Sunshine Pound Cake

It's been awhile! Did you miss me? I'm back with a bang. A lemony, citrusy bang.

So, the blog that this cake came from is one of my favorite new discoveries- it's been around for a while, but somehow I never came across it. This cake takes a little while to make, but it's not hard, and it's delicious.

Plus it has sunshine in the title, amirite?

Here are your ingredients: butter (except that's way too much), eggs, lemons, limes, an orange, baking soda, cake flour (info below), vanilla, sugar, and sour cream.

First, cream together your butter and sugar for about 3 minutes.

In a seperate bowl, sift together your flour and baking soda. A word on cake flour- if you don't want to buy any, it's very easy to substitute AP flour, which is what I did. You just need some cornstarch. Check out this link for instructions. Add in all your zests and whisk together.

In another bowl, mix together the sour cream, lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, and vanilla.

Add the eggs to the butter-sugar one at a time, mixing well between each one. See? It's looking sunshin-y already.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and sour cream mixture, starting with and ending with the flour mixture. Pour the batter into a thoroughly greased bundt pan and level it off, shaking the pan around until it's even.

Bake it for 65-70 minutes, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let it cool in the pan for 10 minutes on a wire rack before you turn it over and pray that it comes out of the pan. If it doesn't, don't panic, just knife around the edges until it wants to slide out.

Hopefully you have someone like The Husband who spends 5 minutes telling you that it's okay that it didn't come out perfectly.

While the cake is cooling down to room temperature, make your glaze. Whisk together the ingredients, then, once your cake is cooled, pour it on top! It's okay if it runs off a little. It looks pretty that way. Don't skimp on the glaze, either. It's delicious.

Seriously, look at it! It's beautiful! You can't even tell that it didn't come out of the pan perfectly.

Sunshine Pound Cake
From Ezra Pound Cake
For the cake:
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 eggs
3 cups cake flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup sour cream
zest of 1 lemon
zest of 2 limes
zest of 1 orange (save one tsp. of the zest for the glaze)
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 tbsp. fresh lime juice
2 tbsp. fresh orange juice
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
For the glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 tsp. lime zest
1 tsp. orange zest
1/4 cup fresh orange juice

Preheat your oven to 325°. Thoroughly grease a bundt pan. In a mixer, cream your butter and sugar for 3 minutes on low speed. Meanwhile, in a seperate bowl sift together your flour and baking soda. Add your zests, whisk it together and set aside.

In another bowl, combine the sour cream, lemon juice, lime juice, orange juice, and vanilla. Stir together and set aside.

Add the eggs into the butter and sugar one at a time, mixing well between each one. Alternately add the flour mixture and the sour cream mixture starting and ending with the flour mixture. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl to get any stray ingredients. Put the mixer on medium speed for about 20 seconds.

Pour the mixture into your bundt pan, making sure the top is even. Bake for 65-70 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes before turning the pan over and letting the cake cool on the rack. While the cake cools, make the glaze.

In a bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients. When the cake has reached room temperature, pour the glaze on top.

Hagrid's Rock Cakes and HARRY POTTER

Remember how I told you this week was going to kick my tail? Well it has. I've been making up a storm of Harry Potter treats for my Harry Potter Premiere Party today, and some of them have been more successful and less frustrating than others.

Making the Nosebleed Nougats on Tuesday night was definitely the low point, as that project nearly wound up being a total disaster-saved only by the calm efficiency of The Husband.

So when I set out to make my second batch of treats last night, he suggested (nicely) I blog at least one of them, saying that it "focused me" when I was baking. And by golly, it worked. So here, my friends, is the recipe for Hagrid's Rock Cakes.

Don't they look delicious? That's straight-up cinnamon sugar on top.

Your ingredients: Self-rising flour (if you only have all-purpose, that'll work too. See this helpful link), butter, eggs, sugar, raisins, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and milk

Start by sifting together your flour, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Chop in your chilled butter until it looks crumbly throughout. Add in the sugar and raisins by hand.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together your eggs and milk. Then pour it over the flour mixture, and mix just until combined (If you overmix it, they will come out too hard, like actual rocks).

In a small bowl, mix together sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Then just dollop it onto a cookie sheet, sprinkle a sugar-cinnamon mix on top and bake! Don't worry about shaping them, they're supposed to come out lumpy and uneven. I'll give you a tip- I baked half of mine on parchment paper and half on a greased cookie sheet. The ones on parchment paper did much better, the ones on the greased cookie sheet burnt a little on the bottom.

And.... rock cakes! A la Hagrid! Hope you're getting pumped for the premiere, you know I am. Probably pictures of all my treats to follow.

Hagrid's Rock Cakes

From MuggleNet

4 cups self-rising flour

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled butter, cut into cubes

1/2 tsp. salt

4 large eggs

1 tsp. cinnamon, plus some for topping

1 tsp. nutmeg

1 cup raisins

1 cup sugar, plus some for topping

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 400°. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together flour, salt, and spices. Cut the butter into the flour until it is crumbly throughout. Stir in sugar and raisins.

