12 Months 12 cakes: #11 Mixed Fruit Cobbler

I would rather write about the Christmas experience but I need to catch up with my November project entry.

Last month, my new try was the Loretta Fruit Cobbler Mix by Bektrom Foods Inc. Besides finding new recipes, I also enjoy experimenting with half ready cakes (mixes). They can be really convenient when you need to make a nice treat for an unexpected occasion/guests or simply when you want to make your life easy. 😀

What I used to make the cobbler:

1 jar - mixed fruit,
Loretta Fruit Cobbler Mix.

First try: I followed the recipe given by the mix manufacturer. The cobbler was tasty but only when it was fresh and warm. Next day, not really.

Second try: I followed all the steps of the given recipe given besides one thing. The instructions tell you to pour the melted butter onto the fruits and then cover it all with the batter/cobbler mix. I stirred the melted butter into the batter (cobbler mix) and spread it all on the fruits (which had been placed in a greased tin of course).
The results were much better. The cobbler was crispier than before and was still tasty even 2 days later.

I stored it in the fridge and warmed up each piece in the microwave before serving. With a splash of whipped cream, the cobbler made quite a nice, and easy to make dessert.

Visit the Bektrom Foods Inc. page to see what the package of Loretta Fruit Cobbler Mix looks like.

Loretta Fruit Cobbler Mix price =$1 at Dollar Tree

12 Cakes 12 Months: Vanilla Bundt Cake

I have noticed recently, that, due to different life matters, I overlooked a couple of entries on my 12 Cakes 12 Months project. I had not skipped the idea of the project, no. Actually, I think of it quite often, trying to find a new, good cake recipe. High time to post some updates then.

In October, we had a vanilla bundt cake. It raised beautifully, was moistened and really, really tasty.

I called it vanilla cake as I did not have the coconut extract suggested in the recipe.
It is worth recommending anyway.

Good Dinner Biscuits

This is a very good recipe for dinner biscuits - I mentioned it already in one of my previous posts.
The biscuits are supposed to be Red Lobster-like ones.

My fancy biscuits cutter

However, it all depends how you make them.

1.  You can follow the recipe step by step and you get the bread which a bit reminds the one served at Red Lobster.
2. My favorite way - instead of brushing the biscuits after they are taken out of the oven, I damp them in the melted butter-and-garlic powder mix before the baking time and putting them on the tin.  Then, I bake them for about 17 minutes and the biscuits come out fluffy and very tasty.

Method #2 result

Olsouthrecipes.com is one of my favorite collection of the traditional southern recipes. It was also the site which I found very helpful while learning how to make some old fashioned and - so good - holiday dishes.

12 Months 12 Cakes: Coconut Pie

Our September choice was...............

this Old Fashioned Recipe for Coconut Cream Pie! 

I had never cooked a pudding from scratch. Although the recipe worked really well, I did not cook it on low heat. The mixture was heating so slowly that I would have been cooking it for hours. I set the oven at 3, then 4 and then 5. I did stir the pudding all the time so all was fine.

 

The pie was so wonderfully delicious! While making this wonderful pie, I followed the recipe step by step. I used a graham pie crust. However, I decided to cut down on calories and did not put a whipped cream topping layer on the pie. I sprayed it with some whipped cream instead.

The results - an exquisite dessert! Both of us like vanilla pudding based desserts and that recipe is a certainly a keeper.

Garlic and Butter Dinner Bread

Goes well with fried fish or pork chop dinner. Recipe here.

12 Months 12 Cakes: Blueberry Cake

The blueberry cake, which I made in August, was light and tasty. I used canned fruit instead of fresh ones, but the result was still great. Certainly, I will make it again, maybe with some other kind of fruit, though.

The original recipe comes from Alexandra's Kitchen. No, not mine, but Tobo liked it as well, so it will be made in our kitchen now and then.

New Baby in Family

Isn't it marvelous?

We love it! Well, it is not our baby though.....

Cute 'Ugglys' Creatures

This is our first and only (at least so far) part of the 'Ugglys Pets' collection. Some creatures are actually not ugly but rather cute. In our opinion, the Dopey Doberman is the cutest in this batch.

Well, guess what the little, green thing is supposed to be.............. :-)

Dopey Doberman

Our Anniversary Banana Trifle

This delightful dessert was our wedding anniversary treat.

I had come the banana pie filling by Musselman's and thought I would do something with that. I was not sure what exactly it could be good for though - I had never had a banana pie. Therefore, I decided to check the Musselman's website.

