Blueberry Almond Buckle from Nordstrom (Gluten-Free!)

My sister discovered this amazing gluten-free creation at the Nordstrom café, shared it with my mom, and then my mom found the recipe HERE and made it while I was in town recently. Although my mom thought it was better baked in individual portions because the edges were able to get more of a crunch to them, this is the only version I have tried and I thought it was heavenly!!!

Blueberry Almond Cake
From our Nordstrom Bistro, Grill, Blue Stove, Ruscello, Bazille and Bar Verde locations
(Serves 12)

Blueberry Almond Cake
1 1/2 cups almond flour, plus more for dusting
1 1/2 cups finely ground polenta (cornmeal)
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 pounds fresh blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly butter a 10-by-3-inch springform pan and dust it with a few tablespoons of almond flour. Shake the pan until the flour is distributed evenly across the bottom and sides. Or, for individual portions, lightly butter 8-ounce crème brûlée dishes.
2. In a stand mixer, add almond flour, polenta, baking powder, sugar, salt and lemon zest. Mix on low speed to combine.
3. Add vanilla and eggs, one at a time, to form a smooth batter. Once eggs are incorporated, add butter and continue mixing until combined; do not overwork.
4. Remove bowl from stand mixer and fold in blueberries, trying not to break them, until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
5. With a spatula, transfer batter to prepared baking dishes (about 6 ounces for each individual baking dish, if using). Set aside to make the buckle topping.

Buckle Topping
1/2 cup almond flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
2 ounces (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1. In a stand mixer, add the almond flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon and salt.
Mix on low speed and add butter, mixing until the topping resembles wet sand.
2. Top the cake(s) with an even coating of the buckle topping (about 2 tablespoons each for the individual portions).
3. Transfer to oven and bake until golden on top and the center is set, about 50 minutes (or 20 minutes for the individual portions.
4. Transfer to a cooling rack, and let cool at least 1o minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature after dusting with confectioner’s sugar and placing a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on top.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

In the January issue of Parents magazine they had a little spread of cake recipes and since Addie's birthday was coming up I let her pick one of them to be her birthday cake. She went with the chocolate peanut butter, which I was very happy about :-). The beauty of this recipe is that you use a boxed cake mix so it is sooo easy! You make your own frosting, which is De-Licious, and then make it fancy with some chopped peanuts. It tasted amazing and wasn't hard to do!

Ingredients:
•1 2-layer-size package chocolate cake mix
•1 cup butter, softened
•1 cup creamy peanut butter
•1/4 cup milk
•1 teaspoon vanilla
•4 cups powdered sugar
•1 1/2 cups lightly salted peanuts, chopped

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 8-inch round cake pans; set aside. Prepare cake mix according to package directions. Divide batter between prepared pans. Bake about 25 minutes or until tops spring back when lightly touched. Let cakes cool in pans on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pans. Cool completely on wire racks.
2. Meanwhile, prepare frosting. In a large mixing bowl combine butter and peanut butter. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Add milk and vanilla and beat on low just until combined. Slowly add powdered sugar, beating on low until sugar is just incorporated. Increase speed to medium-high and beat for 1 minute.
3. Use some of the frosting to fill and then crumb coat the cake. Chill the cake for 10 minutes to firm up the crumb coat. Generously frost the cake with the remaining frosting.
4. Make swirls in the frosting with the back of a spoon, using gentle pressure and lifting the spoon straight up at the end of each movement.
5. Cupping some of the peanuts in your hand, lightly press them around the sides of the cake. Once the sides are covered, use the peanuts that have fallen down onto the plate to press into any open spots.
Servings Per Recipe: 16; Amount Per Serving: cal: 598, Fat: 37, chol: 72, carb: 62

Flourless Chocolate Cake

This recipe was in the Parade magazine insert of the Sunday paper a few weeks ago and is from Ingrid Michaelson. I ripped it out thinking it would perfect for our Valentine's dinner dessert and my grandma saved it for me too since it was gluten-free. Although my cake didn't turn out very pretty (and we tried our best to follow the recipe...maybe I didn't beat the egg whites enough?!), it was DELICIOUS!!! It was better than any gluten filled brownie I've tried (shhh, don't tell). And I plan on perfecting this baby by making it again and again! We had it with this equally tasty strawberry ice cream to be a little more festive.

