Today was a country cooking day!

One of the biggest things that I miss from living in England is the open air markets or farmers markets that they had on a almost daily basis. England was great at supporting the local farmers in that every good sized town had a market or farm stand or the lady with a table sitting outside her house with homemade preserves and a small basket when people put in the money for goods purchased. Yes they still relied on the honor system there. And from the looks of repeat farm stands people were honorable!


Today my friend Em asked me to go with her to the Abilene Farmers Market. OF COURSE! It was my first market in over 6 months. I was super excited. It was the size of a small town weekday market in England but OH THE FUN of being able to support local farmers and families. 


Later I will post what I made with my market finds, peaches is the only clue you get!

One of my favorite blogs is The Country Cook 
Today without thinking about it I was fiddling in the kitchen. First I made watermelon jelly, and if that sets the way it is supposed to I will post that up. After that was canned and cooling I thought 'well lets just keep this going.' So on to 7-UP cake. 

Now I LOVE 7-UP cake and have always gotten it from the Commissary or bakery, I have never tried to make it myself. BUT Brandie has ALWAYS given me such fabulous recipes that I just had to try hers.

It looks phenomenal doesnt it? Well since I can tell you it tastes BETTER than it looks! 

It is a super easy cake that you will be able to make over and over again. 

Ingredients:

1 box, Yellow cake mix

1 box, 3.4 oz instant lemon pudding

1 1/2 cups 7-up

4 eggs

3/4 cup Canola oil

Icing:

2 cups Confectioners sugar

 1 TBSP Lemon Juice (bottled works just as well as fresh)

1-2 TBSP Milk


Pre-heat oven to 325°F.
Spray a 10-inch bundt cake pan with baking spray. (The one with flour in it)
In a medium bowl combine all cake ingriedients and mix thoroughly.
Pour batter into prepared bundt pan.
Bake for 45-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Allow to cool completely in the pan. 
Remove onto serving dish.
PREPARE ICING:
In a small bowl combine the powdered sugar and lemon juice. Add milk slowly while mixing to desired consistency. 
Pour icing over cake and serve!

YUMMY!

And how was this a country cooking kind of day? Well I made Spasagna for dinner. I am telling you Ms. Brandie is AWESOME! 
 

POUND cake

I love waking to the smell of coffee. All I really do is turn on the coffee pot. I have a fabulous hubs who sets everything up for me the night before, so all I really have to do is push the button. :)

This week I had most of the week off. I don't know know why, it just worked out that way. I work in a specialty Italian wine store and this week the manager wanted to take a few extra days, it just so happened they were my days. Worked out great for my baking.

I made a delicious pound cake. Made from an original recipe, using a pound of all the ingredients. It turned out to be a fabulous pound cake! I love breads. I love cakes. My girlish figure is a great example of HOW much I love them. LOL

If you are baking in small tins, you will want cut baking time in half. And always adjust your baking time for the pans you use. You know your pans better than anyone else, so you should be able to adjust accordingly. I particularly like using my stone loaf pan. A lot of my friends have complained about their stones and how they don't like them but if you season them properly and care for them in the correct manner they really make for better dishes.

No my loaf pan is not dirty, just very well seasoned. To season a stone you rub softened butter on all sides and bake at 350°F. for about 20 minutes. Then just clean as directed. For deeper pans such as the loaf stone, muffin stone or bundt cake stones you may need to lightly spray with non-stick baking spray before putting batter in. But if you have never tried baking in a stone I HIGHLY recommend it.

This recipe can be easily halved so that you don't end up with 3 pound cakes and you can also freeze the cake after baking. Whats more you can slice it up and freeze the individual slices so that when you got a hankering for some pound cake all you have to do is thaw out one slice!

Original Pound Cake

2 cups butter, softened
3 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs
4 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup milk

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°F. Grease three 8 x 4 inch loaf pans, then line them with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Beat in the flour alternately with the milk, mixing until just incorporated.
3. Pour batter evenly into prepared loaf pans. Bake in the preheated oven for 60 minutes. (if using a stone loaf pan check after 50 minutes.) or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes come out clean.
4. After removing them from the oven immediately loosen cake edges with a knife. Cool in pan 10 minutes, remove. Remove parchment paper. Cool completely on wire racks.

FRESH Caramel Apple cake

About a month ago my friend S told me about apple picking in the Queen of England's winter home's orchards. Now I have lived in England for 6 years so far and this was the first time I had heard of this! I called my friend B and off we went with our familes to pick the Queens apples from the Queens orchards and enjoy some apple yummys. I am not lying to you when I say that I came home with about 10 - 12 kilos of apples. FABULOUS! But what the heck was I going to do with all that.
Well first I baked a pie. And then another and then another. I gave those away. :) I LOVE apple pie but a family can only go through so much of it.
Two french apple pies and a double crust pie. The only reason I made French apple pies was because I ran out of crust and had nothing for the top. I think fast on my baking feet sometimes. My crust is fabulously flaky and I use it for just about everything. I just cant get it to set up properly. Tastes great; looks terrible. Practice makes perfect I always say. Just keep making it and eventually it will come out the way I want it to.

This cake I made a couple of weeks ago. It was a hit! Everyone loved it and everyone wanted more. I have made this cake three times since then and am so thankful I had bunches of apples from the picking. Each cake takes 3 cups of apples. The batter was THICK and sticky and very tough to mix after all the flour went in. I thank my good sense for buying a heavy duty mixer 6 years ago. Without it I would be completely lost. In fact I have been toying with the idea of getting a second. But I was promptly talked out of that and convinced that the best thing would be to just get another bowl and flat mixer blade.
I should point out that this cake is dangerously good. I love the gooey mixed with the spice of the cake. If you have apples that you need to do something with and you and your family are all pied out, I recommend you try this cake.

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 3 cups chopped apples, such as Rome Beauty
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• Brown sugar topping, below

Preparation:

Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon; set aside. Beat eggs; add sugar and oil and beat for 3 minutes. Gradually stir in sifted dry ingredients. Fold in apples and vanilla. Pour batter into a greased and floured 10-inch tube pan and bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Invert on a plate or platter, pour topping over the cake as soon as it comes out of the oven. Let cool.  
Topping

• 1 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

Combine topping ingredients in a saucepan. Bring to a full boil and boil for 3 minutes. Pour over cake right out of the oven.