Vanilla Mousse Cheesecake

If you are watching your diet or your amount of sweets, you may not want to continue on this page.  But I hope you stay.  Why?  Beacause I want to share this fantastic cheesecake with you.  A little piece won't hurt.  (I promise) 

I made this cheesecake for Easter Sunday.  I have only made a few cheesecakes in my lifetime.  I love cheesecake and they are really easy to make.  I don't know why I haven't made more.  It's probably a good thing because as we all know cheesecake is on the fattening side.  But I did use reduced fat cream cheese and reduced fat whipped topping.  Cut calories and fat where you can.  

I have to say I was impressed with myself.  The cheesecake came out perfectly.  The crust is a vanilla wafer crust, then you have the cream cheese filling and then you have a cream cheese/whipped cream layer for the topping.  We were enjoying this cheesecake all week.  

Cheescakes always look like a special dessert.  This would be perfect for Mother's Day or if you had friends over for dinner.  Come up with a special occasion to make this dessert.  Oh heck, who needs a special occasion, just do it.  It will make you and those eating it very happy!

Click here for the Vanilla Mousse Cheesecake on Kraftrecipes.com

Enjoy!

Mom's Cooking Club Lesson:  If you want to make cheesecakes, you have to have a Springform pan.  They are easily found in any major retailer like Walmart and Target.  I bought a 3 piece Wilton set similar to this one at Walmart years ago and they work just fine.  Also, cheesecakes use several packages of cream cheese.  My grocery store often has cream cheese on sale 5 for $5.00.  That's when I stock up.  So, with the right pan and your main ingredient (cream cheese) on hand, there's no excuse and you'll be ready to make a homemade cheesecake.

Easy Chocolate Cake for Valentine's Day (or any day!)

Easy. Simple. Moist. Chocolate. Cake. Yum.

This is such a great recipe for chocolate cake.  It's a sheet cake (13 x 9 inch pan), so it's really easy to make and put together.  This cake is so moist and full of all that chocolate flavor we love.  The frosting is so light and fluffy.  My daughters were so excited when they came home from school and saw that I made this special treat for them.  Everyday, they took a small square in their lunchbox and were the envy of all their friends at the lunch table.  My husband went crazy over this cake too!      

I found this recipe on the Tasty Kitchen website.  Click here for the recipe by Tasty Kitchen member Sheralee.

Note:  The frosting recipe calls for 1/3 cup half and half or cream.  I found that I needed to use more than that, probably close to 1/2 cup.  Add the half and half slowly until you get your desired consistency.  Mine was easily spreadable and really fluffy.  Also, bake the cake at 350 degrees for about 35 minutes or until cake is done.

Quick, Easy and Moist Chocolate Sheet Cake
Recipe by Tasty Kitchen member Sheralee (slightly adapted by me)

(Click here for Printable Recipe)

Cake Ingredients

1-¾ cup Flour
2 cups Sugar
¾ cup Cocoa Powder
1-½ teaspoon Baking Soda
1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
1 teaspoon Salt
2 whole Eggs
1 cup Milk
½ cup Vegetable Oil
2 teaspoons Vanilla
1 cup Boiling Water


Frosting Ingredients

6 Tablespoons Butter
¾ cup Cocoa Powder
2-⅔ cups Powdered Sugar
1/3 - 1/2 cup Half-and-Half, Or Milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla


Preparation Instructions

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. Add eggs, milk, vegetable oil and vanilla. Mix for 2-3 minutes on medium speed. Stir in the boiling water. Pour into a greased 9×13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.  Cool cake. 

To make the frosting, cream butter. Add cocoa powder and powdered sugar alternately with half-and-half. Add the vanilla in last and mix.  Frost cooled cake in pan.

Have a sweet Valentine's Day everyone!  Love to all my family and friends!

Enjoy!

Mom's Cooking Club Lesson:  I'll be expressing my love to my family when I bake them this cake for Valentine's Day.  There's no better way to show love and care than through food.

Black-Bottom Banana Bars

Ok, so I had a bowl filled with "past their prime" bananas. I could have made my go-to banana bread or some banana muffins. But I wanted to try something new so I took out a new cookbook my husband gave me for my birthday last month, Taste of Home Cookies, and searched for recipes using bananas. I came across these Black-Bottom Banana Bars in the Delectable Bars section.

Well, these cake bars were a hit. We all loved them. (even my picky eater Mariah who doesn't like banana bread went crazy over these, go figure) They stay moist for days. I've already made these twice. And will definitely be making again!

Click here for Black-Bottom Banana Bars recipe

Take a pan of these Black-Bottom Banana Bars to your next holiday gathering, a teacher's breakfast, to welcome a new neighbor, a potluck or an afternoon snack for your kids. These are great anytime and any season.



