Pineapple Upside Down Cake

Mmmm, I don't know about you but I LOVE anything with pineapple! This week I wanted to make something I had never made before to take to my bible study group (we actually call these "Connect" groups at church so if I mention that in the future then you will know what I am talking about).

When I was trying to decide what I should make I saw a picture of a pineapple upside down cake and thought "That's it!" I had never made one of these before and it sounded like a great summer dessert!

You will need:
1 can sliced pineapple
maraschino cherries
1/4 cup of melted butter
3 cups all-purpose flour
5 tsp. baking powder
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tbsp. vanilla extract

The first thing you will want to do is preheat your oven to 350 degrees and grease a 9 x 13 in. baking pan. I decided to line my baking pan with wax paper to make sure the cake would not stick to the bottom since the bottom will actually become the top! (I then sprayed the wax paper with cooking spray)

Drain the pineapple slices (but keep the juice to use later on). Combine the melted butter, brown sugar and 2 tbsp. of the pineapple juice.

Place the pineapple slices on the bottom of your baking pan. Then, slice some of the cherries in half, and place them inside of the pineapple slices upside down. (You want to place the cut side of the cherries up because the cake will be flipped over when it is baked)

Next, pour the brown sugar mixture over the pineapples into the bottom of your baking pan. It should look like this:


Next, add water to the remaining pineapple juice until you have 1 1/3 cups of liquid, and set aside.

Combine the flour and baking powder, and set aside.

Cream the shortening with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla, and beat (with electric mixer) for 1 min. Continue beating while alternating between adding the flour mixture and the remaining pineapple juice (beginning & ending with the flour mixture).

Once the batter is well mixed, pour over the pineapples:

Bake at 350 for 40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean (mine took about 50 min.). Once you remove the cake from the oven, let it cool in the pan for 5 min. Then, take whatever platter you want to place the cake on, turn it over onto the cake pan, hold both firmly and flip the cake!

Voila! You just made a beautiful and oh so yummy pineapple upside down cake!

Mozzarella Chicken

I thawed out some chicken breasts for dinner the other night, but when it came time to make them I wanted something a little more unique than just plain chicken. So, I went hunting through my pantry and fridge and this is what I came up with!

First, I put some plain bread crumbs in a bowl mixed with a little garlic salt. Next, I coated one side of the chicken with some dijon mustard and placed it into the bread crumbs. I then coated the side facing up with the mustard, and flipped the chicken over to coat the other side with bread crumbs. 

I put all of the chicken on a foil-lined baking sheet sprayed with cooking spray, and drizzled a little olive oil on the top of the chicken. I put it in the oven on 350 degrees for 30 minutes. 

When the chicken was done, I sliced up a few tomatoes and placed them on the top of the chicken. I then placed a few pieces of fresh mozzarella on top of that and sprinkled some dried basil on top. I put the chicken back in the oven, this time on broil for about 5 min. or until the cheese began to melt.

Here is the final product: 

It was SO good! I have also been thinking that it would probably be really good over some spaghetti, hence making a somewhat healthier version of chicken parmesan!

(P.S. Please excuse my ugly countertops, my husband and I live in an apartment right now. I can't wait until we have our own house with granite counter tops!)

Fruit Pizza

I have made this fruit "pizza" twice now and it is sooooooo good! There is never any left! I actually found this recipe at Kelly's Recipes. She has some REALLY good stuff on there! You should definitely check it out!!

(note--in the picture above I sliced the cookie up after I placed the fruit on it so that is why some of it looks out of place!)

I do have a couple of tips though from my experience making this yummy treat twice now :) First, it helped me to soften the cream cheese in the microwave for 30-45 seconds before beating it with the sugar. Second, well...see the pictures below....

HA! Ok, so you shouldn't spread the cookie dough all the way to the edges because it WILL expand while it's in the oven!! I don't know why I didn't realize that, I've made cookies a million times! I guess since it was a giant cookie I thought it would be different for some reason LOL.

Also, you can add any kind of fruit that you like to this pizza! The first time I made it I used strawberries, bananas, and kiwi. It was delish! I haven't tried it with the whip cream on top but it looks awesome in Kelly's pic!

Old-Fashioned Cake Doughnuts

MMMM! My niece was spending the night the other day and she really wanted to make these doughnuts because my sister had made them for her not that long ago. So, I checked out the recipe and it turns out I just happened to have pretty much everything I needed!

The recipe for the doughnuts is HERE and the recipe for the icing is HERE. 

The only thing I was missing to complete the doughnut recipe was the 1/8 teaspoon of nutmeg, so I used a little of this pumpkin pie spice instead! I think it worked perfectly because the doughnuts were delicious!

Be prepared though...they are pretty messy to make and take awhile, but oh so good :D

Patriotic Cupcakes!

For the 4th of July I decided to make cupcakes, and then at the last minute decided I wanted to so something a little creative! So, I made the cupcakes with devil's food cake mix from the store. 

I then used Wilton's Buttercream Icing recipe, which is the BEST! My sister and I discovered this recipe awhile back and I have been using it ever since. My niece never liked icing before but can never get enough of it when I make it this way :)

After I made the icing I separated it into a few bowls so that I could dye some of it red and some blue with food coloring. I then used a piping set I got in the dollar bin at Target to apply the icing to the cupcakes! 

I arranged the colors to look like a flag, added a few stars and some patriotic sprinkles that I found at Wal-Mart, and they were done!

Hey Y'all!

Hey Y'all! haha That's actually a little joke in my family...we LOVE Paula Deen, and my mom's Texas accent sometimes sounds a little like hers. So, we started making my mom say "Hey Y'all" and she sounds like Paula when she does it. It probably doesn't sound as funny to you as it is to us ;)

Anyway, welcome to my baking/cooking blog! I decided to start this blog because my family and I have a second family, our bible study group, and every week when we get together I try to take some sort of sweet treat! I've been doing it forever, and many times they have asked me for the recipes. So, I thought I would just post them here and maybe some of you will want to try them too! 

I LOVE to bake, so I will most likely post alot of dessert recipes. However, I LOVE to cook as well, so I may throw in some other recipes for your culinary pleasure as well :) I think this will be alot of fun, regardless if anyone actually reads this blog or not, hehehe! I am always looking for new and fun ideas though, so please feel free to share! I'm hoping to find some other recipe sites/ blogs through this experience also!

Oh, one more thing, I live in the south. I am a Texas girl, born and raised, so the recipes might not exactly be "healthy." If you know anything about the south you know that one of our favorite drinks is sweet tea. We LOVE sugar! (and butter, cream cheese, mayo, etc.) HA!