1 tube (8 oz) crescent rolls
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teas cinnamon
1/4 teas ground nutmeat
1 can (21 oz) apple pie filling, chopped
Topping:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup cold butter
1 cup flaked coconut
1/4 cup chopped walnuts or pecans
Unroll crescent roll dough into an ungreased 13×9 baking pan; seal seams and perforations. Bake at 375 ro 10 min. Combine the apples, nuts, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and sprinkle over crust.
In small bowl, combine flour and brown sugar, cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in coconut and nuts. Sprinkle over filling. Bake at 375 for 18-22 min or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack.
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 Cupcakes
1 can (15 oz) solid pack pumpkin
2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
4 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teas ea: baking powder and ground cinnamon
1 teas baking soda
1/2 teas salt
Filling:
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup sugar
1 egg
Powdered sugar (optional) or Your favorite vanilla frosting (don’t you dare use canned frosting, you know better than that)
In large bowl, beat the pumpkin, sugar, oil and eggs until well blended. In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into pumpkin mixture until blended.
For filling in another small bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and add egg. Beat on low just until combined.
Fill paper lined muffin cups 1/3 full. Drop filling by tablespoons into center of each cupcake. Cover each cup with remaining batter, dividing batter between the 24 cupcakes.
Bake at 350 for 20-25 min or until a toothpick inserted in the pumpkin portion comes out clean. Cool for 10 min before removing from pans. Dust with powdered sugar when cool, if you desire or cool completely and frost with vanilla frosting. (that’s what I do, since I’m a frosting addict)
Fallish Friday Night
It is so good to be home. Being gone for a little over 3 weeks to attend my mother-in-laws funeral in Dallas and then go to Corpus Christi to take care of my mom in putting her in the same nursing home as my dad, emptying out their apartment was not only very emotional, but physically draining as well. It was good to come home. Randy was so glad to have his wife back and I was so glad to be back in my own house, especially my kitchen. It showed me that truly home is where your heart is and seeing that my heart is with Randy, it was good to walk off the plane and into his arms, which only last week, helped me to unload all my parents apartment. He just left Texas a few days before me to get back to work.
Since I had a few hours in the airport, most of you know that I use that time to scan the little Hudson News stands for new cookbooks and boy did I find a good one this time. It is Taste of Home Fall Baking and it is loaded with so many scrumptious recipes that I am starting today to bake the ones that caught my eye. The first one is Pumpkin cupcakes, which I will have ready when Randy walks in the door tonight. This weekend I will make Gingerbread with Crunchy Topping, which I will post after I sample it. I have not posted in a couple of weeks, due to the fact that I didn’t have use of a computer in Corpus. It is great to be back posting and cooking. The weather is cool today, rainy and calling for the fireplace to be lit. So tonight, that’s what we will do, light the fire, sample these wonderful pumpkin cupcakes and curl up on the couch to watch a movie. Is there a better way to spend a fallish Friday Night
Chocolate Custard Devils Food Cake
I know there are a million and one devils food cake recipes out there, but this one is one you will treasure and proudly serve over and over. It begins with a cooked chocolate custard base which you add dry ingredients, which lends the very moist texture.
3 (1 oz) sqs unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 beaten egg
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 beaten eggs
2 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
Combine 1/2 cup milk, chocolate,whole egg,and 2/3 cup sugar. Cook over low heat until thick. Cool. Cream shortening, remaining sugar. Add egg yolks and mix well. Add sifted dry ingredients alternatively with 1 cup milk and vanilla. Stir in cooked chocolate mixture. Pour into 2 8″ pans which you have lined with wax paper and greased. Bk for about 22-25 min in a preheated 350 oven. Cool and remove from pans. Frost with chocolate frosting of your choice. Mine is on the blog and is a really good dark chocolate frosting.
