Bizzerko remake

My husband and I are a bit obsessed with Amy's Ice Cream if we ever happen to be in Texas. In particular, they have a flavor, I don't know the exact name, with Bizzerko in the title. It is amazing. Amazing as in the best ice cream flavor I can remember having. I liked it best with a teeny bit of Chunky Natural Peanut Butter mixed in.

So that I don't have to go to Texas and hope this flavor is featured to get another taste of this, I'm going to attempt to replicate it for my husband's birthday. Since I don't have an ice cream maker, I'm going to have to do this by mixing what I think are the key elements into store-bought vanilla.

The elements are:
Cream cheese/cheesecake
Hazelnuts
A teeny bit of cinnamon
Graham Crackers
Pecan Praline

So in the name of "science" I'm actually going to try 3 things:
1) Make a cheesecake with all of these elements and mix into ice cream. I'm going to use this crust with a bit of cinnamon added in and the filling from this cheesecake with hazelnut in place of most of the peanut butter.
2) Since I loved the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cream Cheese Bars from Bakingblonde so much, I am going to make some, but use the crust from above. Instead of chocolate chips in the dough, I'll use hazelnut butter, and top with the extra pecans from the crust. I'll bake as cupcakes again.
3) Make this cream cheese, but use hazelnut butter instead of hazelnuts, and add a bit of cinnamon. Make these Praline Pecan Squares, and pulse in food processor. Mix both into ice cream.

I cannot wait to bake, taste test, and help pick the winner!

Lucky Charms Cupcakes

I wanted a St. Patrick's themed treat for my niece, nephew, and sister who are coming tonight for a sleepover.

Because my husband and I both still have a soft-spot for the cereals of our youth, I was sold on idea of Lucky Charms Cupcakes from the Cupcake Project.

However, I couldn't wrap my mind around the homemade corn syrup and homemade Lucky Charms. For one, I'm trying to be a little less crazy with the time I spend in the kitchen. For another, as a born and raised Midwestern girl, I could not get my mind around corn on the cob in March.

So I went the lazy way, and just followed the ideas from the Cupcake Project:
1) I used the Lucky Charms crust (doubled) in the recipe. However, I left lots of the marshmallows in the cereal mix (store-bought), only taking out some for the cupcake topping. I realized after I got the crust in the food processor that it turned an eery green. My husband taste-tested just the crust, and said it was delicious so I proceeded. Once I tasted the crust baked on the cupcake I also loved it, and I think the marshmallows must have added to the chewy sweetness. So if you do remove all marshmallows to avoid a funky color, maybe replace them with chopped white mini-marshmallows?

The doubled crust recipe filled 24 cupcakes + 4 star shaped cupcakes in my silicone mold.

2) I folded 2+ cups of Lucky Charms into the prepared batter of a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix.

The batter with the extra cereal filled 24 cupcakes + 6 stars, but the cupcakes were not overly-filled (I could have made fewer, bigger cupcakes).

3) Normally I love chocolate frosting on yellow cupcakes. So I made the sticky chocolate icing, that I've mentioned here before.

My husband and I each tried 1) a quarter of a cupcake with the sticky chocolate, and 2) a quarter of a cupcake with this buttercream frosting, leftover from yesterday's brownie pie.

The buttercream won hands down!!!

So I frosted the rest with green buttercream and topped with the reserved Lucky Charms marshmallows.

Next up? If I have the energy after the sleepover, I'll make the kids either green or rainbow pancakes for St. Patrick's day tomorrow!

