I spied these creative cupcakes on our resident Cupcake Queen’s facebook page and asked if she would share the recipe.
If you’ve ever been to a school function, or a bake sale and saw some cupcakes that knocked your socks off, you can bet they were made by Karen Creelman! Thanks Karen for sharing!
WHITE CAKE RECIPE
- 1/2 cup margarine
- 1/2 cup shortening
- 2 cups white sugar
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1/2 cup hot water
- 3 cups flour
- 3 eggs
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla
Cream margarine, shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Add milk and hot water – beat well. Add one egg, 1 cup flour, baking powder and salt to mixture, blend in well. Then add one egg and 1 cup flour and blend in again. Then add the last egg, last cup of flour and vanilla. Beat for 5 minutes. Spray with pam or line cake pan with wax paper. Bake at 325 F for 1- 1/4 hours, or until knife comes out clean. Makes a 9 x 9 cake or approximately 12 cupcakes.
To decorate, use white frosting, Swedish berries (or fresh raspberries) and a chocolate chip for the center.
 Email This Post
Anyone who knows Linda Hooper knows that she is one of the BEST baker’s around! She is always making me drool with her caloric concoctions, and these cookies are no exception! Thanks Linda for the great photo and recipe!
Sugar-Cookie Cutouts
- 1/3 cup Butter
- 1/3 cup shortening
- 2 cups flour
- 1 egg
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Beat butter and shortening with an electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add half the flour, egg, sugar, milk, baking powder and vanilla. Beat until thoroughly mixed. Beat in remaining flour. Roll out dough 1/8 inch thick. Use desired cookie cutters. Cook on ungreased cookie sheet at 375′ for 7-8 minutes or until firm and bottom is lightly brown. Cool cookies on rack. Makes approximately 2 dozen cookies.
Powder sugar icing: Mix icing sugar/water/food coloring together until you have a thick spreadable glaze: decorate cookies!
Email This Post
I’ve been making this salad for years – sometimes with the chicken for a one meal deal, and sometimes without. It’s a cold salad which is great for hot summer days. (Which are finally here!)
It’s taken from my Company’s Coming Millennium Cookbook. (Please excuse my shoddy photography.)
Pasta Salad Oriental:
- Vermicelli (or angel hair) pasta – 12 oz (I usually use spaghettini)
- Sesame oil – 1 tbsp
- Julienned English cucumber – 2 cups
- Julienned carrot – 1.5 cups
- Diced cooked chicken – 2 cups
- Sliced green onion – 1/2 cup
 
Dressing:
- Boiling water – 1/2 cup
- Chicken bouillon powder – 1 tsp
- Cooking oil – 2 tbsp
- Soy sauce – 1/4 cup
- White vinegar – 2 tbsp
- Granulated sugar – 1 tbsp
- Pepper – 1/8 tsp
- Toasted sesame seeds – 1/4 cup
Cook pasta in boiling water for 4 to 6 minutes until tender but firm. Drain. Rinse with cold water and drain well. Transfer to large bowl.
Add sesame oil. Toss well to coat.
Add cucumber, carrot, chicken and green onion. Toss.
Dressing: Stir boiling water and bouillon powder in small bowl.
Add remaining 6 ingredients. Stir. Pour over pasta mixture. Toss together well. Makes about 10 cups.
This is even better the next day as the pasta soaks up all the dressing – yum!
Email This Post
These bars are to die for. Cher Crawford brought them to a BBQ one time and I ate four. I’m sure the calorie count is off the charts, but you can put a lot of healthy goodies in there as well.
Nature Valley Bars
In a pan toast:
- 1 cup coconut
- 1 cup sunflower seeds
- 1 cup sliced almonds
When done toasting put on pan in fridge to cool quickly.
Then cream together in a bowl:
- 1 cup butter or margarine
- 1 1/2 cups peanut butter
- 2 tsp vanilla
Then add to creamed mixture and mix:
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 cup corn syrup
Then add and mix:
- 6 cups oats
- 2 cups mini or regular semi sweet chocolate chips
- and the cooled stuff from the fridge
Mix all together and spread into a greased 12 x 18 pan. (It helps to spray your hands with pam or butter to press into the pan so bars don’t stick to your hands.)
