Cafe Kranzler - A Most Excellent Brunch!

1:30 on a Sunday afternoon, seeking a place with no televisions blaring, tranquility, and good food.  Preferably someplace perhaps serving a late breakfast.  It's cold and rainy...need something warm and inviting.

The answer?  Cafe Kranzler.

As previously blogged - every visit to Cafe Kranzler has been a winner.  Excellent food, excellent service, beautiful atmosphere.  Just can't be beat.

My hubby had never been there.  His remarks included "this is nice!" and "mmfff hnnh" when asked (mouth full) if his omelette was good.  That was a positive remark...I speak the lingo ;-)

I had a frittata and John had an omelette.  His was called the Bellingham Omelette and had salmon, tomatoes, cheese and other stuff he didn't say. 

My frittata - name has escaped my brain - had bacon, cheese, roasted tomato, avocado, sour cream...alongside the nicely browned potato slices and perfectly toasted baguette slices.  Perfect serving size...not too much, not too little.

Next time, I'm going for the Champagne Brunch.  It sounded delicious! (served Saturday and Sunday until 2:00 per the menu)

It's not the cheapest place on the island.  But, you get what you pay for...and Cafe Kranzler's meals are worth the price (and they aren't expensive for breakfast or lunch, just not cheap!  Dinner, I understand, is a bit pricier).

Give it a try - but check with them for their hours.  I heard our waitress explaining the hours to someone at the next table...and they weren't the hours posted on the door.  This is common on the island - the ebb and flow of tourists and long-term visitors often results in changing hours of service at local restaurants.  Cafe Kranzler did have a sign up that they were closing for Super Bowl Sunday evening.  Just fyi :-)

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

Chicken Salad Spread...As a Dip!

I've written about this fabulous Chicken Salad Spread before...the base recipe is from my old and dear friend (she's not old, she's an old friend), Sandy Crump.  It was always known as our special beach vacation sandwich spread.

Nowadays, Sandy says she doesn't make it much...her husband is not a fan.  My husband, however, is a huge fan, and he got an unexpected day off, giving him a 3-day week-end and he is on the road home!  Now that we live on a bay with easy beach access, this treat is no longer reserved for vacation.  I think he'll be plesantly surprised to find it ready upon his arrival home.

Now, here's the deal....we don't watch sports on television....GASP...I know, I know...we are weird.  On Super Bowl Sunday, we are almost considered unpatriotic.  I am, however, compelled to bake or cook something to snack on while we watch a movie or one of our DVRd shows Sunday evening.  We participate...just without the football.  I will, like many others, review the commercials on Monday...and I'll find the half-time show and secretly watch it (my husband is not a Madonna fan).  That's about as "superbowlish" as we get in our household.

So, since my hubby has this unexpected week-end at home, I wasn't prepared for "man food" and scurried to Wal-mart where I grabbed a rotisserie chicken, some parsley, and some celery.  I had everything else on hand.  I decided I'd make the chicken salad spread a bit more creamy than usual and use it as a dip.  I'll use the excess celery for dipping sticks along with some whole grain crackers.  Using a rotisserie chicken makes this a GREAT last-minute dish...as a dip, a sandwich, or even spread on a tortilla, rolled up and sliced as a chicken salad spiral!

I'll also mix up a bowl of non-fat Greek Yogurt and some chunky jarred salsa, add some fresh avocado chunks and that will be another tasty dip to go along with our baked Tostitos Scoops.  (I'm still in my New Year's "try to eat healthier" mode...so the usual Velveeta based Queso with pork sausage is out this year).  That's what I had planned for myself before I knew Papa Bear would be arriving.

The teen had suggested I make some pizza puffs...so that will likely be the other offering of the day.  He'll probably be in his man cave watching DVR'd stupid stuff, listening to music, and playing his PSP...all simultaneously.  Jeez I sound old when I complain about that.  I don't know how he stands it.  He turns the captions on the television, plugs into the music, and I guess the PSP doesn't require sound to play successfully.  I don't know...really don't WANT to know!  At least it's not loud...and for that I'm thankful.  He doesn't watch much televised sports either - he might channel surf by the Super Bowl and watch for a bit, but I'll be surprised if it keeps his attention for long.  It must be genetic.

