Tag Archives: cream cheese

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Red Velvet Sneezes

Hey all!  I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas filled with family, love, and great food!  We had plans to go to a get together at our cousin’s house.  The morning of Christmas we both woke up with fevers and our son was hacking up a lung in his room.  There was no way we were making it anywhere.  Especially with four other kids attending the festivities, we’d feel horrible if we got them all sick.  All week we had anticipated going to this get together so we hadn’t even grocery shopped.  In order to avoid the Christmas rush we put off our grocery shopping till after the day.  Bad idea.  Now that we were stuck at home all we had was the Red Velvet Trifle I had made for the party and a 3 lb. chub of beef.  We decided to make chili for dinner and dig into the trifle for dessert.  Oh what?  You want my trifle recipe…well…alright.

 

Here’s what you need:

Red Velvet Cake

 

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons cocoa powder (unsweetened)
2 oz. red food coloring
1/2 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon baking soda

Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder, set that aside.  Then in another bowl mix together the cocoa powder and red food coloring, it will be a thin paste.  Set that aside too.

Next mix together the butter and sugar until it’s fluffy then add in one egg at a time, vanilla, and the red cocoa powder mixture.  Add in a third of the flour mixture and once it’s mixed in add half the buttermilk.  Keep alternating like that until everything is incorporated.  Don’t forget to scrape down the sides.  

In a small bowl mix the baking soda and vinegar together.  It will fizz so make sure the bowl accommodates for that.  Mix it into the batter.

I baked mine in a 9×13 rectangle pan because I just wanted to cube them, but you could easily divide these into cake rounds or whatever shape you want.  I baked at 350 for about 20 minutes.  Just check on it and when a toothpick in the center comes out clean, it’s done.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup half and half
1 cups milk chocolate chips

Just heat up the half and half to almost boiling and take it off the heat and add in the chocolate chips.  No need for the double boiler, this is ganache made simple.  I used the Ghirardeli milk chocolate chips…seriously…out of this world good.  You could use dark chocolate if you wanted.

Cream Cheese Marshmallow Frosting

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese
1 stick butter, softened
1 cup melted marshmallows or marshmallow fluff
1-pound box confectioners’ sugar (2 cups)

Mix together the cream cheese and butter until it’s fluffy, then add in the marshmallows and sugar.  Mix until it’s smooth.  You could also add nuts or coconut if you wanted.  I think coconut is really good with this frosting!  A good tip for using the marshmallow fluff – heat up your spoon under hot water and you’ll have a much easier time dealing with it.  This stuff is STICKY.

Now to assemble the trifle.  I just layered the red velvet and then covered with ganache then added dollops of frosting.  We don’t like a whole ton of frosting, but if you wanted actual layers with complete coverage I would just double the frosting recipe.

Once assembled mine looked like this:

Red Velvet Trifle with Chocolate Ganache and Marshmallow Cream Cheese Frosting

 

The color is unreal and it tastes SO good.  Moist, chocolatey, DELICIOUS.  Try it out!  Let me know how yours turn out!

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Touchdown Poppers

It is football season here in the US and that means appetizers and game food galore!  We don’t really keep up with sports in our home, but we still enjoy game food every now and then.  I remember once upon a time I used to sit and watch the game, but these days family time is just too precious.  Reason # 293847923847384 that I love my husband – he agrees!  I know this is a rare quality!  He puts me and our son first and any free moment he gets, he’s with us.  So football obsession doesn’t exist in our home, thank God.

On with the recipe!
This is a twist on jalepeno poppers.  Although I LOVE a good jalepeno poppers and I’m pretty sure I make the best ones, sometimes its tedious.  Cleaning out the peppers, mixing the cream cheese, stuffing them, breading them, etc.  I thought..hmm..why not stuff them in bread?!  This is like a jalepeno pepper and a kolache had a baby.  DELICIOUS!

What you need:

BACON!!! (cooked)

Crescent rolls

Cream Cheese

Jalapeno

First things first you have to POP open that can of rolls and unroll the dough.  Place it on a greased cookie sheet.

Put a little bit of cream cheese in the center of each triangle and then top with bacon and jalapeno.  We got a really strong batch from the farmer’s market so I only put two slivers in.

Next roll up the rolls and make sure to seal around the cheese so it doesn’t ooze out.  You could add in some mozzarella if you want it more cheesy.

See how innocent they look?

Cook it like normal, until it’s golden brown.  I think it’s at 350 degrees.
I pulled them out and brushed the top with butter and garlic powder and put them back in to make them more golden.

Be careful when you bite in, the inside is even hotter than the outside!  The cheese will scald your tongue!!

You could easily make this vegetarian, but since the bacon does so much for the flavor perhaps add something to the cream cheese.  I bet it would be good with a little salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Emeril essence.  Or whatever your heart desires!

Enjoy!  And stay tuned for the Easy Peasy Apple Cake!

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Ugly Pie

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July.  We decided to take it easy this year and just have a little meal at home.  The heat is just unbearable so going to a picnic anywhere seemed unrealistic.  Especially with the little man.  We just grilled up some brats and I made my famous watermelon salad.  We also had potato salad and a really delicious dessert.  What was for dessert you ask?!!!!

Recipe courtesy of my good friend Belkis.  (Go visit her blog: belkiscruz.wordpress.com)

I call it Ugly Pie because it’s pretty ugly when I scoop it onto my plate…but so SO good.  It’s incredibly simple, and goes down really easy.  It’s a nice light dessert for the summertime.

Here’s what you need:

1.5 Graham cracker packets

A tub of Cool whip

8 oz of softened cream cheese

2 packets instant chocolate pudding

sugar

1/2 stick of butter (melted)

Mash up the graham crackers, add sugar and melted butter and mix it all up.  To take this crust over the top add a few shakes of cinnamon.

Pat that graham cracker mix into the bottom of a 9×13 pan.  Make sure it’s packed tight.  If the graham cracker mixture isn’t sticking to itself add more butter.

Next mix together half of the cool whip and the cream cheese.  Mix until it is fluffy and lay it down on top of the crust.

Make the chocolate pudding according to the instructions on the packet.  It should be 2 cups of cold milk and mix until it sets.  Once it sets pour it over the cream cheese/cool whip layer.  Add the rest of the cool whip on top and decorate with graham crackers.  I decorated with Oreos because I didn’t want to open another pack of graham crackers.

Let it sit in the fridge to set a little and dig in!

I didn’t take a picture of it scooped out because we weren’t patient and didn’t let it sit in the fridge to harden.  It was a mess, but I don’t care, it was SO good.