Paula Deen's Lemon Gooey Butter Cake

Paula Deen is the queen of butter and let's face it people, butter makes things better! My very generous Aunt Penny went down to her restaurant The Lady and Sons in Savannah, Georgia and got me an autographed copy of her cookbook The Lady and Sons - Just Desserts.


My mom, sis, and I went down to her restuarant The Lady and Sons a few years ago and everything I ate was so delicious that I am trying to figure out when I can get down there again. In the meantime I can do my best to recreate her recipes.
Chad and I were invited to my Aunt Pat's house for a bar-b-que for Memorial Day weekend so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try a new, delicious, fatty dessert.
As I looked through the book I saw a two page spread for Gooey Butter Cakes. Now these are legendary in Paula Deen land. She has a million different ways to make these Gooey Butter Cakes (which are really like bars). I decided to "lighten it up" hahahaha, by adding lemon.

Basic Recipe for Gooey Butter Cake - from Paula Deen's Lady and Sons - Just Desserts
Cake
1 18.25 oz. box of yellow cake mix
1 egg
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, melted

Filling
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese softened
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 16 oz. box confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup (one stick) butter, melted.

Directions:
Combine cake mix, egg, and butter in an electric mixer. Pat into a lightly greased 9x13x2 pan. This will be like a paste of sorts and will act as a crust. Set aside.

Next, using an electric mixer, beat cream cheese until smooth, add eggs and vanilla. Dump in confectioners' sugar and beat well. Reduce speed of mixer and add butter slowly. Mix well.
Pour onto cake mixture and spread evenly.

Bake at 350* for 40 - 50 minutes. It should remain a little gooey in the center. cool completely and cut into squares. These are rich (hence the TWO sticks of butter) so it should yield 20 - 24 bars.

Now, I decided to make it lemony - so there were some changes. I used a lemon cake mix instead of yellow and then added 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice and the zest of two lemons to the cream cheese mixture. YUMMY.



Some of the other suggestions are available in the cookbook or on Food Network

Ducky cookie favors and cake - Kacey's Shower

I think one of my favorite parts of the shower was the duck cookies I made for favors. It was my first attempt at royal icing and while it was messy and I don't think it tasted that great it looked beautiful.

I made sugar cookies from the Better Homes and Garden's cook book. I made the cookies on a snow day in February and then froze them until the shower. I made royal icing based on the Martha Stewart recipe. I made the royal icing with meringue powder because Kacey shouldn't have raw egg whites which are usually in the icing.

I decorated each duck cookie with yellow and then put a squirt of orange and spread it with a skewer for the beak. I also gave each duck a brown eye and a pretty pink bow. I was really proud of my work!

The best part was putting the ducks into individual cellophane bags. I tied each bag with a pink ribbon with while polka dots. I placed them on a big lazy susan that my mom made me and placed another sign in front of the platter so everyone knew to take one when they left.


I got a cake from Sam's club with a ducky on it as well. The chocolate cake was DELICIOUS! I will continue to get cakes from them because of the good taste, ease of ordering, and great price! It was much easier than making a cake, which was kinda out of the question since I thew the shower by myself!

Panera Chocolate Duet Cookie rip off

So we often go to Panera Bread on Sunday mornings to get delicious food and read the newspaper. It is a really relaxing way to start the day. One of my favorite things about it is the cookies we get. They have delicious Chocolate Duet Cookies. They call them that because they have milk and white chocolate chips in chocolate cookies. They also have walnuts. I tried to find a copycat recipe online but I couldn't. So I found a chocolate chocolate chip cookies and changed it up a bit.

Amy's Chocolate Duet Cookies

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda

3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 cup butter (I used half butter and half margarine butter is too expensive!)

1 small package walnuts
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup semisweet or milk chocolate chips

Directions
Preheat oven to 350* F
Mix together dry ingredients (MINUS SUGARS) in a large bowl
Cream together butter, sugars, egg, and vanilla
Add dry ingredients to butter mixture
Stir in chips and nuts
Drop by teaspoon onto ungreased cookie sheet
Bake 9-12 Minutes

Well, the instructions I had first said combine dry ingredients and then later it said to cream sugars, eggs, and butter. So of course my freaking sugar was my already mixed with my stupid flour and cocoa powder. Anyway, it turned out okay. The batter was delicious!!! I know I shouldn't eat raw batter but I don't care, its yummy and gooey. These cookies turned out surprisingly like the original. Anyone who knows me knows that I am a rule follower and that goes with recipes too. I am always nervous to go without a recipe so it was nice to try to make something new without a plan. I think Chad will like them and they made SO many cookies that I am sure to gain a pound or two before they are all gone! In fact, I should take some to work, otherwise we are both going to get sick on these cookies!

