Delightful Delectables - SUGAR DECORATIONS!

By: Amy Weinberg

Pop Quiz: What is tiny, grainy, and makes everything better?

That's right. Sugar. It is also extremely versatile! It’s hard to find a great dessert without sugar and let me tell you, this one has plenty. I used My Grandma's of New England Lemon Poppy Mini Cakes for this dessert because I want to hold onto this last scrap of Summer.

I figured I would dabble in the art of sugar. Sugar art, that is. Sugar decorations are those things that are super sweet, make a dessert look super elegant, but are surprisingly not super hard to make. 

Let me clarify, the simple ones are not super hard to make. 

All you really need to do to get started is melt a whole bunch of sugar in a saucepan on medium heat. The first decoration I decided to make was the sugar bowl. All you really need to make this stunning decoration is the melted sugar and a ladle. Drizzle the sugar all over the back of the ladle and viola; you can now open your own bakery.

 Depending on how you look at it, you could even turn it into a tiara or The Iron Thrown. 
Go crazy, get creative.

The second decoration would be absolutely perfect for Easter. All you have to do is drizzle the sugar back and forth across a knife sharpener until it starts to collect at the bottom.

String together this nest, drop in a couple a couple of chocolate eggs, and you have a perfect dessert for the kids!

This last decoration was definitely the hardest, but definitely worth it. Don’t be fooled by how nice mine came out. You should have seen the first 3 attempts! The key to this one is purely the temperature of the sugar. The sugar can’t be hard, but it can’t be dripping. You’ll have to be able to wrap the same string of sugar all the way around the bottom of a wooden spoon. Pretty much anything cylindrical will do, I just had to work with what I had. Once you wrap it around your wooden spoon, just break off the tips and GENTLY slide it off. I say GENTLY because one of the first three casualties fell at this stage.

As for the icing, I just whipped up a super easy, SUPER delicious cream cheese frosting. Once everything is ready, just lather on some icing, GENTLY place on your decoration, and prepare to impress all of your guests!

Let Them Eat Cake! Coffee Cake that is.

We're Nominated!

By: Amy Weinberg

It’s that time of the year again: the QVC Customer Choice Food Awards. 2015 has been the year of the Grandma and we’ve been nominated in not one, but TWO categories in this year’s awards. The first award we are up for is Best Cake. The cakes QVC highlighted were the Apple Coconut Coffee Cake (QVC Exclusive) and the Pumpkin Spice Coffee Cake (Available Year-Round).

The second award we are up for is Favorite “Customer Top Rated Food”. This is where we get to spread our wings and go up against the big dogs at Lobster Gram selling Lobster Tails. I know what you’re thinking and no, there is no relation. The cakes highlighted in this category are the Original Cinnamon Walnut Coffee Cake and the Granny Smith Apple Coffee Cake (Both Available Year-Round).

Voting is super easy. All you have to do is Click Here and vote for your favorite Grandma.  There are plenty of other categories for which we are not nominated. 

My challenge for you is to go out and try each nomination for each category! 

Just kidding, that would be madness. If you see any of your other favorite products in a different category, click away. But, if you just want to vote for My Grandma’s, you can just vote in Q.6 and Q.15 and call it a day.

Voting is also unlimited. That means that if you want to vote for us once a day or 30 times a day, all votes will be counted. Please get in those votes in before the polls close on August 21^st and keep My Grandma's on top!

Delightful Delectables - Kahlua Soaked Coffee Cake Sundae

By: Amy Weinberg

Happy National Hot Fudge Sundae Day! What’s that you say? You’ve never heard of such of thing? Well, it’s a real thing, it’s a great thing, and it’s tomorrow. Tomorrow is also National Merry-Go Round Day. I would suggest not celebrating both of these days at the same time. You’re welcome.

Instead of going the traditional hot fudge, vanilla ice cream route, I decided to whisk things up a bit with this Triple Layer, Kahlua Soaked, Chocolate Mousse Coffee Cake Sundae. Again, you’re welcome.

Things You’ll Need:

Layer 1: My Grandma's of New England Cinnamon Walnut Coffee Cake, Kahlua

Layer 2 (The Mousse): 12 ounces of milk chocolate morsels, 4 Tablespoons of butter, 4 Tablespoons of water, 4 eggs yolks, 1 Tablespoon of sugar, 1 ½ cups of heavy cream

Layer 3 (The Whipped Cream): 1 ½ cups of heavy cream, 1 Tablespoon of powdered sugar

Last But Not Least (The Glaze): ¼ cup water, ½ cup sugar, 1 cup cream, ¼ cup coffee, 1 tablespoon vanilla.

Note: before fully committing to a recipe that involves freshly whipped cream, first check to see if you have an electric mixer. (Amy’s Hand-Made Whipped Cream Workout Video will be released later this year.)

Clearly, I want you to learn from my mistake. But, the chocolate was melted and the coffee cake was already soaking in Kahlua, there was no turning back now.

As for the coffee, I just went to Starbucks for my regular Café Americano. I set aside ¼ cup for the glaze, poured some Kahlua in the rest, and got to work. The coffee cake wasn’t the only thing soaked in Kahlua by the end of this.

For the exact recipe, check out this website.

I’m not going to lie, this came out a lot better than I thought it would. It’s not that I wasn’t confident in the recipe. What made me nervous was how my patience, or lack thereof, would impact my cooking skills. Pro tip? Playing your favorite album makes whisking for 6 minutes straight a little more bearable. I went with Days Are Gone by Haim.

I’m the kind of person that will spend hours in the kitchen making something and not even eat it when I’m done because I’m “just so over it.” “Get it away from me, I can’t even look at it anymore” I’d say, hoping someone else would try it and like it. Maybe it’s because I can’t handle the very real possibility of my hours of hard work leading to a dessert equal to a McDonald’s parfait. Anyways, this just looked too good not to eat.  

And let me tell you, McDonald’s wishes they could make something like this.

I went wish a mason jar because it was pretty and I wanted to seem creative. Although I did achieve my goal of it being pretty and creative (I think), the portion was a little ridiculous. Even for my standards. I was in a chocolatey coffee cake Kahlua induced coma. Ask me if I regretted it.

I did not.

For the Love Of Cake- My Favorite Things- Juicey Cake

by Maggie Kelleher

Why do we make cake? For the same reason you eat it: because we love it!