Between all of the above, this will be more than adequate snacking for our non-Super Bowl television night!

Here's the recipe again (this time the full version - the previous post was a half version) for Sandy's World Famous Chicken Salad - ala Flip Flop Foodie (who uses a rotisserie chicken and tweaks it a bit).

CHICKEN SALAD SPREAD

Ingredients:

1 Traditional Rotisserie Chicken

5 stalks celery

1 medium yellow onion

1/2 bunch fresh curly parsley leaves (pick them off the big stems)

1 teaspoon dried thyme - depending on the pungency of your dried thyme may need more

3 heaping teaspoons yellow mustard (like French's - not the dried stuff - the sandwich stuff)

3/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon Kosher salt, or to taste

1 teaspoon ground black pepper

Miracle Whip Salad Dressing (I use the Light product) - enough to make it a spreadable consistency - today I used 1 cup to get the correct dipping consistency...normally it's a little less for sandwich spreading.

Method:

Allow the chicken to sit long enough that it may be handled without burning your fingers.  Clean the chicken skin off first, and pick the bones clean of good meat.  I use every last bit - back, front, sides...the whole shebang.

That chicken was picked clean!

Place meat in the large bowl of your food processor with chopping blade in place. 

Pulse meat until it is large crumbed.  Don't go too far, you don't want chicken paste.  It should be crumbly textured.

Remove the chopped chicken to a good sized mixing bowl.  Return blade and bowl to processor.

Clean an entire bunch of celery.  Use 5 sticks of celery cut into smaller pieces to go into the bowl of the food processor.  Process it until finely chopped.  Remove the celery to the bowl with the chopped chicken.  Return blade and bowl to processor.

Reserve the rest of the celery, cut into 3-4 inch chunks or so, for dipping into the chicken salad "dip" at service.

Peel and rough chop the onion and place in food processor bowl.

Take half of the bunch of curly parsley and pick the leaves off the large stems.  It seems like a lot, but it pulses down a lot.  Don't skip the parsley either - the sharp bite of the parsley really adds to the flavor of this particular recipe.  Add the prepared parsley to the onion in the food processor bowl.  Pulse the two together until very fine. 

Remove the onion and parsley to the mixing bowl with the chicken and celery.

You are finished with the processor now.
Thoroughly incorporate the processed ingredients in the mixing bowl.

Add the thyme, ginger, salt, pepper, mustard, and salad dressing to the mixing bowl and stir until thoroughly blended.  Add more Miracle Whip if needed for desired consistency.

Move to a tightly covered storage bowl and allow to chill for several hours.  The flavors will intensify as a couple of hours pass.  I like it best the next day.  Sometimes, the day after, there is separated watery stuff from the celery and onions and you have to mix everything well again...but that's no biggie.

It tastes wonderful - and I bow to Queen Sandy's creation...for us, it is indeed, the best chicken salad which brings us many fond memories of family vacations with every bite.  Her original recipe calls for cooking a whole chicken in a pot, seasoned with veggies.  That seemed like so much work that we didn't get to eat this very often.  A rotisserie chicken works great...it's not 100% like Sandy's, but it does the trick!

My husband arrived and ate the entire bowl of chicken salad
that I had set up for the photograph.  He was a happy man
and is now sitting in his recliner sound asleep. 
That six hour drive is killer!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

Beef Noodle Soup with an Asian Bent

I can't really call this Pho (I couldn't begin to get THAT right - bones, those wonderful seasonings...nope, don't know how) and I can't really call it Won Ton Soup...so I decided it is just a Beef Noodle Soup with an Asian Bent.

My son likes Ramen - Beef Ramen to be exact.  I think those little flavoring packets have some undesirable contents (although I'm not sure what they are).  I wanted to try to make a beef soup that has an oriental taste and is brothy like the Ramen...but hopefully is healthier and tastes "better".

This is my attempt to mix up a soup that is similar to a Ramen soup or a Won Ton soup, but where the beef is cooked longer and is extremely tender as a result.  I am going to add some strips of won ton noodle at the end.

When we went to a wonderful restaurant in South Austin, Hao Hao...an old family favorite...he ordered a noodle soup with Shrimp Won Ton and he loved it.  I watched what he added and what he didn't...so I'll try to "sort of" recreate that, with beef instead of shrimp.

