Ann Richards Lemon Yogurt Cake…

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Since today is the last full day of winter, I thought I would share with you a wonderful spring cake. This is perfect to serve as desert on Easter. The recipe comes from The Texas Celebrity Cookbook and was submitted by Ann Richards.

Ms. Richards became nationally known when she gave the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in 1988. Ms. Richards served as Governor of Texas from 1991 – 1995 and was defeated for re-election by George W. Bush.

 While she was the second woman to serve as Governor of Texas, she is often considered the first elected woman. The first was Miriam Ferguson, who stepped into the position after her husband was impeached. Mrs. Ferguson missed becoming the first woman to serve as Governor in the United States by two weeks. Nellie Ross, of Wyoming was the first after her husband passed away.

 

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Yummy, Chocolate Kahlúa Cake!

Thursday, I was taking my son to school; they were talking on the radio, about most irritating and the most pleasant sounds to people. One of the most irritating sounds is people who smack their lips when eating. This is one of my personal pet peeves.

One of the most pleasant sounds is bacon frying. I was surprised; when my son said hearing birds, chirping in the morning is the most pleasant sound for him. I have to agree with him there, waking up on a sunny day with birds chirping outside your window, is a good start to a day.

This topic of course started us on a conversation of other things like favorite smells. A favorite smell in our house, especially if it is a birthday, is chocolate Kahlúa cake.

My children do not like a traditional birthday cake with frosting. When asked what they want for their cake, they always request Kahlúa cake. Recently for my husband's birthday, he requested not only a Kahlúa cake, but also the death by chocolate brownies. Yes, I did make both for him, how could I refuse?

The death by chocolate brownies with Kahlúa whipped cream was my first post on this blog. The Kahlúa whipped cream can be made to top the Kahlúa cake. I also suggest if you can, make the Kahlúa cake one day before you serve it.

I make this cake in a Bundt pan, if you have a mini Bundt pan this recipe works well for those. You can give mini cakes as presents for coworkers or friends. When using a Bundt pan to make a cake, you have to butter and flour the pan. I would suggest you use a product like Baker's Joy pan spray. With this spray you do not have to flour and butter the pan, it does it all for you. If you do not have this type spray. Butter your Bundt pan, instead of using flour, reserve about a quarter cup of dry cake mix and use it to flour your pan. The reason to use the dry cake mix is when you remove the cake from the pan, you will not have any white residue from the flour on your cake.

Ingredients:

1 box of chocolate cake mix, I suggest Betty Crocker's pudding in the mix, chocolate fudge cake.

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 6 ounce box of chocolate pudding, I suggest Jell-O Brand

4 eggs

1 1/4 cups Kahlúa liqueur

1 cup powdered sugar, sifted

6 tablespoons of Kahlúa liqueur

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F

Combine the first five ingredients in a mixing bowl and blend well.

Pour into buttered and floured 9 ½ inch Bundt pan. Bake 45 minutes

While the cake is cooking, combine 6 tablespoons of Kahlúa and 1 cup sifted powdered sugar.

 After removing cake from the oven, do not remove from pan.

Powder sugar mixture, soaking into cake

 Take a knife I suggest a slicing blade and poke holes in the cake.

Pour the Kahlúa and powdered sugar mixture over the cake. If the Kahlúa mixture is pooling on top you probably need to add more holes.

Allow cake to cool for two hours in pan before removing.

If you are, making little Bundt cakes after they are cooled, wrap them in colorful cellophane and tie with a festive ribbon to give as gifts.

Spiced Coffee

It is no secret I have a love hate relationship with coffee. Growing up, my bedroom was closest to the kitchen. My parents loved to grind their own coffee beans, before grinding your own was fashionable. Every morning I woke to beans being poured into the antique crank coffee grinder. The grinding seemed to take hours in "kid" time, in actuality it took no longer than five minutes.

I took my first job when I was a junior in high school and for Christmas, I thought I would get my parents something special without saying "Hey can I have money to go Christmas shopping?" Poking around Sun Valley Mall, I came across Williams Sonoma. My mom loved to shop this store for all of her gourmet club meetings. I had my "A Christmas Story" moment when there in the window was a Braun electric coffee grinder! Electric had to be quicker method of getting those dang beans ground so I could sleep, right?

Christmas morning came with happy parents laughing I did not like the hand grinder and bought them an electric one. There I sat smiling ear to ear, because on December 26, I was going to sleep in past six! I woke the next morning to a sound, which could be compared to a locomotive running wide open, the steam whistle blowing while chugging through a convent! Did I mention I hate coffee?

For me to drink coffee it has to be 60% dairy, 30% sugar, and 10% coffee. I have to kill the taste of the coffee somehow. I still do not understand how something that smells so wonderful, tastes so bad!

When my husband was stationed in Texas, I worked in a county probation department. Where I became friends with Terra. Even though, we were born one day and at least fifteen years apart we clicked like we had known each other for years. For our birthdays, we would bring each other a Starbucks Venti Carmel Frappuccino. One day Terra let me try her coffee with cinnamon in it, hmm not too bad... but I still needed it fully loaded with sugar and milk.

