Bunny Trail Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Frosting-Dessert Challenge

Sorry that I have been MIA so much lately.  I hope to be back here more often soon.  The ingredients that Sheryl from Lady Behind the Curtain chose for this month’s dessert challenge were Peeps and white chocolate.  She also said that marshmallows or marshmallow creme could be used.

When I think of Peeps, all that usually comes to mind is the little, yellow chicks.  However, recently I was in Michael’s, of all places, to purchase an Ott light bulb and saw these bunnies.  When I saw them, a whole plan came to mind, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  A Bunny Trail Cake.  It seemed only natural that the cake be carrot, and the white chocolate could go in the frosting.  Off I went to find recipes for inspiration.

Turning to my trusty recipe file on my computer, I found three recipes for carrot cake made with baby food carrots.  Since I am basically lazy and do not like the bother and mess that comes with shredding carrots, I thought baby food carrots was a good idea.  Then I got to the grocery store and saw that baby food carrots were around $1 a jar, and I needed two jars.  Well, I am also cheap, and decided I would figure out how to use either cooked or canned carrots instead of the baby food.

The original recipes I found on my computer called for 2 cups sugar, which I felt was a lot so I reduced the sugar to 1 cup.  I thought this was fine considering the amount of sugar in the frosting.  I am putting a range from 1 to 2 cups in the recipe.  If serving the cake with just a sprinkle of powdered sugar, you might want to increase the amount of sugar in the cake.

I adapted a White Chocolate Frosting recipe from Food.com.  It called for 6 oz. of white chocolate bar, melted and cooled.  I chose to use half a package of Ghirardelli Classic White Chips.  Don’t use Nestle’ brand.  These do not melt well.  My butter was very soft so I did not need to add any cream or half and half.  I frosted the photographed cake pretty heavily so barely had enough frosting to cover the second half of the original cake.  I would recommend that another half cup of powdered sugar be added and liquid as necessary.  That should make enough frosting to frost both cake halves.

A cake decorator I am most definitely not, but I did color some coconut with green food color to use as grass and added some mini candy eggs for garnish.  I used toothpicks to anchor the bunny Peeps to the cake.  If anyone wonders why I did not use the green coconut on the ends of the cake, it is because these bunnies are coming from somewhere and going to somewhere.  I ran into one unexpected situation when I opened the package of Peeps.  They were attached to each other and so there were little uncovered spots of marshmallow left showing when I took the Peeps apart.

Although I did not include them in the cake I made, I have listed pineapple, coconut and chopped nuts in the recipe as optional.  They were included in the original recipes, and I think one or all would be great in this cake.

Bunny Trail Carrot Cake
1 c sliced cooked or canned carrots
3 T. water or liquid from canned carrots
1 c. vegetable oil
1-2 c. sugar
4 eggs, at room temperature
1 T. vanilla
2 c. flour
1 t. baking soda
2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 (8 oz.) can crushed pineapple, very well drained (opt.)
1/2 c. flaked coconut (opt.)
1/2 c. chopped pecans or walnuts (opt.)
1 c. flaked coconut (double this if making both halves.)
green food color
1 pkg.  bunny Peeps (12)
mini candy Easter eggs of your choice
White Chocolate Frosting (recipe below)

Place carrots and water or liquid in a food processor and blend until smooth.  Place in the bowl for an electric mixer.  Add sugar, vegetable oil and beat until blended.  Add eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.  Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Mix to combine.  Add to carrot mixture and mix until smooth.  Pour batter into a foil-lined 9x13-inch baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees 40 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Let cake cool.  Meanwhile make the frosting.  Add green food color to the coconut and mix well. set  Set aside.  Cut cake in half, making two 4 1/2x13-inch halves.  Frost half of cake.  Sprinkle the coconut around the bottom of the cake and along the two long top edges.  Insert one end of a toothpick into a bunny Peep.  Insert the other end of the toothpick into the center of one end of the cake.  Repeat to make a line of bunny Peeps along the center of the cake.  You will need six or seven.  Use six if you want one package of Peeps to make two cakes.  Randomly place mini candy Easter eggs among the coconut grass.  Proudly share and slice between bunnies to serve.  Makes 6 to 7 servings.  You may either make another Bunny Trail cake with the second half of the original cake or freeze it to use later.

