Cinnamon Chocolate Pudding Cake

Yesterday I spent trying to catch up on 3 weeks of minimal cleaning ☹. Ask me how much fun that was, or how much my head liked it lol… but the house is now clean again which means I can play again!!!

For now I thought I would share/repost one of our favourite fall/winter “comfort” desserts! 😊

I make this dessert a lot in the winter. It is warm, chocolatey, gooey and just an all round delicious dessert. I know it isn’t winter yet but it is fairly cool our right now so it seemed as good a time as any to make it again!

Sandie

Marble Cheesecake (Baked)

We were having company on Sunday, a nice visit with my brother-in-law and nephew. I made a huge pan of lasagna, French bread, Caesar salad and then this cheesecake for dessert. You can never go wrong with cheesecake… am I right lol?

Cheesecake is a favourite around here… this one being about 2nd or 3rd on the list of favourites! It is easy to make and well worth the time it takes to make it… which really isn’t that bad either!

The cheesecake was delicious even though it cracked a bit through the middle. It certainly didn’t affect the taste… just the aesthetics of the cheesecake. Since no one was grading me on the appearance of it, it was a great success for dessert.

Sandie

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Filling

My oven is finally repaired!!!! I know in the past I have broken more than a handful of hand mixers from over use (before I got my Kitchen-aid) but never an oven from over use lol! The repair man wanted to accumulate all the parts for any reason my oven stopped heating up to save another trip and he replaced the element.

Needless to say I was very happy and spent Sunday binge baking lol! I made chocolate chip cookies, brownies, banana bread, French bread and I made 2 x Strawberry Rhubarb pies… one of Chris’ favourites! He loves it with vanilla ice cream of course!

I ended up using frozen strawberries this time because we ended up eating the first batch of fresh berries waiting for my oven to be fixed. I didn’t know exactly when it would be fixed and I knew Chris was just dying for some of this pie.

Making your own pie filling is really quite easy…. made even more so by the fact that I use the microwave to cook it. I find it not only cooks faster but there is no, or at least a much less, chance of burning the bottom of your favourite pot!

And here is the results of my binge baking…. Chris had me take a picture to send to one of his friends to tease him lol. Not that I don’t send enough for him to share. I had been expecting some hate mail texts from the guys at work when my oven was on the fritz because there wasn’t any fresh baking in Chris’ lunch box for them to scavenge lol!

Sandie

Spanish Bar Cake

I really wanted to make something different for dessert the other night.  I had seen various recipes for the bar cake online and in some of my old recipes and knew it was something I hadn’t made in ages…. and ages. 

I remember this cake being called “Spanish Bar Cake” at grocery stores around where I grew up. I have an uncle who used to be a baker at the A&P/Dominion grocery stores and this cake was always around because of it.  This is my version of the bar cake, modified to take advantage of the microwave… making it even easier to make.  I hope everyone enjoys it!

Let me say before I get too far… because this cake is baked as a 9 x 13 slab cake and then cut to form the bar shape of the final cake…. it makes a rather large cake… so be prepared to share or as I am going to do…. freeze half of it for a last minute dessert when needed!

Sandie

Glazed Orange Bundt Cake

This is the week I do my big order for Cookie Grams that I make every year before Christmas. My mother-in-law hands them out to her clients each year and they look forward to it every Christmas.  She always hears…. Where is my Cookie lol!

Knowing it is going to be a busy week I wanted to have some sort of dessert ready so I only had to cut off a quick slice to serve it this week.

This cake fit the bill… with it’s nice orange flavour and glaze, it is a delicious change from the norm of chocolate or vanilla cake…. and it’s easy to make! It is delicious with the orange glaze but next time I might try a chocolate glaze on it for a change!

Sandie

Gingerbread Pudding Cake

I know it’s kind of early for anything gingerbread, but I just couldn’t help myself lol!  I saw a recipe online and “doctored it up” to work with what I had on hand.

Chris said it sort of reminded him of Christmas pudding and he loved it!  And I have to say the smell of it baking was almost sinful and definitely reminiscent of the upcoming holiday season!

Sandie

Mixed Berry Galette

Saturday I went to town and got to enjoy the evening babysitting my granddaughter!  But when I got home I had to get started on an order to make 8 dozen tarts to have ready for the coming weekend! 8 Dozen Tarts!!! I told them I would need to make them ahead and freeze them because there is no way I can make them all in one day right now.  That wasn’t a problem… what was a problem was my non-cooperative brain!  The first two batches of butter tarts I not only forgot to put an egg in the filling, I also decided to listen to Chris who said I should try to make the pastry thinner for a bigger ratio of filling to pastry.  Needless to say I had to start over.  The batch with no egg was a big runny mess of garbage and the batch with the thinner pastry shrunk to half size.  Chris is enjoying the “rejects” as I dubbed them. Needless to say I have barely managed to get anything else done the past few days

I ended up having some pastry leftover so I thought I would make a galette with some frozen berries I hadn’t used yet.  It is a nice, unstructured pie dessert that tastes delicious and is easy to make!

Sandie

Nutella Mousse

Sorry I have been absent for a few days. It’s been busy here. I had my out of town doctors appointment on Thursday, meaning nothing got accomplished that day.

Yesterday Chris and I were out on the water most of the day. We came home tired and sunburned but Chris was very happy the weather finally cooperated while he was still on holidays lol.

Before those two crazy days I made some nice Nutella mousse for dessert!

Sandie

Here are the 3 ingredients I used to make it!

I put the whipping cream in the bowl of the stand mixer with the sugar….

And whipped it until stiff peaks formed.

I added the Nutella…

And whipped it until it was mixed in and there were no streaks.

And that’s all it takes to make a flavourful Nutella mousse for dessert!

Recipe

Nutella Mousse

Preparation time: 5 minutes Servings:4

Ingredients

• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup Nutella

Directions

1. Add whipping cream and sugar to bowl of stand mixer and whip until stiff peaks form.
2. Add nutella and whip to mix until there are no streaks.
3. Serve in individual bowls.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cake

It’s been a while since I’ve made a fancied up cake for dessert. Since we were having “company” on Sunday I thought it was the perfect time to make one.

This time I decided on a chocolate cake base with a peanut butter icing and decorated with peanut butter cups!  Chocolate and peanut butter… does it get any better?

Sandie

Salted Caramel “Snickers” Pie

I saw a few recipes like this on Pinterest and it looked delicious so I changed the recipe to take advantage of the ingredients I had on hand and came up with my own version of this pie and it is DELICIOUS!!!  It is very sweet so you can only eat a small piece at a time but it is worth every little bite!

Sandie