In the mood for some Beignets, but you can’t swing the trip to New Orleans to Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter? Here’s the next best thing. These are from one of my favorites from Southern Living made with Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits. They are a real treat and super easy. Give yourself 10 minutes and you can be sipping your coffee, eating your beignets and feeling as if are in the center of it all in NOLA.
Here’s what we made in class on Friday our first lab of the year. The first time in the kitchen always makes for some interesting writing here. Just imagine 33 teens in a room with six kitchens all trying to get Danish in the oven, tables set, and kitchens cleaned in a mere 45 minutes. It is organized chaos!!! One group added their milk a day early and two groups got the Danish confused with the icing and added a heaping cup of powdered sugar to the dry ingredients. Another student used a pastry blender as a mixing tool. I haven’t figured that one out yet. After four hours and 124 students later I left feeling exhausted both mentally and physically. It was a great lab with only three wrong turns out of twenty-four that hit the nail on the head.
Here’s what I did to change it up and I loved the results and so did my family. Looking for something sweet, tart and very simple here it is Lemon Cheese Danish with Lemon icing.
Filed under Desserts
Strawberries are everywhere now and when I saw this yummy looking cake on Martha’s newsletter I could not resist it. Who doesn’t love strawberries and whipped cream. That is what I call a match made in heaven and then add a nice layer of yellow cake to soak up all that good strawberry juice. I’m telling you that it is perfect!
I made three of these in one week that’s just how good they are. Make a one layer cake and then split it, cut up strawberries, whip up some cream and you have yourself a fancy dessert that is a show stopper.
I know that Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but I just had to post these gorgeous cookies! In preparation for Valentine’s Day I spent a Saturday afternoon in the kitchen making these beautiful heart sandwich cookies which caught my eye sitting there on the front cover of Martha Stewart’s Living Magazine. I have made a couple of Martha’s recipes. One of them was a great success in my classroom two years ago at Christmas. Even though it took us four days to make them it was worth it. What I am leading up to is the fact that the cookie recipes of Martha’s seem to be so time-consuming! I know that she has lots of helpers in her kitchen, but there is just one of me. The active time given for completing this recipe was 3 hours and 25 minutes. I spent five hours. If you have ever spent five hours doing one recipe you know that when you are finished you don’t even want to eat what you have prepared or it just doesn’t live up to all that time spent in the kitchen. In other words, I could not be the judge of these cookies. I took them to school and let 60 of my students judge them.
Continue reading
Filed under Cookies
I have the best cake recipe for you today. It is going to knock your socks off! Don’t look at me sideways, but it’s made with a cake mix. Yes, it is true. I didn’t believe it myself when I tasted it. I just knew my friend Marilyn was lying, but no she doesn’t lie! It is like a big chewy brownie with a hint of rum, chocolate chips and nuts. Now who is not going to love it? When you take a bite you are going to think that you have died and gone to heaven – chocolate heaven that is.
Filed under Desserts
I think that I have found the perfect pudding for you! There will be no more instant pudding nor will there be the yucky pudding that is ready made in those plastic tubs. This is put together in less than 10 minutes from start to finish. It is a really rich chocolate pudding that no one will believe you made in the microwave.
When I posted the recipe on my Promethean board one of my students said, ” Beginner skill? Mrs. Lupo you know that we are way beyond beginners now!” That being a true fact we still have only 45 minutes to get the job done. This recipe was just the perfect fit! So here are my tips for the pudding after making it twice at home, 4 times for my students, and 24 groups of students making it. Now yours will be perfect!
Filed under Desserts
I found one of the easiest brunch recipes today. Your’re going to either hate me or love me. Especially when we’ve all made our New Year’s resolutions to be more healthy. It won’t hurt to indulge in just one small piece, though. The recipe is from one of my favorite recipe sources Pillsbury. It is a bake-off winner from 1998 and so simple that if will leave you wondering if you have done something wrong. I just bet that you have all the ingredients right there in your kitchen to get this started at your earliest convenience. You’ll need a Pillsbury pie crust, light brown sugar, softened butter, chopped pecans, and powdered sugar. While to pastry is coming to room temperature you can measure all your ingredients. In a mere 30 minutes you will have one of the best pastries that you could buy anywhere.
Now here’s how to put it together.
Brownies are the easiest cookie to make, but they are also the easiest to wreck. It is very hard to judge doneness so many cooks including myself *ahem* will overcook them. Most of the recipes will be done when they start to pull away from the sides of the pan. This recipe has a gooey caramel center so it is harder to judge doneness. Just watch carefully and be ready to pull these out. When I read the recipe and saw that you cooked one layer for 25 minutes, added caramel and more brownie mix and cooked for an additional 30 minutes I said no way! The recipe fooled me. It is a fantastic moist and chocolatey brownie. One of the best I have ever had. Try these and you will never make brownies from a box again and you may even throw your old recipe away. They won the taste test with about 42 of my best tasters!
Filed under Cookies
I made my first ice cream of the year this weekend to reduce the number of strawberries that were overflowing in my refrigerator and wouldn’t you know that the temperature would drop to the low 4o’s. March was a record high 80’s. What’s up with this ridiculous range of tempts? But, no matter what the weather is outside the strawberries are coming in like crazy and there are just so many that I can eat before they go bad. Southern Living came to my rescue with their winning recipe for ice cream, sherbet, or frozen yogurt. Whatever you want to name it make sure that you put the word scrumptious in front of it. It is the easiest ice cream you’ll ever make and what is even better is that it is low in calories. You might want to hide any straws. The mixture is so good you’ll want to drink it like a milkshake. It is that good!
Filed under Desserts
Hope that all of you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year! I’m not going to bore you with my resolutions that are probably the same as everyone elses. You know get yourself organized, eat healthier, and exercise more frequently. I just want to enjoy life. It is as simple as that! With that said here are the top 10 posts of this year. Several of them had the help of Stumble Upon by some of my blogger friends Dine and Dish and A Cook and Her Books. Thanks to all of you that read my blog. I really appreciate it! I still have many things to get done that you have asked for, so don’t think that I have forgotten. I havent. The printer friendly recipe is being worked on now. I do feel good about the recipe index. It was needed and took a long time for me to finally sit down and do it. So here’s to another year gone by and new one to do with what we would like. Let’s make it a good one. Any day will be good with any of the following recipes.
The Teacher Cooks 
