Going Out to Eat

This year, my husband decided to punt planning Valentine's Day and our Anniversary to me. Unfortunately, he didn't tell me that this was his plan until mid January. That didn't give me much time make plans for either event. I quickly made reservations at a couple of nice restaurants for both Valentine's Day and our Anniversary. A few weeks later though, I got to thinking about how going out to dinner is no longer only saved for special occasions. When I was a kid, going out to dinner used to be an event that we saved only for "special events". These days, our generation has gotten used to going out to dinner when we don't think we have the time it takes to prepare a home-cooked meal after a long work day. It seems as if I had just fallen victim to just making dinner reservations without even thinking twice about the reason we were going out to dinner. 

So for Valentine's Day I called my husband and said "can we cancel our reservations and just stay in"? Lucky for me, he was on the same wavelength and we ended up having a stay-in date with a bottle of wine, some heart shaped pizza and some delicious cupcakes from Pure DeLite Bakery. I highly recommend this bakery as they have cut out the extra fat and calories but still managed to keep all the flavor. 

After ordering pizza for Valentine's Day I knew that I needed to put even more thought into our anniversary dinner. After a few days of very intense brainstorming, I came across Chef Sevilla's website. I contacted Chef Sevilla and we quickly came up with a menu for my anniversary dinner. Chef Sevilla went grocery shopping and came to our house and prepared a four course dinner with fresh ingredients that was out of this world tasty. She cooked everything and even cleaned up! Sometimes you want the benefit of a meal prepared by someone else but without the added hassle of making reservations, getting dressed up, driving out to a restaurant, waiting for your table, having to take the chance that you may not get good service or atmosphere. And for those times you will want to call Chef Sevilla and have her take care of all the variables that come with going out to dinner and be treated to a fantastic dinner in the comfort of your own home. 

Meal and Menu by Chef Sevilla of Sevilla's Savory Solutions

Baked Mini Cake Doughnuts

Moving makes you realize how convenient it was having everything already organized and put away. Having to start from scratch results in opening multiple drawers and cabinets just to find a mixing spoon. Not a productive environment when you are trying to resume your regular cooking and baking regimen. On the plus side, it means you discover all sorts of fun stuff you forgot you had because you stuck it away in a cabinet or drawer and forgot about it.

One of the first housewarming gifts I received was a Wilton Mini Doughnut pan.  This mini doughnut pan will not be stuck away in a cabinet and forgotten. It is AWESOME! It's almost as awesome as my mini cupcake pan. Anyone that does not have a mini doughnut pan should go out today and get one. Having the capability to make doughnuts in the comfort of your own home is fantastic... you can control what sprinkles you want on them, how many, how few, whether you want to just coat them in cinnamon sugar, or you just want to consume the doughnuts plain and unadorned by toppings. This past weekend I got the mini doughnut pan out and went to work. While these baked mini doughnuts are not as sweet as your typical fried doughnut, the glaze and toppings work to make this treat just sweet enough that you won't go into a sugar coma if you consume the entire batch, which you shouldn't do, but if you do, at least they are baked and not fried!  Besides, mini-anything is always good! 

Baked Mini Cake Doughnuts

recipe courtesy of Wilton (my changes in italics)

Ingredients:
1 cup cake flour, sifted (I made my own cake flour with one cup less two tablespoons of all purpose flour plus two tablespoons of cornstarch, which I sifted...I was supposed to sift the cornstarch into the all purpose five times but I just did it once)*
1/3 cup granulated sugar (I used the Splenda for baking sugar blend)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/3 cup buttermilk (I made my own buttermilk by mixing 1 cup of milk with 2 teaspoons of cream of tarter)*
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tablespoon butter, melted

*I used the substitutions provided on the Joy the Baker blog for Cake Flour and Buttermilk. This site is awesome for finding appropriate substitute ingredients when you realize in the middle of baking that you are out of a necessary recipe ingredient. 

NOTE: Makes about 12 mini doughnuts.

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Spray Mini Doughnut Pan with vegetable pan spray (I used baking spray).

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. 

Add buttermilk, egg and butter. Stir until just combined. 

Fill each doughnut cup approximately 1/2 full with 1 tablespoon of batter. Spread batter around center post to edges of cup. 

I put the batter into a piping bag, snipped off the tip and piped the batter directly into the cups. It was a lot faster and neater than trying to spoon batter into the doughnut cups.

Bake 6-7 minutes or until the top of the doughnuts spring back when touched. 

Cool in pan for three minutes.

Then remove to cooling grid. 

Finish doughnuts with glaze (Recipe follows below), sprinkles, or cinnamon sugar.

