I Don't Know How I Made it Through High School Or Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

For those of you who might not be avid readers of my high school transcripts, I have always been pretty poor at math. In fact, in my sophomore (?) year of high school school I repeated geometry. I can't remember if I had failed miserably the year before, or if it was just close enough to failing to warrant giving it another shot, but there was something about that class that just made my brain shut down. So I took it again.

I don't want to say I'm more of a creative type because I know people a lot more creative than me. I'm easy with ideas, I can picture what the thing should look like, but when it comes to engineering it I'm basically useless. To support a bunch of half marathon runners a few weeks ago I had an idea for a sign that had a back part that would spin around to reveal 8 different names - keeping me from having to make 8 different signs. In my head, the sign would spin around a gold fastener which I figured would be easy to find (they weren't), and it would be no big deal to sit down and measure it all out to make sure each name fit in the space I provided. This would be my greatest running achievement.

Happy Belated Valentines Day Rice Krispie Pops!

It's been quite some time since my Super Bowl post, I do apologize. I'd like to think that I was in some sort of food coma due to the loaded baked potato dip, or that I was just too distraught over the Giants win to carry on, but unfortunately the real reason is not that glamorous. Well it's a little glamorous - we did watch almost the full 5th season of The Wire in one week. I also caught whatever sinus or face infection that the whole world seems to have, so I've been a little out of it lately.

Before I came down with consumption I made these excellent rice krispie treat pops that were dipped in chocolate. Unlike my last foray into rice krispie pops, these were actually a success. I mean, a real success. I only got about 16 out of the batch, but they actually stayed on the stick, tasted delicious in the chocolate and were enjoyed by strangers! This photo to my left is proof, real proof. I didn't pay these people anything!

I found the initial idea for these pops on Pinterest, but the real recipe was a few layers in. Like rice krispie inception I finally found these on a blog called Korean American Mommy. If you know me, you know I fall squarely in this blog's demographic.

I mean hell, I am American.

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