Holiday Suggestion - Christmas Snacking Cake

Even enjoyable work, like decorating the house for Christmas, can get everyone hungry for a little something to sustain energy and Christmas Spirit. This is an easy cake with lots of scope for personal changes and touches.

Christmas Snacking Cake
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Grated zest of one lemon
Pinch ground nutmeg
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with parchment paper and spray lightly with vegetable oil spray.

Cream together the butter, sugar, salt in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs, one at a time and beat until light and fluffy. In another bowl, mix the flour and baking powder. Add to the butter mixture along with the milk and mix to combine. Add the vanilla, zest, and nutmeg and stir to mix. Beat for one minute then pour into prepared baking pan.

Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until the center is set and bounces back when touched gently. Cool for 15 minutes then ice with lemon glaze (recipe to follow). Sprinkle with toasted nuts, tiny Christmas candies, or leave plain. Cut into squares and provide to your hungry workers as needed.

Lemon Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon lemon extract
enough fresh lemon juice to form a glaze

Ideas . . .
Chocolate Glaze - 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 cup cocoa, milk to form a glaze
Cinnamon & Sugar Combine 1/4 cup sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon and sprinkle on warm cake

Bundt Cake - Gluten-Free Style!

Since we've gone gluten-free for the benefit of my husband's health, I'm always looking for ways to either adapt my own recipes or find ones that serve my purposes in the kitchen. This recipe just showed up on my Facebook account. I reviewed it and it doesn't ask for anything exotic and it seems that it could end up being my go-to recipe. I think you could easily add some nuts or coconut to the batter as well as just enjoy it as the recipe is written. I haven't tried it, yet, but plans are being processed in my mind and I foresee it appearing at our dinner table in the near future.

Enticed to bake yet? The recipe is here --> http://www.thebakingbeauties.com/2013/10/gluten-free-vanilla-bundt-cake.html

Using up cake crumbs . . . again!

It seems you have to make more cake in order to use cake crumbs. I still have a bag of broken cake from last week that I froze for future reference. Today was the day to give some of that crushed cake a new home. The thing is that in order to use the crumbs, I had to fix a batter for a new cake. This is the one I used and it seems to be a very nice vanilla cake that worked well to support the layer of cake crumbs on top.

Ingredients:
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup butter-flavored shortening
4 eggs
3 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. This recipe makes two eight-inch layers or one 11x13-inch baking pan. You might be able to get 2 dozen cupcakes out of the batter but haven't tried it with that yet. Use vegetable oil spray to grease the pans.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs. Add the vanilla and almond extracts. Mix together the flour and baking powder, put into the butter/egg mixture, add the milk, and mix until just combined.

Spread the batter in the pan of your choice. Bake for approximately 25-30 minutes our until golden and top springs back when lightly touched.

If you want to go the crumb cake route, this is how I did it today.

2 cup cake crumbs
1 stick butter
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Crumble the cake crumbs into fine crumbs. In a mixing bowl or food processor, combine the butter, flour, and vanilla and mix to get rough crumbs. Combine this with the cake crumbs and mix with your hands to make large crumbs.

I found that using two 11x13-inch baking pans worked well for this amount of crumbs. Instead of making a thick cake, you divide the batter between the pans and then divide the cake crumb mixture over the top of each cake. Bake as directed.

When mine came out of the oven, I drizzled them with a thin glaze of lemon juice and powdered sugar. You can go traditional and just sift powdered sugar over the top, too.