Pistachio Cake

I believe I've mentioned this before, but in my family I let the birthday person tell me what he/she wants for their birthday cake.  My husband generally enjoys all the cakes I make.  Although I recently found out he wasn't a fan of the chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.  But not because the it didn't taste good, he doesn't care for peanut butter icing.  Each year he tries to go with something completely different.  This year, as you could guess from the title of the blog, he chose Pistachio Cake.

Let me back up.  My oldest daughter got me a cupcake cookbook for my birthday.  This is where he found the recipe for Pistachio cupcakes.  I didn't care for the icing that it called for so I created my own sour cream icing.  Didn't taste too bad.

All the dry ingredients, including cardamom - which is what is on top.

A nice bowl of shelled pistachios!

Chop the pistachios.

Mix into the batter

Pour into cake pans.  I used the 8" cake pans

Bake for appropriate amount of time.  This looks burnt or
 over done but that is due to the color of the batter.

Turn out onto a cooling rack.

Now I just want to say, this is NOT my typical cake.  Usually
I take the time to decorate it.  This was the sour cream icing.
After several trial and errors I came up with a good icing.
BUT I DIDN'T WRITE IT DOWN!!  

Added more of the pistachios on the outside to try to make it look....interesting?

Not bad.  Jeff liked it.  I believe my mother-in-law liked it as well.

I'm happy to make whatever cake you want, however, that doesn't mean I actually have to like the cake.  There are things I would change about the cake.  I'm not big on nuts in my baked goods.  I don't put nuts in brownies, or cookies.  There's just something about the texture that I really don't like.  Although, if I make baked goods that I don't like, then I won't eat them!!!

Yet another update!

I want to extend my gratitude to all of those that check back with my blog.  I have not forgotten about you!!!

Here is the most current information.  I have been busy working and packing and preparing.  We are getting the moving truck on September 28th.  We have allocated 3 days to load and clean the house.  I'm hoping it doesn't take that long since we've been getting rid of a lot of stuff.  Hopefully we can leave a day sooner.

We rented our house.  We have a 3 year lease!  It's a couple in their early 60's, she's actually 62 and is a nurse at the same hospital I do agency work for.  They want the house for 3 years because she will retire then and then they'll move back to Omaha, NE.

We plan on being at my sister's house around October 5th.  Then we leave Avery (my youngest daughter) with my sister and drive down to Huntsville, AL and put our stuff in storage.  Then head back to my sisters, (it's a 3 - 3 1/2 hour drive) for the weekend.  My niece's birthday is 10/10, my sister is having a birthday party for her.  No, I'm not making a cake!!

We don't have a house yet, so we will be camping until we do.  Which won't be too long.  I do enjoy camping and I am hoping the weather will still be wonderful!!  I will have my laptop with me so I can update you all on what's going on!!  Until then I will try to leave you some blogs of what I've been doing, so check back often!!

Didn't forget!

I just wanted to give you all a quick update to what is going on.  I haven't posted in a while, I apologize for that.  That doesn't mean I haven't been creating!!  I've got goodies in store for you!

I've also been getting ready for a tremendous yard sale!  We have been going through every room and getting rid of anything we can.  If we haven't used it in a year and it's not sentimental - get rid of it!  We plan on moving in the very near future and were having a difficult time figuring out where we want to move to.  In the meantime we are packing and cleaning out.  Now, we're not packing everything, just everything we don't need.  All of our books are packed (with a few exceptions).  I think last count we were at 34 boxes of books!  That's worth the space in the truck.  We've been selling stuff on Craig's list, and now we're having a 3 day yard sale, WITH a lemonade stand and baked goods.  We make fresh squeezed lemonade, which I'll be documenting.  Also I'll be making the candied lemon peels, why not make the most of it???

I will be back next week with more postings.

Oh, we are 99% sure we're moving to Alabama!!  Everyone is so excited!  Including AVERY!!  YAY!  She's excited because she'll get to visit her aunt more often (her words).  STAY TUNED!!

Ice Cream Cake

For my children's birthday I give them the choice for their cakes.  My oldest always gets the chocolate cake with peanut butter icing.  Both of my sons always choose the ice cream cake.  My youngest daughter changes it up, but for the past two years it has been the ice cream cake.  Other years its been chocolate and sometimes vanilla. 

Well, this year for my son's birthday he chose the ice cream cake.  It's a delicious cake - of course - and very easy to make.  And, yes I will give you the recipe.

The ice cream cake actually doesn't contain cake.  The crust is made out of Oreos, then layered with ice cream, then the chocolate sauce, then the whipped topping.

The recipe:
1 lb of Oreos
2/3 c butter, melted.
1/2 gallon of vanilla ice cream -  softened
4 oz sweet German chocolate
1/2 c butter
2/3 c sugar
2/3 c evaporated milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1 lg container of Cool Whip
Pecans (optional)

I should warn you - I never follow a recipe exactly.  For instance - the original recipe doesn't actually call for a whole lb of Oreos.  It actually calls for 24.  But what fun is that?  So if I increase the amount of Oreos, then by rights I should increase the butter that I'm going to pour over the Oreos.  The original recipe calls for 1/2 cup of butter at this step.  But if you have more Oreos - then you need more butter.  

 I place the Oreos in a plastic bag before I crush them.  These happen to be double stuffed Oreos.  I actually didn't intend on getting those.  And it is mandatory that you try one or two, or three, before crushing.  I mean, you have to make sure they're fresh right?