It appeared, they have quite a lot of various recipes there, including this banana trifle. Simply delicious! And easy to make, easier than traditional banana pudding.

Next time when I get the banana pie filling, I will probably give a banana pie a try, unless my husband prefers to have the trifle again. :-)

12 Cakes 12 Months: Pineapple Cake

The July cake is wonderful. Its frosting is light and tasty. Delicious!

I followed an old-fashioned, southern recipe by Mary Oxendine, except one thing. I did not have canned crushed pineapple, had pineapple in chunks only. That was why, I added sugar to the contents of the can (as the recipe says), then drained the pieces of the pineapple. After soaking the cake with the sweetened pineapple juice and frosting the lower cake round,  I put the fruit chunks on the frosted cake.
Next, I placed the other cake layer on it and frosted the entire cake, according to the recipe instructions.
The pineapple pieces very much add to the flavor of this great holiday dessert.

Thank you Mary for this superb recipe/cake!

You can read more entries on my 2016 project '12 Cakes 12 Months' here.

Our cake of July

Ciasto ananasowe według przepisu Mary Oxendine jest zaprawdę wspaniałe. Smaczniejsze niż przypuszczałam, że będzie, gdy po raz pierwszy czytałam wskazówki autorki bloga 'Old Fashioned Recipes'.

Biszkopt upiekłam w dużej tortownicy. Gdy był jeszcze ciepły po upieczeniu, przekroiłam ciasto na dwa krążki. W domu miałam tylko kawałki ananasa w puszce (zamiast rozdrobnionego ananasa jak zaleca przepis). Zawartość puszki przelałam do rondelka, dodałam cukier.

Po wymieszaniu, odsączyłam kawałki ananasa na sitku, a pozostałym syropem nasączyłam obydwa krążki ciasta. Było ono jeszcze wtedy ciepłe. Obawiałam się, że wyjdzie z tego klucha: gorący biszkopt i sok. Na szczęście nic takiego się nie stało, ciasto nie straciło swoich właściwości.

Dalej postępowałam zgodnie z instrukcjami przepisu. Przygotowałam krem i posmarowałam nim dolny krążek biszkoptu. Na to nałożyłam odsączone kawałki ananasa, po czym przykryłam 'nadzienie' drugim krążkiem. Obłożyłam wszystko kremem i już! Wspaniały deser na niedzielny/ świąteczny obiad. Krem z dodatkiem bitej śmietany jest lekki, nietłusty, nie za słodki - w sam raz. Cząstki ananasa w środku ciasta-tortu sprawiają, że jego smak jest jeszcze bardziej interesujący. Pyszny!

12 Months 12 Cakes: Coconut Disaster

This year I have been trying to make a new cake every month. With different results.

To be honest, my last try was a disaster. Here is a note on the unsuccessful attempt.

I had wanted to make a coconut cake for some time and finally I found that recipe for coconut pound loaf cake. Everything was OK till the baking time. To my disappointment, the temperature (300 F) given in the recipe was too low. I baked the bread for 1 hour and 15 minutes, according to the instructions. When I checked it, the cake was totally undone. I added 15 minutes more but later, the cake was still not ready.

All in all, the baking time took approximately 2 hours. However, opening the oven again and again totally spoilt the cake. Although it looked good from the outside, the inside was not eatable at all. I had to throw it away. What a waste of all the ingredients!

If the oven temperature had been higher (350F), it might have been a good and tasty coconut bread.

Anyway, I do not think I will use the recipe again.

Quick and Tasty Raspberry Bread

Recently, I have been trying different cake mixes from various stores. This time my choice was Simply Homemade Muffin & Bread Mix found at Dollar Tree.

We found the the bread so tasty that, after baking, when it was warm and fresh, we ate a half of the loaf at once. In our opinion, it makes a wonderful dessert or/and breakfast option. Not to mention that the price of the mix is very good as well. It contains pieces of real fruit that is why the bread had a slightly sour flavor. Well, if you prefer very sweet treats only, probably you would not find the raspberry bread/ muffins good enough. Anyway, we liked it a lot.

What you need to make the raspberry bread (besides the mix of course):

• 2/3 cup Greek yogurt which can be substituted with regular yogurt (I used vanilla Greek yogurt),
• 2 large eggs,
• 1/3 cup oil (my choice was Canola oil),
• 1/4 cup water.

Then, just mix all the ingredients with a spoon, place the batter in a slightly greased loaf tin and bake it at 350F. After 45 minutes in the oven, our bread was ready. We let it cool down for about 10 minutes before the eating time started. The raspberry bread was really yummy! Certainly, I will buy this muffin and bread mix again.

