I have found one of my dream desserts. This is from a 2005 Southern Living that came out of storage this weekend and for some reason, I had missed seeing it on page 177. I keep thinking about how many times these past 6 years I could have been eating this. So will have to make up for lost time. These bars are scrumptious, easy and just gooey enough to satisfy that craving we get when we sit down to watch Christmas movies cuddled up on the couch with our favorite blanket (I really wanted to write blankie, but knew that some of you would be asking yourselves, “and this is a lady we ask cooking questions to?” After years of kids, grandkids and the occasional sick day when Randy comes over to cover me up when I am cold, I have to admit I still use the word, “blankie” instead of blanket. So there, you know one of my secrets. Now….to the recipe.
Makes 2 dz
2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup butter, melted
4 (8 oz) packages cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
3 eggs
1 tables vanilla
Quick Caramel-Pecan Frosting (see below)
Stir together graham cracker crumbs and butter; press into the bottom of a lightly greased 13×9 baking pan.
Bake at 350 for 8 min. Remove from oven and cool.
Beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Combine sugar and flour and gradually add to cream cheese, beating until blended.
Add eggs, 1 at a time, berating until blended after each addition. Stir in vanilla (notice it is 1 table, not teas). Pour mixture over prepared crust, spreading evenly to edges of pan.
Bake at 350 for 40 min or until set. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
Pour warm Quick Caramel-Pecan Frosting over cheesecake; spread evenly to edges of pan. Cover and chill 8 hours. Cut into bars.
Quick Caramel Frosting
2 (14 oz) cans sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 teas vanilla
Place all ingredients in a heavy 3 qt saucepan; bring to a boil, stirring constantly, over medium-low heat. Cook, stirring constantly 3 to 5 min or until mixture reaches a pudding-like thickness. Remove from heat. You can add 1 cup chopped pecans to this if desired or 1 1/2 cups coconut and 1 1/2 cups pecans if you like also. Pour over cheesecake when frosting is still warm, but not hot…
Author: Chocolate Castles
Welcome to Chocolate Castles, a blog about food, family and stories that hopefully will bring a smile to your heart.
Thanks for reading chocolate castles and may the recipes and stories help bring your family and friends a little closer around the table!
Remember that Princess On The Porch is still available on Amazon! Makes a great gift for anyone who enjoys being in the kitchen and needs a little laughter in their lives.
Pumpkin Streusel
This is a great alternative to traditional pumpkin pie. If you are not wanting to fool with crust spray 6 ramekins with Pam and fill each one 3/4 full with the pumping pie recipe I posted on Nov 16th (Not Your Mothers Pumpkin Pie) Bake for 15-20 min or until sides appear to be firm and then sprinkle on the top of each ramekin the following:
Streusel
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup flour
1/2 teas ground cinnamon
1/4 teas ground ginger
1/4 cup cold butter
1/2 cup chopped pecans (opt)
Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and ginger. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in pecans if desired. Sprinkle over pumpkin and continue to bake for about 10-13 min or until knife inserted in middle comes out clean and pumpkin is set.
2 Days before Thanksgiving and Counting
This is the most wonderful time of the year! Days are cooler, ovens are baking and families are gathering. We are reminded just how blessed we are in so many ways. Devotion books remind us, preachers remind us, commercials on radio and tv remind us, but the ultimate reminder is when we receive a phone call from someone we had not heard from, or when the Dr calls and says the tests were negative. When you are at the store and you can buy anything you are needing to make the Thanksgiving dinner to share with friends and family. These are the reminders of truly how blessed we are as a nation and as individuals. No matter our circumstances at this time, we still have so much to be thankful for. This year has taught me to truly be thankful for God’s Hand of guidance on Randy and I as we made our way from Texas to California to a new season of our lives. We have virtually had to “start over” with new friends, a new place to live in a new city and state, new church, new ways of serving the Lord…..all these “new beginnings” have showed us both how faithful God has been to our lives. Not only are we so thankful for our friends back “home”, and all the memories, laughter and tears that we have shared with them, but we are so blessed to have new friends who are allowing us to make new memories with them and who have already become such an important part of our lives.
Since we just returned from Texas a little over 2 weeks ago, we won’t be sitting around the table with family this Thanksgiving, but we will be sitting down with new sweet friends who have invited us to their home. We will miss the ones who we are usually sitting with, but it will give us a chance to just think about how blessed we truly are to be sharing a most glorious Thanksgiving Day with new friends, making new memories, and exchanging laughter, love and friendship!
