Red Velvet Cake Pioneer Woman Style

Cake Ingredients:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 teaspoons salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons vinegar
1 ounce red food coloring
1 1/2 teaspoons cocoa powder

Cream Cheese Icing Ingredients:
1 1/2 8 oz. packages cream cheese (room temperature)
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract


Blend together shortening and sugar in a big mixing bowl. In another bowl, mix together the flour and salt.  Mix the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, baking soda, and vinegar in another bowl. Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk mixture to the shortening and sugar mixture, mixing after each addition. In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder and food coloring. Pour into the mixing bowl and combine...don't overbeat. Pour the batter into a 9x13 pan and cook for 45 minutes or until done at 350 degrees. While cake is cooking, mix together the cream cheese and butter. Add the powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla. Icing will be thick. When cake is out of oven, let cool for 20 minutes and then ice.

YUM! :)

Charlie Bear LOVES the icing, too! :) He always loves to lick the bowl.

Hannah and Rosy LOVED the cake!!! It was SO good!!! I got this recipe from the Pioneer Woman cookbook. It is the most fun cookbook I've ever seen!! There are step by step pictures of everything, which makes it so much easier for me!!! :) She is also really funny! I put the directions on here a little different than she put them in her cookbook because I didn't do exactly what she did. For example, I didn't sift the flour because I don't have a sifter.  I also baked the cake in a 9x13 pan while she did hers in 2 nine inch pans. I like cakes better in 9x13 pans because there are not as many edge pieces and there is more icing. :) I'm bringing this cake to my NLR Bible study tonight because I definitely don't need this cake sitting around my house! I have lost 7 pounds and I want to keep it off!!!  We're going to the beach soon!!

Hadoo's Favorite Sub Sandwiches

Mar and I love Subway! It's one of our very favorite places to eat.  About a year ago, I got turned on to peppers on my sandwiches. A softball mom brought sandwiches one day to one of Macy's games and they had red peppers in them.  It made the sandwich so much better. Recently, I started adding green peppers to my sandwiches when we go to Subway and they are so good! I decided that I could probably make some sub sandwiches at home and sure enough, they were really easy to make.  We eat them at least 4 times a week...probably more. I'm always going to the store to buy more ham, peppers, and tomatoes.  Also, it saves money and a drive to Subway. Don't get me wrong.....I'll always love a good Subway sandwich!!

Here are the ingredients: Ham (or whatever kind of meat you like), cheese slices, mayo, peppers, tomato slices, hoagie rolls, salt and pepper.

I turn my oven on broil and toast the bread on both sides.

After toasting the bread, I put 2 pieces of ham on one side followed by cheese.  I put pepper jack (makes it a little spicy) and colby jack.  I only put colby jack on mine today because I am going to be eating cupcakes tonight so I wanted to save the 80 calories! :)  Put back in the oven until cheese melts.  While the cheese is melting, put mayo on the other half of the sandwich followed by salt and pepper.  After the cheese melts, take out of oven, flip the ham and cheese to the mayo'd side of the hoagie and put mayo on the other side (the one you just flipped the ham and cheese off of....did that make any sense at all?).  Add tomato and peppers and VOILA!

Delicious sandwich!!!

Red Velvet Cake Balls "hugged by" Hershey's Hugs

I tried making Red Velvet Cake Balls last year and I completely failed! I don't know all where I went wrong but they were hard as a rock and tasted terrible! I had a friend who recently made them and said they were a big hit so I decided I'd try again. I found a recipe on this really cute recipe blog and decided to try again. Well, let me tell you, this time was a success and these cake balls are SCRUMPTIOUS (Lamar says they are decadent). :) Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
Duncan Hines Red Velvet Cake Mix (you will need vegetable oil and 3 eggs).
1 1/2 cups of cream cheese frosting or 16 oz. can of cream cheese frosting.
I used the Cake Artisan's recipe for the frosting...you can find it here. I halfed the recipe and still had some left over.
2 1/2 bags Hershey's Hugs (I bought 2 and that wasn't quite enough...I still had 2 balls left...I ended up melting a Hershey bar and some Dove milk chocolate hearts for those 2 balls and they were GREAT, too!).
Parchment or wax paper (I used parchment).

