional: 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

In a large bowl, combine the whipped cream, coconut, chopped nuts (if desired), apples, pineapple, mandarin oranges, marshmallows, and cherries. Mix together well and refrigerate for 30 to 45 minutes.

Important Tip: Wait until right before serving to peel and add the bananas to help preserve them from turning brown.

There was a time when we did a recipe exchange. This was a lot of fun...plus it was a perfect way to get lots of great recipes to be enjoyed by the whole family.

Here's a neat holiday gift idea for your family members

Make a scrapbook up of memories including family favorite recipes, events, pictures, and even special memories shared by the family. Get creative with this and include lots of illustrations. This will be a gift that will be special to your family and will last for a lifetime.

It's important to keep your family traditions going...and keep sharing them even when the Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren come along.

There's nothing more important than gathering with your family and just being together and sharing old memories, laughing, and loving one another.

Adventureland Marbled Spice Cake - A Recipe

At one time or another, we have all had to have our nine-to-five job. Although, we are grateful for the money that comes in, at certain points, we feel bored or maybe even down-hearted. That is when we need to find our escape point. After work, I escape to my kitchen, where I can create and (hopefully) make something absolutely terrific. My escape is even better when I can combine that with my other happy spot, Disneyland.

When I created this cake and finally bit into it, I was whisked away. It was not to some exotic jungle, but to Adventureland. After all, there are some modern conveniences and safety precautions that Disneyland offers compared to some jungles.

This cake took me to that exact spot in front of Bengal Barbecue that I and my family always sit at to watch the world go by. I can feel the roughness of jungle rope, or the feel of climbing into great heights to reach the goal of being at the top of the Tarzan Treehouse (what we once knew as The Swiss Family Treehouse). Adventurous and mystified we sit and take it all in from a chair.

People are walking by, happy, carefree, and excited by that life that has brought them to this beautiful place. I watch the Jungle Cruise where families are coming from while the kids still are laughing at the lame jokes that came from their captain. I look to the right and I see the Indiana Jones Adventure. Kids looked stunned and parents look excited and happy. You wonder if these people look this happy at home. Everyone should look this happy everyday. That's when I look towards the tree house where all the rowdy kids are acting like monkeys and getting out all their energy (at least a third of it).

Sweet and savory barbeque chicken mixed with exotic yet playful spices tantalize my senses. Over the sweet barbeque scent, I detect the smell of dew. That's right, the smell of ancient and green rainforest soaked in its own moisture (it might be the smell of the water from the Jungle Cruise, but I am still going with the rainforest story).

Children laughing and screaming in good natured fun wake me from my fantasy. For a second there I thought I was in a rainforest, but no, I am Disneyland, safe and unscathed, but feeling still very adventurous. The hooting of the tropical birds and the old-fashioned sounds of the skippers' radios complete my happy picture.

Suddenly, I am back in my kitchen with the cake that started it all. Deep, exotic and playful, it matches where I am with that which makes us happy.

For an exotic cake of your own that might bring your sweet escape, try this:

"Adventureland Marbled Spice Cake"*

Ingredients: 1 and ½ tsp baking powder, 1 and 1/8 cups confectioners' sugar sifted, 6 tbs softened butter, 3 tbs non-fat milk, ½ tsp ground ginger, ¼ cup sugar, ¼ cup Splenda, 3 tbs molasses, 1 tsp ground cinnamon, 2 eggs lightly beaten, 7/8 cup all-purpose flour, and a few drops of vanilla extract.

1) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour an 8 inch cake pan.

2) Cream the butter, sugar, and Splenda. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.

3) Sift the flour and baking powder together and fold into the mixture alternating with milk until combined.

4) Spoon 1/3 of the mixture into a bowl, and stir in the molasses, ginger, and cinnamon.

5) Drop alternating spoonfuls of dark and light mixtures into the pan. Run a knife through them to get the cake marbled.

6) Bake for 50 minutes. Leave in pan for 10 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

7) Stir enough warm water in the confectioners' sugar to make a smooth icing. Spoon quickly over the cake. Allow to set.

8) Enjoy with the feelings of your exotic sweet escape.

Likely Page Break

* Base for recipe from Cake and then I molded it from there.

Grandma's Fruitcake

This is the recipe that my grandmother brought with her when she and her family left Russia in the early 1900's. As a child around the 1920's or so, while living on a farm in Pennsylvania which at that time there were a great amount of people coming from Europe, you needed to be able
to do things for yourself. She learned from her mother how to make a most delicious white fruit cake, a white fruitcake is a fruitcake that does not have any molasses, molasses which is very bitter, not having the molasses in the fruitcake gives it a lighter color, this gives it the name white fruitcake.

This fruitcake in the days in which my mother lived as a child with her parents was only
made during Christmas because the only time you could get walnuts, cherries, and some other ingredient's was in the fall of the year. Remember now they didn't go to the store to buy what they needed, they had to grow them. Raisins were dried by the people themselves, they even had to shell their own walnuts, and candy their own cherries, and such the pineapple and coconut I do believe they must have purchased.

