M&M Cookie Cake ~ by Sarah

I found this on Pinterest and it is SO good!  Very easy and very, very good.  I recommend adding the butterscotch chips like I did.  They totally make it!

1 c. + 1 T. all-purpose flour
1/4 t. baking soda
3/4 c. butter, softened
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1 t. vanilla
1 c. M&M's (I did 1/2 cup and a 1/2 cup butterscotch chips--SO good!)

Preheat oven to 325.  Cream butter and sugar. Add in egg and vanilla and blend. Then combine flour and baking soda--mix until completely incorporated. Fold in the M&M's. Dump into a greased 9.5″ pie pan and bake for 25-30 mins.  Cool, cut into cookie pie slices, and enjoy!

(Not my picture.)

Strawberry Jell-O Cake

I found this on the Kraft website, but I was looking for it because I had this cake years ago at a friend's baby shower and I loved it.  Plus, I had lots of fresh strawberries from our yard to use!  So easy and so delicious!

Ingredients:
1 white cake mix
1 c. boiling water
1 package (3 oz.) Strawberry Jell-O
1/2 c. cold water
1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip, thawed

Directions:
Prepare cake as directed in 9x13-inch pan.  Cool cake in pan for 15 minutes.  Pierce cake with large fork at 1/2-inch intervals.  Add boiling water to gelatin mix in small bowl; stir 2 minutes until completely dissolved.  Stir in cold water; pour over cake.  Refrigerate 3 hours.  Frost with Cool Whip.  Refrigerate 1 hour.  Top with fresh strawberries, if desired.

Kraft picture--I forgot.  I topped mine with fresh strawberries, so it was pretty!

JELL-O Cake ~ by Kelsey

I found this recipe on Tastebook.com.  It calls for black cherry jello, but you could use strawberry, raspberry, etc.  It's an easy cake that isn't too sweet since you use cool whip for frosting.  Also, I used sugar-free jello.

 Ingredients:
2 baked (9 inch)round white cakes (I used a white cake mix)
2 cups boiling water
2 packages (.3 oz each) JELL-O Black Cherry flavor
1 tub (8 oz) cool whip

• PLACE cakes, top-sides up, in clean 9-inch round baking pans; pierce tops with large fork at ½-inch intervals.
• ADD boiling water to gelatin mixes; stir at least 2 min. until completely dissolved. Pour over cakes. Refrigerate 3 hours.
• DIP bottom of 1 pan in warm water 10 sec.; unmold cake onto serving plate. Spread with 1 cup COOL WHIP. Unmold second cake; place on first cake. Frost with remaining COOL WHIP. Refrigerate 1 hour. Keep refrigerated.
  
  

The Best Frosting. Ever. ~ by Sarah

This is the best frosting.  Ever.  Just ask Kelsey--she has been eating it by the spoonful all day.  (I sent it to her house so she would eat it instead of me.  That's the kind of sister I am.)

This came from www.tastykitchen.com.  (It's the Pioneer Woman's recipe sharing site.)  This stuff is out of this world!  It's weird because of the flour, but, trust me, it's amazing!

Ingredients:
5 Tablespoons flour
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar (not powdered sugar!)

Directions:
Bake your favorite chocolate cake and let it cool.

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.

Milky Way Cake ~ by Sarah

My co-worker, MaryRuth, has brought this cake to school a few times and I am always eager to enjoy it!  It takes 11, yes 11, Milky Way bars to make it!  It is delicious!

Ingredients:
Cake:
8 Milky Way bars (full size)
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 1/3 cups flour
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Frosting:
3 Milky Way bars
1 stick butter
1 teaspoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar

Directions:
Cake:
Melt over medium heat 1 cube butter and 8 Milky Way bars.  With mixer cream 1 cube of butter and sugar.  Add eggs.  Combine soda and flour, then add to sugar mixture.  Mix in buttermilk.  Add melted candy bars.  Bake in greased and floured bundt cake pan for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

Frosting:
Melt Milky Way bars and butter over medium heat.  Add milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar.  Pour over warm cake.

Please excuse the crummy cell phone picture.  Trust me--it's pretty and delicious!

Chocolate Sheet Cake ~ by Sarah

This recipe came from my Pioneer Woman cookbook. If I had known it was going to be this good, I would have made it months ago.  Definitely the best homemade chocolate cake I've ever made.  And it's so easy!

Ingredients:
For the Cake:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
¼ teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup boiling water
½ cup buttermilk (If you don't have any buttermilk, pour almost 1/2 cup low-fat milk into a measuring cup. Then add about 1/2 tablespoon white vinegar.)
2 whole beaten eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the Frosting:
½ cup finely chopped pecans (optional)
1-¾ sticks butter
4 tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
6 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 pound (minus 1/2 cup) powdered sugar

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt. Set aside.

In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Set aside.

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa. Stir together. Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.

Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into ungreased sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake immediately after it comes out of the oven.

Serve to chocolate lovers everywhere!

Orange and Raspberry Cake ~ by Molly

 Since I don't have an oven in Saarbrücken, I've been stockpiling recipes I find for a while. When I went home, I decided to try this one I had found on FoodNetwork.com for Grace's postponed birthday party. The frosting is DELICIOUS (but then again, when is frosting not delicious?)

