Earthquake Cake (from Elaine's kitchen to yours)

My blogging friend Missy (missysknittingmess.blogspot.com) sent me her friend Elaine's recipe for Earthquake Cake.

I have not tried it yet, but it is on my to-do-list!

This cake recipe sounds like it would make a really delicious cake, but not diet food! According to the recipe" it looks more like a volcano while it's baking then an earthquake after it's done baking." Very cool!

Enjoy :)

Self Frosting Cupcakes

Today I made these Self Fosting Cupcakes for my boys as a Valentine's Day treat. I have been wanting to try these for a long time now. The recipe is very easy and you use Nutella as the self frosting part. Delicious! Very tasty :)
Click here for the recipe.
Enjoy :)

Nanie's Apple Bread

This is my mother-in-law's recipe for Apple Bread. I have tried many apple bread recipes in the past but none compare to Nanie's. This easy recipe makes two loaves. The resulting bread is moist, sweet and the crust on the first day is a cross between crunchy and chewy.

3 cups all-purpose flour*
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 cups sugar
2 cups shredded peeled apple (2 large)
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts


Preheat oven to 350º. Grease two, 8x4x2 inch loaf pans ( I line mine with wax paper and grease again). In a large bowl combine flour, cinnamon, baking soda and powder, salt and nutmeg. Set aside.

In another mixing bowl combine sugar, apples, oil, and egg. Mix well. Add apple mixture to dry ingredients. Stir just until moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Fold in nuts.

Spoon batter into the two prepared pans. Bake in a 350º oven 55 - 60 minutes until a wooden toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan (and remove wax paper). Continue to cool on wire rack. Wrap and store overnight.

* ( I use 1 1/2 c of all purpose + 1 1/2 cups of whole wheat white)

Enjoy :)

No Knead Bread

I love watching the Martha Stewart Show, but don't get to view it during the day. I tape the show and watch it while I knit at night. Last week I saw this bread being made and I was intrigued and yesterday I decide to give it a try. I had to plan ahead though and mixed up the dough at 7 pm the night before. The picture on the left is what I ended up with. I used corn meal on the outside of the loaf. This is a extremely easy recipe from the Sullivan Street Bakery in NYC. ...not for spontaneous baking though because you need 12 - 18 hours to rise. Once the dough( gets bubbly) is ready you bake it in a dutch oven preheated to 500º, uncovering the last 15 minutes. You can find the recipe for this No Knead Bread on the New York Times website. If you like artisan type bread with hard chewy crust you'll love this one. My family loved it. I hid away a couple of slices for me to toast for my lunch today and it was absolutely wonderful. Reminds me in a way of Thomas's English muffins...only crunchier. Give it a try...I think you'll like it :) and I'll be making more in the future. I wonder how it would come out using whole wheat flour?...I see another experiment in my future!

4/12/07 I had to edit this post because it was brought to my attention that the Martha Stewart Website recipe link no longer worked! I searched the new site but could no longer find the recipe. (Funny, I was able to do a search and I could easily find Courtney's hummus recipe!)A subsequent search on google led me to this New York Times recipe which is the same as the original published on Martha. Thanks Frances for letting me know about this problem. I really appreciate the info, because bad or broken links are one of my pet peeves!