To keep with tradition the only time of the year that I make or sell this fruitcake is during
the Christmas holidays, and in my mind you cannot get a better fruitcake.

Here we go now gather up your ingredient's and set them on your table, all ingredient's need to be at room temperature.

1 pound butter
12 eggs
1-pound sugar
1 pound flour all-purpose
1 pound white raisins
1 pound walnut meats
1-pound red and green candied cherries
1-pound bakers flaked coconut
1-pound candies pineapple
1 tablespoon of baking soda dissolved in 1/4-cup warm water
2 cups brandy--any brand
Soak the raisins, walnuts, cherries, coconut and pineapple with 2 cups brandy overnight in a stainless steel bowl.

In a 5 quart mixing bowl cream butter and sugar, then add eggs slowly, then add your flour and blend well, add the baking soda and water and mix a minute more, add all other ingredients and mix until well blended.

Mow you are going to bake it in 2 pound pan, or in the pan of your choice, foil or hard pan,
line the pan with wax paper or baking paper or better yet a pan liner the size of the pan.

For 2 pound pan:

Place 1 pound 12 ounces of the mixture in the pan and level it with a spoon, don't bang it
on the table.

Bake it at 350 degrees for 1 hour to 1 hour 20 minutes depends on your oven and how brown you want it. It's done when a pick is placed in the center and it comes out clean.

Let it cool on a rack for a while and then sprinkle it with 1 ounce of brandy and then another ounce when it is cool and then pack it away for about 3 days in your refrigerator and then enjoy.

Cake Walk March 25, 2010

making a coconut cake



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R24w-cyRg4s&hl=en

Holiday Candy Recipes - The Ultimate Recipes to Make Candy

Do you like candy as much as I do? Well, did you know that you can prepare delicious candy from the comfort of your home? Pecan pralines, raspberry divinity, chocolate turtles and coconut bon bons are some simple yet delicious candy recipes you can prepare at home.

Below are the recipes so you can try them out and you will see what i mean:

1. Pecan Pralines

Ingredients:

- 1 cup of brown sugar
- 1 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of milk
- 1 tablespoon of maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1/8 teaspoon of salt
- 1 cup of chopped pecans

Directions:

- Combine sugars and milk.
- Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until sugars are dissolved and mixture boils.
- Cook until thermometer registers 224.
- Add butter and pecans.
- Cook until a small amount of mixture forms a soft ball when dropped in cold water.
- Cool quickly to lukewarm.
- Stir in maple syrup and heat until thick.
- Drop on a buttered surface and flatten out into patties.

2. Raspberry Divinity

Ingredients:

- 3 cups of sugar
- 1 - 3 oz. Package of raspberry gelatin
- 1/2 cup of flaked coconut
- 2 egg whites, stiffly beaten
- 3/4 cup of light corn syrup
- 1 cup of chopped pecans
- 3/4 cu of water

Directions:

- Combine sugar, corn syrup, and water.
- Bring to a boil, stirring constantly.
- Reduce heat and cook to hard ball stage.
- Combine beaten egg whites and gelatin - beat until mixture forms stiff peaks.
- Pour hot syrup slowly into egg whites, beating until candy loses gloss and holds shape.
- Fold in coconut and nuts (optional).
- Pour into greased 9 inch square pan.
- Top with rows of chopped nuts and coconut.

3. Chocolate Turtles

Ingredients:

For The Turtles

- 2 squares of chocolate
- 1/2 cup of margarine
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup of sugar
- 1 cup of flour
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla

For The Icing:

- 1/2 square of chocolate
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar
- 1/4 cup of water
- 2 1/2 tablespoons of butter
- Powdered sugar

Directions:

- Melt 2 squares of chocolate and 1/2 cup of margarine.
- Beat 2 eggs. Add sugar. Fold chocolate mixture into egg mixture.
- Fold in 1 cup flour and 1 teaspoon vanilla.
- Drop by teaspoon on hot waffle iron (low).
- Bake 50 seconds.
- Cool and frost.
- ICING: Boil chocolate, brown sugar, water, and butter 3 minutes.
- Take off heat.
- Add powdered sugar until thick.
- Put on turtles.
- Sprinkle with ground nuts.

4. Coconut Bon Bons

Ingredients:

- 3/4 cup of instant potatoes (2 servings cooked, but not seasoned)
- 4 cups of flaked coconut
- 1 - 16 oz. package of powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon of almond extract

Directions:

- Stir together the instant potatoes, coconut, powdered sugar, and the almond extract, mixing thoroughly.
- Refrigerate the mixture for 1 to 2 hours.
- Melt a 12 ounce bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips and 1/3 of a bar of paraffin was in a double boiler.
- Shape the coconut mixture into small balls and dip in the melted chocolate.
- Lay on waxed paper until cool.

My 60th Birthday Party

About a dozen of my friends gathered this evening for an awesome birthday party for me, complete with ice cream, a lime coconut cake and presents!!!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azKFRERUOxE&hl=en