I had bought some beef chuck flat iron steak I had intended to dice up and add to my chili...and I never got around to doing that (only had a brief cold spell and haven't had any significant cold since then) so I pulled it out of the freezer to thinly slice and use in this recipe.

My secondary consideration was that I have a doctor's appointment today and wanted something I could leave in the slow cooker and I could then, when I arrived home, finish it off with some fresh ingredients.  I got a new slow cooker for Christmas (mine was over 20 something years old) and I am anxious to give it a try.  My old one was round and couldn't accommodate some of the rib, chicken, and flank steak recipes I wanted to try out.  The new one is oval, matches my kitchen, and I'm happy, happy to have it! (Proof that my husband listens to things I say when we walk around and talk...he amazes me...he helped the teen get it for me for Christmas).

So, all of that said, here's the recipe I came up with.

BEEF NOODLE SOUP WITH AN ASIAN BENT

Ingredients:

3/4 lb beef chuck flat iron steak, thinly sliced on the bias
1 can low sodium beef broth (I used Swanson's)
4 cans of water (using the beef broth 15 oz. can)
1 tsp soy sauce
1/2 tsp Roasted Sesame Oil
1/2 tsp Chili Garlic Sauce
1 carrot - finely diced
1/4 large white onion, very finely sliced

1 package of ramen noodles (discard the seasoning packet)
20 pieces of refrigerated Won Ton noodles, sliced diagonally (if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't add this)
Fresh Cilantro
Fresh Lime
Hoison Sauce
Duck Sauce
Extra Soy Sauce to taste

Method:

Prep the carrot and onion and set aside.  Thinly slice the still-partially-frozen steak diagonally.  I cut each piece in half long way so I ended up with bite size pieces.  It is a very inexpensive cut ($2.50 for these two pieces) and tough as could be unless cooked long and slow.

Add the onion and carrot to the bottom of the slow cooker and top with the beef.  Add the soy sauce, sesame oil, and chili garlic sauce on top of the meat.  Add the beef broth and 4 cans of water and turn the slow cooker on low (with the lid on).

Cook for 5 hours and turn to Keep Warm setting (while I go to the doctor)
Upon return, put on high and after it begins to simmer (30-45 minutes), add Ramen noodles, and 5 minutes later add the won ton triangles (they got soggy - I wouldn't add them at all if I make this again).  Allow to cook until desired tenderness of the noodles.  Taste broth and add more Soy Sauce if desired (I did desire).  Add fresh cilantro and squeeze half of the lime into the pot.  Serve with Hoison Sauce and Duck Sauce and a lime quarter for each bowl.

This was a good beef soup. My son, however, thought it was too sour for his taste.  He tried it but ended up opening a can of something and ate it for dinner.  Oh bother.

I saved the leftovers for my hubby...we'll see what he thinks.  I, personally, liked it a lot.  The very marbled beef was tender as could be and very flavorful.  The vegetables, thanks to the slow cooker, retained some firm, almost crunchy, texture, which I liked.  I enjoyed the fresh burst of flavor from the cilantro (wish I'd had some fresh basil too, but all of mine died during our brief cold snap).  Some fresh mushrooms would not have gone amiss either.  I could feel the gentle heat of the Chili Garlic Sauce on the back of my throat.  Yum.

I quite enjoyed just a small squirt of hoisin sauce and a blob of duck sauce added to mine after I'd had a few bites and decided it needed something more.

I guess the kid is still going to eat packets of Ramen with the mysterious packet of "flavor"...he's a teen-ager after all...it seems to be their thing. 

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

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Healthy Food Helping Me Mend

For those who follow me, you know I have been MIA for several weeks.  I have been laid low with Acute Bronchitis and some other stuff that has initials and words...but way TMI for general consumption!  Let's just leave it at I've been sick as can be...but I'm on the mend.

I haven't felt like cooking nor eating since the Wednesday after New Year's.  I got home after 10 days in Austin and the very next night began the downhill slide.  Now, the interesting part of the debacle is that I lost 10 pounds during that episode...but as I got re-hydrated and began to nibble on crackers and toast and lots and lots of yogurt to offset the bad effect of antibiotics...I gained 5 of it back.  Soooo, I'm thinking starting off the New Year 5 pounds down is not a bad thing!  I'd like to keep it that way :-) and that is always a challenge when I get into my baking frenzies.  Since that won't happen for me until Valentine's Day, I'm going to make every effort to eat healthier until then (and through then if I can control myself).

