Blueberry Scone Bite ready for eating.

Some days, even in the middle of grieving, you wake up & are overwhelmed with a need to do a certain thing. This morning, buttermilk was calling my name. I have lots of it in the refrigerator. The buttermilk was nagging me today. Use me. Try something new. Use me. I swear it was calling me.

So I went to allrecipes.com to search out something. A feature this site has that I love is the ingredient search. You enter the ingredients you want to use and what category of recipes you want & it brings up a list of recipes for you to ponder. The only ingredient I listed was buttermilk, the category I chose was Bread and I didn’t list any ingredients I did not want to use. The search brought back a listing of 357 recipes.

I rambled down the list looking at titles of recipes. Not in the mood to fix biscuits of any kind. Besides I have several good biscuit recipes. Any time I find a name that sounds interesting, I either click the link or look at the number of stars a recipe has received. If it doesn’t have at least 3 stars, I don’t waste time looking at it. I prefer looking at recipes that have at least 4 stars.

The chocolate chip scone bites are on the silicon mat. Trying to decide what to add to the bowl for the next batch.

Moving down the list, I come to Buttermilk Scones. Hmmm. Sounds interesting & I haven’t found a scone recipe I like yet.  Planning on printing out the recipe to try later. I don’t feel like going to the trouble of patting out scones & cutting them. So I move the mouse over some of the reviews to see what they say. Not only have the reviewers liked them, but also several of them have fixed them like drop biscuits. That tidbit of info gets me to thinking!

Dropped the dough like drop biscuits. Aren't the mini-chocolate chips sweet in there?

Suddenly, I’m not interested in printing out the scone recipe. I’m fixing scones this morning. Very simple recipe that mixes up in a very short time. Having trouble deciding what to add to them. Shall I have blueberry or chocolate chip scones? Neither. Instead of deciding, I pull a little of the dough out & add some mini-chocolate chips to it. Spoon it onto the cookie sheet. Next, I pull out half of the remaining dough and add some raisins to it. I add blueberries to the remaining dough.

When the cookie sheet is full, I place it in the oven & set the timer for 9 minutes. When the timer goes off, they’re very ghostly looking so I bake them an additional minute and a half. Pull them out to cool on the rack. Bake the blueberry scones. As the scones cool, I debate about putting a light glaze on them. I decide against it & tell Sarah the scones are out of the oven.

Naturally, I change my mind & decide if I’m trying them out, I should try them with a glaze. While Sarah is scarfing a chocolate chip one down, I mix up a glaze using confectionery sugar and orange juice. Drizzle it on the scones & they’re good to go. The recipe is definitely a keeper. If you give it a try, I think you’ll be pleased.

Drizzled a bit of glaze on the scone bites. Will cover the scones more heavily next time.

It’s not a difficult cake to bake & isn’t very time consuming. However, be forewarned if you’ve never fixed one before, that the batter will be a  red to reddish-brown color depending on the recipe you use. Once the cake is baked it will be a bright red color when cut. The color is where the cake gets it’s name so be prepared.

Red Velvet Cake Batter

The recipe makes 3 8-inch layers, but that won’t suit my needs. This cake is going to be traveling in the car for approximately 1 1/2 hours. I do not want to take a chance on the top layer sliding or tumbling off. I’m also not quite sure how many people will be there. I have a vague number I’m pretty sure or sure will be there & I want to make sure there is leftover cake for Daddy to enjoy on other days. I pour the batter into 2 10-inch cake pans & that works good without having to make another batch or half batch of the batter.

While the cake bakes, I pull out a 12-inch cake board & some leftover fondant I have. Sprinkle a bit of red powdered food color in the middle of the fondant & proceed to knead the fondant. I knead until the powder is no longer dry but is only partially incorporated into the fondant. I do this because I want the fondant to have a marbled effect not be solid-colored.

Cake board covered in marbled fondant.

Next I pull out a medium-sized piece of vinyl I keep for this purpose & begin rolling out the fondant. I roll it out until it is large enough to cover the cake board. Then I place it on the cake board & smooth it down & cut it to size. This will dry & be ready when I need it.

After the cake layers have baked, I put them on wire racks to cool. When they’re completely cooled, I wrap them in SaranWrap as I’m not going to ice the cake until tomorrow. That’s it for the day.

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The finished coconut cake. Have a knife?

