I am pretty much always a “from scratch” person when it comes to baking, but every now and then I make an exception. Shortcake is one of them. While I have made shortcake biscuits from scratch, I really love the taste of making them from Bisquick. If it’s easier and tastes great, why not?
My daughter and I took a trip to a strawberry farm in Maine and picked these beauties. They made an absolutely delicious strawberry shortcake, that my daughter made for me this time!
Ingredients for the shortcake:
2 1/3 cups original Bisquick mix
1/2 cup milk
3 tbsp. sugar
3 tbsp. butter, melted
Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl until it becomes dough.
Spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet. This recipe makes six biscuits.
Bake at 425 degrees for 10-12 minutes until brown.
To macerate the strawberries, combine 4 cups of sliced strawberries with 1/4 cup sugar and set aside. This will allow the juices of the strawberries to make a delicious syrup.
Top your shortcake with the strawberries and a little (or a lot) of whipped cream and that’s it!
I used canned whipped cream for these, but if you would like to make your own here is the recipe I use.
Whip 1 cup of heavy cream with an electric mixer until it is just about stiff. Add 1 tsp. of vanilla and 2 tbsp. of confectioners sugar and continue beating until peaks form. Don’t over-beat or it will start to get lumpy.
I have been meaning to make a lemon cake for quite some time. Instead of trying to find a new recipe, I decided to take the yellow cake recipe I always use and tweak it a little. It came out moist and has a very subtle lemon flavor. Yum! I also love the combination of lemon and raspberry so I decided to add some raspberry preserves to the center.
What I love most about this recipe is that it is a one bowl recipe. You just can’t beat delicious and one bowl!
Cake Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 cup milk
2 tbsp. lemon juice
1 – 2 tbsp. lemon rind
3 large eggs
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two round cake pans. After greasing and flouring the pans I also put parchment paper on the bottoms of the pans, and greased and floured a second time.
Squeeze and grate the lemons for the juice and rind. One tablespoon of rind give it a subtle lemon taste, if you prefer very lemony you may want to use 2 tablespoons.
Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Using an electric mixer or stand mixer, beat on low speed for 30 seconds scraping the bowl constantly. Increase the speed to high and continue mixing for 3 minutes while scraping the bowl occasionally.
Pour into prepared pans and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. The pans I used took longer than regular 9″ round pans.
Cool in pans, then transfer to a wire rack.
Lemon Buttercream Frosting:
Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3 tbsp. milk
4 cups confectioner’s sugar
Beat butter with an electric mixer until smooth.
Beat in lemon juice. Add confectioner’s sugar.
When adding the milk I started by beating in 2 tbsp. to see the consistency. I added 1 more tbsp. and it was perfect.
Continue beating on high for 2-3 minutes
Now it’s time to frost the cake!
As I mentioned previously, I put a layer of raspberry preserves between the two layers but you can also just put frosting.
Of course if I was going to make scones while I am in Maine they were going to be blueberry scones. And what better flavor to combine with blueberry than lemon. Yum. You may have already tried using my scones recipe, and this recipe is the same except for the addition of blueberries and the icing. Easy and delicious!
As I mentioned in my other scone Blog, this is a great base recipe to add other ingredients to. In the past I have added chocolate chips, yesterday I added blueberries and who knows what I might add next!
** Please note some of the photos are from my original scone Blog.
Scone Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
5 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup cold butter
1 egg, beaten
1 cup milk or half and half
1 cup blueberries
Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Using a cheese grater, grate the butter and cut it into the dry mixture with a pasty cutter or a fork and knife. Make sure the butter is cold.
Put the beaten egg in a measuring cup and then fill to the 1 cup mark with the milk or half and half. I used a combination of half and half and milk. Mix the two together and add a little at a time to the dry mixture. You shouldn’t have to use all of it.
The dough shouldn’t be too moist, just add enough so that the dough will stick together once kneaded. It won’t look like it will in the bowl, but you can tell by using your hands and squeezing some together.
Now add the blueberries.
When I got to this step I thought, how the heck do I get the blueberries in the dough without making an absolute mess? I went and changed my shirt, make sure you either do that or are wearing an apron, and carefully started to stir them in as best I could.
Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and knead until it comes together. It is not easy to do without the blueberries exploding, but just take your time and it will work.
Roll the dough into a circle about a 1/2″ thick.
Use a pizza cutter or a knife to cut the dough into 8 pieces, this will make very large scones. If you would like them smaller divide the dough in half, then roll it out and cut into 8 pieces which is what I did.