In a seperate bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk. Pour the eggs into the flour mixture. Mix until JUST combined, if you overmix the cakes will be hard. In a small bowl mix together sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Dollop the mixture onto the cookie sheets. Sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake for 12-15 minutes.



Baking Playlist

This week is about to kick me to the curb. In a good way.

So before that happens, The Husband thought I should share my baking playlist with you. I don't know if you'll like it, but when he suggested it I couldn't not do it. The cool songs come from my sister, who somehow mysteriously always knows about every cool band you've never heard of.

I have two baking playlists that I rotate between, so I'll give you the highlights.

Isle of Skye- Andrew Peterson

Back to Life- Parachute Musical

Weighty Ghost- Wintersleep

Long Distance Call- Phoenix

Rye Whiskey- Punch Brothers

The Magic Hour- Andrew Peterson

Big Shot- Billy Joel

Dance Anthem of the 80's- Regina Spektor

Almost every song from The Newsies

Straight Through My Heart- Backstreet Boys

When in Rome- Nickel Creek

Don't Turn Out the Lights- NKOTBSB

The New Workout Plan- Kanye West

Pretty much all of the Sweeny Todd soundtrack

Apartment-Young the Giant

So what about you, fellow bakers and cooks? Do you have favorite music to fill your kitchen with? Feel free to steal mine, it works pretty well.



Blueberry Pie Bars

I'm not going to lie to you guys, it's been kind of a weird and bad week.

It shouldn't have been because it was only a four-day week, what with Monday being a holiday. But I actually worked on Monday, I mean, only for 2 hours handing out balloons, but it was sticky gross hot outside.

Then Tuesday I woke up with a sore knee. I thought, slept on it wrong maybe, it'll go away. Go in to see my trainer on Wednesday morning, it's like a knife cutting through my knee every time I bend it while putting weight on it. He tells me it's inflamed and to rest it, including not bending down or picking anything up. Which, if you work with kids, is basically your job description. Not to mention I was sick.

So I got sent home Wednesday at 10:00AM and took a 3-hour nap and spent the rest of the day with ice on my knee. Which made me better, mostly. My knee is still being weird.

I was all worried about baking while moving around on this knee but you know something? Once I started baking everything else just went away. It was so nice. Of course once it went into the oven it all came back again, but it was nice while it lasted.

What does this have to do with Blueberry Pie Bars? Nothing. I just felt like sharing and saying, in a roundabout way, that these are fun to make, and a lot less stressful than last week's desert. Sorry if it's TMI.

PS, These are really delicious.

Your ingredients: Flour, Sugar, Eggs, Butter, Blueberries, Sour Cream, and 2 lemons

So first you're going to do my favorite step, which is make lemon sugar. Zest your lemons into 1 1/2 cups of sugar. Using the back of a spoon, press the zest into the sugar. You get a nifty lemon-scented sugar.

Then, cut your butter into cubes, put it into your mixer with the lemon sugar, 3 cups of flour, and a little salt and mix it together until it's crumbly-looking, like this.

Save 1 1\2 cups of the mixture, press the rest into the bottom of a 9x13. Bake it for 12-15 minutes, until it's golden brown. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO. Your crust should look more brown than mine. I am notoriously impatient on waiting for crusts to bake, and as it was already 9:30pm, I took this out too soon.

While it's cooling, make your filling. Whisk together your eggs, add 2 cups sugar, 3/4 cup flour, and a pinch of salt. It looks suspiciously like cheesecake. But it's not! I promise I'm taking a break from cheesecake!

Carefully fold in your berries. You can see I used some strawberries because I didn't have enough blueberries and I thought it would taste good (it does).

Pour it onto your crust, make sure the berries are spread evenly. Then crumble your remaining crust mixture on top. Pop it in and bake it for almost an hour, and pull out when the top is golden brown! Pretty easy.

And pretty yummy. Here's hoping that our weeks end better than they started.

Blueberry Pie Bars
From Two Tiny Kitchens
3 3/4 cup AP flour
2 lemons
1 1/2 cups (or 3 sticks) butter
2 pinches of salt
4 large eggs
3 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
6 cups fresh blueberries

Preheat the oven to 300°. Put 1 1/2 cups of your sugar on a piece of parchment paper. Zest your two lemons onto the sugar. Using the back of a spoon, press the zest into the sugar, releasing the lemon oils and creating a lemon-infused sugar.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment, pour in your lemon sugar, the butter cut into cubes, 3 cups of flour, a pinch of salt. Mix until it's dry and crumbly. Set aside 1 1/2 cups of this mix and press the rest into the bottom of a greased 9x13. Bake it for 12-15 minutes, until it's golden brown.

Let it cool while you make the filling. Whisk together the eggs. Then add 2 cups sugar, the sour cream, 3/4 cup of flour, and the pinch of salt. Carefully fold in your berries. Pour the mix on top of your crust, evenly spreading out the berries. Sprinkle your reserved crust mixture evenly over the top.

