We generally have a huge 4th of July Picnic but this year Marc had to work and Erin and Jon had plans elsewhere. We will be going up to a picnic at our church later but for now? Very low key.

I made lemon butter bars to take to the picnic, and will be making a red, white, and blue heirloom potato salad using the Southwestern Potato Salad recipe I posted. The butter bars use a cake mix, and you can substitute any flavor mix to have a variety of butter bars…and lets face it, folks, the world NEEDS more butter bars…desperately.

Anyway, here is the July 4th version of Saturday Surfing.

• Have you ever had Italian Wedding Cake? I am not even sure where it gets it’s name but the one by Emily at Sugar Plum looks delicious.
• What would the 4th be without Macaroni Salad. This one from Life’s Ambrosia looks fabulous.
• Courtney has a yummy sounding chocolate, banana, and cinnamon infused jam on her blog. My oh my.
• Everything anyone could want to know about food and probably much that they don’t want to know. Food Reference.
• Cathy is just so cool. I scan her blog, Noble Pig, once in awhile because I love her wit, photography, and majorly awesome recipes…like these Firecracker Cupcakes with Poprocks.
• The Purple Foodie has a recipe for Banana Nutella Crepes and a cookbook give away going on now. It ends the 25th of July so you have some time.
• Passionate About Baking is one of my favorites. These chocolate, walnut, and dried cranberry bar cookies look amazing.
• foodiePrints has been fun to get to know on twitter, and I have more and more been furtively visiting his blog. Check out these peach and yogurt muffins…those will wake ya up in the morning.
• Donna is a fellow Texan (except she has an accent, y’all) and I have actually met her. What a sweetie. Just like this Raspberry Margarita Smoothie.
• Kahlua Carrot Cakes with Maple icing on Worth the Whisk. Sigh.

O.k..and that is it for this week. Hey, I will be announcing a cool giveaway next week, reviewing some eco-friendly disposable items, AND posting a recipe for Snicker Bar Blondies, a cool chopped salad and some other goodies.

Have a great holiday weekend!

image:maryeaudet

Post from: Baking Delights

Sugar Bomber is committed to causing copious drooling in as much of the population as it can reach in as short a time as possible. It is a cause I can believe it so I applied to be a Dictator. Yes a dictator.

My children always knew it. Now it has been made public. Basically when I find a dessert locally I submit the image to Sugar Bomber.

Today I had the great pleasure of taking out a dear friend. I have wanted to be able to do something for her for years…and I finally was able to bless  her. I took her to the Landmark here in Dallas for lunch. Jeff Moschetti is such an amazing chef…and the food was as delicious as always. We ended with small desserts. I got a chocolate financier with macerated raspberries and she got carrot cake. Check it out:

What a carrot cake!

I love how these desserts are plated. Let’s face it, it is probably the thing that sets really top restaurants from the mediocre ones is the way that the food is presented.

Check out Sugar Bomber for tons of sugary yumminess from all over. And you know? The best way to learn creative plating is to look at a lot of images.

images:Marye Audet

Post from: Baking Delights

I don’t know if you remember my interview with Brad Halpern of Eggology last summer, or the review I did of the eggs…but he has kindly offered the readers of Baking Delights four mini-carrot cakes from their Simply Sensational line of baked products made with egg whites instead of whole eggs for lower fat.

I haven’t had the opportunity to try these, but the other products I have tried from eggology have been amazing.  If you win you have to come back and tell me how they are!

You may enter until February 1, 11:59 P.M.  U.S shipping only to 48 states, not available for Hawaii or Alaska.

To enter (one entry for each item):

• Leave a comment
• Blog about the giveaway and leave a comment letting me know
• Go to the Eggology Website and leave a comment here letting me know which product you think is coolest.
• Subscribe to my RSS feed and leave a comment letting me know.  If you are all ready a subscriber just leave a comment letting me know.

image: eggology

Post from: Baking Delights

Knowing that we would be celebrating his birthday when they got back on the 11th, I asked him what type of cake he would like.

Understand that Ethan is not my most decisive child. We hated to take him anywhere where he had to choose candy or ice cream from the counter. Everyone else would have theirs eaten and he would still be agonizing over flavors. So I figured it would take several minutes for me to get an answer.

After 10 minutes of watching cake flavors cross his mind (his expression changed with each, I swear) I started helping.

chocolate cake with fudge frosting? chocolate cake with orange frosting? yellow cake with chocolate frosting and almond filling? Strawberry with milk chocolate? Orange with chocolate? Carrot cake?

As the words carrot cake left my mouth his eyes lit up and he nodded. “Carrot cake!”

I sighed. Carrot cake is nice but it is so done. I don’t know. Carrot cake is like white cotton granny panties, o.k.? Just not very intriguing.

So I was determined to come up with something different and wonderful and unusual..and very un-granny-like.

I chose to make this as a one layer cake in a 13×9 pan because I was afraid with the chunkiness of the ingredients it would not hold as a layer cake and I did not have time to do it over if it messed up.

