Overnight Cinnamon French Toast Bake

If you enjoy French Toast, you will like this easy overnight recipe.

1 load of French bread, cubed

8 eggs

3 cups of milk

1 Tbsp sugar

1 tsp salt

1 Tbsp vanilla

1/4 cup melted butter

2/3 cup confectioners sugar

extra ingredients that you may like that I include,

1/3 cup of pecans

1/2 Tsp cinnamon

Arrange the bread cubes in a lightly greased 9 x 13 baking dish.

Beat eggs, milk, sugar, salt and vanilla in a bowl until frothy. Add pecan and cinnamon if you like. Drizzle slowly over all the bread

Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge 6 to 36 hours.

Heat oven to 350 degree F. Remove plastic wrap and the loosely cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes depending on your oven. We like our French Toast a little brown on top so after baking I will place under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.

Baste with the melted butter and sprinkle with confectioners sugar. Return to over for 5 minutes.

Easy recipe, I hope you give this one a try even if you don’t like French Toast!

Enjoy your Sunday!

 

Black Walnut and Maple end grain board.

 

 

 

Brooklyn Blackout Cake

 

If you have not tried the Brooklyn Blackout Cake you need to give this recipe a try. This  cake is a rich dark chocolate cake that has a rich chocolate pudding between the layers and is frosted with a rich dark chocolate ganache. Everyone in our family loves this cake, it’s really delicious! I made this cake yesterday and it is almost all been eaten!!

It’s been awhile since I last posted and I have missed blogging and posting with everyone!

This homemade cake is easy to make in three easy steps. Step 1, make the pudding, then the cake and last the ganache. This recipe can found at Taste of Home website.

Be sure to make the pudding 2-3 hours ahead of time so that it has had time to cook before assembling the cake. Making the cake does not require using a mixer, everything is mixed in a heavy pot on your stove. The ganache is simple too!

Assembling the cake is easy too, then place your cake in the fridge to set. In about an hour you will be ready to eat!

If you enjoy a rich chocolate cake, you should give this recipe a try!

Enjoy your Sunday!!

 

 

 

 

 

Strawberry Pies and Tarts

This time of year I love making and eating Strawberry Pies and tarts. Yesterday afternoon I made a pie and tarts. They have been in the  fridge since yesterday but I could not wait any longer to have a taste!! I know it’s just before dinner but what the theck!!

If you like Strawberry pie and tarts, you can get y recipes from my post last year, Best Ever Strawberry Pie recipe! This is a very easy recipe and it is delicious!!!

Enjoy!!!

Photo credit Rina Jordan, wonderful photo of my Walnut Cheese Board, check out her website, Rina Jordan Photography

 

 

 

 

Capers Blades and Blue Tips

Above picture – Capers Blades

I spent the last few days this week at Isle of Palm with my friends, together there were  six of us. We had a big house with a pool that was one block off the beach. This house was huge and had 6 master suites.

Above picture – Blue Tips

We all enjoy eating oysters, so we ate oysters each night at different restaurants, Pearlz, Boathouse, etc. The above picture is Capers Blade oysters, these are elongated and are delicious.

I love all oysters but my favorite are Blue Tips, all with a little lemon, sauce and horseradish!

Do you like oysters? What is your favorite?

Photo credit Rina Jordan, check out her website, Rina Jordan Photography

Easter Desserts

I made several cakes for our Easter dinner yesterday afternoon, the first one I made was the coconut cake! This is a four layer cake with an old fashion coconut icing. It is awesome 🙂 This recipe has been handed down thru our family for many, many years! If you like coconut cake, you would love this recipe. Coconut Cake recipe!

The second cake was a chocolate cake covered in chocolate ganche! Delicious!

Ok, here is the question, which cake would you choose? Or would you choose both?

Happy Easter!

 

Check out my Instagram page to see more of my work, click the Instagram image!

 

 

One of the best ever photographs of my work!! Photo credit Tricia Buice

 

Pi Day

So tomorrow is Pi Day, the Greek letter “π” is the symbol used in mathematics to represent a constant — the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter — which is approximately 3.14159. Do you remember learning about Pi in school?

On Pi Day, many people celebrate by eating their favorite pie! If I had to pick a favorite pie, it would be the strawberry pie!!

Then there is the pizza pie!! I love pizza and there is a new place in town that has an awesome Meatball Pizza Pie!!!

Sidewall Pizza in Travelers Rest, SC   Sidewall Pizza Instagram

Or maybe you like the traditional pizza!!

There are so many pies, it would be hard to list all of them, many are sweet but there are others that are comfort food!

Like the chicken pot pie!!!…delicious on a day like today, all rainy and cool!