Ingredients:
7 oz really good (45-50% cocoa) semisweet chocolate
3/4 c butter
1 c sugar, divided
4 eggs, separated

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Melt chocolate and butter in a double broiler. Stir together half the sugar and four yolks; add to melted chocolate concoction.
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites; slowly add remaining 1/2 c sugar until stiff peaks form. Fold mixture into chocolate. Pour into a greased 9-inch cake pan.
3. Bake 40 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Cool 30 minutes before removing from pan. Dust with powdered sugar.

Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake

I am behind on posting my recipes, but I did want to be sure to get this one up because it would be a yummy Valentine's dessert. My mom got the recipe from one of her good friends and made it for my sister's birthday dinner last week. It was SOOOO good (my favorite bites had the melty chocolate chips inside!), especially served warm with ice cream on the side!

Ingredients:
1 chocolate cake mix (with pudding in the mix!)
1 large box chocolate pudding
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c warm water
4 eggs
1 c sour cream
1 12oz package chocolate chips

Directions:
Grease and flour a 12 cup bunt pan and preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine cake mix and pudding mix. Blend in oil, water, eggs, sour cream.
Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into pan.
Bake 45 min-1 hour.
Cool 10 min, then slide knife around edges of pan and invert.
Cool completely and glaze.

Glaze:
Melt 1/3 c margarine and stir in 2 cups powdered sugar. Blend in 1/2 t. vanilla.
*my mom's friend sometimes just heats up a tub of frosting from the store and pours over the top instead.

Cheese Cake Sheet Cake

This dessert, which I found on Taste Buds, looked too good not to try. It was absolutely delish...moist and spongy with a great glaze frosting. Not to mention easy enough that I didn't mess it up :-)!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened (I actually used 1/3 fat cream cheese, because that's what was in my fridge and it still was wonderful!)
2 1/4 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/4 cups cake flour

Directions:
In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter, cheese, and sugar for 3 minutes on high speed. Add vanilla then one egg at a time mixing well after each egg. Add flour and mix well. Pour batter into a greased 13 x 18 inch pan. Bake at 325° for 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Frost immediately with glaze.

Chocolate Glaze:
Ingredients:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Directions:
In a medium sauce pan combine sugar and milk and bring to a boil over medium heat. Boil for 3 minutes. Do not stir! After three minutes add chocolate and butter and stir until blended. Pour and spread over cake. Place in freezer for 45 minutes.

Strawberry Layer Cake

I was looking for dinner ideas for the week and then I saw this cake on The Recipe Club and knew I had to make it. We had it for dessert at our Back to School dinner and it was a hit. I LOVED it! It has the same strawberry yumminess The Pioneer Woman's Strawberry Shortcake Cake, but less rich, making it perfect for a smaller group. I'm giving part of it away today so I'll stop eating it!!!

Ingredients:
1 butter cake mix
2 TBSP flour
1/2 cup water
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
2/3 cup frozen sweetened sliced strawberry
1 small box strawberry jello

Directions:
In a large bowl combine cake mix, flour, water, oil & eggs. Beat with an electric mixer for 2 minutes. Add frozen strawberries & strawberry jello. Beat well.
Pour into 2 greased & floured 8 or 9 inch round cake pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in the pan & the turn out & cool completely on a wire rack. Frost between layer, sides & top of cakes with strawberry glaze.

Strawberry Glaze
Ingredients:
1 stick butter, softened
1 pound powder sugar
2/3 cup sliced frozen strawberries with juice
1/2 tsp salt

Directions:
In a medium bowl cream together butter, sugar & salt. Whip until light & fluffy. Beat in strawberries & juice.

Strawberry Shortcakecake

Little bites of Heaven!!! Strawberries, Cream cheese frosting, yummy pound cake that has soaked up the sweet strawberry juice...YUM! When I saw this on The Pioneer Woman's site I KNEW this was the dessert I had to try for Preston's birthday party. Baking is always a little stressful for me, but this turned out magnificently...if I do say so myself. SOOO good! (just keep in mind it doesn't save well - the cake gets soggy from the strawberries)
(also, I tend to get annoyed by the amount of pictures on PW's recipe blog, but this was an instance where they sure came in handy. to view her post on this cake click here)
Ingredients:
Cake
1-½ cup Flour
3 Tablespoons Corn Starch
½ teaspoons Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
9 Tablespoons Unsalted Butter, Softened
1-½ cup Sugar
3 whole Large Eggs
½ cups Sour Cream, Room Temperature
1 teaspoon Vanilla
_____
Icing
½ pounds Cream Cheese, Room Temperature
2 sticks Unsalted Butter
1-½ pound Powdered Sugar, Sifted
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 pound Strawberries (she pictures 2 16 oz containers, so I used both, but had a little extra of the smashed strawberries at the end)

