Strawberry Trifle and More

On my mind this week:

Strawberry Trifle (recipe at end of post)

This post on the meaning of love

The overwhelming weeds in my garden beds

The possibility that we might move. We go back and forth, back and forth. Right now we're leaning forth.

These words from the introduction to Ephesians: "The greatest adventure in life is discovering the purpose for our lives. 'Why am I here?' The answer may astound you. We have been created to walk in harmony with our God and with fellow believers." This is so simple. Why is it so hard?

 

Continued overwhelming gratitude for this little guy. Here he is on the Fourth of July, next to Grampa Murphy's (broken) tractor. We miss Grampa.

The upcoming wedding of Caleb and Krista. It's a whole new covenant, a new couple beginning their story together. It's a letting go, and a gathering in. It's a mystery that I don't think I'll ever figure out, but it's blessed by God, and  for that I give thanks. 

All the versions of it on Youtube sounds sort of dorky, but oh you guys, the words, "I need no other argument, I need no other plea, it is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me," have been running through my head since a friend reminded me of that song. It's so perfect. Can somebody please make a cheerful version of it? The best version I found was a woman from Ghana, she sounded good, but the video was blurry. 

Somebody loves his big brother. This was taken after Isaac finally arrived, after Malachi had fallen off the sofa, after the tears had dried. Joy. It's on its way, and it's often unbidden, in the quiet moments when we are at peace with Jesus and with each other.

And now here's that recipe:

Strawberry Trifle

(with thanks to my Aunt Bea for the original recipe)

1 angel food cake, made from a box mix, cooled and torn into 1-inch chunks

Many strawberries, at least 4 cups, but 6 cups is better, hulled and sliced into quarters

Cream filling:

1 box instant vanilla pudding

1 cup milk

1 cup sour cream (I use half sour cream, half plain yogurt)

3 cups whipped cream (about 1-1/2 cups whips up to the right amount. I add a bit of vanilla and a spoonful of powdered sugar, but you don't have to).

Pour milk into a large bowl, whisk in pudding mix till smooth and thick. Add sour cream and yogurt, stir to blend. Gently fold in the whipped cream.

To assemble the trifle:

1/2 the cake pieces

1/2 the cream filling

2 cups berries

Repeat, but put tons of berries on top if you have enough. This is the healthiest part of the recipe and you don't want to be stingy about it.

Chill for a few hours and then enjoy!

Chocolate Pound Cake (Two Ways)

Cupcakes on a platter,

just looking cute
     

This was Julia's birthday cake.
You can't go wrong when you fill a platter with homemade chocolate cupcakes topped with pink frosting.
I used to use cake mix for cupcakes, but the awful list of ingredients on those boxes made me feel like I was feeding poison to my family.

I started out by following the recipe from How to Bake by Nick Malgieri, but I quickly modified it to make it a bit more healthy.  Now I have two versions.

Chocolate Pound Cake
(Very, very good, but quite bad for you)

Based on the recipe from How to Bake

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

3 oz. dark chocolate, cut into small pieces
1 stick (1/2 cup) butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Prepare a loaf pan (I line a Pyrex pan with parchment paper), or a cupcake pan (for 12 cupcakes).

In a batter bowl, combine half the sugar and all the cocoa powder and stir firmly with a spoon or a rubber scraper, until all the lumps are out of the cocoa. Add remaining dry ingredients, stir to combine.

Melt the chocolate using your preferred method. A bain marie over hot water is recommended, but I always microwave the chocolate. You just have to check it every 20 seconds or so or it will burn.

In a mixing bowl (such as a KitchenAid bowl), beat butter till it is fluffy, add eggs, remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, and vanilla, and continue to beat for about two minutes. Slowly add the melted chocolate, spoonful by spoonful, as you continue to beat. Scrape sides of bowl as needed. Add sour cream and mix till combined.

With a rubber spatula, stir the dry ingredients into the butter mixture till well combined.

Scrape batter into your pan, or scoop it into your cupcake papers (I use the Pampered Chef Large Scoop for this).

Smooth the top of the cake. Batter is quite thick and it will bake the way it looks now, more or less.

