No Sugar Added Peach and Blueberry Cobbler (AKA Dump Cake)

I use to love to make a "dump cake."  You've probably heard of it, or even made one yourself.  It's that super simple, gooey-sweet dessert where you just layer a bunch of stuff in and put it in the oven.  In my "previous life" before I cut sugar out of my diet entirely, I made it the traditional way with a layer of pineapple, a layer of pie filling (apple usually), a layer of yellow cake mix, and butter on top.  Mmmmm, it was so good.  And what I loved about it was it was so simple.  Dump cake was my "go to" when I had to make something to take to a dinner party or barbeque gathering, and it was always a big hit.

Well, there are so many things with the dump cake that just are not compatible with eating sugar free, starting with that gooey super sugary pie filling.  So I just haven't even thought about making one in quite a while.

Recently, I was going to a friend-of-a-friend's house for Thanksgiving, and being raised as a good Southern girl I just could NOT show up empty handed, so I decided to make a sugar free dessert. 

I went to the grocery store and stood in the baking aisle staring at the options, or lack of options rather.  There were no cookie mixes in a sugar free variety, and very little other "box mixes" that were sugar free.

First, there was the box of Pillsbury sugar free brownies, which I have to say are pretty delicious but I just wasn't feeling in a brownie kind of mood.

Then I saw the Pillsbury Sugar Free Yellow Cake mix...

and I thought about dump cake.  As I stood there just staring at the box, I thought "wouldn't it be great if I could make a sugar free version of the dump cake?"  It didn't seem like that great of an idea actually at the time, because how would I duplicate that ooey-gooey-ness of the pie filling?  And obviously I couldn't just use pie filling!  I checked, there were none available in that grocery store at least that were sugar free.

But then I thought, well let's just think this through.  All we really need is two kinds of fruit, something to add a little bit of sweetness to the fruit's existing juices, and the cake mix on top, and really it should come out right, right?

That lead me further down the aisle to the canned fruit section, where I discovered just how much added sugar is typically in a can of fruit.  Unbelievable!  Then I saw this -

Hmm, no sugar added canned peaches.  I thought I could probably duplicate something similar to the gooey pie filling with no sugar added canned peaches, in their juices, and a sweetener.  So I put those in the basket with the cake mix, threw in some chopped pecans for good measure, and headed to the produce section.  There I picked up two containers of fresh blueberries as my second fruit.

As I've said, the great thing about dump cake is that it is so simple.  I just waited until the day-of to assemble it and bake it before heading out for Thanksgiving dinner.

First, I put three cans of no sugar added peaches in the bottom of a large pyrex dish.

Next, I mixed two tablespoons of Splenda in with the peaches and their juice to try to replicate the sweetness of pie filling.

I let it sit for a while, probably 20 to 30 minutes, and then stirred again to get the sweetness of the Splenda really blended into the fruit juice.

Next, I added the blueberries on top of the peaches

After that, I literally just dumped the cake mix into the dish, spreading it over the top of the fruit.

Then I cut up 1 1/2 sticks of butter into small pieces, and spread those pieces out on top of the cake mix.

Finally, I sprinkled chopped pecans across the top layer, and then baked it in a preheated 400 degree oven for about 45 minutes.

I have to say it did turn out pretty delicious, and everyone at the Thanksgiving gathering loved it.  It kind of came out more like a peach cobbler because the bottom layer still wasn't quite as gooey as you may be use to with a dump cake. Whatever you call it,  I consider it a successful experiment overall!

Southern Praline Pecan Poundcake

Your Aunt Dawn gets the credit for this recipe for sure!  She made this for us this summer while we were in Florida and it is the MOST delicious poundcake EVER! AND it's EASY! You will definitely impress your friends with this cake. 

1 box of Butter Pecan Cake mix (Duncan Hines)
1 container of coconut pecan frosting (Duncan Hines)
4 eggs
3/4 cups oil
1 cup water
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 and you'll be baking it for 50 minutes.  You can use a tube pan or a bundt pan, but I use bundt because it looks so beautiful when you get done!  (an FYI on the bundt pan, I recently bought a new one at Walmart, can't remember how much,  I think it was $12, but definitely less than $20.  It is RED on the outside, and has an enamel coating on the inside - I LOVE IT!)
Spray the pan with pam for baking, or your favorite cooking spray. (I have used the original pam when I didn't have the one for baking and it turned out fine.)  In the bottom of the pan, sprinkle about 1/2 cup of pecans. Set aside.  Mix all the other ingredients - YES, the frosting too! - together and beat with electric mixer about 3 minutes.  It will be lumpy of course - you have pecans and coconut in there! Pour it into the pan on top of the pecans, and tap it on the side a couple of times to even it out on top.  Bake it for 50 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. 

