Italian Cream Cake

This is a wonderful cake. It is beautiful and taste delicious! I will tell you that it is a lot of work but believe me, it is worth it. The CSI Project is hosting a contest and this week is holiday baking. I love this cake so much that I thought that it would be fun to enter it.

Here is the recipe.

You'll need to start this cake a day ahead because the Fresh Orange Curd must chill for 8 hours.
Yield: Makes 12 to 16 servings
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
5 large eggs, separated
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
Fresh Orange Curd
3 cups Pecan-Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut, lightly toasted
Glazed Pecan Halves

Preparation:
Beat butter and shortening at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy; gradually add sugar, beating well. Add egg yolks, 1 at a time, beating until blended after each addition. Add vanilla; beat until blended.
Combine flour and soda; add to sugar mixture alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed until blended after each addition. Stir in 1 cup flaked coconut.
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form; fold into batter. Pour batter into 3 greased and floured 9-inch round cake pans.
Bake at 350° for 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire racks for 10 minutes; remove from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.
Spread 3/4 cup chilled Fresh Orange Curd between layers; spread remaining Fresh Orange Curd on top of cake. (The Fresh Orange Curd layer on top of cake will be very thick.) If desired, loosely cover cake, and chill 8 hours. (Chilling the cake with the curd between the layers helps keep the layers in place and makes it much easier to spread the frosting.) Spread 3 cups Pecan-Cream Cheese Frosting on sides of cake, reserving remaining frosting for another use. Sprinkle 1/2 cup toasted coconut over top of cake, if desired. Arrange Glazed Pecan Halves around top edge of cake, if desired. Store in refrigerator until ready to serve.

Note: Cake may be frosted with Pecan-Cream Cheese Frosting immediately after adding the Fresh Orange Curd, but the cake layers will not be as steady.

FRESH ORANGE CURD
You can substitute reconstituted orange juice for fresh; however, squeezing navel oranges only takes about 15 minutes and can make all the difference in this cake's fresh flavor.
Yield: Makes about 3 cups
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
2 cups fresh orange juice (about 4 pounds navel oranges)
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup butter
1 tablespoon grated orange rind
Combine sugar and cornstarch in a 3-quart saucepan; gradually whisk in fresh orange juice. Whisk in lightly beaten eggs. Bring to a boil (5 to 6 minutes) over medium heat, whisking constantly.
Cook, whisking constantly, 1 to 2 minutes or until mixture reaches a pudding-like thickness. Remove from heat, and whisk in butter and grated orange rind. Cover, placing plastic wrap directly on curd, and chill 8 hours.

Pecan Cream Cheese Frosting
Makes about 4 cups
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 (16-ounce) package powdered sugar
1 cup chopped pecans, toasted
Preparation
Beat first 3 ingredients at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add powdered sugar, beating at low speed until blended. Beat at high speed until smooth; stir in pecans.

Glazed Pecans

Combine pecan halves and corn syrup, stirring to coat pecans. Line a 15- x 10-inch jellyroll pan with parchment paper or aluminum foil; coat with cooking spray. Arrange pecan halves in an even layer in pan.

Bake at 350° for 12 minutes; stir using a rubber spatula. Bake 8 more minutes. Remove from oven, and stir; arrange in an even layer on wax paper, and let cool completely.

I got this recipe out of Southern Living Magazine.

I know that this cake is a lot of work, but you will be glad that you made it.

Make, Eat, and Enjoy!

Melanie

Linking to these parties:

Tempt Your Tummy Mouth Watering Mondays

Tasty Tuesday Made by you Mondays

Tuesdays at the Table Amaze Me Mondays

Macaroni and Cheese.

There won’t be a Pioneer Woman recipe today because Denise is under the weather but she will be making a few things in the next couple of weeks that I won’t be making . They are things that our family (including me) don’t eat. I will try and post something that I cook that we love and link up to that recipe.

So this week, I made my baked mac & cheese. I don’t really have a recipe that is written down but I will tell y’all as best I can.

The cast of characters as Ree would say.

I salt the water and get it boiling for the 16 oz. of macaroni.

Boil that until almost done. Drain.

Add a stick of butter (or less if you want) to the hot noodles.

At this point I add a couple of pinches of red pepper & garlic powder. Just do this to taste. You might like it salty with a kick like we do or you might like it a little less salty. Just season to taste.

Add the beaten eggs and milk to the noodles. As you can see, I just eye it. Just make sure to cover the noodles.

Bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes. This is more of a custard style mac & cheese so it is ready when it is set up.

After as many times as I have made this, I was in a rush and I didn’t let it set up long enough. Hungry hubby and hungry wifey and I didn’t wait long enough.

This is a really good recipe but the end result doesn’t look that good. I think that I need a photography lesson from PW on how to take pictures of food;-)

This mac & cheese heats up well too. We eat on it a few times and there is never any left over to throw away. Also, most of the time (when I am not in a rush) it sets up better. It is more ‘held’ together and not falling apart….if that makes sense.

Try it and let me know if you like it.

Melanie

Pioneer Woman’s Tomato & Pesto Pizza

This week I asked Denise if we could change our recipe from sugar cookies to pizza because I knew that I would not be able to resist eating them. I made this pizza while I was in Georgia so I actually didn’t have to make anything this week.

While I enjoyed the fresh ingredients on the pizza, I did not enjoy the crust.

The crust had no flavor and was a little bit dry and crumbly.

Verdict: I would not make this again. I follow Smitten Kitchen and she has a wonderful dough recipe. It has honey and white wine in it and I haven’t found another crust recipe that is as good as that one. Caden and Gary love that crust the best. It took me a few times to get the hang of it but I kept at it and finally got it down.

I would definitely suggest checking out Smitten Kitchen and trying some of her recipes and if you are in the mood for homemade pizza, try her crust.

You won’t regret it:)

Melanie

Pioneer Woman’s Mac & Cheese

I love macaroni and cheese. I like it cooked on the stovetop with a rue or custard style baked in the oven.

I really wanted to love this recipe and I thought that I would. I used sharp white cheddar and it was really strong. Gary didn’t like the white like he does the regular.

It was easy to make but I made a mess while making it:-)

This is what it looked like before I put it in the oven.

And the final product.

Verdict: good but not a keeper. Gary definitely likes mine better. He loves the custard style the best. I liked it when it first came out of the oven but when I heated it up the next day, it wasn’t good. It had separated and wasn’t creamy. It also made a large amount. I ended up throwing it away:(

Hopefully next week I will have better luck.

Melanie