Looking for a winning desert.
 

At my company picnic this year we are having a bake off for deserts. I am looking for something different and that I may have a chance to win.

Haven'tbaked in so long I have no clue. sorry, I'm just going to see who comes up with what.

This won me a Best in Show ribbon at the local fair two years ago in the baking dept.

Oatmeal Cake w/ Peanut Butter Fudge Frosting

Step 1
1 C. oatmeal
1 1/2 C. hot water
Step 2
1 C white sugar
1 C brown sugar
1 Stick butter
2 Eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
Step 3
1 1/2 C. Flour
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
FROSTING
1 1/2 sticks butter
2 C brown sugar
4 T. water
2 T vanilla extract (You MUST use 2 TABLESPOONS)
1 1/3 C. Peanut butter

Step 1: pour water over oatmeal and let sit for 5 minutes
Step 2: Cream all ingredients together. Add step one.
Step 3: Add all the step 3 ingredients to Step 2, mixing thoroughly. Pour into a 9 x 13 pan. Bake in a preheated 350 oven for 30-40 minutes depending on oven. Cake is done when knife inserted comes out clean.
Frosting: Bring all ingredients, except peanut butter to a boil for 1-2 minutes stirring. Take off heat and add peanut butter and stir until smooth. Pour hot frosting over hot cake. Frosting will not be real thick, but will set up as the cake cools.

Start the fudge during the last 5 minutes the cake is baking and pour over the cake the second it comes out. If you use a clear glass Pyrex to bake the cake, you can watch the fudge seep down the side.

This recipe was a Pillsbury cookoff winner one year. I've made them several times, and they are yummy.

Chewy Chocolate-Peanut Butter Bars

1 18 oz. package Pillsbury Refrigerated Sugar Cookies
1 14 oz. can Sweetened Condensed Milk (not evaporated)
1 cup Crunchy Peanut Butter
1 teaspoon Vanilla
3 egg yolks
1 12 oz. package (2 cups) Semisweet Chocolate Chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Spray 9 x 13” pan with nonstick cooking spray
Cut cookie dough in half crosswise
Cut each section in half lengthwise
With floured fingers, press dough in bottom of sprayed pan to form crust
Bake for 10 minutes
In medium bowl, combine condensed milk, peanut butter, vanilla and egg yolks
Mix until smooth
Remove crust from oven
Spoon mixture evenly over partially baked crust
Carefully spread
Return to oven and bake an additional 20 to 25 minutes or until set
Remove from oven
Sprinkle with chocolate chips
Let stand three minutes to soften
Spread chocolate evenly over the top
Cool on a rack on the counter for 1½ hours or until completely cooled
Put in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to set the chocolate
Cut into bars
Makes 36 bars

This sounds delicious, but I don't see how you make the fudge.

Go to PBS.org/Britishbakingshow. I love this program and they have posted lots of the recipes.

These both sound delicious! I think they are calling the frosting and the fudge the same thing in the recipe but I could be wrong.

The frosting turns into fudge. Fudge Frosting. It is not a detailed recipe for cookbooks. It was given to me handwritten from a caterer's baking notes.

My mom had a recipe from her mom for a chocolate fudge frosting. It was wonderful and easy to make.

I have made it for years, then about 10 years ago, I noticed that it just doesn't come out the same anymore. It is still good, but it seems to crystalize more than it used to. Before, when it set is had a very smooth texture, just like fudge, but now it sets, but the smoothness is gone and it doesn't melt in your mouth like it did long ago.
I wonder why?

Thank you both for sharing new recipes!

Any hint of liquid in your bowl, pan, utensils will make fudge grainy. Even humidity can do it. Be sure to butter the sides of the pan so no grains of sugar stick and then fall into the pan later and once you've stirred it altogether, don't re-use that spoon as you cook it as the grains of sugar stuck to it can cause graininess.
Watson

Maybe you have changed an ingredient, unknowingly?
Maybe you are doing something different than in the past, also unknowingly?

Without sharing the recipe with us, it is hard for anyone to make an educated guess that could help you.

Look on the Pillsbury website for their chocolate praline cake recipe. Best if you let it in the refrigerator for about 24 hours before you eat it. It won the bakeoff years ago. I make it for myself for my birthday every year.
White Velvet Layer Cake with Strawberry-Raspberry Mascarpone Buttercream,,http://wickedgoodkitchen.com/white-v...e-buttercream/. This is quite a bit of work but delicious.

I totally agree with the chocolate praline recommendation- it is always a winner.

onebyone, thanks for posting your oatmeal cake. I made this as a teen years ago & am tickled to find it again. Have been looking for it for years. Thanks again.

I made an Amaretto pound cake for a quilt group meeting and it turned out very good. I could go look up the recipe if you are interested.

I'll have to find the recipe and send it so you all can maybe give me suggestions. Thanks.

If it calls for butter, the butter made now has much more water in it, especially the cheaper brands. Land of Lakes is the butter I buy for baking as it seems to not have excess water. This makes a difference especially in the older recipes.

Thanks, onebyone, you may be on to something there. It seemed a lot looser that it used to be when I made it than it used to be. I thought it might just be me. I'll take your advice and use Land of Lakes butter. Of course, now I am going to have to find it in the "I don't make this any more forgotten file." Good luck with that.

I'm sending two of my favorite dessert recipes. Since it is a pot luck, I always try to think of easy hand food. The first recipe, I have had for years and everybody asks for the recipe when I bring them, so I started bringing copies with me.

