Irish Soda....Cake

It's that time of the year! Talk of whiskey, Bailey's, corned beef, cabbage, Shamrock Shakes and of course Irish Soda Bread.

I have to admit I don't really like Irish Soda Bread, I've never been a fan. But this bread is for lovers and haters of traditional Irish Soda Bread! The recipe is my mom's and she has been making it for as long as I can remember. It's a sweeter recipe than most and almost comes out like a bread-y cake. The best part is you can top it off with a little icing by combining confectioners sugar and milk and drizzling a little on top. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day to all!

Banana Fosters Melted Ice Cream Cake

The name of this cake is slightly deceiving because while you do use melted ice in the cake, the cake is not an ice cream cake. What it is, is a moist, decadent cake that can be customized and changed up to please any taste bud or preference. The cake is made with a boxed cake mix and then you add in a pint of your favorite ice cream. For this particular cake I used a golden butter cake mix and Haagen Dazs Bananas Foster. The combo was out of this world and everyone kept going back for seconds. I iced the cake with a simple confectioners sugar and milk glaze so as to not overpower the taste of the cake itself. It was such a hit and the best part is everyone thought the cake was made from scratch. The photo of this cake just doesn't do it justice, so you'll have to trust me when I tell you this cake is a total home run. I don't even remember where I saw this recipe originally, there are a lot of different versions of it online and they are all essentially the same recipe and everyone says it's delicious.

So next time you need to make a delicious cake keep this recipe in mind, the variations of the cake truly are endless. Next time I'm thinking cookies and cream ice cream and chocolate cake or maybe a Christmas version with egg nog ice cream and vanilla cake.

Pumpkin Cake Balls for Halloween

Happy Halloween Everyone! I hope you all have a fun and safe day today!

I wanted to make a treat for my husband to take into work with him for his co-workers. I debated the merits of spiderweb cupcakes, tombstone brownies and other fun stuff but then decided to go with something fun and easy to sneak and eat quickly. Cake balls were a perfect fit. I made a pumpkin cake and paired it with some vanilla frosting and dipped them in white chocolate colored orange.

If you have checked out my previous post about what I've been up to lately you'll understand my next rationale; I decided to take the easy way on the cake because of timing and also because I wanted to give you all a ridiculously simple recipe that can be made in a pinch and really tastes amazing (I also cheated and used store bought icing). The best part - it only requires two ingredients and can be eaten as a cake, cupcake or even a muffin. So few ingredients and yet so versatile.

2nd Birthday Elmo Cake & Marshmallow Fondant Recipe

My nieces birthday was actually last month but I never thought to put it up on here. Like most 2 year olds my niece is in love with Elmo and honestly, kid or adult who doesn't love Elmo? He's cute and fuzzy and so lovable. I made a vanilla cake with vanilla icing, nothing too crazy but decorated the cake with white and colored fondant. I don't have pictures of me making or rolling out the fondant because it is such a messy job there was no place for a camera in the kitchen, but I will walk you through each step on how to make this cake or just about any other cake with fondant on top.

Making homemade fondant is actually pretty easy, just very, very messy. It doesn't take too much skill or artistic talent, all you need is a little creativity and some cookie cutters, food dye and you're good to go!

Low-Fat Lemon Loaf

Whenever summertime rolls around I find myself craving fresh, summery ingredients and lemons are by far one my favorite summertime ingredients. I love lemons as they are in all of their mouth puckering glory, but I also love them in dessert and the sweet little tang they give off. Lemons make even the heaviest of desserts seem light and guilt free and to me that's a beautiful thing.

This cake is dense and rich but actually very low in calories since I omitted butter and multiple eggs and replaced them with part-skim ricotta. I have found that using ricotta, yogurt or applesauce in baking is a great way to cut down on fat and calories but not skimp on taste. I choose to use ricotta in this recipe because of how well ricotta pairs with lemon and the rich texture ricotta provides.

It's a easy to make, one bowl recipe that is perfect for a light, summer dessert.

Sweet Potato Cake

Ever buy something and then as time goes by you forget to use it, or just don't want to do the same old thing again? I bought sweet potatoes about a week ago, they're one of my favorite veggies, my husband - not so much. He prefers the run of the mill Idaho, Yukon and Red New potatoes. So after hemming and hawing about what to make with the sweet potatoes I decided I wanted to make a dessert, but I couldn't find the kind of recipe I was looking for. I wanted to make a cake or a bread and nothing was quite what I wanted.  The solution? I made one up, worked on the fly and if I do say so myself, it came out quite delicious.

The recipe was simple and if you happen to have boiled sweet potatoes on hand, can be made in less than 10 minutes.

S'Mores Cake

I have a confession...I am obsessed with marshmallows, espeically chocolate covered ones so naturally s'mores are one of my favorite desserts. I have been drooling over various food blogs for months and their wide variety of s'mores desserts when I decided it was finally time to make one. It was Memorial Day weekend and my sister-in-law asked me to make a dessert for their bbq, I knew it was time to roll up my sleeves and dive into a s'mores dessert. I had a ton of potential desserts to choose from but when I saw Sweet Tooth's Giant S'More Cake I knew I had found my dessert.

The dessert was delicious, but a little on the heavy side for my taste. Next time I would use less flour in the graham cracker cake to make it a bit lighter. It was described as a cookie but it had a heavy almost dense cookie bar feel to it. It tasted delicious though. The recipe seems like it may be a bit daunting but it was ridiculously easy. The cake also produces a ton of servings, we had 8 adults and 3 kids at the bbq and we ate about half the cake.