Bake cake for 45-50 minutes, until a toothpick emerges clean.
For cupcakes, check after 20 minutes.

Cool on a rack for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely.

I usually skip icing or glaze, and just serve this with ice-cream and maybe some fresh berries.
It might be the best cake you've ever had.

Now for the recipe I make most of the time:

Chocolate Pound Cake
(Quite good for you, but a bit dry and crumbly. And it will taste strongly of coconut)

3 oz. dark chocolate, melted
1/2 cup coconut oil (this solidifies at room temp. so you'll have to scrape it out of the jar in small increments)
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 or 3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup unflavored yogurt

1/3 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup whole-wheat flour, or a gluten-free substitute if you're feeling brave
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Using the same methods as in the first recipe, combine all ingredients.
The main difference is that the coconut oil might be difficult to incorporate. You can melt it if you wish, but I don't, and a few little chunks of coconut oil don't bother me.

I have to admit, this cake isn't nearly as delicious as the first recipe. But it's still very, very good. The problem is that the first recipe is possibly the Most Delicious Cake in the World, and hence, it's not supposed to get a makeover.

But we can eat many of the coconut-oil cupcakes, relatively guilt-free.
And Julia loved them.
And that is all that matters.

Happy baking!

p.s. If you're wondering about the frosting - I didn't use a recipe. It was roughly 1/2 stick of butter, 8 oz. of cream cheese, and vanilla, whipped to smithereens. Then I added about 2 cups of powdered sugar, I didn't measure so just take it easy with the powdered sugar till your frosting is of the desired consistency. I like it malleable so it pipes more easily.

 

World's Best Cookies

This week:

Nate and Anna Kate got cabinet latches on many of the drawers (we didn't think we could, but he figured out a way), so now I have a few minutes to get things done. For several weeks all I did was run interference on a busy toddler.

Caleb and Krista visited on Saturday, the first time they've been here since Christmas. I was relieved to find that Malachi had not forgotten his big brother. He adores Krista too, she's stronger than she looks and she hoisted all 32 pounds of him with aplomb. Next time Caleb comes home (realistically that will be around Easter), I want to see him practice his stethoscope skills on his baby bro. And while he's at it, hammer a few knees. Basically I want to see the "real" doctor kit in use. When Isaac and Caleb were two and three, I overheard this conversation while they played with a toy kit:

"Caleb, you are dying, wite?"
Then, "No, I'm the goctor I said."
(Loud cries from Caleb).
Isaac, emphatically, "You are dying I said."

Somehow they (and their little sisters) survived childhood. Every now and then I have a jolt of terror that we have to go through all this again, only this time we are much older and more worn down. And the culture around us seems more damaging. And we have pulled out of the amazing charter school that gave our kids safe - and it turns out, life-long - friendships.

But back to our week. Isaac got a job at Boston Scientific. Yes, Praise the Lord! Honestly, Praise Him. I don't think I've ever seen my husband so happy as when he found out our first-born was offered that job. He was offered another job in a neighboring state, but we're delighted that he chose Boston Sci. As soon as he took the job, Nate sat right down and figured out the expenses that would now be lifted from our shoulders. Drum roll, please. It's about a thousand dollars a year. Yep, that's it. Turns out Isaac is our cheapest kid. He's been paying his own rent and food through most of his college years. We truly don't coddle our kids. We nurture them, but more in the way of prayers and cookies than with outlays of cold hard cash (which we don't have anyway).

On Thursday, we went to the Como Conservatory  again, this time with my parents. It was as warm, tropical, fragrant and green as last time. This time we had the benefit of my dad's stories from the jungle. When we came across a palm tree with a thorn-covered trunk - these thorns were serious, about three inches long - he said that once in Jungle Camp (where Wycliffe members used to go for jungle survival training), he was yanking open a tube of plastic and his hand flew back, right into the thorn-covered tree next to him. The thorns were removed, but his hand became infected. Then he told a worse story. A man from the Shapra-Candoshi people was running like fury through the jungle, trying to escape a herd of wild boar. He was forced to climb the nearest tree. You guessed it. A thorn-covered palm.