Vanilla Glaze 

recipe courtesy of Wilton (my changes in italics)

Ingredients:
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk (I kind of drizzled the milk in until I got the consistency I wanted, which was thick enough for the sprinkles to stick to but not so thick that it was overly sweet)
1/2 teaspoon Wilton's Pure Vanilla Extract (mine was not Wilton brand and the glaze tasted just fine)

Directions:
In a small bowl, stir together sugar, milk, and vanilla extract until sugar is completely dissolved. Use immediately to glaze doughnuts. 

Makes enough to glaze 36+ mini doughnuts.

Quick and Easy Apple Tart

Well hello there! I can't believe that it's been over TWO MONTHS since my last blog post! Sorry for the long hiatus, it  has been a hectic and crazy past couple of months with traveling, holidays, packing, moving, and settling into a new place. Now that the holidays are behind me, I can finally get back into blogging as I need to start breaking my new kitchen in. This apple tart recipe was brought to my attention when a family member posted a picture of the tart her daughter made on Facebook. As soon as I saw the Facebook picture of this Apple Tart, I knew I had to have the recipe. This Apple Tart can be made in less than an hour without having to perfect a crust recipe (we will save that for another day). We devoured an entire third of this apple tart in one sitting. It's that good. Seriously...I'm thinking about the other two pieces of the tart that are left and I have a feeling that they may not make it to see another day. 

Quick and Easy Apple Tart

recipe courtesy of The Pioneer Woman (my changes in italics)

Ingredients:
1 whole Sheet Puffed Pastry, Cut Into Half Or Thirds (I cut it into thirds)
4 whole Apples, Cored, Halved, And Sliced, But Not Peeled (I used three Gala apples)
1 cup Brown Sugar (I used 1/2 a cup of Splenda Brown Sugar Baking Blend)
1/4 teaspoon Salt 
1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
1 tablespoon Lemon Juice (I used bottled lemon juice)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 415 degrees.
Place puffed pastry rectangles onto a baking pan that’s been sprayed with nonstick spray. Add sugar and salt and lemon juice to apples. Stir to combine. Allow to sit for a few minutes.

Arrange apple slices on the pastry rectangles in a straight line, overlapping as you go. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until pastry is puffed and golden brown.

Remove from pan immediately and place on a serving platter. Serve plain, with caramel topping, whipped cream, or a sprinkling of powdered sugar (I was too impatient for any toppings, so I just cut up a sizable piece and went to town).

The Best Yellow Cake

I have always been a fan of box yellow cake batter. I mean its so good that I would look forward to licking the mixing spoon, throwing caution into the wind and ignoring the fact that I was consuming raw eggs because I was too impatient to wait for the cake to finish baking. As I have been expanding my baking skills, I figured that there had to be a recipe for the good old standard box yellow cake. Lucky for me, I stumbled across Bakerella, a blog dedicated to all things sweet, that allowed me to dust off all of the supplies I bought during my cake decorating classes and attempt. While browsing through all of the awesome recipes and wonderful pictures, I came across Bakerella's post about this Yellow Cake recipe . I have made this recipe twice now, and both times I received excellent reviews from my culinary test subjects. The first time I made this cake I made it in two various sized cake pans and made a two tier UT themed birthday cake. The second time I halved the recipe and made cupcakes in honor of the UT/OU game. Lucky for us, the food and fellow UT fans at the watch party made up for the game itself. 

Looks like I need to keep working on my fondant skills, my cake is lopsided!

Moist Yellow Cake 

Recipe courtesy of Bakerella (my changes in italics)

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) of butter (room temperature)

2 cups of sugar

4 eggs (room temperature)

3 cups of sifted self-rising flour (I used 3 cups all-purpose flour with 4 1/2 tsp baking powder and 3/4 tsp salt)

1 cup of whole milk (room temperature) (I used 2% milk)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon butter flavoring (I omitted this)

Directions:

Yields one layered cake or approx. 18 cupcakes

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease and flour (3) 8 inch cake pans. (I used Baking Spray on one 8 inch cake pan and one 5 inch cake pan for the tier cake and two muffin tins for the cupcakes)

Using a mixer, cream butter until fluffy.

Add sugar and continue to cream for about 7 minutes.

Add eggs one at a time. Beat well after each egg is added.

Add flour and milk (alternating to creamed mixture), beginning and ending with flour.

Add vanilla and butter flavoring to mix; until just mixed.

Divide batter equally into three two cake pans (or fill two muffin tins lined with cupcake liners about 3/4 full).

Hold each layer pan or muffin tin about 3 inches above your counter and carefully drop them flat onto counter several times to ensure release of any air bubbles. This will help you have a more level cake.

Bake for 25 – 30 minutes (depending on your oven) until done.

Cool in pans for 5 – 10 minutes.

Remove and immediately wrap each layer in plastic wrap to seal in moisture (I didn't do this). 

Cool completely on wire racks.

Once cooled, you are ready to assemble your cake (or prepare frosting your cupcakes).