Cakes · Desserts

Paula Deen Ooey Gooey Butter Layer Cake

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

The fireplace is on, and all I want to do is stay home and bake. I love the Ooey Gooey Cake that Paula gave us the recipe several years ago and when I saw this, I knew I would have to try it. It has to be scrumptious. It is from Paula, it is ooey, gooey and it has butter in it. How could it not be good?

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

2 1/4 cups sugar

5 large eggs

1 teas vanilla

3 1/2 cups flour

1 tables baking powder

1/2 teas baking soda

1/4 teas salt

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 cup sour cream

Ooey Gooey Butter Filling

Cream Cheese frosting

Preheat oven to 350

Spray 3 (9″) round cake pans with nonstick baking spray with flour.

In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with a mixer at medium speed until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla.

In another large bowl, whisk together flour and next 3 ingredients. Gradually add flour mixture to butter mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat just until combined after each addition; stir in sour cream. Spoon batter into prepared pans.

Bake for 18-22 min or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pans for 10 min. Remove from pans and let cool completely on wire racks.

Spread Ooey Gooey Butter filling between layers; cover and freeze for 1 hour. Spread cream cheese frosting on top and sides of cake.

Ooey Gooey Filling

1/2 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

4 large eggs

1 (8 oz) cream cheese

In the top of a double boiler, melt butter over simmering water. Remove from heat and whisk in sugar, orange juice and eggs until mixture is smooth. Return double boiler to heat and cook, whisking constantly for 10-15 min or until mixture is very thick. Remove from heat and whisk in cream cheese until smooth. Let cool for 30 min.

Spoon mixture into a medium bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing wrap onto surface of mixture to prevent a skin from forming. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours or for up to 3 days.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1 tables vanilla

6 cups of powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat butter, cream cheese and vanilla with mixer on medium speed. Gradually add powdered sugar and beat until all is smooth.

*Note-the cake layers can be made ahead of time and frozen up to 2 weeks. Wrap slightly warm cake layers in heavy duty plastic wrap and freeze in large resealable plastic bags. Let the cake layers thaw overnight in the fridge before assembling

Daily Thoughts

Mall Walking

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

I discovered this week that mall walking is not for me. On Jan 5th we woke up and looked at each other and knew that today was the day, Monday, the first day of our New Years resolution that we had agreed upon 4 days ago. We did our usual chores of laundry and cleaning and knew it could not be put off any longer.  So we got out our tennis shoes, our white tennis socks and made sure that we looked pretty fashionable, just in case we did run into someone we knew. Because it was so cold outside, I ask Randy to please park close so I wouldn’t have to wear a coat and then have to carry it around while we walked. Because we didn’t quite make it before the mall opened to do our walk, (actually we didn’t get there until 3 in the afternoon. It took me that long to talk myself into this new resolution that I knew I wouldn’t keep in the first place. Whose idea was it that we were going to do this 4 times a week? It certainly wasn’t mine. The only thing I do 4 times a week is bake.

We step inside the mall and begin our trek from one end to the other. About half-way down the mall, I reached up to be sure my earring had not fallen off, as I was pretty proud of how fast we were going, when I discovered that HE had let me walk out of the house and into the mall with out earrings. I don’t go to the bathroom without earrings. Southern ladies just don’t do that. I told him that this was going to be a short walk, because what if someone noticed that I was in the mall without my earrings! I just couldn’t take that chance.  We began to look around and noticed that the only ones that were “mall walking” had to be over 70. And they certainly didn’t care if they had earrings on; Tweety Bird t-shirts with matching elastic band pants was apparently the “in” thing to wear mall walking. Each time we passed Dillards or Macy’s I thought of something else that I wanted to show him. Looking back over that day, I think we probably spent more time window shopping than walking, but as I told Randy, “we should really wait until middle of Feb or first of March to start this because you know people are looking at us and thinking that we are some of the old people that make a resolution that the first of the year, we are going to get on an exercise program and their second thought would be “bet they dont’ last 1 week”. So if you start later, at least they might be thinking, “good for them, they are still keeping up their resolution to exercise”. It really does make sense to me. By the time we got in the car I told him that I thought I would just wait until it warmed up a bit and walk outside. I just didn’t feel like we fit in with all the oldies at the mall that always stopped at the food court for their McDonalds 87 cent coffee and $1 apple pies when they were through. Plus, since I had gone to our neighborhood mall without earrings, I just couldn’t stand the thought of going back in there for awhile.

