Smörgåstårta aka Swedish Sandwich Cake

Over the summer, I found an amazing book while thrift shopping in Galveston. The recipe I was dying to try was the Party Sandwich Loaf. I stuck pretty closely to the original recipe in the book. On Pinterest, I spotted another version of this cake that is much more "Swedish" which is filled with smoked salmon and smoked herring mousse. It looks incredible, topped with smoked Salmon and shrimp...definitely a wower if you are wanting something more refined. My recipe sure impressed everyone who tried it....now that I know how to put it together, I am definitely open to doing some creative fillings and other sandwich toppings. 

Foodarama Party Book copyright 1959


Party Sandwich Loaf Recipe

1 small round loaf white bread (I used sourdough)
Softened butter or margarine
Ham and Celery Filling
Curried Egg filling
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
Avocado filling
Cream cheese (I used 2 packages)
Light cream (I used a 16 oz sour cream)
Sliced stuffed olives
Sprigs of parsley
Other vegetables to garnish

Ham and celery filling: Combine 1 cup ground cooked ham, 1/2 cup finely chopped celery and enough mayonaise to moisten

Curried egg filling: Combine 4 finely chopped hard-cooked eggs, 1/2 tsp. curry powder and enough mayonaise to moisten. (I used a lot more than 1/2 tsp. and it was soo good)

Avocado filling: Mash 2 fully ripe avocados; add 2 Tbsp. highly seasoned French Dressing. Stir until well blended. (Not sure what 'highly seasoned French Dressing means so I just bought the one that said sweet and tangy)

Cut bread loaf, crosswise into four thick slices. Spread each slice with butter. Spread bottom slice with Ham and Celery Filling. Top with second bread slice; spread with Curried Egg Filling. Top with slices of tomato and third bread slice. Spread with Avocado filling; top with remaining bread slice. Mash cream cheese; stir in enough cream so cheese will spread easily; beat until smooth. Spread on top and sides of loaf. Garnish with olive slices and parsley. Cut into wedges and serve. Makes about 12 servings.

I mixed up a little extra cream cheese and sour cream than necessary, and I also had some of the ham filling left over so I threw it all together and it was a delicious veggie dip for the extra carrots and radishes I used for garnish.

Veggies I used on top:
Thinly sliced lemon
Radish
Parsley
Olives (I didn't use black but they would've been good too!)
Cherry (or grape) tomatoes
Carrots (using my apple corer, I cut rings)
Cucumber

I was afraid the bread would get soggy, but it stayed dry...it was a big hit at the fall fest party I went to Saturday night!!

A Bread Story.

My poor front lawn is going for GOLD. It has long been yellow and crispy, thirsty and dead. This summer has been sooooo hot. I hate to complain about it...I mean, who doesn't love sunshine...but if you look at the facts (From July 27th on the local weather station):

• 35 days in a row that we have been at or above our normal high 52 of the past 56 days (since June 1st) have been at our above our average high 
• We have hit 100 degrees 16 times this summer (that ties us for 4 place all time) 
• Only a trace of rain at the Joplin airport for July(2nd driest all time) 
• Since June 1st only 1.26″ of rain For the year 20.69″ (average = 27.11″) 
• We are behind by 6.42″ of rain
• the average temperature for the past year has been 61.7 degrees. That is 2 degrees higher than the average for the calendar year 2006, and is comparable to the Dust Bowl year of 1934 (according to the Joplin Globe)

The heat has been relentless. Just a trace of rain in the city means that its been just enough to turn my car from black to leopard print with dust spots.
 
I remember the last time I saw real rain. It was on June 21st.

The gutters haven't been full, and there haven't been any puddles to jump for weeks.

I remember this day because it was cooler. Much cooler. For a few hours at least.

The morning was absolutely beautiful. I turned on a jazz station on the t.v. satellite and got out a book about baking bread. One of my goals this year is to learn to bake bread.

The book is wonderful because it explains how to use a food processor to mix up the ingredients. I burned up my food processor that day. Oops.