Frosted Oreo Brownie Pie

With my husband home on spring break and lots of recent family gatherings, I have a few new recipes to share before I forget what I did!:
The first:
Frosted Oreo Brownie Pie
A) I used this Oreo crust recipe.
I made 1.5 times the crust recipe, and used a 9" in pie plate + 1 cupcake to bake these in (that way my husband and I got to try these the night before!!!)
B) I used the Betty Crocker Brownie mix with the syrup pouch. I also added a bit more (maybe around 2 tbls. ?? Hershey's syrup), and a few handfuls of chopped semi-sweet chocolate chips (mini would have been perfect) folded into the batter.
C) I layered half the batter into the pans, and then spread about 5 crushed Oreos over the batter, topped with the remaining batter, and baked until a toothpick barely came clean (no idea how long this was!)
D) I put a thin layer of this buttercream, a new favorite, on top of the brownies the same night they were baked. The frosting was quickly melting so I covered up the brownies, and made a nice, thin smooth layer of frosting on top the next day.

It was absolutely sinful (maybe the wrong dessert for a confirmation dinner??) and delicious! But it was super rich, so it is best enjoyed with a scoop of ice cream.

Lemon Tahini dressing

This dressing is AMAZING. I literally licked the food processor clean after making this!
Recipe is from Oh She Glows:
Lightened Up Protein Power Goddess Bowl

I haven't made the protein power bowl, just the dressing. I put it on green salads and steamed veggies, and since I am a meat eater, on top of grilled fish, chicken, seriously anything would taste good with this stuff on top!

I made mine with no water, 2 tbls. olive oil, almost 3/4 c. lemon juice, 1/3 c tahini, 4 garlic cloves and 1/3 c. nutritional yeast.

I also wanted to post today because I saw a quote on a food blog I had to share:
"Remember, a balanced meal is a cookie in each hand!" - Anonymous

Of course, my husband added--And a cookie in your mouth!

Lemon goodies for my mom's retirement party!

Filled this cake from smittenkitchen (made lemon with some lemon extract and lemon zest) with lemon curd made using this recipe for lemon curd and this method from Joy of Baking. I made some as mini cupcakes filled with the lemon curd and topped with Ina Garten's cream cheese frosting from her amazing Pineapple and Carrot Cake mixed with seedless raspberry preserves.

I also made some in a 9 in spring form pan, sliced in two layers, with the lemon curd mixed with the seedless raspberry preserves in between the two layers, topped with a simple buttercream.

The layer cake version was best, but honestly for the cake part, a yellow cake mix with the lemon adaptation would beat my implementation of the smittenkitchen recipe. Don't know what I did wrong.

However, my mom's good old lemon bars topped all of this.

Brownie Stuffed Cookies

This idea is AMAZING inside the peanut butter dough from my mom's kiss cookies (with any varieties of mix ins). Actually the idea makes any cookie that pairs well with chocolate incredibly moist.

Texas Cake Batter Cookie Dough Ice Cream Cupcake

To spare the readers of The Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious who are hosting the online ice cream cupcake contest, I relegated my very long winded explanation of the development of these cupcakes into a separate post. Here, I will just post the mouth watering photos and recipes.

I say recipes, because this dessert is really several desserts in one:



1) Make an edible chocolate wrapper

2) Make Texas sheet cake and its accompanying frosting, and put an appropriately sized circle of this miracle cake into the bottom of the chocolate shell/wrapper

3) Make edible macadamia nut butterscotch cookie dough (my favorite cookie flavor combination), and flatten into an appropriately sized circle and place this on top of the cake



4) Smush the cookie dough down onto the cake a bit because you want more ice cream to fit in your chocolate wrapper!

I cannot even tell where the frosting ends and the cookie dough begins...



5) Make cake batter sprinkle ice cream. This is the easiest and arguably the best part! Place a scoop of cake batter sprinkle ice cream on top of the dough. This picture was a couple of days after I made the cupcakes, because the ice cream needed to recover from my 100 degree kitchen!



Be thankful if your house is less than 100 degrees and the ice cream is not melted by the time you can stick a spoon in it:



6) Make hot fudge sauce and sticky chocolate icing. Mix equal parts to create a chocolate sauce that is a bit less dark than the hot fudge sauce.

7) Drizzle (ahem pour!) this on top of the ice cream!