Cakes · Desserts

Pineapple Pound Cake

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

I have to make this..it just sounds so moist and think how good it will be to put a spoonful of whipped cream over a slice.

Cake

1/2 cup Crisco

1 cup butter, softened

2 3/4 cup sugar

6 large eggs

3 cups flour

1 teas baking powder

1/4 cup half and half or (dilute 1/8 whipping cream with 1/8 cup water)

1 teas vanilla

3/4 cup crushed pineapple with juice

Cream butter, Crisco until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time.

Sift flour and baking powder. Add to creamed mixture 1 spoonful at a time, alternately with milk.

Stir in crushed pineapple with it’s juice and vanilla. Pour into a large well greased tube or bundt pan.

Place in a cold oven and turn oven on to 325. Bake for 1 1/4 hours or until cake tests done. Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool.

Glaze

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 cup crushed pineapple

Enough water to be able to drizzle over cooled cake (I will probably use milk instead of water).

Casseroles · Chicken · Daily Thoughts · Meats · Starches

Chicken Florentine Manicotti Alfredo

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

Received my new Southern Lady magazine. I have wiped off the drool from the front cover as it displayed a gorgeous pecan-date pie which is just divine and went quickly pass the desserts in search of a new dinner recipe. This one sounded like it was meant for today, since we woke up to 27 degrees and need something that will “stick to our bones”. Of course during the last 2 months we have found lots of recipes that have “stuck to our bones”. That is why we are shopping this week for new clothes…a size larger. Of course we always say that we are just going mall walking, but in reality, all we do is walk into the stores and see what is on sale. But it sounds great when friends call and ask what we have been up to. “oh just got back from our walking the mall.”

Makes 6-8 servings *This recipe also freezes very well

4 cups chopped cooked chicken

2 1/2 cups chopped fresh spinach

2 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup firmly chopped green onion

1 teas garlic powder

1 (8 oz) package manicotti, cooked according to package directions

1/4 cup butter

2 tables flour

1/2 teas salt

2 cups whole milk

1/4 teas ground white pepper (I am cheating and using black, do not want to go back to grocery store)

1 1/2 cups finely grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

1 tables Italian seasoning

1/2 teas ground black pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Spray a 13×9 baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine chicken, spinach, cream cheese, green onion, and garlic powder.

Beat at medium speed until well combined with hand mixer. Spoon chicken mixture into manicotti and place in prepared pan; set aside.

In a large saucepan, heat butter over medium heat until melted. Add flour, salt and white pepper; cook for 2 minutes, whisking constantly. Gradually add milk, continuing to whisk. Bring mixture to a simmer and cook for 4 min, whisking constantly, until slightly thickened.

Remove from heat and add cheese, stirring until cheese melts. Spoon sauce over manicotti and sprinkle evenly with Italian seasoning and pepper.

Bake for 35 to 40 min or until bubbly and heated through.

*To make ahead and freeze you can completely make the casserole and just cover and freeze without baking. When ready to serve, thaw completely and bake in preheated 350 degree oven, uncovered for about 40 minutes or until bubbly hot.

Breads · Breakfast · Holiday Fare

Cranberry Scones

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

It seems like I go a little over board buying fresh cranberries during the Christmas season, so I look and find a couple of bags that are still there and went looking for recipes which use fresh ones. This is out of a Jan/Feb 07 Southern Lady or Paula Deen (I had torn the page out and so I’m not sure which one)

3 cups self-rising flour

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup cold butter

1/2 to 3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

1 teas vanilla

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 400. Combine flour and sugar in a large bowl. Using a pastry blender, cut butter into the flour and sugar mixture until it resembles coarse meal. Add 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, vanilla and dried cranberries. Stir until all ingredients are moistened. Add a little more whipping cream if it seems too dry.

Turn out on a generously floured board (or wax paper that you have floured) and knead 5 times or until it all comes together.

Be careful not to overwork the dough. Roll out with a rolling pin to 1/2 ” thickness. Cut with a 1 1/2 ” biscuit cutter (or a heart shaped cookie cutter for Valentines). Place on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 13-15 min or until the tops are golden. Be careful not to over bake. Serve with lemon curd or preserves

Uncategorized

Mess In the Midst

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

A couple of friends ask about this posting and suggested that I reblog it. Hope it makes you smile.