I remember the rain on the windows in the dining room as I kneaded the bread. I really felt like I was  making something living. By making a loaf of bread from scratch, I was digging into an art form that has been explored by nearly every civilization for 10,000 years.

Sure, you can buy a loaf of delicious bread at a local bakery or grocery store for a dollar....but actually going through all of the steps, and getting covered in flour...Yes, it is time consuming, I think I spent 5 hours on the two loaves of bread, but it's worth every minute. It's extremely gratifying to mold and knead the dough with your bare hands. It's a very basic, earth-connecting experience.

The suspense is exhilarating waiting to see if the dough will rise. Then the best part is the aroma. There is absolutely nothing that smells better from the oven than fresh baked bread. That afternoon, I took the honey-oat bread from the oven just before rushing out the door to a hair appointment. I remember sitting in the salon chair, practically salivating for the warm bread that I knew was waiting on the counter at home.

One loaf was eaten within a matter of days. A few slices were consumed warm, immediately after baking, covered with butter...and honey....

A couple of slices were used for BLTs- the tomatoes home grown in the backyard.

Two slices were turned into french toast. 

At least one piece was covered in peanut butter and topped with raspberries.

The end of the loaf was sliced, and toasted and served with fresh bruschetta.

The other loaf is in the freezer....waiting for cooler weather. Once it thaws, it will either become a sandwich loaf like this one, or enjoyed a little at a time with chicken and noodles, or toasted and covered in cheese.

I cannot wait for the summer to end, so I can heat up my kitchen baking more bread. (While it rains outside.)

Red Velvet Cake Mix Cookie + Tuxedo Brownie

Okay so you know how sometimes you have an idea and you want to use what you have on hand to make something special so you combine two recipes? Well I decided to combine the Pampered Chef (R) Tuxedo Brownies with the Cake Mix Red Velvet Cookies and top it with a fresh blackberry.

I used my mini muffin pan sprayed with cooking spray and dropped a scoop of the cookie mix into bake. After about 8 or nine minutes, I took it out of the oven and pressed an indention into the top. After they had cooled a few minutes, I used a knife around the edges to help me loosen them out. I only baked six at first to make sure it would work. I tasted one. It was a little bland so I threw in some chocolate chips. YUM! (white chocolate chips would've been good too). I'm calling them red velvet brownie bites, but if you want to get technical, they are really just cookies masquerading as brownies. If you want to get a real red velvet brownie recipe, I'm sure one exists....I just wanted to use up a boxed cake mix.

After baking the rest of the cookie mix, I let them cool completely. Before the event, I made up the tuxedo brownie topping and let it chill in a big zip lock in the fridge for a few hours. Then I piped it into the red velvet brownie cups and topped everything with a fresh blackberry. A raspberry would've been pretty too, but I had been blackberry picking that morning!

I took this beautiful plate of delicious treats to a Pinterest(R) Anonymous class and realized that it wasn't actually from Pinterest....and everyone loved them so much, I decided to make a blog post about it, just so I could share it with the crowd. 

Follow me on Pinterest for other recipes from the event: http://pinterest.com/nellie_mitchell/

 Ingredient list:
For cookie/brownie mix:

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package Red Velvet cake mix
• 2 large eggs
•  1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Bake in preheated oven for 8-9 minutes at 350 degrees in well-greased mini muffin pan.

For cream filling:

2	square white chocolate for baking
2	tbsp milk

8	oz  cream cheese, softened
1/4	cup  powdered sugar
1	cup thawed, frozen whipped topping
1	pint berries

Combine white chocolate and milk in large microwave-safe bowl; microwave on HIGH 1 minute. Stir until smooth; cool slightly. In large mixing bowl, combine cream cheese and sugar; mix well. Gradually stir in white chocolate mixture until smooth. Fold in whipped topping.
Pipe cream cheese mixture into brownie cups; top with strawberries. Refrigerate 1-3 hours before serving.

That one time, when I baked a peach pie and it tasted like summer.

Last week I went to the local farmer's market and got a big bunch of fresh peaches. I have a hard time buying fresh fruit because it never gets eaten before it goes bad. But all I could think about was making the perfect peach pie. And that is just what I did.

