#15 Fireworks Cake

I wanted a show-stopper cake for the 4th of July. Why not base it on my favorite aspect of the holiday--the fireworks!

Cake Recipe
Yellow Cake Mix, preferably all-natural variety, (see note) and the ingredients you need to make the cake per the box, plus 1 tsp of vanilla for the batter
1 cup cherry compote (recipe follows) OR 1 cup canned cherry pie filling
1 large can (16.2 oz) Duncan Hines whipped fluffy white frosting, divided or other white-white frosting of your choice
1 cup blueberry compote (recipe follows) OR 1 cup canned blueberry pie filling

For the chocolate ganache frosting (adapted from Southern Living):
2/3 cup whipping cream
6 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 T of corn syrup
1 tsp. vanilla
pinch of salt

Decorations...the "fireworks" I used here was a box of appetizer picks from Party City (Progressus Co. out of Canann, CT). I also used the toothpicks with the curly tinsel on the ends and some mini M&Ms type candies...along with several colors of Wilton edible glitter. If you can't find these things, just peruse the candy aisle at any drug store--Mike & Ike, Skittles, mini M&Ms, etc. could all make great decorations...Just have fun with it! This cake wasn't perfect looking and that added to the homemade charm to it.




Instructions: Bake the cake according to the box (adding the vanilla extract to the batter) in two greased and floured, 8" round cake pans. Let cakes cool completely.

While cake is baking, make the cherry and blueberry compotes if you wish to use them instead of canned variety (recipes follow).

Now it's time for the red, white and blue. When cakes and compotes are cool, evenly cut each round in half so you have four pieces. The first cake round should be "red" so put the cherry filling on top of this one.



Then, top with a cake round and to this one, frost with one cup of the fluffy "white" frosting.



Then, top with a cake round and to this add the "blue" blueberry filling.



Using more of the fluffy white frosting, "crumb coat" the cake by frosting with a very thin layer, filling in the gaps on the sides for a smooth, even finish. Refrigerate the whole cake for at least an hour. You want that frosting super cold lest the ganache melt it to soup on contact.

While cake is chilling, make the ganache--or the "night sky" of our fireworks motif. In small sauce pan on medium heat, heat the whipping cream, corn syrup and salt till very hot but not scorched. Remove from heat and add chocolate and vanilla, stirring till smooth. Set aside and allow to get to room temperature before pouring over cake.

Carefully set cake on rack over sink and pour room temperature ganache over cold cake. Smooth as needed with knife or spatula. Some white frosting may seep through but you can cover this up with decorations. Using a heavy duty spatula for lifting, then transfer the cake carefully to your platter. Set in refrigerator and chill till the ganache is set--will look more matte than glossy when it's ready--and doesn't stick to your fingers (another hour or so).

Decorate away.



Keep chilled until about 30 minutes prior to serving. It was soooooooo good.



Be sure to chill the leftovers...if there are any.

Notes: Why an all-natural cake mix? I like the convenience of a cake mix but don't care for that spongey texture and artificial "cake mix" flavor. Use whatever cake mix you like, but I find that the all natural ones, such as Naturally Nora or the Whole Foods brands have a genuine homemade taste to them without hassle of measuring, creaming butter, etc. And always add a teaspoon or so of vanilla or almond extract to the cake batter just to subtly enhance the flavor.

Cherry Compote Recipe (in place of canned pie filling)
1 c fresh cherries, washed and pitted
1/2 c water
1 T of maple syrup or corn syrup or honey (for mild sweetness and gloss)
1 T of corn starch
1/4 t of almond extract

Red food coloring (optional--I usually avoid but wanted red-red-red for this cake)
Put all in small sauce pan, stirring constantly and heat till bubbly and thick. Take off heat. Note, when stirring, I mashed up the cherries with the back of the spoon.



Blueberry Compote Filling (in place of canned pie filling)
1 cup of fresh blueberries, washed and picked through
1/4 cup of water
1 T of maple syrup or corn syrup or honey (for mild sweetness and gloss)
1 T of corn starch
1/4 t of lemon extract, juice or zest
Blue food coloring (optional--I usually avoid colors but wanted a true blue for this one)

Put all in small sauce pan, stirring constantly and heat till thick and bubbly. Take of heat. Here too, I tried to mash up the berries as I cooked them.

