The Amazing Turnip Girl's Very Special Birthday Cake

 

Oh that's a mess isn't it? It's also very delicious. 

See, for the Amazing Turnip Girl's birthday, being in July, we do either ice box cakes or ice cream treats. 

This year has been well, interesting. To say the absolute least. 

She asked for a "Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake". And I was going to give her whatever she wanted. 

So that meant coming up with a recipe for an icebox Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake.

Recipe first! Then all the story. 

TG's Twinkie Cherry Cheesecake

• 1 box of Twinkies, sliced in half across the top, lengthwise. (so both sides have the round top and flat bottom and creamy filling) 
• 1 can cherry pie filling
• 1 can tart cherries packed in water (drained
• 1 box cheesecake flavored instant pudding
• 1 8 oz brick cream cheese
• 1.5 cups of milk
• whipped topping or whipped cream

Mix cherries. 
Blend together milk, instant pudding and cream cheese. 

In a 9x13x2 inch pan, put a layer of twinkies, cream side up. 

Spread cherries on top. 

Second layer of Twinkies

Spread cheesecake layer on that.  

Cover and put in the fridge for at least 4 hour. Serve with a spoon and add whipped topping as you like. 

It's honestly just that simple. No cooking involved. 

So icebox cakes, as per the name, started before refrigerators were affordable and common. Most recipes are teeth achingly sweet though. Which makes sense. When it's very warm, we want sugar for the energy rush, or at least that's the theory. 

That said, I definitely needed this cake to not be too sweet, which is why I added the can of tart water packed cherries to the pie filling layer and the whole brick of cream cheese to the cheesecake layer. That helped balance out the sweetness of the Twinkies. 

Honestly, it was DELICIOUS. I was kind of impressed. TG was thrilled of course, and the rest of my family enjoyed it a lot. 

Spiced Crab Apple Jelly Recipe

 

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. It's harvest season. The berries, the mushrooms, all those other things wild and cultivated that my family picks and creates the jams, sauces, syrups and jellies we use through out the year and give to our friends. Also, I'm going to do something weird and give you the recipe before the back story.

This is actually a TECHNIQUE and a recipe both. The technique is for easily juicing the crab apples. 

Juicing the crab apples in an Instant Pot

This method will not be as clear as traditional juicing methods, more of a "cider" than a juice.

You will need: 

• 10 lbs of crab apples- ornamental are fine, we used ornamental for this batch
• water to cover
• strainer
• Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker

We have a Ninja pressure cooker that's large enough we did this in 2 batches, which wound up being 2 cups of water per batch to cover the apples. 

Prep apples by removing stems. For larger crab apples, you can cut them in half too. Seeds and skins will be discarded with the pulp, but can add natural pectin to the finished jelly. 

Bring up to pressure and cook for 8 minutes. Natural release. Using a bowl to catch the juice, strain out the solids. A mesh strainer will work, you can line it with cheese cloth if you want a clearer finished jelly. We just strained and smooshed it through. The pulp and the discarded stems all went into our compost heap. 

Juice can be frozen to keep to process into jelly later. Also if you really, really like sour, go ahead and try it. It is sour though. 

Jelly Recipe (makes 12 half pints with a little leftover)

You will need:

• 9 cups of juice. Measure out your juice, add water to make 9 cups if necessary
• 1/4 cup of lemon juice
• 11 cups of sugar
• pinch each allspice, cinnamon and either mace or nutmeg (we used mace, I'm very fond of that vintage spice) 
• 2 packages of pectin- we used powdered Sure-Jell

Mix crab apple juice, lemon juice, and sugar in a large heavy bottomed pan. Add in spices. Stir, heat slowly to mix completely and dissolve sugar completely. Stir in 2 packages of pectin. Bring to a rolling boil (a boil that can't be stirred down) and boil for exactly 1 minute. 

Skim of foam and put into prepared jars with a half inch headroom. Water bath process for 10 minutes.  

Crab apples are pretty new in our harvesting. Last year at a virtual plant symposium, someone told me approximately where her Dad had planted crab apple trees decades ago. My daughter went out exploring and found them and also found out that other people weren't picking them. Over the course of the next few weeks, she and her brother picked about 30 lbs of them. They were dried, used in pie, used for jellies and apple butter. 

Those trees aren't ready yet. But a friend of our offered to let TG and William pick at her house and they got 16 lbs total! We gave some to a friend, and used the rest to make this jelly. 

It's delicious. This would be amazing with moose, caribou, or if you're down south, venison. It's also a natural for pork. The sweet, tart, spiced combination is a natural with sharp cheese too. 

Coloring page- chess board

 

Oh it's been a while. Sorry. This has been a good summer for my garden and I've been spending a lot of time out there. 

Anyway, here's a new coloring page. The big blank spot at the bottom of the chess board is so it can be personalized as you wish as a sign for a bedroom or whatever you'd like to do with it. 

Click the images below for larger versions to print and color. 

Chess board coloring page small jpg version:

Chess board coloring page large transparent png version:

Stick Figure Saturday- Dance Hard

 

It's Stick Figure Saturday again! Simple coloring pages with a lot of room to play with techniques, backgrounds and colors. I hope you enjoy this week's installment. 

Click the images below for larger versions to save/print/color! 

Stick figure dance coloring- small jpg

Stick figure dance coloring page- large transparent png