White Chocolate Frosting (adapted from Food.com)
half an 11 oz. pkg. (scant 1 cup) white chocolate chips, melted and slightly cooled
1 c. butter, very soft
1 t. vanilla
2 to 2 1/2 c. sifted powdered sugar
1-3  T. heavy cream or half-and-half, if necessary

Melt white chocolate chips according to directions on the package, beating until smooth.  Add butter and vanilla and beat with an electric mixer or wire whisk until smooth.  Stir in sifted powdered sugar.  Add cream or half-and-half if necessary, beating until well blended.

Next month's ingredients are strawberries and cream cheese.  Come join in the fun next month.  Just visit Sheryl's Dessert Challenge page to find out how.

Check out the links below to see what other bloggers did with this month's ingredients.

Honey Nut Pretzel Graham Bars-Dessert Challenge

It is the second Thursday in March, and time for another Dessert Challenge hosted by Sheryl at Lady Behind the Curtain.  The ingredients that Sheryl chose for this month are honey and walnuts.  Our assignment is to create or find a recipe to post that uses those ingredients.

When searching for a new recipe idea, I usually turn to my trusty recipe file on my computer.  I have 15 years of recipes there, so it is quite extensive.  Fortunately, I remembered that my daughter has an old laptop of mine with my recipe file on it, so I only lost a couple of years of recipes when I had my computer crash.  Now I have Windows 8 and have the file stored securely (?) in the cloud.

In the bar cookie file I ran across a recipe called Honey Pecan Triangles, and I thought, “Yipee!” that is a place to start.  I could easily change the pecans to walnuts, no problem.   Soon other changes began to occur, however.  The original had a brown sugar, shortbread type crust, and I wanted something easier.  So why not just use graham crackers as some of those recipes floating around on the net do?    OK, that was decided.

Next challenge.  The original recipe called for 4 cups of chopped pecans.  Well, in my neck of the woods, that equates to one pound.  I don’t know about where others live, but here, a pound of nuts, whether walnuts or pecans, is upwards of $8.  That is a little rich for my budget just for a pan of cookies, no matter how delicious they might be.  As I was giving this some thought and looking around my kitchen, I spied part of a bag of pretzel sticks.  I remembered that, a couple of years ago, I did a recipe using broken pretzels instead of nuts.  That was an idea I got from Southern Plate.  I can buy a bag of pretzel sticks at Dollar Tree for $1.00.  So how about replacing some of the nuts with broken pretzels and how about throwing in some coconut for good measure?  Seemed like a good idea.

The topping ingredients included whipping cream.  Well, guess who forgot to get whipping cream when she went to the grocery store.  I live 20 miles from town so it is no easy fete to just pop over to pick something up I forgot.  I always have evaporated milk on hand so decided that it would just have to stand in for the whipping cream.  When I added the milk to the hot brown sugar/honey/butter mixture. the mixture thinned down quite a bit.  I remedied that by putting the mixture back on the burner and cooking it another 3 to 4 minutes.  The mixture thickened back up so that fixed the problem.

With all that and no further asides, I present to you Honey Nut Pretzel Graham Bars.

Honey Nut Pretzel Graham Bars
24 double graham crackers
1 1/2 c. coarsely chopped walnuts
1 1/2 c. broken stick pretzel pieces (about 1/4-inch pieces)
1 c. sweetened, flaked coconut.
1 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 c. butter
1/4 c. honey
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 t. vanilla

Line a 10x15-inch baking pan with foil and spray foil with non-stick spray.  Place two double graham crackers across the width of the pan.  Repeat until all graham crackers are placed in the pan.  There may be a little room at the end of the pan not covered with graham crackers.  Fold the foil back next to the last row of graham crackers to form a wall.  Combine nuts, pretzel pieces and coconut in a medium bowl and set aside.  Place brown sugar, butter and honey in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium heat, watching carefully and stirring often.  Boil and stir for 3 minutes.  Remove pan from heat and add evaporated milk and stir well.  Return pan to heat and continue to boil and stir another 3 to 4 minutes.  Remove from heat and add vanilla.  Mix well.  Pour over nut mixture and stir well.  Quickly turn onto center of graham crackers and spread out in an even layer.  Place pan in oven and bake at 325 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes until golden brown and bubbly.  Remove from oven and let cool to lukewarm.  Using a cookie sheet, flip crackers over and remove foil.  Cut bars apart between crackers and at the indentations in each double graham cracker.  Turn right side up and let cool completely.  Makes 48

If all this sounds like fun, you can find the schedule and all the information about it here  Check out the links below to see what other bloggers have made with honey and walnuts.