8) Enjoy! But, to spare yourself a food coma, enjoy with a friend.



Also, these are best eaten when they are first made. Then the cake is warm and gooey and so is the chocolate sauce, to perfectly offset the cool ice cream.

Recipes!!

Edible Chocolate Wrapper
I got the idea for this from Made with Pink's ice cream cupcake post.
However, lacking candy melts and silicone baking cups, I could not follow that recipe so well. I looked up recipes for homemade magic shell. These used chocolate chips and some form of butter, oil or shortening, so I ran with that idea. I used jumbo aluminum foil cupcake wrappers instead of the silicone baking cups, and these actually worked quite well.

Ingredients:
1 bag's worth of chocolate chips (I used half milk and half semi-sweet)
1 tbsp of butter
About 1 tbsp. canola oil

Combine ingredients in a double boiler and stir until melted. Use a spoon to spread the melted chocolate thickly all over the inside of the cupcake wrapper. Place in refrigerator until well chilled and hardened before unwrapping.

It works best to leave the wrapper on while you fill the edible chocolate wrapper, to prevent your fingers from melting the chocolate:



Oh no! I had wanted to unwrap these with my mouth!!!

Texas Sheet Cake and Frosting
Texas Sheet Cake


Macadamia Nut Butterscotch Safe to Eat Raw Cookie Dough



As the dough base, I used the dough from the Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Cookie, substituting for the egg and egg yolk with:
3 tbls milk, 1.5 tbsp melted butter, and 1.5 tsp baking powder
You may need to add a bit extra milk at the end.
I don't know exactly the ratio of macadiama nuts to butterscotch chips to dough that I used. You can adjust this to taste, and since the dough is safe, taste to your heart's desire!



Cake Batter Sprinkle Ice Cream




Coldstone's cake batter ice cream is my favorite ice cream. Thus, it was obvious my submission required cake batter ice cream. Unfortunately this is not very common in grocery stores, and I have no Coldstone ANYWHERE near me. I also lack an ice cream maker, so I had to improvise.

Ingredients

2 quarts vanilla ice cream (I used 1.5 Quarts of Dean's and a pint of vanilla from my local ice cream shop)
1 yellow cake mix (I used Duncan Hines Moist Deluxe Yellow Cake Mix)
Rainbow Sprinkles to taste

Mix together. I used my Kitchen Aid mixer until the cake mix was distributed throughout the ice cream (no lumps). Using the full box of cake mix provides a VERY strong cake batter flavor. Just like eating yellow cake batter with a creamy ice cream texture. And since I am not afraid of salmonella (perhaps irrationally), I have plenty of experience with yellow cake batter.

However, you can add the cake mix slowly and have some tastes here and there to get the flavor YOU like most! This is actually what I did.

I also just added sprinkles until I reached a distribution that looked appealing. Enough sprinkles to notice, not enough to mess with the cake batter flavor.

Finally, because there just wasn't enough chocolate on the top half of this ice cream cupcake:

Chocolate Sauce


I set out to make Smitten Kitchen's Hot Fudge Sauce.
I have made this before and really liked it. My husband, a dark chocolate lover, loved it this time too. However, I thought it was a bit too dark to go well with the other parts of the cupcake. Because I also had some extra cupcakes from my experimenting while deciding on the final recipe, I decided to also make an amended version of Pioneer Woman's Sticky Chocolate Icing. I mixed equal parts of both for the final sauce.


This one is too cold -- right out of the fridge



Oh yea, that's better:



Smitten Kitchen's Hot Fudge Sauce
I used 1/2 tbsp. vanilla rather than the suggested tablespoon of rum.

Pioneer Woman's Sticky Chocolate Icing
This time, I used the whole can of sweetened condensed milk, some butterscotch chips (a handful), and about 10-12 oz. semi-sweet chips, as well as the original 2 tbsp. of butter.

