Ham and Cheese Scones

These were just too good.  I don't even know what else to say.  These scones literally melt in your mouth, and remind  me of my Cheddar Parmesan Biscuits (found here) but these have more Cheddar than Parmesan and have ham and no garlic.  I wouldn't change anything about these scones, though. They are so darn good!  I think using heavy cream instead of milk/buttermilk makes a big difference...it makes these scones so much richer...just the way I like it.  The cream is definitely the cause of the melt-in-your-mouth effect.  But the ham is probably the star of this savory scone.  I insisted on getting fresh Virginia Ham from the deli in our grocery store because I had been wanting to make this ham and cheddar scone recipe. One thing I love about ham is how versatile it is.  They can jazz up omelets, be built into sandwiches, mix in a casserole, or star in this soft and buttery scone. Scones are generally sweet, not salty, but these savory scones are now my favorite. They are little triangles of buttery bread goodness, packed with the salty flavor of ham and cheddar cheese and the mild flavor of green onion. They're easy to prepare and work as either a side dish or a breakfast.  These seriously lasted minutes in my house.  I was actually really angry at my parents because they ate them all when I wasn't looking before I could grab a third.  My new rule: the cook gets the last one!

Yield: about 8 scones

Ingredients:

2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) All-Purpose Flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons white sugar
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick, 2 ounces) cold  butter
3/4 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1/4 cup shredded Parmesan chese
1/3 cup (about 1/2 ounce) snipped fresh chives, or finely diced scallion tops (the green part, 3/4 ounce)
1 cup cooked ham pieces - about 1 inch, torn from the slices
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons heavy cream or whipping cream, or enough to make the dough stick together

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

1) Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar.
2) Work the butter into the flour until the mixture is unevenly crumbly.
3) Mix in the cheese, chives, and ham till evenly distributed.
4) Add ¾ cup of the cream, stirring to combine. Try squeezing the dough together; if it’s crumbly and won’t hang together, or if there are crumbs remaining in the bottom of the bowl, add cream until the dough comes together. Transfer the shaggy dough to a well-floured work surface.
5) Pat the dough into a smooth 7" disk about ¾" thick. Transfer the disk to the prepared baking sheet.
6) Use a knife or bench knife to cut the disk into 8 wedges, spreading the wedges apart a bit on the pan.
7) Brush the scones with a bit of cream; this will help their crust brown.
8) Bake the scones for 15-17 minutes, until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and cool right on the pan. Serve warm, or at room temperature. 

adapted from Heat Oven to 350

Tres Leches Cake

If you've never had Tres Leches Cake before, you HAVE to try it!  And if you've never even heard of it before, it's a common Mexican dessert and it's literally made with what the title is: three types of milk.  And of course, the three types of milk it uses are the sweet, fatty types.  The cake is chilled and soaks up all those delicious milks and creates a sweet, melt-in-your-mouth, refreshing dessert like no other. I had it for the first time at a Cuban restaurant and I fell in love with it.   I made it for a Spanish presentation a few days ago and everyone wanted the recipe.  I definitely want to make this for a party/celebration/holiday sometime soon because it's my new favorite cake.  I did use a box..which I usually never do because I'm a "scratch is best" girl, but since I had to make it for school and I had never made it before, I really didn't want to mess up.  It is semi-home made because of all the things you add to it, though(:

Ingredients:

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® yellow cake mix

1 1/4 cups water

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

4 eggs

1 can (15 oz)sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)

1 cup evaporated milk or whole milk

1 cup whipping cream

1 tub of Cool Whip

Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease and flour or spray bottom and sides of 13x9-inch pan.

2. In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, vanilla and eggs with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Pour into pan.

3. Bake as directed on box for 13x9-inch pan. Let stand 5 minutes. Poke top of hot cake every 1/2 inch with long-tined fork, wiping fork occasionally to reduce sticking.

4. In large bowl, stir together sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and whipping cream. Carefully pour evenly over top of cake. Cover; refrigerate about 1 hour or until mixture is absorbed into cake. Top with desired amount of Cool Whip. Store covered in refrigerator.

