Dump Cake Part 2!

So the only thing I didn't actually bake so far has the most amount of views on this blog. I couldn't figure out why, especially since I didn't have any photos to accompany the post. I figured it must have been my witty writing and intelligent banter.

Then I had this thought - it must be because the cake sounds freaking amazing. And it did. So last week I had a few minutes to actually try and bake it- I say a few minutes because the whole thing took me about 8 minutes to put together. And it turns out, I was right. This cake really could make people give chocolate up for lent, and after eating it I think it might also cause divorces, marriages, spontaneous pregnancies, fault lines and any other kind of environmental catastrophe/something awesome. 

Now that I've actually made the cake, I HIGHLY encourage you to try it. Below are some after photos to help convince you. Forget the before because it all happened so fast. Again, I can't stress how easy this was so if you need something quick and easy that tastes like something you'd buy at an expensive restaurant, this is it.

Crazy right?

Up close and personal.

And this, which is not related, is a shot of the Snickers cupcakes I made for my mom last week. Second batch worked just as well! Check out the sweet cupcake stand I made too!

If you've made the dump cake, let me know!

Chocolate Filo Parcels

Our friend Ben threw his very first 'official' house party this past weekend. Ahh, it's so hard to see your kids grow up right in front of your eyes... Anyway, to commemorate the occasion I made these new fangled desserts called Chocolate Filo Parcels. I had never heard of them before, and I'm almost positive I've never seen them either. I found the recipe on the 'Photo Cookbook - Baking' App on the iPad, but here it is too:

One edit of mine: I would suggest not using the mint and using a little more chocolate.

Chocolate Filo Parcels  (kind of sounds like a weird soccer team)
Serves: 18
Ingredients:
-4-6 tbsps of melted butter  (i was good with 4)
-1 cup of ground hazelnuts
-1 tbsp of finely chopped fresh mint
-1/2 cup of sour cream
-2 apples, peeled and finely chopped
-2 oz. of semisweet dark chocolate, melted
-9 sheets of filo pastry, about 6 inches/15 cm square   **i did a little research and found that won ton wrappers were pretty similar, and they already come in squares! i picked them up in the vegetable section at a super walmart.
-Powdered sugar for dusting


1 > Preheat the oven to 375. Grease a baking sheet. Mix the nuts, mint, and sour cream in a bowl. Add the apples, and stir in the chocolate and mix well.  (forgot to take a picture of that part, whoops).

This is what the won ton wrappers look like, and the size that you need. You need to brush each square with butter, and then place a second square on top, and brush that one with butter too.

2 > Then place a spoonful of the chocolate mixture into the center of the square. 

3 > Bring up all of the corners of the wrapper around the middle and twist them together. Then start doing it with all of them.

They won't get bigger in the oven so you can put a lot on one sheet.

Fancy right? I tried using only one won ton wrapper for each one, and that worked too but I liked the double wrapped ones better. If there are two wrappers it doesn't seem like the middle chocolate part is too overbearing.

Almost finished..

Then you dust them with powdered sugar!

Overall, the reviews on these were pretty favorable. My main critique would be to leave the mint out, and add a little more chocolate. The hazelnuts are awesome, and the won ton wrappers worked really well, I'd highly suggest going that route.

If you're looking for a fancy dessert idea, give these a try!

Source: Chocolate Filo Parcels, Photo Cookbook - Baking' App on the iPad

Spiced Pear Upside Down Cake

Sometime this past week a mystery magazine showed up. It was Taste of Home, and I have no idea how it got here. Nobody does. At least, nobody is telling me. I ended up paging through it and found this recipe for Spiced Pear Upside Down Cake. It sounds hard, anything upside down sounds difficult, but it was really easy. I made it for dessert for a dinner party we had Saturday night, and people seemed to love it. The topping is amazing, and the pears are a really nice surprise. (that sounded kind of pretentious, but it's true!)

I would highly recommend it, so here's the recipe:

Prep time: 25 minutes

Bakes for: 35 minutes + 10 minutes to cool

Makes: 9 servings

Ingredients:

-1/2 cup melted butter

-1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts

-1/4 cup packed brown sugar

-2 large pears, peeled and sliced

-1/2 cup of softened butter

-1/3 cup of sugar

-1 egg

-1/3 cup of molasses

-1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour

-3/4 tsp. of ground ginger

-3/4 tsp. of ground cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. of salt

-1/2 tsp. of baking powder

-1/4 tsp. of baking soda

-1/2 cup of warm water

Pour melted butter into a 9 inch square baking pan. 

