Start with breakfast in bed and end with cranberry cake
Grace says tart-sweet pretty red cake guaranteed to capture Valentine’s heart
Comments (...)|
|
| Grace decorates the top of a cranberry-amaretto layer cake with cream cheese frosting and dried cranberries. (Alex T. Paschal/apaschal@saukvalley.com) |
| Buy Sauk Valley Media Photos » |
Valentine’s Day is less than a week away. Everyone who loves somebody is looking for that perfect gift.
Gifts come in all sizes, all shapes, all forms. Many lovers are looking for something expensive, perhaps jewelry, to wrap up in a pretty package to give to that special person. How much a gift costs rarely represents its worth in gifts from the heart.
Don’t tell me that a diamond ring could ever mean as much to a mother as a family picture drawn in crayon by a 4-year-old.
The same goes for gifts from the kitchen. If it is true that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, what man could resist this cranberry-amaretto cake with cream cheese amaretto frosting? And what woman could resist starting her special day with a hot breakfast made by her family’s loving hands? Dad would love this, too.
I have just the ticket for a lovely Valentine’s Day: an elegant breakfast in bed for Mom and/or Dad – or anyone else you love – and a lovely cranberry layer cake to be served at the end of a day filled with love.
This tart-sweet pretty red cake is guaranteed to capture your Valentine’s heart – especially with a glass of sparkling champagne or cranberry juice.
Cranberry-amaretto layer cake
3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk, whole
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs
Frosting
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature, cut into pieces
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature, cut into pieces
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons amaretto liqueur
1 to 4 teaspoons milk, whole
Cranberry filling
1 cup whole-berry cranberry sauce
1 tablespoon amaretto liqueur
1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons dried cranberries, divided
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 (9-inch) round cake pans and cover pan bottoms with a round of parchment paper. Grease and flour paper and pan sides, tapping out excess flour.
In a medium-size bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk milk and vanilla extract.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until light and creamy. Add sugar and beat until fluffy. Scrape bowl. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Alternately, add the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the butter mixture, just until combined. Spread batter into prepared pans.
Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 28 to 35 minutes.
Cool in pans for 10 minutes, then run a knife around the edge to loosen cakes. Cover pans with large, lint-free, towel-covered plates and invert. Remove pan, peel off parchment and re-invert cakes from plates onto cooling rack. Allow to cool completely on wire racks.
For the frosting: In a large electric mixing bowl, beat butter and cream cheese until blended. With mixer on low, beat in confectioners’ sugar just until smooth.
Blend in amaretto and enough milk for desired consistency.
For the cranberry filling: In small bowl, combine cranberry sauce and amaretto.
Spread some frosting between the cake layers, then top with the cranberry filling, and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons of dried cranberries.
Top with second cake layer, frosting sides of cake. Refrigerate cake for 30 minutes to allow layer to set.
When ready to serve, decorate top with remaining dried cranberries.
Cook’s note: Cranberry juice may be substituted for the amaretto in this recipe.
-From “Cakes to die for!” by Bev Shaffer
Tip of the week
To avoid having to stop in the middle of a recipe to open a bottle of oil, keep it in a plastic squeeze bottle.
Cherry cheesecake
Servings: 24-30
1 box white cake mix
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 pint whipping cream, whipped
2 cans (21 ounces each) cherry pie filling
Prepare cake mix according to directions. Pour into 2 greased 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Cool. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until fluffy; fold in whipped cream. Spread over each cake. Top with pie filling. Chill for 4 hours or overnight.
Light multigrain English muffin
1 large egg
1 slice Swiss cheese
2 slices turkey bacon
Nonstick cooking oil spray
Beat egg in bowl. Split English muffin, dip each side in the egg and cover both sides thoroughly. Spray nonstick frying pan with cooking oil and put on stovetop on medium heat. Turn on broiler. Place muffin halves on pan and cook each side till golden brown, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove muffins from pan, top each half with 1/2 slice cheese and put under broiler about 30 seconds, until cheese melts. In another nonstick frying pan, cook turkey bacon to desired crispness. Place in paper towel to remove excess oil. Place halves together with bacon and serve as a sandwich.