Ghirardelli Chocolate Cheesecake
I have been in Dallas exactly one week today and both Randy and I have gained 5 lbs. We are back in a world of fast foods, drive thrus and a land where chocolate is King. As soon as I arrived my son in law( who we affectionately call SIL) asked me to bake a chocolate cake, a red velvet cake, chicken and dumplings, tacos and heavenly hots). I have had the great experience of frequenting the huge grocery stores here until I have spent our retirement. BUT…..Jodi now has plentybof cocoa, cake mixes, cream cheese and lbs of butter. She can bake anything she would ever want….or wait until I come back thanksgiving and let me bake. I think I know which choice she will make. In lolly gagging around the grocery stores I have been going crazy buying things I cannot find out in Sushiville. This cheesecake is so good, so easy and you will think you have had Paula Deen in your kitchen baking for you.
Crust
1 1/2 cups thin chocolate wafers, crushed
1/4 cup butter, melted
Filling
16 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 bar (4oz) Ghirardelli semi-sweet chocolate baking bar, melted
Topping
1 bar (4oz) Ghirardelli semi-sweet baking barm melted
1/2 cup sour cream
Crust: mix wafer crumbs with butter and press with spoon onto bottom and half way up sides of a 8″ springform pan.
Filling: blend cream cheese with sugar. Add eggs and beat until well mixed.
Add melted chocolate, beating until thick and smooth. Pour into prepared crust. Bake for 30-40 min or until firm in center. Chill 4 hrs or overnight.
Topping: stir melted chocolate into sour cream and spread over top. Chill until firm.
Frisco Frenzy
This has got to be one of the most memorable days in many years. We are back in Texas for Randy’s mom’s funeral and to celebrate her life. We will be having lots of dinners with family and close friends. Hence the grocery store stop this morning. I dropped off my daughter at work to keep her car to do some grocery shopping, not realizing at the time that this day would be such a most memorabie day. Knowing that tomorrow would have me running back and forth to the airport 3 different times to pick up family, I thought I would go ahead and do the shopping for food today to get a jump start. As I walked in to the WallMart store, which in itself, took my breath away, that there was one within a mile of my daughters house….(let me just pause for a minute and reflect on that, one mile away, that is just so beautiful), I headed straight to the frozen food section, just to hold a bag of frozen Sister Schubert rolls in my hands before tackling the shopping lists. There, in the frozen bread section, my eyes fell on shelves of Sausage rolls, cinnamon rolls, yeast dinner rolls, whole wheat or white, it was just such a Hallmark moment. I had to pull out my phone and take a picture of all the rolls that were sitting there just waiting for me. After I took that in, I headed straight for the frozen veggie isle, and there they were, the cutest little sacks of frozen breaded okra, just looking so sourthern….I quickly opened the door to the veggies and just couldn’t decide how many to take, but then I realized that maybe I should leave them right there until I was through with the lists, that way, they would still be frozen for the trip home to fix for dinner tonight. I want to be sure that they are at their peak when I take them out of the package and lower each little pod into the hot frying pan. As I slowly make my way up and down the grocery isles, I remember where I am, I am in Dr. Pepper Land, oh my gosh, what was I waiting for……I pushed the little grocery cart as fast as I could, closer, closer…..there they were….life’s little treasure..Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Peppers….i bought all they had….it was at this moment that in the midst of what the next couple of days will hold, which will be sadness at saying goodbye to Hazel, but knowing that she and Howard are finally together again, in the presence of our Lord, we would be together as a family, joined by memories of the years that we had with Hazel, lots of memories shared with her around the table, talking and enjoying holidays and hearing her tell us that “oh my, this is just too much food” that we will once again be reminded that it is the little things in our lives that we remember most, the Diet Dr Peppers, the fried okra with chicken and dumplins, the banana pudding that she loved to make, these are a few of the things that will be a treasure in our hearts about her as we sit around the table this weekend and enjoy, once again, the best of all times, being with family.
I found a recipe last night that blew me away. It was in a book that our daughter, Christi sent me that she found in Branson, Missouri and it is most unusual, simple but now, one that I will be making over and over. I had to get up and make it. It makes two layers but it was hard not to eat one whole layer even without frosting (this coming from ms frosting queen) this cake is so light and fluffy , you won’t believe it. The only change I made was using almond extract instead of vanilla extract because I just love almond flavoring. You could even frost this and chop Almond Joys over the top layer after frosting with your favorite frosting!
