Rivarly Week Recipe #2—True Blue Velvet Cake

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Even though I hate the expression, I needed to kill two birds with one stone. (If anyone knows a less violent phrase, do share.) First of all, we had a 1/2 birthday to celebrate at the office, and I wanted to make something to post on the blog in connection with the BYU vs. University of Utah Food Drive. The student alumni association from each school tries to collect the most food and money the two weeks leading up to the big rivalry football game.

I'm the advisor for the BYU Student Alumni, and these students have been doing an amazing job raising funds and collecting food for a wonderful cause. Everything collected by BYU goes to Community Action Services and Food Bank of Utah County. Here's an interesting fact. Did you know Community Action Services can leverage every dollar donated to equal about 15 to 20 lbs. of food? That's amazing! And, even in Utah there is a great need. Please take a moment to donate by clicking here.

Before I get to the recipe, here is a video the students made to promote the food drive. Enjoy!

If you haven't seen the commercial this parodies, click here.

Now, the recipe...

I decided to make a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting but with a twist. Instead of using the color of the opposition, I substituted blue food coloring. I didn't have enough food coloring on hand to make it real BYU blue, but it turned out pretty well. And, it was a lot of fun.

I just hope it brings good luck to the Cougars as they face the Utes, and inspires everyone to give this holiday season.

 

Happy 1/2 Birthday, Lisa, and GO Cougars!

Rivalry Week Recipe #1—Chocolate and Cinnamon Spiced Pancakes

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The big game is almost here—BYU vs. University of Utah.

For those of you not familiar with this rivalry, it's one of the biggest. Usually, I don't care that much for college football, but I do pay attention to this game. I am the advisor to the BYU Student Alumni, an amazing group of students. Each year the Student Alumni at BYU and the University of Utah have a competition the two weeks before the football game to see who can collect the most food and money for the local food banks. It's a great way to use the rivalry to generate donations, and in the end, it's the community that wins.

Before I get to the recipe, I thought I would share a video for the food drive made by the students. I am very impressed because it was made on a budget of basically zilch, or even less. I don't know if it's because I'm old, but I had never heard the phrase "cool beans." However, since watching this, I've begun to hear it quite a bit. For others not in the know, it basically means great, cool or awesome. So, enjoy! And, watch in the coming days when I will share a couple more videos that are cool beans. (That doesn't sound right. Ugh, I've turned into an old fogie.)

Now on to the recipe... I've decided this year to offer you, my adoring fans (all 23 of you), special rivalry week recipes leading up the game. I thought I would begin with a recipe I found on BYU Dining Services website for chocolate and cinnamon spiced pancakes. Not only did they sound yum, but November 18 is Pancake Day at BYU. Dining Services is serving all-you-can-eat pancakes all day all over campus for only $3. And best yet, proceeds go to the food drive. I love their slogan, "Flip a pancake; fill a pantry." If you are in the Provo area, I highly recommend you stop by campus for pancakes.

If you're not in the area, give these pancakes a try. And then, I ask you to please make a donation to the food drive by clicking here, or at least give to your local food bank. The food drive runs until November 27.

GO BYU!

I tested these out on the two pickiest eaters I know, my six year-old Tomas
and his friend Jeffrey. They gave the pancakes the thumbs up. But, I must 
confess, I'm the world's worst pancake flipper. Don't let the ugliness fool
you, these pancakes are mighty tasty.

Chocolate Orange Cheesecake

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Cheesecake. I love it.

We had another birthday at work—a perfect excuse to make a cheesecake.

What took me the longest was to decide which from among our many, possibly hundreds, of cheesecake recipes to make.

I finally decided to go with one Katie and I have made countless times, Chocolate Orange Cheesecake. In my opinion, chocolate and orange go perfectly together. Those chocolate oranges (by Cadbury?) are a must have each year in our Christmas stockings. And, I recently found a recipe for candied orange wedges dipped in chocolate that I think might have to try very soon.

This cheesecake is fairly easy, and always a crowd pleaser. However, I did make one slight modification this time. After I took the cheesecake out of the oven, I forgot to loosen it from the sides of the pan as stated in the recipe. This caused the cheesecake to develop a giant crack. Usually, this doesn't bother me, but since it's for a birthday, I decided to cover it up with a ganache. Not only was this a simple way to cover up the flaw but it added pizazz. And, ganache always makes everything better, right?

I skipped breakfast (a no-no, I know), so it's truly a miracle I

made to work with the cheesecake intact. 

Birthday boy, Steven, with the remnants of

the snarf-fest. And since it was his birthday,

I let him have that last piece. I was sure

tempted to call that lunch.

Unguilty Pleasure Chocolate Cake

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My mom is diabetic. About a year ago, she went to the doctor, and one of her tests came back very bad. Normal for the test is below six, and she was over eleven. The doctor was none too pleased and read my mom the riot act. Good thing he did because she decided she to get serious. She went totally sugar-free and has been going regularly to the gym.

Recently, my mom went back to the doctor. The doctor came into the examination room to give my mom the latest test results. He said, "You know that it's illegal to switch blood samples with someone else's, right?" My mom didn't really know what he was talking about. That thought had never crossed her mind. But then, she realized he was joking. It turns out her level was just above six. The doctor said she is now only pre-diabetic, and he was very proud of her. And, I am, too.

