The Crepe Cake Revisted

I wanted to post today to make a correction to my former recipe for the luscious delight you see in the picture above. This, my friends, is my quickie version of a crepe cake. I made it last night for my small group, and in doing so realized that the recipe I posted here was a little bit incorrect. So, I thought I'd repost.

Also, I'd like to take the opportunity to tell you how much I truly love this "cake." It is so easy and looks so impressive. Anyone can make this. There's simply no way you can mess it up! It looks like you spent hours on it, when in reality, whipping this baby up took me under 1 hour.

So, without further ado, I give you:

Easy 20 Layer Crepe Cake

Yes, I am changing the name of the recipe. Why? Because I realize that this simple recipe can be used as a base for many, many creations. Just get creative! You can make tons of variations of this cake. We'll talk more about that after the basic recipe.

Basic Recipe:

Crepes

- 20 basic crepes (I used store bought Melissa's brand, but you could make your own, of course)

Mascarpone Cream

- 2 8oz containers mascarpone cheese

- 1 8oz block cream cheese

- 1 3.4oz box instant vanilla pudding mix

- 4 tsp. vanilla extract*

- 3/4 c. milk

- 1/4 c. powdered sugar (or more to taste)

To assemble the cake, all you do is layer it with about 1/8 c. mascarpone cream for each layer(and whatever other ingredients you'd like) and garnish with powdered sugar, fruit, chocolate, whatever blows your skirt up!

Now, for the varations. For the one in the picture, I made it a Chocolate Hazelnut 20 Layer Crepe Cake by spreading every third layer with Nutella (aka the food of the gods). I garnished it with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, whipped cream, and strawberries. Last night, the cake I made for my small group became a Strawberry Chocolate Hazelnut crepe cake because I added sliced strawberries in each Nutella layer.

To make a variation, all you have to do is add things to the cream (like different extracts instead of vanilla, switch out the vanilla pudding for chocolate and add cocoa to make a chocolate cream) and use different ingredients for layering. Here are three variations I came up with on my own. Can you think of any others?

Citrus Crepe Cake: Omit the vanilla and add orange, lemon, or lime extract to taste. You could even add in some zest for extra flavor. Then, layer orange, lemon, or lime curd on every third layer.

Mocha Crepe Cake: Add a bit of cocoa powder, substitute brewed coffee or espresso for the milk, and substitute chocolate pudding mix for the vanilla.

Bananas Foster Crepe Cake: Add a bit of rum or rum extract to the cream, use banana pudding mix instead of the vanilla, and alternate with layers of caramel and bananas. Yum!

As you can see, the possibilities are endless!

Halloween Costume Woes

Mr. JY and I are having a lot of trouble coming up with a Halloween costume this year. Halloween is one of my most favorite holidays; I have loved it since I was a little girl and usually think about and plan out my costumes months ahead of time, full of anticipation. To a girl like me with a big imagination, Halloween was always the best: forget all of that spooky stuff, you get to dress up in a fantastic costume, hang out with your friends, and collect candy for a night. What could be better?

Not everyone shares my sentiments about Halloween, especially Mr. JY. He sees dressing up as nothing but a hassle. I am sure many men share this opinion. As a child, he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at age 8 so it's easy to see why Halloween has never been his favorite. Tons of candy is not very good for a diabetic kid.

However, enivtably, every year we are invited to some sort of Halloween costume party, to my delight and his dismay.

This year, I am totally at a loss to come up with a costume we'd both like to dress up in.

Originally, due to my love of all things vintage and especially the WWII era, I wanted to recreate this:

The famous end of WWII nurse-sailor kiss. However, I don't think Mr. JY is all too thrilled about dressing up in a sailor costume.

Now, I'm leaning towards maybe dressing up as Elvis and Priscilla Presley or Sonny and Cher.

Anyone else have any creative and fun Halloween couples costume ideas? I'm at a loss, here, people.

The Sweet 100

I got this list from CakeSpy.com, and they got it from someone else. But I thought it was too fun not to do!

1) Copy this list into your site, including the instructions!
2) Bold all of the sweets you've eaten--or make them a different type color.
3) Cross out any of them that you'd never ever eat. (I'm gonna make mine italic).
4) Consider anything that is not bold or crossed out your "To Do" List. (Maybe I will make some of these on Sunday afternoons when I bake!)