Almond and pear English muffin
1 light multi-grain English muffin
2 tablespoons almond butter
1 small pear
Separate and toast English muffin.
Spread 1 tablespoon of almond butter on each half and top with half of a thinly sliced pear. Serve open-faced.
Breakfast bagel
1 whole-wheat bagel
3 ounces smoked salmon
2 tablespoons hummus
2 slices red onion
2 slices tomato
1/5 avocado
Separate and toast bagel. Spread 1 tablespoon of hummus on each half. Top each half with avocado, onion, tomato and then smoked salmon. Serve open-faced.
Reader's Corner
Dear readers,
I always love getting mail. I got a letter this week that brightened my day and put a smile on my face that may be there until Valentine’s Day or longer. Just something about the way it started made me happy.
It came from Dixon reader Colleen K. Bonnell and started like this:
“I baked a cherry pie this morning and thought of you!”
Thank you, Colleen!
Then she included the recipe for the pie. I am passing it along to all the readers I am thinking of as I bake the same cherry pie.
Happy Valentine’s Day to you all.
Colleen writes that, “The instructions are on the Wilderness Original Country Cherry Pie Mix. I add sugar and cornstarch that make it sweeter and thicker. I also do this with the peach mix for a sweeter and thicker juice.
“After baking the pie for 15 minutes at 425 degrees, I use a crust protector for remaining time and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes or until crust is done.”
Here are the directions for the complete pie.
Colleen’s classic cherry pie
For a double crust
2 cups flour
2/3 cup plus 2 teaspoons of Crisco shortening
9 tablespoons water
Salt (a sprinkle)
In a glass bowl, mix flour and salt, and cut in shortening. Add water and mix with a fork.
The pie
2 cans (21 ounces) Wilderness Original Country Cherry
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
Mix all and place in pie crust. Dot butter over top. Place top crust and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes or 325 degrees for 30 minutes, until crust is done
Spanish rice
One more recipe this week for Spanish rice, this one from Cindy Sambdman of Dixon. Cindy said she has made this recipe for more than 30 years and it sounds a bit like my mother’s, as I described it.
I have received several recipes for the Spanish rice, trying to find out how my mother made it. I thank you. I have read all these great recipes – and tried most of them – and they are all delicious. I don’t even know now if I would recognize my mom’s Spanish rice if it bit me!
It’s very likely that she did not have a recipe, and maybe she never made it the same way twice. Anyway, I have gathered some excellent Spanish rice recipes, and I am sharing them with you as they come in, so keep them coming.
This turned out to be quite interesting and the exchange has been a lot of fun. It is great to share our recipes, so if you have a good one, send it to me.
From Cindy:
Spanish rice
Serves: 4-6
4 slices of bacon, cut up and fried until crisp.
Put bacon in 1 1/2 quart dish. Whisk around to grease dish. Saute 1/4 cup of chopped onion and 1/4 cup of chopped green pepper until the onion is yellow. Add to baking dish, along with 3 cups boiled rice, 2 cups cooked tomatoes, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and 1/8 teaspoon black pepper. Sprinkle 1/4 cup of American cheese over the top and bake, uncovered, at 400 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.
Dorothy Noble’s noodle tip
Speaking of sharing recipes, Dorothy Noble, a reader in Amboy, discovered something she wants to share.
“I have made my noodles for the family for many years,” Dorothy said. Like many good cooks, she never measured anything. She used all-purpose flour, salt, and eggs, until the noodle dough was rolled and kneaded into the right consistency. She said she also put a little pinch of baking powder into the mix.
“One day I decided to make my regular noodles, but all I had was self-rising flour,” Dorothy said. “I wondered if that would work, and I couldn’t see why it wouldn’t. So, I tried it.”
It worked beautifully – the noodles were just as good as the ones she had made for years, and a lot easier to make.
So, if you are a noodle-maker, try a batch with self-rising flour. Let us know if you like them.
–Grace
Comments
Total Comments 0 View/Add Comments |
There have been no comments made about this story. |