Raspberry Bread

What was left after 'the first sitting'....

Our Duck Dynasty - Extended Family

Just a family photo.....

New Duckies Again!

Two more new duckies came to us last Saturday - a sailor and a service man/builder (?).
Soon, I will post an updated photo of our entire duck dynasty..

Soups on Our Menu: Onion Soup

A few years ago, I was served onion soup in a restaurant. The soup was awful and I did not eat it. Since that was the only time when I had onion soup, I thought I could try to make some good one for us.

I found a recipe, which seemed easy, and decided to follow it.

There was no problems with making the soup, except the final part. The recipe calls for broiling the soup, bread + cheese in the oven and we do not have small soup serving bowls which are oven proof. I did it anyway - in a bit different way -  just used a big pyrex dish.

The results were not good enough though. The slices of bread were mushy.
I also tried melting the cheese in the microwave: the soup got extremely hot but the cheese did not melt entirely.  All in all, no matter what my attempts where, the final effect was not very enjoyable.

Attempt #1

We ate the onion soup - attempt #1 - even though it was very sweet. Too sweet according to our likes.

Some time later, I made it again but that time I skipped the sugar. The onions, prepared according to the recipe are sweet enough, so no sugar is needed at all.
Finally, before serving, I topped the soup with a 'good' amount of shredded cheese and some croutons (instead of broiling bread and cheese slices). And this is our  way of making and serving the French onion soup.

As my husband said: 'The soup gives a good taste to the palate'. It is very good for an appetizer indeed.

Final result which we like......

Wednesday Peach Cobbler

Yesterday we (very much) enjoyed our home made peach cobbler. It was so good, I would have eaten more than two servings, but I was simply not able to...

12 Cakes 12 Months: #4 Carrot Cake / Ciasto Marchewkowe

Last month I decided to make a classic carrot cake by Aldi. It was not the first carrot cake I made but I had never used a cake mix before. Encouraged by the info on the box: 'Real Carrots and Raisins', I decided to give Baker's Corner a try (and make my life easier using the cake mix). There was no problem with making and baking the carrot cake. Following the the manufacturers instructions, I just added some oil, water and eggs. Then baked it using a springform cake pan.
I decorated it with cream cheese frosting (the recipe by the Southern Lady found here).
The results were great! The cake tasted as if it all (not only the frosting) had been made from a scratch. Fluffy and very tasty!

Read more about my New Year's Project: 12 Cakes, 12 Months / Projekt 12 Ciast, 12 Miesięcy,

W kwietniu postanowilam ułatwić sobie życie robiąc ciasto 'z pudełka'. Wczesniej robiłam już ciasto marchewkowe (jest to jedno z ulubionych ciast mojego męża), ale nigdy dotąd nie wykorzystałam do pieczenia ciasta w proszku. Do zakupu tego produktu (w sklepie Aldi) zachęciła mnie informacja na opakowaniu 'prawdziwe marchewki i rodzynki'. Pomyslałam: 'może warto wypróbować'.

Zarówno z przygotowaniem ciasta, jak i pieczeniem nie było problemu. Stosując się do instrukcji producenta, dodałam do proszku trochę oleju, wody i jajka. Wymieszałam wszystko łyżką i przelałam do dużej tortownicy. Potem tortownica do nagrzanego piekarnika i już! No, prawie już - czas pieczenia wyniósł około 50 minut.
Krem do ciasta marchewkowego (widocznego na zdjęciu) zrobiłam sama, według tradycyjnego przepisu Southern Lady.

Wszystkie składniki należy wymieszać mikserem do uzyskania jednolitej masy.

Kiedy ciasto ostygło, przekroiłam je na dwie częsci (dwa krążki) i posmarowalam przygotowanym kremem.
Efekt był rewelacyjny. Nikt by nie powiedział, że to ciasto 'z pudełka'. Puszyste i bardzo smaczne!
Kiedy ów carrot cake Mix znów pojawi sie na półkach sklepu Aldi, nie omieszkam kupić ze dwa opakowania. naprawdę warto.

Dla osób zainteresowanych zrobieniem ciasta marchwkowego, polecam przepis, który wypróbowałam kilkakrotnie. Na dużą tortownicę trzeba podwoić ilosć składników podanych tutaj.

Inną opcją do wypróbowania jest przepis na tradycyjne ciasto marchewkowe podanego przez Southern Lady.

Udanego pieczenia!

