I am a Honey Bee

All about my adventures with cooking, crafts, and travel

vanilla extract

Peach Pie Trifle

Peach pie trifle – Fresh peaches and cool whipped cream with a sweet glaze surrounding each bite. Tasty treat fit for any occasion

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My apologies for missing my weekly ‘Friday Pie Day’ post last week. Boo!

I had traveled for work on Monday and Tuesday and when I arrived at work on Thursday I was sick. Well, me being a dummy, I didn’t realize it until the end of the day. I just figured my coldness was just from the building controlled AC. Nope, I had the chills. I was so cold I sat under my coworker’s desk to huddle around the space heater she uses in winter. Fast forward to the evening and I was passed out on the sofa with a fever of 101.4.

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I was out sick on Friday and while I could have quickly written this post I decided to sleep off some more of the yuck I was feeling. And even then I napped on Saturday and Sunday. This virus that settled in my throat whooped my butt. It just shows that I need to boost my immune system more to fight off plane germs to handle some more upcoming work and personal travel. Wish me luck!

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So here we are, a week later, and I’m finally feeling like me again. And I have this amazing Peach Pie Trifle for you guys! A coworker, who transferred from our Boston to DC office came back for a visit and came over for dinner. She always enjoyed the goodies I would bring into the office, specifically the trifles I would make. I even made her one for her going away party that we hosted at our house. She requested a trifle for this visit so I created this one especially for her!

Okay, so this isn’t really a pie but I was inspired by peach pies for this recipe. Plus, it’s always fun to take something and remix it into something new. 🙂

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I made my favorite cake recipe for this trifle but you can do it quickly with a boxed cake mix. But I swear this is some good cake. And I hadn’t made a cake in so long, I wanted to just pop cubes of freshly baked cake right in my mouth, but I resisted and used it for the trifle. Worth the wait!

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I made 1 large trifle but this would be great if it was served in individual glass bowls or jars. Mason jars even make for great trifle serving vessels.

There is no rhyme or reason in the layering of the trifle. It doesn’t matter if you start with peaches or cake first, but I always finish trifles with whipped cream. I specifically make shallow layers so that when people are digging in they are sure to get goodies from all of the layers.

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Peaches are super fresh and in season now. Now is the best time for delicious juicy peaches so be sure to make some Peach Pie Trifle now.

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Peach Pie Trifle

Makes 1 very large trifle, serves 12-16 people

Ingredients

For the cake

  • 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 Cups sugar
  • 4 large eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 cup milk
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 Cups Self-rising flour
  • 1 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

  • 3 lbs of peaches
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons vanilla extract, divided
  • 1 pint heavy whipping cream

Process

  1. To make the cake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease 2 9″ round baking pans.
  2. In a large bowl/stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each egg. Add the vanilla extract and beat the mixture again.
  3. Combine the flours together and then add half of that to the butter mixture, beating well to incorporate. Then add half of the milk and beat again. Repeat this process to add the rest of the flour and milk.
  4. Evenly divide the cake batter between the 2 cake pans. Bake for 25-28 minutes, or until a toothpick that is placed into the center of the pan is clean of batter upon removal. Let cool.
  5. While your cake is baking, slice your peaches into thin wedges. In a large skillet, combine the peaches, sugar, and 1 Tablespoon vanilla extract. Over medium heat cook the peaches down until they are just soft. Using a slotted spoon, remove the peaches. Bring the syrup mixture to a slow boil and cook for 3-5 minutes. Add to the bowl of peaches and let cool completely.
  6. Beat the heavy whipping cream and remaining vanilla extract until there are stiff peaks.
  7. Cut the cool cake into squares by slicing the cake into strips and then rotating the pan and cutting again.
  8. In a large trifle bowl or in individual bowls, layer the cake, peaches, and whipped cream. Repeat thin layers until you have exhausted each layer. It’s suggested to finish with whipped cream. ( I did the following: cake, whipped cream, peaches, cake, whipped cream, peaches, cake, whipped cream.)

Trifle recipe idea created by I am a Honey Bee, cake recipe slightly adapted from Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook

 

PS… my helper wasn’t too helpful, but I think I’ll keep her 😉

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Mini Cheesecakes with an Oreo Crust

 

I saw a mini cheesecake recipe on Fake Ginger, one of my favorite cooking blogs, that looked so good that I knew I had to try them. But the thing is I approached this recipe like how I approach scrapbooking. That means when I’m in a scrapbooking class or using a kit I completely modify it to make it my own. But the thing is that for this recipe I dumbed it down completely. Amanda at Fake Ginger made these lovely mini turtle cheesecakes but I changed it up because…

1) The quantity. I decided to make this our monthly staff meeting so I would need to make like 4 batches of them so I wanted to keep it simple. Keep it simple stupid.

2) I’m lazy. I did not feel like making my own caramel or chocolate sauce, esp for so many little cheesecakes.

3) Nut allergies. When I made a delicious chocolate cake with a peanut butter frosting last fall and saw  that a few people could not eat it I decided that I would try really really hard not to make treats with nuts so the pecan on top and the pecan meal in the crust had to go.

