Chocolate Praline Cake

This is one of those simple to do cakes, but looks amazing and tastes like you spent hours slaving over it. One warning though, it gets messy while you serve it, so don't be afraid to dig right in :)
Chocolate Praline Cake
from the Cake Mix Doctor

1 stick butter, cut up
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup pecans, chopped
1 package devil's food cake mix with pudding (it works without pudding as well)
1 cup water
1/2 cup oil
3 large eggs
1 (8 oz) tub cool whip or fresh whipped sweetened cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a small saucepan over low heat, stir together butter, cream, and sugar just until the butter melts--about 3 minutes. Divide the mixture between 2 nine-inch pans. Sprinkle each mixture with the chopped pecans and set aside.

In a large bowl, mix the cake mix, water, oil, and eggs. Blend on low for 1 minute, scrape down the sides, then blend on medium for 2 minutes. Divide into the 2 pans and spread smooth. Place the pans side by side in the oven and bake for 35-37 minutes. The cakes should spring back when lightly pressed.

Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10 minutes. Then run a dinner knife around the edges and turn out onto wire racks, praline side up. To serve, place on cake praline side up on a cake plate and spread half of your whipped cream/cool whip on top. Place the next cake, praline side up, on top and then spread again with the rest of the cool whip.

You can also make this in a 9x13 pan. Just put everything in the one pan (instead of dividing between 2 nine-inch pans) and bake for 55 minutes. Cool the same way and just spread all of the cool whip on top of the cake instead of stacking it. Enjoy!

German Chocolate Cake Balls

I can't take any of the credit for this recipe other than the variations we've made. The original I got from bakerella.com who is the queen of cute cake balls and such (you should totally check out her website--it's amazing what she can do with these!). The basic recipe involves crumbling up a baked cake, adding a can of frosting, and then forming it into balls and then dipping them. Her original recipe calls for Red Velvet Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting dipped in chocolate. We've tried a few different variations, and hope to try many, many more :) One of our favorites thus far is German Chocolate complete with homemade coconut pecan frosting. You could totally use the canned frosting for this in a pinch, but isn't homemade just that much nummier?
This is actually the only picture I've been able to snap of my cake balls. It's from my youngest son's 1st birthday a couple years ago. We had a "Ball" theme since he was so in love with balls of any variety at that point. So I tried doing the bakerella thing and making the cake balls look like actual balls (we were going for basketballs, baseballs, yellow bouncy balls, and kickballs). I think this variety was Devil's food cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in colored candy melts (like almond bark-- you can get them at joann's/roberts etc.).

German Chocolate Cake Balls
a variation of the original cake balls by bakerella

1 German Chocolate Cake, baked according to package directions
1 recipe Coconut Pecan Frosting (recipe below, or in a pinch--1 can of coconut pecan frosting)
3-4 bags Guittard Chocolate chips (or almond bark or other chocolate)*

Dump the cake into a really big bowl and break it up with your hands or fork or whatever you find useful. Stir in the coconut pecan frosting. Using your hands, start rolling the mixture into balls and placing on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or freezer paper. Make sure they're not touching, but cram as many as you can on there. You may need to wash the mixture off your hands several times while rolling these, as your hands will get very messy which makes for messy balls. After rolling a full pans worth of balls, place the pan in the freezer for at least 20 minutes (this helps them stay firm while you're dipping them in warm chocolate).

Melt your chocolates in a bowl. I just use the microwave for this. Heat it initially for 30 seconds and then stir. Then heat it for 15 seconds and stir, repeating until the chocolate is melted. During the dipping, you'll have to keep reheating the chocolates or keep them in a double boiler or a crockpot to help it stay warm and melted.

Carefully, using two forks (or official dipping forks if you're lucky enough to have them), dip each frozen cake ball into the chocolate and carefully place on a sheet of parchment to dry and set. After the chocolate has set, dig in and enjoy!

*For a full recipe, you'll need about 1 package plus a bit of another package of almond bark. It melts and dips thinner than chocolate chips. So you won't need as much as you would chocolate chips. Chocolate chips just taste tons better (especially the good kind like guittard), but they stay thicker, so you need more.

Coconut Pecan Frosting
Better Homes and Gardens cookbook

1 egg
2/3 cup evaporated milk (regular milk works fine too)
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine
1 1/3 cup coconut
1/2 cup chopped pecans

In a medium saucepan, slightly beat egg. Stir in milk, sugar, and butter. Cook and stir over medium heat about 12 minutes or till thickened and bubbly. Remove from heat; stir in coconut and pecans. Cover and cool. Tastes great on German Chocolate Cake, Brownies, you name it :).

Lemon Bars

I don't make lemon bars that often (ok, never), as I've never really been a fan of them. But Dave asked if I'd make some... so I figured I'd give it a try. This recipe was the highest rated lemon bars on good ol' Allrecipes. It was delicious and definitely a keeper! And I'm now a huge fan of lemon bars :) (yes, it was that good!).

Crust
1 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup white sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt

Lemon Topping
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
3 lemons, juiced and zested (you'll need 1/2 cup juice and about 2 tsp of zest)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, blend together softened butter, 2 cups flour, salt, and 1/2 cup sugar. Press into the bottom of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan. Bake for 20 minutes, or until firm and golden. In another bowl, whisk together the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and 1/4 cup flour. Whisk in the eggs, lemon juice, and zest. Pour over the baked crust. Bake for an additional 25 minutes. The bars will firm up as they cool.