Yesterday morning after enjoying a slice of Pumpkin Bread, I decided to try something. I had made an 8-cup pot of coffee earlier, (I told you I love the smell of coffee.) I threw out the coffee filter and grounds, then added a fresh filter to the basket. To the basket, I added 1 teaspoon of nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves (I would suggest cutting the cloves back to half a teaspoon.) I also added something I knew would not work but I tried it anyway. I added 1/2 cup of white sugar into the mixture. Next I poured the coffee from the carafe back into the coffee maker and re-brewed it (I can see my dad saying here "oh yuck." Nevertheless, in reality I did not re-brew the coffee since it did not go through the grounds again.) The sugar did not work that well, since it would not dissolve quick enough to make it through the filter without me having to stir it.

Minus the sugar mess, the coffee came out tasting wonderful. The spices gave it a warm rich taste that made me think of winter. I would pair it with the Pumpkin Bread Recipe or even Gingerbread during the holidays for something extra special.

 

The Panic of The Lost Pumpkin Bread Recipe

I have a stack of recipes that are loose and unbound. They are either hand written, or printed from the internet and emails. When I want a recipe, I pull out the stack and start shifting through it. I am the only person in the house who can touch the stack. I know exactly where  a recipe should be and they should never get out of “my” order.

Huge panic erupts when I cannot find a recipe. The thought or idea that I have lost or miss placed a recipe is devastating. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I should have a better system for keeping recipes, but I am a procrastinator and a creature of disorganized chaos.

Two weeks ago, I made pumpkin bread. This weekend I went looking for the recipe and it was nowhere to found. I went through the stack of recipes twice and could not find it. My over active imagination started churning with the “what if’s.” What if it got thrown away when my husband cleaned the kitchen? Did Lily, our paper-shredding cat, get her paws on it? Was it mistaken as scratch paper and used by the kids for math homework? Gasp!

Lily, A.K.A. The Paper Shredder

  So panic with setting in, I start pulling cookbooks out of my cabinet and riffling through them. This is one of those recipes, I do not need to read what is on the paper; it is burned in my memory. Though without the paper in my hand, I cannot remember any of it besides canned pumpkin.

 After emptying the cabinet, the recipe is nowhere to found. My kitchen is a disaster, and Lily was stalking recipes that have fallen on the floor. Dejected I sit down at my computer, only to look over at the printer. Yep, sitting on top of the printer is my recipe for pumpkin bread. I placed it there to scan into the computer, in case I ever lost the paper copy.



Pumpkin Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 16 oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie)

3 cups of all purpose flour
3 cups of sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cloves

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

2 teaspoons of ground nutmeg (if you have the time, grind it fresh)

1 teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of baking powder

** Optional you can add either add 1 cup chopped walnuts or pumpkin seeds**

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare two 9X5X3 inch loaf pans by buttering and flouring.

In large bowl beat sugar and oil until blended. Mix in eggs and pumpkin.

In separate bowl sift remaining dry ingredients, and then slowly stir into pumpkin mixture.

Divide batter between the prepared pans, sprinkle with nuts and bake for 70 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Cool on wire racks.

This recipe can be used to make one dozen pumpkin muffins, prepare tins as above or use cupcake papers. Bake for 20 minutes, insert toothpick to check doneness  

Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahlua Whipped Cream

Like many families, mine is spread across the country. Several times over the years, there have been emails and phone calls asking if someone had a copy of a recipe. As a result, I decided that I needed to place all of them in a cookbook. After sending a request out to my family asking for their favorite recipes, I did get a few back without having to beg.

 The question I next faced was who should get a copy of the cookbook? Should only the ones who sent me a recipe get the book or should everyone benefit from the few who sent me recipes? I do not want hurt my sisters’ feelings if she was not able to send a recipe. I also had to consider friends who had given me recipes over the years. Do I leave them out because they are not family by law or blood but by absorption? My extended family is just as large as my family, since my husband served our country proudly for twenty years.

The debating back and forth, gave me an excuse for not starting the book. Recently my Aunt Jackie and Uncle Bill came for a weekend visit and I had forgotten to get a cake recipe my aunt, so I posted a note on her Facebook page asking for the recipe. One of my dearest friends, Cheryl, asked for the recipe without even knowing about what was in the cake!  A week later after a trying week of working on the family tree, my adopted Uncle Doug, stated I needed a hobby. I need another hobby as much as I need another hole in my head! However, I let the ideas start to fester and grow, and then decided why I should just limit myself to family or friends. So like many others, I have decided to take the plunge into the world of blogging. I thought I would start with my Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahula Whipped Cream.

Death by Chocolate Brownies with Kahlua Whipped Cream

Brownie Ingredients:

1 box if Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate brownie mix

1 box of Ghirardelli Double Chocolate brownie mix

1 large box (6 oz) of Jello Brand Chocolate pudding

2 large eggs

1 cup of whole unsalted butter, melted

½ cup heavy whipping cream

¼ cup of Hershey’s chocolate syrup.

Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare a glass 9” X 13” baking dish by spraying  with non-stick cooking spray like Pam or grease with butter.

In mix bowl, stir brownie mixes and pudding together. Add eggs, melted butter, chocolate syrup and whipping cream until thoroughly blended.  Mixture will be thick like chocolate frosting.

Spread evenly in to pan and bake for 40-45 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before serving.

I serve brownies topped with Kahlua whipped cream, chocolate syrup and dusted with Hershey’s Coco powder.

Whipped Cream Recipe

Ingredients:

½ cup whipping cream

3 Tablespoons Kahlua Liqueur

2 Tablespoons white sugar.

Place all ingredients in a cold or chilled bowl; I prefer a metal mixing bowl for this. Beat with a hand mixer on high for one minute or until the mixture is stiff and fluffy.

Serve immediately, can be stored for one week in refrigerator.