4) Never made this many cheesecakes before. ‘Nuf said.

Of course when Price saw the completed ones he was just slightly disappointed “Where’s the good stuff on top??”


I love the cheesecake recipe because it made a really creamy cheesecake. I don’t really like cheesecake because it seems like I’m eating a block of cream cheese, and while I like cream cheese, I like small quantities on a bagel. Anyway, take the time to let your cream cheese and butter to soften otherwise your cheesecake might have some lumps in it. Plus your mixer will hate you, and possibly make funny noises fighting the tough fight. Take the cream cheese out of the box, so it is just sitting in the foil wrapper, since this dramatically reduces the time it takes to soften up.

PS- Sorry for the crappy photos I got up at 5.45am to make them so I just wanted to bake and get ready for the day and not worry about photos. Then I forgot to take a photo of the finished result so I was stuck with taking a photo of the prettiest of the uglies, since they got banged up on the way in to work.

Mini Cheesecakes with an Oreo Crust

Makes 12 mini cheesecakes

Ingredients

Crust:

  • 1 cup of crushed Oreos
  • 1/4 cup of melted unsalted butter

Filling:

1 1/2 packages (12 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup plain yogurt

Process

  1. Preheat the oven to 325. Line a 12-muffin pan with aluminum liners.
  2. To make the Crust:  Put Oreos into a large resealable bag to crush with a rolling pin. Continue rolling Oreos until they are finely crushed. In a medium bowl, combine the Oreo crumbs with the melted butter. Divide the crust mixture into the muffin liners. Press down the mixture firmly with your fingers. Bake the empty crusts for 5 minutes.
  3. To make the Filling: Using a hand mixer or stand mixer, beat cream cheese until creamy. Gradually add the sugar, salt, and vanilla; beat well. Add eggs one at a time, mixing just until blended. Stir in yogurt.
  4. Evenly divide the filling into the baked Oreo crusts, about a 1/4 cup of filling. The filling should should come almost to the top of the liner. Bake for 15 minutes or until tops of cheesecakes are puffed and only slightly jiggly in the very center. Cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for at least a couple hours, preferably overnight, until serving.
 
 
 
 
 

the best of both worlds…Donut Muffins!

I’m addicted to a show called The Best Thing I Ever Ate on Food Network. I sit on the sofa with my iphone and my yelp app and bookmark the places to eventually go to. One of the latest episodes was featuring Snacks and while several featured places interested me I fell for the donut muffin. I don’t think Price would go for a trip to Downtown Bakery and Creamery in Healdsburg, CA just for a muffin. So what’s one to do…. google, google, google and then bake.

 

I didn’t find a recipe I exactly loved for a donut muffin so I made mine own. One of the things I wanted to emphasize was vanilla so I used the vanilla sugar and vanilla extract I made.  I now need to make more vanilla sugar but it was worth it. I think they had a great texture like a cake donut but were sweeter like a muffin- hell, being rolled in cinnamon and sugar will make anything sweet.

 

  

I made a mix of regular and mini muffins for this batch.  I perfer the mini muffins because they are a great size and I don’t feel as horrible if I have mini compared to a regular one! Plus they are so cute little. The recipe makes about 60 mini muffins. If you make mini muffins you will need to use more butter and cinnamon/sugar at the end because you will have more muffins (and more surface area) to cover.

  

I should have taken a picture of it ripped open but I was too busy baking and stuffing Pricer full of them. Then I shared some with Emily and froze the rest. The whole point of explaining this is that the inside was beautifully dotted with vanilla. ahh bliss

Donut Muffins

3 cups of self rising flour
1 ½ teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 cup vanilla sugar*
⅔ cups shortening
2 eggs
1 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Sugar Coating**

1 1/2 cups of vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon of cinnamon
1 stick of unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin tins.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, salt, and pumpkin pie spice, set aside.  Measure the milk and add in the vanilla extract to the measuring cup, set aside.

Cream together the vanilla sugar and shortening together until light and creamy. (be in awe of the vanilla goodness)

One at a time, add the eggs until incorporated.

Alternating with the flour, add the 1/3 of the combined milk and vanilla to the mixture, blend until well incorporated.

Let the batter sit for 15 minutes before dividing it among the tins for baking.

Bake until the tops are golden brown and a tooth pick is clean upon it’s removal. The regular sized muffins will take 20-22 minutes and the mini muffins for 12-15 minutes.

While the muffins are baking melt a stick of butter in a skillet on low. Combine the vanilla sugar and cinnamon together on a plate.

Once the muffins are done and cooled to the touch, quickly roll the muffin in butter coating all sides. Roll the muffin in the sugar mixture.

*Make vanilla sugar by putting sliced and scraped vanilla beans into an air tight container of sugar. The longer is sits the better. I suggest making batches of this and always having it on hang because it is great to add to whipped cream, oatmeal, and other baking recipes. You can even make your own vanilla extract!*

** If you make mini muffins you will need more butter and cinnamon/sugar because of the increased quantity of muffins.