Vanilla Roasted Pear Frozen Yogurt

 

Two weeks in a row, I got pears in my CSA delivery. I had pears out the wazoo. Something had to be done. So I trusted Google once again. And once again, Google steered me in a pretty tasty direction.

Serves: 10

Ingredients:
9 medium pears, peeled, halved, and cored
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1 cup water
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups plain yogurt

Directions:
1. Pre-heat oven to 400*.

2. Place pear halves in a 9 x 13 pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and vanilla. Add water.

3. Roast for 45 minutes.

4. Remove from oven. Let cool completely and then transfer entire pan to the fridge to chill for 1 hour.

5. Set aside 6 of the pear halves for topping your frozen yogurt.

6. Place the rest of the halves along with the juice in a blender or food processor and blend until you have a smooth puree.

7. Mix puree, yogurt and honey and place in your ice cream maker. Follow the directions for the ice cream maker.

8. When frozen yogurt is done, transfer to a freezer-safe container and chill for 1-2 hours, stirring occasionally, before serving. If you're not planning to eat it right away, be sure to set it out for about 30 minutes before serving to soften.

*Note: I really think this frozen yogurt is best when served immediately after the 1-2 hours in the freezer. It's much creamier then. Once it's been frozen overnight, it still tastes good, but it has a frostier texture that is not as amazing in my opinion. 

9. To serve, sprinkle lightly with cinnamon and top with diced reserved pears.

Nutritional Info: 167 calories per 1 cup serving

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Quite Possibly the World's Most Perfect Dessert

I know that's a bold statement, but hear me out before you protest.

These little cupcakes have only . . . drumroll, please . . . 15 calories each, and, wait for it . . . they are delicious, moist, rich, chocolately, gooey and amazing! Seriously, 15 calories each. I'll give you a minute to let that sink in.

And now for the recipe.

The Perfect Low-Cal Chocolate Cupcake
Ingredients:
12-20 oz diet Coke, approx.
1 box Devil's Food cake mix
1 6 oz Stonyfield Greek Yogurt, Honey-Vanilla flavor
sprinkles, optional

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350*.  Grease cupcake tins (you'll be making 30 cupcakes).

Combine the cake mix with approx 12 oz of diet coke in a medium bowl. Add more coke as needed until batter is well blended.

2. Scoop 1 tbsp of batter into each cupcake compartment. It doesn't have to be exact--some of mine were heaping tbsps. But you should be able to get 30.

3. Bake according to directions on the box, taking into account that these cupcakes are a bit smaller than the box calls for, so cooking times may be slightly shorter.

4. Cool completely.

5. Ice with approx. 1 tsp of Greek yogurt on each cupcake. 1 6 oz container will ice about 20 cupcakes. I left some plain.

Note: some cupcakes may rise more and thus be thicker. Cut these in half and fill with "icing" to make a sandwich cookie. Feeling creative? Top with sprinkles or berries!

Nutritional Info: If you portion the cupcakes and icing according to the above directions, the cupcakes will each be only 15 calories!

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

I love carrot cake. I've made carrot cake before, but I wasn't thrilled with the recipe. It was very dense and heavy. This time around, I used a different recipe and was very pleased. The cake was light and fluffy and the icing was perfection.

Ingredients:
cake:
1 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp table salt
1 lb medium carrots (6 to 7 carrots)
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 c. packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
4 egg whites
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup applesauce

icing:
8 oz cream cheese, softened but still cool
5 tbsp unsalted butter softened, but still cool
2 tbsp plain greek yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 c confectioners sugar

Directions:

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Spray your muffin tins with baking non-stick spray. You can use muffin liners, but I prefer not to.

3. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in large bowl; set aside.

4. In food processor fitted with large shredding disk, shred carrots (you should have about 3 cups); transfer carrots to bowl and set aside.

5. Wipe out food processor workbowl and fit with metal blade.

6. Process granulated and brown sugars and eggs until frothy and thoroughly combined, about 20 seconds.

7. With machine running, add oil/applesauce through feed tube in steady stream.

8. Process until mixture is light in color and well emulsified, about 20 seconds longer.

9. Scrape mixture into medium bowl.

10. Stir in carrots and dry ingredients until incorporated and no streaks of flour remain.

11. Pour into prepared pan and bake until toothpick or skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 50 minutes, rotating pan halfway through baking time.

12. Cool cake to room temperature in pan on wire rack, about 2 hours.

13. When cake is cool, process cream cheese, butter, yogurt, and vanilla in clean food processor workbowl until combined, about 10 seconds, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed.