Place the scones on a greased cookie sheet and bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until brown. The smaller scones only took about 13 minutes.
Let the scones cool completely and then drizzle the lemon icing on them. For the icing, I used the icing I use on my Italian Lemon Cookies except I cut the recipe in half.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/8 cup water
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
Combine all of the ingredients until smooth. If the icing is too thin you can add more sugar until you get it to the right consistency.
I may be dating myself by saying this, but when I was young we just had a bowl of oatmeal. Now the new trend is oatmeal bowls. So what is the difference between a bowl of oatmeal and an oatmeal bowl? Oatmeal bowls are focused more on packing lots of healthy ingredients and protein in with the oatmeal, it takes the bowl of yesteryear and makes it a superfood. It’s kind of funny actually, but I have to admit I am in on the trend and love the creativity with flavors and they just look pretty. I was unaware of this new trend until my daughter’s friend started an oatmeal Tiktok and I saw how delicious all of these combinations looked. If you are on Tiktok you should take a peak at case1y, I think I am going to try one of her mocha bowls soon.
My mother would make oatmeal with a little milk, a pat of butter, and maybe some raisins. Or she would make Maypo, does anyone remember that and does it still exist? I’ll have to check that out after I’m done with this. While I do still make those comforting bowls of oatmeal, minus the butter, I have been having a little fun creating some healthy bowls packed with protein as well.
So how do you make an oatmeal bowl? First you make oatmeal just as you normally would, the steel cut version of oats is the best as far as healthy goes. You combine 1/2 cup of oats with 1 cup of water and bring it to a boil. Lower the heat and cook for about 5 minutes and it is done. Then just add whatever fruits you like. You can add granola, chia, honey, nuts, there are so many different options.
One of my favorite bowls is this one. I added hemp, flax, unsweetened coconut, strawberries, blueberries, and these delicious dark chocolate covered pumpkin seeds.
Personally if I am going to have oatmeal for breakfast I would rather a plain old bowl of oatmeal. These bowls can be a little much for breakfast in my opinion, but perfect for lunch or dinner.
One night I had one for dinner and amped it up a little bit with apple, peanut butter, flax, hemp, cinnamon, and pumpkin seeds. It was actually very filling and satisfying for dinner.
I made this one for my son recently and he asked if he was allowed to stir it together or had to eat it as it was lol. His had almond butter, sweetened coconut, blueberries, flax, and cinnamon. I think he prefers a regular old bowl of oatmeal, however.
You can even use oatmeal bowls to let your inner child come out 😛
I love oatmeal, and as my mother used to say it “sticks to your ribs”. Enjoy!
I had seen a picture of this cute cake and decided to give it my own spin. I used my favorite white cake recipe from my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook and added some coconut. You don’t have to add the coconut, but it is so good in this cake! The cake is moist and has a nice thick dense consistency with the coconut.
For the frosting I am more of a fan of cream cheese frosting, but you could use a buttercream frosting if you prefer. I have a wonderful vanilla buttercream recipe in another blog.
As you can see I am not a professional cake decorator, but my cakes are delicious and to me that is the most important part. This cake is really not hard to make and whoever you serve it to will be very impressed.
Cake Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
2/3 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups milk
3 1/2 tsps. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
5 large egg whites
1 cup sweetened coconut
Cream Cheese Frosting Ingredients:
1/2 cup butter, softened
8 oz. block cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
Blue food coloring
Additional Ingredients:
1/2 cup sweetened coconut
Melting chocolate
Egg candies
Grease and flour three 6″ cake pans. I greased the pans, then added a layer of parchment paper on the bottoms, then greased again and floured. The pans I used are stainless and not non-stick so I wanted to be sure they came out perfectly.
Combine all ingredients except egg whites in a large mixing bowl or stand mixer.
Beat on low speed for 30 seconds scraping the bowl constantly. Continue mixing on high speed for 2 minutes scraping occassionally. With the stand mixture I let it go about a minute, turned it off and scraped, then continued for another minute.
Add the egg whites and continue beating on high for two more minutes. Fold in 1 cup of coconut.
Divide evenly between the three pans and bake at 350 degrees until toothpick inserted comes out clean. My pans took about 30 minutes.
While the cakes were baking I toasted the coconut for the nest.
In a small frying pan add the coconut and cook over low/medium heat stirring frequently until toasted. Set aside.
When the cakes are done allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pans before transferring to wire racks. Cool completely.