So, what is your favorite pie!     Is it sweet or savory?     Comfort food?

I hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!!

Photo credit Tricia Buice

Sunday Morning Muffins

I love to make and eat homemade Blueberry Muffins for breakfast on Sunday mornings! They are the best just from the oven when they are warm 🙂

Here is the link to my recipe!  Blueberry Muffins  They are delicious!!!

 

The bigger the muffin the better, I love using the large size muffin pans. I buy frozen blueberries in bags, most all grocery stores have them. Adding frozen blueberries to the batter helps to reduce the blueberry juices from turning your batter blue.

 

Enjoy your Sunday!! 🙂

 

 I love this picture of my work taken by Tricia Buice, check out her blog page, Saving Room for Dessert!

 

 

Bacon!!

 

I am not sure I know anyone that doesn’t like bacon, especially a good bacon sandwich!! 🙂 The other day our local grocery had bacon on sale, buy-one-get-one so we went for the sale. Bacon has been running anywhere from $6.00 per pound to $10 a pound for a long time and just recently the prices have come down.

This is Smoked Maple Bacon, despite how thin it was it tasted very good. We like thicker bacon and generally buy it at the Publix deli and we have purchased it from Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel usually has bacon on sale all the time and it is very good.

We decided to try this bacon so we made a few BLT sandwiches.

When all the cooking was done, it had cooked up really thin!! Now time to make the sandwiches, crab the bread and the toaster, lettuce, tomato, salt, pepper and mayo. We use Duke’s mayo and nothing else because of it’s great taste. It is also made locally.

BLT’s are quick to make and is one of my all time favorite sandwiches, I enjoy having a lot of bacon on my sandwich!

We enjoyed the BLT with cantaloupe, it was very good.

What is your favorite sandwich? Do you like a good BLT?

 

Cheese Serving Boards

Meatball Appetizers

Last Friday, we had another family get together and decided to eat leftovers plus we made a few appetizers, mostly finger foods and desserts! This meatball recipe is really  delicious, the meatballs soak up the sauce, oh they are so good! Why would you not try this recipe, it is so easy to make and everyone will think you slaved all day!! 🙂

You can purchase ready made meatballs in the frozen food section of your grocery or make you own. I choose to use the ready made meatballs, it just made it easier since I have been cooking for a week already!

Ingredients:
16 ounce jar of Grape Jam
16 ounces of Chili Sauce
1 bag of Meatballs
Crock Pot liners

I doubled this recipe since we had a big crowd. It’s so easy, combine equal parts of grape jam an chili sauce into your crock pot and stir. Add meatballs and stir, set the crock pot on high for 4-5 hours to cook. You might need to cook longer depending on the size of your crock pot. I did not have any crock pot liners so clean up took a little longer. I like to use the crock pot liners, makes for really easy clean-up!

 The meatballs I used were Italian style that had garlic and other spices, they were delicious!

The Chili sauce can be hard to find but the grape jam is easy!

The above picture shows what they look like after mixing everything, turning on the crock pot and placing the lid on top. 

I would suggest stirring the meatballs about every hour if you can! Next picture, they are ready to eat!!! MMM… they are so delicious!

What is your favorite appetizer?

Happy  New Year!! 🙂 Be safe if you are going out tonight!!

Birds Eye Maple Cutting Boards

 

Heath Toffee Bits

Do you like the Heath Toffee candy bars?  If you like the Heath Toffee candy bars you will love these cookies! They are easy to make and they only take 6 minutes to cook!! Everyone loves these cookies!!

Ingredients:
1  – 18 or 30 ounce roll of sugar cookies
1 – tablespoon of plain flour per 18 ounce of sugar cookie dough
1/2 bag or 4 ounce of Heath Toffee Bits per 18 ounce cookie dough – I like to add extra bits!!
3-4 ounces of chocolate chips for topping ( not required )
Bake at 360 degrees F

Using cold sugar cookie dough, remove wrapper, cut dough into pieces. Add flour and Heath Toffee Bits. Using your hand work the flour and Heath Toffee bits today.

Using parchment paper, line your baking sheet. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and place equally apart on the parchment paper.

Place in the oven and bake 6 to 7 minutes depending on your oven. Be careful not to over bake, if you over bake them they will be crisp instead of a chewy cookie!

I didn’t have any chocolate chips left but I usually melt chocolate chips in a baggie, cut a really small hole in the baggie, then drizzle the melted chocolate on top of the cookies. Then sprinkle more toffee bits into the chocolate. I suppose you could also use the chocolate sprinkles, green and red for Christmas!

Time for a snack! 🙂

Enjoy! 🙂