Tiramisu Fake Out

"Dessert is probably the most important stage of the meal, since it will be the last thing your guests remember before they pass out all over the table."

- William Powell

Plain and simple, I love to cook - it doesn't matter what it is.  Cooking is part of my soul.  I like to try new recipes, I collect cookbooks, I am not afraid to try my hand at something completely off-the-wall, and I especially love trying to recreate my favorite dishes in new (easier) ways.  Dessert is probably where my mom and I flex our culinary talents the most.  We dabble in chocolate, cake, pie, sauces, cookies, brownies, ice cream...in other words, just about everything.  So, calling dessert the most important stage of the meal is not an exaggeration.  In fact it may be an understatement for us.  Because we do dessert so well, we are extraordinarily picky about restaurant desserts.  My favorite Italian dessert is Tiramisu.  I always ordered it at Olive Garden, until one date night out with the hubs I ordered it and it was still frozen...yep, frozen.  The hands-down best Tiramisu I have ever put in my mouth, hands-down best Italian food I've ever put in my mouth actually, comes from an Italian-American Restaurant/Pub in Lexington, KY called Suttons.  Love.  This.  Place.  Everything is handmade, including the Tiramisu, and it shows.  For my birthday, we once invested in the very expensive ingredients to make a Tiramisu that used dessert wine.  While it was delicious, at more than $50 for ingredients (10+ years ago), it wasn't exactly something we could make very often.  Enter my fake out.  I had some mascarpone cheese sitting in the fridge and didn't know what to do with it before it expired.  After Googling easy Tiramisu desserts, I decided to just wing it.  This is what I came up with.

Tiramisu Fake Out

1 angel food cake

6 oz Cool Whip

8 oz Cream Cheese, softened

Espresso roast coffee (Gevalia) prepared 3Tb coffee grounds to 16 oz water

1 tsp Cocoa powder + 1 tsp Espresso powder

1/4 cup sugar

*If you do not have espresso roast coffee, substitute regular coffee brewed at 5Tb coffee grounds to 16oz water

1.  Slice angel food cake into pieces 1/2" thick x 2" wide x height-of-cake.  Arrange single layer of cake pieces in bottom of glass dish.  I used a Pyrex bowl with a lid.

2.  Brew espresso.  Pour it into a glass measuring cup as soon as it's brewed so it can cool off a little before you add it to the cream cheese.  

3.  Beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth.  Pour 1/2 cup of brewed espresso into cream cheese mixture and combine very carefully.  It will splatter!!!

4.  Pour about 1/3 of remaining espresso on first layer of cake in dish.  Make sure you give it a few minutes to soak in good.  If it is clear, like my glass dish, take a look at the bottoms of the pieces to make sure they have enough espresso soaked in so they are evenly saturated.  If there are still white spots, pour some espresso down the sides and carefully press the pieces into the liquid so it will be absorbed.

5.  While the espresso soaks in, fold the Cool Whip into cream cheese mixture.  Layer 1/3 of mixture onto cake layer. *I somehow neglected to photograph the first layer of cream cheese filling, my apologies.  However, there is an example from the next layer :)

6.  Add another layer of cake, pour 1/2 of remaining espresso on top.  Let it soak in a few minutes.  Top with 1/2 of remaining cream cheese mixture.

7.  Repeat cake, espresso, and cream cheese layer once more.  You may have to cut some of the pieces in half thicknesswise so you have twice as many full size pieces of cake that are 1/4" thick.  I had to do that as well as cut some pieces into triangles so I had an even covering of cake.

8.  Sprinkle cocoa powder and espresso on top of of cream cheese mixture.

Cocoa powder only

Cocoa powder & espresso

9.  Cover and refrigerate until ready to serve.  I like to let it refrigerate overnight so everything smooshes together nicely.

So Easy My Four Year Old Made It Cherry Cobbler

"Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the dessert cart." 

- Erma Bombeck

"I don't think a really good pie can be made without a dozen or so children peeking over your shoulder as you stoop to look in at it every little while." 

- John Gould

If you've read any of my other posts, you know I only use one quote, but this one just screamed for 2.  The first reminds us that sometimes we should eat our dessert first - who cares if we spoil our appetites once in a blue moon?  The second was appropriate since this is a pie, and my daughter (who was 4 at the time - she is now a very grown up 5) helped make this and asked eagerly, and frequently, if the pie was ready.  She never calls it cobbler, but when she asks to make a pie I know what she means.  The first one of these I made was with a group of kindergartners I had at an after school daycare.  We simply dotted the butter on top of the cake mix on top of the pie filling, and you can certainly do that.  However, I find that the butter does not melt evenly, or soak into the cake mix evenly, so you end up with dry spots.  Who wants powdery, dry spots of un-buttery cake mix crust on a cobbler?  Not this gal.  So I switched it up, and this is what I made.