New Year's Eve, the ditch, and Chocolate Toffee Trifle

For New Year's Eve we decided to go to my friend Alison's house which is about 20 minutes south of where we live. It was 3 couples and my friend Kacey's three year old son, Evan, who is obsessed with Superman. In fact, he has a cape that he refuses to take off and if he for some reason is not wearing a Superman shirt and you call him Superman he will say, "Ahhm Clarr Kennn" which means "I'm Clark Kent." It's pretty funny.
So anyway we played games, ate food, and got stuck in a ditch! OH YEAH! Lots of fun in the 8 or so inches of snow we got. Fortunately we were right outside of Ali's house on the way home when it happend. We waited a long time for AAA to send us a tow truck so we decided to call one of our own. By the time it all resolved it was so late and the roads were so bad that we ended up sleeping at Ali's. It worked out well because I didn't want to drive home in that junk, especially with the New Year's drunks on the road.
But anyway, before all of those dramatics we ate some delicious food. I made taco pie cups, taco dip (see below), and Chocolate Toffee Trifle. I think it is my new fav desert. I used the recipe below but I made half of it for New Year's Eve and I kept the second half of the ingredients seperate for New Year's Day. Don't assemble this dessert too far ahead of time or it could get soggy.

Chocolate Toffee Trifle
courtesy of the Food Network

Ingredients
1 box chocolate cake mix (I used Devil's Food)
1/2 cup coffee liqueur
2 cups fudge sauce
3 chocolate covered toffee bars (Heath Bars), broken into pieces
2 big containers of Cool Whip or whipped cream

Directions
Prepare the cake according to the box instructions in a 9x13 pan.
Cool throughly.
Poke the entire top of the cake with a fork and pour the coffee liqueur over the cake to soak in.
Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
Slice the cake into 1 inch thick pieces.
Then line the bottom of a large glass bowl with a layer of cake. Pour 1/3 of the hot fudge sauce and a 1/3 of the Heath bar on top of the cake. Then top it with whipped cream. Repeat this two more times.
I used some of the chocolate sauce on the top to make it pretty.

Like I said, I only used 1/2 at a time and it made a big dessert. Enjoy!

Grandma's Famous Chocolate Mousse

My Grandma is 89 years old and one of the best cooks I have ever had the pleasure to meet. She always had some home cooked goodness (minus the smokey links that I pretended to like). You could always count on grandma to have some pudding or cookies or pie hiding in the house somewhere! She currently lives in an assisted living home and recently gave my sister, Mary, and I her recipes to split between the two of us. I am really looking forward to the prospect of looking through the box of edible memories. I think what I love about Grandma, besides her sense of humor, is that her cooking is totally down home. She doesn't mess around with fancy shmancy gourmet stuff, she cooks with meat, potatoes, and other "all american" ingredients.
Every year for Easter and other holidays at my parents' house Grandma would bring her famous Chocolate Mousse. More importantly she would always bring it in a beautiful glass bowl shaped like a strawberry. I LOVED that bowl, I would admire it and fawn over it. When Grandma moved to the assisted living home she gave away many of her possessions and she was sure to give me the mousse bowl.
This Thanksgiving I carried on the tradition of the Chocolate Mousse. It is rich, creamy, and frankly too easy to believe. Deb cover your eyes, you will be appalled at this recipe:

Grandma's Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients:
14 oz. sweetened condensed milk
4 oz package chocolate instant pudding POWDER ONLY(the fat free/sugar free is like 1.3 oz, it is basically the smaller box or 4 serving package)
1 cup cold water
1 large cool whip container (one size up from the small one)

Directions:
Combined condensed milk, pudding mix, and water. Beat until well blended. Chill 5 minutes.
Fold in cool whip and chill.

I know it sounds like it would be kinda gross but it tastes very good and it seems like it would have taken a lot of work. I had several people ask for the recipe at Thanksgiving, so here it is! Sorry it took so long!