And finally, if you choose to make these when it is 96 degrees outside with no air conditioning, be ready for a puddle:



Best puddle I've ever tasted!

Melted Ice Cream Cupcake Contest -- the extended version

In one of my many recipe-related quests through several of my favorite recipe blogs, I stumbled upon an ice cream cupcake contest, posted on The Cupcake Project and Scoopalicious.

The contest requires submitting a recipe and photo of an original ice cream cupcake. This contest had the potential to involve so many of my favorite things AND did not require going anywhere to submit it! This was enough to inspire me to both spend a full night in the kitchen experimenting to find the perfect concoction for my entry. I also decided to finally make my blog public so that I can submit a full blog post detailing the endeavor, rather than just a final photo and recipe.

As has been the case with many of my recent baking nights, I went a bit overboard. I won't beleaguer you with all of the details, but just to give you an idea, chocolate cupcakes from a mix, peanut butter safe-to-eat-raw cookie dough, chocolate cake batter ice cream, and various mix ins for the cookie dough were all "cut" from my final cupcake.

Unfortunately, all of this tasting left me and my taste tester/photographer/husband too full to finish one of the final products on the night I made them. Actually, these cupcakes are so full of all of my favorite dessert items that even on an empty stomach I would recommend sharing (it is really about 3 servings of dessert jammed into one).

Another unfortunate mishap is that work obligations meant that I only had free time for a baking frenzy on a 96 degree day! We only have one window AC in our 2 bedroom apartment at this point. It is in the dog's room (where we leave him when we go to work--talk about spoiled), not the kitchen. 96 degrees + no AC + baking at 350 degrees makes ice cream photos a near impossibility. So the final submission photo is actually from a few days later, once the ice cream had time to fully harden in the freezer, and my kitchen cooled off.

I love all things uncooked-give me a taste of any dough or batter and I am in heaven. I am not afraid of raw eggs, but for the sake of food safety nuts who might want to try this recipe, the only component of this recipe with eggs is the fully cooked Texas Sheet Cake at the bottom. Now, to spare the readers of The Cupcake Project who just want to see the cupcake photos and recipe, I posted the recipes, most of the photos, and my official entry in a separate post.

However, to get you to click onto this next post, here is a glimpse of what's in store:



On top of the Texas sheet cake and accompanying frosting is a layer of macadamia nut-butterscotch cookie dough. This is topped with cake batter rainbow sprinkle ice cream, and finished off with a home made chocolate sauce. Oh, and last but not least, this was all contained in an edible chocolate wrapper that was also quite problematic in the sauna that was my kitchen.

recent endeavors

http://smittenkitchen.com/2006/11/speckled-for-the-freckled/

At first I thought this was not as good as mom's tried and true. But a day in the fridge allowed the flavors to blend and it got so unbelievable moist. I used nearly 4 bananas. Mine could have used a day or so to get even riper though (were as speckled as the ones in the picture).

Greek Yogurt Frosting:

Had to add some butter and powdered sugar. Eventually got it right, but if you are going for frosting, just do cream cheese (Ina Garten's from Carrot and Pineapple Cake is awesome).

Also, that is the best carrot cake recipe. Tried to use the 101cookbooks recipe, but let's be honest, cake without sugar is just not worth it. Had to add sugar, oil and carrots till the batter achieved near Ina quality.

2-3 tbls milk, 1 tsp oil, and 1 tsp baking powder in the kiss cookie dough recipe to make it safe. Excellent taste but cookies just the teeniest bit flat.

2-3 tbls milk, 1 tbls butter, 2 tsp just whites in the toll house choc. chip cookie dough batter. Excellent taste but cookies just the teeniest bit flat.

Cake balls are not worth it unless you had a failure (if your cupcakes or brownies are not moist enough).

Cookie dough cupcakes I thought at first were bad (when straight out of the oven) but turns out once cooled in the fridge so the cookie dough achieves cookie dough texture, it is quite a neat surprise (I did the PB dough in a yellow cupcake).