[i only had an 8x8, but it worked fine]

Sprinkle the chopped walnuts and brown sugar mixture over the butter.

Put the sliced pears over the walnuts/brown sugar. The recipe calls for two whole pears, but this was only one. I could have double layered them, but I wasn't sure how the pears would cook if there were two layers.

Cream the soft butter and sugar until it's light and fluffy. Then beat in the egg and molasses. Combine the flour, ginger, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and baking soda and alternatively add that to the mixture with the warm water. Then spread the batter over the pears.

 Bake the cake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. I baked mine for around 37 mins, and it was perfect.

Cool for 10 minutes and then flip it over onto a serving plate. For some reason, my cake had this weird fault line in it, but you couldn't tell once it was flipped.

 See? 

And finishing touches- warmed up with vanilla bean ice cream <3

Not a bad recipe, and definitely easy to make. Super fast too. Thank you to the mystery person who delivered the magazine! 

Source: Taste of Home Magazine, Feb/March 2011 Issue

Web: http://www.tasteofhome.com/

Submitted by: Lisa Varner, Charleston South Carolina

Karen A's Chocolate Dump Cake

This recipe has the word dump in it. Sooo...it's got to be good.

I found this recipe in the AllRecipes.com Dinner Spinner app last night on my iphone. (I would highly recommend that app, by the way. I've found a bunch of good stuff just spinning around through the desserts and entrees sections.)

So the fact that it had dump in the title was intriguing, but the fact that it calls for a package of instant chocolate pudding, a package of chocolate cake mix AND two cups of chocolate chips kind of threw me. This is like chocolate Disney World. Chocolate Space Mountain. This sounds like the reason why people give chocolate up for Lent.

I haven't had the opportunity to make this yet, but it's definitely on my list. So I think it's safe to say that, yeah, I'd bake that.
(i finally worked that in!)

Here's the link for the recipe on AllRecipes.com's site:
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Karen-As-Chocolate-Dump-Cake/Detail.aspx

And here's the breakdown of ingredients and instructions for a quick look:
**make sure you go to the website to see what they look like!

Serves 24

Ingredients

• 1 (5 ounce) package non-instant chocolate pudding mix
• 2 1/3 cups milk
• 1 (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
• 
  
• Directions
• 
  
• -Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease one 9 x 13 inch baking pan.
• -Combine chocolate pudding and milk in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until thick, stirring frequently.
• -Remove pan from heat and add in dry cake mix. Mix together and pour into the lightly greased 9x13 inch baking pan. Evenly spread the chocolate chips over the top of the cake.
• -Bake at 350 degrees F(175 degrees C) for 40 to 45 minutes. Let cake cool and serve.

If you try it out let me know how it tastes! 

Source:  Allrecipes.com /  Karen A's Chocolate Dump Cake Recipe / By: Jann De Circe 
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Karen-As-Chocolate-Dump-Cake/Detail.aspx

Snickers Cupcakes!

Second post. Less pressure. This weekend was our friend Christine's birthday, and I promised I would come bearing cupcakes. I went with snickers, raspberry & peanut butter. The snickers cupcakes are heart attack inducing but ridiculously good. I found the recipe on a site called Annie's Eats - she collected the ingredients from:

[[Cupcakes from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes, caramel sauce from Ready for Dessert by David Lebovitz, frosting adapted from My Baking Addiction]]

She does a better job of laying out the pictures and the ingredients than I ever could, so it's best to go there for the recipe. It's pretty easy to follow, just pretty time consuming. The carmel sauce alone will slow you down, but it's incredibly worth it. If you can measure success by high fives, than I think this was a good recipe to make again.

 I made the cupcakes and stuffed them with snickers at night.

I waited to ice them til the next day to make sure they still looked fancy for the party.

I was pretty happy with the final results:

I'll post the recipes for the peanut butter and the raspberry cupcakes another day. I actually ended up making a blackberry version of the cupcakes too, I'd say it was pretty successful baking venture. Definitely try these if you can. And make a dentist appointment too while you're at it.