This week-end I did make my family some chicken and dumplings - they were happy.  I made some delicious omelettes for me and my hubby filled with low-fat mozzarella and fabulously beautiful avocado and some sweet grape tomatoes for him.  Those two tasks nearly laid me out again...I have NO ENERGY.

Last night I made some spaghetti for the teen and ate myself a nice salad with the rest of that plump avocado and some beautiful leaf lettuce.  I felt like I wanted to get back to keeping some homemade vinaigrette in the fridge - so I made up a jar of a fairly healthy mixture.  It is indeed yummy.  I like sweet and tart, so my mixture was 1/3 cup Balsamic Vinegar, 1/3 White Wine Vinegar, 1/3 White Balsamic Vinegar, a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, 12 packets of Splenda, and 2 tbsp of olive oil and 2 tbsp of canola oil.  I hate it when my olive oil solidifies in the fridge, so the addition of canola makes it work for me...and I like a more vinegary vinaigrette without as much oil as most utilize.  It is delish I must say!

What's left of the vinaigrette after a salad last night
and dressing the Quinoa Salad today.

This morning I have the doors thrown open, listening to sea birds and ducks calling, the palm trees are rustling in the wind and it is a comfortable mid 60's down on the Texas Gulf Coast.  It is the most normal I have felt in over 2 weeks.  That prompted me to cut up some pineapple, cut up some celery, and to make a container of Quinoa Salad.  Having good food on hand helps me be "better" when making food choices.

For the Quinoa Salad I used what I had on hand.  I have another pasta salad, similar to this, posted and you can find it here.  I also have another Quinoa Salad posted...it has "more stuff"...this one is much more simple and I skipped garlic because I just didn't feel like it would feel good in my tummy right now.  Here's what I used:

Quinoa Salad

1 cup quinoa
2 cups water
1 cucumber
1-2 green onions
1/2 cup halved Kalamata olives
1/4 cup crumbled Feta Cheese (I like more but that's all I had)
1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of the vinaigrette described above

Mix quinoa and water in a small saucepan.  Stir and bring to boil.  Reduce heat to simmer, cover and allow to cook until all water is gone...10-15 minutes.  Mine took 12 minutes.
Remove from heat, fluff, and stir in 1/4 cup of the vinaigrette to the hot quinoa.  Stir well.  Allow to cool.

Peel and halve cucumber, scoop seeds from the middle with a spoon, half the halves and dice.
My green onions were fairly large so I just wanted one.  I'm not up to intense oniony flavors yet.
Remove roots, half the onion down the center and finely slice, including all of the green end too.

Add the diced cucumber, thinly sliced onion, Kalamata olives, and Feta Cheese to a bowl large enough to accommodate the entire salad.  When the quinoa is cooled sufficiently, stir it into the vegetables.  Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the vinaigrette and stir thoroughly.  Allow to chill in fridge.

Next I prepped an entire bunch of celery so I could snack on them at whim (I like to dip them in low-fat Pimento Cheese for lunch too). 

I also cleaned up a bag of sweet peas (excellent sweet crunch) and, of course, peeled, cored, and diced the beautiful Golden Pineapple which is incredibly sweet.

This will help me slowly move back into eating more regular meals and get me back the energy I need to resume normal life.  I miss Zumba terribly.  I tried to do two songs last night and went into a paroxysm of coughing that had me back on the couch gasping for breath.  I'll work on it every night until I can make it 20 minutes.  Then I think I can resume class.  I hope that is by next week, because I feel so weak...where I had been feeling so strong after 9 months of Zumba!

This might not be my most exciting post - but if you take away nothing else, know that starting 2012 in a more healthy fashion can be obtained with a little prep and maintaining good fresh food so you aren't tempted to pick up a cookie and nibble (my downfall). 

So, Bon Appetit, Y'all...  I may not be posting very regularly yet (this endeavor has tired me out and I'm heading back to the couch with my comforter) ...but I'll be back on track within the next few weeks at least!