Once cakes are cool you can make the cream cheese frosting.
Beat the butter and cream cheese with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Beat in vanilla. Beat in confectioners sugar until smooth. Give the frosting a taste and see if you think it should be sweeter and if so, add a little more sugar to taste.
Add a few drops of blue food coloring and combine well.
On a cake stand start building the cake and adding frosting in between the layers.
I normally have the rounded side of the cake be the top layer, but for this cake I had the flat side on the top. It was easier to make the nest this way.
Once the cake is completely frosted it is time to splatter the chocolate!
I used a few melting wafers for my splatter, but you can use whatever you normally use. Once the chocolate was melted I used a pastry brush and flicked the chocolate onto the cake. I also managed to flick the chocolate all over my walls so you may want to be a little more careful than I was.
Now just build the nest!
For the eggs I used Robin’s Egg candies and I used a toothpick and put a few dots on the eggs.
Make sure to keep the cake refrigerated because of the cream cheese frosting. If you use buttercream you don’t need to.
I had never heard of this type of “crack”, nor was I familiar with Matzah crackers until recently. A parent at my daughter’s school asked if I could make this for her son for Passover and I offered to give it a try. Now I know why it is called crack, it is so addictive! This is now one of my favorite recipes, so good!
Ingredients:
5 unsalted Matzah crackers
1 cup butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 12oz. bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips
Sea salt
Chopped pecans, optional
Line a large cookie sheet with aluminum foil. Cover the pan with the crackers. They don’t break as easily as I expected and I had to use a knife to cut them.
Combine the butter and brown sugar in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until melted while whisking. Bring the mixture to a boil and continue whisking and boiling for 3 minutes.
Pour the toffee mixture over the crackers, then spread with a small spatula to cover the crackers.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8 -10 minutes or until all of the toffee is bubbling.
Top with the chocolate chips and let sit for a minute or so. Once they have softened spread over the toffee.
Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and chopped nuts if you desire, and refrigerate until completely set. Mine took about an hour.
Once set, cut into squares or break into pieces. Yum!!!!
Line a large baking sheet with aluminum foil. Arrange the crackers to fill the pan.
Melt the butter and brown sugar over medium heat while stirring with a whisk. Bring to a boil and continue whisking and boiling for an additional 3 minutes.
Spread the toffee mixture over the crackers. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes or until the toffee is bubbling.
Top with chocolate chips and let sit until soft. Spread over toffee. Sprinkle with sea salt.
So many of my recipes come from my trusty Betty Crocker cookbook as I have mentioned in the past, and this is one of them. Sometimes I bake use the Silver White Cake recipe, but today I made the Starlight Yellow Cake recipe. Super easy recipe and it only uses one bowl! That in itself makes the recipe worth using, not to mention the added bonus that it is yummy!
As you can see the cupcakes I made were transformed into bird’s nests for Easter. I think they came out pretty cute if I do say so myself. Here is how to make nest cupcakes:
First you need to bake the cupcakes.
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/4 cups milk
3 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
3 eggs
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Either grease a cupcake pan or use liners. I decided to use paper cupcake liners for my cupcakes today.
In a large mixing bowl combine all of the ingredients.
With either a hand mixer or a stand mixer, beat for 30 seconds on low speed. If using a hand mixer make sure to scrape the sides constantly.
Turn mixer to high speed and continue beating for 3 minutes scraping occasionally. Since I was using a stand mixer I turned it off every minute or so to scrape the bowl.
That’s it! Could it be any more simple?
Fill each opening a little more than half way with the batter.
Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.
Once they are cool I frosted them with vanilla buttercream frosting. Here is the recipe I use, also quite easy.
Once you have your frosting made just spead some over each cupcake and dip into green sprinkles.
To make the nest I used melting chocolate and squeezed it in the shape of a nest on top. You can also use chocolate frosting. Here’s a tip for using chocolate, only do part of the nest at a time and let the chocolate set and then go over it with more chocolate. Otherwise the chocolate will just blend together.
Once the chocolate was set, only takes a minute, I used a tiny bit on the egg so that it would stick on top. I used large Robin Eggs candies so I only used one egg, if you are to buy the mini eggs you can fit more than one.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease pan or use cupcake liners.
Combine all of the ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
Beat on low speed for 30 seconds scraping constantly. Continue beating on high speed for 3 minutes scraping occasionally.
Pour into pan(s) and bake for 20 minutes for cupcakes, 40 minutes for rectangle, or 30 minutes for rounds or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool on wire racks.