Chocolate Cherry Cola Poke Cake-Dessert Challenge

Coca-Cola and Cherries are the ingredients for February's Dessert Challenge.  For Dessert Challenge, Sheryl from Lady Behind the Curtain, selects two ingredients to include in our recipe that month.  You can see the ingredients for the rest of the year and learn more about the challenge on Sheryl’s information page.

I don’t drink pop or soda or whatever it is called in your neck of the woods, and hubby’s cola of choice is Pepsi.  When I think about cola, however, I always think about cherry cola so I bought me a bottle of that.  The thought that kept creeping into my mind when I thought about what to make was cake.  I had seen recipes that used cake mix and cola, but I wanted to make my cake from scratch.
After much searching, I found a recipe for a chocolate cake using Coca-Cola in the files on my computer.  Unfortunately, I do know where the recipe originally came from.  I used this to make the base cake for my dessert

I wanted to make a poke cake with a cola sauce poured over the cake and maraschino cherries in the cake.  I thought, if I put chopped cherries in the cake batter that the cherries might get in the way when poking the holes.  After thinking about it for awhile, I decided that I would put pieces of cherries in the holes that I poked in the cake.  I thought that would solve the problem of getting cherries into the cake.  I poured the cola sauce over the cake, let it cool and then poked the cherry quarters into the holes.

I frosted the cake with a simple, cherry-flavored buttercream frosting.  One note of caution, be sure that the powdered sugar is measured after it has been sifted.  If not, there will be too much sugar.

Chocolate Cherry Cola Poke Cake
1 c. Cherry Coca Cola
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1/2 c. butter (or 1 stick)
3 T. cocoa
2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1/2 c. buttermilk
1 t. vanilla
2 eggs
2 c. Cherry Coca Cola
1/4 c. powdered sugar
3 T. cornstarch
1/4 c. water
1 t. cherry extracts (optional)
about 18 maraschino cherries (from a 16 oz jar)
3 c. sifted powdered sugar
1/2 c. very soft butter
2-3 T. maraschino cherry juice

In a saucepan, bring Coca-Cola, vegetable oil, butter, and cocoa to a boil.  In a bowl mix together sugar, flour, salt and baking soda.  Mix to blend.  Pour the boiling liquid into the sugar/flour mixture and beat well.  Stir in buttermilk and vanilla to cool mixture slightly.  Break eggs on top of the batter and beat with a fork, then mix into the batter until well blended.  Pour into foil-lined 9x13-inch baking pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  While cake is baking bring the 2 c. cherry cola and the 1/4 c. powdered sugar to a boil in a saucepan.  Dissolve the cornstarch in 1/4 c. water.  Add to boiling cola and cook, stirring, until thickened.  Set aside to cool.  Remove cake from oven and let cool 10 to 15 minutes.  With the handle of a wooden spoon, poke holes about 1-inch apart all over the cake.  (I made 48 holes)  Pour cola sauce over the top of the cake and spread out making sure that it gets in all the holes.  Let cake cook completely.  Cut maraschino cherries into fourths and poke them into the holes in the cake.  In a medium mixing bowl combine powdered sugar and butter until very well blended.  Add cherry juice and beat until smooth.  If frosting is not correct spreading consistency, either add a bit more powdered sugar or cherry juice as necessary.  Spread frosting evenly over the top of the cake.  Chop remaining cherries and scatter over the top of the cake.  Place in refrigerator and chill 2 or 3 hours.  Cut into 12 to 15 servings.  Store, covered, in refrigerator.