Bake at 350 for 25- 35 min, until golden brown. Let them cool on rack for an hour, then set pan in fridge to help cool, probably a few hours. Takes a long time to cool. Cut them up into squares.
Tips from Cher:
I play around alot with recipes and have eliminated 1 full cup of sugar and 1/2 cup of corn syrup in this recipe and use honey for the other half. I also always add wheat germ, flax seed, fibre powder, toasted peanuts, and craisins, keeping the other ingredient amounts the same – it seems to work out fine everytime.
Email This Post
Oh my goodness….. if this doesn’t say decadence I don’t know what does!
Being the wonderful Grandma that she is, Sandie made this cake to take to the recent hockey tournament in Powell River, and reported that it was loved by all!
Peanut Butter Kit Kat Cake
Crunchy candy bars with creamy peanut butter makes for a fun cake to make and eat!
Servings: 16
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 40 min, 20 min cool time
Total time: 1 hr, 30 min
Ingredients:
- 1 ( 18.25 oz pkg) butter recipe golden cake mix
- 6 snack-size Kit Kat candy bars, coarsely chopped (about 1 cup)
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
- 1-1/4 cups ” I can’t believe it’s not butter,”sticks, at room temp
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, melted, cooled
- 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tbsp fat-free milk
- Additional Kit Kat mini bars for topping
Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees.
Coat a 13 cup bundt pan with cooking spray. Toss 1 tbsp cake mix with chopped candy. In large bowl with mixer on medium high speed, beat remaining cake mix with 2/3 cup water, eggs, peanut butter and 1/4 cup butter until smooth. Stir in chopped candy coated with cake mix. Transfer to pan.
Bake for 40 min or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool. Transfer cake from pan to rack and cool completely.
In bowl with mixer on medium speed, beat remaining 1 cup butter until fluffy. On low, beat in melted chocolate, confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, and milk. Beat on medium speed until smooth and fluffy. Refrigerate 20 min or until thick enough to spread. Spread frosting on cake, sprinkle with pieces of mini Kit Kat bars.
Email This Post
Yorkshires have been the bane of our marriage for years. Whenever I made a roast, my husband would walk in the house and say, “where are the Yorkshires?”
Never mind the succulent roast, the garlic mashed potatoes, the lump-free gravy, the beautiful salad…. where are the Yorkies!
A funny thing happened New Year’s Day – HE made a roast, so I volunteered to do the Yorkshires. And they were spectacular! So good I had to take pictures.
 
This is my Mother-in-law’s recipe. (Well, I’m sure not her’s originally, but you know what I mean.) It’s the one she gave me years ago and thank goodness I wrote it down because if I get lazy and decide to phone her rather than look for it, she’ll give a different recipe every single time. (It’s unclear whether this is due to old age or secrecy.)
Yorkshire Pudding
Boil until bubbling:
1 cup of butter
1 cup of water
then add:
1 cup of flour
Stir then take off stove.
Add 4 eggs one at a time and beat with mixer as you add each egg. Beat them for a good amount of time – mixture will become very thick. Brush cupcake tins with a generous amount of oil and divide batter evenly in a 12 tin pan. Bake for 1/2 hour at 425 degrees. Keep a good eye on them.
Email This Post
This recipe has been circulating Facebook for quite some time now with rave reviews!
White Buns
Put 1 cup warm water (110 degrees on a candy thermometer) in a bowl, add 2 tsp of sugar and 2 tbsp of yeast. Mix to dissolve and let sit for 10 minutes. (will rise a lot)
In a large bowl mix 4 eggs, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup oil. Let warm while yeast is working.
Add 5 cups warm water, 1 tsp salt and yeast mixture to egg mixture.
Add 16 cups of white flour, 2 cups at a time, beating well between each addition. (Don’t worry about the lumps for the first few additions…they will go away!)
You should be able to stir until the 14th cup of flour or so…after that you will have to work the flour in by hand. You will have added enough flour when the dough doesn’t stick to your hands anymore.
Let dough rise in large bowl for 1 hour. Shape into buns. Let rise for 1 hour. Bake at 375 for 18-22 minutes.
This recipe makes about 8 dozen buns but could be cut in half easily!
