Tag Archives: butter

Pina Colada Cake

April 15, 2018
popcorngirl12
1 comment
butter, cake, coconut, icing, pina colada, pineapple, sheet cake, toasted coconut, tropical

Pina Colada Cake

I BAKED!! I know what you’re all saying…(But you don’t bake!) But I tried yet again, I refuse to give in on this. And it’s not really from scratch, it’s semi-homemade. I added my own touches and it worked! It came out amazing! So moist, rich and tropical! Oh and I even made the frosting from scratch! It was so easy! Go figure!

Rum/Vanilla Frosting

I had this cake mix in my cabinet for months, I bought it online for like a dollar and it was past it’s “best if used by date” by a few weeks so I figured I’d be adventurous. Originally I was going to make cupcakes but I thought I better just stick with a sheet cake this time. I toasted up some sweetened coconut flakes I had in the pantry also (they came out a little darker than I wanted but they taste great so all is well), and topped the cake with them.

Toasted Coconut

After tasting a small piece I wanted to eat the whole cake! WOW! Success!! I can bake I can bake I can bake!!!!

So without anymore self-praise here is how I did it.

Cake Ingredients:

1 box pineapple cake mix (I used Pillsbury Moist Supreme Pineapple)

1 (8 oz) can crushed pineapple in juice, undrained (I used about 8 ounces of fresh crushed pineapple I had in the freezer and thawed)

1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)

1/4 cup coconut syrup (or you can just use water or even coconut water)

3 large eggs

1/2 teaspoon rum extract

Frosting Ingredients:

2 cups confectioners sugar

4 oz butter (1 stick), softened

4 oz. cream cheese, softened

1 teaspoon rum extract

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Extra Ingredients:

1/2-3/4 cup sweetened coconut flakes

Cake Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottom of 13 x 9 pan with cooking spray or butter with a dusting of flour.
Beat cake mix, pineapple, butter, coconut syrup and eggs in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed for 2 minutes. (didn’t realize how long 2 minutes can be when you’re timing something!)
Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake for 34-38 minutes. (Check after 30 minutes as all ovens can be different. I took mine out at 32 minutes)
Let cool completely before frosting.
Once cool, frost the cake.

Frosting Directions: (this recipe will frost the entire cake)

In a large bowl beat(cream) the butter and cream cheese.
With the mixer on low-speed add the sugar a little at a time until smooth and creamy.
Add the extracts.

Toasted Coconut Directions:

Place the coconut on a cookie sheet in a 350°F oven for about 2-5 minutes. Check after 2 minutes so it doesn’t burn. It goes quick once it starts to toast. Cool before putting on cake.

Pina Colada Sheet Cake

Buttery Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings (revisited)

(This recipe is my most viewed post and I thought it was worth reposting for any newcomers! Enjoy!)

I think just about everyone loves chicken wings. But after a while they can get a little boring. Same thing all the time…We have a favorite wings place here in Florida called Hurricane Wings. (They’re on Long Island in NY now too!) They have lots of different flavors along with the usual hot stuff. So the other night I remembered I had a bag of frozen wings and wanted to make up a batch. Well as most of you know, I love garlic. Can never have too much if you ask me. I also love butter and parmesan cheese. So why not combine them all with the chicken wings! Wonderful idea. What I liked most about this is that I didn’t have to defrost the wings first. I just followed the directions on the bag. Baked them for 45 minutes at 400ºF. My oven also has a convection option so I used the convection roast setting. I also turned them over a couple of times during the cooking. We love crispy wings and if you do them this way you won’t have all the extra fat from deep-frying. I am happy to say they came out awesome! We also served them with the usual blue cheese dressing. I also didn’t have any celery so I cut a cucumber into long slices and that worked just fine.

I’m thinking of making up another batch for tonight!