Chocolate Castles's avatarChocolate Castles

This morning we woke up to the doorbell ringing at 7:15. Randy told me that he had not seen me move that fast in 20 years. I am one of those that think about things like, will I have on make-up and a “wouldn’t mind being caught in this outfit” outfit in case of rapture, earthquake or unexpected visitors. It dawned on us that the painters were here to paint the kitchen back to the original blah color that it was when we moved in. What happened to the lazy guy who never shows up until the afternoon? When did people start showing up for work at 7 a.m.? I guess I am already getting use to this retirement phase of watching GMA in jammies and finally getting a shower around 10. I just remembered that when I opened the door, I was apologizing to 4 strange men that I…

View original post 420 more words

Chocolate · Cookies · Desserts

Old Fashioned Whoopie Pies

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

I began making these back in the late 70’s. When Jason, my oldest son went off to A & M, I remember sending a shoebox full of these to him. Apparently lots of moms did that and they came to be known as shoebox cookies. This recipe came from a niece, who use to ask me to make them when she came over. She loved them so much, she ended up writing the recipe in my old spiral notebook that I still have today.

Combine the following in a big mixing bowl:

2 cups sugar

1 cup Crisco (I used 1/2 cup Crisco and 1 stick butter)

2 eggs, room temp

1 cup buttermilk

2 teas vanilla

4 cups flour

1 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 teas salt

2 teas baking soda dissolved in 1 cup hot water.

Mix all ingredients above until thoroughly mixed well. Drop by tables onto baking sheet. (I didn’t grease mine as it is coated, if you are not using a coated sheet of parchment paper, I would lightly grease the baking sheet.)

Bake at 400 for about 8-10 min. Cookies have a cake like consistency so when almost completely firm to the touch, take out. Do not over bake.

Cook on paper towels or cookie racks and make frosting.

Beat 2 egg whites which are at room temp; add 4 tables flour, 2 teas vanilla and 2 cups powdered sugar.

Mix well and add 4 table milk, 1 cup Crisco (once again, I used 1/2 cup Crisco and 1/2 cup butter) and 2 cups more powdered sugar.

When cookies are completely cool, frost the bottom of a cookie and top with a 2nd cookie, making them a Whoopie Pie.

Delicious and easy to mail. Keep covered in container or freeze in bags.

Daily Thoughts

Happy New Years!!!!

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

2014 is almost gone. So many memories, some good some not so good. I don’t like to use the word “bad” because some of the “bad” memories, in the end, allow new and exciting experiences that happen in our lives. This past year brought many changes in our household. Randy retired, we moved from California back to Texas, we have a new granddaughter, Payton, and I completed my first book.

Randy’s retirement, in itself, allowed us to travel from the West coast to the East coast. We visited our kids along the way and ended up marking one thing off my bucket list….going to eat at Paula Deen’s Restaurant, Lady & Son’s. We learned that we can be together 24-7 (or is it 365 days, 518, 400 minutes as it seemed when we were traveling in the car some days).

After 2 months of traveling, we both knew when it was time to put away the suitcase and find someplace to nest. And nest we have. We are so grateful for the time spent on the road and grateful for the new memories that we collected. As we look back over the last 12 months, we are grateful that we were able to live in California for almost 4 years and experience living where we could watch the Rose Parade set up. We learned that there are precious people who touch our hearts, no matter where you live. We learned to love Lebanese food, In & Out Burgers, the mountains, walking along the seashore (and yes, all the while I would be looking to see if anyone famous was walking past). God provided a dear precious friend who told me that she would do the behind the scenes work on the book, if I would complete it…I did and Kathy did as she said…she turned it into book form. I remember kicking and crying as we drove across the desert, back in 2010, when moving to California; never dreaming that it would be while living there that this goal would be accomplished. But God did and He used it to fulfill what He had ask of me.

