German Chocolate Pound Cake

My grandmother, Margaret Oakley, gave me this recipe at my Pampered Bride shower in 2002, a few months before I got married.

I tried making this recipe once, when we were newlyweds. For some reason, my pan was too small and it overflowed all over my oven.

This time...no such thing happened and we ended up with a delicious chocolate cake!
Grandma notes on the back of the card "No frosting needed. It's already in the cake."

Ingredients

1 box (18 1/4 oz) German chocolate cake mix
1/4 c. vegetable oil (I use canola)
1 c. water
3 lg eggs
1 carton (15 oz) coconut pecan frosting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 12 cup pan. In large bowl, mix cake mix, oil, water, and eggs. Mix on low speed about 1 minute. Scrape bottom of the bowl and beat on low speed for 2 minutes. Add frosting and beat on low for 2 minutes. Pour in pan and bake 55-60 minutes until cake taster inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Let cake cook in pan. Invert cool cake onto a plate and let cool thoroughly before slicing.

Sugar Cookies (great for cut-outs) & Icing

Some sweet ladies from my church hosted a Back to School day last year. The younger siblings of school-aged kids made sugar cookies to give their brothers and sisters when they got home from their first day of school. I loved the recipe and have used it ever since!
1 stick butter (1/2 cup), softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1. Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg. Mix until well blended.
2. Sift together salt, baking powder, and flour. Gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Add the vanilla.
3. Dough will form a ball when pressed together. Chill in the refrigerator until slightly firm.
4. Roll out to about 1/4 inch thick. (I use powdered sugar to keep my surfaces dusted. It makes the dough less gummy than using flour.) Cut in your desired shapes and bake in a 350 degree oven for 8-10 minutes. (We prefer about 8 minutes so our cookies stay soft.)
Icing
1 c. powdered sugar
2 t. milk
2 t. light corn syrup
1/4 t. almond extract
paste food coloring

Mix sugar & milk until smooth. Beat in syrup & extract. This with additional milk until desired consistency. (Thin it little by little and only after mixing VERY well.)
I've also made icing using meringue powder and powdered sugar and water. The meringue powder icing dries extremely hard. The above recipe isn't quite as hard and uses items most people already have on hand.

Banana Nut Smoothies

We like smoothies.
Here's a recipe I featured on our regular blog earlier in 2009.

1 banana, frozen
1 cup vanilla yogurt
1/4 c. chopped walnuts
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. honey (optional)
1/8 tsp. ground nutmeg

Cut the frozen banana in 3 or 4 chunks and peel. (Personally, I peel the whole banana and then wrap in wax paper and put in the freezer. I just break it apart when ready to use.) Place in blender with all other ingredients. Blend on high for 2 minutes or until smooth.

I made the first batch with the walnuts and honey. I made the second batch without the walnuts. I didn't notice a big difference, so to save calories, I wouldn't put nuts in again.

Honey Wheat Oatmeal Bread

This recipe comes from Taste of Home's Healthy Cooking magazine. It makes a 2 lb loaf.
Ingredients

1 1/4 c. warm water
1/2 c. honey
2 T. canola oil
1 1/2 t. salt
1 c. quick oats
1 1/2 c. bread flour
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 pkg (1/4 oz) active yeast (2 1/4 t.)

Directions

Place all ingredients in bread machine in order as suggested by manufacturer. Select basic bread, crust color and size. Bake in machine. Check dough ball after 5 minutes--add water or flour as needed.
have made this bread in my machine several times. It is always yummy. However, my machine pan makes a funny shaped loaf and leaves a big hole where the paddle bakes in the bread. I'm still working on making the dough in my machine and baking the bread in two loaf pans in my oven. Thus far, my loaves haven't been high and fluffy like I want. I'll update this post if I get that part figured out!

Happy Baking!

Strawberry Pretzel Dessert

Our Christmas dinner this year included a turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, giblet gravy, corn, homemade bread, and this yummy dessert!The recipe I used was written in my husband's handwriting from when he was a teenager! Our friend Paul also made this dessert several years back when we had Thanksgiving together (oh, how I miss those times!).

Ingredients & Directions

2 c. crushed pretzels (not too fine; 9 oz of thin pretzel sticks works)
3 T. sugar
3/4 c. butter, melted (I used about 2/3 c this time)

Mix pretzels, sugar and butter. Press into a 9 x 13 pan and bake at 375 degrees for 6-8 minutes. Let cool.

8 oz. cream cheese
1 c. sugar
8 oz container Cool Whip, thawed

Mix cream cheese and sugar well. Fold in Cool Whip. Mix well. Pour over cooled pretzel crust.

1 lg (6 oz) box strawberry jello
2 c. boiling water
2 10 oz pkgs frozen strawberries

Mix jello and water until jello dissolved. Add frozen strawberries until thawed. Let the mixture thicken. Pour over cream cheese mixture and chill in refrigerator until firm.

Navy Bean Soup

This recipe joined my collection in the spring of 2009. We had a ham for Easter and I didn't want to just throw away the bone.

This soup is super simple and very delicious!

Ingredients

2 c. dried split peas or navy beans (I've also used pinto and a mixture of other beans)
6 c. water
2 chopped carrots
1 lg onion, chopped (didn't have any, so just used some onion powder and it was still delicious)
ham bone
1 t. thyme
1 t. basil
salt
pepper

Directions

1. Rinse peas thoroughly.
2. Combine all ingredients in a crock pot.
3. Cook on low for 8-10 hours.
4. Remove bone, cut ham off and return to soup. Discard bone.

OR

1. Soak beans overnight.
2. Combine all ingredients.
3. Bring to a simmer. Cook for 2 hours or until beans are tender.
4. Remove bone, cut ham off and return to soup. Discard bone.

Goes wonderfully with cornbread!

Ginger Crinkles

I received this recipe from a woman who worked with my mom. It makes a double batch, which is about 7 1/2 dozen according to my last baking day!
Ingredients

1 1/3 c. vegetable oil (I use canola)
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
8 T. molasses (not black strap)
4 c. sifted flour
4 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 t. cinnamon
2 t. ginger
sugar for dipping

Instructions

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Mix oil and sugar. Add eggs and beat well. Stir in molasses.3. Sift together dry ingredients. Add to molasses mixture.4. Form into balls and roll in sugar.
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
I use a teaspoon scoop to make the balls. You just scoop and then plop them in sugar and flip over. I also bake them until just done. They stay moist and get gobbled up quickly!
Enjoy!

Cornbread - Sweet & Yummy

I saw this post in a comment on someone else's blog. We made it to go with a yummy Navy Bean soup I made. We all enjoyed the cornbread and the kids were asking for seconds!

I believe this is the Betty Crocker Recipe. It's pretty similar to the Jiffy mix, but made from scratch. It makes one 8 or 9 inch pan or 12 muffins.

1 1/4c cornmeal
1 c. flour
1/2c. sugar
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4c butter or margarine, melted
1 c. milk

combine dry ingrediets. add wet ingredients. (I melt the butter in a big measuring cup in the microwave and add the milk and egg to that before adding it all to the dry ingredients). stir until just mixed.
pour into greased pan and bake at 400 F for 20-25 min, probably 15-20 for muffins.