12 Cakes 12 Months: Mandarin Pie / Deser Mandarynkowo - Ananasowy

It is high time I wrote about our Easter dessert (which we have already eaten of course). It is the third part of my 2016 project 12 Cakes 12 Months.
The recipe, found on one of the Southern Plate pages, is really great and worth trying. It makes two delicious pies which could be a great treat at any occasion. Stored in a freezer, they lasted quite long. On the other hand, there was no problem with cutting frozen pies so I did not need to defrost the entire pie and we simply had a couple of pieces at a time.

Dziesiejszy wpis związany jest z trzecią częścią mojego projektu '12 Ciast, 12 Miesięcy'.
Przepis na ten deser znalazłam tutaj, na jednej ze stron bloga Souhtern Plate (Południowy Talerz). Jest to jeden z tradycyjnych przepisów Południa Stanów Zjednoczonych na tak zwany pie - ciasto nie ciasto (nie wymaga pieczenia). Łatwy do wykonania i w dodatku smaczny - polecam!

 

Zamrożony deser łatwo pokroić - nie trzeba więc rozmrażać całego. Czas rozmrażania (w zależnosci od temperatury pomieszczenia) około 30 minut.

Our Easter Keepers / Wielkanocne przepisy do zachowania

These recipes are our Favorite ones, considering holiday cooking. So I thought I should save them  in case if they disappear from the original net pages where they come from.
Besides, I want to share with you what we enjoyed having at Easter.

Przepisy, o których mowa w tym poście, należą do naszych ulubionych metod przygotowania tradycyjnych potraw świątecznych. Biorąc pod uwagę efekty smakowe oczywiście. Poza tym postanowiłam umieścić je na blogu, w razie, gdyby z jakichkolwiek przyczyn zniknęły one ze stron, na których je znalazłam.

The Ham / Szynka

It is a good recipe to be used at Christmas as well. We really love the taste of the ham cooked in such a way. However, I altered the original method a bit as I did not add ground cloves to the glaze  at all. I  covered the ham with aluminum foil and cooked it in the oven (10 minutes for each pound). Then I removed the foil and placed pineapple slices all over the ham, glazed it and cooked it 30 minutes longer (with additional glazing every 10 minutes).

Przepis ten wykorzystuję też, przygotowując szynkę na obiad w Boże Narodzenie. Smak szynki przygotowany w ten sposób zachwyca nasze podniebienia, sprawia też, że szynka szybko znika z talerzy. Oryginalny przepis znalazłam tutaj. Nie dodaję jednak goździków do glazury, jak sugeruje ta receptura.

 Glazura - przepis

7.7 lb/3.5kg = 80 minutes of cooking

Szynkę piekłam w temperaturze 325 F/ 160C (10 minut na każdy funt/około 0,5 kg), przykrytą folią aluminiową. Następnie folię usunęłam, położyłam krążki ananasa na szynce i polałam wszystko glazurą. Dalsze pieczenie to 30 minut bez folii, z polewaniem szynki glazurą co 10 minut.
Efekt - super, przynajmniej według naszych upodobań.

Deviled Eggs / Jajka faszerowane

This year I used a different recipe than at previous Easter. Just did not enjoy the results of the other one very much. The new one, which is a a Southern recipe, is certainly a keeper.

Diabelskie jajka są tradycyjnie serwowane w Stanach Południa USA, czyli także w Teksasie. Przygotowanie jest dość proste, kluczową sprawą są jednak proporcje składników, które dodajemy do żółtek ugotowanych na twardo. W tym roku wykorzystałam nowy przepis (link tutaj ).

W tutejszych sklepach trudno znaleźć smaczny majonez. Większość ma w składzie za dużo (jak dla mnie) octu. Przez to mąż myślał, że robiąc żółtkową, masę dodałam do niej octu, bo trochę mocno czuć w niej było właśnie smak tego ostatniego. Niestety to z powodu majonezu. W związku z tym w przyszłym roku przygotowując jajka, postaram się pamiętać, by dodać do nich trochę mniej majonezu.

Mandarin Pie / Deser mandarynkowo-ananasowy

It is a delicious pie indeed. I am going to write more about it soon - in the next post on my 12 Months 12 Cakes project.

O deserze tym, który nie jest właściwie ciastem, ponieważ się go nie piecze, napiszę wkrótce, w kolejnym poście na temat mojego projektu  '12 Ciast, 12 Miesięcy'.

Guess What?!

New duckies arrived..... Now, there are fifteen  members in our duckie family!

New members of our duck dynasty :)