Let it cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then put a plate on top of the pan, turn it over and TADA!!!!  I sprinkle a little powdered sugar on top.  One of my co-workers wants me to try a bouron glaze on top, but I haven't yet.  I'll post a photo as soon as I get this one out of the oven. 

Decorative Ball with Paper Flowers

A few weeks ago I posted here about making paper flowers out of recycled / upcycled magazine pages.  After making LOTS of those cute little flowers, I decided to make a larger craft project using the flowers and made two pomanders (decorative balls).

Pomanders are those decorative balls with paper, silk or sometimes even real flowers that you see on the back of chairs or the ends of pews sometimes in weddings.  They can also be used as a cute hanging decoration for a garden tea party or just inside somewhere.

To make the pomanders, I chose two different sizes of styrofoam balls.  I found "smooth styrofoam" ones at Michaels which were much easier to work with than those with a rough, grainy surface.  Using hot glue, I attached each of the individually made flowers onto the ball, and also attached a long white ribbon for hanging.  Here are some photos of the results:

With Alison and Stephen opening their Etsy shop to sell handmade items in order to raise money for their Uganda adoption (check it out at http://www.etsy.com/shop/Uganda1418), I thought these cute decorative accents would make a good addition to the other items they are offering.  So, I'm sure these little flowers are going to keep me very busy crafting!

Flowers from recycled magazines

I always have way too many old magazines and catalogs lying around the house.  Even when I throw piles of them away, it seems like there are still piles around the house!  So while I usually at least recycle them, I thought it would be neat if I could find a craft project that would reuse these magazines and catalogs for something fun and creative.  After research and thinking about other "paper crafts" I decided to work on making paper flowers out of the pages of the magazines.

Here's the info on what I did to make these cute flowers:

First, I took apart an entire Williams-Sonoma catalog so that the pages were each separated from one another.

Next, I drew a spiraling circle on the page, with the spiral going all the way in to the middle.  On the picture above, I used a kind of wide width spiral to show up clearly.  However, I found as I worked that the width of the spiral does make a difference in the flowers.  For flowers that look more like an unopened rose bud, a wider width - of about 3/4 inch to an inch is good.  But for the flowers I was doing, which were ultimately more open and spread out looking, a skinner width - 1/2 inch or so - worked better.  You can totally play around with the width yourself and see which one gives you the affect you like best for whatever project you want to do with the flowers.

Following the spiral I had drawn onto the page, I then cut out the spiral all the way to the center.

Next, starting from the outside end of the cut spiral, I rolled the long stream of paper up tightly all the way until the inside (center) end.  It is OK if during this process you notice that your width is not perfect all the way through!  As you are getting towards the center you will notice that one edge of the paper rolls tighter than the other edge because of the curves of the spiral.  The edge that is rolling tighter will be the back of the flower while the other edge will be the front.  When you get to the very center end of the spiral, the "tail" will not really roll all the way around.  That's OK, just let it hang out a little to the side for now.

Once I rolled the spiral all the way to the end, I turned it over in my hand so that the front edge is facing upwards and sort of "fluffed out" the roll a bit and let it loosen up somewhat to give it a fuller flower look.  I then turned the flower over with the back end facing up, taking care not to let it unravel further, and put it on a paper plate (so that I wouldn't burn my hand with hot glue!).  Using the hot glue gun, I secured the back edges of the paper spiral to hold the flower together, then tucked the "tail" over the back and glued it in place to hold it together.

For my project, I decided to use a few of the flowers on some glittered stems I had sitting around in a vase.  I think they definitely added a little creative character to the look of the stems.  I just used the hot glue to stick the flowers onto the stems.

Other ideas for the flowers seem endless.  You could use them on a wreath, as a cute addition to the top of a gift or package, spray paint them a bright color for some use, or add them to a clip for a hair accessory.  My next project with these is going to be to make a large decorative ball with the flowers glued all around it.

Frozen Strawberry Pie

Just made a delicious strawberry pie (haven't sliced it yet - just tasted the filling lol!  And, of course, I fell down on the job and didn't make photos as I was making it.  Here's the recipe, and I will post a photo of the final when I get it out of the freezer! There was no direction as to what kind of crust to use, so I used graham cracker.....we'll see and I'll let you know what I think.  I messed up as to chilling the crust too, and that may make a difference in how well it sets.  I got the recipe off "Oh So Shabby" on Facebook.