INGREDIENTS:

2-4 lbs. uncooked chicken wings (frozen or unfrozen)

6-8 cloves garlic minced (cut back if you don’t like a lot of garlic)

6-8 tablespoons butter, melted

½ cup of grated parmesan cheese of choice

½ teaspoon each dried basil and oregano

DIRECTIONS:

Follow cooking directions on bag of chicken. Different cooking times for frozen or thawed. Place the chicken wings on a cookie sheet or roasting pan and cook as directed. This will take 30-45 minutes.
Meanwhile in a medium bowl combine the melted butter, garlic, basil and oregano. Add ¼ cup of the parmesan cheese. Mix well.
When the wings are done to your liking, we like them crispy, remove from cookie sheet and put them in a large bowl. Add the butter, garlic mixture to the wings and mix well.
Put the wings back onto the cookie sheet, making sure you get all the mixture on them. Sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup of parmesan cheese.
Broil for about 5 minutes about 3-4 inches from the broiler element. Keep an eye on them so the cheese doesn’t burn.
Remove from oven and transfer to a platter and dig in!

Garlic Cheese Bites

Let me just start off by saying that if you don’t like garlic (you know who you are) then stop reading right here. This recipe is not for the faint of heart when it comes to garlic overload. I’m not joking so beware!! AND if you are lactose intolerant, take a pill or something if you want to eat these. LOTS of cheese. You’ve been warned…

I found this recipe one day while on the King’s Hawaiian recipe pages. I did stick to it pretty closely but I think next time I will make a change to see if it makes a difference. The recipe calls for using the little fresh mozzarella balls. But I think I will try just cutting up a block of mozzarella into cubes of the same size and trying that. I LOVE the fresh mozzarella but I think it’s too delicate and melts too much for this. The original recipe (Cheesy Garlic Bites) comes from a great site called Zestuous. I did follow the recipe very closely except for the amount of garlic, which is odd for me! NOT! One of the ingredients is for buttermilk biscuits (in the can) and it’s VERY important to use the regular kind, NOT FLAKY. Another very important tidbit is to make sure when the dough balls are placed into the muffin pan they are placed open side UP. As I found out with a few that got turned around, all the cheese will ooze out into the pan. Still tastes good but not very appealing.

INGREDIENTS:

2 cans (any brand) buttermilk biscuits (not the flaky kind)

20 cherry-size balls of fresh mozzarella or regular mozzarella cut into cubes

3 tablespoons olive oil

8 cloves garlic, minced (use less if it’s too much for you)

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup white wine

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

½ cup shredded parmesan cheese (any kind)

salt and basil to taste

mini muffin tins

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 450ºF.
Open the can of biscuits and flatten each biscuit.
Drain the liquid from the fresh mozzarella if you’re using fresh and place a ball in the center of the dough forming a ball around it.
Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Add the garlic and red pepper flakes. Sauté for 1-2 minutes, adding the butter and stir until completely melted.
Slowly pour in the white wine and salt and continue cooking for 1-2 minutes.
Carefully roll the dough balls into the garlic-wine-butter mixture.
Carefully place the balls in a mini muffin pan, OPEN SIDE UP!! Trust me!
Combine the shredded mozzarella/parmesan cheese and pile on top of each ball.

Bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove from oven and brush with the leftover garlic butter.

Sprinkle with salt and basil to taste. Serve warm!

Makes about 20 balls

Popcorn Bars

This is a repost from 5 years ago! Wow, time flies! Still loved making these and they were oh so good!!

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Popcorn, popcorn, popcorn! I LOVE popcorn. If there was a popcorn diet I’d be on it for sure. The smell of freshly popped buttery goodness has to be the best smell in the world. I can’t walk past a movie theater without taking a huge deep inhaling breath! Aaahhh….The only type of popcorn I don’t usually like is popcorn balls. I don’t know why but for some reason they just don’t appeal to me at all. But these popcorn bars are something entirely different. They have salty peanuts, pretzels chocolate chips and candy! What’s not to like! The candy-coated pieces can be in red and green for Christmas! Kids large and small will love them! I know I do!

INGREDIENTS:

1 package microwave popcorn, popped (about 9-10 cups)

1 cup salted peanuts

1 cup coarsely crumbled pretzels

1 cup light corn syrup

¼ cup butter or margarine

1 package (11 ounces) butterscotch OR white chocolate chips

1 cup candy-coated chocolate pieces (like M&Ms)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Spray a large bowl with cooking spray. Add the popcorn, peanuts, and pretzels.

