At Home My Way

First, a disclaimer... I am NOT a cake baker.  I am a mom, wife, daughter, friend, home cook, but not a pastry chef, cake decorator, or anything like that.  My attempt at baking cakes is purely for fun and for my eating pleasure. This weekend I wanted cake!   I have for you today the mother of all cakes.  This cake even worked out for me, a non cake baker.  I had never baked a two-layer cake that didn't crack in the middle or slide off the plate.  I usually only have success with sheet cakes or those in 9 x 13 pans, or cupcakes.  But this weekend I wanted a two layer cake.  Something pretty that I could be proud of.  I didn't want over the top sweet, so I opted to only frost between the layers and on top.  This also saved a lot of potential anxiety for me because frosting the sides causes me lots of stress!  This cake was a great success - on all levels: Delicious?-yes! Chocolaty?-yes! Moist?-yes! Great crumb like bo...

My Aunt Donna has made an Easter bunny cake for Easter dinner for as long as I can remember.   Since I miss my Florida family so very much, I decided to make a bunny cake myself so that I could feel a little closer to home!   You can make an Easter bunny cake with a cake mix and canned frosting or your own favorite cake/frosting recipe.  I decided that since my family prefers chocolate cake and chocolate frosting, to make a completely all chocolate bunny cake.  Pretty cute, huh?   I used my always good, stand-by Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake recipe found HERE .  I used my homemade Chocolate frosting recipe also, recipe found HERE .  (I added a little more powdered sugar to my frosting to make it a tad thicker - like 1/2 cup more powdered sugar than the recipe calls for) for making my cake. Here's how I made our family's favorite Easter Bunny Cake AT HOME MY WAY: Easter Bunny Cake Cake mix for a two layer cake, your favorite flavor a...

I got the recipe for this Pineapple Sheetcake from my husband's aunt.  She is a wonderful cook and a very special lady!  My husband likes to say that it's almost like he has two moms (Aunt C is his mother's sister and she lived in their basement for many years while he was growing up).  There is a funny story about Aunt C buying him some blow up shoes so that he could try walking on water.  Let's just say that didn't work for him LOL.  Back to the cake... This is one of Aunt C's most requested dishes!   This Pineapple Sheetcake makes an appearance at just about every single family dinner whether it's Christmas or the 4th of July.  We all love it and savor leftovers (if there are any).  It is not overly sweet.  The cake has no oil/fat in it since it includes a whole can of crushed pineapple and the whole thing turns out moist and just delicious!   I made this cake for a potluck lunch at work the other day.  I had worked all d...

I want to post this delicious little (snack size) Homemade Yellow Cake recipe.  This cake is really good!  Sometimes its hard to find a scratch yellow cake that tastes as good as a box cake.  But, with this recipe, who needs a box??  Not me!  I think this one is better!  It has that yummy aroma and taste of a grandma cake! Last night I needed a little something sweet.  I didn't have any special ingredients on hand, just typical pantry stuff.  I decided to top this cake with a cinnamon crumb topping.  It turned out wonderful!  Even my husband loved it.  He's not much of a sweet eater, but he's been slicing off slivers since it came out of the oven.  This would work well for an afternoon snack or even a coffee cake to serve to friends or family.     You could also make the cake as cupcakes (it would only make 12 cupcakes) and/or frost with your favorite frosting (and not use the crumb topping)!  My favorite ...

The other day I pinned a terrific little find, a recipe for  Homemade Angel Food Cake Loaf .  I was so excited about this recipe!  I often gaze lovingly at those little loaves of angel food cake when I'm grocery shopping but the "cheap" in me just cannot fork out over $3 a pop for those little babies. My husband's aunt used to make homemade angel food cake.  I have her recipe.  It seems deliciously exotic and a recipe only reserved for the professionals.  I have an angel food cake pan.  You know.. one of those tube pans with the legs that shoot out (because an angel food cake cools upside down in its pan, hovering in the air so that it doesn't loose is fluffiness.  Whew!  All of that seemed complicated to me. In fact, it was really one of those bucket list recipes that I was going to try, SOME DAY... Well, fast forward to today (yesterday actually) when I read the recipe at a blog called Cooke's Frontier .  It didn...

We made a delicious Sunday Dinner yesterday!  My hubby braved the cold and put some hamburgers and hotdogs on the grill.  I also made hashbrown casserole, baked beans, some corn, and this fabulous Strawberry Cake! This is one of those cakes that you love but often forget to make.  My mom used to make this cake on occasion.  Truly, it' so delicious that it should be made often!  At times my mom would just add strawberries to her cake batter and buttercream frosting, but the jello in this recipe really takes it to a new level.  You get a heavy, moist, and tart cake topped with sweet and fruity frosting.  The original frosting recipe called for more cream cheese and powdered sugar than I used.  I'll post the original recipe with notations of how I did it.  I had to restrain myself from eating two pieces.  It is really, really good.  Valentine's Day is coming up!  Add this recipe to your repertoire of pink food.  ...

We haven't had many snacks in our house since both of our girls are never there.  It seems like when I have something, it lasts forever so the assortment of things to eat at my house are limited.  Sunday I wanted to make something sweet.  I had apples but was too lazy to make a crust or peel apples.  Pitiful, I know.  I also didn't want to buy any ingredients.  I remembered I had a delicious recipe for Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake in a little cookbook called  Comfort Foods - Beta Sigma Phi .  It has wonderful recipes in it!  And a book called "Comfort Foods" would be MY kind of cookbook, that's for sure. This cake is heavy - more like a zucchini cake or carrot cake.  It's also moist and lightly chocolatey.  I love it!  You all know how much I love Chocolate Chip Baked Oatmeal and this cake has similar flavors but with more of a dessert feel to it.  Its also something you can make with ingredients fro...

Lemon Glaze Cake   This past weekend my daughter and her boyfriend were in from college.  We didn't do a whole lot, but it was SURE good to see them!  I always like to feed college kids.  I think it is in college when kids most appreciate the person who cooks in their family.  They eat enough cafeteria and restaurant food or their own cooking to really be grateful for a plate homemade family favorites!   I had a smoked pork loin in the freezer so Friday night I mixed up some Homemade Tangy Barbeque sauce and made pulled pork sandwiches with cheese fries.  Definitely cannot go wrong there and since I already had the meat cooked and in the freezer, it was simple enough. I made homemade biscuits Saturday morning which we ate with the homemade peach jam that my daughter herself made from the few peaches we got from the little tree in our backyard.  There's really nothing like a pan of hot biscuits slathered in but...