Photos via Sandie Rose:
To make them into ham & cheese buns, just pull out enough dough to make a bun and stretch it out flat, and add in a few cubes of ham and a pinch of shredded cheddar cheese. Then fold in the edges and that becomes the bottom of your bun. They are perfect to take out hunting, or on the road for hockey trips.so yummy!! To make into cinnamon buns, just roll out some of the dough, butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar, roll up and slice.
Email This Post
Recipe via Elisa Sommerfeld, photo by Sandie Rose:
Nootka Trail Bars
CREAM TOGETHER:
1 Cup Butter or Margarine
1 ½ cups Peanut Butter
1 ½ TBSP Vanilla
2 cups Brown Sugar
ADD:
1 cup Corn Syrup
6 cups toasted oats (I toasted them in the oven)
1 cup coconut
1 cup toasted sunflower seeds, slivered almonds, or sesame seeds (your choice which seeds or nuts)
Mix all together
ADD:
2 cups chocolate chips
Blend everything together. Press into a large greased cookie sheet or jelly roll pan.
BAKE @ 350 for 20 MINS
Email This Post
Old Rose was arguing with her boss a couple weeks ago about their rib recipes and which was better, so she decided to put him to the test and declared a rib-off! The invitation said to bring your best ribs to the party and each person would vote on the winner.
Now, I’m not really one for ribs as I don’t like eating meat off the bone, but I decided to play along, especially after stumbling across the ‘best rib recipe ever’ on StumbleUpon. (If you’ve never heard of it, it’s a fantastic way of finding the best random stuff on the internet.) I’ve never made ribs before, that’s always been the hubby’s domain, but food editor Ian Knauer proclaimed this rib recipe to be “the best thing he’s ever come up with”, so I figured I was a sure winner!
I started the day before, nearly taking off the ends of my fingers while mincing garlic and fighting off the big flying ants to collect fresh rosemary from my garden.
I minced.
I chopped.
I bled.
I perspired.
But as I put my ribs in the fridge to marinate overnight, I was pleased – knowing they would be the best damn thing to ever come from my kitchen!
The big day arrived, and just as I was thinking it was time to put my delicacy into the oven to slow roast, my husband came home with two racks of ribs from Super Valu and declared he was entering the Rib-Off too. He haphazardly threw some salt and pepper on them, and smothered them in bottled BBQ sauce and tossed them in the oven.
After a couple hours slow roasting, my ribs came out of the oven looking like this (note the fresh rosemary and minced garlic):
I then scraped the roasting pan and made a reduced glaze in which to brush on while barbecuing.
Here are my baby back ribs after being barbecued and glazed to perfection:
My husband’s ribs looked like this with some ketchup on them:
And guess who won first prize at the 2010 Rib-Off???? He did of course.
Next time maybe the judging should happen before the cocktails. Obviously everyone’s judgment was grossly impaired! 
(Click here for step by step instructions and great pictures of the recipe I followed for Balsamic Ribs.)
Email This Post
 It’s almost summer again, (fingers crossed anyway) and at our house this usually means backyard BBQ’s and potlucks with friends.
If you’re like me, you never know what to bring to these kinds of things – you want it to be something quick and easy, but also something people will eat! I myself have been known to spend several hours prior to such gatherings pouring over cookbooks, and making frequent trips to the fridge to see if I have all the ingredients to prepare some horribly complicated, 18 step recipe. I put an end to this a couple summers ago, and now stick to a few tried and true dishes.
This Greek salad version was whispered to me (very hush hush!) by my husband’s cousin, who also happens to be a fantastic chef! The apples are the secret in this salad – they add just the right combination of sweetness and crunch!
Ingredients:
- 1 long English cucumber, cut in good-sized chunks (peel on or off, your choice)
- 2 large tomatoes (whatever variety you like, cherry tomatoes are great too)
- 2 large Gala apples, diced
- 1/4 a red onion, thinly sliced
- Green olives stuffed w/ pimento (1/2 a cup or so)
- Feta cheese, crumbled or cut into chunks
Dressing:
Mix two parts red wine vinegar to one part extra virgin olive oil, season with a tsp or so of dried basil, and a pinch of salt and pepper. (Fresh basil leaves are the best in this salad if you have it – just add to main ingredients!)
Assemble ingredients in medium sized bowl, toss with dressing a half an hour or so before serving.
Email This Post
|
|
|
Recent Comments