The Cookbook Experiment: Linda's Push Down Cake

I am very tired tonight but I still feel too stressed out to go to bed yet. Tomorrow I have an MRI and I am not a big fan of the machine. I get a little claustrophobic. I decided it was time to hit the cookbook a second time tonight. I searched through until I found a recipe that has all the ingredients that I already have. Linda Davenport's Push Down Cake to the rescue!

Linda Davenport is one of the sweetest, most amazing women that I know. She is fiercely loyal to her family, she has a smile that lights up a room and most importantly, I think, she has a quiet steady faith that I have been very grateful to come to know. She is one of my great women of faith that I look up to. Plus, her mom is as cute as a button, her daughters are amazing and you can see just how much she loves her grand-babies.

Linda's Push Down Cake by Linda Davenport

(1) box of Duncan Hines Cake Mix (any flavor)
(1) stick of butter (melted)
(3) eggs
(1) 8 ounce package cream cheese (softened)
(1) 1-pound box 10X sugar

Mix dry cake mix, butter and (1) egg.  Press down in a 9" x 13" pan.  Mix softened cream cheese, (2) eggs and sugar together and pour over cake mix.  Bake 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees.

My take-a-ways from this recipe:

• I have to say I did not think (1) egg and (1) stick of melted butter was going to be enough to mix with an entire box of cake mix, but I was wrong. You just have to have faith and mix it very well. After it is mixed well, I feel like it is best if you use the two tools that God gave you to press it down in the pan...your two hands of course! I worked it to the edges and around the pan and tried to make sure that no part was thicker than the other.
• I mixed the cream cheese, eggs and sugar mixture until it was really, really smooth. No lumps from the cream cheese OR the powdered sugar.
• Always break your eggs one at a time in a separate bowl. The first egg I cracked had blood in it.  Yuck. That could have ruined EVERYTHING if I had not broken it in a separate bowl first. It is just a good rule to follow even though you NEVER see a chef on TV do it.  Of course, they have assistants and loads of ingredients to re-do and re-take the scene if something like that happened. I do not and I am pretty sure you don't either.
• Linda is one smart lady! This cake is delicious!! Thank you!!

Tommy True's Cream Dreams

Another night, another chance to make a recipe from the stack of Helen's treasures. I wanted something quick and easy as it's Saturday night and I need to get to bed on time because I have church tomorrow. As I culled through the whole box, I found this interesting one. It is labeled (2nd grade) Tommy True's Cream Dreams.

I have to say, I wonder who Tommy True is to Helen? Is he real or is it just a cute name for the recipe? I guess I will never know.

Here is what you need to do:

(6) ounces of cream cheese (okay, Helen says you need two packages of three ounce cream cheese but I don't think they sell it that way anymore, at least I have never seen it. But you are in luck! The very smart people at Philadelphia Cream Cheese have their eight ounce packages of cream cheese marked in ounces on the package)

(4) cups of powdered sugar, sifted
(3) 1 ounce square of unsweetened chocolate
(1/2) teaspoon of vanilla
dash of salt
(1/2) c. chopped walnuts

Let the cream cheese soften and then beat well in your mixer (I used my Kitchen Aid and beat it until it was smooth)

Sift your powdered sugar. This is an important step. It gets all the lumps out of the sugar and makes it light as snow.

Add the powdered sugar to the cream cheese two cups at a time and beat well. DO NOT forget to scrape the bowl so that all the sugar and cream cheese gets mixed together. It will develop into a rather stiff dough.

Don't worry, keep on mixing and keep on making sure you scrape down to get all the sugar and cream cheese well blended.

Next melt the chocolate. I have a confession. I did not use the unsweetened chocolate squares Helen called for. It is not an ingredient I keep readily at home. I used three ounces of semi-sweet chocolate chips instead. (1/2 cup of chocolate chips is equal to 3 ounces). I melted it in my microwave (I bet Helen did not!)

Add the chocolate and the vanilla to the cream cheese mixture and blend well. Scrape down again to make sure you combine all the ingredients together. It was at this point I tossed in the pinch of salt. I have no idea when the right time to add the salt was, but this was when I added it.

Additionally I did not add the walnuts. My family is pretty weird about added nuts in their desserts, so no nuts for us! (At least no nuts in the dessert! Trust me, there are plenty of nuts in the house!)

Butter a dish and spread the finished mixture in it and then place in the refrigerator to chill. Do not use cooking spray, use BUTTER.

This dessert is very, very sweet. I have not decided what it really should be used for. I think it would make an excellent filling for something, not sure what yet? It is pretty close to a cannoli filling if it were not so thick.

Tommy, wherever you are, this 2nd grade dessert of yours is quite the sweet little bit of joy. I am glad I found it in Helen's recipes.  I wonder what you are doing now?