Cake:

1 box white cake mix (Giada recommends Duncan Hines, but Betty Crocker worked just fine)

1 large orange, zested

1 1/3 cups no pulp orange juice (Mom bought the frozen kind, so I had to prepare it first)

3 egg whites

2 T oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8-inch cake pans.

In an electric mixer, whisk cake mix and orange zest until well incorporated. Add orange juice, egg whites and oil.

Mix on low for about 30 seconds, then medium for two minutes, scraping the sides  occasionally.

Divide batter evenly and bake on the center rack for about 30 minutes, or until it passes the toothpick test.

Let cool for about 15 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack for about another hour.

Frosting:

1 stick unsalted butter, just under room temperature

1 brick cream cheese

1 bag powdered sugar

1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam

Mix butter and cream cheese until smooth. Slowly add powdered sugar and mix until well blended. Add jam. If the frosting is too thick to spread, add water, one teaspoon at a time, until it's spreadable.

Assembly:

Place one cooled cake on a baking platter round side down. Spread on a thin layer of frosting. I now know that putting this in the freezer for about a half hour would have my life much easier. I went ahead and immediately spread on a thin layer of jam, which got messy with the the soft frosting beneath it.

Place the next layer on the cake. Again, I should have put this in the freezer for a little while to harden the frosting/jam in the center. I had issues keeping my top layer from shifting around and squeezing out the middle layer while I finished frosting it.

Frost the rest of the cake and store, covered, in the fridge. Allow to sit for about 30 minutes at room temp before serving.

Had I known better, I would have put this in the freezer until the frosting was solid before adding the next layer.

Pudding Poke Cake ~ by Kelsey

I got this recipe from allrecipes.com.  I really like that recipe website. Anyway, I decided to try it for Grace's tea party birthday party yesterday. I used a white cake mix and I made it in two round cake pans, and coated it in whipped cream. It was really good!

Ingredients

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
• 2 (3.9 ounce) packages instant chocolate pudding mix
• 1 cup confectioners' sugar
• 4 cups milk

Directions

1. Prepare and bake cake mix according to package directions for one 9x13 inch cake. Remove cake from oven. Poke holes at once down through cake to pan with the round handle of a wooden spoon. Holes should be at 1 inch intervals.
2. Combine the pudding mix with the confectioners' sugar and gradually stir in the milk. Beat with an electric mixer at low speed for not more than 1 minute. Do not over beat. Quickly, before pudding thickens, pour about 1/2 of the thin pudding evenly over the warm cake and into the holes. (This will make the stripes in the cake.) Allow the remaining pudding to thicken slightly then spoon over the top, and spread to frost the top of the cake. Chill for at least 1 hour before serving. Store leftovers in the refrigerator.

Footnotes

• Yellow cake or white cake with butterscotch, pistachio, banana, coconut or vanilla pudding. Chocolate cake with chocolate, vanilla, or coconut pudding.  

Buckaroo Cake ~ by Sarah

I got this recipe from Aunt Cheryl, but I have seen very similar recipes for this cake that go by the names "Crazy Cake" and "What Cake".  I don't know what's "crazy" about it--maybe the fact that it doesn't have any eggs?

The recipe for the frosting came from allrecipes.com.

Ingredients:
3 c. flour
2 c. sugar
3 T. cocoa
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
2 T. vinegar
Almost 1 c. vegetable oil (see directions)
2 c. water
2 T. vanilla
1 c. walnuts (optional)

Directions:
Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt in mixing bowl.  In a 1-cup measuring cup, put vinegar, then fill measuring cup to full with salad oil.  Add to flour mixture.  Add water and vanilla.  Mix well.  Stir in walnuts, if desired (they are never desired in my life!).

Pour into a greased 9x13-inch pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes.

Frosting:

Ingredients:
2 3/4 c. powdered sugar
6 T. cocoa powder
6 T. butter
5 T. evaporated milk
1 t. vanilla

Directions:
In a medium bowl, sift together powdered sugar and cocoa powder and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, cream butter until smooth, then gradually beat in sugar mixture alternately with milk.  Blend in vanilla.  Beat until light and fluffy.

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Icing ~ by Sarah

This is the recipe for the cake I made for Grandma Shirley's birthday. It came from my Pioneer Woman cookbook.  The frosting makes it very rich!

Cake:
1 cup shortening
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 t. salt
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
1 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. vinegar
1 oz. red food coloring (2 oz. if you want it really red--I only used one, though)
1 1/2 t. cocoa powder

Icing:
1 1/2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 pounds powdered sugar
1/4 t. salt
2 t. pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease two round 10-inch cake pans (2 inches deep) with non-stick baking spray. Blend together the shortening and sugar in a mixing bowl, using an electric mixer. Set aside. Sift together the flour and salt. Set aside. Mix the eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, baking soda, and vinegar in a separate bowl. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk mixture to the shortening mixture in the mixing bowl, mixing after each addition. In a small bowl, mix the red food coloring and cocoa powder. Pour into the mixing bowl. Mix until just combined. Don't overbeat. Pour the batter evenly into the cake pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 20 minutes before removing the cakes from the pans. Cool completely before icing.

Icing: Place the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl and whip until smooth. Sift the powdered sugar and add it to the bowl. Add the salt and mix. Add the vanilla and mix until smooth.

Ice between the two cakes, the sides, and the top. (I had plenty of frosting left over.) Refrigerate any leftovers.