14. Add confectioners' sugar and process until smooth, about 10 seconds.

15. Remove cupcakes from tin and ice.

If you want to add the icing carrots, follow the directions found here.

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Apple Pie

My mom makes the best apple pie. And of course, she makes her own crust, which is a family recipe.  Mr. FoodWhore says my mom makes the best apple pie he has ever tasted. Hopefully mine is just as good!

Ingredients:
Pie Filling

4-5 cups of sliced rome apples
2 tbsp instant tapioca
3/4 cup sugar
sprinkle of nutmeg (plus some)
sprinkle of cinnamon (plus some)

Pie Crust
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
12 tablespoons butter, sliced thin
1/4 cup crisco
1/2 cup ice water

Directions:
Note: keep the crisco and butter in the fridge when not using it. It should be very cold for this recipe.

1. Mix the apples, tapioca, spices, and sugar and let sit for about 90 minutes to get juicy. I like to let it set for closer to 2 hours minimum. If you have time to spare, it just helps it get juicier.

2. In a food processor, combine the dry ingredients for the crust and pulse a few times until mixed.

3. Add the crisco and butter and pulse 8-12 times until the butter forms in pea-sized balls. I've never had balls form. Basically you want to make sure there are no large clumps of butter left.

4. With the food processor running, pour in the ice water and process until a ball of dough forms.

5. Remove dough, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

6. Preheat oven to 400. Cut the dough in half and place half on a floured surface. Roll the dough out very thin in a circular shape. Flour and turn the dough often to prevent sticking.

7. Fold the rolled dough in half and lay over a 10 inch pie dish. Unfold to cover the dish. Press into place.

Note: Dough is best when handled the least. The less you roll and handle it, the better it "behaves."

8. Fill the crust with the apple mixture. Sprinkle on a bit more cinnamon and nutmeg.

9. Roll out the other half of the dough and cover the filling.

10. Press the edges of the dough together to seal and cut slits in the top crust with a knife.

11. Bake for 50 minutes on a baking sheet. Allow to stand for 4 hours before serving.

Serve warm or room temperature with vanilla ice cream and whip cream!

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Double Layer Cream Cheese Pumpkin Pie

This pie was a favorite of my granny's. She loved it because it was lighter and creamier than normal pumpkin pie.  It's not a secret family recipe . . . in fact, I think she got it from the back of a package of cream cheese.  But it's delicious either way.

Ingredients:

4 oz cream cheese, softened

1 tbsp milk

1 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 cups whipped topping
1 (9 inch) prepared graham cracker crust
1 cup cold milk
2 (3.5 oz) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
1 (15 oz) can solid pack pumpkin puree
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of milk, and sugar until smooth. Gently stir in whipped topping. Spread into bottom of crust.

2. Pour 1 cup of milk into large bowl, and thoroughly mix in pudding mix, pumpkin, cinnamon, ginger, and cloves. When thickened, spread over cream cheese layer.

3. Refrigerate 4 hours, or until set.

Bon Appetit!

The Food Whore

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

So last week I hinted at a food competition I was entering . . . and then things got a little hectic, as I was out of town and this is my last week of school, so it took me a while to get around to this post. But here it is: The Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake.

Last week my local university library hosted an edible cake contest.  I missed it last year, since I didn't find out about it until a few days before and it was really too late to put together an entry. So I was on the look-out this year.  I debated between a few books, but in the end went with one of my childhood favorites.  Here's how I made it.

Materials
1 1/2 sheet cake, baked and removed from pan
cardboard cake sheet
2-3 batches of buttercream icing, divided and dyed (more on this later)
lady fingers or vanilla sandwich cookies (the oval kind)
gummy fruit wedges
icing spatula
lots of toothpicks (for mixing icing and fixing mistakes)
containers for separating and dying icing
a sharp knife
a large/fat straw (one will work, but multiples will be easier)
lots of patience
a copy of the book helps a great deal (but you can probably find most of the images online)

Directions

1. Bake your cake, allow it to cool, and remove from the pan. I suggest placing it face down on the cardboard mat, with wax paper under the edges so it's easy to get rid of an icing mistakes.

2. I wanted my cake to be of a caterpillar on a leaf, so the next task was to carve the cake into a giant leaf. This was actually really easy, except for the stem, which never actually broke off, though it threatened to on multiple occasions. I had the book open right next to me and drew a faint outline in the cake with a toothpick before carving with a knife.

3. The next step is to spread on a crumb layer of icing. The crumb layer is basically a thin layer of icing that catches all the crumbs so when you do the top layer, you won't see any flaws or pieces of cake crumbling up.  I wasn't too concerned about crumbs showing since it's a leaf and brown crumbs could be interpreted as "dirt," but I still did a crumb layer so it wasn't too crumby.

