Cake Balls/Pops

This recipe is for cake balls or cake pops, whatever you feel like making and have the supplies for. Whenever I make them, I end up not having the "pop" part, but I'll include the directions. These are favorites, and easy to make. You can use whatever cake mix you want, they all taste good. You can also use whatever icing you want as well, although I usually use cream cheese. :)

Ingredients:


Cake mix (choose your flavor)
Icing
sucker sticks
Whatever ingredients are on the box to make the cake
chocolate chips
vegetable oil

 Directions:


1. Bake the cake in the way it says on the box.
2. Let the cake cool, then crumble it in a bowl.
3. Add half of the icing to the crumbled cake, and mix.

 4. Roll the cake into golf size or tablespoon sized balls.

5. Stick the balls into the fridge to cool them.
6. Melt the chocolate chips in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, add a tablespoon of oil to thin it. Stir.
7. Place wax paper down in your work area. Take balls out of fridge.
8. Dip one end of the sticks into the chocolate, and stick that end into the cake ball.
9. Stick back in fridge for 10 minutes.
10. Remove cake balls, and dip into the chocolate. Set on wax paper to dry. Sprinkle (if you want), your choice of sprinkles, oreo crumble, graham cracker dust.

Once they're dry, stick them in the fridge until ready to eat! :)

Taco Seasoning

I love making tacos, but I hate having to buy those little packets of taco seasoning all the time. I did a little searching and found something that seemed ok. I changed it up a little bit and tried it out. It was awesome, and I will never buy another taco seasoning packet again.

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons chili powder
• 5 teaspoons paprika
• 4 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 3 teaspoons onion powder
• 3 teaspoons salt
• 2 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Directions

Mix together ingredients, and store in an air tight container for up to 6 months.

Use 8 teaspoons of seasoning to 1 lb of ground beef.

Cornbread Cake

While growing up, whenever my mom would say she was making cornbread, I asked for this recipe. It's so good by itself, you don't need to add butter or honey, but you can just for that extra yummyness. This is one recipe I will continue to make and enjoy. No pictures for this one, but I will take some next time I make it!

Ingredients

• 1 cup cornmeal
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/3 cups white sugar
• 2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 2 1/2 cups whole milk

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C), and grease a 9x13 inch baking dish.
2. Stir together the cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. Pour in the vegetable oil, melted butter, honey, beaten eggs, and milk, and stir just to moisten.
3. Pour the batter into the prepared baking dish and bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, until the top of the cornbread starts to brown and show cracks.

Poblano Corn Chowder

My mom introduced me to this recipe during the Christmas holiday. It was so tasty, I made it 3 more times while it was still cold out (which wasn't long living in Texas). I am excited for cooler weather to show up so I can make this again. This will make several servings, I would say it could feed about 10, so plan for leftovers. Still good heated up the next day. :)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1 fresh poblano chile pepper, seeded and diced
• 1 quart heavy cream
• 1 quart half-and-half cream
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon lobster base (optional)
• 1 pinch ground dried chile de arbol
• 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup margarine
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 (15 ounce) can cream-style corn
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1/2 pound shrimp, peeled, deveined, and diced
• salt to taste
• white sugar to taste
• 
  

Directions

1. In a blender or food processor, puree the onion and celery; drain.
2. Melt 2 tablespoons margarine in a large saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and celery puree and the poblano chile pepper. Stirring constantly, cook about 5 minutes, until tender. Mix in heavy cream, half-and-half cream, sugar, and lobster base. Season with chile de arbol and black pepper. Stirring often, bring to a gentle boil.
3. Melt 1/2 cup margarine in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Mix in the flour, and stir constantly until thickened. Remove from heat, and gradually mix into the large saucepan. Cook and stir until the mixture is well blended and thickened.
4. Mix cream-style corn and whole kernel corn into the large saucepan mixture. Stir in the shrimp, and cook 2 minutes, or until opaque. Season with salt and sugar.

Quick Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

Here is the buttercream with color added.

I've tried my fair share of buttercreams. All have been a disappointment until this one came along. I could never get the right consistency, and when I did, and added color, it would end up looking like tie dye. I am not a crisco user, so I always used butter. I know there can be that tie dye issue sometimes because of the butter. When I found this recipe, I was so excited to try it. It worked perfectly, and looks awesome with color!
I topped my chocolate cupcakes with this, as well as my red velvet recipe for Bobby's birthday, and will use it on vanilla as well.

Ingredients:


3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons whipping cream

Directions:


1. In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.
2. Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency.

Peanut Butter Frosting

I made this frosting to go on top of a chocolate cupcake. It is amazingly tasty!

Ingredients:


1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup creamy peanut butter
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup cream

Directions


1. In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter until light and fluffy. Slowly beat in 1/2 of the confectioner's sugar. Mix in 1/4 cup of the cream. Beat in the remaining sugar. If necessary, (it will be), add more cream until the frosting reaches a good spreading consistency.

Chocolate Cupcakes

I used to just make box cake and cupcakes, but decided to find and make both from scratch. I searched, searched and finally found a recipe each for vanilla, chocolate and red velvet cakes/cupcakes. I have tried each, and will post each separately.
With this chocolate recipe, I've used two different frosting's, which I will also post separately from the cakes. :)

Ingredients:


10 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 1/4 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup milk

Directions:


1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two muffin pans, or line with 24 paper baking cups.

2. In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

3. Mix in the eggs, almond extract and vanilla.

4. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; stir into the batter, alternating with the milk, just until blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared cup, dividing evenly. (Sorry, slacked on the pictures!)
5. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops spring back when lightly pressed, 20 to 25 minutes.
6. Cool in the pan set over a wire rack. When cool, arrange the cupcakes on a serving platter. Frost with your favorite frosting.

This picture shows the cake with peanut butter frosting