As my dad said, that Candoshi man was between a rock and a hard place. And although most of us haven't had to run from wild boars and escape by climbing a thorny tree, we can relate to that awful trapped feeling. I hope at those times we remember the great "yet" of God's promises. Amy Carmichael said, "We accept our Father's will and know that He has given us the victory over all the power of the enemy. Nevertheless, there are times when we do need special strength if we are not to break down before the end. Our Father knows this; He does not say, 'You accepted all at the beginning; this that tries your spirit now was included in that.' His love understands and He sends an angel to strengthen us."

His love understands. What a beautiful phrase.

Finally, back to the title of this post. One day last week I found this recipe on Summer Harms's blog. She said these cookies were the best thing to come out of her kitchen. It's the truth. They are so thin, crispy, chewy, almond-y and chocolate-y, that Anna Kate and I couldn't stop eating them. We had to hide them from ourselves. I recommend making a double batch.

Enjoy!

Simple Gifts #3: Cookies

These days the baby is so busy, staying home all day is tough.
He's good in his car seat, and he's a pretty patient shopper, so it's much better to get out of the house if we can. But yesterday's temp hovered around zero, and we wouldn't have gone anywhere except that a local theater was performing during Chapel at Northwestern.They are so good, and I've wanted to see this performance for so long, that we bundled up Malachi and headed out into the deep freeze.

Remember Chapel? When I went to college, we had to sign in on clipboards, organized alphabetically by our last names. Now the students scan their ID cards.

Before we left the house, I whipped up a batch of these Toffee Bars. They are one of my Top Favorite Cookies of All Time. My mom made them in Peru, so you know the ingredients are pretty basic.

Toffee Bars

Preheat oven to 350

1 cup butter, softenened
1 cup brown sugar
vanilla to taste
1 egg yolk (if I have scrambled eggs for breakfast, I take out one yolk and save it for this)
pinch of salt
2 cups all-purpose flour  
Chocolate chips for the top 

In a large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except for the flour.
Whip for a long time, about three to five minutes, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.
The butter and sugar will become light and fluffy, almost like frosting.

Add flour, mix just till ingredients are combined.
Dump cookie dough onto Pampered Chef stoneware Bar Pan.
If you don't have this pan, buy one.
If you use another kind of pan, they won't turn out as good. Just saying.
But if you must use a metal pan, line it with parchment paper. That should help.  

This is the only slightly tricky part.
The cookie dough is so crumbly that you can't spread it easily.
The best way to press it into the pan is to flour your hands (repeatedly if necessary),
and using mostly the heel of your hand, press the dough.
This cookie dough is so delicious that at this stage, I have to fend off my family from eating it.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes.
You want the edges to be nice and brown and crispy.

When the bars are done to your liking, sprinkle them with chocolate chips.
I like the butter crust of these cookies more than the chocolate, so I don't use too much chocolate.
(Maybe about 1/2 cup, although you may want to use more.)
Place the bars back in the oven for a few minutes until the chips melt.  

Spread the chocolate almost to the edges.
At this point, I sprinkle walnuts on one side of the bars.
This creates what I like to call a "healthy cookie."
Since the crust is so good, I leave the edges plain.
When they cool, you can cut them into diamonds.
I usually cut a diamond in the corner so I can follow the lines.  

Malachi Jude, waiting for a cookie.

The play was excellent.
It was wonderful to sit in Chapel with my daughter and baby son.
When we came home, someone had reduced the cookies by half, and eaten off all the walnuts.
Good thing they're easy to make.  

What are you baking this year? What's the one cookie you can't give up?

(If you're in the market for a good play, and you live in Minnesota, check out Theater for the Thirsty.) 

Perfect Pie Crust || Baby's First Pie

Nine inches of snow fell yesterday, and we are stuck inside again.
Today I decided to make a pie for my son.
It's coconut cream, because that's the recipe my friend Jackie requested.
(Sorry Dad. The one pie you won't eat).

Perfect Pie Crust
(adapted from Betty Crocker's Cookbook)

One-crust pie (10- inch)

Heat oven to 475 degrees F.

