So I finally decided and I landed with a free wordpress blog for now. That means it’s going to have ads until I get enough cash to get a fancy-schmancy site. The advantage to the name being Elana Ayu instead of Prancing Pony Club, I get to change whatever I blog about without having to worry about URLs and taglines, etc.
Here’s the link one more time: http://elanaayu.wordpress.com
No, I haven’t stopped baking, and no, I haven’t stopped wanting to blog. I’ve been stuck with a screen break because I didn’t follow the rules and I got a 5-month screen break… oops. Moral: listen to your parents and follow the 30-minute rule…
SO much exciting stuff happened while I was off the screen.
Exciting thing no. 1: Thanksgiving Tarts: My dad hired me to make him 41 tarts for his customers and I made them in the course of TWO weeks. (I was baking six tarts a day and staying up to eleven-thirty waiting for crusts..) Luckily, that also meant a lot of moolah. 💰
Exciting thing no. 2: Christmas/New year: That happened.
Exciting thing no . 3: More tarts for more people: I made various tarts for various people. And that meant more moolah.
Exciting thing no. 4: Birthday: I’m now 12 years old.
Exciting thing no. 5: Even more tarts for more people:
Frankly, I don’t like Weebly. It’s so DIY that it’s hard to (if possible) make a professional website. WordPress holds you back just enough so that it looks nice, but loose enough it feels like YOUR website.
I am really not a fan of Weebly. It’s so difficult to post and take care comments and stuff. At first I thought it was just that I wasn’t used to Weebly. Partly that, but also, THERE’S A REASON I started with WordPress instead of Weebly!
A blog I really like, https://twingenuitygraphics.com/blog/, did a post about this AFTER I already set it up. (Actually, they already had a post, I just read it after According to the Recipe.)
What should I do? Set up a new free WordPress site? Set up another paid-for WordPress site? Continue this site? Giving Weebly a second chance?
https://accordingtotherecipe.weebly.com/
I told you it was coming! I FINALLY set up the other website. Y’all have 1 month before I delete this site.
days
hours minutes seconds
until
DELETION
My Grandmother’s Friend’s cheesecake cupcake/pie recipe makes about 21 cupcakes or two pies. Also, I took my own pictures this time!!🎉 *please don’t critique my Mom’s camera quality*
At the moment, Mom and I are making cupcakes, so I’m gonna list the ingredients and stuff for those.
Basically, it’s cream cheese, eggs, lemon, and sugar all whipped up and put in a cupcake wrapper with Nilla wafers.
See, really simple! Basically, you just mix everything together (except the wafers and blueberry) with a hand mixer, but I put things in whatever order I liked most.
Two weeks ago, I stumbled upon the cream puff recipe in our Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. I remember Asher trying that once (and failing), so I decided to give it a shot. We ran to Brookshire Brothers to get some vanilla ice cream, because that was the recommended filling. So I made the puffs and then came the hardest part: filling. I knew that piping ice cream isn’t normally a good idea, but I wasn’t sure how else. Dad said to take a sharp piping tip and just stab the puffs, but.. let’s just say… that didn’t work out. So I got a paring knife and cut the tops off the puffs. (BTW, while I was cutting, the ice cream was melting…🙄) I took a piping bag, filled it with ice cream, and started piping. I got to four puffs before the ice cream was melting like crazy and I had to stick it in the freezer for several minutes. Unfortunately, ice cream doesn’t freeze as fast as it melts… so it was still kinds soft when I started piping again. This time, I got about six done before I had to return it. In the end, the result was all right, but not good. There was barely any ice cream in it because it melted all over the plate. The next try was no different.
Yesterday, however, was better. I decided to make a pastry cream because the ice cream was all gone, and I was pretty sure Pastry Cream doesn’t have to be frozen. This time, I took a paring knife and cut an X on the top of each puff and then, with my pastry cream, (which I happened to make Chocolate-Vanilla) I piped a generous amount of pastry cream into each puff, but halfway through, I realized I was running out of cream. I piped less into the puffs, and it was just enough. Unfortunately, that meant no extra to eat. 😋
I put the two plates of puffs (the heavier and more filled on one plate and the lighter and less filled on the other) in the fridge, because cold pastry cream is SO GOOD. Luckily, the pastry cream didn’t melt like ice cream and the puffs were still flaky and delicious. Note to self: Don’t over-fill the puffs. You won’t have enough pastry cream to go around.
Split your pastry cream into two bowls. Stir the cocoa into one and leave the other vanilla. Put them both into separate piping bags. DON’T SNIP THE TIPS. Slide both bags into the big bag, pushing them in as hard as they’ll go. Tie off the ends with a small rubber band. Snip the tips where both colors come through. Pipe!
The secret recipe handed down from Mom’s Mom is…
This ‘cake’ isn’t as sweet as most cakes and is a great snack. The apples add a little crunch, while the raisins make it chewy and flavorful. A family recipe, with a few little alterations.