My yummy lunch plate which I'm almost too tired to eat!

 

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Down and Out with a Bad Cold!

Updated January 13th.  Well...it's been quite the horrific week.  The "bad cold" evolved into Acute Bronchitis with temps of 104 spiking out of the blue and then breaking, only to return hours later.  I thought I was a potential for hospitalization at one point. 

Thank goodness we live in the days of modern medicine and good antibiotics and antivirals. 

I'm weak, but improving.  I'm told to expect to feel bad for another week.  Ugh.

Thanks to those who sent emails, and Facebook notes, and called to check in on me!!!

************************************************

I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth...I've been flattened by a horrific cold with fever for 4 days running.  I returned home Tuesday night, had a happy Wednesday, then Wednesday night I started wheezing.  It was downhill all the way after that.

This is the first moment I've even felt like giving an update.  Haven't had fever since 1:00 today (Sunday) so I'm hoping this is the corner and that I am TURNING IT!

I am truly sick of being sick.

Back in the kitchen soon.
Blech :-(

Bon Appetit, Y'all!

Happy New Year!

I'm still away from my kitchen - visiting friends and family - but wanted to take a moment to wish everyone a very Happy New Year!  We've been eating out A LOT during this little vacation and my gift to my family is not taking photos of everything they put in their mouth.  They are growing to hate my desire for photographing food.  Giving them a break will hopefully ease their hostility :-)

I am really looking forward to the year 2012.  My last "chick" graduates from high school, will begin college, and prepares to leave the nest... giving me more freedom to blog and maybe take a class myself!  This is a pivotal year in my life.  I've had kids in my home for 35 years... it's gonna be strange to think of this last one preparing to jet off into adult life.  He actually plans to live at home through 2012...so I have time to adjust... but we are certainly in a transition stage!  Who will eat my goodies???

I think this transition will also be a challenge for my blogging.  I'm excited to see how it evolves as well.  I'll see you again in a few days...Happy New Year!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!

OMG - What Can You Bake Last Minute???

Well, it's Christmas Eve day.  Are you realizing things have settled down now but you didn't get to bake from scratch...and wish you had?  Do you have some rolls of store-bought cookie dough in the fridge staring at you...making you feel bad?

I can help you make them look like you spent a lot of time in the kitchen!  Follow along people!

Let's start with Sugar Cookie Spirals!  I saw the "scratch version" on Pinterest and pinned it to my Recipe Board...but I didn't have time to do the deed from scratch...and I wanted to use up a roll of sugar cookie dough I had bought at Thanksgiving and not used.  So, here's what I did.  You can do it too...it was not all that hard!

SUGAR COOKIE SPIRALS
Semi-Homemade My Way

Need:
Roll of refrigerated store-bought sugar cookie dough
Christmas sprinkles
Green paste food color
Latex (or similar) gloves - highly recommend
Gallon Ziploc bag
Board Flour
Rolling Pin
Waxed Paper

Method:
Take half of the roll of dough and put it into the Ziploc bag.  Reserve other half in the fridge.
Add green paste food color (adequate amount to get the brightness of green you desire - I think I used about 1/8 teaspoon).
Zip close and start squishing the dough and color to begin the incorporation process.  It won't be smooth, you just want to get it started.
Remove dough from Ziploc to a lightly floured surface (one that won't absorb and be stained by the green color - I worked on wax paper) and knead it briefly to incorporate the color fully.
Allow it to chill while you work with the other dough.
Discard anything that has been stained by the green dough before starting with the vanilla dough :-)

Roll out white sugar dough between two sheets of wax paper.  You want to end up with rectangular pieces of dough - both the white and green should be about the same size.  You are aiming for about the size of a piece of printer paper - 8x11 or so.

Repeat process with the green dough.

Place both of the doughs, separately in their own wax paper, on a baking sheet and pop it into the fridge for two hours, or the freezer until firm.  I was in a hurry and did the freezer deal.

Prepare a long skinny plate with lots of sprinkles.  Use jimmies or non pareils or sparkly sugar. It will need to be big enough to accommodate the length of your dough.  Set aside

After the dough has firmed up (not frozen, just firm), remove to counter and take the top sheet off of each piece of dough.  Place the vanilla down first and very lightly brush it with a bit of water...very lightly here - not wetting it, just want to adhere the other sheet of dough to it so it doesn't slip as you roll.