I was actually a little obsessed with making a pie. All because of pie week and this story. After I bought the peaches, I had to run all kinds of other errands, but I could not wait to get home and bake. I don't know if I was more enthralled with the idea of eating the delicious and beautiful dessert or the process of baking the pie and being proud of the finished product.

First, I looked up a recipe. I pretty much always use allrecipes.com I read in one of the reader's comments that I should blanch the peaches to remove the skin. It worked perfectly. Then I sliced up the peaches. Then I added the cinnamon, flour and sugar.

I had intended to make my own crust, just like in the story above, but I just didn't have time that day so I used a pillsbury crust (shhhhhhh). After pouring the pie filling into the crust and sliding it into the oven, the whole house smelled like warm peaches.

I had just a little bit of filling and a little bit of crust leftover so I made a mini pie in a dish to enjoy hot and fresh since I was saving the pie for the 4th of July.

The hot, fresh mini pie was the perfect.

The next day my friend Martha came over and we spent the day working on new art projects for her shop and for some classes. We ate lunch. And then it was pie time.

But since I only used 10 of my peaches peaches for the pie.....

I also made peach sun tea.

And ate fresh juicy peaches.

The peaches were also used in a special hot sauce concoction with peppers from the garden.

One very special peach even made its way to a park bench in front of the Nelson Atkins for a special nutella and iced tea picnic on Sunday. But half of it got dropped and was quickly overtaken by ants.

And last night, I ate the very last peach, in a bowl with some home-whipped cream, topped with cinnamon and sugar, and mixed with fresh blackberries.

Summer is my new favorite.

Almond Joy Cookie Recipe

After a really fun craft night with a good girlfriend, I had a large bag of those Almond Joy pieces left over and I realized that they would be delicious in some cookies, so I went in search of a recipe.

 I found lots of yummy looking ones and I basically followed the basic instructions from this blog: http://www.heatherchristo.com/cooks/2012/01/19/almond-joy-cookies/ But any time you find a good recipe, you make small tweak here or there because you have an idea or you saw something somewhere, or you just don't have exactly the thing that the other cook used.

So, the ingredients with an asterisk are the things I added or changed from the link above, otherwise it is the same. SO YUMMY!!

Almond Joy Cookies, makes 40 cookies

• 1 cup salted butter, softened
• 1 ½ cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 ¼ cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 ½ cups sweetened shredded coconut
• 1 ½ bags chocolate chips (3 cups) (*I only had about 3/4 of a bag of mini chocolate chips)
• 2 cups peeled, slivered almonds (Some recipes suggest to toast the almonds, I did not do this)
• *2 tsp vanilla
• *Bag of Almond Joy Pieces (she didn't say to use these, but I wanted to use them so I did....it substituted for the fewer chocolate chips)

1)Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and prepare two sheet pans with parchment or silpats.
2)In a mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until creamy.
3)Add the eggs and beat until creamy
4)Meanwhile mix the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
5)Add the dry ingredients to the mixing bowl and stir until you have a thick cookie dough.
6)Add the coconut, chocolate chips and almonds and mix until well combined.
7)Scoop the cookies onto the cookie sheets and bake at 350 for about 10 minutes. (when you take the cookies out they should still be a bit doughy looking in the middle- they will stiffen up).

Recipe for Success: Themed Brownies

This weekend, we had a Video Game theme party for a good friend. It was a total surprise. We decked out the house by turning it into a Mario land. You can read more about our decor and see pictures over at the Birds of a Feather blog.

I decided to try something totally new and create some brownies for party, instead of a cookie cake or a regular cake. They turned out really well and they were super easy.

I baked the brownies and once they were cool, I cut them into squares and put them on a platter....then I snapped an Oreo Funstick in half and stuck it in for the handle....and added a red M&M for the red button. They were a big hit!

Ooh, here is a little peak at the party decorations....My friends have a great picture window on their door so we created a 'mario pipe' so that people could pretend to go up and down it from outside. It was super cute! (The lighting in the dining room wasn't great at dusk, but I did what I could for these picture ;-)