German Chocolate Pie

This is one of our favorite pies at Thanksgiving time. It is really divine! Make sure you bake it long enough. The last time I made it, I was rushing and I took it out too soon and it never set up :( Huge fail at our neighborhood recipe club. It was a sad day :(. Thankfully my kids and hubby all knew it's an incredible pie and devoured it, so....I'm sorry to you gals from recipe club, but my kids thank you for saving them so much ;)

German Chocolate Pie
Family Recipe

(4 oz) package Baker’s German Sweet Chocolate, broken in pieces
¼ cup butter
12 oz can evaporated milk
1½ cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cup coconut
½ cup chopped pecans
1 unbaked 9” pie shell

Melt chocolate and butter over low heat until blended. Remove from heat and gradually blend in milk. In separate bowl, mix sugar, cornstarch and salt thoroughly. In a separate bowl blend eggs and vanilla. Add egg mixture to dry mixture and blend together. Gradually blend chocolate mixture into egg/dry mixture. Pour in pie shell. Sprinkle with coconuts and pecans. Bake at 375 for 45-50 minutes or until puffed and brown. Before/If it starts to burn, cover with foil. Cool 4 hours.

Brown Sugar Chews

2 eggs
2 cups brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Mix together eggs, sugar, and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix flour, salt, and soda. Add flour mixture to the wet mixture. Add nuts. Spread in a greased 9x13 pan and bake for 20 minutes. Cool before cutting.

Coconut Bread

Miracle of miracle--I'm actually posting again! :) This is a bread we actually tried a few months ago, but the kids liked it so much they've been begging for it ever since and since I'm actually blogging again I decided I'd share :) This really is a delicious bread! It's not overly coconut-ty but it's definitely got a coconut flavor to it. It's soft and really yummy. If I can remember to grab so more coconut milk when I'm at the grocery store we'll make it again soon :)Coconut Bread
The Knead for Bread

Dough
2/3 cup coconut milk
2/3 cup lukewarm water
2 tablespoons shortening (melted)
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoon milk powder
4 teaspoon instant yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg (beaten)
2 tablespoon coconut (finely chopped)
4 cups bread flour (I just used regular flour which was great, but bread flour would make it more tender)

Topping
1 egg white
1 tablespoon water
3 tablespoon flour
2 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoon butter, soft
2 tablespoon coconut (finely chopped)

In a small bowl mix some of the water and a bit of sugar. Add in the yeast and set aside for a few minutes. In your mixer add the rest of the lukewarm water, beaten egg, coconut milk, melted shortening, rest of the sugar, salt, finely chopped coconut, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix and then add in the instant yeast mixture and 1 more cup of flour. Mix on high for 8 minutes, then slowly add the rest of the flour. You may not need it all--you don't want the dough to stick to your hands, but you don't want it to be too dry either. Mix for 2 more minutes. Let the dough rest for a couple minutes while you prep your work area.

Turn dough out onto lightly floured work area and cut dough into two equal pieces. Take one piece and cut into 16 more pieces. Roll the first eight piece of dough into a ball and place into the bottom of an 4 1/2 X 8 greased loaf pan. Now, roll out the other 8 pieces of dough and place them on top of the other 8 pieces. Do the same with the other large piece of dough and you should end up with two loaves. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rest for about an hour or till the dough reaches about 1 inch from the top of the pan.

Next make the topping. In a small bowl add the flour, butter, sugar and coconut. Using your fingers mix till the mixture becomes a crumble. In a separate bowl combine the egg white and the tablespoon of water. Beat with a wire whisk till foamy. Brush the tops of the loaves with the foam and then add the crumble topping. Place into a 350 degree preheated oven for about 25-30 minutes. Remove from pans and allow to cool on a wire rack.

Key Lime Pie

And.....we're back! Sorry for the break there :) Summer just got to be too much fun and blogging less fun (and less time for it with all the kids home). So let's end the summer right with a delicious key lime pie. I've not had many key lime pies, but thought I'd give this one a try. I decided to try this recipe out because it had the same review situation as Sam's famous carrot cake I found on allrecipes.com--out of hundreds of reviews, hardly any bad reviews. You can't beat a recipe like that, so I thought I'd give it a go, especially since we had a bagful of key limes that were on sale at the grocery store.

Overall we really liked this pie and have made it twice already :) The first time I diligently squeezed 30-ish key limes (after zesting several to get the Tablespoon of zest the recipe calls for). It took forever, and in the end I was just shy of the 3/4 cup of key lime juice needed. But it really tasted phenomenal.

The next time we made it, I just used regular lime zest (about 3 limes) and then key lime juice in a container. The end result was just as good, the only difference being it had a more potent lime taste probably because I actually got the 3/4 cup and it's a bit more concentrated. Either way you go though, it's delicious!!
Key Lime Pie VII
allrecipes.com (annrichardson)

1 prepared 9-inch graham cracker crust
3 cups sweetened condensed milk (2 cans)
1/2 cup sour cream
3/4 cup key lime juice
1 Tablespoon lime zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Make your graham cracker crust or get your pre-made one ready to go. In a medium bowl combine sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, key lime juice, and lime zest. Mix well and pour into crust. Bake for 5-8 minutes. DO NOT BROWN. Chill pie thoroughly before serving. Garnish with lime slice and whipped cream if desired.

Here's the recipe for the graham cracker crust I use:

Graham Cracker Crust
1 1/2 cup finely crushed graham cracker crumbs (about 1 sleeve graham crackers)
1/3 sugar
6 Tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (didn't use it with the key lime pie--but it's good in other recipes)

Mix all ingredients until well blended. Press into an 8- or 9-inch pie plate. Bake at 375 for 7 minutes. Cool. If recipe calls for an unbaked graham cracker crust, just chill for an hour instead of baking before filling.