The Sink Chronicles: Betty Crocker Cookbook

Showing posts with label Betty Crocker Cookbook. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day

I made this cake for my husband’s birthday because it falls around St. Patrick’s Day and this cake has green in it, plus mint. I love mint candies, so I thought this would be perfect. I have been sitting on this recipe just waiting for the right time to try it, and I finally tried it. If you like mint and chocolate, then this recipe is good for you. I will tell you that it is even better the second day, if it lasts that long.
I found it in the Betty Crocker Super Moist Cakes® book back in 2008. (That’s how long this recipe has been sitting in my house.) I was almost ready to throw out the cookbook, well actually, give it to Goodwill ®, when I looked through it one more time. This cake was on the cover of the book, which is why I probably bought the book in the first place. The recipe is as follows:

Grasshopper Fudge Cake

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist®white cake mix

1 ¼ cups water

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons mint extract

3 egg whites

12 drops green food color

2 jars (16 oz. each) hot fudge topping

1 8 oz. container frozen whipped topping, thawed

5 drops yellow food color

Thin retangular crème de menthe chocolate candies, unwrapped and cut into pieces, if desired.

1. Heat oven to 350º F for shiny metal or glass pan (or 325ºF for dark or nonstick pan). Spray bottom only of 13 x 9 inch pan with baking spray with flour

2. Make cake mix as directed on box, using water, oil, 1 ½ teaspoons of the mint extract and the egg whites. Reserve 1 cup batter. Stir 3 drops of the green food color into reserved batter; set aside. Pour remaining batter into pain.

3. Drop green batter by generous tablespoonfuls randomly in 12 to 14 mounds onto batter in pan. Cut through batters with metal spatula or knife in S-shaped curves in one continuous motion. Turn pan ¼ turn; repeat cutting for swirled design. (I used a toothpick).

4. Bake 28 to 33 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Run knife around side of pan to loosen cake. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

5. Carefully spread fudge topping evenly over cake. In medium bowl, stir whipped topping, remaining ½ teaspoon extract, remaining 9 drops green food color and the yellow food color until blended. Spread whipped topping mixture evenly over fudge. Garnish with candy pieces. Store covered in refrigerator.

Friday, April 27, 2012

April 27, 2012 - Cream Puffs

Cream Puffs have always been one of my weaknesses. They are light and puffy and are filled with the most exquisite cream that literally melts in your mouth. And to think that something that looks so delicious would be so easy to make! I have made them when I was younger and filled them with pudding. But I am trying to find a more mousse-like filling that is at once satisfying and also light. So to the books I went. I found a recipe in Betty Crocker’s Cookbook that I thought would be what I was looking for. For the cream puff itself, the recipe was easy to understand and also easy to make. The filling was not exactly what I wanted; it was more of a pudding filling, which in itself was delicious, but again, not what I was looking for. So off to the internet I went, I found a couple of recipes for filling that in the next couple of articles I will discuss. Listed below is the recipe from Betty Crocker’s Cookbook. Cream Puffs 1 c. water ½ c. margarine or butter (I prefer butter, not salted) 1 c. all-purpose flour* 4 eggs *Self rising flour can be used in this recipe. Heat oven to 400º. Heat water and margarine to rolling boil in 2 ½ quart saucepan. Stir in flour Stir vigorously over low heat until mixture forms a ball, about 1 minute; remove from heat. Beat in eggs, all at once; continue beating until smooth. Drop dough by scant ¼ cupfuls about 3 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake until puffed and golden, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool away from draft. Cut off tops; pull out any filaments of soft dough. Fill puffs with Cream Filling. Replace tops; sprinkle with powdered sugar. Refrigerate until serving time. Cream Filling 1/3 c. sugar 2 T. cornstarch 1/8 t. salt 2 c. milk 2 egg yolks, slightly beaten 2 T. margarine or butter, softened 2 t. vanilla Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in 2 quart saucepan. Gradually stir in milk. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute. Stir at least half of the hot mixture gradually into egg yolks (temper the egg yolks). Stir into hot mixture in saucepan. Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat. Stir in margarine and vanilla; cool. Note: I found that the cream filling was to runny, I wanted a more lightly, airy filling. So I added 1 tub (8 oz.) Cool Whip® topping to the cream filling. If adding Cool Whip®, add after mixture has cooled down.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Healthified Chocolate Chip Cookies

Today I made these chocolate chip cookies with wheat flour, instead of regular white bleached flour and let me tell you they are delicious. My kids liked them and that is saying a lot because they love chocolate chip cookies, but if I said that they were healthy for you, I don't think they would have touched them. So I found these on the Betty Crocker website (http://www.bettycrocker.com/recipes/healthified-chocolate-chip-cookies/) and I thought they sounded good. They definitely are.

I have always enjoyed all of Betty Crocker recipes. I use one of the Betty Crocker Picture Cookbooks from 1950 and my newest one is from 1986. They both are dog-earred, splattered and tearing from the binding, but I love them both.

Monday, December 27, 2010

Day After

After a short weekend of eating, playing games, more eating, laughing, spending time with our large family of parents, siblings and grandchildren, aunts and cousins, it was time to go back home to the real world.

This time of year is always magical, special and stressful and always is over to soon. We normally stay until after Christmas to help clean up, but this year we left on Christmas Day. We wanted to beat the rain and that didn’t work. We ended up driving home in the rain going only 45 miles an hour and sometimes slower due to it raining so hard. It took 1 ½ hours longer than it should have to get home. The kids were very good throughout the whole trip, so that really helped. Because we were trying to concentrate on the road and other cars and it doesn’t help when we have to turn our head around to yell at the kids.

Tired from all the overly rich food we had, I decided to make a turkey pot pie. Since it was a cold and lazy day, some comfort food sounded really good and my family loves turkey pot pie. I just use the basic turkey pot pie recipe and tweak it to our taste. I always add parsley and celery leaves and if I have any small amounts of vegetables in the refrigerator, I add them into the pot. This time I added bell peppers and broccoli.

Recipe

3 c. water (can also use broth – vegetable or chicken stock)
2 carrots, chopped
2-3 T. chopped parsley
4 potatoes, chopped
1 ½ c. – 2 c. shredded or chopped turkey
2-3 stalks celery, chopped
2-3 T. chopped celery leaves (or whatever is on the stalk)
1 ½ t. salt
¼ bell pepper, chopped
1 ½ c. broccoli, chopped
1 T. – 1 ½ T. cornstarch (thickener)

Add all vegetables and spices to 3 c. water and cook over medium heat for 20-25 minutes. If to high, lower the heat. Add cornstarch to thicken broth. How juicy or thick you want the stock is a matter of choice.

Preheat oven to 425º. Put into a Pyrex pan (9 x 13 or 8 x 10) and cover with unbaked pie crust. Cook for 30-35 minutes, let rest for 5 minutes and enjoy.

I used the basic turkey pot pie recipe and pie crust recipe from the Betty Croker Cookbook. This can be a little fattening, but everything in moderation and it will be fine.