Bake the cake according to package directions.

While cake is baking, make the cream cheese icing. This icing reminded me of my Granny's icing. When I was 10 years old, Granny asked me what I wanted for my birthday and I told her a tub of cream cheese icing. She laughed but I was serious and that is what I got for my 10th birthday. The second I tasted this icing, I thought of Granny.

After the cake has completely cooled, crumble it up into pieces in a large bowl and mix 1 1/2 cups of cream cheese icing. Okay, this is where I realized I went wrong last time. I had trouble getting all the icing mixed in and didn't know what the consistency was supposed to be like. I didn't stir them enough last time and the consistency was all wrong. You have to really put a lot of elbow grease into this...stir hard until it's all mixed in and has the consistency of the picture above. I actually had Lamar stir it for me. It's good exercise! :) Also, I don't like canned icing and used the canned last time although after trying these, I think they'd still be really good even with canned icing. The next step is to roll the cake into balls (my balls were probably 2 inches around) and put them onto parchment paper in a 9x13 inch pan (a bigger pan wouldn't fit in our freezer).

Next, freeze the balls for 2 hours. This is another area where I went wrong last time...I did not freeze the balls before I put them in the melted chocolate. This is SO important because it holds the balls together when you are dipping them in the melted chocolate. Also, the chocolate hardens faster after dipping.

After the balls are frozen, unwrap the Hugs (I did one pkg. at a time) and melt in the microwave. I melted for 1 minute, stirred, and then put them back in for another 40 seconds, stirred, and they were ready to be dipped.

I poked a toothpick through the ball and covered it in the melted Hugs.

Last time, the balls fell apart completely when I tried to dip them in the white chocolate bark (another thing I did different last time). I think the reason they fell apart is because I hadn't stirred them enough so they were too crumbly and I didn't freeze them. It was easy this time!

I think it was so neat how the chocolate got hard so fast. I ended up using Hershey's Hugs because my friend used Hershey's white chocolate. I am a Hershey's girl and knew how wrong my balls turned out last time so I decided I'd use what she did. Well, our Kroger didn't have those so I got the Nestle white chocolate chips. When Mar and I were walking down the candy aisle at the store (we always have to get him Dove dark chocolate) I saw those Hershey Hugs and knew they'd be delicious on the cake balls so I put the Nestle back. How can you go wrong with Hugs?! :) You can't!

I think these look pretty...I kept imagining them with a white chocolate monogram on them. Good idea for a shower or something.

There you have it! Absolutely delicious!!!

Oh, the recipe made 33 balls.

If you want them cold, you can put them back in the refrigerator. They are really good cold!

One more thing: I didn't realize until a few years ago that red velvet cake is actually chocolate cake with red food coloring. I wouldn't try it before that because I didn't think red cake looked like it would taste good (I also had an image in my mind of that armadillo cake from Steel Magnolias and it looked really gross). :) When I found out it was just chocolate cake with red food coloring, I didn't hesitate at all to try it and LOVED it!! My favorite thing about red velvet cake is the cream cheese icing that usually accompanies it. I have heard so many people say they don't like red velvet cake but they like chocolate cake. Maybe they are like I used to be and don't realize it's just chocolate cake or maybe they don't like the cream cheese icing. Anyway, I'm so glad I discovered red velvet cake...it's my absolute favorite. I was missing out for years!!! :)

Cheesy Chicken Spaghetti

This is my absolute favorite chicken spaghetti. Lamar and Macy LOVE it!!! It's so so good!! The funny thing is that I got the recipe out of a low fat cookbook. The cookbook has the best recipes in it, other than the low fat part, so I just exchange all the low fat for the real thing and all the food is delicious!!! Mar and I always make this together which makes cooking a lot more fun! :)

Ingredients:
2 small chickens (I buy the Rotisserie chickens from Wal-Mart or Kroger)
16 oz. spaghetti noodles
1 box of chicken broth (I forgot to look and see how many ounces it was...just buy the box that's big enough to cook the spaghetti in. If there's not enough broth just add water and it will still taste good...I've done it a lot).
1/2 cup chopped onions (I buy the chopped frozen ones).
1 chopped green bell pepper
3 stalks chopped celery
16 oz. Velveeta cup up
2 cans Rotel (I use mild...the recipe is still kind of spicy even using the mild)
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can cream of mushroom soup
8 oz chopped mushrooms (I always buy the fresh).
1/2 stick of butter (to saute veggies in).

