Father's Day BBQ 2009

I forgot to take pictures of the food...bleh - but here's what was on the menu

• Baby back ribs
• Salmon
• Corn on the cob
• Mini yukon gold potatoes
• Asparagus
• Coconut cake
• Watermelon

Coconut Layer Cake

For Father's Day this year, we are having a BBQ at the casa and my parents are coming over. Since this is also Forrest's first Father's Day, I wanted to make it a little special by making a coconut layer cake. Although it's a funny thing to look at in pictures, because it basically just looks like a hairy white cake - ha!

The recipe is like a chiffon cake where you fold in whipped egg whites into the cake batter at the end - but I messed up and forgot to separate my eggs...but you still end up with a yummy cake, just a little denser than a chiffon cake. The recipe calls for cream cheese frosting and with my mommy brain, I forgot to buy cream cheese so I just made a light lemon and cream flavored buttercream instead. I also was unable to find coconut extract at the local stores so I had to forgo it...all in all though, it was still a tasty cake.

It is suck a pretty cake, I will have to do a little decor with mint and lemon leaves to give it a little color contrast and will retake some photos.

Recipe
3 1/2 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened (3/4 cup)
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
4 large eggs separated, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract
one 14 oz can of coconut milk
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
one 7 oz package of sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottoms of two 9" cake pans with parchment paper.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl then set aside.

In a mixer cream the butter until smooth, then gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time and incorporate well. Add the vanilla and coconut extracts.

Turn mixer to low speed and alternatively add the dry ingredients and the coconut milk and beat just until combined.

In another bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until medium firm white peaks form. Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the cake batter to lighten it, then gently fold in the remaining egg whites.

Evenly divide the cake batter into the pans and bake for about 30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool for 15 minutes, then remove from cake pans and cool completely.

Frost with your choice of frosting and then cover with sweetened shredded coconut.

ENJOY!

Lemony Layer Cake

Yes I baked a cake this weekend. In honor of Forrest and Sam's participation in Escape from Alcatraz and the flavor was easily decided by the bag of Meyer Lemons that Forrest brought home from work. Everyone on the planet now knows that you should bring any excess fruit to our casa for me to do whatever with...

Up close of the sprinkles... I have tons and tons of these things and yet I use only smidges of them every time... cakes, cookies and cupcakes just don't need that many sprinkles on them compared to the size of the bag they come in.

a peek inside the layers. I tried to make it into 4 layers by splitting the 2 cakes. There are two layers of lemon curd and one layer of frosting.

I think my KitchenAid mixer almost wept with joy when I turned it on...it had been so long since I had baked something this involved at home....and it felt GREAT!

Recipe

1 1/2 cup self rising flour

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour (I used half all purpose and half cake flour instead)

2 sticks butter softened (1 cup)
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9" round cake pans and line the bottoms with wax or parchment paper.

In a mixer on medium speed, cream butter until smooth. Slowly add sugar and beat until fluffy for a few minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, making sure to beat the mixture well.

Sift the flours together and add into the butter mixture in four parts, alternating with the milk, lemon juice and zest...beat well after each addition.

Divide the batter into the cake pans and bake for about 20-25 minutes until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool cakes for 10 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely onto wire racks. Frost cake as desired.

Lemon Butter Cream Frosting
1 1/2 sticks butter, softened (3/4 cup)
1/4 cup lemon juice
4-8 cups powdered sugar

Mix all ingredients together in a mixer and beat on medium high for 10 minutes until light and fluffy. Use immediately to frost cake.

As for the filling, it was store bought so I will not provide a recipe here...hahahaha. I have to save time where I can and I find that some brands of prepared lemon curd are just WAY better than anything I could slave away making, so why bother?

If you do not have self rising flour, you can instead...use 3 cups of all purpose or cake flour and add 4 teaspoons of baking powder. You will notice that I used half cake and half all purpose flours in my cake. I like to use the cake flour because it results in a lighter cake than if you use only all purpose flour.

ENJOY

Glazed Strawberry Pie

OK - so I lied. I am not totally on a hiatus. My friend Soo stopped by to visit Heidi this week and came over with a huge box of beautifully ripe strawberries so I needed to find a way to use a lot of them at once since they were sooooo deliciously ripe. I decided on a glazed strawberry pie. I had some sweet tart dough (which is basically sweetened pie dough / shortbread dough) in the freezer leftover from another baking fiesta so I used that and we were off!

Recipe
Baked and cooled pie crust (or tart crust as I have used here)
Hulled whole strawberries for pie filling (I quartered mine but you can leave whole for different presentation)

For the glaze
1 cup sugar
3 Tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water
1 cup mashed strawberries
1 Tablespoon butter

Mix sugar and cornstarch in a saute pot. Add water and mashed berries and cook on medium until boiling, stirring constantly. Adjust heat to low and cook until glaze becomes translucent, about 2 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in butter.

Arrange whole berries in pie crust, pour glaze over berries. Cool for 2 hours before cutting.

ENJOY!

on brief hiatus..

I'll resume after I recover from my c section and can easily crouch and reach all of my baking supplies :)

Lemon Meringue - again

I just can't help it, this pie id just too easy and delicious to not make at every possible opportunity. One reason is that I freaking love meringue and well, I have a big bag of frozen meyer lemon juice in the freezer that I keep meaning to use - so all those things combine to make one awesome pie. This was the dessert course to our Sunday family dinner of Corned Beef and Cabbage. I really do want to try other pies, just don't really get around to it much - with summer just around the corner, I will make every attempt to take advantage of all the lovely fruits available in Northern California to make some tasty pies.

RECIPE:
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/3 cup water
4 eggs yolks, slightly beaten
1/2 cup lemon juice
3 Tblspn butter
1 tsp grated lemon zest
4 egg whites
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
Baked 9" pie crust

Combine the first three ingredients together in a saucepan and heat to boiling.

Mix next 2 ingredients together (cornstarch and water) to form a smooth paste; add to boiling mixture gradually, stirring constantly; cook until thick and clear, then remove from heat

Combine egg yolks with lemon juice (I like to go 1/2 fresh squeezed and 1/2 juice), stir into thickened mixture. Return to heat and cook until it bubbles, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in butter and lemon zest. Cover and set aside to cool until lukewarm.

To make meringues, add sale to egg whites and whip with an electric mixer until frothy. Gradually add the sugar until whipped whites stand in glossy peaks. Stir 2 rounded tablespoons into the lemon filling.

Fill pre-baked pie crust with the lemon filling. Pile the meringue on top, spreading evenly to the edges of crust. Bake in a 325 decree oven for out 15 minutes until the meringue tips just start to brown. Cool for a minimum of 1 hour before cutting and serving

Corned Beef and Cabbage

I had a hunk of corned beef that I bought from Five Dot Ranch at the Oxbow Public Market that I have been meaning to try out. I have eaten corned beef before but never prepared it myself and was happy to learn that really all that is required is that one must cover with water and boil/simmer for 3 hours. At first, grossed out by the idea of boiled beef I started asking around and everyone seemed to give it two thumbs up - so I broke out the crock pot and simmered away for most of Sunday afternoon.

For some additional punch, I added onion, carrots and celery for aromatics, but the brine on the corned beef was pretty potent.