Frozen Strawberry Cream Pie ~

Ingredients

1 nine-inch deep dish pie shell, well-chilled
...

1 cup whipping cream
4 ounces cream cheese
1 14-ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, well-chilled
1 1/2 cups pureed, sweetened strawberries (strawberries in syrup or strawberries with sugar added

Directions
Make sure the ingredients and the pie shell are well-chilled.

1. Whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Set in the refrigerator to keep cold.
2. Whip the cream cheese. Beat in the condensed milk and strawberries.
3. Gently fold in the whipped cream. Pour the filling into the pie shell. If the filling ingredients have been kept cold and you work quickly, the shell should overfill to a slight mound. Immediately stick the pie in the freezer to set. Freeze for four hours or more. Serve frozen.

Stencil + Paper Tape = Removeable Wall Design

Recently I bought this cute set of paper tape at Target in pinks and reds. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it when I bought it, but last night inspiration came to me! I'd love to be able to paint designs on my walls but being in an apartment makes that difficult. But tape is removeable! So it allows for creativity without commitment.

I borrowed a large stencil from Mandy that is intended to be used to paint a wall witha pattern. I then used the stencil as a guide for the tape to make a pattern on the bottom panel of the inside of my front door.

Here are the pictures:

Emily's Birthday Cupcakes

I was thrilled when Steph asked me to make Emily's birthday cake again this year! She suggested cupcakes because Emily is really in to them these days, isn't Em so trendy! But I wasn't expecting to get super sad making them with out my two baking companions from last year! Seriously, Carrie, Mom and I had the most fun staying up super late making Em's First Birthday Cake! If you haven't seen it already, you can check out our post from last year here.
Even though I missed Mom and Carrie very much, I still was so glad I got to make sweet Emily's Birthday Cupcakes.

I tried out a new recipe for cupcake batter that I found on Pinterest and it was so easy and the cupcakes turned out so moist and yummy! I highly recommend it!

Then I made some yummy Royal Frosting:
4 lbs Confectioners Sugar
3/4 c of Meringue Powder
Mix together until well blended.
Then mix together
1 1/3 c warm water
3 T Vanilla and
1 tsp Almond extract
Then slowly add liquid into powder mixture while beating at a med-high speed until soft peeks form. (About 8 minutes.)
Then mix in food coloring/dye until you reach the color you want.
I think the flavoring in this recipe is key and makes it extra yummy!
I forgot to take a picture before I colored it, but basically the key thing, is you want to icing to be real stiff so don't over mix and don't add anything containing oil!

Then I decided to try to frost them like this, which I also found on Pinterest. However, I couldn't really pull it off. I think maybe I didn't have the right tip? That's my story and I'm sticking to it. So on the rest of them I went with 2 other frosting methods I'm familiar with that also have a flower-y look.

All in all I was pleased with the result and I hope Em is too!

I'll update this post after the party!

Low Carb Pound Cake

So recently I've been attempting to stick to a low carb and low (or no) sugar diet due to health issues that seem to be exasperated by sugar and carbs. When you research these issues, it is so interesting how too many "white carbs" can be blamed for all kinds of things! We think of low carb as a diet choice to lose weight, or as something that is necessary for people with diabetes, but it goes beyond that. For me, carbs and sugar increase fatigue, and because I have Fibromyalgia, I have to do everything I can to combat fatigue issues. We all know that carbs and sugar have the tendency to make you tired - who hasn't heard of (or experienced) a "sugar crash?"

Well, following through on reducing things like bread and pasta has actually been much easier than I thought, and generally speaking going without sugar is not so difficult either. Where it has frustrated me, however, is in regards to baked goods. It's not that I eat a lot of baked goods or that I eat sweets every day. It's that I LOVE to bake! I think my previous posts on this blog will attest to the fact that I love to make food for other people, especially baked goodies! So I was faced with a difficulty - either figure out how to make baked goods that are lower in carbs and sugar - but still delicious - or never taste / sample what I bake! (Note that I did not believe an option would be to NOT bake!)

I've read cooking websites and diet websites and all kinds of blogs about various low carb options, and there really are lots of great looking recipes for all kinds of things out there. But I decided that rather than follow a recipe that is already labeled as "low carb" I wanted to figure out how to take a recipe that I already knew, used and loved, and make is low-carb-diet-friendly. Already being familiar with almond flour (see here) was a big help to this process because it turns out - almond flour is a great substitution!