Directions:
IMPORTANT: Be sure to use a cake pan that’s at least 2 inches deep! Before baking, the batter should not fill the pan more than halfway.
Sift together flour, salt, baking soda, and corn starch.
Cream 9 tablespoons butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well each time. Add sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined. Add sifted dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just barely combined.
Pour into greased and floured 8-inch cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 to 50 minutes, or until no longer jiggly like my bottom. Remove from cake pan as soon as you pull it out of the oven, and place on a cooling rack and allow it to cool completely.
Stem strawberries and slice them in half from bottom to top. Place into a bowl and sprinkle with 3 tablespoons sugar. Stir together and let sit for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, mash the strawberries in two batches. Sprinkle each half with 1 tablespoons sugar and allow to sit for another 30 minutes.
Make icing: combine cream cheese, 2 sticks butter, sifted powdered sugar, vanilla, and dash of salt in a mixing bowl. Mix until very light and fluffy.
Slice cake in half through the middle. Spread strawberries evenly over each half (cut side up), pouring on all the juices. Place cake halves into the freezer for five minutes, just to make icing easier.
Remove from freezer. Use a little less than 1/3 of the icing to spread over the top of the strawberries on the bottom layer. Place the second layer on top. Add half of the remaining icing to the top spreading evenly, then spread the remaining 1/3 cup around the sides.
Leave plain OR garnish with strawberry halves.
IMPORTANT: Cake is best when served slightly cool. The butter content in the icing will cause it to soften at room temperature. For best results, store in the fridge!

Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream Cake

Since I have yet to plan my menu for the week and go to the grocery store, I thought I would post this HEAVENLY cake my mom brought to our SuperBowl/Birthday party Sunday. Heaven for me is chocolate, peanut butter and ice cream and this covered them all :-). I'm day dreaming about eating it again someday! (I wish I had taken better pictures that do it's magnificence justice!)

Ingredients:
* 2 T Vegetable oil
* 2/3 c Peanut butter
* 5 T Butter; melted
* 1/4 c Honey
* 1/2 gallon Vanilla ice cream
* 29 Chocolate-dipped wafer
* 1/2 c Bottled hot fudge sauce (I think my mom used her own homemade kind)
* 24 Cream-filled chocolate cookies (aka: Oreos)

Directions:
Remove ice cream from freezer 30 minutes before using.
Place chocolate sandwich cookies in food processor. Whirl until crumbed. Add butter. Whirl until combined.
Stand wafer cookies around inside edge of 9-inch springform pan.
Reserve 3/4 cup of chocolate crumb mixture. Spoon remaining crumb mixture into pan; press evenly over bottom.
Stir peanut butter, honey and oil in small dish until blended.
Place softened ice cream in large bowl. Drizzle about half of peanut butter mixture onto ice cream; fold together to swirl. Spoon half of the ice cream mixture into the prepared pan; spread level.
Sprinkle evenly with remaining chocolate cookie crumb mixture, pressing mixture down with back of spoon. Spoon on remaining ice cream; spread level.
Place the cake on a baking sheet and place in freezer.
Freeze until cake is solid, at least 6 hours or overnight.
To serve, stir fudge sauce in glass measure to loosen, but do not warm. Spoon remaining peanut butter in blobs over top of cake along with blobs of fudge topping. Swirl together with the tip of a knife.
Let stand for 10 minutes. Slice cake into wedges.

Patriotic Poke Cake

I was looking for a festive dessert for the 4th of July weekend and found this recipe on Kraftfoods website. It doubled as Mike's birthday cake and was SO good! The Jello makes the cake super moist and you could use any colors you wanted to. We made the cheesecake frosting (which was SOOOO delicious), so that is what I'm including, but you can also just use plain cool whip.