I am not a huge fan of frosting and especially not a buttercream frosting, however, I am a fan of this frosting! It’s delicious! Very easy to make and worked well to decorate cupcakes.
Ingredients:
1 cup of butter, softened
4 cups confectioners sugar
3 tsp. vanilla
4 tbsp. milk
In a standing mixer or with a handheld mixer, beat the butter until smooth.
Gradually add the confectioners sugar until well combined. It most likely won’t be smooth at this point.
Add the vanilla and beat until combined.
Add the milk and beat for 3-4 minutes.
If you would like to color the frosting, add the food coloring and beat until well incorporated.
Years ago I found a very easy recipe for blueberry muffins that has become my “go to” muffin recipe. I tweaked it once and made chocolate chip muffins, and today I tweaked it again and made coffee cake muffins. They came out absolutely delicious! They came out delicious! Oh, and the smell in my home was amazing.
This recipe only makes 8 muffins, so I doubled it and it worked perfectly. The recipe below is for the 8, it is not doubled.
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 egg
1/3 cup, or more, of milk
1 tsp. vanilla
Topping ingredients:
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, chilled and cubed
Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.
In a measuring cup add the oil. On top of the oil add the egg, then fill the rest of the way with milk until you reach one cup. Add the vanilla into the measuring cup as well. Mine is higher because I was doubling.
Mix into the dry mixture until well combined.
Either grease a muffin tin or use paper liners. Fill the tins about 3/4 of the way full. I like to use a large cookie scoop so I don’t make as much of a mess.
Now it’s time to make that yummy streusel topping!
Combine the sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small mixing bowl. Cut in the cold butter with a pastry cutter or two forks until butter is well combined and mixture becomes coarse crumbs.
Sprinkle mixture very liberally over the top of the batter. You want a nice thick streusel topping on coffee cake muffins.
Bake at 400 degrees for about 16-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or line with muffin liners.
In a large mixing bowl sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.
In a measuring cup add 1/3 cup oil. Add egg and milk until it measures 1 cup. Add vanilla.
Add to dry mixture until well combined.
Scoop batter into muffin tins until almost full.
For topping combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a small mixing bowl. Cut in cubed butter with a pastry cutter until coarse crumbs. Top muffins liberally with streusel topping.
Bake for 16-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
I have been craving soup this winter more than I ever have, and last night I was in the mood for some kind of chicken soup. While my husband and son love a plain old chicken noodle soup, I am not a huge fan unless I am sick. I needed to make it creamy, but since I am trying to lose a little extra uninvited weight I wanted to keep it on the lower fat side. I tried just using whole milk to give it a little creamy consistency and taste, but it wasn’t working how I would have liked and just looked like milky water so I added a little bit of half and half and it did the trick. If you want a really creamy soup, use all half and half and I’m sure it will be even more delicious.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp. butter
1 cup chopped carrots
2-3 stalks of celery, chopped
1 potato, chopped
1 tsp minced garlic
1/4 cup flour
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 tsp. thyme
8 cups chicken broth
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup half and half
2 cups shredded cooked chicken
3-4 cups noodles
Chop up your vegetables and set aside. I managed to sneak in a potato even though my son doesn’t like them, but I didn’t dare an onion 😅. I considered a mushroom but that really would have been pushing it.
If you are wondering why my carrots look so small, it is because I only had baby carrots in the house.
Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add the garlic, carrots, and celery and cook stirring frequently for about 5 minutes until they start to soften.
Whisk in the flour, salt, pepper, and thyme and cook for about 1 minute.
Add the chicken broth and potato and stir well. Bring the soup to a boil and let boil for a few minutes before turning the heat down to low/medium to simmer.
Cover cracked and cook for 20-25 minutes stirring occasionally until the potatoes have softened.
Add the milk, half and half, chicken, and noodles and stir well.
Turn the heat up to medium and cook for 10 minutes stirring occasionally.
Chop vegetables and set aside. Melt butter in a large saucepan. Add carrots, garlic, and celery and cook stirring frequently for about 5 minutes or until vegetables are soft.
Whisk in flour, salt, pepper, and thyme. Cook for about 1 minute.
Add chicken broth and potatoes, stir well and bring to a boil. Boil for a few minutes, reduce heat to low/medium and simmer with cracked cover for 20-25 minutes or until potatoes are soft.
Add milk, half and half, chicken, and noodles. Stir well and cook on medium heat for 10 minutes.