Lay the green dough face down on top of the white dough - keep as even as possible - but you are going to trim it a bit if needed so no need to be OCD about it being perfect.

So, now you have wax paper on the bottom, white dough, green dough, wax paper on the top.

Gently remove the top wax paper from the green dough.  Trim the dough as necessary to get a good fit.  You'll do some final trimming later - so, like I said, don't need to be perfect.

Now, it's time to roll.  Obviously, you are going to have the long side towards you.  Use the wax paper to help you roll, like you would a jelly roll.  I also used my bench scraper dipped in some flour to loosen it gently from the wax paper.  Roll it away from you (don't worry if you tear pieces...I did...just pat them into place...repair as you go - use bits that you cut off if needed).  Roll it to a cylinder shape, seal the final edges by pinching the dough and then smooth it.

Trim off any ends that look uneven. 

Now it's time to carefully transfer the dough to a platter that you have loaded with sprinkles. Roll your cylinder of dough carefully in the sprinkles, pressing them in as you go. It's warming up by now and likely starting to get limp...so don't delay, move it along now...it doesn't need to be perfect.

Return the now-sprinkled dough to the wax paper, help it get back into good cylindrical shape by gently pushing on both ends and smoothing things down and in, and roll up in the wax paper.  (I put it into a Ziploc bag and froze it...I did this a week in advance.) 

Return to fridge until ready to bake.  If you are ready to bake now, pop it into the freezer until firm enough to slice.  It will have gotten too soft to slice as you've worked with it.  The re-chilling is integral.

Now, you are ready to slice and bake!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (or whatever your refrigerated dough indicates).  I used Pillsbury and it said 350.  I used a Silpat prepared baking sheet.  I transferred the dough to a cutting board and sharpened my best knife. 

I cut the dough in half and cut each half into 12 equal pieces (total 24 cookies in the batch).  Carefully place spirals on baking sheet (these do spread so don't crowd).  I baked for about 10 minutes, cooled in pan on a rack for 10 minutes and transferred to a rack for complete cooling.

They look marvelous and like I spent hours on the process...but really, it's slice and bake baby!

You can also make easy Peanut Butter Blossoms with refrigerated peanut butter dough.  Divide dough into 24 equal pieces (I used a small cookie scoop - you could slice them if you prefer), roll into ball, roll ball in sparkly sugar OR dip your fork into sparkly sugar if you don't want as much sugar on your PB cookie.  Make cross hatch marks with the fork (if you are using forked sugar, re-dip into sugar between cross hatches).  Bake at 350 for about 10-11 minutes.  Remove from oven and place (still on baking sheet) on cooling rack.  Place a peeled chocolate kiss in the middle of each baked cookie and allow to cool another 10 minutes on the pan.  Carefully remove to cooling rack until ready to plate.  Easy peasy.  My kids love them.  Matter of fact, the teen ate 5 of them while I ran to pick up his Dad from the airport.  I had to laugh.

You can do this...it's not that hard!

Merry Christmas to all - I'm finished with baking and I'm ready to rest today...and prepare to eat more tonight!  Our Christmas Eve tradition generally includes boiled peel-your-own shrimp, chili con queso, and tamales...assorted chips, dips, and all the sweet treats I've been making.  We drive to our Austin family Christmas morning and eat more all day long...oy vey!  Then another family deal on Monday.  I've got my Zumba music on the mp3 player.  I'm set to begin exercising off the calories in between events!!! Let's hope I overcome the need for falling into a food coma nap instead of exercising :-)

Bon Appetit, Yall!!!

Christmas Cakelets - Marbled Red Velvet Pound Cake

I've been buying, or receiving as gifts, the annual Christmas with Southern Living editions for more years than I care to count.  When we moved from large house in Austin to tiny condo at the coast I had to stop - and I gave away all that I had. Storage is a problem so you do what you gotta do.  Still, it was a sad day! 

