Blossom Hollow » dessert

Red Velvet Cake

Tracy — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:12:52 +0000

In my family, this tends to be used as a birthday cake but any occasion is reason enough to try it. Typically we do not make it using the full amount of red food coloring. If you choose to cut back on the red food coloring you will need to add water for the amount of red food coloring you don’t use (so if you use one ounce of coloring you will still need to add one ounce of water).

Cake Batter
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 oz red food coloring
2 level tablespoons of cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/4 cups flour
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Beat the shortening, sugar, eggs, food coloring, cocoa, salt, buttermilk and flour to create batter. Then mix together the vinegar and baking soda then stir into the batter – do not beat. Pour the batter into two 9-inch round pans that have been greased and floured. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Insert a toothpick into center of cake to check if it fully baked. If batter sticks to the toothpick it is not ready to be removed from oven.
Once removed allow the cakes to cool for about five minutes an then turn cake out onto wire cooling racks.

Icing
1 cup sugar
1 cup crisco
1 cup milk
5 scant tablespoons of flour (do not use cornstarch)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Beat together the sugar and crisco. Then cook the milk and flour until thick; allow it to cool and then blend in the sugar and crisco mix. Stir in the vanilla. Spread on to cooled cake.

5 Cup Salad

Tracy — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 23:07:28 +0000

Ok, so this one is self explanatory but my grandmother used to makes this on a semi-frequent basis and I can get hungry for it at times. Very easy to make and it’s not hard to try to remember the ingredients.

1 cup sour cream
1 cup crushed pineapple
1 cup miniature marshmallows (if my memory serves me correctly she always used the colored variety pack)
1 cup shredded sweetened coconut
1 cup mandarin oranges

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Tracy — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 20:15:44 +0000

I made this for my brother’s birthday and added a special ingredient of the seeds from one vanilla bean. While they are expensive I recommend buying in bulk if you have the opportunity. Then once you scrape the bean throw the pod in a Mason jar and fill with sugar to make your own vanilla sugar. This works very well and re-flavors the sugar when you keep adding new sugar to the jar. Plus you can give it as a gift.

Crust:
1 1/2 Cups Graham Cracker (One pack plus two crackers smashed)
1/4 Cup Sugar
4 Tbsp Butter

Combine ingredients and press in bottom of spring form pan.

Filling:
3 8 oz. Packages of Cream Cheese (room temp.)
1 1/2 Cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 19 oz. can pumpkin
2 Tsp vanilla
1/4 Tsp. Nutmeg
2 Tsp Cinnamon
1/2 Tsp. Ginger

Blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add eggs, pumpkin and rest of ingredients one at a time until batter is well blended. Pour over crust, bake at 350º for 45 minutes. Turn off oven and leave in for another hour. Remove from oven and let stand for two hours. Refrigerate. (The original recipe said to bake for 35 minutes but it was not long enough so I am recommending 45.)

Apple Pie

Tracy — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 01:43:35 +0000

Call me un-American if you want, but apple pie just isn’t on the top of my list of favorite pies. But, since I was asked to make one for a retirement party I am going to include the recipe for you to enjoy. I prefer to use a mix of apples instead of just using one kind. I only used two in this recipe, Jonagold and Golden Delicious, and because they were LARGE apples I actually got two 9-inch double crust pies and one 9-inch single crust pie out of this.

Crust:
1 C. Shortening
3 C. Flour
1 tsp. Salt
9 Tbsp. Cold Water

Filling:
12-16 Apples
1 1/2 C. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. Cinnamon
4 Tbsp. Butter
1/2 C. Flour

Cut shortening into flour and salt, using knives, pastry cutter or fingers into the consistency of a coarse meals. Add enough water to form a stiff dough. Divide dough into quarters and roll out to be slightly larger than a 9-inch pie dish. I rolled out the bottom crusts then covered the two remaining balls of dough in plastic wrap to roll out after I make the filling and filled the bottom crusts.

Core and pare the apples; cut into thin slices then into smaller pieces. No need to make it pretty. I threw all the apples into a large mixing bowl as I sliced them. Add the sugar, salt, cinnamon, and flour and stir well. (I used 14 apples, again they were very large apples – since it was obvious I had more apples than I needed for two pies I added another 1/8 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 C. sugar, and 1/4 C. flour to compensate) Fill the bottom pie crust with the apple filling. I piled them high and packed down just a little. Dot with butter then roll out the top crusts and cover. Trim off the excess dough and press the edges together. Bake 8-10 minutes at 450 degrees, then lower heat to 350 degrees and bake 30 to 45 minutes.

After trimming the double crust pies, I had enough dough to roll out one more crust. Then filled with the remaining apples. I cheated and used a packet of instant oatmeal, added a little butter then sprinkled on top.