Icing--This is the basic icing recipe that we were taught in my Wilton class. Two changes, though: 1. use all crisco shortening, not margerine/butter also. 2. Use water instead of milk so it doesn't have to be refrigerated.

4. I used about 1/2 of one batch of icing, dyed light green to do my crumb layer. This icing could be left white, since it shouldn't show through, but I went ahead and made it pale green just in case. Allow this layer to dry for about 15 minutes, or until you can touch it lightly without icing coming off on your finger.

5. To make the caterpillar, I had one idea and ended up going a different direction.  On the cover of the book, you cans see that the caterpillars body is distinctly in segments and I really wanted to feature this in the cake.  I decided to use cookies, iced in different shades of green to give this affect. So I lined cookies up on the book cover (with a wax paper layer to protect it), and cut them by eye to make the curves. Then I iced them three different shades of green.  This took less than a cup of icing total.

6. At this point, the cake should be ready for the top layer of icing. I added more green dye to the crumb layer icing leftovers and spread on a thick top-coat. Again, I wasn't worried about perfection as this is supposed to be a watercolor leaf.  The stem was the tricky part. I really have no sound advice other than to be careful when icing it.

7. Next, transfer the caterpillar's body onto the cake. This is where I got off-track with the caterpillar. I really wanted to maintain those distinct segments, but I was having difficulty blending the icing along the edges so the cookie didn't show through. In the end, I swirled the different shades together and got a decent blend that still showed the segments, just not as distinctly.  For this part, I used the various greens that were left over from the body segments.

8. For the head, I used straight red icing. For the feet and antennae, I mixed the red with a bit of brown and orange. All of this together was a very small amount of icing. 

Note: leftover icing will keep for weeks in the freezer and thaw very quickly.  I've found it's easy to blend already mixed colors to create new colors you need. I used frozen icing in pink, yellow, mint green and white to make some of the colors I needed for this project.

9. Finally, using a straw, I poked holes in the cake to show where the caterpillar had eaten. I also poked holes in the fruit slices used to decorate the board.  And I used the leftover brown icing from the feet to dye a darker shade of brown for the top of the stem.

I didn't win the contest, but I was very happy about my entry. There are things I would do differently next time, but overall I was pleased with my final cake.  It was a lot of fun to make and I can't wait to do something like this again.

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Strawberry Shortcake

Continuing with strawberry week, the other night I made strawberry shortcake.  This is a healthier version, that I adapted from a Cooking Light recipe. But it was every bit as delicious as the original.

Ingredients
4 cups sliced strawberries
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup skim milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
2 egg whites
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp turbinado sugar
light cool whip

Directions
1. Combine sliced strawberries and 1/4 cup sugar in a bowl; stir well. Cover and chill 2 hours.

2. Preheat oven to 375°.

3. Line a 9-inch cake pan with wax paper. Coat pan with baking spray. (I prefer the kind that comes with flour mixed in.

4. Mix margarine and sugar together in a medium size bowl.

5. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; stir well.

6. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture alternately with milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Stir in extract.

7. Add egg whites into the flour mixture, stirring gently until well-mixed

8. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake at 375° for 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan, and let cool completely on wire rack.

9. Slice the shortcake into 8 wedges.  To serve, slice each wedge in half horizontally.  Top the bottom half with strawberries and juice.  Replace the top of the wedge and top with more strawberries and cool whip. Enjoy!

Makes 8 servings; Roughly 260 calories per serving.

Bon Appetit!
The FoodWhore

Wilton Cupcakes

Our second hands-on class taught us how to make flowers and shell borders. This class was much more challenging for me.  I struggled to get my flowers to look right. I think I had a problem with the consistency of my icing.  I'm not doing something right and it was affecting the flowers. Oh well, I'm going to keep practicing. Instead of making a cake this time, I opted for cupcakes with a spring feel. Here's the result:

My First Wilton Cake

As you know, I'm in the midst of Wilton-Course 1.  Our first week, we just listened and learned techniques for baking and icing a cake, as well as an introduction to the tools and supplies needed.  It was a bit overwhelming, but it was good to know what we need everything for so we could determine what we wanted and what was optional.

In our second class, we got to do hands-on work.  We learned how to do stars and how to do an icing-gel transfer, which is an easy way to transfer a design/pattern on to a cake. We also practiced writing--mine was atrocious at first...and my cursive is definitely better than print. You can see in the picture, I'm still shaky with my writing. But overall, I'm very proud of my first effort at cake decorating. I'm really looking forward to our next lesson!

