Jaime's Darling Irish Cake

"Count the memories, not the calories"    

  For just about every holiday, I have a love of theme decorated baked goods. Especially cakes and cupcakes. They seem to be the most fun to make and decorate. Every Easter and St. Patrick’s Day I try to come up with a new design, usually something inspire by Pinterest. 



This past St. Patrick’s Day I attempted to make a yellow cake from scratch. It turned out pretty good. I still have some fine-tuning to do for aesthetic sake, but it was a very delicious cake!

My kids helped me decorate it and we had a blast. They always love helping me. This year they got to pick out the icing so we had vanilla/chocolate on the sides with white and green coloring. The sprinkles on the sides are gold and the shamrock in the middle was done with green sugar sprinkles.

 I printed the shamrock I found at: www.nuttinbutpreschool.com and cut it out, creating a stencil. While the icing was still wet, I laid the stencil on top and coated well with green sprinkles.

Jaime’s Darling Irish Cake

2 sticks (1/2 lb.) butter or margarine (room temperature)
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 cups Nestlé’s Irish Crème coffee creamer
3 cups all purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (optional)

    1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease bottom and sides of cake pan and set aside.

    2.  Mix butter and sugar until creamy, then beat in eggs one at a time

    3. Add baking powder, creamer and flavoring. Blend until well mixed. Sift flour in, one cup at a time, for a fluffier cake.

    4. Pour cake batter into pans. The recipe I followed said to cook ‘until cake separated from sides of pan’. I used two round 8-inch cake pans and it took about 50 minutes for them to cook. But keep a close eye on it toward the end because it goes from uncooked to crispy really quickly!

    5.  Once you’ve tested the cake with a toothpick and it’s come out clean, allow the cake to cool, and then decorate as desired.

Faking Fancy; Breaded Chicken Italiano

                    10 minute Breaded Chicken Italiano

Fakin' Fancy

       While I love fixing fancy meals for my family, we often have so much going on that it’s hard to come up with something culinary every night. So, most of the time I do my best to fake it. 

          Last night, I faked Breaded Chicken Italiano, with Marsala wine and parmesan cheese. I also made a creamy Southern White gravy to go on top. Sided with hash browns and a salad fresh from our back yard garden and I was able to fake fancy in less than a half hour. And everyone loved it! 

Salad fresh from our garden

            As well as being super easy and quick to make, this dish is also really cheap. I love saving money and one of the main ways I do that is through grocery shopping. I like to buy from the bulk section of WinCo, a discount grocery store in the nearest city. The parmesan cheese and breading mix were both bought in bulk. I'll be discussing how I shop cheap and feed my family of 5 on a tight budget in later posts. 

                                          

                   Breaded Chicken Italiano

            1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breast

            ½ cup Italian breading mix

            ¼ cup Parmesan cheese

            ¼ cup marsala wine

            1 medium white onion

            1 bunch of green onion

1.     Cut up onion, in half, then slice the two halves into wedges. Cut green onions and simmer both in pan with 1 tbsp. butter or margarine until soft and starting to lightly brown

2.     Slice up chicken breast to ½ - ¼ inch thick, add to cooking onion mixture. Let cook a few minutes on one side on medium-high heat until it begins to turn white. Add marsala, salt and pepper and stir everything together until it’s cooked.

3.     When the chicken is completely cooked through (about 5 minutes) add Italian breading, and mix to coat well. Top with parmesan cheese and voila you have a tasty, easy and very fancy looking main dish!

   Jaime’s Simple White Gravy

          2 cups milk

          5 tbsp. bacon grease

          ¼ cup flour

         Salt and pepper (for seasoning)

1.     Melt bacon grease in pan on medium-low heat, stir in flour, salt and pepper and mix well until all the flour is soaked up.

2.     Slowly pour in milk as you continue to stir. Make sure you stir, stir, stir! The flour will burn to the bottom of the pan and become very goopey if you don’t keep an eye on it. 

3.     Continue stirring until it’s a consistency you want. Feel free to add more milk, if you want a thinner gravy. This gravy will continue to thicken up, even after it’s removed from the heat, so if it sits too long and gets too thick, just add a little milk or water and stir stir stir!

ENJOY!

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day!

           I wanted to get this post up yesterday but we had such a busy day I didn’t have time to even finish writing it! I love St. Patrick’s Day! Not only because of my Irish heritage, but also because I love cooking (yay corned beef!) and crafts! We usually do the cutest crafts. However, this year we took a special day in homeschooling to learn about the real St. Patrick and what he did. And I spent the day cooking and baking!

    First, we started our day off with green scrambled eggs and green pancakes! Some of the pancakes were shaped like 3 and 4 leaf clovers, but since I did them by hand, with only patience to assist me, I didn’t make very many of them. The kids loved them though!

   Now that the boys are getting older, their lessons are getting less crafty, but it doesn’t mean they can’t   

still be fun. I found a fun printable packet of St. Patrick's Day learning activities. It includes a history of St. Patrick and why the holiday is celebrated, as well as multiple choice questions, a crossword puzzle and a word search; which are a favorite of my kids! And the best part is that it's completely free! The link is listed below. 

 

End of the Rainbow Cereal Bars

        End of the Rainbow Cereal Bars

12 ounces mini marshmallows

3 tbsp. butter or margarine, cut into chunks

8 cups fruit loop cereal 

1.    Grease a 9x13 pan with spray or butter and set aside.

2.    Melt the butter and marshmallows over a low flame on the stove or in the microwave. Remember it is important to stir, stir, stir during the melting process so that it doesn’t burn and melts evenly. Once it is melted and smooth, remove from flame. Pour in the fruit cereal, one cup at a time and mix well. This is the part the boys love to help me with!

3.    Once everything is well mixed, pour into the greased pan and press down with a spoon that has been greased with butter. If you don’t grease the spoon (or your hand) the marshmallow will stick and make it difficult to press everything down into the pan.

4.    Sprinkle the surface of the fruit cereal/marshmallow mix with golden sprinkles. You don’t have to completely coat the top, just enough to add color and sparkle.

5.    Once completely cooled, remove from the pan and cut into squares. This is best done on a cutting board and be sure to always cut AWAY from yourself! These treats are usually best if eaten the day they’re made or the day after. The fresher they are, the less crunchy and difficult to bite into. Enjoy!

            Along with a green breakfast and cereal bars, I also tried my hand at making a cake, completely from scratch. I’ve decided to call it a Darling Irish Cake. I’ll be posting pictures and the recipe later this week.

            All in all it was a very fun day. I watched The Quiet Man and made the most delicious corned beef and cabbage, with onions, potatoes and carrots. The kids learned that St. Patrick’s Day is about more than leprechauns and they all look adorable in green! Now, please enjoy some pictures of my cute kids and awesome tasting food.

Saint Patrick’s Day packet:  http://www.milehibernians.com/new/AOH%20Saint%20Patrick%20Learning%20Activities.pdf

Corned Beef & Cabbage (with carrots, onions and potatoes)

Jaime's Darling Irish Cake

Monkies loving green breakfast

Yum Yum Yum

May your troubles be less and your blessings be more

And nothing but happiness come through your door ~ An Irish Blessing