Working Mom's Recipe of the Week

This is a special Easter Edition for those who will be celebrating next weekend. My Easter tradition is to bake two pineapple upside-down cakes for a potluck party at my mother-in-law's house. This year I decided to make the cakes from scratch and looked up recipes online. I was amazed to find that every single recipes started with "1 box yellow cake mix". How exactly is that from scratch?! Don't get me wrong, I'm not that snobby about my food (Ok, maybe I am). A cake that is a doctored-up box-cake is delicious and it took time and that's great! But sometimes I want to start with flour, butter and milk and see if I can do it without the help of Pillsbury. So I ended up combining 3 different recipes, none of which called for 1 box of yellow cake mix. The result turned out great!

Pineapple Upside-down Cake

Servings = 2 cakes
Time = 1 hr

Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 c melted butter (not margarine)
2/3 c paked brown sugar
1 c coconut flakes
1 20-oz can pineapple rings, drained
1 jar red cherries in water, drained (not maraschino cherries)
3 eggs
½ c water
1/3 c oil
1 c low-fat sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Set aside
3. In a small bowl, mix melted butter, brown sugar and coconut flakes.
4. Arrange 5 pineapple rings in the bottom of 2 9-inch cake pans. Pour half the cherries in each pan, arranging them to fill in the gaps between the pinapples. Sprinkle the coconut mixture evenly over the pineapples and cherries.
5. To the flour mixture, add the eggs, water, oil, sour cream and vanilla. Stir until smooth. Pour half the batter into each pan and use a spoon to smooth.
6. Bake at 350 F for 35 minutes or until a toothpick stuck in the middle of the cakes comes out clean.

7. Cool for 10 minutes in pan. Run a knife around the edges and flip onto serving plates. Cool completely before serving.

Notes: You must use pastry or cake flour, not regular, to get the right consistency - whole wheat is healthier, but white is a fluffier texture. You can use twice as many pineapples and just a single maraschino cherry in the middle of each, which is the traditional look. But maraschino cherries are died with nasty red dye, which is starting to be tied to behavioral problems in kids, so I'm not using those any more. If you prefer yogurt to sour cream, just make sure it is plain without added sugar or your cakes will be too sweet. And use a low-fat, not a fat-free, version because the fat makes the cake moist.

Working Mom's Recipe of the Week

This time of year I love baking cookies; it's the only time of year I bake cookies. We have a couple basic ones we love at our house and they are great to make with your kids. For each, you can use store-bought cookie dough or your favorite cookie dough recipe.

Rudolph Peanut Butter Cookies
1 batch peanut butter cookie doughred M&M's - it's fun for kids to separate the red from the other colors (and sneak a few in the process)mini chocolate chipspretzel sticks

Form cookies - Roll a ball of dough in your hand and press flat onto a cookie sheet. Each cookie should be about 2" in diameter. You kids can add eyes (mini chocolate chips), noses (red M&M's) and antlers (pretzels). Bake based on the recipe for the dough.


Spicy Kisses
1 batch spiced cookie dough - you can use regular sugar cookie dough and add 1 t cinnamon, 1/2 t nutmeg, 1/2 t ground ginger and/or 1/4 t cloves
white chocolate Heresy's kisses - kids can unwrap the kisses

Form cookies - Roll a ball of dough in your hand and place on a cook sheets. Flatten a little with your hand, then use an unwrapped kiss to flatten it further. Bake based on the recipe for the dough, but move the oven rack one down from the middle to prevent the kisses from burning on the tops.


Candy Canes - requires chilling
1 batch sugar cookie dough, separated
red food coloring
peppermint extract

Add 3-4 drops of red food coloring and 1 t peppermint extract to 1/2 the cookie dough and mix thoroughly. Wrap each ball of dough, white and red, in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 min or so. To form candy canes, use a-bit-more-than-1-T of dough from the white and a-bit-more-than-1-T of the red. Roll between your hands or on a cutting board, until it's about 8 inches long. Twist the two together, lay on the cookie sheet and shape into a candy cane. Bake according to the recipe for the dough.

Work Mom's Recipe of the Week

Huge Cookie with Fruit
Servings = 10
Time = 1 hr

Ingredients
2 sticks butter, room temp
1 c shortening, room temp
1 c sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla or almond extract
5 c all purpose flour
1/2 t salt
1 t baking powder
1 pint strawberries
1/2 pint blue berries
1/2 pint raspberries
1 package cream cheese
1/4 c confectioners sugar

Directions
Preheat overn to 400 F. In a large bowl, beat butter, shortening and sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs and vanilla extract and beat until smooth. In another bowl, mix flour, salt and baking powder. Add flour mix to butter mix; combine with fingers until it forms dough. On a large round stone, press the dough into a 1/4 inch thick round cookie (should be 12 inches in diameter - if you have too much dough, make a couple small cookies to eat). Bake for 15-20 minutes or until just golden on edges. Remove and cool to room temperature.

Meanwhile, wash the berries. Trim the strawberries and halve. In a small bowl, combine cream cheese with sugar - first with a spoon, then with the electric mixer - until smooth. When the cookie is cool, spread the cream cheese over and decorate with the berries. Cut like a pie to serve.

Notes - The finished product is lovely and great for BBQs. It's a perfect desert to make with kids. They can measure and mix the ingredients and decorate with fruit. You can add a drop of food coloring to the cream cheese to make it light yellow or pink. You can substitute any fresh fruit for the topping - blackberries, sliced plums, kiwi are good options.

By: Mindy Brooks