I follow a blogger, Sabrina, who writes LouLou Sucre, Inspirations for House and Home and I was so happy to see that she had made a beautiful cake from the 2009 edition.  I pinned it to my Pinterest recipe board with thoughts of incorporating the cake into my holiday baking.  The list had gotten long and somewhat overwhelming...but I kept the cake on, even when I started whacking some of the items that I didn't think I could manage in the short time left.

Wednesday night I decided it was close enough to bake cake, considering it was a moist pound cake and they can handle a couple of days pre-prep.  I decided, of the three choices I had listed, I was going with the Red Velvet Pound Cake I'd seen on Sabrina's blog.  I knew I wanted to miniaturize everything...using my Christmas shaped mini-pans, my small bundts, my mini bundts, and my tea cake pan.  I generally use these to bake Amish Friendship Bread...but I wanted something different, something moist, something pretty, and this ticked all the boxes.  I didn't want a frosting - it would hide the details of the pretty pans (assuming everything came out okay) but I decided a vanilla bean glaze would probably work quite nicely over this cake.  So, I proceeded.

I'm going to ask that you link back to Sabrina's blog for the recipe.  It wasn't changed at all (other than the frosting substitution) and it's the courteous thing to do. (As blogging of recipes evolves, we are all learning some basic courtesies for using other folks recipes and inspirations...things like give it a week or more before you copy something, link back to their blog if you are inspired by someone...common courtesies of blogging life.) 

This batter is so incredibly decadent, I could have dipped a spoon in and eaten it...it fairly glistened it was so lovely. 

I liked that the red velvet component was minimized for this recipe (it's a pretty cake in general, but it's not usually the best chocolate cake in the world, in my opinion) and that it used melted milk chocolate instead of cocoa powder.  Lots of red food coloring - as usual.  It's dramatic, I'll give you that!

The problem arose when I needed to swirl the red velvet batter into the vanilla/almond batter...in a tiny tea cake mold or a mini bundt pan.  It really just didn't work very well.  Nonetheless, it tastes FABULOUS as one would expect any Southern Living cake to be!  I expected it to be more dense in the tea cake molds...I struggle every year to find something that will display the crisp lines of the little molds.  This year was no more successful than past years.  I read somewhere that you needed to use a dense gingerbread or brownie or banana bread type of dough to get crisp lines...cake batters don't do the trick.  I'll try that next...month, or year!  For now though, I know from previous attempts, that the lines would be more visible if I put a little color in my glaze and kept it thin enough to coat but not cover up. 

I also followed the Nordic Ware instructions to fill 3/4 of each little opening...but, again, they rose over the edge leaving an ugly rim around the cakelets.  The same thing happened with my Christmas molds.  I let them cool and removed them from the pans...and then I stood there and carefully ran a paring knife around each and every cakelet.  I did this between 11:00 and midnight...boy howdy was I tired! 

After that I covered everything and glazed them Thursday morning...they took four batches of vanilla bean paste glaze to get everything covered (except the bottoms).  Lots of work, but oh so worth it after I sampled the snowman whose head fell off...poor Frosty's loss was my gain :-)

Here's the ratios I used for each batch of glaze:

Colored Vanilla Bean Glaze

3/4 cup (150g) powdered sugar - sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
3  tablespoons water
3-4 drops of liquid food coloring (I used red)

Whisk together above ingredients until smooth.  Drizzle on with spoon or dip small tea cakes in to cover.  Allow to drip on a cooling rack into a baking sheet.


I can't wait to make this cake again, full size, with the cream cheese frosting.  Sometimes it's best not to mess with a good thing.  Mine turned out quite tasty, but at the expense of presentation!  A little lightly colored glaze and some edible glitter and disco dust seemed to pep things up though.  I'm sure no one but me...and you...will know what a trial it was to get to this point!

Here are the rest of the photos of the endeavor!

The small bundts (not mini) came out the best - cleanest and well marbled

The sole unglazed mini bundt in the left corner shows the difference
the glaze and sparklies make

A sprinkling of disco dust gives them
a little glimmer of Christmassy cheer

Viola, the finished products below...I can guarantee they taste incredibly moist and richly flavored with vanilla bean and a subtle background of almond.  I will be pleased to serve these at Christmas.  Thanks to Sabrina for bringing forth this wonderful inspiration recipe for my Christmas Cakelets!

BON APPETIT, Y'ALL...and Merry Christmas!


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