Instapot Cheese Cake

I just found this recipe for cheesecake in the Instapot and it turned out delicious and pretty quick and easy for a cheesecake.  This chocolate chip version was delicious, but next time I think I'll try a raspberry version. I found this recipe in Taste of Home and I give it a two thumbs up.

1 c. graham cracker crumbs (or 1 pkg. graham crackers crushed fine)

1 Tblsp. brown sugar

dash of salt

2 pkg. (8oz.) cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. sugar

1/2 tsp. vanilla

2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

1/2 c. miniature semisweet chocolate chips

 

1. Place trivet insert and 1 c. water in a 6-qt. spring form pan with parchment.  In a small bowl, mix cracker crumbs, brown sugar and salt; stir in butter.  Press onto bottom of prepared pan.  Freeze while preparing filling. 

2. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until smooth.  Add eggs; beat on low speed just until blended.  Fold in the chocolate chips. Pour over crust. Cover springform pan with paper towel and foil.  Fold an 18 x 12 " piece of foil lengthwise into thirds, making a sling. Use the sling to lower pan onto trivet.

3. Lock lid; close pressure-release valve.  Adjust to pressure-cook on high for 30 minutes. Allow pressure to release naturally. Using foil sling, carefully remove pan. Uncover; cool on a wire rack 10 minutes. Loosen edge of cheesecake with a knife. Cool 1 hour longer. Refrigerate overnight, covering when completely cooled. Remove rim from pan. Refrigerate leftovers.

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cake

I just got this recipe from Dottie Cole (our Bishop's wife).  I was asked to prepare dessert for 200 and make it a Valentine theme and she had this recipe, which turned out to be delish. I found the Danish Junket online and also used a vanilla cake mix which I also found online, but any white/yellow mix will probably work.  Her recipe also called for chopped up strawberries put into the junket, but it was a really beautiful dessert just frosted with the whipped cream mixture with the junket poured over it so it ran down the sides a bit and then topped with a strawberry with the cap still on.

Mix together and set aside:

1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1 c. powdered sugar

Beat together:
1 c. whipping cream (you can substitute cool whip, just not as good as cream)
1/4-1/2 (depends how sweet you want it) sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Fold the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture and frost the cooled cake.  You could also just dollop this on top of the cake and either drizzle the danish junket on the cake first or drizzle it over the top of the cream...the skies the limit.
Make the Danish junket as directed on the package and cool.  You probably want to make the sauce version of it, although I did the one with 2 c. water and just mixed it up with a mixer the next day and it was fine.
 
   

Pumpkin Spice Cake

This is moist and delish!! I make it as cupcakes, regular cake, or a bundt cake.  I also have a non-cake mix version of this recipe which is also yummy.  This recipe came from the first Cake Doctor book, which is my favorite cake recipe book, although, her 3rd book is also great!
Duncan Hines changed the size of their cake mixes and when these books were published, they used the bigger box so I just add 1/4 c. more cake mix (I always buy an extra cake mix of the flavor I'm using). 
You can frost this with regular cream cheese frosting or with the orange cream cheese frosting...both yummy!

Spray and flour a bundt pan, or just spray a cake pan, or just get your cupcake papers ready.

1 pkg. (15.25 oz.) plain spice cake mix (Plus the 1/4 c. more)
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. water
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ginger
3 large eggs, room temp.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Place all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix for about 2 minutes, scraping the sides and making
     sure it's all mixed nicely.
Pour into your prepared cake pan, bundt pan, or fill cupcake papers 2/3 full.
Bake for a cake about 25-30 minutes, a bundt about 35-40, cupcakes about 15-20.
Let cool thoroughly...Flip the bundt cake onto a plate or cooling rack after it has cooled for 20 min.

Frosting: (reg. cream cheese)
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 c. sifted powdered sugar

Orange cream cheese frosting:
1 stick butter, room temp.
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. grated orange zest
2 - 3 tsp. fresh orange juice
3 3/4 c. powdered sugar

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake

This is a copycat version of Nothing Bundt Cakes which I'm currently obsessed with.  I get in these little (gotta find the best of the best) obsessive things now and then and right now it happens to be Bundt cakes.  Probably cause of Baylie's wedding where she originally was wanting Nothing Bundt Cakes but has now changed her mind but now I'm into it and have found some yummy ones.