Whip 1 cup heavy whipping cream until firm. Add 2 eggs,one at a time beating until mixture is light and fluffy. Add 1 cup granulated sugar and beat until mixed well. Add 1 teas vanilla or almond extract. Sift 1 1/2 cups cake flour with 2 teas baking powder and 1/2teas salt. Stir flour mixture into whipped cream mixture until no lumps remain. Pour into 2 8″ or 9″ if you don’t have 8″ lined with wax paper and greased pans. Bake at 375 for 18-20 minutes or until top feels done to the touch. Should not dent when touched.
Pineapple Cheesecake Pies
This recipe is from my neighbor who was from NYC and who cooked some of the best desserts and Italian food ever. She shared each and every recipe I requested back in the 70’s and 80’s and this recipe was just one of her best. It is so good to serve at dinner parties, as it makes 2 9″ pies and very easy and quick.
Crusts:
1 pack (6 oz Zweiback cookies ground into crumbs (I use Keebler Sandies (the ones without pecans)Cookies to equal 6 oz. (about 1 cup crushed cookies)
2 tables sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
Mix crumbs, sugar and melted butter until blended. Using back of spoon, pat mixture into 2 deep pyrex pie plates, covering bottom bottom and sides. Drain a #303 can of crushed pineapple. Carefully put half of pineapple in each pie plate, covering bottom crust.
Filling
1/2 cup sugar
2 tables flour
1/4 teas slt
1 pkg (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1 cup small-curd cottage cheese (or another 8 oz cream cheese)
1 teas vanilla
4 egg yolks, separated from whites
4 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1 cup whipping cream or undiluted evaporated milk
Beat egg whites until stiff; set aside. Mix cream cheese an cottage cheese until well blended. Add sugar, flour, salt and vanilla. Add egg yolks, one at a time beating well after each addition. Add milk or whipping cream and blend well. Fold in beaten egg whites. carefully pour mixture into pie plates, dividing evenly between the two plates. Bake at 350 about 35 min until knife inserted comes out clean. Store in Fridge until ready to serve. Top with whipping cream or Cool Whip….makes 2 pies
Flautas
I am so excited. Tonight I am trying my first homemade flautas. Watching the today show the other morning, a lady was on there showing the difference between yellow, white and blue corn tortillas and I learned that the yellow corn held up much better than the white corn for frying nanchoes, taco’s and flautas. So tonight we are having flautas. Because I had some roasted chicken left over from another meal, I am shredding that and placing a tablespoon in the middle of a “Yellow” corm tortilla, then spooning a tablespoon of cheddar cheese over the chicken. Will then roll up the tortilla, put a toothpick in it and drop in in oil to fry until crisp. Then spoon some hot sauce over the flautas, place some shredded lettuce over that, some chopped tomatoes and we-la, you have homemade flautas. What an easy and quick supper this will be. I know it will be so much better than the frozen ones they sell at Costco….will report tomorrow on how Randy likes them. Happy Fall Ya’ll!
Rainey Wednesday
Wow,what a glorious day, it rained all day with temps in the 50’s. Energized me to clean out closets to make room for fall/winter clothes. Moving furniture the night before and now getting to wear jeans with sweater and jacket made for a most wonderful day. Randy even called to say the weather had got him in the mood for enchiladas so off we went tonight for Mexican food. A friend and I went for lunch today and ended up sitting there all afternoon. As the rain continued to fall, we would go get another bowl of soup and just continue our talking. This was the first “feel” of fall since moving to California. I was beginning to wonder if there would be days when there would be no sun, just clouds and rain and cool temperatures that would propel me to just bake all day. Today was the first of many “fall” days, I am hoping, to arrive all this month. The pantry is stocked with cream cheese, butter, bags of powdered sugar, plenty of cinnamon, chopped dates, pecans and enormous size bags of chocolate chips. Tonight I will go to sleep with thoughts of waking up, looking through recipes to choose which ones will start off my “fall food freenzie”. Something tells me that one of the first things in the oven will be blueberry apple cinnamon rolls! Sister Schubert, move over, Sister Trudy is in the kitchen.
Chocolate Castles 