Enjoy!


Mom's Cooking Club Lesson: This recipe calls for a 13x9 in pan. I used an 11x7 in pan because I wanted my bars thicker. I just added about 10 minutes more to the baking time.

Cookbook Winner and Sour Cream Coffee Cake

First, I want to say thank you for all the comments I received on my previous post for The Vegetarian Family Cookbook giveaway. I enjoyed reading what others like for breakfast. Everything from cereal, oatmeal, yogurt, eggs, pancakes, waffles, french toast, hash browns and even BLT Sandwiches. Personally, I just eat toast w/peanut butter, an English muffin or cereal during the week but on the weekends I like to splurge. My favorites are eggs, french toast, pancakes or waffles. Sometimes, we'll have turkey bacon or turkey sausage (have to cut the fat and calories somewhere). Once in a while I will make real bacon. I love bacon but I try to keep it at a minimum.

Now, I consider this Sour Cream Coffee Cake a dessert but some people (like my husband) wanted to eat it for breakfast. Well, I guess it would go really good with our morning coffee. Anyway, regardless of when you eat it, this is a wonderful coffee cake to make and share with others. We loved the "river" of brown sugar and cinnamon in the middle and the cinnamon glaze on top was perfect. This coffee cake would be great to share with co-workers, a school function, baby shower, family gathering or just your own kitchen.

I found this recipe on the blog Two Peas and Their Pod. There are some wonderful recipes on this site so go check it out. The coffee cake recipe comes from the cookbook You Made That Dessert ? by Beth Lipton.

Click here for a printable version of the Sour Cream Coffee Cake recipe

Ok, drum roll please..........the winner of my first giveaway is........

(you have to scroll down....sorry, I'm trying to build up some suspense here)

#1 - Barbara from Barbara Bakes!!!

Congratulations Barbara! Please email me your contact information and the author, Nava Atlas, will send out your personalized copy of her cookbook.

Enjoy!

Mom's Cooking Club Lesson: I just want to take another moment to thank all of those readers that left a comment on my Cookbook giveaway post. I was happy to see so many new people as well as regulars. Congratulations to the winner and stay tuned for future giveaways!

Chocolate Fudge Snack Cake - September Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club

It's time for me and my Cooking Light Virtual Supper Club friends to get together for another wonderful meal.....Lunch Style. Our lightened up lunch menu includes:

Val - Lemony Hummus with Spicy Whole Wheat Pita Chips

Aggie - Lemony Orzo Salad

Shelby - Vegetarian Minestrone Soup

Helene - Mozzarella Chicken Sandwich

Jamie (that's me) - Chocolate Fudge Snack Cake

I made dessert this month and it's perfect for a lunch treat. Who doesn't like chocolate cake and we all deserve a little something sweet at lunchtime. The buttermilk makes this cake moist and it's full of chocolate flavor. My husband and daughters were very happy when I tucked these snack cakes in their lunch boxes.

Click here for recipe

Also, don't forget to check out what the other guests made for our lunch get together.

Click here to read all about our menu on Cooking Light's blog Test Kitchen Secrets

The batter is light and fluffy.



This cake yields 9 servings and has 251 calories per serving


Enjoy your lunch!



Mom's Cooking Club Lesson: In my opinion, when you bake something for someone, you are really showing how much you care. And when you know that person is enjoying it at lunchtime, well, that makes it even more special. There are many great "lightened up" desserts and treats that can be found on Cookinglight.com and Myrecipes.com. Come back next month for another Virtual Supper Club gathering.

Blueberry Buckle - A Father's Day Dessert

I wanted to bake something for my husband for Father's Day and since he loves blueberries, I thought a blueberry dessert would be perfect. I have seen some wonderful blueberry recipes lately, like Family, Friends and Food - Blueberry Crumb Cake & For the Love of Cooking - Blueberry Crumb Bars. I decided to make Blueberry Buckle from the Tate's Bake Shop Cookbook (click on link for recipe). I wasn't sure what a Buckle was so I hopped on the internet for a little research. Basically it's a cake with berries in the batter, usually blueberries, and then topped with a streusel-like mixture. As I'm writing this post, I'm eating a piece. I had to sneak one for an accurate review. All I can saw is Wow! This cake is wonderful! The cake is light and very moist with bursts of blueberry popping in my mouth. The crunchy streusel is such a great contrast to the soft cake. I know my husband will love it! Happy Father's Day!

The cake batter

Gently fold the blueberries in with the batter.



The cake batter is thick so spread carefully in pan.

Yum! Look at that crumb (buckle) topping.

Enjoy!

Mom's Cooking Club Lesson: Blueberries are in season now and they are less expensive to buy. Now is the time to stock up on this wonderful fruit. Check out this method on how to freeze blueberries.