Earthquake Cake

This delicious recipe is from this pin: Earthquake Cake

 

This is my new go to recipe for when I take dinner to a friend. It is so good that I could eat the entire 9x13 pan! So at least if I take it to a friend I can make it in two pans and then I only end up eating all of an 8x8 dish. It is like an upside down German Chocolate cake. The coconut, pecans and chocolate chips are a delicious gooey surprise and I love that the frosting is basically cooked into the cake so its just extra gooey. I have made this cake 3 times in the past couple and last time while I was baking it I found myself singing This Kiss by Faith Hill, only I was singing "This cake this cake!"

And it is so EASY I don't even look up the recipe anymore! Sprinkle desired amounts of pecans, coconut and chocolate chips on the on the bottom of the greased pan, then make a German Chocolate cake mix and pour it on top. Then melt together a block of cream cheese, 1 or 2 sticks of butter, and about 3-4 cups of powdered sugar and then drizzle that on the cake and bake it. YUMMY!

On an easy scale of 1-10 its a 1.5 and on a delicious scale its a 10! Its the way you love cake, its a feeling like this, its centrifugal motion, its perpetual bliss, its that pivotal moment, it ah, subliminal, This cake THIS CAKE! Its criminal!!

Lesson Learned

I saw this pin and was super excited to make this Pumpkin Treat on this crisp cool day.

The description underneath the pin said this-

Pumpkin Frozen yogurt: 1 Cup Greek yogurt, 1 cup pumpkin puree, 1 T. Sugar, 1 t. pumpkin pie spice. {substitute pure maple syrup for sugar}

Easy enough, and I had all the ingredients!! Without even clicking the pin to take me to the link of instructions, I started mixing everything together. I figured I would just mix all the ingredients and put it in the freezer and in a few hours enjoy my delicious skinny treat. As I was stirring it just didn't look right. It wasn't pale orange and smooth. It looked a little curdly and no matter how fast I whisked the yogurt wasn't smoothing out. This is the part where I learned an important lesson as I clicked on the pin to take me to the link for instructions. The first problem was that you need an ice cream mixer to make this, however I had seen somewhere that you can put the mixture in a Ziploc and freeze it and every 30 minutes squish the bag and mix and mix. So I thought I would still give it a whirl. I got out my immersion blender and gave it a good blend to get it nice and creamy. I pulled the blender out, licked it clean and discovered my second problem. The recipe on the website calls for non fat vanilla yogurt. The description under the pin calls for Greek yogurt. The two are not the same at all, I thought the Greek yogurt would give it a subtle zip and would pair well with the pumpkin, like pumpkin and cream cheese. Not so. The Greek yogurt made the mixture too too tart and it just didn't go well together in my opinion, and I am a huge fan of Greek yogurt so I was disappointed. I still wanted to freeze it and see if it was better frozen. I don't know if Greek yogurt freezes differently than plain vanilla yogurt or if it was my method of freezing without an ice cream mixer but it just comes out a little on the icy side and not so creamy, and the tartness was still overpowering. All was not lost. I mixed the pumpkin yogurt with a big ol' scoop of vanilla ice cream, blended it with a touch of milk and had myself a tasty not so skinny shake.
For the future ALWAYS click on the link for the correct ingredients and instructions, I think I would have really liked this treat, maybe in the future... once I get an ice cream maker.
I can't rate this on a scrumptious scale because I blew it but I am sure that it is delicious when made correctly!

Banana Cake Bars

 I got this yummy yummy recipe from this pin: Banana Bars

We had some guests over for dinner on Wednesday. Over the weekend a nasty stomach bug came for a visit so by Wednesday I was craving some serious comfort food. I wanted cheesy soups and fall desserts, but I just couldn't bring myself to make Autumn weather food when it was 100 degrees out. So I made a chicken broccoli cream dish over rice and these banana bars. I fell in love a little bit. These are so good!! I made half of the recipe and baked it in a 7x11 glass dish. Then I made half of the browned butter icing and poured it over the top. Next time I will half the bars but make the whole icing recipe. The icing is so goooood!! I am sad to say that I have not browned butter since I was in culinary school! Shame on me, I have really missed out! I had forgotten how good browned butter smells and the taste of this icing! Oh man it's a little nutty and oh so buttery and sweet and pairs perfectly with the banana bars. And now to give some credit to these bars, it is banana bread taken to the next level of deliciousness. It has the texture of a really good Texas sheet cake. Not as dense as a banana bread and I like that. I made these in the morning and as soon as the icing had set up enough to cut without drizzling I tasted it. It was warm and delicious and I felt happy. Later that night when we had them for dessert I was a little disappointed because I didn't love it as much as I had earlier. But then I popped it in the microwave for 12 seconds and I was back in my happy place! Eat these warm! Part of what makes me happy when I eat these is that I feel like its the perfect bridge dessert between summer and fall. Living in Texas we miss out on the crisp fall weather and the leaves changing. Its hard for me to get excited about soups and pumpkin treats when its sunny and in the 90's, but this is kind of summery and fallish at the same time, so its great for a warm September treat.

I almost forgot to snap a picture as I sat down to eat the last piece for breakfast!!

On a scale of 1-10 this gets a 9 for Yummers and is about a 4 for difficulty to make only because she isn't lying when she says browning butter can go from nice and brown to burnt in seconds. It can be hard to see the color of the butter because the butter fat sits on top as its boiling. You will start to know it's ready by the smell. It will start to smell very buttery and a little nutty, check the color then. It should be a nice golden brown. I had the milk and vanilla in a little bowl on the side to pour in immediately to cool down the browning process as soon as it was ready.