I decided to make pound cake, because since it is already a "denser" cake, I thought the consistency wouldn't be as negatively affected by the switch to almond flour and the use of a sugar substitute. I started with the recipe for Cream Cheese Pound Cake out of my Southern Living Cookbook, and then made substitutions and adjustments to the ratios. I made it last weekend to take to a friend's house for dinner, and I think it turned out pretty tasty! So...

Here is my recipe for Low Carb / Low Sugar Cream Cheese Pound Cake:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups butter or margarine, softened
1.5 packages cream cheese, softened
1.5 cups of Splenda Blend*
6 large eggs
3 cups almond flour
1/2 cup of all purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt & a pinch of baking powder
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of milk

*I used Splenda Blend, which means that this was "low sugar" rather than "sugar free." The next time I make it, I am going to use Stevia Extract instead and see how that turns out (I made a low sugar version of financiers at Christmastime for my family - who called them "fancy ears" and loved them - using Stevia Extract, which worked great!) If you choose a different type of sugar substitute - the original measurement of sugar for this recipe would be 3 cups, so use the guidelines on the package to figure out how much of the sugar substitute you should use.

Directions:

With an electric mixer, blend together the softened butter and cream cheese until it is creamy. Then add eggs, two at a time, blending after each addition until it is mixed it. Add salt, baking powder, and regular flour and blend until mixed in. Gradually add almond flour, one cup at a time, and blend. Note that almond flour is more "grainy" than regular flour, so don't expect it to be as smooth as it would be in a "normal" cake batter. Stir in vanilla and milk.

Preheat oven to 300 and prep a bundt cake pan. I used butter flavored Crisco to coat the inside of the pan. I think generally, almond flour sometimes sticks a little more, so be prepared for that. Spoon your batter into the bundt pan (my bundt pan was a little too small for this amount of batter, I put the extra into a loaf pan). Let it "settle" about 5 minutes before you put it into the oven. Bake at 300 for about 1 hour, until a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool still in the pan on a wire rack for 15-20 minutes, then remove from the pan directly onto the rack and cool the rest of the way.

Enjoy!

Christmas 2011 and other thoughts......

So, Jeff and I finally got the tree up yesterday. He went and picked it up on his way home from work, and it really made me realize once again how our lives have changed. He told me a story about how he was walking along at Trees of Joy, hearing a family "discussing" the perfect tree for their family, and it reminded him of our kids "discussions" through the years! He made a comment about how much fun we used to have going to Bethany Christmas Tree Farm in McDonough for so many, many years, and how much we looked forward to that as the start of our Christmas each year.
Christmas seems VERY different this year, in many ways; the most obvious, of course, is that my Mother is no longer with us. Although it is so reassuring to know where she is and that she is well, and standing up, if not TALL, at least STRAIGHT, I still miss her and often can hardly believe it even after almost a year. A note on her shortness, she was, after all, a Griffin/Eppinger woman, and they are NOT tall women! My grandmother (Mama) was not even 5 foot tall!
We have many many things to be thankful for! Jobs and a roof over our heads; all of our children will be with us for at least a few days, we have another beautiful granddaughter to look forward to meeting in February, and yet, I feel......sad? meloncholy? (How do you spell that word?) I can't seem to shake it. As I read my grief share devotions, and workbook, I understand and realize that what I am feeling is normal - that doesn't mean I like it!
I am trying to feel positive and excited, and I know that I will be fine once they all start arriving on Thursday - THURSDAY! - but I wonder already how I will be when they all go back to other places (I refuse to say "home). I'll be fine - I know that the Lord will hold me up through this season of my life, just keep praying for me!

Fabric as a Wall Covering

***I can't believe I'm just now getting around to writing this post... This was a DIY project I did several months ago, but things have been so hectic since then I haven't had time to write about it! When I realized that, I wanted to get on here right away and share this with you because I was so excited about it when I did it, and I think it turned out great!


The bathroom in my apartment has been in dire need of a makeover, but there is only so much you can do when you are renting. After the whole "tree-incident" (if you don't know about the tree growing into my bathroom through the wall, well that's a whole story in itself for another time!), the landlord did some "repairs" and put in a new floor, but I was still desperate to overhaul it and decorate. The wall where the tree had once grown has never been the same since, even with repairs, and I wanted to cover that thing up with wallpaper or something. Alas, wallpapering is a forbidden sin for renters...