Chocolate Magic Marshmallow Buns-Dessert Challenge

It is a New Year and a new series of Dessert Challenges at Lady Behind the Curtain.  Sheryl hosts this challenge, and each month she picks two ingredients that must be included in a new dessert recipe you post.  This month’s ingredients are cocoa mix and marshmallows
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Since I am on my self-imposed Eat from the Pantry Challenge, I looked around to see what I had on hand to include in a recipe.  I had the cocoa mix and the marshmallows.  After thinking about it, I remembered a recipe that was a winner in a Pillsbury Bake-Off many years ago.  It involved wrapping crescent rolls around marshmallows and baking them.  Today there are variations of that recipe all over the internet
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I wondered if, instead of dipping the marshmallows in melted butter and rolling them in a sugar/cinnamon mixture, I could borrow a technique from my Nutty Marshmallow recipe and dip the marshmallows in hot milk and roll them in the hot cocoa mix.  I figured that it couldn’t hurt to give it a try.

One caution, the crescent rolls must be very tightly sealed or the marshmallow will leak out while the buns are baking.  For easy clean-up, line your baking sheet with foil or parchment paper.  Some recipes have the buns baked in muffin cups.  If you do this, I would grease the muffin cups very thoroughly
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Since there are only two of use, I used one can of crescent rolls.  The recipe can easily be doubled, but it is not necessary to double the amount of milk.

The buns are best served warm, so if there are leftovers, I suggest reheating them in a microwave for about 15 seconds.

Chocolate Magic Marshmallow Buns
1/2 c. milk
1 can crescent rolls
8 marshmallows
1 envelope hot cocoa drink mix
toothpicks
1/3 . powdered sugar, sifted or put through a sieve

Place milk in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until hot.  Meanwhile open can and separate crescent rolls into wedges.  Place wedges on a foil or parchment-lined baking sheet.  Open envelope of cocoa mix and pour mix into a shallow pan.  Using a toothpick, dip a marshmallow into the hot milk.  You may have to tip the saucepan a bit to cover the marshmallow.  Roll marshmallow in the cocoa mix.  Place marshmallow on the wide end of crescent roll wedge.  Roll wedge around the marshmallow and bring sides together to seal tightly.  Repeat for remaining marshmallows and crescent roll wedges.  Bake at 375 degrees until lightly browned, about 10 minutes.  While buns are baking make the glaze by combining powdered sugar, any cocoa mix leftover from rolling the marshmallows and 1 T. of the milk the marshmallows were dipped in.  Mix until well combined.  Remove buns from oven and let cool slightly.  Brush buns with the glaze.  Serve warm.  Makes 8.  Store any leftover buns tightly covered.  Buns may be reheated for 15 seconds in the microwave.  Enjoy!

Check out the links below to see what other bloggers have made with cocoa mix and marshmallows.  If you would like to join in the fun of Dessert Challenge next month, you can find all out the information at Sheryl's Dessert Challenge page.

Maple Pear Walnut Pudding Cake-Dessert Challenge

The flavors for this month’s Dessert Challenge hosted by Sheryl at Lady Behind the Curtain are maple and pear.   These both make you think of the crisp, cool days of fall.

I chose to do a version of what we used to call pudding cake, which is a batter with a liquid mixture poured over it that then bakes into a yummy sauce below the cake.  When served, the sauce can be spooned over the cake.

The cake batter is very thick and full of pears.  I used diced Asian pears because that is what I had on hand, and I like their firmness.  Any other ripe, fresh pear can be used.  Out of season, canned pears can be used.  I added chopped walnuts for some crunch and  maple flavoring to the sauce mixture to make a maple/brown sugar sauce.

Hubby gave this dessert a 10

Maple Pear Walnut Pudding Cake

Cake Batter
1 c. flour
2/3 c. sugar
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1/2 c. milk
2 c. diced fresh pears or 1 (16 oz.) can pears, well drained and chopped.
1/3  c. chopped walnuts

Sauce
3/4 c. boiling water
1/4 c. butter
1/2 t. maple flavoring
3/4 c. brown sugar

In a medium mixing bowl combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.  Mix well.  Stir in milk.  The batter will be stiff.  Add pears and walnuts and mix well.  Spoon into well-greased 8-inch baking pan.  In a 2-cup glass measuring cup combine water and butter.  Microwave on high 4 to 5 minutes or until water is boiling and butter is melted.  Carefully remove from microwave and add maple flavoring.  Carefully stir in brown sugar until well combined. Pour over batter.  Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.  Serve slightly warm or at room temperature.  Makes 8 servings.