We are now nested in our new place. We look back with such fondness for the people and experiences that were ours last year…but are looking ahead with excitement for what God has planned for us. We don’t know yet what that is, but we know that we can always trust His heart and whatever that plan is, may we grow in our faith and trust to fulfill what He wants us to accomplish. Living back in Texas has given us an opportunity to get to know the kids who live near us as adults. Looking back over the past year, we had no idea that last year would be the last year we would be living in Pasadena and how God orchestrated Cam, Mandy, Jodi and Eric to come out for the Rose Parade is one of those, “this is such a God story” times.
So here is to 2015…a new year, new memories and new adventures. May Randy & I both look expectantly ahead and allow God to use us as He sees best.
Thanks to each of you who have taken the time to read cbocolatecastles! That blesses my heart that it might be bringing a smile to your heart! Happy New Year to each of you…….
Continue reading “Happy New Years!!!!” →

Daily Thoughts

Christmas Whimps

Chocolate Castles1 Comment

2014-12-30 11.33.25Yesterday we found out that putting Christmas décor away is kinda like Thanksgiving dinner. It took days to get it out and put the décor in just the right places, but it only took one day to pack it up. Now mind you, we didn’t intend to do it in one day. I just woke up and thought it would be nice to start boxing up a few things upstairs that decorated the bedrooms. But as the morning went on, I got in “the mood”. You know the one. The mood that will not let you stop until everything is done. So for the next 8 or 9 hours, we hauled boxes in from the garage and hauled them back out. We broke a few things as the day progressed, which in Frosty’s eyes, wasn’t a bad thing as it will be a few less things he has to unpack next Christmas. By 8 p.m. (and a trip to the grocery store, (which was another blunder as I dropped a whole Coke on their floor because I was so thirsty I couldn’t wait until I got in the car) because by now, we were feeling very proud of ourselves. We had worked all day without stopping, even having a healthy Juice Plus shake for lunch, so we thought how swell to finish off the day with just a veggie dinner. We are starting this new year off great and we didn’t even wait until Jan 1st…I’m even thinking of writing to Dr Oz and telling him about how good we are doing.

Well…by 9 p.m. we were done. Once we sat down, we couldn’t get up. Our backs were so sore that we began to play rock, paper,scissors to see who would get up to get refills on tea. I began to wonder how long it would take if I ordered those new cute little Depends from Amazon so I wouldn’t have to get up to go to the bathroom, but Randy knocked me back into reality when he changed my password on Amazon and wouldn’t tell me what it was.  We looked around the house and realized that we had really put it all away, all 5 trees, plus all the “stuff” that my son says, makes our house look like a craft store. But when the Advil began to work and I went in to clean up the kitchen….there on the counter was the kitchen tree that we had overlooked. We just looked at each other and finally Randy says to me, “I can’t do it, I cannot undecorated anything else tonight”. As we climbed upstairs to go to bed, promising ourselves that we will NEVER EVER live anywhere again that you have to climb stairs to go to bed, I remembered the box of Valentine decorations out in the garage.

This morning, the last Christmas tree was turned into a Valentine Tree that allows me to keep a few of the lights that just make me feel peppy and upbeat. At least when Feb is over, we will only have a couple of boxes of items to put away. Maybe  only 1 Advil will do the trick, instead of half a bottle like last night.

We were hoping that when we got on the scales this morning, all of the exercise we got yesterday would pay off. It didn’t. We just rewarded ourselves for working so hard with our own pints of Blue Bell…

Chocolate · Cookies · Desserts

Nutella Crinkle Cookies

Chocolate CastlesLeave a comment

I got a little obsessed this Christmas with cookies. I’m usually more of a candy and pie person, but for some reason, I kept finding these different recipes that just yelled out for me to make them. When we were in Italy, I came to love Nutella anything. I would have eaten liver or seaweed if it was dipped in Nutella. This was the first recipe that I had seen for Nutella cookies, so here it is; my new favorite cookie.

1 jar (13 oz) Nutella

1/4 cup shortening

1 1/3 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 teas vanilla

3 cups flour

2 teas baking powder

1/2 teas salt

1/3 cup milk

2 1/2 cups hazelnuts, toasted, divided

1/2 cup powdered sugar

In a large bowl, cream the Nutella, shortening and granulated sugar until light and fluffy. About 4 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, mixing well after each addition. Fold in 1/2 cup hazelnuts. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 min or until firm.

Finely chop remaining hazelnuts. Place hazelnuts and powdered sugar in a bowl and stir to combine. Roll dough into 1″ balls and roll ion powdered sugar-nut mixture. Place 1″ apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Bake at 375 for 10-12 min or until set and surface is cracked. Cool for 1 min before removing from pan.

Yield: 6-7 dozen