Raspberry Jelly Roll

My favorite kind of desserts are the simple ones....rice pudding, carrot cake, pineapple upside down cake, chocolate pudding and one of my most favorite and one of the easiest to prepare is a jelly roll. All you need is a good jam and a recipe for a nice sponge cake and there you have it....easy peasy!

I used the Cook's Illustrated Foolproof Sponge Cake for the jelly roll and some seedless raspberry preserves for the jam but you can use any flavor you like (even Nutella makes a great, if not somewhat decadent, cake roll).

Gâteau Surprise Chocolat Pistache

Gâteau Surprise Chocolat Pistache

Spring Is In The Air.....

And here in the South that means a lot of gloomy rainy days, but I have just the recipe to brighten a rainy day. My favorite springtime flavor is lemon and this cake is full of it! This was one of the very first cakes I ever made as a child, it's incredibly simple to make and so very delicious.

A tip: The lemon syrup can be made very quickly in the microwave if you'd rather not dirty a pan, and this cake is very tender, so slice it thick!

Sweet Lemon Loaf
The New Doubleday Cookbook, 1985

Cake:

1 1/2 c. sifter flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 c. sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c. milk
Finely grated zest and juice of one lemon

Glaze:

Juice of one lemon
1/4 sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Sift flour with baking powder and salt, set aside. Cream butter in large bowl until light, slowly add sugar and cream together until fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add dry ingredients alternately with milk, beginning and ending with the dry and adding about one-third of the total at a time. Add lemond rind and juice and beat just until smooth. Pour into greased 9"x5"x3" loaf pan or three mini loaf pans.

Bake 1 hour (or about 25-30 minutes for mini-loaves) or until golden, springy to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean when insterted in the center.

Let cool upright in pan on wire rack while you make the glaze.

Heat lemon juice and sugar in nonreactive pan on stove over low heat until sugar dissolves. Pour evenly over the top of cake(s) and let cool thoroughly in the pan before turning out. Wrap tightly and store overnight before cutting.

Hot Apple Cider Cake

Mmmm...nothing like smell of hot apple cider! I was in a hurry to make something for dessert, so this was whipped up from a boxed cake mix. Nothing to be ashamed of! It tastes delicious, very moist, damp, dense and full of apple chunks! If I were to make this again, I would skip the powdered sugar icing and glaze it with (reduced) apple cider syrup.

Hot Apple Cider Cake

1 pkg. yellow or spice cake mix
1 pkg. vanilla instant pudding (4-serving size)
1 3/4 c. apple cider (plain)
3 medium Granny Smith apples (peeled, cored and roughly chopped)
4 eggs
1/3 c. oil
1 c. apple cider
2 c. powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F. Boil 1 c. of apple cider in medium pan until it reduced to 1/4 c. about 8-10 minutes. Grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube pan or 10-inch tube pan. Beat cake mix, dry pudding mix, reduced apple cider, the remaining 3/4 c. cider, eggs and oil in large bowl with electric mixer on low speed until blended. Beat on high speed 2 min.
Gently stir in apples. Pour into prepared pan.
BAKE 50 min. to 1 hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Again, reduce 1 c. of cider to 1/4. c. Whisk into 2. c powdered sugar until smooth, add more cider if necessary. Drizzle over cake.