Hence, when my parents came to visit this week, I wasn't going to make anything to take her off track. I decided to look online for a sugar-free dessert. After searching a while, I came across a chocolate cake which uses agave nectar, a syrup made from a cactus. It's available at many grocery stores and at most health food stores. I modified the recipe some and added my own chocolate cream cheese frosting, also using agave.

The result was, in my humble opinion, pretty darn amazing. You would never believe it's sugar-free. The cake is dense and moist and guaranteed to satisfy any chocolate craving. Everyone in the family loved it with the exception of my six year-old, who didn't care for the frosting. Since it's made with cream cheese, it has a bit of a tang. Give him time, and his pallet will mature, right? Anyway, I found that the cake was even better the next day. If the cake is chilled the frosting becomes fudgier.

The cake does take a bit of work, but it's completely worth it, even if you're not into the whole sugar-free thing. So, make a healthy choice, and give this recipe a try. Although, I must warn you. You may be tempted to devour the entire cake yourself, which probably isn't so healthy.

Y. U. M. 

Even though the light wasn't so great, this photo is making

me salivate in a major way.

Vanilla-Roasted Peach Soup with Cardamom Cream

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It must be a busy time of year for food bloggers. Most of the food blogs I follow don't seem to be posting much these days—myself included. My life at the moment is crazy-go-nuts, and things probably won't ease up until the end of the school semester. I have actually done some baking though. For two recent birthdays at the office, I made a tres leches cake and a cream cheese and raspberry coffee cake. However, the problem was that I didn't have time to take a decent photo of the desserts let alone sit down at a computer to write a blog entry about them. I'll get around to adding those two recipes to the blog eventually.

But now, I'm back.

Thumbing through my Cooking Light cookbook, I found this recipe for peach soup. I wanted to make it for several reasons. First, I love fruit soups. They remind me of Europe. I don't know why fruit soups aren't more popular here in the US. Second, the recipe called for a vanilla bean. I'm sorry to admit it, but I have never used a real vanilla bean although I've seen it done many times on TV. And finally, I had a bag of amazingly wonderful Utah peaches that needed to be used.

This soup was very easy to prepare, even the vanilla bean part. The aroma of the house while I was roasting the peaches was true aroma therapy. After I took the peaches out of the oven, I took a bite. Yum!! One of these peach halves served with a scoop of ice cream would make a fantastic dessert. Katie and I loved the soup, and I now want to invite some people over for dinner and serve it as the first course. Katie and I did find out, however, that we like a larger dollop of the cardamom cream than what the recipe calls for. Next time, I may double that part.

Before all the peaches are gone, give this soup a try. Share with friends; they'll think your so continental.

Peaches and Cream Cheese French Toast

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It's peach season!

I stopped by a local fruit stand and bought a bag. Oh man, are they ever good. Utah peaches may just be the best in the world. Before eating devouring the entire bag, I decided to use some baking. I put together two recipes, a peaches and cream cheese French toast and a peach pandowdy. Unfortunately, I made the pandowdy at night when the light isn't good for photographing. It didn't make it until morning and the aftermath wasn't so pretty. So for right now, I'm only posting the French toast. I'll try and do another pandowdy later.

This French toast recipe was a favorite from our bed & breakfast days. We loved the recipe because the ratio of "Ooohs!" and "Aaaahs!" to the amount of actual work that went into it was very good. It's really easy. And then one day, Katie discovered that our cinnamon cream syrup makes the French toast really divine. We've tried the recipe with other kinds of fruit, too. Blueberries are especially nice.

Give this a try. It's great for breakfast, lunch or dinner—not necessarily in the same day. (But hey, I could be tempted.)

Or, a late night snack!

Torte di Pere E Cioccollato (Cake with Pear and Chocolate)

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To celebrate Labor Day, we did jobs around the house. While I thought it was most appropriate to labor in honor of Labor Day, the kids did not think I was at all funny. However, they performed their tasks admirably with only minor complaining. Chloe helped Katie paint the house, and the boys helped me with yard work. To reward them for a job well-done, I decided to bake something.

Our last order from the food co-op contained an abundance of fruit. I was able to use some of the plums in a tart, and Katie finished off the nectarines. However, we still had a bunch of pears on the verge of going bad. So, I googled "pear" and "dessert" and searched through a bunch of recipes. The recipe that sounded most intriguing was Torte di Pere E Cioccollato (pear cake with chocolate chunks) from the restaurant Al Di La in Brooklyn. If I ever make it again to New York, this restaurant is on the to-do list. There are a lot of people who rave about it online. Several websites that have posted the recipe, but I think it was the Smitten Kitchen that somehow got hold of it in the first place.

There were three things that convinced me I needed to make this cake. First, the name alone sounds exotic. I want to start learning Italian. Second, it contains chocolate. Need I say more? And finally, browned butter is added to the batter. My favorite cookies in the world have a browned butter frosting. I love the flavor the browned butter adds.

So, I began my Labor Day labor of love.

The cake was fairly easy to make, and I only modified the recipe slightly. Instead of using bittersweet chocolate, I substituted semisweet. It's what I had on hand, and I'm not the biggest fan of bittersweet.

The cake turned out pretty darn amazing, and it was completely gone in no time. It reminds me of the types of cakes I've had in Europe. This recipe is a definite keeper I will want to make again for friends and family or a birthday at the office.

Therefore, if you're like me and can't just pop over to Al Di La whenever the mood strikes, give this recipe a try. I'm sure it's the next best thing.

To me, simple yet beautiful.

Ready for snarfing! Nom, nom, nom.