Thursday we’re celebrating Zoey’s (my oldest granddaughter) birthday. So today I’m baking a cake. A coconut cake that will have an orange filling. Here’s where you can find the recipe I used http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Six-Layer-Coconut-Cake/Detail.aspx. It makes an awesome cake.

Pull out the flour, butter, eggs & other ingredients and get started. In a very short time, I have cake batter ready to pour into 3 8-inch cake pans. Carefully place the pans into the preheated oven & bake the cake layers. While my coconut cake bakes, I work on cooking the filling. As soon as the filling is finished, I put it in the refrigerator to cool.

Coconut cake cooling in pans.

In a short time, the coconut cake layers are ready to come out of the oven. I place them on the wire racks to cool before removing them from the pans. After the layers are removed from the cake pans, I let them cool completely. In the meantime, I clean a spot on the counter.

I had lots of oranges so used fresh orange juice.

Once the coconut cake is completely cooled, I pull the layers over to the newly cleaned spot on the counter. I dig out my cake leveler & set it for cutting the 3 layers in half. Once the initial cut into the crust is made, it’s easy going. Just have to be careful & watch what you’re doing. Go too fast & the cake will move on you.

The cake leveler sits on top of the cake layer that is now 2 tiers.

Now that cake is cut is cut into the proper number of tiers, I start filling the cake. Place the bottom tier on a cake board & a third of a cup of the filling on top of it. Gently spread it until it covers the cake. Take the top of that layer & gently place it on top. Spread a third of a cup of the orange filling on top of it. The bottom tier of a layer goes on it. Continue stacking cake tiers & filling until the last tier is in place.

Stacked & filled layers of coconut cake with orange filling.

Now it’s time to make the frosting. Pull out the candy thermometer as it will be a necessary tool for making the frosting. Combine all the ingredients but the vanilla in a large pot & start cooking. I use the directly over low heat method; if you prefer, you can use a double boiler. Very carefully beat on low speed with an electric mixer. It’s a bit of a pain because you have to be careful to stay away from the candy thermometer. Don’t want a diaster!

After the frosting reaches 160 degrees in temperature, it’s time to pull it off the stove & pour into a large mixing bowl. Add the vanilla & turn your mixer up to high speed. Beat until you get lovely stiff peaks. This will take somewhere around 7 minutes. Your frosting is now ready for the cake!

Another look at the finished coconut cake.

Spread the icing on the top & the sides of the cake generously. Once that’s finished, it’s time to either sprinkle or cover the cake with shredded coconut. Which you do, will depend on how much your family likes coconut. I cover mine because I love coconut. You know the old saying “you eat what the cook likes”. Now all I need is a certain grandchild who’s celebrating her birthday & we’ll have cake.

Spiced Eggnog here I come! Doesn’t that have a nice Christmas feel to it? I can’t list the recipe here due to copyright issues; however, if you go to allrecipes.com, you will find the recipe. Not being sure about the reaction to liquor in the cake, I did leave out the optional brandy. Personally, I would think rum would be the liquor to add to an eggnog cake if I was adding one.

It took a bit longer than most pound cakes to mix, but was an easy recipe to follow. The spices in the eggnog and the additional spices added to the cake, gave it a terrific aroma while baking.

One of the mini Spiced Eggnog Pound Cakes after being glazed.

While it’s a nice moist & flavorful cake, I’m not at all sure I would have guessed that eggnog was one of the ingredients. Not quite sure if the eggnog was a subtle flavor or if I just thought I could taste it because I knew it was one of the ingredients. Either way, it was a tasty pound cake & I’m sure I will bake it again.

As you can see, it made adorable little individual cakes. I can hardly wait to hear the reaction of my family to this pound cake.

That worked acceptably, but the texture of the final product would have been smoother if they had been shredded. Taste-wise though, we have a winner. Made a moist tender muffin. This made a wonderful treat for fall. The delightful blend of spices & fruit fits well with the crisp fall mornings we are beginning to have. Will definitely make these again.

I made the muffins as I’m beginning to be partial to muffins instead of loaves of bread. They are easier to deal with serving. If you freeze some from each batch of muffins you make, then later you can serve a variety of muffins without cooking. Will come in handy for unexpected company, laid back days, or just too busy to cook days, We all have days like that. The key to not breaking the piggy bank by eating out every time we have one of those days to freeze some of our goodies from days we do cook.

That was it today in spite of all the pears to still bake, cook or whatever. Today is my anniversay. Having been married for one month now, I called it a day early & we popped a bottle of champagne instead of cooking.