The cake it’s self is sweet and moist, just like an ordinary carrot cake. Spicy with cinnamon. Just like always. What I have done, though, or tried to, is to achieve taste layers the way perfumers create layers of scent in perfume. Sweet and carrot-y gives way to the rich taste of white chocolate. Spicy cinnamon changes to ginger then cloves and cardamom, and then finally a slow burn from a pinch of cayenne. Carrot and pineapple are expected but the toasted coconut adds a wonderful dimension in the texture and flavor.

Hope you like it.

Carrot Cake

2 1/2 c flour

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp cloves

1 tsp ginger

1 tsp cardamom

1/4 -1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 c sweetened coconut toasted

1 c chopped walnuts

2 c grated carrots

1 c white chocolate chips

1 c drained crushed pineapple

1 c oil

4 eggs

1 c sugar

1 c brown sugar

1 Tbs vanilla

1/2 tsp cinnamon flavoring

Preheat oven to 350

Grease and flour a 13x 9 pan

Mix dry ingredients together

Mix oil and sugars together until blended. Add eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla and cinnamon. Mix in dry ingredients and then stir in nuts, carrots, white chocolate, coconut and pineapple. Pour into prepared pan and bake about 45 minutes.

Frosting

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 c unsalted butter, room temp

1 c powdered sugar

1/4 c coconut milk (shake the can, the one that is the most solid is the best)

1 tbs vanilla

1/2 tsp rum flavor

Mix cream cheese and butter until well blended. Add the sugar, then the coconut milk and extracts. Beat until creamy and light.

Oh, and Kyrie required that we sing Jingle Bells to him before we sang happy birthday. So, our friends that have 4 boys still at home, and our kids, and us, a total of 14 people all sang Jingle Bells heartily before we sang happy birthday…Kyrie was pleased. He could hardly blow out his candles he was laughing so hard.

Have I mentioned how thankful I am for my family and the few close friends I do have? Because I am. Very.

Post from: Baking Delights

The original for this can be found at Epicurious. I changed it up a little bit because the first time I made it I wanted a little more intensity in the flavor. I really love this but it is a bit more dense even than a normal carrot cake..the buttercream… What can I say about that?…oh my.
I made this for my husband Marc’s birthday which we are celebrating today. He loves spice cake and I expect that this carrot cake will disappear in an enthusiastic burst of activity….similar to the termites in the old Looneytunes cartoons. The cake serves 8-10 but we are having friends over that are bringing 4 of their boys so I am cutting thinly and planning on this serving 14. Be sure and chill the frosting thoroughly, and keep cake refridgerated until one hour prior to serving time. I am making lemon ice cream to go with this..but I think that a mango ice cream would be awesome. I also have added more frosting in my adaption because the amount of frosting they called for was a bit thin for my liking.

Tropical Carrot cake
2 1/3 c all purpose flour (don’t use cake flour, I did that and it is just too light to hold the ingredients properly)
1 c sweetened flaked coconut
1 c dry roasted macadamia nuts
3/4 c chopped crystallized ginger
3 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

2 c sugar
1 vegetable oil (organic coconut oil works really well, adding a touch more coconut flavor)
4 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
2 c finely grated peeled carrots
2 TBS finely grated fresh ginger
2 8 oz cans crushed pineapple VERY well drained.

Frosting

24 oz cream cheese
1 c unsalted butter
2 2/3 c powdered sugar
1 c sweetened cream of coconut like coco lopez
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp coconut extract
1 tbs monin Macadamia nut syrup

Reserve some whole macadamia nuts and crystallized ginger for topping if desired.

Be sure to read recipe through before starting.

Cake:
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 3 9″ round cake pans and line with parchment. Combine 1/3 c flour, and next 3 ingredients in processor.process until nuts are finely chopped. Whish remaining flour, baking soda, salt, spices, and baking powder in a bowl to blend.
In an electric mixer beat sugar and oil and add eggs, one at a time, incorporating each throroughly. Beat in vanilla. Beat in flour-spice mixture. Stir in macadamia mixture and then pineapple, carrot, grated ginger mixture.
Divide amoung pans. BAke until tester inserted in center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Let cool in pans for one hour. Run knife around edge to loosen cakes and turn out. Let cool completely..In fact, putting them in the freezer for a bit at this point is helpful in the frosting process.

Frosting:
Beat cream cheese and butter in mixing bowl until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar, then cream of coconut and both extracts and Monin macadamia nut syrup. Chill until firm enough to spread, about half an hour.

Place one cake layer, flat side up and spread with about 3/4c frosting. Add next layer and so on, finishing the top and sides with a thin layer of frosting. Chill thoroughly. Use the rest of the frosting to put another layer of frosting over the top and sides and chill until 1 hour before serving time.

Here is a picture of it in layers, before tI frosted the sides..See? I like thick filling…

Post from: Baking Delights