1/2 cup shortening (I use half butter-flavor Crisco and half lard)
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3-4 Tb. cold water (place ice in the water, plus 1-2 tsp. vinegar)

Cut shortening into flour and salt until fine and crumbly (a pastry blender works best). 
Sprinkle in ice water, 1 Tb. at a time, until dough starts to come together.
Don't forget the vinegar (I use apple cider vinegar), as this is what makes the pastry so flaky.
Gather pastry into a ball, place on plastic wrap.
Form into a hockey-puck shape, wrap the plastic tightly around pastry, freeze for about 1/2 hour.

Remove pastry from freezer, unwrap.
Place dough on well-floured surface.
Roll to desired thickness. I like my crust very thin, but you'll see what happens to it.....
Roll the pastry around your rolling pin.
Transfer to pie plate (Glass pie plates produce the best crusts. Cheap at thrift stores!).
Smooth into place, and form an edge to flute as you like.
If making a baked pie crust, poke bottom of crust with fork (about 10 times) to release steam.
(If filling and baking a raw crust, do not poke crust).

If you have a nine-inch pie plate, you'll have quite a bit of dough left over. You can either make a tiny pie, or just place the rolled scraps on a cookie sheet, sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar, and bake them. They will be done in about five minutes.

Bake pie shell for 8-10 minutes on top rack.

Cool on cooling rack for best results

 Malachi makes sure I measure out the ice water perfectly.

 It's easy to get a perfect hockey puck if you use the plastic wrap to help form the dough.

 Time out for a hug! 

 I use lots of flour, but still the crust gets a little weird sometimes.

 This rolling pin is only $10 at Crate & Barrel. What a deal.

 I made two crusts today, and the first one turned out perfectly.

The second one stuck to the rolling pin.

Don't re-roll your pastry.

Just patch it in, it will still be the best pie crust you've ever tasted.

 Patched!

Fill your pie with your favorite recipe for pie filling.

Our all-time fave is fresh raspberry, from berries we pick that day, but peanut butter is great too.

Here's the recipe for Coconut Cream Filling: 

2/3 cup sugar

5 T. corn starch

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups milk

4 eggs yolks, slightly beaten, in a large bowl 

2 T. butter

2 tsp. vanilla

1 1/4 cup shredded coconut (or flaked, if you prefer to chew your coconut)

1 cup whipped cream, slightly sweetened

Mix sugar, corn starch and salt in a medium saucepan.

Whisk in milk, stir constantly over medium heat.

Bring to boil, boil one minute.

Ladle half of the hot mixture into the egg yolks, pouring it in slowly and stirring or whisking till blended.

Stir the egg mixture back into the mixture in the saucepan.

Bring to boil, stir one minute, remove from heat.

Stir in butter, vanilla, and 1 cup of coconut.

Pour into pie shell.

Cover with plastic wrap so filling doesn't form a crust.

Chill at least 2 hours.

When ready to serve, remove plastic wrap, top with whipped cream, sprinkle with coconut.

(I toasted the coconut first in a skillet).

 He very much wanted to grab the pie.

 Look how flaky that crust is. Hard to catch the tender deliciousness in a photograph. 

 My little photog got the first piece!

Malachi is ready with his two spoons.  
   

Yum.

You may also like this post: Shower for Baby Annali

Chocolate-Cranberry Shortbread Cookies

 A few years ago, I let my sister and her friends borrow our house for a party (my house was in the right location), and while they partied, my girls and I escaped to my friend Ruth's house.  She fed us these cookies and I could not stop eating them. My sister's friends are some of my favorite people in the world, and they thanked me handsomely.  But these cookies were a great reward.

Preheat oven to 325.

1 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. almond extract

Beat the above ingredients well, at least 3 or 4 minutes, scraping sides of mixing bowl as needed.

To that mixture, add:

1 cup almond meal

1 cup flour

1/4 cup cornstarch

1/2 cup chopped Craisins, or dried cherries

1 oz. dark chocolate, chopped

Using a small cookie scoop, scoop out cookies onto parchment-paper-lined cookie sheet.

Dip a glass in sugar, and press each cookie flat.

Bake for a LONG TIME, about 20 min.

If you like, drizzle with melted chocolate when cool.

Hide the cookies, or they will be gone in about 10 minutes.