Setting Up For Christmas on Saturday
We might have overdone it just a little this year. We just returned from storage where we piled as many Christmas boxes as we possibly could in our Mercedes Pickup, knowing all the while that it would take us probably 5-6 trips to get all the “Christmas Treasures”,or as Frosty calls it,”Christmas Stuff” from the storage unit to our little Christmas Workshop. It is so easy to get in a festive mood while going through the boxes, taking each snowman cautiously out and going from room to room trying to decide the perfect place for each item. While my head is in one of the boxes, I hear a Christmas carol and think to myself, “oh it is just so great to have all 3 of my Christmas clocks here and listening to Joy to the World, I hear the message machine come on.” Oh my gosh, it was the phone ringing. I forgot that Frosty found a Christmas Carol to play whenever the phone rings. So now, while running from room to room looking under each bed or closet trying to find Christmas platters, I now have to listen carefully for the carol. OK, I think I have this down now…if I hear Winter Wonderland, it’s the home phone ringing. If I hear Frosty the Snowman, it is Randy calling me on my cell. Jingle Bells is Jodi calling on cell, We Wish You a Merry Christmas is general public calling my cell. ALL the other carols are going to be one of the 3 Christmas clocks chiming away on the hour. Oh Wait, I forgot….Just bought a Josh Groban Christmas CD to play on the kitchen CD player….Oh my goodness, I don’t think I can remember all this….maybe I should just sit down and have a cup of tea in my new Christmas Carol playing tea cup and go over this list one more time….BUT…..on the way to the couch, I just cannot resist pinching the toe of my new little snowman Frosty bought me last year. That way I can do a little dance to “Rockin Round the Christmas Tree” with each sip of tea…..Something tells me that this is going to be one of Frosty’s best Christmases…..Gotta go, am headed to load 6 Christmas CD’s in my car. Oh my gosh, I just thought about something. Surely they have horns that play Mama Got Run Over By a Reindeer for the car…wouldn’t that be a great new addition to our Christmas Treasures this year?
Friday With Friends
Tomorrow night, we are having some friends over for dinner. With the cooler weather here, Randy requested that we have Swiss Steak with tomato gravy over mashed potatoes, so that is what we will be having. This is a great dish for company because you can put it in the crock pot and just let it cook all after noon, allowing the steak to get tender, no need for a knife when serving it.
The menu will be Swiss Steak, mashed potatoes, fresh green beans wrapped in bacon, salad, rolls and pumpkin cream cheese pie or old fashioned chess pie.
For table decor, the small little real pumpkins are in stores for $.99 at this time, so that will be my place cards..names will be written on the sides and a ribbon hot glued to the top. This is a easy and lovely idea for company coming in through the holiday season.
Swiss Steak
2 lbs beef top round steak, trimmed of extra fat and cut into small pieces. Sprinkle flour, salt and pepper over steak on both sides and quickly brown each piece in a skillet, which you have heated about 1/4 cup oil. When all pieces have been browned on both sides. Place steak in crock pot and pour a 28 oz can of crushed tomatoes over steak and add 1 cup each,chopped onions, chopped green bell pepper and chopped celery. Stir, mixing well. Add 2 teas garlic powder, 1 teas salt and 1 teas pepper. Fill the tomato can half full and pour over mixture in crock pot. Cover and cook on hi for 4 hours, or on low for 6-7 hours. You can use the tomato gravy to pour over the mashed potatoes.
Not Your Mothers Pumpkin Pie
1 9″ pie shell (deep dish)
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 teas pumpkin pie spice
Mix pumpkin, milk,eggs, and seasoning in a large bowl until smooth. Pour into pie crust on large foil-lined baking sheet.
Bake in preheated 425 oven 15 min. Reduce oven temp to 350 and bake 40 min longer or until knife inserted 1 in from crust comes out clean. Cool completely on wire rack and serve with whipping cream.
Using the sweetened milk gives this pumpkin pie a whole new flavor, plus you don’t add any extra sugar. Simple sinful and scrumptious! This is the only one I make now.