So-Easy-My-Four-Year-Old-Made-It Cherry Cobbler

1 Duncan Hines Butter Golden cake mix (or other yellow or white mix)

1 stick butter or margarine, room temperature

1 15oz can Cherry (or other fruit) pie filling (larger if you really like fruit)

1. Spread pie filling in bottom of 9"x13" baking dish.

2.  In a medium mixing bowl, beat butter into dry cake mix using a wire whisk attachment on a handheld or stand mixer.  Mix until it is crumbly and resembles cornmeal.

3.  Sprinkle the cake mix over the pie filling.  Using the tines of a fork like a rake, spread the cake mix out so there are no obvious high spots.  Bake in a preheated 350° oven for at least 35 minutes, but this one took longer.  Check it at 35 minutes, and then add cook time 5 minutes at a time.  You want the crust to be a nice golden brown and a little crunchy around the edges.

 4.  Serve hot with a scoop of ice cream and watch out for cherry pits.

Hot Fudge S'mores Cake

S’MORES

- Gregory K. -

The campfire burns. It’s 9:08.

I feel so good cuz I just ate

Two graham crackers, and chocolate, too,

With marshmallow turned to warm, white goo.

A treat indeed, a dripping mess. 

A touch of melty joy -- oh yes! 

It’s bedtime soon, but I’m not done. 

I simply cannot stop at one. 

Because, you see, it takes three s’mores 

To make a night of happy s’nores.

No clue who Gregory K. is, but I found that on a discussion board asking for quotes or poems about s'mores.  Personally I am not a fan of campfire s'mores for one reason - the chocolate never melts as good as the marshmallow and I want them both to be ooey-gooey and melty.  I do, however, enjoy the flavor combination of graham cracker, chocolate, and marshmallow.  I had promised my kids they could have homemade chocolate cake or brownies for our family movie night if they didn't ask for chocolates at Maw Ber's house (my mamaw, who is named Bertie - check out the Loaded Brownies I did for her).  They did ask, but only once and then they hushed because they knew I would make good on my promise.  For whatever reason I had been in the mood for s'mores for a few days, so I thought to myself, "How can I incorporate s'mores into a cake?"  I knew that I didn't want to do a graham cracker crust type dessert, and I couldn't put the marshmallows inside the cake because they would disintegrate.  So, this is what I came up with - a variation on the Twix Cake my whole family adores.  I wanted to make my own Microwave Hot Fudge Sauce, and I found a recipe for Marshmallow Ice Cream Topping, but in the interest of saving time (and not knowing just how it was going to work out) I asked my hubby to pick up a couple of jars of Smuckers for me - not as good as homemade, but excellent in a pinch.

Hot Fudge S'mores Cake

Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge cake mix

1 can sweetened condensed milk

1 jar Smuckers Hot Fudge Ice Cream Topping

1 jar Smuckers Marshmallow Ice Cream Topping

~12 oz miniature marshmallows

1 King Size Hershey's bar (milk chocolate)

4 graham crackers (4 pieces each)

1. Prepare the cake mix according to package directions and bake in a lightly greased foil-lined 9x13" pan.  *To make it easier to get the foil in the pan, flip the pan over and form the foil on the bottom, then just slip it in the baking side and press into the corners.*

2. After cake is done, punch a LOT of holes in it using a round-handled wooden spoon.  Do this while the cake is hot.  Pour the sweetened condensed milk over the cake as soon as you are done mutilating it and use a spatula to spread the SCM out.

3. Let the cake cool about 30 minutes.  Microwave the hot fudge sauce (remove the lid first!) on high for 30 seconds, stir, microwave for 15 more seconds, stir.  Pour over the cake (will be more like glopping than pouring) and spread out.  Pour  marshmallow topping on top of that and spread it out.

4. Cover the top of the cake with miniature marshmallows, followed by chopped up Hershey's bar, followed by chopped up graham crackers.

5. Initially I was broiling this to get a nice brown crust on the marshmallows, but the graham crackers were burning.  So, if you want to broil it on LOW, do it before you add the graham cracker pieces.  Otherwise, put it in a 350° oven for a few minutes until the marshmallow and chocolate pieces start to melt.  After eating my third piece (not in the same day), I realized how much yummier it would have been to add a single layer of marshmallows and chocolate, broil it, add another layer of marshmallows and chocolate, broil it, and then add graham cracker pieces.  Hmmm, may have to be a repeat cake with homemade sauces and that topping technique.