Next month's flavors are eggnog and cranberries.  If you would like to join in the fun, Sheryl has all the information here.

Linking to these great parties:
Full Plate Thursday
Tasty Thursday
Catch a Glimpse Party
Showcase Your Talent Thursday
Show Off Your Stuff Thursday

Check out the links below to see what other bloggers have made with pears and maple.

Almond Jam Palmiers-Dessert Challenge

 

The Dessert Challenge is a new monthly challenge hosted by Sheryl at Lady Behind the Curtain.  Each month she assigns two ingredients to be used in a dessert recipe.  This month the ingredients were almond paste and pastry.

After giving it some thought I decided to be straight forward and use puff pastry with the almond paste to make palmiers.  I had made some Crescent Nutella Jam Palmiers that I had previously posted, and decided that I would like to do the same this time.

This should have all been really simple, but it ended up being one of those cooking challenge things.  I had a package of puff pastry, but it had been in the freezer for awhile so I purchased a new package, except I purchased puff pastry shells by accident.  Living over 20 miles from the nearest grocery store that would carry puff paste, I couldn't jut pop there to pick up the correct thing.  That was challenge #1, so I was back to using the puff pastry I already had in the freezer.  Using WAY TOO MUCH JAM was challenge #2.  I used 1/2 c. for 1 sheet of pastry, but had used only 2 T. in my crescent palmiers. Not sure why I didn’t go look at that recipe to see how much I used then.  Challenge #3 happened when I didn’t quite understand the rolling directions so rolled the pastry too thin and did not fold it correctly.

The original recipe called for grating the almond paste and then mixing it in a food processor.  That seemed to be double work to me, so I just  sliced the almond paste into my Ninja food chopper, added the sugar and processed the two together.  This worked very well and eliminated the grating.  I don't like rolling out pastry directly on my counter so I rolled it out between two sheets of waxed paper.  This worked fine.  Although the instructions in the original recipe said to thaw the pastry sheets in the refrigerator, the package instructions said you could thaw the pastry at room temperature for 40 minutes so I just did that.

In the end, although the photos aren’t pretty, the palmiers were very good, and I will try this again, reducing the amount of jam.    Now I am going to have to find something to make with those puff pastry shells.

Almond Jam Palmiers
adapted from an Odense Almond Paste recipe
1 (7 oz.) package Odense Almond Paste
1/2 c. sugar
1 pkg (17.03  oz.) frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
2-3 T. jam for each  pastry sheet (opt.)
additional sugar

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or non-stick foil.  Remove pastry sheets from package and let set on counter for 10 minutes.   Slice almond paste and put into the bowl of a food processor or food chopper along with the 1/2 c. sugar.  Process until mixture is the texture of sand.  (There will be about 2 c. of almond sugar.)  Roll one sheet of pastry out between two sheets of waxed paper until it is 11x13-inches.  Spread with jam if using.  Sprinkle evenly with 1/2 cup almond sugar mixture.  Fold short edges to center.  Tightly roll folds so that they meet in the center.  Sprinkle with sugar and lightly press down.  Place in freezer 10 minutes.  Repeat procedure with second sheet of puff pastry.  Cut rolls into 1/2-inch slices.  Dip  one side in sugar and place on prepared baking sheet, sugar side up.  Bake at 400 degrees 12-15 minutes until lightly browned.  Store cookies in an air-tight container up to 3 days.  Cookies may be frozen.  Thaw and re-crisp in 300 degree oven for 5 minutes.  Freeze almond sugar up to three months for another recipe.  Makes about 32 to 36 palmiers.

 April's challenge will be Caramel and Pretzels.  You will find all the information about joining in the fun on Sheryl's Dessert Challenge page.

To see what other bloggers have made with almond paste and pastry, check out the links below.