CRISPY COOKIES

These are the best cookies, they have a great flavor and the Rice Krispies give it a nice crunch. The recipe makes a large amount of cookies. When I take these to our quilting retreats, there are never any cookies left.


INGREDIENTS

 1 C butter, softened
 1 scant C oil
 1 egg
 1 C sugar
 1 C brown sugar
 1 t Baking Soda
 1 t Cream of Tartar
 ½ t salt
 3 ½ C flour
 1 C Rice Krispies
 1 C minute oats (quick cooking)
 1 C walnuts or pecans
 1 C shredded coconut

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Grease cookie pan with oil or cover with parchment paper
3. Cream butter, oil and egg together
4. Add sugars, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt
5. Add flour, mix together only until flour disappears, do not over-beat
6. Put tablespoonful of cookie dough on cookie sheet
7. Bake for 10 minutes or until cookie is lightly golden brown
8. Cool on cookie racks

Here is my second recipe:

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies A KEEPER!!! 
Makes 6 dozen cookies

Whisk together and set aside:
• 4 C flour
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp kosher salt (I used regular salt)

Cream wet ingredients:
• 2 C unsalted butter, softened (I used regular butter)
• 2 C sugar
• 2 C dark brown sugar, firmly packed or 2 C light brown sugar & 2 T Molasses
• 4 large eggs
• 1 T vanilla

Then stir in:
• 6 C Oats (not instant)
• 3 C raisins, soaked in hot water for a few minutes, then drained

Preheat oven to 350°.
1. Whisk dry ingredients; set aside.
2. Combine wet ingredients with a hand mixer on low.
3. Then cream on high speed & beat until fluffy.
4. Stir the flour mixture by hand into creamed mixture until no flour is visible. (Over mixing develops gluten, making a tough cookie.) Now add the oats and raisins; stir to incorporate. You can either bake these cookies right now or cover & refrigerate until the next day (the flavors mingle for a better flavor).
5. Fill med. (2T) cookie scoop w/dough. Press against side of bowl to level dough.
6. Drop 2-in” apart on baking sheet sprayed with nonstick spray or parchment paper.
7. Bake 11-13 min, center rack until golden, but still moist beneath cracks on top.
8. Remove from oven; let cookies sit on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool.

This recipe is another one that I bring copies of.

This is a wonderful dessert. Rich, but not sickening sweet, pretty cheap to make and easy.
Sopapilla is a type of Spanish donut, drizzled with honey.

Sopapilla Cheesecake Dessert

3 8oz pkg cream cheese, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 ROOM TEMPERATURE egg (otherwise the cream cheese will split)
1 tsp Mexican vanilla or 3 tsp reg vanilla
2 8oz cans refrigerated crescent roll dough (I use Pilsbury)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup (or less) honey

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray.

Beat the cream cheese, with the 1 cup sugar and 1 egg, plus the vanilla until smooth. This is best done with the paddle attachment on a stand mixer but you can do it by hand.
Open one can of crescent roll dough and unroll it onto the bottom of the pan, starting at one end. If it comes apart at the seams, don't worry too much, just be sure it is all the way out to the edges and then try to pinch the seams together. When it bakes, it will fill in the empty spots.
Pre-bake bottom crust for 7 minutes.
Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture across bottom crust.
Un-roll top crust as you did bottom crust over filling.
Using a pastry brush, or drizzling if you don't have one, lightly cover the top crust with the melted butter. (You don't have to use all of it.)
Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle on top. If there are any places where the cinnamon mixture stays dry, add a little more butter.
Bake until crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 45 minutes.
Remove from oven and lightly drizzle honey.
Cool COMPLETELY. This is best if left in the refrigerator over night and served the following day.
Makes a good 24 servings

I'm making one right now for our 25th Anniversary party, so I'll try to get a picture before it gets eaten.

The Sopapilla Cheesecake Dessert is an excellent dessert for a potluck. One of the ladies in my quilting group at the senior center always brings these and there are never any left for her to take home. You will be inundated with requests for the recipe, I know because she always is.

Here's an illustration of how to make it.....

Roll out the dough from the short end....Prebake 7 minutes
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Cover with filling
[ATTACH=CONFIG]554415[/ATTACH]
Roll out second sheet of dough on top
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Brush on melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar
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Bake 40-45 minutes. Drizzle on honey
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Allow to cool completely, preferably overnight.

Watson

PS...if you don't want the lines to show up from the crescent dough, you can roll it out with a rolling pin.

Way to go, great pics of how to make the Sopapilla Cheesecake Dessert. Gosh, you are very neat. Me, everything is a little messy.

I've had a lot of practice....I'm a chef! :)

Watson

If the sugar is crystalizing, try adding a tablespoon of Karo Syrup to it. It was on the Good Eats tv show a while back. It's suppose to stop the sugar from crystalizing.

An idea for Mac on why her frosting turns out different now that previously. Do you suppose it has to do with the humidity in your climate? That has been the cause of some of my fudge recipes, and my fudge frosting recipes.
Just an idea. Mariah

That's an idea, Mariah. Here in California it doesn't get too humid, or so I thought. I now have an atomic clock and it gives the humidity and sometimes it says it is 65%. I never would have thought it ever got that high.

I am still having trouble locating that recipe. Does anyone have a good recipe for a cake frosting that firms up like fudge? Maybe if I use someone else's recipe, I'll have better luck. I can't imagine what I did with the original recipe.