Cook spaghetti noodles in chicken broth. While spaghetti is cooking, pull chicken off of the bones and chop up into bite size pieces. Saute mushrooms, celery, onions, and green bell pepper in 1/2 stick butter. Put spaghetti and veggies in a big pot. Stir in chicken, Velveeta, soups, and Rotel. Stir over low heat until cheese melts. Pour into deep 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

Cooking the spaghetti and the veggies. By the time the spaghetti is done, it has soaked up all the broth...you don't even have to drain it.

Adding the Velveeta.

Voila! :)
ENJOY!!!

Red Velvet Cake.....Paula Deen Style! :)

Ingredients for cake:

2 cups sugar

2 sticks butter at room temperature (I used unsalted)

2 eggs

2 tbs. cocoa powder

2 ounces flavorless red food coloring (I used 1 oz)

2 1/2 cups cake flour

1 tsp. salt

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1 tbs. vinegar

Preheat oven to 350. In a mixing bowl, cream the sugar and butter. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well after each addition. Mix cocoa and food coloring together and then add to sugar mixture; mix well. Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture to the creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk. Blend in vanilla. In a small bowl, combine baking soda and vinegar and add to mixture. Pour batter into 3 (8 inch) round greased and floured pans. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove from heat and cool completely before frosting.

Ingredients for icing:

1 (8 oz) pkg. cream cheese

1 stick butter, softened (I used salted)

1 cup melted marshmallows (I used 7 oz. jar marshmallow cream)

1 lb. box confectioner's sugar

1 cup shredded coconut (didn't do this)

1 cup chopped pecans (didn't do this)

Blend cream cheese and butter together. Add marshmallows and sugar and blend. Fold in coconut and nuts. Spread between the layers and on top and sides of cooled cake.

What I did differently: I didn't sift the flour because I don't have a sifter. I was sure to use cake flour, though. Also, I creamed the butter and sugar and then after that, just added all the ingredients. I didn't do all of that mixing in different bowls except for the baking soda and vinegar because that's supposedly important. I only used 1 oz. of food coloring. I also used a 9x13 inch pan. I like inside pieces of cake and you don't get as many inside pieces using smaller round pans. I cooked for 45 mins. and it was perfect. I also didn't use nuts or coconut because I don't like the texture or coconut and don't like nuts unless they're by themselves. Oh, and I melted the marshmallow cream for about 15 seconds in the microwave which made it much easier to get out.

The sweet little princess helped me. She actually was playing with Play-doh at the table and baking her own "cake". :) She cooked us "dinner", too. :)

I only used 1 oz of red food coloring and it was plenty red for me.

The icing! YUM!!!

Enjoying the icing!! Rosy kept asking me for more.

I got the recipe from the food network. I read all the comments and took notes. One lady said to be sure and wear an apron because you would no doubt get red on you. I thought there was no way I'd get red on me (I'm too careful for that). Well, I got red all over me!! That lady was right! I'll know next time!!! It happened when I was blending everything. I washed my sweatshirt right away so all the red came out. You can see the red on the recipe, too! :) Some of the other commenters said to use 1/2 pkg. of vanilla pudding or 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce to make the cake more moist. I didn't do this because I wanted to try it the regular way first just to see. I may want to add pudding next time. A cake just can't be too moist for me. :) I also got the idea for the marshmallow cream from the comments. Lots of people said the marshmallows were too difficult to work with. I got the idea to change the food coloring from 2 oz to 1 oz from a commenter also. Someone said they could taste the food coloring so I made sure the food coloring I got was flavorless. I couldn't taste the food coloring at all.

Here's the cake out of the oven...plenty red for me.

And, with the icing.

YUM!!!

My sweet niece gave this cake a thumbs up!!! :) I give it a thumbs up, too!! It was really good!!! The only problem is now I have a HUGE temptation sitting in my kitchen. I know I'll eat a piece every day until it's gone. I'm going to have to bring it to my mom's tonight and share. :)