Mother's Day Goodies

For Mother's Day this year I decided to put together some cute little packages of goodies for my mom, Josh's step-mom, and his grandmother. I put together smaller packages for both of my sister-in-law's and one for Josh's mom, to go with the plant she requested. Everything went over really well, so I thought I would share some of the goodies with you guys. The packages were comprised of a box of Chocolate Chip Cookies, Red Velvet Truffles, and Sugar & Spice Pecans.

Chocolate Chip Cookies
Adapted from Amy Sedaris and Nestle Toll House; makes 5 dozen












2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 1/4 cups flour
12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips

• Beat butter and sugars together. Add eggs and vanilla and mix. Gradually add flour, salt, and baking soda. Stir in the chocolate chips.
• Chill dough for at least 1 hour.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll into small balls and flatten in palm of hand. Place on greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 9-11 minutes.
  

My notes: Amy Sedaris adds more chocolate chips and pecans, but I decided to omit the nuts since I was already using pecans in another way and I was making smaller cookies so I used just one bag of chips. Instead of rolling and flattening the dough I used my cookie scoop to drop about 1 tablespoon or so of dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet. This made the cookies a little smaller, and allowed me to get more out of single batch of dough.

Red Velvet Truffles
Recipe from Bakerella; Makes about 50















1 box red velvet cake mix, cooked as directed on box for a 13x9" cake
1 16 oz. can cream cheese frosting
12 squares semisweet chocolate, melted
Decorations, optional

• After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting.
• Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. Chill for several hours. You can speed this up by putting in the freezer, which I did.
• Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper lined baking sheet until firm.

My notes: I sprinkled each truffle with some red decorative sugar, to match the interior. Refrigerate after completed. I made these a little smaller than I probably should have, so I actually have cake balls in the freezer to make more truffles later. I made 50 truffles, and still have plenty extra, so the next time I make them I will definitely make the balls bigger, and I might make two 9" cakes and use just one for truffles. These truffles were the biggest hit of all though, so I will definitely make them again.

Sugar & Spice Pecans










You can see the recipe for Sugar & Spice Pecans I've made before here.











And that's what came out of my kitchen for Mother's Day!

Seeing Red

I was originally going to make this cake as a Sugar High Friday event entry, but alas things just didn't work out the way I had hoped. In fact, I wasn't going to bother blogging about it at all, except that Josh is crazy about the darn thing. He has had a piece every night he's gotten home from work. Don't tell anyone, but tonight he had two! I agree that the cake is mighty tasty, although I'm not 100% over the moon for the frosting and cake combo. Anyway, I made the cake and icing last Friday night, but once they were each done it was late, so I wrapped everything up and stuck it in the refrigerator. Saturday I leveled the cake layers, got them stocked and put my crumb coat on. That was a little rough, thanks to my laziness in preparing the baking pans with only grease. The outside of the cake was a bit crumby, so I had my doubts about the crumb coat working at all. Well, I popped it back in the fridge, but then ran out of time. I left early Sunday morning for Louisiana for Uncle Sammy's funeral, and didn't get home till late Monday night. So the cake I baked Friday night wasn't completed till Tuesday afternoon. Which only adds to my surprise at Josh thinking it is so great. I pulled this recipe from my grandmother's recipe boxes. It's signed at the bottom with the name of her best friend and former neighbor, so it's not quite a family recipe. And it's almost common knowledge at this point that this cake doesn't actually have it's roots at the Waldorf Astoria, but I'm keeping the title all the same.

Waldorf Red Cake
Recipe from Pat Gilliland; Makes 2 9" cakes

1/2 cup shortening
2 eggs
1/4 cup red food coloring
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon salt
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon vinegar

• Cream shortening, sugar and eggs. Make paste of cocoa and food coloring and add to mixture. Add buttermilk and salt alternately with flour. Then add vanilla. Lastly add soda and vinegar.
• Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes in 2 9" pans.

My notes: I ended up baking my cakes for about 35 minutes. Also, I used one small bottle of red food coloring, which wasn't quite 1/4 cup. As you can see there wasn't any problem telling what kind of cake it is, so you could definitely use less coloring. I made a basic cream cheese frosting for this cake.

Cream Cheese Frosting
1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 8 oz. block cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla

• Beat the butter on medium for 2 minutes. Add the cream cheese and beat for another 2 minutes.
• Sift the confectioners sugar and add to butter and cream cheese. Beat for 2 minutes.
• Add vanilla and beat until well blended, light and fluffy.

My notes: Here in Texas, especially in the summer, this frosting can't stand up to much so this cake has to be kept in the refrigerator.