Ingredients:
2 baked round white cake layers (9 inch), cooled (1 box white cake mix is what I used)
2 cups boiling water, divided
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Strawberry Flavor, or any other red flavor
1 pkg. (4-serving size) JELL-O Berry Blue Flavor

Directions:
PLACE cake layers, top-sides up, in two clean 9-inch round cake pans. Pierce cakes with large fork at 1/2-inch intervals.
STIR 1 cup of the boiling water into each flavor dry gelatin mix in separate small bowls 2 min. until completely dissolved. Carefully pour red gelatin over 1 cake layer and blue gelatin over remaining cake layer. Refrigerate 3 hours.
DIP one cake pan in warm water 10 sec.; unmold onto serving plate. Spread with about 1 cup of the whipped topping. Unmold second cake layer; carefully place on first cake layer. Frost top and side of cake with remaining whipped topping. Refrigerate 1 hour or until ready to serve. Cut into 16 slices to serve. Store leftover cake in refrigerator.

Variation - Patriotic Poke Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
Beat 2 pkg. (8 oz. each) softened PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese
and 2 cups powdered sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed or wire whisk until well blended.
Gently stir in whipped topping (1 8 oz. tub cool whip) until well blended.
Spread onto cake layer on plate as directed; top with second cake layer.
Continue as directed.

Dark Mocha Torte

My mom made this HEAVENLY cake for my Grandma's birthday celebration yesterday and it was SOOOO good! Even Mike, who isn't necessarily a cake lover wanted to take some of the leftovers home with us. YUM!!! I wasn't thinking about posting the recipe at the time, just enjoying each bite, so I never took a real picture of it, but it is definitely worth making!

INGREDIENTS:
Torte:
1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® chocolate fudge cake mix
Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on cake mix box
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup rum or water
1 1/4 teaspoons instant espresso coffee granules
Filling:
2 packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 to 3 teaspoons milk
Ganache:
1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons butter (do not use margarine)
1/3 cup whipping cream
(this photo via Betty Crocker)

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350°F (325ºF for dark or nonstick pans). Grease bottoms only of two 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with shortening (do not use cooking spray); lightly flour. Make and cool cakes as directed on box for 8- or 9-inch round pans.
2. Meanwhile, in 1-quart saucepan, stir granulated sugar, rum and coffee granules until coffee is dissolved. Heat to boiling, stirring occasionally; remove from heat. Cool completely.
3. In medium bowl, beat all filling ingredients on low speed just until blended, adding enough milk for spreading consistency; set aside.
4. In 1-quart saucepan, heat all ganache ingredients over low heat, stirring frequently, until chips are melted and mixture is smooth. Refrigerate about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until slightly thickened.
5. Cut each cake layer horizontally to make 2 layers. (To cut, mark side of cake with toothpicks and cut with long, thin knife.) Brush about 1 tablespoon of the rum mixture over cut side of each layer; let stand 1 minute to soak into cake. Fill each layer with about 2/3 cup filling. Spread ganache over side and top of torte. Store loosely covered in refrigerator.

Strawberry Whipped Sensation

I saw this recipe in my Summer issue of Kraft Food and Family (which you can order free online!) and thought it looked delicious! Mike agreed when he saw it so we gave it a try for his birthday. It was a lot easier to make than I had anticipated and was pretty good! I think I may try using softened icecream instead of the sweetened condensed milk next time just to mix it up and see if I like that better.

Ingredients:
- 4 c. fresh strawberries, divided
- 1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
- 1/4 c. lemon juice
- 1 tub (8 oz) Cool Whip, thawed and divided
- 8 Oreo cookies
- 1 T. butter, melted
**After making this a few times I use 12 cookies and 1 1/2 T. butter for crust!**

Directions:
1. Shape foil onto outside of 8x4 loaf pan. Line inside of pan with shaped foil, with ends extending over sides of pan.
2. Mash 2 c. strawberries in large bowl. Stir in condensed milk and juice.
3. Stir 2 c. whipped topping into strawberry mixture. Pour into prepared pan.
4. Finely chop cookies. Combine cookies and butter. Spoon over whipped topping mixture in pan.
5. Cover cookie mixture with ends of foil and gently press cookie mixture into whipped topping mixture. Freeze 6 hours or until firm.
6. Invert dessert onto serving plate when ready to serve; remove pan and foil. Spread remaining whipped topping onto top and sides.
7. Slice remaining 2 c. strawberries; arrange on dessert. Store leftovers in freezer.

I made 2 of them and we let Ella decorate the extra one. It was SO cute! She made the little circle of strawberries around the outside all by herself :-)!