Blackberry-Pear Cobbler

When they announced that the Ward Trunk or Treat was to be preceded by a Chili and Cobbler cookoff--I knew I needed to make cobbler!! I spent all week looking at different recipes, trying to decide what kind of cobbler I should make--and they all sounded so good. But, Mom and Dad had another bumper crop of pears this year, and kept trying to send us home with them. So, I decided to make good use of their fruit and went with this recipe for Pear-Blackberry cobbler from Epicurious.com.

Delicious! I was so nervous about the batter rising up around the fruit like it should. But it baked up beautifully and smelled amazing when I pulled it out of the oven. It got a lot of hits at the cook-off and I even overheard several compliments. (I kept coming back to the cobbler table to try juuust one more..)

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Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter 9x13" baking dish.

4 cups frozen blackberries, NOT thawed
4 cups pears, peeled and chunked
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup Cran-Grape juice
3 tsp finely grated orange peel
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Gently toss berries, pears, 2/3 cup sugar, juice, orange peel, cinnamon in large bowl. Set aside.

1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining sugar in medium bowl. Add milk, melted butter, and cinnamon; whisk until blended.

Spread batter in prepared dish. Place berry-pear mixture atop batter. DO NOT STIR, batter will bake up around fruit.

Bake cobbler until crust is set in center and brown at edges, about 1 hour.

Baby Girl Strawberry Frosting

I really wanted to do strawberry frosting from scratch for cupcakes I made for Angela's baby shower. (Girl. Duh.) I ended up using a mash-up of two recipes; one was the Sprinkles recipe from Martha Stewart's website and the other from a blog called Recipe Shoebox. I made the cupcakes from scratch also, but they came out pretty dry, so I don't think I'll post the recipe I used.
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4-6 whole frozen strawberries, thawed
3/4 cup butter, slightly cold
1/4 cup shortening
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 tsp lemon juice
pinch of coarse salt

In a small bowl, mash strawberries.

In a medium bowl, beat together butter, shortening and salt until fluffy. Reduce mixer speed and slowly add powdered sugar until it is the consistency of ice cream.

Add 3 Tbsp of the mashed strawberries, the lemon juice and vanilla. Mix until just blended.

Root Beer Float Ice Cream Cake!

Best Idea Ever. I saw this recipe on foodbuzz.com and HAD to try it out. And since my father-in-law is pretty much the Root Beer Float King, and his birthday was last week...it was perfect.

I was surprised at how much the root beer really flavors the cake. AND probably my favorite thing was the way my kitchen smelled as it was baking. Heavenly!

Be Warned: This makes for a sticky, sticky cake. Light, moist, delicious, but sticky! Refrigerate the cakes before you try to take them out of the cake pan. Don't try to plop the cake out onto a cooling rack like I did with the first one; the cake stuck to the cake pan AND stuck to the cooling rack AND stuck to the plate I tried to invert it onto and ended up a big mess. (I squished it into the ice cream layer before re-freezing the ice cream layer and that saved it.) The second cake was much easier to get out of the pan after having been refrigerated and much easer to transfer around with the use of a sheet of wax paper.

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1 box white cake mix
1 12 oz can/bottle root beer (diet or regular)
abt 4 cups vanilla ice cream
16 oz Cool Whip (2 small containers or 1 big one)

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Spray two 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray; set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and soda until almost all the lumps are gone. Divide cake batter evenly between cake pans and bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Refrigerate to cool (you can even cool the cake layers in the freezer.)

While cake is cooling, prepare ice cream layer: Line an 9-inch cake pan with wax paper and press ice cream down into pan. Put this layer in the freezer until firm, about 1 hour.

Once ice cream has hardened and cakes have cooled, you can begin to build your cake.

Place first layer down on a cake plate. Top cake with ice cream layer by turning wax papered ice cream upside down over cake and then peeling wax paper. Top ice cream with second layer of cake and press down lightly. Re-freeze cake until ice cream is well frozen again, about 20 minutes.

Ice entire cake with cool whip and refreeze until cool whip is set. Slice and serve.

Store leftovers in the freezer covered tightly with saran wrap for two weeks.


(Apologies for no pictures, I was too stressed about getting to Bill's parent's on time with a frozen rather than a melted ice cream cake!)

4th of July Jell-o

My friend Jenn posted this recipe on her blog a very long time ago, and although I haven't made it in years, I remembered it being a big hit at potlucks. And we were unpacking the kitchen all morning so it wasn't such a pain to keep up with all of the layers! So, I thought it was time to revive this one:

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1 box (6 oz.) berry-blue flavored Jell-o
1 box (6 oz.) raspberry flavored Jell-o
2 packets Knox plain gelatin
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait mountain blueberry yogurt
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait red raspberry yogurt
1 (6 oz.) container Yoplait vanilla yogurt
water
½ cup sugar

1. In medium bowl, stir 2 cups boiling water into blue jell-o until jell-o is dissolved. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the blue jell-o into blueberry yogurt. Pour yogurt mixture into 13x9-inch (3-quart) glass baking dish. Refrigerate about 1 hour or until set. Meanwhile, stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain blue jell-o; let stand at room temperature.
2. When blue yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain blue jell-o over yogurt layer. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set.
3. Pour ½ cup cold water into a bowl. Sprinkle with two packets of Knox plain gelatin; let stand one minute. Add 1 ½ cups boiling water and stir until gelatin completely dissolves. Stir in ½ cup sugar. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the gelatin mixture into vanilla yogurt. Pour mixture over blue layers. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set. Stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain gelatin; let stand at room temperature.
4. When white yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain gelatin over yogurt layer. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set.
5. In medium bowl, stir 2 cups boiling water into raspberry jell-o until jell-o is dissolved. In another medium bowl, slowly stir 1 cup of the raspberry jell-o into raspberry yogurt. Pour yogurt mixture over layer of clear gelatin. Refrigerate about 30 minutes or until set. Stir 2/3 cup cold water into remaining plain raspberry jell-o; let stand at room temperature.
6. When raspberry yogurt layer is set, carefully pour plain raspberry jell-o over yogurt layer. Refrigerate at least 2 hours until set.