Cream Cheese Sheet Cake

I can't believe I haven't shared this recipe yet! Well, no time like the present! This is absolutely perfect for summer! It's from the white recipe book, contributed by my friend Daphne Thiessen. It's officially a pineapple cake, but I like to play around with recipes. I'll write the original and then check out the notes section for changes. Daphne noted: This cake freezes well and is, in fact, great served frozen on a hot summer day.

Cake:
1 box vanilla cake mix
1 small box instant vanilla pudding
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs, separated
1 cup water

Topping:
1/2 cup butter, melted
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 cup whipping cream, whipped
1 tin crushed pineapple, drained well

For cake:
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Set aside. Combine all other ingredients, including egg yolks. Mix well. Fold in egg whites and spread in greased jelly roll pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Cool completely.

For topping:
Beat butter and cream cheese until smooth. Beat in icing sugar. Fold in whipped cream and pineapple. Spread on cake and keep chilled, or freeze, until serving.

Notes:
This is where I love to have fun. I generally don't do the pineapple. Mostly I've left out all fruit and put fresh raspberries on top.

The variation I did today was to add the zest of a lemon in the cake batter and replaced 1/2 cup of the water with 1/2 cup of lemon juice. Then I put the zest of a second lemon in the topping. It's not very lemony; I could handle a little more lemon, but it's still good! It'll be great frozen!

What I've wanted to try, but haven't yet, is to make this as a chocolate cake. How great would that be! I'd like to try a chocolate cake mix with chocolate pudding, and then possibly adding a little cocoa into the topping. Personally, I wouldn't prefer to include any type of fruit, but that's me.

Ham and Cheese Breakfast Bake

This is an approximate recipe of what I made for the Women of Worth brunch back in April. It's my version of a recipe we made at a Pampered Chef party a few weeks earlier.

Hashbrown patties, thawed

1 cup of ham, cut into small cubes

1 cup of sour cream

12 eggs

2 cups of shredded cheese

1 cup of Cheese Whiz

salt and pepper

tomatoes

green onions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Place a layer of hashbrown patties in a greased baking sheet or baking stone. Chop up the patties until crumbly. Sprinkle ham over the hashbrowns. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

In the meantime, mix the eggs, sour cream, Cheez Whiz, and shredded cheese. (I have to admit, I haven't bought Cheeze Whiz in years, I think it's fake food, so you can substitute Velveeta or omit it all together.) Add a little salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the egg mixture over the baked hashbrowns, return to oven, and bake for another 15 minutes, or until eggs are cooked through.

Cut up the tomatoes and green onions.

Remove from the oven, sprinkle with the tomatoes and green onions.

Ruehrei (Scrambled Eggs)

This recipe is a classic from as far back as I can remember. It's from the Mennonite Treasury and can also be found in the white recipe book.

3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
4 Tbsp cream
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt

Mix all ingredients into a smooth dough, except eggs, which you beat well, and fold into first mixture. Put 2 Tbsp butter in frying pan and heat, put in egg mixture, brown on both sides, cutting and turning while browning. Some like the reuhrei in larger chunks, others finer, depends on how you are used to it. Serves 2.

Notes:
I don't think I've ever done the two-part mixing process as written above. Sheesh. Chuck it all into the Kitchen Aid and whisk the tar out of it!

If you are making more than one batch of this stuff, divide it between two frying pans, or like I tried today for the first time, I poured it into my baking stone pan and baked it for about 20 minutes. I did the cutting and turning as suggested in the recipe. It worked great!

Here's my favorite thing! I've revised this recipe a handful of times. I've fried a little bit of onion and meat before adding the eggs and continuing to fry it. Today I fried half a pound of bacon, scattered it over the eggs in the baking stone pan and then after it was done baking, I sprinkled the top with diced tomatoes and a little green onion. Makes for a full meal.

These eggs (the plain version) are a perfect side for watermelon. MMM!