1 pkg. Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Better Crocker)
1 pkg. instant chocolate pudding
1 c. sour cream
4 large eggs, room temp.
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. oil
1 1/2 c. mini chocolate chips

Mix first six ingredients together in a mixer or with beaters.  Stir in chocolate chips.
Pour into a greased, floured bundt cake pan.  (Cooking spray works great)
Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes.  Remove from oven.  Let cool for 20 minutes.
Remove cake from bundt pan by placing a plate upside down over the bundt pan.  While holding the
     plate firmly on top of the bundt pan flip both over so the cake comes out onto the plate.
Cover the cake with a large bowl or plastic wrap and place it in the fridge till chilled.

Frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter
3 1/2 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp. vanilla extract

In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy.
Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the powdered sugar.  Start with 2 cups then keep adding
     more until it is nice and thick.  You can add a tiny bit of milk if it's too thick.
Spoon the frosting into a Ziplock resealable gallon bag.  Clip one bottom corner of the bag.  Squeeze      frosting out of the bag onto the cake in strips or any other way you'd like.

Red Velvet Whoopie Pies

These are a recipe Baylie makes and they're very yummy.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

I love the Pumpkin Spice bundt cake from Everything Bundt Cakes.  I found this recipe and if it's not the same recipe, then it's a darn good replica. I got it from The Taste of Home magazine.

3/4 c. butter, softened
2 1/2 c. sugar
3 large eggs
1 (15 oz.) solid-pack pumpkin
2 1/3 c. all-purpose flour
1 Tblsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1 c. buttermilk

Frosting:
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. butter, softened
4 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Add pumpkin.  Combine Flour, pie spice, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, bakin soda and ginger, add to creamed mixture alternately with buttermilk, beating well after each addition.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full.  Bake 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool 20 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks to cool completely.
For frosting, in a large bowl, beat cream cheese and butter until fluffy.  Add powdered sugar, vanilla and cinnamon; beat until smooth.  Frost cooled cupcakes.
Yield: 24

Portillos Chocolate Cake

I think this may actually be "it".  I love Portillos chocolate cake and I found this recipe on Pinterest and have made it several times.  If I was blind folded and had the actual cake and this cake side by side, I don't think I would be able to find a difference.  And the best thing is how super simple and fail-proof this is.

1 box Betty Crocker Devils Food cake
3 eggs
1 c. cold water
1 c. regular mayonaise

2 cans Betty Crocker Chocolate frosting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 - 9" round cake pans.  Beat all 4 ingredients for 4 minutes till smooth.  Pour into pans and bake 25-30 minutes.
Cool 1 hour and frost with the 2 cans of frosting.

White Wedding Cake Cupcakes

This is an absolutely fabulous doctored up cake mix recipe...one of my favorites.  These turn out delicious, moist and fluffy cupcakes - perfect for holding buttercream frosting with a little cream cheese added to it.
Makes 24 cupcakes

1 (18.25 oz.) box white cake mix (I use Duncan Hines, but you'll have to add 1/4 cup more from a second box because they made the boxes smaller
1 c. flour
1 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. salt
1 1/3 c. water
2 Tblsp. oil
1 tsp. vanilla and you can also add 1 tsp. almond extract if you want to go that route
1 c. sour cream (light is ok)
4 large egg

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Place cupcake liners in pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix, flour sugar and salt.  Add remaining ingredients and beat with hand mixer for 2 minutes, or until well blended.
Use ice cream scoop to fill prepared cupcake tins - fill about 3/4 full.  Bake about 18 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Lemon Cream Cupcakes

These are lemony deliciousness. I'm kinda on a cupcake kick lately so I'm scanning pinterest and pinning all kinds and I can't wait to really start fining even more deliciousness. I found out that this cupcake recipe is from a girl in our singles ward that wrote the cookbook, Your Cup of Cake.  I am really excited to try even more of her recipes in particular since these were soooo yummy (and easy too since she just doctors up a cake mix).