Bacon-wrapped Stuffed Chicken with Spinach & Cream Cheese with Sauteed Brussel sprouts and rice

I finally felt creative in the kitchen again after about two months of hitting a brick wall.  Yesterday's grocery shopping trip netted quite a lot of things on sale, one of the most exciting items was the bacon!  I decided I needed use it for dinner. I poked around the kitchen to see what I could add to it.  This is what I came up with:

(6) thin sliced chicken breasts
(1) block of cream cheese, softened
(1) pound of bacon
(1) thawed package of spinach

Spread the cream cheese on the chicken breast and press some spinach into the cream cheese. Make sure you squeeze any water out of the thawed spinach before you add to the cream cheese.  Roll the chicken up and the wrap with a piece of bacon.  Place in a baking dish that has been sprayed with non-stick spray.  I wanted to secure these with a toothpick but I could not find them! Fortunately they ended up not needing the toothpicks.  I baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes and then switched to broil for approximately five minutes just to further crisp the bacon on top.

While the chicken was baking in the oven, I took the last two leftover pieces of bacon and put in a saute pan to fry with half a small yellow onion chopped small.  I let the bacon get crisp and then drained a small portion of the bacon fat off, but not all.  I then added three servings of frozen brussel sprouts and 1 tablespoon of butter to the saute pan, put a lid on and let gently saute for about 10 minutes while the chicken finished baking.  I do not think I will EVER eat brussel sprouts any other way again! They were the best I have ever had!

Here is how the finished dinner looked:

The cream cheese and spinach were warm and oozing inside the chicken. The chicken was moist because of the bacon.  The brussel sprouts were smoky and tender.  It was a wonderful dinner.  Even my pickest eater came back for seconds!  Mission accomplished for dinner!

Snowflake Truffles

Tonight I am making a special treat for a friend.  She likes sweet things, which is appropriate since she is such a sweet and beautiful lady!  It is a recipe that I adapted from one I saw floating around the internet.  I had to modify the one I found as it contained nuts.  I try not to use nuts as I have friends with nut allergies. Here is my take on a fun, no-bake, quick truffle that is easy to make and tastes wonderful.

(2) 8 ounce packages of cream cheese softened
(1) 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple, drained
(4) tablespoons of powdered sugar
(1) bag of sweetened shredded coconut

Drain the pineapple very, very well.  Mix 3/4 of the can of pineapple with the softened cream cheese until well mixed.  Add the powdered sugar one tablespoon at a time until well blended, scraping the bowl often.  Put in the refrigerator for at least two hours until well chilled.

Remove from fridge.  Scoop into balls and roll in coconut.  Place on waxed paper and put back in the fridge until firm.

These are a sweet tropical treat!

Raspberry Tiramisu Trifle

My amazing husband has quite the sweet tooth. I love making him happy so I set out to make a dessert with three things he really likes: raspberries, coffee and Milano cookies.  I wish that I could say I came up with this idea all by myself but alas, I cannot.  It came from a "new" cookbook found yesterday while on my thrift store marathon! It is called "Campbell's Potluck For All Occasions" by Publications International Ltd. 2007.  The recipe can also be found online right here: Campbell's Raspberry Tiramisu Trifle

It is an interesting cookbook and I was impressed with the recipes.  I got very excited when I found the trifle recipe.  I knew I had to make it for my sweet husband.  The only problem with the recipe was that I do not have a trifle bowl! How trifling! (Sorry! I could not resist!)

I started with three bricks of cream cheese, softened.

I put a second bowl and beaters in the freezer to get cold while I beat three cups of powdered sugar into the cream cheese.  I needed the other bowl and beaters cold because I was going to whip some heavy whipping cream and having a cold bowl and beaters helps the whipping go quicker and easier!

 Combining the powdered sugar and cinnamon was no easy feat for my little handheld mixer! I should have used my Kitchen Aid but I had it busy behind me whipping the heavy cream into a frenzy of fluffiness!

I added the cinnamon to my cream cheese and powdered sugar mixture and combined until it was light tan and smooth.

The heavy whipping cream that whipped all light and fluffy was folded it into the cream cheese mixture.

I began the layering.  First a layer of the cream cheese on the bottom. Next dip the Milano cookies into a cup of strong brewed coffee and place them on top.

 A sprinkle of raspberries and the the layering begins again.

I just kept dipping and layering until I reached the top! A few extra raspberries for good measure and the trifle was done! How does it taste? I have NO idea! It is in the refrigerator right now, setting up. I will let you know!!

Crack Sticks (recipe from Shabby Chicks)

This recipe kept popping up all over Facebook and I just had to try them!  All the credit and the original recipe is located here:

Shabby Chicks

I was completely mystified how on these would taste good...it was the smooshed white bread that was throwing me!! I decided the only way to know for sure was to try them!

Here are the ingredients:

(1) loaf of thin sliced white sandwich bread
(1) 8 ounce box of cream cheese
(3/4) cup confectioner's sugar
(1) cup sugar
(1-1/2) teaspoon ground cinnamon
(3/4) cup butter, melted

Remove crusts from bread.  Flatten bread with a rolling pin.

In a bowl combine cream cheese and confectioners' sugar.
In another bowl, combine sugar and cinnamon, set aside.
Spread about 1 tablespoon of cheese mixture on each slice of bread.

Roll up, jelly roll style.

Dip in melted butter.

Roll in the cinnamon sugar.

Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
Yield:  approximately 16 roll-ups.  Good warm or cold. (But I would not know about the cold because they did not make it that far!)

This was an awesome recipe and I would LOVE to know how it came to be! I have visions of a desperate housewife needing a dessert in a hurry! I am sure she was very smart!