1. Red Velvet Cake
2. Princess Torte
3. Whoopie Pie
4. Apple Pie either topped or baked with sharp cheddar
5. Beignet
6. Baklava
7. Black and white cookie
8. Seven Layer Bar (also known as the Magic Bar or Hello Dolly bars)
9. Fried Fruit pie (sometimes called hand pies)
10. Kringle
11. Just-fried (still hot) doughnut
12. Scone with clotted cream
13. Betty, Grunt, Slump, Buckle or Pandowdy
14. Halvah
15. Macarons
16. Banana pudding with nilla wafers
17. Bubble tea (with tapioca "pearls")
18. Dixie Cup
19. Rice Krispie treats
20. Alfajores
21. Blondies
22. Croquembouche
23. Girl Scout cookies
24. Moon cake
25. Candy Apple
26. Baked Alaska
27. Brooklyn Egg Cream
28. Nanaimo bar
29. Baba au rhum
30. King Cake
31. Sachertorte
32. Pavlova
33. Tres Leches Cake
34. Trifle
35. Shoofly Pie
36. Key Lime Pie (made with real key lime)
37. Panna Cotta
38. New York Cheesecake
39. Napoleon / mille-fueille
40. Russian Tea Cake / Mexican Wedding Cake
41. Anzac biscuits
42. Pizzelle
43. Kolache
44. Buckeyes
45. Malasadas
46. Moon Pie
47. Dutch baby
48. Boston Cream Pie
49. Homemade chocolate chip cookies
50. Pralines
51. Gooey butter cake
52. Rusks
53. Daifuku
54. Green tea cake or cookies
55. Cupcakes from a cupcake shop
56. Crème brûlée
57. Some sort of deep fried fair food (twinkie, candy bar, cupcake)
58. Yellow cake with chocolate frosting
59. Jelly Roll
60. Pop Tarts
61. Charlotte Russe
62. An "upside down" dessert (Pineapple upside down cake or Tarte Tatin)
63. Hummingbird Cake
64. Jell-O from a mold
65. Black forest cake
66. Mock Apple Pie (Ritz Cracker Pie)
67. Kulfi
68. Linzer torte
69. Churro
70. Stollen
71. Angel Food Cake
72. Mincemeat pie
73. Concha
74. Opera Cake
75. Sfogliatelle / Lobster tail
76. Pain au chocolat
77. A piece of Gingerbread House
78. Cassata
79. Cannoli
80. Rainbow cookies
81. Religieuse
82. Petits fours
83. Chocolate Souffle
84. Bienenstich (Bee Sting Cake)
85. Rugelach
86. Hamenstashen
87. Homemade marshmallows
88. Rigo Janci
89. Pie or cake made with candy bar flavors (Snickers pie, Reeses pie, etc)
90. Divinity
91. Coke or Cola cake
92. Gateau Basque
93. S'mores
94. Figgy Pudding
95. Bananas foster or other flaming dessert
96. Joe Froggers
97. Sables
98. Millionaire's Shortbread
99. Animal crackers
100. Basbousa

An Update on the Life of the JYs and Upcoming Recipes!

Well, it looks like my "Brief Hiatus" hasn't been so brief. Mr. JY and I have been busy, busy, busy, which makes for a boring blog. It's been a challenge just getting dinner on the table in time for us to eat before flying out the door, much less take pictures and blog about it. I have been cooking and baking a lot.

For now, Mr. JY and I have been focused on our new house. We're really excited to be moving in to our first home together (in just a couple of weeks!), putting our stamp on it, and making it truly ours. I have dreams of tile backsplashes, shiny new appliances, and Anthropologie linens dancing in my head.

I will, however, have many new recipes coming up, including:

- A flopped Nutella cookie recipe. It could've been brilliance in the making, but not-so!
- A long awaited review of one of Mr. JY and I's favorite Nashville restaurant discoveries.
- Paula Deen's Not Yo Mama's Banana Pudding. I still can't believe I'm making this super untraditional, almost sacreligious pudding recipe!
- Mr. JY's Birthday Dinner. Oh man. That should be good!

All coming soon!! Stay tuned!!

Easy, No Cook "Cheat" Desserts

Since I've been rather absent lately, I'm going to give you two recipes for the price of one! These are two "cheat" dessert recipes I came up with when I was in a pinch. As I mentioned before, Mr. JY, and I have been really busy lately house hunting and then purchasing our first home, so it's times like these I turn to super easy recipes like these. They are by no means fancy and some foodies might be appalled at them.... but, to me, they were beautiful, impressive, and delicious enough to serve to guests.

Easy Sugar Cookie Fruit Tarts

1 package of a dozen bakery sugar cookies (I got mine from Target)
1 tub of your favorite brand of cream cheese frosting (or, feel free to make your favorite homemade recipe)
An assortment of your favorite fruits


Procedure:

All you've got to do is first wash and slice up your fruit. I used fresh peaches, kiwi, strawberries, blueberries, and raspberries. But whatever you like and looks good in the produce section would work. Just make sure you dry the fruit well before putting it on the cookies later.Next, very liberally ice your cookies with that delicious cream cheese frosting, and decorate your cookies with the fruit any ole way you'd like. And you're done! Put 'em on a pretty plate, and no one will be the wiser. They'll think you've been baking all day. You could also do some pretty neat variations of this recipe with lemon curd or chocolate ganache.... but that's another day and another entry.