Tasty Kitchen's "that's the best frosting you'd ever had" is SO not. Too much like whipped cream consistency.

Pioneer Woman's brownies from the salted caramel brownie are not as good as a box mix (I've switched to Ghiradelli because no partially hydrogenated oil, but honestly these are not as good as betty crocker's triple chocolate chunk brownies).

Nutella brownies http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/08/4-ingredients-nutella-brownies/ were easy but not great.


German chocolate frosting is amazing.

Cake batter mixed with ice cream == heaven.

recent endeavors to remember

Recent: too much cooking as usual.

Do not make roasted chicken ever again.

This dressing was very good:
http://smittenkitchen.com/2007/03/recipe-liberation-day/

Majorly changed the main bit of the recipe, basically ended up as my barley toasted with roasted zucchini and eggplant, tomatoes, onion and tons of basil. Very good though.

best meatballs:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Meatball-Nirvana/Detail.aspx

fresh spinach (not baby) can taste good in a salad. rub with lemon or lime juice, bit of salt and olive oil to soften texture and super green taste.

Sangria

I amended this drink mixer recipe for Sangria.

With amendments:
1 jug of sangria
About 250 ml diet sprite.
200 ml lemonade
orange juice to taste
2 tbsp. sugar
cut in cubes melons
canned crushed pineapple with juice
slices of oranges, limes, lemon
diced apples
cut in cubes strawberries

It doesn't need the ice if served cold -- just gets watery!!!

Cranberry Berry Apple Pie

I used Pioneer Woman's Pie Crust with 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour since I ran out of flour. It turned out very good. However, when divided in 3, the recipe barely makes enough for the pie plate -- don't expect high edges or a thick crust.

I thought cranberries would be only as tart as rhubarb but I was wrong. For the filling I used 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice, 3/4 c. sugar, 3 tbsp. flour, along with 6 c of the fruits. A little less than 1 c. of this was chopped cranberries.

The crumb topping was an amendment to the crumb topping under the Betty Crocker recipe for Rhubarb Pie. I used 3/4 c. sugar, 1/2 c. white whole wheat flour, 1 tsp cinnamon, sprinkle of pumpkin pie spice, some chopped walnuts, a little less than 1/2 c. quick oats, and 5 tbsp of butter. This was quite good.

25 min with foil around the edges, 25 min with foil removed. Was a couple minutes too long---top got a little brown.

Pioneer Woman Big Steak Salad Review

This was probably the only recipe of Pioneer Woman's I would not make again.

The marinade for the steaks was not very strong once cooked. The taste of the dressing/marinade was delicious, but you definitely need to drizzle more on the steak after it is cooked.

We used ribeye. This is not my favorite type of steak. I think I would rather have the cheap sirloin kind.

While the dressing was delicious, it didn't really go with the toppings on the salad. It was more of an Asian style dressing -- the candied pecans (I used walnuts) were especially out of place. I also reaffirmed I do not like bleu cheese. I had to use just the white bit without any blue streaks.

better than in mom's cookbook?

Quaker's Chewy Choc-Oat-Chip Cookies

More flour, less salt. More brown sugar, less white.

Chicken Marsala

Combo of these two recipes is amazing. Used 14 c. baby portabella relative to less than 3 lbs chicken breasts (weighed uncooked). Still wanted more mushrooms/sauce relative to chicken. Used about 2/3 of the required chicken broth, and used a bit of cooking sherry as in the Allrecipes version.

Emeril

Allrecipes

So cool!

I will never shuck or boil corn on the cob again!

Just trim off the brown strings/dry bits of husk at the end of the corn, leaving the husk enclosed around the corn.

If your corn is old or very dry, you can soak the corn husks and all in water for 15-20 min.

Pop in a 350 degree oven for 30 min, and voila, delicious corn on the cob, complete with a wrapper to use as a handle!