I personally love this apple cake and used to make it often, but it’s become scarce. Luckily, that makes it a real treat!😋🍎
Like I said, yesterday was Mom’s birthday. I made her an AWESOME Pina Colada cake. Inside, there was two layers of coconut white cake and a thick layer of pinnaple-coconut filling.The pinnaple was crushed from a can and boiled down with coconut extract, sugar, and shredded coconut. It was iced in a Whipping Cream frosting and three tablespoons of rum. To make sure it was really light on the rum, I added lots of cream to dilute. No worries!🍺
Then, I topped it a ring of eight whipped cream swirles, with pinnaple chunks in between them and coconut shavings on top of them. I used the rest of the pinnaple filling to top inside the ring, and did a big swirl in the center of that. Finally, I threw coconut shavings on the sides of the cake and topped the swirls with pink umbrellas 🍰! Yes, the umbrellas were very necessary. Happy birthday, Mom!
You might realize I’m obsessed with strawberry. You’d be right. 🍓
BUT this time I have a good reason for making them Strawberry: it’s Mom’s birthday🎉.
Strawberry Pancakes are something I’ve been dying try, and we had a carton of strawberries left over from Isabel’s birthday cake (which happened Tuesday). So I had to use the carton of strawberries before they went bad, and what better occasion!
So I started out with chopping the strawberries into fairly big cubes. Then, I mixed them into my pancake batter. I tried a pancake, but the pieces were wayyyyyyy to big. So, I took out the immersion blender ( I call it the stick blender) and stuck the blade into the measuring cup my batter was in, and whizzzed it on. I only pulsed it very briefly, because I still wanted the strawberry texture, not just the pink blush color.
Well, I cooked them like normal, and made Mom a big, pink, heart pancake💗. I served it on the birthday plate with maple syrup and slivered, fanned-out strawberries.
Later on, I made her a Pina Colada Cake, but more on that in another post.
You probably know I make fruit tarts. Yesterday, I tried making the same recipe in Tartlet Pans, which I got for Christmas. It was adorable. In case you don’t know what a tart is, (they aren’t as common as cakes, pies, and cookies) it’s like a pie with a very thin shortbread crust and then there is a pastry-cream filling and fruits on top. Anyway, they’re delicious.
Although I haven’t blogged about it, I’ve recently been baking strawberry tarts, which have a top like the one I made for my Aunt’s birthday.
On Friday, I made a tart for a neighbor, so I had extra dough. I was supposed to make us a tart with the remaining dough on Saturday…. but…. that didn’t happen. So Sunday night, before dinner, I rolled out the dough and attempted laying it over the 10-inch tart ring, which was when I realized it wasn’t enough dough. Remembering the small tart pans in my box, I decided to try it out. Since the set wasn’t meant for 8 people, it only came with 6. So I made five, and rolled out the rest of the dough into a giant sheet and baked it. The five pans were ADORABLE, because they were scalloped, which meant the tart had scallops. (Maybe someday I’ll make a scallop tart with scalloped edges. Okay, that was a bad pun.)
Because we have 8 people (7, not counting Ava), 5 tarts weren’t enough. So I filled two tall ramekins with pastry cream and a strawberry, sliced and fanned out, and one smaller ramekin with pastry cream and two fanned-out strawberries. And then I took the cookies that I had broken up from that giant sheet and stuck pieces of it into all the ramekins.
Although all of the types were probably delicious, I think the scalloped-tartlet pans were adorable. I will definitely use them again.👍
My mind is BLOWN right now. Okay, how does Corn & Cheese Ice Cream sound?
Well it may surprise you, but this REALLY IS NOT THAT BAD. We got it at 99 Ranch Market yesterday, and it wasn’t horrible. For an ice cream maniac, I kind of like it. It’s really weird, because you can’t taste the cheese, but there are chunks of corn suspended in the creamy ice cream. It’s not at the bottom at my list, but definitely is not higher than Blue Bell (1#), Ben & Jerry’s (2#) or even Heb Swoon (3#).
You may wonder, like I did, “Why would you even get this?!” This is how things work in our house:
“Hey, this looks disgusting!”
“Oooohhhh let’s try it!”
“Hey, this smells terrible!”
“Move, I wanna smell!!!”
“Guys, in-grown toenails are gross!”
“Show me!!!”
You probably get the picture. Pretty much, this is not as bad as it looks. I’m not quite sure if I like it yet, but not as disgusting as I pictured.
Actually I made this weeks ago, but suddenly decided to write about it.
Anyone who knows me knows I love barbecue. But at most joints, they have banana pudding. What’s wrong with that? IT’S NOT FRESH BANANA PUDDING!!! It’s canned with fresh bananas and wafers.
One of my best friends LOVES banana pudding, but she gets the Jello-brand stuff. So I decided to make REAL banana pudding. I was going to make homemade wafers too, but that’s just too much work. 😅
The Prancing Pony Club 