Mandy's Bytes: Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

First of all I have to confess that I didn't actually make this recipe recently, I made it a few months ago. However, due to the fact that my baking plans for today are to make more S'mores Bars, and since I happened to take pictures of this cake when I made it, it seemed like a decent substitute for fresh bakes.

 

Raspberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake (Recipe from Cooks.com)

- 1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese, softened
- 1 c. sugar
- 1/2 c. butter
- 1 3/4 c. all-purpose flour
- 2 eggs
- 1/4 c. milk
- 1 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. baking soda
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1/2 c. raspberry preserves (or any type)
- Powdered sugar

As always the first step is to preheat your oven, this cake bakes at 350 degrees. Then, ladies and gentlemen, start your mixers! Beat together the cream cheese, sugar and butter until it's fluffy, preferably fluffy ala Agnes from Despicable Me.

After the mixture is the proper fluffiness, add about half the flour, the eggs, milk, baking powder, baking soda, vanilla and salt and commence the mixing. After about 2 minutes it should all be well blended. Then you can add the rest of the flour, you can tell it you saved the best for last so it won't get it's feelings hurt. Do the rest of the beating on low, to avoid giant flour puffs, until it's entirely mixed.

Get a 13x9 inch pan all greased up. I like to use the cooking spray made with flour for baking, so much easier than the "shake some flour around a buttered pan" method (better known as "making a huge mess"). Once the pan is ready spread the mix evenly throughout.

Now in the original recipe the next step tells you to spoon the preserves on top of the mixture in "dollops" before using a kinfe to create a marbled look. I found it worked a lot better to a piping bag (aka a zip lock sans one corner) to make stripes across the top of the cake and then marbled them with a knife. I substituted boysenberry preserves for the raspberry, and you can use whatever you like best. Whichever suits your fancy, it will still be delicious. I'd like to mention here that next time I make this cake I will be adding stripes of a cream cheese concoction in addition to the preserves, if you wanted to try it I would estimate a 3oz package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and 1/4 teaspoon vanilla whipped together should do the trick.

After your preserves are marbled to perfection, stick this puppy in the oven for 30 to 35 minutes. You can test it just like any other cake with a toothpick or raw spaghetti noodle to see if it comes out clean, just don't stick it in a spot with preserves. Let it cool for a few minutes and then sift the powdered sugar over the top, cut it up, and enjoy!

Philosophical Felines

Anyone else out there who runs an Etsy shop knows that it's not always an easy task. Sometimes life doesn't allow the extra time required to keep up with our creative duties. Along with that comes that sneaking sense of artistic guilt. Are we letting our followers down by not posting new aprons this week? How can they go on without another recipe to try? But the ones who really understand the situation best, are our pets, cats specifically.

Anyone who owns a cat knows, that they really have the right view of life. Wake up, eat, play, nap, lounge in the sun, eat, nap, and so forth. They really keep you grounded, and teach you to not get be so hard on yourself. So to make up for the lack of blog posts this last week, and to give due diligence to my own kitty counterparts, this post is to introduce my wonderful kitties.

 First in order of ownership is Lily, she is a sassy no nonsense tuxedo cat. As you can see here one of her favorite hobbies is applying a hefty layer of fresh fur to any newly washed clothes, and anything left out in the open. Her favorite napping spot is this shelf on my bookcase where I keep clean (at least before she gets to them) towels. Lily's other activities include absconding with any hair ties she can find, and chasing Jupiter around the apartment like a bat out of hell. Which brings us to my other awesome kitty, Jupiter.

Jupiter is a total stud muffin, I adopted him from a local shelter called Animal Talk, and when I saw him I instantly fell in love with his no-tail and clipped ear. He likes to pretend that he's a tough kitty but really he's a teddy bear and loves to spoon with Lily. These two are my moral support and my non-pharmaceutical blood pressure medication.

Along with kitty cuddles, one of my other relaxation techniques recently has been making treasuries, including my submission for this weeks Treasury NonTeam Challenge. My treasury this week is titled "Sunrise, Sunset" and features the bold warm colors of the spring sun.

Somebody Loves Us

Actually a few people! Even though we've had a busy life outside of working on aprons for the shop this week, we've still managed to gather some attention from a few different angles.

First to mention is Elsa Pakopoulou whose blog runs an ongoing feature called the People Project to showcase Etsy artists. Elsa was kind enough to highlight our shop over on her blog, you can read our post here.

We were also featured in a smattering of Treasuries this week, and we'll start off with a feature from our friend Jenna from Jenna's Red Rhino.


We've also been included in two entries to this weeks Treasury NonTeam Challenge. The first is from Anne who runs the shop Cozy Noggin where she sells some adorable knitted accessories. She featured us in this cute Cottage Chic treasury:


We were also included by Patricia from Bubble City Soap where you can find a wide assortment of cute molded soaps, including my personal favorite, the crocodile soap. Her take on the challenge is this collection of crimson for Mother's Day:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In the spirit, and colors, of the holiday our Apron Verde was featured in a St. Patrick's Day treasury made up of members from the Retro Handmade Team.


This apron is hot hot hot this week as it was also featured in this cute treasury, fresh off the farm.

Mandy's Bytes: The Luck 'o' the Irish Soda Bread

So feeling in the St. Patty's Day spirit this week I wanted to pay homage to my Irish heritage, and also to the fact that I was out of yeast..., but mostly the Irish thing. So I decided to make some Irish Soda Bread (now you see where the yeast part comes in, haha), and I found this simple recipe online:

• 4 cups flour
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tbsp baking soda
• 1½ cups water
• 2 tsp vinegar (cider or white)

This recipe was incredibly easy, just a straight forward, mix all the dry stuff, add all the wet stuff kind of recipe. First you want to preheat the oven to 400 degrees, then we'll get to all the mixing. Of course I wasn't going to pass up the chance to use my Kitchenaid  mixer, and accompanying dough hook, so I measured out the flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda into the mixer bowl.

Next we'll add in the water and vinegar to the mixer bowl.

Now you just go ahead and put the mixer on a low setting and mix the dough until it comes away from the sides of the bowl. Then just make sure that all the extra dry mix gets picked up from the bottom of the bowl.

Be sure to flour your hands before touching the dough, because it will be extremely sticky. I man-handled the dough into a well floured loaf pan, the original recipe calls for making a round loaf if you prefer.

When it came out of the oven after about 35 minutes it had a nice golden brown crust, which I immediately slathered with butter and garlic, resulting in a very delicious looking final product.

After digging in my only suggestion to those making this recipe would be to add at least a teaspoon of salt in with the dry ingredients because it was a little bland. Otherwise is was quite tasty, and a fabulous way to celebrate the holiday.