Oven Roasted Corn on the Cob from the Food Network

Sticky Chocolate Icing

This frosting is AMAZING. It is not the texture of a chocolate buttercream. Fresh made it is sticky and gooey. It will harden up a bit depending on the room temperature (it will definitely set up in the fridge). It is still good after several days in the fridge, and even after going in the freezer and thawing. I did not try to pipe this.

Because I followed exactly Pioneer Woman's recipe and she has lots of excellent step-by-step photos and instructions, I am just linking you to her recipe.

Cupcake Graveyard

One of the things I actually did end up making for my sister's massive Halloween party was cupcakes. I came across this idea from Allrecipes for a Cupcake Graveyard, so I followed this idea for the decorations. I was experimenting, so I tried both Pioneer Woman's Sticky Chocolate Icing, and the Chocolate Chip Icing in my mom's recipe book. The former was AMAZING, but the latter was not a great consistency until I added quite a bit of melted chocolate, butter, milk and powdered sugar, thus totally altering the recipe. So I will not post that recipe for you.

I went WAY overboard on the number of cupcakes and cookies (some were made into ghosts and pumpkins too) I made. The photos linked here are just a small portion of the huge number I made. I also got a new set of pastry decorating tips and bags so I had a bit too much fun with frosting at 3 AM!!!!

I made both chocolate and yellow cupcakes. Because I was making these along with texas sheet cake, pumpkin bars, and all of the decorating and cookie cutting, I thought this would be a great chance to use the cake mixes languishing at the back of my cupboard (hopefully for the last time).

I used the Triple Chocolate Chunk cake mix from Betty Crocker which was quite good. I also used a Betty Crocker Butter Yellow cake mix which was not my favorite (I don't tend to like cake mixes that use butter). I used sugar cookie dough that I had frozen from a few weeks before. I simply let the dough warm up a bit in the fridge, and then used a knife to cut out the tombstones. I also had some pumpkin shaped, orange York peppermint patties which I used to top some of the cupcakes with the Sticky Chocolate Icing. That was a delicious combo.

Texas Sheet Cake

This is an old family favorite. Straight from my mom's cookbook. Above, it is decorated for my brother-in-law's birthday, which falls dangerously close to Halloween.

Cake Ingredients:

2 c. sugar

2 c. flour

1/2 tsp. salt

2 sticks butter

1 c. water

4 tbsp. cocoa

2 eggs

1/2 c. sour cream (light sour cream is just fine, and it also works to combine 1 tbsp. white vinegar and skim milk)

1 tsp. soda

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. cinnamon

Cake directions:

1. Sift the 2 c. white sugar, 2 c. flour, and 1/2 tsp. salt into your KitchenAid mixing bowl (sifting doesn't appear to be necessary, from my experience).

2. Put 2 sticks of butter, 1 c. water, and 4 tbsp. cocoa in a non-stick skillet on medium. Bring to a boil VERY carefully. Do not move from this pan. Stir frequently, turning over the sticks of butter, and once they are soft enough breaking them up, so that they will melt through. Also run you wooden spoon around the edges quite frequently to prevent the cocoa from hiding there and burning. As SOON as it starts to bubble, remove from heat, continuing to stir until you pour the mixture out of the hot skillet. Usually, you will know if you've burnt the mixture-the cocoa will be clumpy, and it will smell. However, I always take a taste to make sure the mixture has not been burnt, because if it is, it will ruin the whole cake.

ALTERNATE METHOD FROM PIONEER WOMAN (might help prevent unfortunate burning incidents, although I have never tried this):

Melt the 2 sticks of butter in the saucepan on medium. While it melts, boil 1 cup water. Once the butter is melted, add the 4 tbsp. of cocoa (all with the heat still on) and stir to combine. Then add the boiling water. Let bubble 30 seconds. Remove from heat.

Her recipe with photos is here. However, be warned that you should still follow the ingredients in my recipe, because she omits the essential cinnamon. Also, she almost doubles the amount of butter you want in the frosting.