#14 Some side action

So if you haven’t read my smoked meat post from last week , you should. To go along with that, figured I’d share my recipes for the sides. My sour cream potato salad is absolutely divine. I’m German, so I like a little tanginess to my potatoes from the vinegar - plus it doesn’t use mayonnaise, which cuts down on the fat (the bacon is a pure indulgence)

The green beans are something I make all the time. It’s a snap literally to make. I always buy the fresh snap beans from the produce section and they’re usually dirt cheap. I use a pressure cooker to make them (pic below) – I’ve got the old style with the rocker that makes a ton of noise.

The reason I do these 2 together is simple– I only have to cook the onions and bacon once then split them between the dishes.



Green Beans
Bag of fresh green beans (ends snapped off and snapped to designed length)
1 onion (thinly sliced)
1 carton chicken stock
3 bacon pieces
1 tsp garlic
Salt (to taste)

Caramelize the onion first and set aside. Chop the bacon into small pieces and cook in the pan. After 5 minutes, add in everything – beans, onion, chicken stock, salt, and garlic. For my pressure cooker, I usually wait till the chicken stock starts boiling then put the lid on. I’ll cook till the rocker starts ticking fast for a minute then I turn off the heat. I’ll just let it sit there for a while till it’s pressured down. It really doesn’t take that long and you can always steam it back up if it’s not as cooked.



Sour Cream Potato Salad
6-8 red potatoes
1 onion – thinly chopped and caramelized (ie cooked for 20-30 min in a frypan on medium)
2 Tbls white wine vinegar
3/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup plain yogurt
4 pieces of bacon, fried and chopped
1 tbls dill
Half a bunch of green onions, chopped finely
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut the potatoes in half and boil for 10 minutes (starting with them in the cold water pot). Drain and slice potatoes. Drizzle vinegar over potatoes and stir. Season with salt liberally. Mix in everything else and refrigerate. You can always add more yogurt and sour cream if you’d like it creamier.

#13 S'mores for a Crowd

You don't need a campfire to make s'mores and it's an easy, fun throw together dessert for a crowd. And my way is really safer than a campfire especially if a lot of little kids are in your party. Here's how I do it.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Be careful to not let paper hang off side of pan since you're going to put it on the grill and it could catch fire (p.s. marshmallows can catch on fire too! So stay with this as you make it.)



When grill is around 300+ put lined pan on grates. (What are those square things you ask? Vegan marshmallows. We had a vegan in my dinner party. You can find these in the Whole Foods fridge section with the cookie dough.) Check in a minute, should look like this:

Check again in another minute, and it should look like this.

It's now time to take off the grill and assemble with the Hershey Bars and Grahams. Put on platter so your guests can dive in.

I think my wee guests liked them. I guess that's an expression of yum :-)

Lagniappe - A Hamburger First

This is my colleague Ema. She is from Bulgaria. She's lived in Vancouver for about seven years. She had never had a hamburger. Until last week. When a "Five Guys" was next to our place of business and well, we just insisted she try it. Thumbs up!

Seriously, if you see a Five Guys. Indulge. Quite possibly the best burger I've ever had in my life. Sorry Huey's fans.

#12 Pink Lemonrita on a hot day

…so I really wanted to come up with a drink that rocked. Preferably something summery and slightly sweet. The Pink Lemonrita does it all. The key to this drink is a whole lemon. No need to waste all that beautiful sour meat for just the juice. Just take a knife and chop off all the skin. Quarter it only to remove the seeds easier, then throw it straight into the blender.

I also didn’t want to use any simple syrup – who really has that just sitting in their fridge? …powdered sugar will work for this. It blends nicely and doesn’t leave the texture that normal sugar leaves behind.



Pink Lemonrita
1 whole lemon, skinned and de-seeded
1 shot Tequila
1 shot Triple Sec (or other orange liquer)
1 Tbls powdered sugar
1 Tbls grenadine
Blend everything together with about 2 cups of ice. Serves 2 people or 1 very thirsty person. Enjoy!!

