The first one is a picture of "Hannah's Special Carrot Cake" from the book, "Carrot Cake Murder"
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F rack in middle position
2 C white (granulated) sugar
3 eggs
3/4 C vegetable oil (not canola, or olive, or anything but veggie oil)
1 t vanilla extract
3/4 C sour cream
2 t baking soda
2 t cinnamon
1 1/2 t salt
1 20 ounce can crushed pineapple, juice and all - -
2 C chopped walnuts (or pecans)
2 1/2 C flour (pack it down when you measure)
2 C grated carrots (pack it down when you measure)
Grease a 9 inch by 13 inch cake pan and set it aside
Use an electric mixer
Beat the sugar, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Mix in the sour cream. Add the baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix them in thoroughly.
Add the flour by half-cup increments, mixing after each addition.
Grate the carrots. (A food processor makes it so much easier than hand grating it)
Mix the carrots BY HAND. Grated carrots tend to get caught on the beaters of the electric mixers.
Spread the batter in your prepared cake pan and bake it at 350 F for 50 minutes, or until the cake tester (I use a food pick that's a little longer than a toothpick), inserted one inch from the center of the cake comes out clean.
Let the cake cool in the cake pan on the wire rack. When it's completely cool, frost with cream cheese frosting while it's in the pan.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
8 ounce package softened cream cheese
1 t vanilla extract
4 C confectioner's (powdered) sugar
Mix the softened butter with the softened cream cheese and the vanilla until the mixture is smooth.
Hannah's note: Do this next step at room temperature. If you heated the cream cheese or the butter to soften it, make sure it's cooled down before you continue.
Add the confectioner's (powdered) sugar in half-cup increments until the frosting is of proper spreading consistency. (you'll use all, or almost all, of the sugar)
Hannah's note: If you are good with a pastry bag, remove 1/3 of the frosting and save it in the little bowl to pipe on frosting carrots and stems.
With a frosting knife (or rubber spatula if you prefer) drop large dollops of frosting over the surface of your cooled cake. I usually end up wit somewhere between 6 to 12 dollops. The dollops are like little stacks of frosting you'll spread neighboring stacks together, working your way from one end of the cake to the other, until you've frosted the whole cake. (This dollop method prevents uneven frosting thickness and "tearing" of the surface of your cake as you "pull" frosting from one end to the other.)
If you decide to use the pastry bag to decorate your cake, mix most of the remaining frosting with one drop of yellow food coloring and one drop of red food coloring (unless you can find orange). Mix it thoroughly to make orange frosting and pipe little carrots on top to decorate your cake. You can save a bit of uncolored frosting to color green and dab green stems on the large end of the carrots.
RED VELVET COOKIES from Carrot Cake Murder
Preheat oven to 375 rack in middle position.
2 once-ounce squares unsweetened baking chocolate
1/2 C (1 stick) butter at room temperature
2/3 C brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 C white (granulated) sugar
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 large egg
1 T red food coloring
3/4 C sour cream
2 C flour (pack it down in the cup when you measure it)
1 C (a 6 ounce package) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Line your cookie sheets with parchment paper. Spray the parchment paper with Pam. (If you don't have parchment paper, you can use foil, but leave a little "ears" of foil sticking up on the ends, enough to grab later when you slide the whole thing on a cooling rack.)
Unwrap the squares of chocolate and break them apart. Put them in a small microwave-safe bowl. (I use an 8 ounce measuring cup). Melt them for 90 seconds on HIGH. Stir them until they're smooth and set the aside to cool while you mix up your cookie dough.
Use an electric mixer.
Combine the butter, brown sugar, and white sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer. Beat them until they're smooth. This should take less than a minute.
Add the baking soda and the salt, and resume beating on medium again for another minute, or until they're incorporated.
Add the egg and beat on medium until the batter is smooth (an additional minute should do it). Add the red food coloring and mix for about 30 seconds.
Shut off the mixer and scrape down the bowl. Then add the melted chocolate and mix again for another minute on medium speed.
Shut off mixer and scrape down the bowl again. At low speed, mix in half of the flour. (That's 1 cup). When the flour is incorporated, mix in the sour cream.
Remove the bowl from the mixer and give it a stir with a spoon. Mix in the chocolate chips by hand. (a firm rubber spatula works nicely)
Use a teaspoon to spoon the dough onto the parchment - lined cookie sheets, 12 cookies to a standard-sized sheet. (if the dough is too sticky for your to work with , chill it for 30 minutes or so). Bake the cookies at 375 for 9 to 11 minutes, or until they rise and become firm.
Slide the parchment from the cookie sheets an onto a wire rack. Let the cookies cool on the rack while the next sheet of cookie is baking. When the next sheet of cookies is ready, pull the cooled cookies onto the counter or table and slide the parchment paper with the got cookies onto the rack. Keep alternating until all the dough has been baked.
When all the cookies are cook, peel them off the parchment paper and put them on waxed paper for frosting.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
1/4 c softened butter (1/2 stick)
4 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 t vanilla extract
2 C confectioner's (powdered) sugar
mix the softened butter with the softened cream cheese and the vanilla until the mixture is smooth.
Make sure the cream cheese and butter mixture is cooled down before the next step.
Add the confectioner's (powdered) sugar in 1/2 increments until the frosting is of the proper spreading consistency. (you'll use all, or almost all, of the sugar)
Yield about 3 dozen cookies.
If you really want to pull out all the stops, brush the tops of your baked cookies with melted raspberry jam, let it dry, and then frost them with the Cream Cheese Frosting.
My parents have also been very helpful in this area. They have always loved me and encouraged me even when I made mistakes and needed a lot more practice. Thank you!
Here is one more desert that I found on the internet. It is a "Smore" recipe and is a favorite.
I first made this recipe March 17, 2015
S'MORE COOKIE BARS
1/4 C butter, room temperature
1/4 C brown sugar
1/2 C sugar
1 large egg
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/3 C all purpose flour
3/4 C graham cracker crumbs (about 7 full graham crackers) (I used a food processor)
1 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 super-sized (5 oz.) dark chocolate bars (e.g. Hershey's)
1 1/2 cups marshmallow crème/fluff (NOT melted marshmallows)
Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8 inch square baking pan.
In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until light. Beat in egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, whisk together flour, graham cracker crumbs, baking powder and salt. Add to butter mixture and mix at a low speed until combined. Divide dough in half and press half of dough into an even layer on the bottom of the prepared pan. Place chocolate bars over dough. Two 5 oz. Hershey's bars should fit perfectly side by side, but break the chocolate (if necessary) to get it to fit in a single layer no more than 1/4 in thick. Spread marshmallow fluff evenly over the chocolate layer.
Place remaining dough in a single layer on top of the fluff. This is most easily done by putting the second half of the dough in a gallon size freezer bag. Use your palms to flatten it out, and then use scissors to cut down both long sides of the bag. Then place the bag, dough side down, on the other three layers. From there peel the bag up and spread the dough when it is uneven.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.
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