Next up, we have.....

20 Layer Chocolate Hazelnut Crepe Cake

20 basic crepes (store bought - I recommend Melissa's brand - or homemade, using your favorite recipe) 1 - 8 oz pkg cream cheese (softened) 2 - 8 oz containers mascarpone cheese 1 - 3.4 oz vanilla instant pudding mix 3/4 cup milk 1-2 tsp vanilla extract (you could also use almond or orange for a nice variation) 1 container Nutella chocolate hazelnut spread Strawberries, whipped cream, & powdered sugar for garnish (optional) First, make your vanilla mascarpone cream by mixing up the softened cream cheese, vanilla pudding mix, vanilla extract, milk, and mascarpone cheese in a mixer until well combined. Then, get out your jar of Nutella (can we say... YUM?) and start layering! Slap a crepe down on a pretty dish, and slather on a real good amount of your vanilla mascarpone cream. Top with another crepe, more cream, and then, on your third layer, spread it with a good amount of Nutella. I said a good amount, don't skimp. That stuff is heavenly. Keep repeating with this method, every third layer Nutella, until you have all 20 layers done. I topped mine with a sprinkling of powdered sugar, and decorated it with strawberries and whipped cream, but you could do anything that blows your skirt up - drizzle it with chocolate ganache, whatever you like! This dessert looks totally impressive and you can take all the credit.

Brief Hiatus

So, as you can probably tell, I have been on a brief hiatus from updating this blog. I have tons of posts just waiting in my queue to update here! Mr. JY and I have just bought our first home, so that has been taking up pretty much all of our spare time. It was quite the whirlwind, but has been a positive and exiciting experience so far. In the very near future I am looking forward to updating this blog more often and sharing more recipes and stories with you.

Nom Nom Nashville: Neely's Barbecue

For the Fourth of July this year, my husband whisked me away to one of our favorite destinations, Nashville, TN, where we embarked on many a culinary adventure. And let me tell you, it was fantastic!


First, we ate at Neely's Barbecue. Fellow Food Network geeks might be familiar with Neely's. Pat and Gina Neely have 2 shows on FN, "Down Home with the Neelys" and "Road Tasted with the Neelys". I love watching "Down Home" because they're husband and wife and so cute together. Kind of reminds me of me and my husband. They have two restaurants, one in Memphis (the original) and one in Nashville.

We were greeted by a friendly and pleasant staff. The restaurant itself is pretty large and looks like a typical barbecue restaurant/sports bar. You order your meal first at the counter and seat yourself at one of their high tables with red checkered tablecloths, and then they bring your meal out to you. There is a beverage station fully stocked so you can get your own refills. The menu has all of the classic barbecue restaurant selections, but with a few selections original to Neely's - barbecue nachos and barbecue spaghetti. It was a tough decision on what to order, but we were pretty satisfied with our selections!

My dinner was the barbecue spaghetti plate (pictured at left). I had to go for it because of how original and fun it sounded. And, man was it good! The spaghetti was sweet, smoky, and a bit spicy. The portion was huge and packed with tons of pulled pork. My only concern was the spaghetti noodles were a little overcooked and mushy, but overall I thought it was a great dish. I usually like my pasta al dente, but I can understand that if this had been simmering together in a pot, the noodles might become too tender. The coleslaw was very good as well, and great for cooling off after the spicy barbecue. I was a little surprised the toast came dry with no butter. No butter at a Southern barbecue restaurant! Unheard of!



My husband got this amazingly huge potato topped with that yummy pulled pork swimming in barbecue sauce and served with sour cream, cheese sauce, and cole slaw on the side. The cheese sauce was actually extra, but our server added it to our bill saying that "you just have to have it." Can't argue with that, and you certainly can't argue with cheese sauce. And judging from the one bite I actually got of this potato, it was (as Paula would say) out of this world.




I think we would both agree that we would definitely visit Neely's again. It has a nice, down home atmosphere, the food was excellent, and I loved that they kept to the classic flavors of barbecue while putting their own spin on things. I wish we'd gotten to try some of their desserts, like peach cobbler and sock it to me cake, but we were so full we didn't have room!

Stay tuned for more Nom Nom Nashville posts coming soon....

PS: You can find the Neelys' recipe for their bbq spaghetti here:

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_116790,00.html