Sweet Potato Oranges

I made these this past fall and I am SO excited to finally be posting them! When I was a baby, my favorite food was sweet potatoes -- I gobbled down so many baby food cans of mashed sweet potatoes...I just couldn't get enough! And now...I still LOVE them. I don't understand why people love regular baking potatoes so much. They are just bland and tasteless unless you add a bunch of cheese and sour cream, especially when compared with the magnificent sweet potato.  I was extremely happy with the flavor in this recipe; the potatoes compliment the oranges very well. And not only do these taste amazing, but they look absolutely fabulous and oh-so-impressive! Don't get me wrong...they were a bit of work -- having to scoop out the flesh of the oranges wasn't so easy. But it was totally worth it. The orange flavor is subtle and the brown sugar topping caramelizes the nuts, while seeping into the mashed potato mixture below. The result? Pure sweet potato bliss.

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

6 medium/large oranges

3 cups mashed, cooked sweet potatoes

1/4 cup white sugar

1/4 cup loosely packed light brown sugar

2 eggs, at room temperature, lightly beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup butter, softened, divided

1 tablespoon grated orange peel

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup all purpose flour

1 cup (largely) chopped pecans

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Prepare oranges by cutting tops off, 1/4 to 1/2 inch down. Spoon out the flesh, leaving a shell.
3. In a large bowl combine sweet potatoes, sugar, orange juice, eggs, vanilla extract, 1/2 cup butter and grated orange peel. Spoon mixture into orange shells. Place in a deep casserole dish.
4. In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine remaining 1/2 cup butter, brown sugar, flour and pecans. Cook until sugar dissolves in melted butter. Spoon over oranges. Fill casserole dish with water to reach 1/2 inch in depth.
5. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes.

Italian Cream Pancakes

I know I haven't posted in a while...I've been super busy with school work (junior year is killing me), but now it's FINALLY time for Spring Break! I will try my best to post at least one recipe each day because there are so many recipes I've been meaning to post and I know I am super behind. For my first post in a while, I have decided to present to you these incredible, sweet, nutty pancakes topped with a decadent cream cheese glaze. 

Yes, they are just as delicious as they sound. I promise.

If you've never tasted Italian Cream Cake, then you totally need to. Like...immediately. Sooo..you can start with this breakfast recipe! These pancakes seriously taste just like Italian Cream Cake, only hot and in heavenly pancake form, with warm glaze oozing all over them. Coconut, cream cheese frosting, and pecans are the most perfect combination perhaps in the entire world, and they taste scrumptious in this recipe.  Not to mention, [ toasting ] the pecans give the pancakes a wonderful nutty-ness that tastes so warm and comforting.

There were no leftovers when I made these for my family, and I'm sure the same thing will happen for you.

You can find this decadent recipe here. 

Strawberry Bread

I cannot wait until strawberry season.  Wanna know why?  Because I wanna use fresh strawberries for this yummy bread.  I had some leftover strawberries in the fridge, so I decided to make a sweet bread with them.  And it turned out amazing!!  It barely lasted a day in my house.  I can't even imagine how much more amazing it would be with freshly picked strawberries.  It's a sweet, dense, very moist cake-ish bread.  I guess you could call it a coffee cake.  This is best served all room temperature, in my opinion, with coffee.  Or with some cream cheese frosting on it...Mmm..this makes it taste like strawberry cheesecake!  It's also very good warm with ice cream and/or whipped cream.

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups fresh, sliced strawberries
• 1.5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup white sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 1 loaf pan.
2. Slice or dice strawberries, and place in medium-sized bowl. Sprinkle lightly with sugar, and set aside while preparing bread mixture.
3. Combine flour, sugar, cinnamon, salt and baking soda in large bowl: mix well. Blend oil and eggs into strawberries. Add strawberry mixture to flour mixture, blending until dry ingredients are just moistened. Stir in pecans. Divide batter into pans.
4. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes, or until tester inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pans on wire rack for 10 minutes. Turn loaves out, and cool completely.

White Chocolate Pumpkin Cookies

This past Halloween, my family didn't have time to carve pumpkins, so I decided to use them to cook with instead.  This was the first year that I had ever used fresh pumpkin.  I heard from a lot of people that fresh pumpkin really does make a big difference in recipes, but I never bothered to try it....until this year that is.  This was the first recipe I made using fresh pumpkin, adapted from a Taste of Home Cookie Cookbook I have, and they turned out sooo delicious!!! These are probably my #1 favorite cookie recipe.  They are the most irresistible cookies I've ever eaten...it's seriously impossible to have just one.  The cookie dough is incredible also.  They remind me of pumpkin pie, but ten times better because they have chunks of white chocolate, crunchy pecans, and a melt-in-your-mouth glaze.  They're so moist and taste to-die-for even after the first day.  I brought these to a huge cross country banquet and they were one of the few desserts that were completely eaten.  All my friends asked for the recipe.  It's because of these cookies that they declared me the "master chef".  I even got an award to prove it.