Here is the boring old bathroom wall:



In comes an absolutely brilliant idea - DIY fabric wallpaper! Originally I got the idea from this blog post on Design Sponge about a faux headboard made of fabric that had been attached to the wall with liquid starch - absolutely adorable (and by
the way, the headboard project itself is still a coming attraction in my apartment!). The selling point - attaching fabric to the wall with liquid starch makes a wall covering that is totally removable later! I did some research (i.e. googling - or as we call it in the Watts family - doing a "whoogle search," haha) and found all sorts of articles and blog posts about this technique. The more I read, the less skeptical I was about it, and I started to believe it would (1) really work, and (2) actually be removable. Some people even claim you can take that fabric off the wall later, throw it in the washing machine, and then use it again for a whole different project! Genius!

Next came the search for fabric, which was already documented on the blog here. I chose a white, red and pink striped fabric that coordinated with the "birds in a cage" fabric I had previously chosen to make a sink skirt out of (don't ask, that project has been going nowhere fast!). Then came the search for liquid starch. Would you believe you cannot actually find liquid starch in the store? Any store! I looked at Target, grocery stores, Walgreens. OK, maybe I didn't do an exhaustive search, but it was enough for me to decide to just go online. Back to google and I found it online at Walmart. Having no idea how much liquid starch I needed, I over-ordered, as usual, and ended up with something like 4 large containers (hey, they were only like $1.97 each!). My final shopping trip for supplies was to the hardware store, where I purchased spray starch (the regular laundry kind), drop cloths, painters cloths / towels, paint rollers, plastic putty knives, blue painters tape (which we didn't actually use), and paint pans. What I should have bought also in this trip was gloves, but I'll get to that later.

Having all of my supplies assembled, I planned a weekend day for the project and enlisted Mandy's help. We decided to use the outdoor patio area to assemble things and to measure the fabric so we'd have plenty of room.

Here's a step by step of what we did.

1. Measure the wall - Multiple times!!!

The first time I measured the wall was before I went fabric shopping, so that I'd be able to estimate how much fabric to buy. I measured all the way across, then from top to bottom. When I picked out a fabric, I figured out how wide it came, and decided how many yards based on how many lengths of wall I would need (basically the width of this particular fabric was about half of my wall space, so I doubled the height of the wall and then rounded up).

After purchasing the fabric, we measured the wall again, multiple times. We then did various calculations to determine the best use of the fabric, deciding to basically divide the wall into three "sections" across - the middle section would be above and below the window, and then there would be one section on either side with a panel going from floor to ceiling. We then measured each of those sections separately to determine how to cut our fabric.

2. Measure and cut the fabric into panels

After all of these overly complicated calculations, we laid the fabric out on the ground, measured for each section, and cut the fabric into two long strips of the necessary width for the two side panels, and two squares for above and below the window.




3. Prep for application

We then brought the fabric back inside into the bathroom, where I had removed almost everything, put down drop cloths, and set out the paint pans and rollers. We poured the liquid starch into the pans. Each strip of fabric was then sprayed with spray starch to stiffen it up before we applied it.




4. Roll liquid starch onto wall

Next we rolled liquid starch onto the wall on the section we were working on first. We started at the top of the wall and coated the starch on about 1/3 of the way down to start. Liquid starch is really messy - and sticky! This is when I wished I had gloves! It kind of went everywhere, but thankfully it was easy enough to clean up later.

5. Attach fabric to the wall, and apply more starch as needed to attach

Then (and this part definitely took both of us), we placed the fabric onto the wall at the top, smoothing as we worked our way down onto the area that had been starched. This part was especially difficult due to my fabric choice - those stripes had to be straight! After that section was "attached" we starched the wall the rest of the way down and continued smoothing the fabric onto the wall. Once one entire panel was on the wall, we used painter's cloths drenched with more liquid starch to apply additional starch on top of the fabric. We didn't do this over the whole panel, just in the corners, sides and areas that seemed to need it. We also used the plastic putty knifes to help smooth the fabric down and into the corners. Then we repeated this whole process for each section of the wall.



6. Let the fabric dry (break time!)

It took a while for the fabric to dry out. During this time, we cleaned up our mess, walked the dogs, had some food and took a break!

7. Cut "edges" off around the fabric wall

Once the fabric was fairly dry, we made sure there were no areas that were not attached (and where they were, we just dabbed on some more starch using the cloths). Then we cut the edges off of the fabric where there was "extra" using a box cutter. If I was doing this again, I probably would not have calculated for "extra" around the edges - I had read that the fabric would shrink as it dried and therefore this was necessary, but my fabric did not shrink at all and cutting off the edges was a pain.

8. Voila! Fabulous Wall!