Like 7-Up, Try My Cake

This week's treat is a 7-Up cake. I usually buy 7-Up cakes, but I'm going to make it homemade. I'm going to use my grandmother's homemade cake with a few substitutions and additions. This cake involves butter, sugar, eggs and flour like every traditional cake. The add-ins are lemon extract and 7-Up. The substitution is 7-Up for milk.
Here is what I used 1 1/2 cups of softened, unsalted butter (or 3 sticks), 2 1/2 cups of sugar, 5 eggs, 2 teaspoon of lemon extract, 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 1 cup of 7-Up. Mix butter and sugar together until the mixture is creamy; afterwards, adding one egg at a time and mixing well after each egg. Add the lemon extract and mix well. Next, add a cup of flour and mix until most of the flour is mixed in. Add 1/4 cup of 7-Up before the flour is completely mixed in. Continue to add flour then 7-Up until you are finished with them, ending with the 7-Up and mix completely. Once cake is completely mixed then pour into bundt pan and bake for 45 minutes or up to 75 minutes. It is done once the cake springs back from touch or the toothpick or fork comes out clean. Cool on a cake rack after cake cools inside the pan for about 15 minutes. Once the cake is completely cooled, make a glaze from powdered sugar, lemon extract (or vanilla, if perfer), milk and butter.
Melt 4 tablespoons of butter is the microwave and add it to 2 cups of powdered sugar. Mix well and add 2 tablespoons of milk next. Mix well again and add 1/4 teaspoon of lemon extract (1/2 teaspoon if you are using vanilla). Mix completely until creamy and smooth; add more milk if necessary. Drizzle the glaze over the cake and serve.

Sorry, there was a minor problem!

This week my power went out in my area. I am in Montgomery County, which is in Rockville, Maryland. I didn't get to make any thing this week, but I will double up next week to make up for what I couldn't give you. I will try to bake something and make a drink, probably non-alcoholic. That is mostly because I have a 2 year old daughter. To my followers, I am so sorry.

A Regular Basis Bake

I bake on a regular basis because that' how my family likes it. I enjoy baking. It relieves my stress. This week I wanted to make Pistachio Bread, which is a recipe from my very best friend. She introduced it to me about 2 1/2 years ago and I've been baking it ever since. The ingredients are a yellow box cake, pistachio pudding mix, sour cream, eggs, vegetable oil, water, sugar and cinnamon.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease and flour a loaf pan. I used a Betty Crocker yellow cake mix, Jell-O Pistachio pudding mix (3 oz), a cup of Daisy Light Sour Cream, 4 eggs, 1/4 cup of canola oil and 1/2 cup of water. Before mixing all of those ingredients together, I mixed together a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon and set aside. I mixed together all the ingredients previously mentioned, except the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Once the ingredients are mixed, scoop out enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan then sprinkle a generous amount of the cinnamon sugar over the batter. Repeat those layers under the entire bowl of batter is empty. Top it off with the cinnamon sugar mixture and put in the oven for 50 minutes, but accordingly to your oven.
You'll smell it when it's ready! You can serve it warm or cold. I love it fresh out the oven with whipped cream and a cup of milk!!!

My Independence Celebration!!!

On Saturday, July 3rd, I celebrated my Independence Day because I had to work on Sunday and Monday. My family and I had a barbecue. All kinds of food was cooked, such as steak, BBQ chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, hot dogs (franks), hamburger s and baked beans. Of course, I made dessert. I made a strawberry cake that looked like the American flag. I used another boxed cake. I made a strawberry boxed cake. I just followed the box instructions and decorated it to look like the flag. I used blueberries, strawberries and canned frosting (spray and container). I used vanilla frosting from Duncan Hines and Pillsbury. I used one pint of strawberries and a quarter pint of blueberries. I baked the cake according to its instructions and let cool for 30 minutes. I used the Duncan Hines frosting as a base. I started from the bottom and worked my way up to the top. I used strawberries and created 3 rows for the red ribbons of the flag. I created the blue corner of the flag by make four mini rows with the blueberries and on the other side of the blue section, I just made two more rows of strawberries. Once all the fruit was set in place, I took the spray frosting by Pillsbury and created lines where the white ribbons on the flag would be. I sprayed some frosting between the blueberries to create the stars. The cake is now complete.

This cake only lasted this one day. Everyone dove in and tore it up. Some ate the cake before they actually ate the food. I took some pictures and will try to post all of the pictures by Saturday or Sunday.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This week I decided to make a pineapple upside cake. I haven't make one since Christmas, so it wasn't that fresh in my mind. I made this cake specifically for my husband. I used a white box cake to make it quick and simplified. I used a Betty Crocker Supermoist White box cake for my base instead of cake flour. I used 3 egg whites, 1 1/2 cup of pineapple juice, 2/3 cup of water and 2/3 cup of vegetable oil with the cake mix. I used a 20 ounce can of crushed pineapple for the pineapple part of the cake. I drained the entire can of crushed pineapple for a cup of pineapple juice. You can use fresh pineapple, but then you have to skin it, dice it and put it in a food processor to make it into crushed pineapple.
Here are the instructions on creating the pineapple upside cake. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Put the drained crushed pineapple in a 10 ounce non-stick skillet with a cup of light brown sugar and 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter. Let the mixture cook for 20 minutes until it browns and the juices are reduced. If necessary butter and flour the bundt pan, put the mixture in the pan. Mix the cake mix, egg whites, pineapple juice,water and oil together and pour it on top of the pineapple mixture. Place on the bottom rack of the oven for 30-35 minutes. I allowed the cake to cool for 15 minutes and then I flipped the cake onto the cake saver, while still in the bundt pan, and let cool for an hour. I took the pan off after the hour and served.

My family immediately jumped to eat the cake. By Friday night almost 90% of the cake was gone. On Saturday, I made another cake, but that will be discussed on another post later on. The remaining 10% of the cake wasn't eaten due to the new cake. I have pictures, but I am having a little trouble posting them. They will be available later.