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Wilton Cake Decorating Classes

For my mom's birthday, I wanted to give her a one-of-a-kind gift. I racked my brain for a few weeks and finally decided on a Wilton Cake Decorating class that we could take together.  Mama Food Whore loves to cook and bake as much as I do, and I knew it would be a fun experience to take the class together.  Fortunately, she loved the idea as much as I did and a couple of weeks ago we had our first class.

So far, I really love the classes. I consider myself a little beyond "beginner" status, but I've still learned several new techniques in these first two classes of Course 1.  I definitely recommend taking these classes. I think even experienced bakers can learn a thing or two. 

My only reservation about the course is the amount of supplies needed. As part of my mom's present, I bought her the Wilton Cake "tackle-box" of supplies (I think it's the 50 piece set).  The label on the caddy says that it includes everything needed for Course 1. So I thought we were all set.  Boy, was I wrong! 

I still definitely recommend getting one of these caddies because it's a good start and a great place to store all your supplies.  Grab a 40% Michael's coupon in your Sunday paper and you can save a good amount on this caddy. But keep in mind there's a lot of other little things you will need.  I didn't mind because I plan to continue on with other Wilton courses, but I did feel bad because I thought I'd bought my mom everything she needed for the class and we ended up buying quite a bit of other stuff. 

If you really didn't want to buy all the stuff, you might be able to get away with it, but I figure if you're in the class, you probably are very interested in cake decorating and want all the proper equipment to be successful. Just keep clipping those 40% coupons and stock up on things little-by-little.  It also helped that Michael's recently had a big President's Day sale with additional coupons for 60% off one item and 20% off the whole bill. If you're considering taking one of these classes, let me know and I can send you the whole supply list so you can stock up on your supplies with coupons so you don't have to break your budget buying it all at once.

What really encouraged me to take these classes is the amazing desserts created by Katie of Good Things Catered.   I can't wait to be at her level of decorating.  Check out her Wilton posts and be inspired!

Bon Appetit!
The Food Whore

Cookie Dough Cupcakes

For Thanksgiving, my mom makes way too many pies.  Unfortunately, my sister is not a fan of pie.  She thinks that real desserts do not involve fruit, but chocolate instead. So every year there's some chocolate dessert for her. This year, Mr. Foodwhore and I were brainstorming delicious dessert combinations and came up with Cookie Dough Cupcakes.  I wasn't sure exactly how to execute this plan, but they were a success!

Ingredients

Your favorite chocolate cupcake recipe, prepared and baked

Your favorite chocolate chip cookie dough recipe, prepared

whipped vanilla icing

whipped chocolate icing

melon baller

Directions

1. Bake your favorite chocolate cupcakes and allow to cool. For simplicity, I used a box mix.  I found the cupcakes easier to handle/scoop after chilling in the fridge over night.

2. With a melon baller, scoop out the middle of the cupcake.  Then scoop out another bit below the original hole.  Don't scoop all the way to the bottom though.

3. You'll have a ball-shaped piece of cake and a bit of scraps.  Feel free to munch on the scraps, but hang on to the ball shape that you scooped out first.  You'll need that soon.

4. Once you're done scooping all of the cupcakes, use the melon baller to scoop the chilled cookie dough.  Using your hands, roll the scoops of dough into smooth balls. 

5. Drop the ball of dough into the cupcake and push it down with your thumb to flatten the top a bit.

6. Place the "cap" of cake back on the cupcake.

7. I wanted a light chocolate icing.  I mixed a chocolate and vanilla icing together. 

8. Ice your cupcakes. I used an icing bag to pipe it on instead of spreading it on.  I was worried that spreading would rip the "cap" back out of the cupcake. 

9. For optional topping, sprinkle with Oreo cookie crumbs.

Bon Appetit!

The Foodwhore

R2D2 Cake

My mom and I have a tradition of making the birthday cakes for the daughters of some friends of ours. This year, B wanted an R2D2 cake.  Don't ask me why . . . I didn't think 8 year old girls were into that kind of stuff, but thankfully we were up to the challenge.  A quick google search revealed way more cakes than I could imagine. These links were most helpful to us, as far as step-by-step directions, tips, and inspiration:

Link #1
Link #2
Link #3
Link #4

In the end, we went with the instructions in Link #2 for the basic design of the actual cake.  B wanted a cookie cake, so we used sugar cookie. Here's some pictures of our progress.

We used plain white icing along with a tube of black and blue icing for the lines and writing.  The silver was an edible silver dust/flakes that we found at a kitchen supply store locally.