Lagniappe: Ode to Hydrangea

Oh Hydrangea/Pom Pom/Snowball Bush...

Thou is persnickety over just enough sun to bloom but not too much to scorch…

With your vast plumes of blue or pink or white or purple or green or violet and the surprise of what will come hence forth…

How abundant you are in the summer down South!

How I envy my neighbor’s yard abound with thee!


One mere trip to Mother’s yard is all one needs for happiness to lay eyes on her burning bush of violet plumes…


And how free with a mere snip or two for the wedding vase…be banished fancy florists who have the gall to charge $15 a stem.

#11 - Grill Cupcakes

No, not cupcakes you do "on" the grill, cupcakes you make that look like a grill. Perfect for Father's Day and compliments of Family Fun magazine.

Click here for website and then search A Grate Gift for Dad.

#10 Today we will be smoking….

…meat that is. This bad boy creates a perfect blend of moist meat with a smoky crust of deliciousness. I’ll share some secrets with you. …and I’m actually quite jealous too – my fiancé’s at home enjoying the leftovers while I’m in Charlotte on business. I have a feeling there’s going to be nothing left to enjoy when I get home.

In terms of equipment, we use a nice electric smoker – it takes all the hassle out of everything. You literally fill the side with these pre-bought, wood chip circle thingies and turn it on. It’ll smoke for a long time as long as you keep the wood chips filled. For the wood itself, we used a combination of mesquite and hickory.

So what will we be smoking? Ribs and brisket of course. I’m from Texas, so to smoke without beef is blasphemy. To all of you who are notorious for smothering your meat in BBQ sauce, this meat will remain pure. It’s so delicious and flavorful all by itself (and delicious cold too – I can testify it tastes wonderful right out of the fridge).

The key to a great brisket is a good cap of fat. Sure, make sure it’s an overall good piece of meat, but don’t be cutting at it with the trimming knife unless there’s a big knob or hanging fat.



Ribs are pretty standard. We could have gone the dinosaur bone like Beef ribs, but we tend to like pork in this aspect. In terms of spare or baby back, I prefer baby back. Both kinds are taken from separate areas of the rib cage. Spare ribs usually are a little less meaty with more bone and fat. …for now, we’ll stick with baby back.



The recipe for this is fairly simple. We’re not a fan of sweet meat that much, so you’ll see there’s no sugar in our rub.

Spice Rub
3Tbs Paprika
1Tbls Lawry’s seasoning salt
1Tbls garlic powder
2Tbls onion powder
2Tbls kosher salt
1Tbls black pepper

Mix all of the above together and before you put on the brisket, take some extra kosher salt and season the brisket first. It may seem like a lot when it’s in the rub and on the brisket too, but it’s not – believe me.



First drizzle a little Worcestershire sauce over the brisket to make it a little moist, then sprinkle the spice rub liberally over the meat – pat it down with your hands so it looks moist and won’t fall off the brisket when you turn it over. Do the same to the other side as well as the ribs.



Once the meat is good and seasoned, wrap in foil well – wrap 2 times just in case because you don’t want the juices to drip everywhere. It makes a tasty sauce later…



After that, you can either place in the oven on 250 degrees or in the smoker. For us, we placed the brisket in the smoker at 7:30 that morning and around noon, we took it out, snipped a corner of the foil and drained the juice into Tupperware. Remove it from the foil and place it back in the smoker to develop a crust. At that same time we also placed 1 rib packet in the smoker and the other rib packet in the oven.

From here, the brisket is just going to smoke away, but you’ll need to remove the foil packet from the ribs in about 2.5 hours so it has time to smoke as well. Here’s the breakdown of our timing:

Brisket: 5 hours in the foil, 5-6 hours out of the foil in the smoker
Ribs: 2 hours in the foil, 3 hours out of the foil in the smoker (or the whole time in the oven)



This is what the brisket will look like – it’s not burnt, but a delicious spice crust.



