Brown Sugar Caramel Pound Cake~I'm going to need a moment please

Again Pinterest makes you believe that you can cook, bake, entertain, and craft.  I can bake but not always creative on my own so I have turned to pinterest to help with that.  I found a recipe for another pound cake.  Now not just another pound cake but something so rich and decadent tasting, you may need a moment alone.  May I present the Brown Sugar Caramel Pound Cake!!!

I know I should have put in a picture of it cut but that would lead to locusts descending on the plate.  But I need to give you the recipe for the deliciousness:

Brown Sugar Carmel Pound Cake

Ingredients:
1 ½ cups butter softened
2 cups light brown sugar, packed
1 cup granulated sugar
5 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1 8oz bag toffee chips
1 cup pecans, chopped

Carmel Drizzel:
1 – 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 spray a 12 cup Bundt pan with cooking spray with flour

Beat butter until creamy. Add sugars beating until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. In medium bowl combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mix to batter alternately with milk, beat until just combined. Stir in toffee buts and pecans. Spoon batter into pan and bake 85 minutes or until wooden pick comes out clean. To prevent excess browning, cover cake with foil while baking.

Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes. Remove from pan, and let cool completely on a wire rack. Spoon Caramel Drizzle over cooled cake.

Directions for Caramel Drizzle
In a medium saucepan, combine condensed milk and brown sugar; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, whisking frequently. Reduce heat, and SIMMER for 8 minutes, whisking frequently. Remove from heat; whisk in butter and vanilla. Let cool for 5 minutes before using. NOTE: Make sure you drizzle the caramel while it’s still HOT. When cooled the caramel does somewhat harden.

 I have found that the toffee settles to the bottom of the bundt pan no matter what you spray on it.  A friend told me to coat chips whether its toffee, chocolate chip, butterscotch.  The will *float* better in the batter.  Trust me, as lopsided as it is, it will be eaten.  It's almost new years' eve.  Bring on the food and booze!!

Old School Chex Mix revamped

We had our Mad Men party last week and we had mixed nuts made with brown butter and thyme for one of the appetizers.  I wanted to make something for Christmas snacking so I thought I would do chex mix but add the mixture I added for the nuts and combine them both.  So I dried peanuts and pecans on a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes in the oven heated to 350 degrees.  I let them cool and I put rice chex and pretzel knots on a cookie sheet in the oven separately for 15 minutes. Now I can start the sauce.  Here we go:
2 sticks of butter
1TBSP worchester sauce
1/2 tsp cajun seasoning
6 TBSP brown sugar
3 tsp coarse salt (I used regular salt)
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp tabasco sauce
6 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves only ( you can probably get away with the bottle stuff)
melt the butter in a pan and add all the other seasonings on low
get a big enough bowl to put the nuts and chex in and pour sauce all over and make sure your hands are clean and mix it thoroughly. Pour it out on the cookie sheets spread evenly and put it back in the oven for about 15-20 minutes.  Take out and let cool.
This can be stored in an airtight container for up to 1 week.  I put them in freezer bags and stuck in the freezer because cooled nuts tastes better.
Thanks in part to Martha Stewart and Chex for helping me with putting more nuts in my mouth.

Giant Cupcakes!! Nom Nom Nommy.

So I was supposed to make a chocolate cake for Thanksgiving but when I went to my parents and started cooking, my mom tells me that she doesn't have any cake pans.  What? No pans? What did she do with them?  When they had their kitchen redone, she got rid of a lot of cookware so no pans.  What to do?  My mom kept her giant cupcake pans though.

I just used a basic yellow cake mix but of course I had to be different and add mango juice to it instead of water because you should never use water when baking.

Bake as usual.  Make sure to spray the muffin cups or line them!! No one likes to dig cake out with a knife.  So while it was baking, I got crushed pineapple, drained some of the juice, and put in a small saucepan and added about 1/4c of brown sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1tsp cornstarch to stir and let the sugar melt.  Take off heat and continue to stir to thicken it up.  There was still juice in mine so I drained it a bit more because I didn't want soggy cupcake.  Yes, it was going in between the slice of cupcake because that's how I roll. 

After the cupcake has cooled, I split them crosswise and spooned the pineapple on the bottom half and put the cupcake top back on.  Then I frosted those puppies!!!  I got complaints from my siblings about the pineapple and my sister acted like I was demon spawn for messing with a classic cupcake.  Still ate it.