2. Cook the corn syrup and butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stirring constantly, bring to a full boil for 1 minute.

3. Remove from the heat and add butterscotch chips, stirring until melted. Pour over popcorn mixture and mix well. Stir in candy-coated chocolate pieces.

4. Press into a greased 13×9-inch pan. Cool at least one hour. Cool in the refrigerator also. It makes cutting them into bars much easier. Cut into bars.

Makes about 24 bars

Saucy Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings

Well it has been much longer than I had anticipated for posting a new recipe. But as we all know, life can get pretty busy sometimes. But it’s no excuse. I have so many recipes I need to post so I’m starting with the one I made just last night. I posted the photo on Facebook and had a few requests for the recipe so here it is.

This recipe started out with me making my Buttery Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings. Then I thought maybe I should try something slightly different. I had a bit of marinara sauce in the fridge, really it was only about 2 ounces, but I figured it would come in handy and it did. I added it to my recipe and tweaked it a bit and came up with a new flavor. They were delicious. No leftovers here!

Quick note about the chicken wings I use. In the past I have bought Tyson uncooked wings or Perdue. But they can be very pricey. Then I switched to Great Value (Walmart). Not bad. But now I am using only the wings I have purchased at a store we just discovered, Save-a-lot. A 4 lb bag costs about $6.00! And the wings are huge! Most of the other brands were have the size for more money! And they are delicious!

Ingredients

20-24 chicken wings, frozen or thawed (flats/drumsticks)

4 tablespoons butter or butter substitute (I use I Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter)

8-10 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon red pepper flakes (more or less depending on how spicy you like it)

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 teaspoon dried basil

2 ounces marinara sauce or whatever red sauce you may have around. Plain tomato sauce is good too.

¼ cup grated parmesan cheese (we use Locatelli Romano)

Directions:

Heat oven to 400ºF. (I have a convection option on my oven and I use convection roast)
On a large cookie sheet or shallow roasting pan lay out the wings. They can touch and crowd each other because they do shrink a little.
Place in oven and bake for 30-45 minutes for frozen. Flip every 10-15 minutes or so. If using thawed, reduce cook time. Bake to desired crispness.
Meanwhile in a food processor place garlic, olive oil, basil and oregano. Pulse until garlic is finely minced.
Add butter to small saucepan and melt on low heat (careful not to burn). When melted add the garlic mixture and red pepper flakes and cook till heated.
When wings are done remove from pan and place in a large mixing bowl. (You can blot up some of the chicken grease with paper towels if you like also)
Add the cheese to the garlic mixture and add to the wings in bowl. Mix thoroughly.
Return wings to pan, sauce and all and bake another 5-10 minutes but keep an eye on it. You don’t want all the sauce to dry up.
Return to bowl you mixed them in and serve. Or if you want a pretty presentation put on a platter.

Serve with bleu cheese and celery/carrot sticks!

Buttery Garlic Parmesan Chicken Wings

I think just about everyone loves chicken wings. But after a while they can get a little boring. Same thing all the time…We have a favorite wings place here in Florida called Hurricane Wings. (They’re on Long Island in NY now too!) They have lots of different flavors along with the usual hot stuff. So the other night I remembered I had a bag of frozen wings and wanted to make up a batch. Well as most of you know, I love garlic. Can never have too much if you ask me. I also love butter and parmesan cheese. So why not combine them all with the chicken wings! Wonderful idea. What I liked most about this is that I didn’t have to defrost the wings first. I just followed the directions on the bag. Baked them for 45 minutes at 400ºF. My oven also has a convection option so I used the convection roast setting. I also turned them over a couple of times during the cooking. We love crispy wings and if you do them this way you won’t have all the extra fat from deep-frying. I am happy to say they came out awesome! We also served them with the usual blue cheese dressing. I also didn’t have any celery so I cut a cucumber into long slices and that worked just fine.