Raspberry lemonade Jell-o Cake

As I was preparing for the baby’s first birthday party I started considering what cake to make.  My husband’s all time favorite is Jell-o cake and I thought it would be fun to try it.  I also made it a pink camo cake which was fun too!  The cake turned out awesome, Grammy touted it as the best cake I’ve made yet and my sister even asked to take a piece home to her fiancee.  This just doesn’t happen because my deserts are usually considered too healthy…

I started with the white cake recipe from an earlier blog post and changed it slightly, it came out so much fluffier than the original recipe that I updated that recipe.  You can find the improved version here:  white cake recipe

In order to make the cake camo colored I added red food coloring to the batter and mixed it well. I scooped dolops of the batter randomly around the pan and changed the color in the remaining batter.  I repeated this process about four times, using 3 shades of pink and 2 shades of purple until I had covered the pan and used all the batter.  I also used this process with the whipped topping to make the frosting camo colored.

 

Raspberry Lemonade Jello Cake

1. Make white cake  according to the recipe.

2. add 1 tsp of raspberry flavoring to the cake batter.

3. baked it following the recipe directions, remove it from the oven to cool.

4.  poke holes all over the top using a fork.

5. prepare the “Jell-o”

6. Spoon liquid over the baked cake, making sure to get it into the holes.  Chill in refrigerator.

7. Prepare whipped topping, mix in 1/2 tsp raspberry extract and 1/2 tsp lemon extract

8. Spread topping over cake, chill and serve.

 

Homemade Jell-o

1 cup 100% fruit  juice of choice – I used white grape raspberry

1 package gellatin

 

directions:

1. pour juice into a pan

2. Sprinkle Gellatin over cold juice.  Mix well

3. bring to a boil, stirring frequently

for regular Jell-o this can be poured into cups and chilled in the refrigerator.

 

Whipped Topping (replacement for cool-whip)

2 Cups Heavy Whipping cream

1/4 Cup Honey (or to taste)

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

directions

1. Whip heavy cream until soft peaks form

2. Add honey and vanilla. Mix well

 

Easy Vanilla Ice cream

2 C heavy cream

1 C milk

1/2 c honey

1/8 c stevia (cup for cup like sugar)

1 Tbsp vanilla

1 tsp almond extract

Directions:

put all ingredients in ice cream maker and churn according to machine directions

or

mix ingredients together then freeze flat in a gallon size baggie.  Once frozen break up and put into food processor, blend until smooth. YUM!

This recipe was adapted from a recipe I found on allrecipes.com see the original recipe here

 

Snickerdoodles

When my little monkey said she wanted a new kind of cookie I decided to try snickerdoodles because Grammy has always said they were her favorite cookies.  So this recipe is Grammy approved, unfortunately her new favorite is peanut butter blossoms with the Hershey’s kiss in the middle… I don’t think I will be making those anytime soon so we will stick with snickerdoodles for now.

Since the baby is still under a year I used agave nectar for this recipe but it could easily be swapped with honey.

I adapted the recipe from one with a 5 star rating on food.com.  you can view the original at http://www.food.com/recipe/soft-snickerdoodle-cookies-97496

Ingredients:

1 cup butter

1 cup agave nectar

1/2 cup plus 3 Tbsp stevia (cup for cup like sugar)

2 eggs

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup whole wheat pastry flour

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

Topping ingredients:

2 Tbsp whole wheat pastry flour

1 tsp stevia (cup for cup like sugar)

3 teaspoons cinnamon

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F.  Mix butter, agave nectar, stevia and eggs thoroughly in a large bowl.   Combine flours, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl.  Blend dry ingredients into butter mixture.  Chill dough, and chill an ungreased cookie sheet for about 10-15 minutes in the fridge.

Meanwhile, mix 3 tablespoons sugar, and 3 teaspoons cinnamon in a small bowl.  roll dough into 1 inch balls, roll each ball in the topping mixture.  Place on chilled ungreased cookie sheet, and bake 10 minutes.  Immediately transfer cookies to a wire cooling rack.  Enjoy!