Bake for 45-55 minutes, until the top is golden brown.  Enjoy!

Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake Bars

So, the Husband and I have this friend:

See him there, in the sweet velvet jacket? His name is Brandon, and he has an awesome band called Stateside Menace. You should check them out. He also loves Futurama, and making fun of me. In a nice way.

Anyway, his birthday was this this week, and he loves food. He LOVES food, like a lot. I've never seen anybody get as excited about good food as this guy.

And so, for Game Night this week I knew that I had to top myself with the Desert of the Century. He really wanted churros, but they were not feasible so I told him I would surprise him.

This desert terrified me. You know I love cheesecake. So does he. But I've never made a cheesecake like this. This is the most cook I've ever been. I altered this recipe so much it's practically unrecognizable. I'll warn you- there's a lot of crazy steps in this recipe that I was skeptical of. But you have to go with it.

Just go with it. Because this thing doesn't look like much, but when you taste it--oh, when you taste it. You will forget all about your hard work.

Your ingredients: Sugar, Light Brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, apples, apple cider (I couldn't find apple cider, had to use apple juice), cinnamon, sour cream, heavy cream, and gingersnap cookies

First, process your gingersnap cookies into crumbs. And be aware that these cookies are not going down without a fight. I've never seen my poor food processor work that hard. It's like, if you asked a Gingersnap, "Do you want to be a delicious, crumby crust?" he would say "No!" like a two-year old throwing a fit.

Mix in your cinnnamon, brown sugar, and butter until your crumbs are moist. Press them into the bottom of your foiled 9x13 and put it in the freezer while your oven preheats. Once your oven is ready, wrap the bottom and sides of your pan in foil and bake that crust for 12-14 minutes, until it's browned and set.

While it's cooling, cook your apples. Melt 2 tbsp. of your butter and cook half the apples for about 3 minutes, throwing a tablespoon of brown sugar and cooking until they're browned. Put on a plate and repeat with the other half.

Once your apples are cooked, let them cool while you make the filling. Start by beating the cream cheese until it's really smooth. Add in the sugars and beat until combined. Add in the cider, vanilla, and cinnamon and beat. Add in the eggs, one at a time, beat one minute between each egg. Finally, beat the sour cream and heavy cream in until everything's smooth and there are no lumps. It looks delicious.

Pour 1/3 of the filling onto the crust, then layer in the apples. If you have too many, you can put the rest on the top once it cools. But don't weigh down your filling. Pour the rest of the filling on top.

Then, follow the baking instructions below. It's a little complicated, but totally, totally worth it. And then, maybe later, play a board game that looks like this:

Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake Bars

Adapted heavily from Joy the Baker

Crust:

60 Gingersnap cookies

3 tbsp. light brown sugar

1 tsp. cinnamon

8 tbsp. butter, melted

Apples:

4 tbsp. butter

3 Golden Delicious or Fuji Apples, sliced thin

2 tbsp. light brown sugar

Filling:

1 1/2 lbs. cream cheese, room temperature

3/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar

6 tbsp. sugar

3 tbsp. apple cider

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 tsp. cinnamon

3 eggs

3/4 sour cream

1/3 cup heavy cream

Crust:

Line a 9x13 pan with foil with some overhanging on either end. Put the gingersnaps in a food processor or blender and pulse until the cookies are crumbs. Add in the sugar and cinnamon and pulse until mixed. Add in the butter and pulse until the crumbs are moistened.

Put the crumbs into the pan and press them into the bottom of the pan. Put the pan into the freezer while you preheat the oven. Turn the oven on to 350°. Once it's ready, take the pan out of the freezer and wrap the bottom of the pan in aluminum foil and up the sides. Put it into the oven and bake it for about 14-15 minutes, until the crust it set and browned.

 

 

Set the crust aside to cool while you make the apples. Leave the oven on.

Apples:

Melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a large skillet. Once it's not foaming anymore, add half the apples and let them cook for 3 minutes, turning them once. Sprinkle them with 1 tablespoon of the brown sugar and cook until they're browned.

 

 

Spoon onto a plate and repeat with the other half of the apples. Set the apples aside to cool while you make the filling.

Filling:

Beat the cream cheese for 4 minutes, until it is light and fluffy. Add the sugars and beat for another 2 minutes. Add the vanilla extract, the apple cider, and the cinnamon.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating one minute between each egg. Finally, beat in the sour cream and the heavy cream. Make sure the mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.

 

 

Pour one third of the filling onto the crust. Layer in the apples- not too many, you don't want to weigh down your filling. Then pour the rest of the filling on top. Place the 9x13 into a roasting pan and fill the roasting pan with boiling water, so that it comes halfway up the side of the 9x13.

 

 

Bake for a little over an hour, until only the middle jiggles. Cut up and serve! And take a break, you deserve it.