Moist Pig Cake

Why's it called pig cake?  I dunno - that's what Ree Drummond named it - and I only relist her recipe her with a few adjustments because sometimes it's really difficult to scroll through her amazing photos because of the sheer volume.

Ingredients:
For cake:
14 oz can of mandarin oranges in light syrup, reserve 1/2 cup of the juice
1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1 softened stick of margarine
1 T vanilla

For frosting:
1 15 oz can of crushed pineapples, reserve juice (all of it!)
1 tub of cool whip
1/2 cup of powdered sugar
1 5 oz vanilla pudding mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Drain the mandarin oranges and use 1/2 cup of the juice to mix with the yellow cake mix, 4 eggs, stick of margarine, T of vanilla.  Then, add in the drained Mandarin oranges and mix until all crushed.  Grease a 9x13 baking dish/pan and then pour your mixture in.  Stick in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (when stuck in it).

Mix the frosting while the cake bakes by first mixing the pineapple juice and pudding mix.  Add in the powdered sugar, about 1/2 of the cool whip (a few gigantic dollups, add more if you wish), and lastly - the crushed pineapple.  Mix for a few minutes.

Once the cake cools, frost it.  This cake is sooo delicious!  It tastes sooo moist and fruity!  For some aesthetic viewing, add a mandarin orange on top of each slice.

Blue Velvet Cupcakes and Piping Tricks!

I am not a baker.  So when I saw blue velvet cupcakes on Pinterest, though it sparked my interest.. there was absolutely no desire to try them, only eat them.  The problem with that is.. who is going to make 'em for me?  I suppose... me.  *le sigh.

With football season starting and our team being blue... this was the perfect time to try them.  So Jordan and I got all the ingredients in place and we attempted to make cupcakes and pipe them.  We even went so far as to purchasing a big fat 2M star piping tip from JoAnn Fabric for about $2.  I am usually not a fan of messy things but after learning my piping trick (see below), I am all about piping now.  If only I could get the texture of the icing right. ...

Here's the cake part.  There are spaces in between the ingredients that correspond with the instructions, it just helps me for future repeat cupcake making.

Cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter, room temperature

2 eggs

1 T cocoa powder

1T blue Wilton food coloring (icing color or something)

1 dab of Wilton violet (I did this but mine still came out bright blue, which I kinda liked anyway)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 t salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 t vanilla extract

1/2 t baking soda

1 T vinegar

Instructions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Cream sugar and butter, then mix in one egg at a time (mix after each egg)

Separately, mix cocoa and food coloring into a paste.

Add to sugar mixture and mix well.

Sift flour and salt, then add to colored sugar mixture alternating buttermilk as well.

Add in vanilla extract, mix.

Separately, combine baking soda and vinegar.  Then add to batter and mix.

Fill cupcake liners 2/3 and bake for about 20-25 minutes.  Mine were ready around 23 minutes.  And I made 28 total (but a few were runt looking.. )

This is how you do it Mom...

Watch me!

The ingredients.. and one cute boy!

The cocoa powder and icing dye (which Jordan is holding)

up close and personal (great movie!)

I'm blue dadeeeba doooo daba do badee ba doo doo

it's blue alright!

Frosting

Ingredients:

2 sticks of butter

2 of the 8 oz cream cheese packages (I always use light)

4 cups of powdered sugar

1 t vanilla extract

Instructions: Mix butter and cream cheese until mixed and fluffy, add vanilla, then slowly add sifted powdered sugar all while mixing.  If not thick enough for piping, add more powdered sugar.  

Piping Trick:

This is my absolute favorite thing to do because it's clean and makes piping fun (I hate messes... I'm the girl who is cleaning her bowls in between the cake and frosting because I'm anal like that).  

You will need saran wrap, a freezer size ziploc bag, scissors, and your piping tip!

1) Begin by laying a piece of saran wrap on the counter top - I usually tear one about 8 x 15.  

2) Scoop up some of your frosting into the middle of the saran wrap.

3) Wrap the icing the long way (hot dog) 

 4) Now take the sides and holding it, start to toss the icing around until it wraps up like a piece of candy, like this:

 5) Taking scissors, cut one side of the wrapped candy like icing, and one corner of your ziploc bag.

 6) Now place the cut part of the wrapped icing, and place it into the ziploc bag, after placing the piping tip into the hole you cut in the ziploc bag.
I used a 2M Wilton tip (but the inscribing says 2D), found in the baking aisle at my local JoAnn Fabric!

 

Should look like this:

 7) Now ... you pipe!  And no mess!!!  SOOO awesome.

I'm still learning how to get the icing the right texture to pipe.  I think you need more powdered sugar to make it stiffer?! Bah, who knows.  It's a Mone!... looks good from far (but far from good).

8) When you're done... you'll have an almost empty thing of saran wrap to just dispose of. Like this:

I'm not crafty, I'm just cheap.  

They tasted pretty good!

Love me some potlucking....

 And kids running around...

And husbands standing to watch their game intensely while the kids ask if they can go home now

 And leftover cupcakes for breakfast.

And blue poop for days.  No photo of that one.  Sorry, maybe next time. 

Bread Pudding Flan?

I didn't have enough eggs last night to make a large (9 x 12) pan of bread pudding, so I reduced the recipe by half and attempted to used 1.5 eggs (go figure) and ended up using more egg whites... the result was a weird combination of semi bread pudding on top and flan on the bottom!

Here's how I made it:

2.5 cups of sugar
1 t vanilla
4 egg yolks
1 egg and 2 egg whites
1 8oz can of coconut milk

I used 12 Hawaiian rolls, cut them in half (as if you were making sliders) and placed the bottoms into a 9x9 Pyrex dish.  I then poured half of the well beated mixture above over the 12 halves in the pan... put the tops on and then used the rest of the mixture.

Cook for 45 minutes at 350 degrees with a piece of foil covered... then remove the foil and cook for another 45 minutes.

The result is flan-tastic!

Pumpkin Pie Milkshake!

I made some pumpkin alfredo and unfortunately for me, the pumpkin in a cans come so large... I had to make some pumpkin pie milkshake with the leftovers!

2 cups milk

2 cups vanilla ice cream

1 t cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1T brown sugar

1/4 cup whip cream

3/4 cup pumpkin from a can

Add a few dollups of whip cream on top and...perfection.