Chicken Salad

“He that sups upon salad, goes not to bed fasting”
- Thomas Fuller

I realize when this quote was written they probably didn't have such a conglomeration of flavors and ingredients as you find in today's salads, and seeing as it was at least close to 100 years before the documented invention of mayonnaise, this type of chicken salad would have been altogether impossible.  I'm sure you've eaten at restaurants (or out of plastic tubs from the refrigerated section) that have served chicken salad.  What image comes to mind? A mayonnaisey glop of chopped up chicken and a few vegetables thrown in for good measure?  That is not what comes to mind when I think about chicken salad, and after you've tried this recipe I seriously doubt if you'll ever think of chicken salad in quite the same way.  My mom came up with this low-calorie, practically no-fat recipe for chicken salad when I was a kid.  So it is yet another food that I grew up eating.  In recent years we've begun topping our platefuls of chicken salad with Craisins and broken pecan pieces.  I also like to eat it with a thick slice of Colby cheese and Wheat Thin crackers.  Then again you can put it between two slices of wheat bread with a piece of good old American cheese.  Come to think of it, there isn't any way I've eaten it that I don't like!

Demetria's Low-Fat Chicken Salad

4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts 

3 large hard apples (Gala or Fuji)

1 cup red or black seedless grapes

4-5 ribs of celery

1 1/2 - 2 cups Dannon Plain Non-Fat Yogurt

3-4 TB Hellman's Olive Oil Mayonnaise

1.  First things first, cook that chicken!  There are a few ways you can do this:  cube it and saute in a large skillet, saute whole breasts and cube or shred when cooked, simmer in enough water to cover chicken until just done and tender, or throw it in the pressure cooker with some salt and let it do its thang.  If you've never cooked chicken breasts in the pressure cooker, check out our method in the recipe for Chicken & Dumplings.  Now, if you overcook the chicken it will be tough, which makes the finished product a little less palatable.  If you are unsure of your chicken cooking skills, just pick up a baked or rotisseried chicken from your local supermarket.  Note that doing a whole chicken will add fat (dark meat, cooking with skin on) and that picking the meat off the bones takes just as long as sauteing the chicken yourself.  Do not be scared of the chicken breast and its bad reputation for being dry.  Just keep your thermometer handy and when the chicken is browned on both sides, check the internal temperature by inserting the thermometer into the breast from the thick end of the chicken.  *I usually stand it on end with a fork to aid in this task.*

2.  While the chicken cooks, mix up the "dressing" - we only use Dannon Plain Non-Fat Yogurt and Hellman's mayo.  My mom prefers the Olive Oil Mayonnaise with the light green lid, but we always used the lite mayo with the pale blue lid before the Olive Oil kind was introduced.  Just dump the yogurt and mayo into a large mixing bowl and stir until it is thoroughly mixed.

3.  Chicken should still be cooking at this point, so get started chopping!  Wash the apples, celery, and grapes first; dry them thoroughly, and then dice the apples and celery and halve or quarter the grapes depending on how large they are.  

For the apples, we use a corer/slicer that gives us 10 wedges.  The dice needs to be about 1/4" thick and 1/2" square.  Some pieces will not have skin, and you can certainly peel the whole apple if you like.  I personally like the added crunch and color the skin gives.  Add the apples to the dressing and toss to coat as soon as they are diced to keep them from turning brown.  

Grapes are the easy part.  Slice them in half or quarter them and toss them into the dressing with the apples.

The celery needs to be a bit smaller because it is so fibrous and hard to chew.  Cut the leafy end and the root end off each stalk.  Slice it into 4 long, thin strips, line up the strips and then dice it in 1/8" - 1/4" pieces.

4.  After the chicken is done (165º internal temp), remove it to a cutting board and cube it into 1/2" pieces.  Add it to the dressing and toss to coat.  It will take a bit of stirring to get everything mixed up well.  

5.  Sprinkle individual servings with dried cranberries and broken pecans if desired.  Stir to remix before serving because the dressing will separate a bit from the moisture of the fruits as well as because the yogurt is runny.  If you want a thicker texture you can always drain your yogurt by spooning it into cheesecloth and letting the excess moisture drip through into a bowl.

6. This is not a strict recipe, more like a guideline.  If you like more or less of something, feel free to tailor it to your tastes!