Yield: about 4 1/2 dozen

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup fresh pumpkin  (canned is fine too)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice or ground cloves
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 package white chocolate chips
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 
  BROWN SUGAR FROSTING:
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1-1/2 to 2 cups confectioners' sugar

Directions:

• 1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla and pumpkin. 
• 2. Combine dry ingredients; gradually add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in chips and pecans.
• 3. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls 2 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 12-14 minutes or until firm. Remove to wire racks to cool.
• 4. For frosting, combine brown sugar and butter in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil; cook over medium heat for 1 minute or until slightly thickened. Cool for 10 minutes. Add milk; beat until smooth. Beat in enough confectioners' sugar to reach desired consistency. Spread over cooled cookies. 

Blueberry Coffee Cake

This is the best coffee cake I've ever had...not to mention incredibly unhealthy.  But it's totally worth it(: This more dense than your usual coffee cakes and has a heavy, moist texture.  The cinnamon swirl gives it a wonderful oomph of spice and sweetness.  Before you taste it, you may say you will just limit yourself to one piece...but I promise, you won't be able to.  It's absolutely divine.  10 stars. This can also be a perfect dish to bring to a Sunday brunch, and everyone will ask for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 5/8 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup blueberries
•  
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9 inch Bundt pan.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt; stir into the batter just until blended. Fold in blueberries.
3. Spoon half of the batter into the prepared pan. In a small bowl, stir together the brown sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Sprinkle half of this mixture over the batter in the pan. Spoon remaining batter over the top, and then sprinkle the remaining pecan mixture over. Use a knife to swirl the sugar layer into the cake.
4. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan over a wire rack. Invert onto a serving plate, and tap firmly to remove from the pan. 

Pumpkin-Pecan Praline Cheesecake

You may have seen this cheesecake on the cover of the Southern Living November edition for Thanksgiving.  You can find it on their website, here, too. And I'm pretty sure everybody knows that the front cover of the Thanksgiving issue of a magazine has a got to be pretty darn good.  So I had no doubts that this cheesecake would be spectacular.  In fact, I was planning on making it for Thanksgiving from the second I laid my eyes on it.  And let me tell you:  it was even better than I expected. Hands down, way better than the Cheesecake Factory's pumpkin cheesecake.  And I really liked the Cheesecake Factory's.  However, the first time I made this, it wasn't that great.  Honestly, I was kind of disapointed.The cheesecake layer just lacked flavor.  But the second time I made it, it was absolutely fantastic.  What did I do differently?  I swirled Pumpkin Butter in it.  Oh yes...say hello to my best friend named: William Sonoma Pumpkin Butter.  I swirled it in just like I would swirl in the strawberry sauce in a strawberry cheesecake, and it made the cheesecake have so much more flavor.  The original recipe lacks pumpkin flavor and spice, so I was pretty bummed...since this is the recipe on the FRONT COVER.  Since the pumpkin butter has spices and is sweetened, it just made the taste of the cheesecake to die for.  This dessert was the only one of the six desserts that had been completely finished at my Thanksgiving feast with my family.  It disappeared in the first five minutes... I'm not even kidding you.  No one could stop talking about how good it was.  It looks so pretty too; I garnished it with whole glazed pecans starting toward the outside and spiraling to the center.  This is a dessert that you will want to have as a staple to your Thanksgiving menu every year.

Ingredients

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 1/3 cup finely chopped pecans
• 5 tablespoons butter, melted
• 3 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 4 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
• 1 1/2 tablespoons lemon juice
• Praline Topping (below)
• Garnish: Pecan Pie-Glazed Pecans (below)

Preparation

• 1. Preheat oven to 325°. Stir together first 4 ingredients in a bowl until well blended. Press mixture on bottom and 1 1/2 inches up sides of a 9-inch springform pan. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned.
• 2. Beat cream cheese and next 2 ingredients at medium speed with a heavy-duty electric stand mixer until blended and smooth. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating just until blended after each addition. Add pumpkin and lemon juice, beating until blended. Pour batter into prepared crust. (Pan will be very full.)
• 3. Bake at 325° for 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes or until almost set. Turn oven off. Let cheesecake stand in oven, with door closed, 15 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven, and gently run a knife around outer edge of cheesecake to loosen from sides of pan. (Do not remove sides of pan.) Cool completely on a wire rack (about 1 hour). Cover and chill 8 to 24 hours.
• 4. Remove sides and bottom of pan, and transfer cheesecake to a serving plate. Prepare Praline Topping; immediately pour slowly over top of cheesecake, spreading to within 1/4 inch of edge. Garnish, if desired.
• 
  

Praline Topping:

Ingredients

• 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preparation

• Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a 1-qt. saucepan over medium heat, stirring often. Boil, stirring occasionally, 1 minute; remove from heat. Gradually whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Let stand 5 minutes, whisking occasionally. Use immediately.
• 
  

Pecan Pie Glazed Pecans:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 cups pecan halves
• Parchment paper
• Vegetable cooking spray
• 
  

Preparation

Stir together corn syrup and sugar. Add pecan halves; stir until pecans are coated. Line a jelly-roll pan with parchment paper; coat parchment paper with cooking spray. Spread pecans in a single layer in prepared pan. Bake at 350° for 15 minutes or until glaze bubbles slowly and thickens, stirring every 3 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack. Spread pecans in a single layer, separating individual pecans; cool completely. Cooled pecans should be crisp; if not, bake 5 more minutes.