…and of course the money shots. You may ask why the ribs look different. I cooked 1 in the smoker as described above and 1 in the oven. For the oven ribs, I took out at the very end, basted in a little BBQ sauce and put under the broiler. They’re were both absolutely delicious. The oven ones were a little more moist, but that’s expected – but the smoked ones had of course the flavor that you just can’t get from an oven.



Also don't forget you have the beef spice juice. I usually put it in the fridge to get cold so i can skim the fat off ...then you have delicious juice to moisten some of the edge pieces and leftovers if they're a little drier the next day.





Long story short, if you don’t have a smoker- get one …you will not regret it.

Lagniappe - Mama D's Italian Ice

If you haven't experienced Mama D's Italian Ice, do yourself a favor and try some this summer. She's at the Agricenter Farmer's Market on Saturdays from 9a - 3p and at the Memphis Botanic Garden Farmer's market on Wednesday's starting at 2:00.

Delicious fruity flavors--and even chocolate on occasion. Much more sorbet in texture than snow cone. Refreshing! We vote for the cherry or the mango as shown here.

#9 Don't judge a book by its...

Skin? …so I know I foreshadowed the Fajita recipe next, but I need to perfect it a little more and I’ll post. For now, I’d like to introduce you to Paprika chicken. At first look, it’s burnt and overcooked, but believe me – underneath that blackened skin is juicy chicken meat. If you’d rather not attempt the grill with this one, the oven is perfectly acceptable.

On a side-note, went to a Keith Urban concert this past weekend in Baton Rouge at the Bayou Country Superfest – it was absolutely awesome… The guy really knows how to put on a show. Wish I could show you pictures, but they had a ban on all fancy cameras (i.e. those that have removable lenses) The funniest part was there was clearly 2 kinds of people at the Superfest – the Keith Urban fans were late 20s and up, drinking beer and having a good time. …I happen to sit next to a 10 year old obviously there for Taylor Swift, who was going on right after him. Her boredom was very apparent after I noticed her Dippin’ Dots consumed more of her attention than Keith Urban.

In the end, the blood-curdling screams of adolescent girls was too much to handle after Taylor came on stage. What was worse was Taylor’s vacant stare into the audience and slow speech of how much she loves us all. Long story short, Keith was a concert to definitely visit again – but I’d pass on Ms. Swift next time…

Ok, so on to the reason of the post – the tangy smokiness of Paprika chicken. Step 1 is to Butterfly the chicken. It’s really easy and just involves some kitchen shears:



All you have to do is snip through the skin up each side of the backbone and discard it:



Then you need to crack the breast bone by flipping it over and applying pressure to the breast plate. The goal is to have the chicken lay flat so the meat cooks evenly on the grill:




Lastly, mix all the ingredients together in a bag with the chicken and let it marinate overnight.







In the end, I would cook the chicken for at least 20-30 minutes per side. Keep the grill on low and keep an eye on any flames. In the meantime, lets go prepare the most delicious spinach salad.



For the absolutely delicious tangy dressing, mix together all these ingredients in a Tupperware and share hard just before using:

1/4 cup white sugar (add more sugar if you like it sweeter)
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup vegetable oil



Then when you’re ready to eat, just take a handful of spinach, sprinkle with dried cranberries, pine nuts (toast a little in a skillet beforehand), a little bit of poppy seeds (optional) and then some of your homemade salad dressing. Feel free to add as much or as little as you want.





Paprika Chicken
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup olive oil
1 Tbls chopped garlic
2 Tbls smoked paprika
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 whole chicken (3 -4 pounds)

Rinse the chicken first. Mix together the vinegar, oil, garlic, paprika, and salt in a re-sealable plastic bag. Using the techniques I describe above, remove the backbone from the chicken then place in the bag. Make sure the chicken is coated well. Place in the fridge overnight until ready to cook the next day – flip the bag over occasionally throughout.

Set your grill to Low. Remove chicken from the marinade and discard the bag. Place chicken, skin side down, on grill. Close cover, and grill 25 minutes. Flip the chicken carefully and close cover. Grill until an instant-read thermometer inserted into thickest part of the breast registers 165 degrees, about 20-25 minutes more.