Saturday, October 1, 2011

Pumpkin and laughter

so my friend Dana and I made pumpkin rolls today and let me tell you something, we were laughing so much that we almost burned our cakes. we managed to make three cakes instead of four (the last one didnt want to cooperate when it came out of the oven.) and now we have them all with icing and chillen in the freezer.

So how does one make these wonderful pumpkin rolls?? Like this:

Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup of sugar
2/3 cup of pumpkin (I use can pumpkin pie filling but if you know how to cook and use real pumpkin then more power to you :) )
3/4 cup of flour
1 teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of ginger
1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon

First, preheat your oven to 375 F.

mix together the eggs, sugar, pumpkin for 5 minutes. *If you are using a stand mixer, this will be a perfect time to mix all your  dry ingredients together*  Once your eggs sugar and pumpkin are mixed together slowly add your dry ingredients to the mix. Mix well. Once all mixed together pour the batter into a greased jelly roll pan. *If you wanted to you can line the pan with wax paper, but be sure to spray the wax paper with cooking spray to prevent sticking*

You are going to bake the cake for 15 minutes. after 15 minutes pull the pan out and let it cool a little. Here is when things will get tricky: you can either flip the cake onto a clean cookie sheet with powder sugar or you can sprinkle powder on it, place a small clean towel on it and flip the pan over to were the cake is on the towel...*try to use the method that is not so messy*

When the cake is cooled then you can add the cream cheese icing

Cream Cheese Icing:
 8 oz. of of cream cheese
1 stick of butter
16 oz. of powder sugar
*this is enough icing for two pumpkin rolls*

Beat the cream cheese and butter together (it will help if they were at room temperature). SLOWLY add the powder sugar. when they are all incorparated, add some vanilla for flavor and boom, homemade cream cheese icing.

After adding the cream cheese icing to the cake, roll the cake into a log and wrap the log in either aluminum foil or plastic wrap. Chill for 2 hours (or you can freeze it)

Making these are more fun with a friend. Dana absolutely loved making these with me and she even shared a pumpkin recipe with me that I hope to share with yall in the future :D

Simple but awesome

Today we are always finding quick and easy ways to fix up a meal or dessert. The most fun of anything is putting the time and effort into it.

Try making a pie for instant. "I dont know how to even began," you may say. Fear not! I have a simple and easy pie crust recipe just for you.

All you need is:
1 1/4 cups of all-purpose flour (yes, you must us all purpose)
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup (thats 1 stick) of butter...be sure the butter is chilled and it will be easier to mix it with the flour and salt if diced. Best if you use unsalted butter so the salt wont over power your pie.
and last but not least 1/4 cup of ice water (the ice water is important to help incorporate the ingrediants into the dough ball that you want.)

first things first, measure your flour and salt and put them in a bowl. COMBINE THE TWO before adding your butter. Next, add the butter you diced up in there. Here is the fun part: WITH YOUR HANDS work the butter into the flour and salt. You want to continue to do this until you get corse crumbs. Now add the water slowly! If you dont then you are going to have a soupy dough ball. You want to add water until you have a nice ball. If you do end up having a dough ball that is kinda soupy (very sticky to the touch) DONT PANIC...just add a little flour to it and all is well. You will want to chill your dough for about 4 hours or you can chill it over night.

When your dough is ready, roll is out for a 9-inch pie pan. Place in in the pie pan and form it to the pan. BAM you have created one pie crust. :) You can make what ever kind of pie you like. Keep it simple and keep it fun for you! *I use a can of apple pie filing for my pies sometimes and it turns out fabulous*  when you bake your pie you want to bake it at 350 until the crust is golden (unless you are following a recipe for lets say a pear pie that requires for you to bake it an hour...but thats a different adventure :) ).

The recipe that I have shown you is only for one pie crust. If you want to make 2 then just double the recipe and remember to seperate your dough ball into two pieces when you roll it out. :)

Nothing is better than baking with Friends :)

So today I am having a friend of mine come over today to bake with me. We are making an apple pie with a homemade crust and four (4) pumpkin rolls from scratch. I dont know how this will turn out but I do know that I am going to enjoy every minute with her and her son!

Will Post Recipe at a later time so stay tune!!!

The_Baker