Lemon Cake:
1 box White Cake mix (I used a yellow and it was fine)
4 egg whites
1/4 c. oil
3/4 c. buttermilk
1/4 c. lemon juice, freshly squeezed
3/4 c. sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla
Lemon Glaze:
5 Tblsp. lemon juice, freshly squeezed
1 tsp. lemon zest
1 1/2 c. powdered sugar
Cream Cheese Frosting:
1/2 c. butter, softened
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 tsp. vanilla
4 c. powdered sugar, sifted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line pans with cupcake liners.  Sift cake mix into a small bowl to remove any lumps.  In a large bowl, gently whisk egg whites, oil, buttermilk, lemon juice, sour cream, vanilla and lemon zest together.  Combine cake mix and wet ingredients and stir well.  Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Lemon Glaze:
In a bowl, combine all ingredients using a whisk.  Add powdered sugar until your glaze reaches the consistency of tomato soup.  Use a toothpick to punch small holes into the top of each cupcake so the glaze can sink into the cake (which is why you don't want your glaze too thick because it needs to soak in).  Spoon glaze over the nearly cooled cupcakes, and allow time for the glaze to set.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
Beat butter and cream cheese for 2 min.  Scrape down bowl and continue to beat in vanilla extract and powdered sugar.  Slowly add powdered sugar until you reach your desired consistency.  If frosting becomes too thick, add 1 Tblsp. milk. Pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes and top with lemon slices or sprinkles.

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes

These are seriously good.  I went into the city with a friend and we stopped at Sprinkles for some cupcakes.  I was really excited to taste the because I had heard so much about them.  I got 6 different kinds and took the home.  Then I split each one 6 ways (lots of fellow curious people at home) and we each tried them all.  I found that while they were very good, they were nothing that I couldn't make at home. That began my search for all the ultimate cupcakes I could find.  This one is my first.  Actually, my first would be my double chocolate fudge cake with the chocolate fudge frosting and whoopy pie cream in the center...yum.

Makes: 24 cupcakes
Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes:
1 box white (or yellow) cake mix - I use Duncan Hines but you'll have to add 1/4 c. more cake mix because
they've started making the mixes smaller
1 (3oz.) box strawberry jello
1/2 c. pureed strawberries (fresh or frozen)
1/2 c. frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed)
1/2 c. oil
4 eggs

Strawberry Lemonade Frosting:
1 c. unsalted butter (room temp.)
6 c. powdered sugar - sifted
1/2 c. pureed strawberries (fresh or frozen)
2 Tblsp. frozen lemonade concentrate (thawed)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line a cupcake pan with paper liners.
In a large bowl, whisk together cake mix and jello.  Add lemonade concentrate and oil; mix on medium speed.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating well.  Add strawberries and beat until blended.  Scoop with the scooper that's one step down from the ice cream size scooper and scoop one scoop into each liner and bake 18-20 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter with mixer until light and fluffy.  Add 3 c. powdered sugar, pureed strawberries and lemonade; mix well.  Mix in the remaining powdered sugar.

Pineapple Angel Food Magic

This cake is pretty amazing.  I got this off Pinterest and made it right when I saw it cause I was intrigued.  It's light and spongy and fat free.  I'm not a pineapple lover, but you don't really feel like you're eating pineapple when you eat this. It is really good with some light squirty whip on top.

1 box Angel Food cake
20 oz. can crushed pineapple

Combine and mix with a spoon in a bowl.  That's it....dump it into a greased 9x13 pan and bake at 350 for about 25 min. or until golden brown on top.
This might even be good as strawberry shortcake......

Brownie S'mores

These are pretty amazing.  I did like them better the next day, but even fresh, I thought they were pretty awesome and everyone else agreed.  This was a pinterest find (my new habit).  I tripled the recipe to get 3 dozen, but I think doubling the brownie part would be best and making the filling and graham as just a single recipe is good. (Although you will still have too much graham).  I used the 1" cookie scoop not packed to put the right amount of graham crumbs in each tin.

Banana Crumb Snack Cake

I got this recipe from the Taste of Home and everyone thought it was yum.  It helps get rid of the extra ripe bananas that might be floating around.  I used half wheat half white flour and I didn't have vanilla chips so I chopped 1 c. of white chocolate. I also found it took at least the full 40 min.

Banana Cake

I just pulled this off Food Network website because I had a plethera(?) of bananas so I decided to
play around and this turned out very good.  I just used a cream cheese frosting - I didn't try the one on the recipe.  It was also very good plain.

