Who's Mrs. McCabe?

Another recipe from my mother's box, here is a picture of the crumb cake I made this morning. What a great way to start off the day! I love baking because, although often times the dessert is not low fat, it's preservative, dye, and high fructose free. Anyway, the toppping, which is a mixture of cinnamon, sugar, flour, and butter, definately "makes" the dessert. It complements the simple bread and accentuates the tasty, hard outer crust. A delicious dessert or breakfast item, great to bring to work or savor at home with a steaming cup of joe.

Recipe:

Mrs. McCabe's Crumb Cake

2 tbsp shortening

3 tbsp sugar

2 c. flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 c. milk

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes.

Mix and Sprinkle on top:

2 tbsp. flour

4 tbsp sugar

3 tbsp butter (melted)

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

chopped nuts (optional)

For next time, I will add bits of apples, a suggestion of my Mom.

Tweaked

Wow! It's been a crazy amount of time since I updated this blog. The good news is that I have been baking and cooking still. Here are some of new dishes and desserts which I have recently made for the first time:
-"Chocolate-Peanut Butter Oreo Truffles" (google "Easy Oreo Truffles")
-"Sweet Potato Casserole" (JetPuff recipe)
-"Homemade Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with Mocho frosting"
-"Herb Potato Wedges"

I'm loving cooking lately and especially enjoy tweaking recipes to improve them or just to try something different thereby using my creativity and making the recipes "mine". Love it! Some recipes I have enjoyed making "as is" and just expanding my cooking repertoire.

I tweaked the "Easy Oreo Truffle" recipe to have 4oz of peanut butter (peanut butter chips melted) and 4 oz of semisweet chocolate instead of 8 oz of semisweet chocolate only. The peanut butter was a great touch! I gave the truffles away for Christmas to co-workers. They loved them! The next thing that I tweaked was the frosting for the cupcakes that I made from scratch, a small feat for me, considering I've only used boxed mixes. The difference was clear with the cupcakes tastefully significantly more moist. As far as the frosting, I decided to add tiramisu marscapone to the homemade dark chocolate frosting that I made, an idea that came to me as I shoveled snow. It was an amazing touch for both texture and flavor, making the frosting mocha flavored.

I followed the recipes for both the "Sweet Potato Casserole" and the "Herb Potato Wedges" and they came out amazing. The casserole tasted exceptionally savory with the spices of Thanksgiving giving it a familiar taste. The "Herb Potato Wedges" were simple to make, using a tablespoon of the spice packet from the store, potatoes cut into 8ths, and a tablespoon of oil. They tasted delicious! So what's next...I want to make homemade tomato sauce and I want to try making coconut shrimp. In fact, I just got a Weight Watchers recipe for coconut shrimp. I guess it's a sign!