Fourth of July Cherry Cake

I know I'm a day late and a dollar short on the fourth of July blog posts but this cake is BANGING. It's a recipe my grandma used to make and each year, I'd request it for my big family birthday celebration. This cake is da bomb. 

Without further ado, the greatest non-chocolate cake ever:

Ingredients: 

White cake (We use a box because we were making a shit ton of other food but you can make homemade.)

1 Box of Cherry Jell-o

1 packet of Dream Whip -OR- one container of Cool Whip

1 can of cherry pie filling

1. Make a cake. Follow the box or the recipe of your choice. It's gotta be a white cake though.

2. Let the cake cool then poke holes throughout the cake. 

3. Make Jell-o according to package BUT DO NOT ADD THE CUP OF COOL WATER. Keep the Jell-O double strength.

4. Once Jell-o is cooled to room temperature-ish, pour over cake and place the cake in your fridge over night. 

5. Before serving, mix up Dream Whip (my grandma always used Dream Whip but we used reduced fat Cool Whip for our cake) and spread over the top of cake. 

6. Cover in cherry pie filling and serve. 

7. Keep leftovers (if you have any) in the fridge.

Shit's delicious, isn't it?

Rainbow Cheesecake

As promised, but very late (of course), here is my little sister's 14th birthday cake: RAINBOW CHEESECAKE.

I also made this cheesecake as my father decided to take a nap in the living room (which is attached to the kitchen) so I woke him up. It sucked. Have you ever tried to use a mixer while someone was sleeping? Not easy.
   

 After surfing the internet for days trying to find a recipe, I open our never before used spring form pan and out pops the Pampered Chef recipe for cheesecake. It was like a gift from Jesus. So I used it. So you don't have to Google it, I will provide it for you here. 

Ingredients:

Crust

8 graham crackers (4 1/2 X 2 1/2 inches each, about 1 cup crumbs) - I only needed 5 1/2 or so... 8 was WAY TOO MUCH.
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted - I probably could've used another Tablespoon of butter as well.
1 tablespoon sugar

Filling

2 packages (8 ounces each) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Place graham crackers in resealable plastic food storage bag. Crush into fine crumbs using Baker's Roller. Combine graham cracker crumbs, butter and sugar; mix well. Press crumb mixture onto bottom of Springform Pan fitted with flat base. Bake 10 minutes. Remove from oven to Cooling Rack.

2. Meanwhile, place cream cheese in Batter Bowl. Whisk using whisk until soft and creamy. Whisk in sugar and flour until well combined. Add eggs, sour cream and vanilla; whisk until smooth.

3. TO MAKE IT RAINBOW-Y: Distribute batter into 6 bowls evenly. Stir in GEL FOOD COLORING to get desired colors. (Gel is very important!! Don't use the liquid kind, it'll water down your batter.) Make sure the colors are completely blended and there aren't any streaks. To "splatter," put a spoon of each color in one at a time. Be sure to get around the outside as well as the inside. I didn't have much trouble getting it even, just try not to "smooth" it out because the colors will smear and you don't want an icky looking cake. 

4. Bake 50-55 minutes until center is just set. 

5. Remove from oven. Cool 20 minutes on cooling rack. Carefully run sharp knife around edges of cheesecake. Allow to cool to room temperature; cover and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled. Release side clamp and remove collar. 

Also, look at the Little Mermaid plates. HOLLA at my girl, Ariel. :)

It's My Baby Sister's Birthday! With Rainbow Cupcakes!

My baby (and only) little sister's birthday is today (SHE'S 14!!!!) and guess who volunteered to bake the cake?

THIS GIRL!

Anyway, It's 9:30 in the morning so I obviously haven't done it yet but I've opted to bake her a cheesecake. My very first homemade cheesecake! (We usually just make the No Bake Jell-O one. Which is delicious but not the same as the real thing.) So I went to the store and bought 2 pounds of cream cheese yesterday. BA-BAM!

Even though I haven't made this year's cake, I wanted to share last year's cake because I did a really awesome job and surprised everyone in the house with them.

That's right! RAINBOW CUPCAKES! And they were awesome. I got the idea from Om Noms By Kelly, which gives a full tutorial on how to make them. Granted, they took me ALL DAY to make and I didn't even bake these from scratch. They were just a box mix and 2 cans of frosting. If you do this and are baking 2 dozen cupcakes, get 2 cans of frosting, you will need it. (Although I think the site I found the idea on said not to use canned frosting, it still works. I promise.)

But I just baked the cakes and used my mom's Pampered Chef decorator to make the swirled colored frosting. The site I found it on uses a pastry bag though. I just felt this tool was easier (only had to refill once!). And be sure you buy gel food coloring to get the vibrant colors you want without making your cake batter/frosting runny!

Sorry I only have a couple of pics. I didn't have a camera and just had to take cell pics at the time. Oh well. I'm still super proud of these. Will post pics of the cheesecake today (or tomorrow)! Enjoy!

Oven Baked Potato Fries

I made these the same night as the deviled eggs with some chicken barbecue and baked beans. Oh man. Food coma. But these are definitely a new staple in this apartment because they were so damn good and we didn't even have to fry them-- so they're healthy! WOOP!

We used one potato for the two of us because we already had A LOT of side dishes and that was plenty.

Ingredients:

1 sweet potato
Vegetable oil (I used the spray kind)
salt
pepper
Red Pepper flakes (totally optional)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Peel and cut the sweet potato into "fry sized" bites.
3. Spray baking sheet with oil and place the potato strips in a single layer on it.

4. Spray the tops with cooking spray and then sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if you like a little kick.
5. Bake for 25-30 minutes, flipping halfway through. Watch them the last couple of minutes, some of mine got a little more "blackened" than we desired because I didn't watch them close enough at the end.
6. Enjoy! OM NOMS.

We just ate ours with ketchup because, in my opinion, nothing compliments the sweetness of the sweet potato fries like the salty and slightly tart taste of ketchup Plus, I just love that shit. 

Easter Leftovers: Deviled Eggs

The other day, I made the boyfriend dye Easter eggs with me because he'd never done it before. I went all out and got the Paa's pack with 9 different colors so we had a blast. We even marbled them!

However, with all the fun comes A LOT of hard boiled eggs. What's a girl to do? Deviled freaking eggs, that's what. Since we didn't have them at our MASSIVE Easter lunch, I decided that I'd make them for just the two of us. Well, they're mostly for me because I don't think the boyfriend will touch them. At all. Despite my promises that they are especially delicious.

Also, I feel like a grown-up now because I eat them with pickle relish. When I was little, I used to only eat deviled eggs without pickles-- I always had my own little container of deviled eggs at big family dinners. :)

So without further adieu: Deviled eggs. A classic. They're not fancy. Get over it.

Ingredients:

Hard boiled eggs (I used 4)
Yellow Mustard (I used French's)
Mayonaise (I used Duke's Light Mayo)
Sweet pickle relish
Salt and Pepper to taste

1. Peel your cooled hard boiled eggs.
2. Cut the hard boiled eggs in half length wise and empty the yolks into a bowl.
3. Mash up the yolks and add in mayo and mustard until creamy.
4. Add in about a tablespoon pickle relish. (If you don't like pickles you can skip this step or just throw in a teaspoon of the juice instead of the actual pickles.)
5. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remember that the condiments have a lot of salt so you may want to taste the mixture before adding salt.

6. Fill your eggs using a small teaspoon or a piping bag with a large star tip for those who are really into presentation or whatever.

Enjoy!