3. As soon as the cocoa, water, butter mixture bubbles and melts, pour it into the KitchenAid bowl with the flour, sugar and salt. Mix well with the KitchenAid.

4. Add 2 eggs, 1/2 c. sour cream, 1 tsp. soda, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 tsp. cinnamon. Mix again until everything is combined, using a spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to incorporate all ingredients.

5. Pour into a greased cookie sheet pan (Pam is fine). Commercial baking sheets are the best.

6. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Frosting Ingredients

1 stick butter

4 tbsp. cocoa

6 tbsp. milk

1 lb. bag powdered sugar (I do this by eye until the consistency is right-- it is less than one bag)

1 tsp. vanilla

Frosting Directions

1. Dump (or sift, if you've got oodles of free time) half of the bag of powdered sugar into your KitchenAid bowl. Add the 1 tsp vanilla.

2. Using the method described in step 2 of the cake preparation (except for with only 1 stick of butter, and 6 tbsp. of milk rather than 1 c. of water). All of the necessary DON'T BURN THE CHOCOLATE warnings still apply.

Again, you can use Pioneer Woman's method, although I haven't tested it. For the frosting, her method is to:

Melt the stick of butter in the saucepan on medium. Once the butter is melted, add the 4 tbsp. of cocoa (all with the heat still on) and stir to combine. Allow mixture to start bubbling. Once it starts, allow to bubble 30 seconds ONLY. Turn off the heat. Then add the 6 tbsp. milk.

3. Pour the chocolate mix from frosting step # 2 over the ingredients in your KitchenAid bowl. Mix using the wire beater attachment. Use spatula to scrape down sides and bottom. No need to beat the frosting -- we are just trying to combine ingredients here.

4. Add more powdered sugar as needed, until the mixture is nicely pourable but not runny. Notice my version of the frosting is a bit more pourable than Pioneer Woman's because of the reduced butter.

5. Pour all over the cake while the cake is still warm and still in the pan (I usually let the cake rest only 5-10 minutes before getting the frosting on top).

Pouring the frosting over the warm cake allows the frosting to seep into the cake, and results in moist perfection!

Maid-rites

This is a cross between my mom's stand by recipe for Maid-rites (this is an Iowa thing, more commonly known as sloppy joes) and Pioneer Woman's version of Sloppy Joes.

Basically, I like the extra kick of flavor that Pioneer Woman adds.

Ingredients

1 lb. ground beef (I use very lean ground beef)

1/2 of a large onion, chopped

1 garlic clove (crushed)

1/4 of a bell pepper, chopped

1/3 of a small hot pepper (serrano or jalapeno)

1 c. ketchup (minus 1 tbsp.)

1.5 tbsp. tomato paste

1 tsp. mustard

1 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

2 drop hot sauce or 1/8 tsp. ground habanero pepper

A few grinds of black pepper

.5 tsp. crushed red pepper

.5 tsp. chili powder

A grind of sea salt (optional)

Directions

1. Brown the ground beef.

When I did this, I used SIX POUNDS of beef. Below you can see, that is ALOT of beef.

Here, the meat is all browned up, but look at that fatty juice it is sitting in! Go to step 2 to remedy this.

2. Drain off some of the fat. I usually do this by putting an old jar or can on a plate in the sink. I then attempt to pour off the fat into the can, using a spatula or lid to keep the beef from falling out. I keep the clean plate under the can in case any big chunks of beef don't make it in the can. I can add these big pieces back into the pan, and then pour the splattered fat juice off of the plate into the can. Discard the fat (not down your drain).

3. Add the onion, garlic and peppers, and cook for a few minutes until they start to get soft.

4. Add the rest of the ingredients. Simmer for about 15 minutes until the sauce is reduced a bit and the onion is fully cooked.

5. Serve on toasted buns (even better with cheese!).

It was still a lot of meat once it was cooked: