Strawberry Pinwheel Cake

We first found this recipe in a magazine while waiting at the doctor's office right after our first child was born. We quickly scribbled it down, tried it at home, and loved it. We've made it many times since. I finally decided to add it to the blog, and within five minutes found the original recipe, along with the original picture, at the website for Taste of Home Magazine. What's that? June 2005 issue? Yep, that's it. Gotta love the Internet.

Ingredients

Cake:
4 egg yolks
2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
4-1/2 teaspoons water
2 teaspoons canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup cake flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Confectioners' sugar

Filling:
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons lemon curd (We use lemon juice and strawberry or lemon yogurt)
2 cups chopped fresh strawberries

Directions

• In a large bowl, beat the egg yolks, eggs and sugar until thick and lemon-colored. Beat in the water, oil and vanilla. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; gradually add to egg mixture. Grease a 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan and line with waxed paper; grease and flour the paper. Spread batter into pan.
• Bake at 375° for 10-12 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool for 5 minutes. Turn cake onto a kitchen towel dusted with confectioners' sugar. Peel off waxed paper. Roll up cake in towel jelly-roll style, starting with a short side. Cool on a wire rack.
• In a large bowl, beat cream until soft peaks form; gradually add sugar, beating until stiff peaks form. Fold in lemon curd; gradually fold in strawberries.
• Unroll cake; spread filling evenly to within 1/2 in. of edges. Roll up again; dust with confectioners' sugar. Cover and chill for 1 hour before serving. Refrigerate leftovers.

Sweet Potatoes

When we went to the Milletts last year for Thanksgiving, another family brought some fantastic sweet potatoes. Anna never really liked sweet potatoes...until now. So this year, we got the recipe from them and made a big batch (with a couple "secret" ingredients) for Thanksgiving this year. If you only pick at candied yams for the marshmallows, I dare you to not like this version!

Ingredients:
5 lb sweet potatoes
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1 c brown sugar
1/3 cup flour
1 cup chopped pecans (can also use praline pecans for extra yumminess)
1/4 cup butter

Maple syrup (or even better, butter pecan syrup)

Directions:

• Peel sweet potatoes, cut into large chunks, and boil until tender
• Mash in large bowl and mix in the rest of ingredients above with a mixer
• Place in casserole dish (9x13) or pie tins
• In a separate bowl, mix together topping ingredients
• Crumble topping mixture over top of sweet potatoes
• Drizzle a little maple syrup over the top
  
• Cook at 350 for 30-45 minutes
• Serve hot or cold (cold is your classic "sweet potato pie," but warm is best, we say)
  

Marbled Pumpkin Cheesecake

from Recipegal.com

We just tried this on Thanksgiving. Very tasty! The recipe makes a 10 inch cheesecake, or third the recipe to fill a ready-made graham cracker pie crust

Ingredients (amounts for small pie crust in parentheses):

-Crust
1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
2 T sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
(or ready-made graham cracker pie crust)
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate (1 cup)

-Cheesecake
3 eight ounce packages cream cheese (1 package)
1 cup sugar (1/3 cup)
1/4 cup brown sugar (2 T)
1 3/4 cups pumpkin (2/3 cup)
4 large eggs (2 eggs)
1/2 cup evaporated milk (little less than 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup cornstarch (1 1/2 T)
3/4 teaspoon Cinnamon (1/4 t)
1/8 teaspoon Nutmeg (1/8 t)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350
  
• To make crust, mix graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press into greased 10-inch springform pan (or get out your handy ready-made crust).
• Sprinkle with half the chocolate chips.
• Beat together cream cheese, sugar, and brown sugar.
• Beat in pumpkin, eggs, and evaporated milk.
• Beat in cornstarch, cinnamon, and nutmeg.
• Melt remaining chocolate chips in saucepan or microwave.
• Remove 1/2 to 1 cup of pumpkin mixture and stir into the melted chocolate.
• Pour the remainder of the pumpkin mixture over the crust.
• Pour the chocolate mixture over top and swirl with a small knife.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 60 minutes (about 35 minutes for small pie crust) or until edge of filling is set.
• Turn off oven; allow cheesecake to slowly cool: in the oven for a while, then at room temperature, then in the fridge.
• Chill for several hours. Serve with whipped cream or Blue Bell homemade vanilla ice cream.

Hints from the kitchen:
In addition to using a small recipe with a pie crust, we also substituted the evaporated milk with an almost 50/50 ratio of powdered milk and water (slightly less powder).
We'd post a picture, but uh, we ate it already!