Big Bear Lake, Here We Come
This is the greatest place….2 hours and you can go from crowded city to the mountains where snow awaits us. Some friends from church have invited us to their home up at Big Bear Lake, where the weather reports say that it was 19 degrees today with snow expected again over the weekend. Well, as most of you know, that is my favorite kind of weather and sends me into the kitchen faster than you can say, “which isle is the butter on?” so…have just finished making a chewy chocolate raspberry cake which I posted on the blog 2 days ago and a fresh apple cake with praline frosting is baking as we speak. Randy went last night and bought snow chains for the car and we are hoping to get snowed in for a few extra days so we can just sit and relax by the fire and munch on cakes, dips and pray for a blizzard to hit while we are up there. Next week, since we will probably be needing to thaw out, we will drive an hour south to Newport Beach and soak up rays of sunshine to remind us of the heat we left behind in Texas. Is this a great place or what? We are feeling a little guilty of all the free time we have here since no family lives here and we aren’t babysitting on Fri or Sat nights, nor are we watching grandkids play soccer on Saturday mornings at 8 a.m. WHAT AM I SAYING????? Have I gone over to the dark side already, in less than a year? Oh my, of course we DO certainly miss watching hour after hour of Sponge Bob and dining on Chick Fila on Saturday nights, chasing grandkids around the playground while we sit and finish off the chicken nuggets they never touched and reading one more “chapter” book before the little darlings will agree to turn out the lights, BUT…..I have to confess that Randy and I have really enjoyed the weekends of new adventures and new places to explore. Christmas is almost here, which will find us on the first available seats Southwest has to take us back to Sponge Bob, a naked little two year old running around because he won’t wear his training pants over 10 min, a 7 year old that chases you around with his little “precious” hamster and family that will act so glad to see us, whether they are or not. The holidays are upon us, but for this weekend, we are out for another new adventure with new friends who hopefully still be friends after spending the whole 3 day weekend with Peter and Penelope Pumpkin. Got to run and take out my apple cake. Say a prayer of thanks for the Veterans this weekend, who have given so much of their lives, time away from their families and much much more, for all of us. God bless the Vets and their families, we thank you for your sacrifice for us and for our Nation.
Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cake
Well, I couldn’t do it. I could not figure out how to post the picture of the cake. So right now, take my word for it, it is a beautiful cake and makes a gorgeous presentation on your dessert table for any occasion.
3 cups sugar
3 sticks of butter, melted
4 eggs
1 tables almond extract
1 tables vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teas salt
1/4 cup raspberry jam (I used a little more than this)
1 cup mini chocolate chips
3/4 cup sliced almonds (optional)
Preheat oven to 300. Mix sugar and melted butter on low. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add the extracts. Sift together dry ingredients and add to the batter, mixing until smooth. Pour about 1/3 of the batter into a greased and papered spring form pan. (Spray the wax paper also before adding batter to pan). Carefully smooth out a thin layer of the jam. Top with chocolate chips and half the slice almonds if using nuts. Carefully cover with the remaining batter. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the remaining sliced almonds, if desired. Bake for 1 hour and 45 min to 2 hours. Cool cake in pan for about 30 min and then remove and place on serving platter. Decorate with fresh raspberries and a mint leaf to make it look extra special or spindle on a little powdered sugar to the top….
Chewy Chocolate Raspberry Cake
Well, I have found my “go to chocolate cake” when I am wanting something chewy and chocolatey (is that a real word?) This is such a great brownie/cake and needs no frosting, it has such a wonderful middle that oozes chocolate chips and raspberry jam that goes perfectly with the almond flavoring that is in the cake. I didn’t use the almonds, but if you like crunch, add the almonds to it.
Am going to try to post the picture so will post the recipe in a min when I figure out how to get the picture on this site. I wish the computer came as easy to me as baking….would be a whole lot easier to live in this tech world. But for now, will just stay in the kitchen…smells better!
Nutella Cheesecake Pumpkin Muffins
Our daughter who lives in Orlando texted me yesterday and told me that she had just made these muffins and they were just “delish”! I immediately ask her to send me the recipe and she did. Just went to the store to buy a jar of Nutella and after I post this recipe, am heading to the kitchen to bake them. You can tell just from reading the ingredients that this will be one of those recipes that you will hang on a magnet on the fridge so you can quickly pop some in the oven to have when the fire is lit this winter and you are wanting something just a little sweet to nibble on while you read and enjoy the fireplace….let me hear from you what you think of these. I will probably just sprinkle powdered sugar on them to have with a cup of tea, but if serving them for dessert to guests, will most definitely serve them with cream cheese frosting…
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 cups all purpose flour
2 teas cinnamon
1 teas nutmeg
2 teas baking soda
1 teas salt
Nutella cheesecake filling:
8 oz softened cream cheese
1/2 cup Nutella
1 whole large egg
Preheat oven to 375. In a large bowl, beat eggs slightly. Add in sugar, pumpkin and oil and beat thoroughly. Add in remaining dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
In a small bowl, beat together cream cheese, Nutella and egg until smooth. Place paper liners in a muffin tin. Place about 2 tables of pumpkin batter into each liner, then 1 tables of Nutella batter, topping with 2 more tables of pumpkin batter. Bake for 18-22 min. These are best served completely cooled. Makes 20 muffins.
Chocolate Castles 