 After beating with a mallet.

 Pour them in a 9x13" pan

 Pour the melted butter over the Oreos, mixing well to ensure all the Oreos are wet with the butter.  Here I actually had more butter than needed, because the Oreos were fewer in number due to the double stuffing.  And possibly because there were just fewer in number as well!

When you have spread the Oreo/Butter mixture evenly place in a freezer to freeze. 

 Take your 4 oz of Sweet German's Chocolate - I use Baker's brand - place it in a sauce pan along with your butter.

 Melt together.  Then add the sugar, evaporated milk, vanilla and salt, stirring well to combine.

 Bring the chocolate mixture to a boil, then reduce and continue to cook another 5-10 minutes, until thickened.

 While the chocolate is cooling, remove the Oreo crust from the freezer, spread the softened ice cream evenly over the crust.  You can use a spatula or your hands or both.

 Usually I leave out the ice cream when I start crushing the Oreos.  While the recipe calls for plain vanilla ice cream we use different kinds.  My son want cookies n'cream ice cream this time.  Sometimes we use 1/2 gallon of vanilla and 1/2 gallon of something else - then spread each 1/2 gallon on half the pan.

Place the ice cream/crust back in the freezer to re-freeze.  The chocolate takes sometime to cool. 

 Once the chocolate is cool, remove the ice cream pan from the freezer and pour the chocolate mixture over the ice cream layer.

 Spread evenly.  If you don't I guarantee you there will be a fight in the house about who has more chocolate in their piece!!  Return to freezer to re-freeze. 

 Once the chocolate has frozen (maybe 30 min) spread the cool whip on top.  Return to freezer.  At this point you're finished. 

 You can color the cool whip if you'd like for different effects.

 This year my daughter wanted her cake to be a forest with wild animals.  She would not allow me to decorate the cake with icing, but rather requested the toys.

Last year she wanted a dolphin theme so the cool whip was colored blue for the water.  (Those are Zinnia cupcakes in the background!)  Again, no decorating!! 

 MMmmm, the chocolate has this chocolate caramel taste and texture to it! 

You can use regular icing to decorate with, it turns out fine.  I've found the butter cream icing and the rest of this cake doesn't taste as well together as you might think.  Which is why I don't decorate it.  I suppose you could use a whipped icing.  Maybe I'll try that next time.  For me this is an easy out... I don't have to decorate the cake!! 

I hope you all enjoy this cake as much as we do.  I've been making this ice cream cake for 24 years.  I bought the cookbook in Russellville, Arkansas.  It was one of those books that were made for fundraisers.  This one was compiled by the Board of Parish Fellowship of St. John's Lutheran Church.  The woman who submitted the recipe was Caroline Grenwelge. 

Vacation part 2

Camping wasn't the end of our vacation.  We came back on June 26th, put everything away, did the laundry, then prepared for our next trip.  We are going to California!  

Mt. Shasta - I think

We left on June 30th to spend July 4th with some friends of ours in Benicia, CA.  We arrived July 1st .  We spent Saturday, Sunday and Monday with the Howe family!  Beautiful house and great pool.  I did get sunburned, which doesn't happen.  Mostly because we don't have sun in Washington.  

Avery cleaning the pool - she hates bugs!

Salted caramel - made treats for the Howe family!!

 On Tuesday we went to Santa Cruz so my husband can visit his old stomping ground at UCSC!  We went to the boardwalk in Santa Cruz.

Jeff and Avery on the Pirate Boat!

Tyler on whatever this thing is called.

 On Wednesday we left the Howe's and spent the day in San Francisco.  My husband lived several years there so we went on a tour of where he used to live.  Explored Chinatown and the Italian section of the city (which are next to each other).

A 'real' Italian Market

Outside of the Italian Market

Chinatown!

Nobb Hill

  I have to confess, I was the one driving and while I was driving normal for most of the time it became rapidly apparent that that wouldn't work.  People kept blowing their horns, not necessarily at me but at people in front of me.  Okay!  Time to switch hats from Seattle driving to East coast driving!!  At one point my son said, "SLOW down mom!!"  WHOOO HOOO!!  I love it!!  (I know, bad example!)  BUT - the horn blowing stopped!

Golden Gate Bridge

We decided we would take the coastal highway home.  We stayed the night in Santa Rosa and took route 1 north to 101. Spent the night in Garberville so we could do the Avenue of the Giants.  Then spent the night in Crescent City.  The next day was Oregon, finally arriving home on July 9th, I think.

The following pictures are a few of my favorite.  I took 691 pictures of this trip.  It is so hard to decide which one was my favorite.  Sometimes I changed the settings on the camera and took multiples of the same shot to see how different they would be.

That's a chocolate mustache on Avery!

This tree is falling over, not sure what is holding it up!

Obviously we stopped along the way home.  I have the travel book on fiber and fabrics so we were able to stop at a bunch of towns and shop at the yarn stores.  Some good, some not so good.  The kids did fabulous!   Being able to travel like we did, stopping when we wanted, was an excellent way to go.  I recommend anyone to travel route 1 then 101.  I have to say that 101 in Oregon wasn't that exciting.  The coast of California and Oregon are amazingly different.  Personally I prefer the coast of California.  

The Redwoods through the Avenue of the Giants are gorgeous!  It took all day to do the 34 mile route.  Its very difficult to not take pictures of every single tree!!  That is another trip everyone should experience.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures!  Between my husband and I we probably have over 1000 pictures of our trip!