Greek Spice Cake

I got this from Taste of Home

Triple Lemon Cupcakes (Paula Deen)

2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 c. oil
3/4 c. milk
2 tsp. lemon zest
1/2 c. fresh lemon juice
1/2 c. sour cream
3 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Line 2 (12-cup) muffin pans with paper liners.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a medium bowl, combine oil, milk, lemon zest, lemon juice, sour cream, and eggs.
Add to flour mixture, beating at medium speed with a mixer until smooth.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups, filling two-thirds full.  Bake for 15 to 20
minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool in pans
for 10 minutes.  Remove cupcakes from pans, and cool completely on wire racks.

Lemon Curd Filling

1 (10-ounce) jar lemon curd
1 (8-ounce) container frozen whipped topping, thawed

Spoon Lemon Curd Filling into a squeeze bottle with a long narrow tip.  Insert tip
into center of cupcakes, and squeeze about 1 Tblsp. filling into each cupcake.
Reserve remaining filling for another use.  Spread Lemon Frosting over cupcakes.
Garnish with candy lemon wedges, if desired.  Store cupcakes, covered, in
refrigerator up to 3 days.
In a medium bowl, beat lemon curd and whipped topping at medium speed with
a mixer until smooth.  Store, covered, in refrigerator.

Lemon Frosting (makes about 3 cups)

1 c. butter, softened
2 tsp. lemon zest
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice
5 c. powdered sugar
1/2 c. sour cream

In a large bowl, beat butter, lemon zest, and lemon juice at medium speed with
a mixer until combined.  Add powdered sugar, beating until smooth.  Beat in sour
cream until conbined.

Milkyway Cake

(I heard Glenn Beck rave about this cake on his show- so I tried it and it's pretty good)

Chocolate-Sour cream frosting

In a large saucepan, melt one 12-oz. package semisweet chocolate pieces (2 c.) and 1/2 c. butter over low heat, stirring frequently. Cool the mixture for 5 minutes. Stir in one 8-oz. sour cream. Mixture may be slightly warm when powdered sugar is added. Gradually add 4 1/2 to 5c. powdered sugar, sifted (1 lb.) beating with an electric mixer until the frosting is smooth. This makes enough to frost tops and sides of two 8 or 9-inch cake layers. Halve the recipe to frost the top of a 13x9x2 inch cake.

Easy creamfilled Cupcakes

(Paula Deen - makes 2 doz.)

1 package golden butter cake mix

Cream Filling

Marshmallow Creme frosting

Prepare cake mix following cupcake directions. Let cupcakes cool completely.

Spoon Cream filling into a squeeze bottle with a long narrow tip or a pastry bag with a small tip. Insert tip into top of cupcake, and squeeze about 1 Tblsp. filling into center of cupcake. Repeat procedure with remaining filling and cupcakes.

Spread Marshmallow Creme Frosting over top of cupcakes. Store in refrigerator.

Cream Filling

1 (8-ounce) container cool-whip

1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened

1/2 c. powdered sugar

In a medium bowl, combine whipped topping and cream cheese. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in powdered sugar. Cover and chill. Let come to room temperature before filling cupcakes.

Marshmallow Creme Frosting

1/2 c. butter, softened

1 (7-ounce) jar marshmallow creme

2 3/4 c. powdered sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 Tblsp. milk

In a medium bowl, combine butter and marshmallow creme. Beat at medium speed with an electric mixer until smooth. Gradually beat in powdered sugar. Beat in vanilla and milk until spreadable consistency is reached.

German Chocolate Ooey-Gooey Butter Cake

(Paula Deen recipe - serves 10-12


1 box German chocolate cake mix
1 c. butter, melted and divided
3 large eggs, divided
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 (16-ounce) box powdered sugar
1 c. sweetened flaked coconut
1 c. chopped pecans


Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 13x9 inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, combine cake mix, 1/2 c. melted butter, and 1 egg. Beat at low speed with an electric mixer until combined. Press evenly into bottom of prepared pan; set aside.
In a large bowl, beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Beat in remaining 2 eggs and vanilla. Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smooth. Add remaining 1/2 c. melted butter, beating at low speed until combined. Stir in coconut and pecans. Pour evenly over cake mix layer. Bake for 45 minutes, or until center is slightly set. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.