Coconut Pecan Pralines

Looks kinda like the icing on the German Chocolate cake I just made, doesn't it? Well I used my leftover pecans, coconut and evaporated milk in this recipe and it turned out great! I just put it all together with a few other simple ingredients and there we have it, a quick & easy praline! It took no time at all (except for the hard part, waiting for them to harden on the wax paper!)


Here's the recipe, enjoy!
(I got it from recipezaar.com, I just added the coconut)

Coconut Pecan Pralines

Yields about 3 dozen

Ingredients

2 ½ cups sugar
½ cup evaporated milk
½ cup light corn syrup
½ cup butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
2-2 ½ cups chopped pecans
2 ½ cups grated coconut

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients except coconut, vanilla & pecans in large saucepan.
2. Bring to a rolling boil & boil for 3 minutes.
3. Remove from heat & add coconut, vanilla & nuts.
4. Stir by hand 3-4 minutes.
5. Drop by spoonful onto waxed paper and let harden.

Store pralines in an airtight container.

German Chocolate Cake

I found a delicious German Chocolate cake recipe in a book my mom bought. It's Trisha Yearwood's book called "Georgia Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen." She has lots of really yummy and pretty easy recipes in here.


Apparently this is Garth Brook's favorite German Chocolate cake recipe, or so the book says :)
I made this cake, following her instructions exactly, and the only draw back to me was, it took 4 hours start to finish! Maybe it was just my experience, who knows.
Anyway, the cake flour and rich dark chocolate made it dense and delicious!
The only change I made was adding chocolate ganache to each of the layers to lock in the moisture (along with the coconut & pecan icing) and then to make it look less like a giant cheeseball, I piped the remaining ganache around the edges.

Here's a closer look at this delectable icing; evaporated milk, eggs, sugar, butter, chopped pecans, coconut and vanilla, mmm! Everyone really enjoyed it!

Flowers

This is an 8 x 10 sketch of some random flowers I did in graphite. Once I scanned my drawing into Photoshop, I posterized it with color for this effect.

Click on it to have a better look!

Cookie Dough Brownies

These chocolate ganache topped brownies are the best I have had in a long time! I got the recipe off of Bakerella's blog. So simple to make, yet SO rich. Have a glass of milk or some ice cream nearby.

I added some chopped walnuts to mine, but they would have been great without them too.
Thanks Bakerella :)

Mickey Mouse Cupcakes

Here are some of the Mickey themed cupcakes and cookies I made for a little boy on his 2nd birthday. Half were butter recipe and the other half chocolate fudge; all were topped with fresh vanilla buttercream. The polka dots and Mickey ears are fondant.

A Present Cake!

I finally got the chance to make a present cake. I've seen them everywhere! The pink, green and polka dots were picked by a mother for her daughter's birthday. The fondant bow was a first so it took some time to get it right. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out though!

It's an 8 inch, double layer white cake with vanilla buttercream. I sliced each layer into 2 thinner layers to fill it with more buttercream. Mmmm!
Lastly, I made her a dozen carrot cake bites (carrot cake dipped into white chocolate). Then I just packaged them with ribbon that matches the cake.

I hope she enjoys them! Happy Birthday!