 

Almond Butter Cake

A few years ago, my mom and I had a fun idea that we wanted to try that we thought could lead to a successful business and some extra money: decorating wedding cakes.  Haa...boy, did that idea last.  We thought it would be really cool to make wedding cakes, decorate them, and sell them for reasonable prices, since most wedding cakes now-a-days are sky-high expensive.  The cost is typically in the hundreds; ranging from $300-600.  I'm sure a bride would kill to buy a cake at lets say...$50?  That looks like a pretty low price to me, compared to $300.  So my mom and I started with the basic, first step: making a delicious wedding cake.  We looked online and through all our cookbooks, trying to find the perfect recipe.  I finally found it in "The Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook" (Which - unfortunately - no recipes from it are available online.)  Now...this recipe was made in 3 ginormous cake pans and created to serve 85 people...so, of course, I cut it down to 1/6.  I mean really...who would be willing to use 4.5 cups of butter, 7.5 cups of white sugar, 6 16-ounce boxes of powdered sugar, 13.5 cups of flour, and 27 egg whites in one recipe??? Not me, that's for sure.  Cutting it down to 1/6 was the perfect amount, and I only had to bake it in one pan.  The recipe stated that it would take 1 hour and 45 minutes to prep, 2.5 hours to cook, and 3.5 hours to assemble and decorate.  No way was I spending 8 hours on a cake!!!  The hands on time it took my mom and I to make this (since we made a fraction of the recipe) was 2 hours tops.  And it came out perfect!  It's a rich, almond-y, buttery cake with a thin, sweet layer of apricot filling that makes it super moist.  It's then topped with a decadent, almond-butter frosting.  I brought some of this to school for my lunch table to try, and everyone loved it.  One of my friends declared it the best cake she'd ever tasted and still her all-time favorite today.  She's obsessed with it and makes her mom make it as her birthday cake every year.  My mom and I really should start working on this business again, cause with this cake, our business would be booming.


Yield: 1 10x3 inch round cake pan  (about 12-15 servings)


Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1.25 cups sugar
2.25 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
4 large egg whites, at room temperature


Apricot Filling:
1/2 cup apricot halves, drained.
1/2 tablespoon amaretto (optional)


Almond-Butter Frosting:
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup shortening
1 16-ounce package powdered sugar, unsifted
1/3 cup whipping cream
1/6 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon almond extract


To Bake Cake:
1. Grease bottom and sides of cake pan.
2. Beat butter and shortening at medium-high speed with electric mixer 3 minutes.  Gradually add sugar, beating at medium-high speed 4 minutes.
3.  Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to butter mixture alternately with the cold water, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, beating well after each addition.  Stir in vanilla and almond extracts.  
4. Beat egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks form (about 1.5 minutes).  Stir half of the beaten egg white into batter to lighten; fold remaining egg white into batter.  Pour into pan.  Gently drop pan on counter-top twice to release air bubbles from batter.
5. Bake at 325 degrees F for 40 to 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched in center and begins to pull away from sides of pan.  Cool in pan on wire rack 20 minutes.  Loosen edges of cake with a knife.  Remove from pan, and let cool completely, rounded side up, on wire rack.


To Fill:
1. Lay cake on a flat surface.  Carefully slice it in half horizontally, using a long knife with a serrated edge.  Insert two wooden picks into each layer, one above the other, to indicate how the two layers should match up when going back together after filling.
2. Process apricot and amaretto in container of an electric blender or food processor until smooth. Spread on bottom half of cake layer, spreading evenly over cake.  Replace top layer, carefully matching wooden picks to keep layers level.


To Frost:
1. Beat butter and shortening at medium speed with electric mixer 2 minutes or until creamy.  Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed 2 to 3 minutes.  Add whipping cream, salt, and almond extract, beating well. Add more cream if necessary.  Continue beating until mixture is fluffy.  Frost top and sides of cake immediately.

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.