Baked Acorn Squash

Baked acorn squash, at least the way I fix it, is really more of a dessert than anything.  Each squash will yield you two servings as the halves of the squash will become a "bowl" of delightful flavor.

Ingredients:
1 acorn squash, cut in half length wise with the seeds scooped out
4 tablespoons of butter, plus more to coat the pan
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
Mini marshmallows

Directions
Preheat your oven to 425.  While you're waiting on it to warm up, coat a rimmed cookie sheet with butter.  Slice a thin piece off the bottom center of your acorn squash halves so they'll stand up flat when you flip them over

Lay the squash cut side down on the baking pan.  Bake for 20-25 minutes (maybe more, depending on how big your squash is) or until you can easily insert a fork into the flesh when you flip on over.

Turn the squash over (I use tongs, but I've used oven mitts, spatulas, and any number of other things in the past) so the cut side is now up.  In the hollow of the squash, put the butter and the brown sugar and fill the rest of the cavity with marshmallows, mounding it slightly.  Bake an additional 10-15 minutes or until the marshmallows start to brown (or burn, if you like them that way.)

Take them out and put them on plates or in bowls and serve with spoons.  It's best to let them cool for a few minutes before eating as hot marshmallow to the roof of the mouth is extremely painful.

Enjoy!

St. Patrick's Cake (Carolan's Cake)

While the Celebration Cake I made for my husband's birthday is undoubtedly very Irish with a hefty serving of Bailey's, I couldn't help but feel that a green cake with even more Irish cream would be a better St. Patrick's cake.  So I set out to make the best green alcoholic cake I could!

WARNING This cake contains alcohol.  Approximately 1/2 cup of it has NOT been baked out.  Probably not particularly appropriate to share with small children. (Or at least not other people's small children)

Ingredients:
Cake
1 box of Duncan Hines Blue Velvet cake mix

1 box (4 serving) French vanilla instant pudding
4 eggs
1 stick of butter, melted
1 cup of Carolan's Irish Cream (or Bailey's, or whatever you prefer.  I use Carolan's because it's cheaper and tastes the same)
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp yellow food coloring
Frosting
2 sticks of butter, softened (sitting at room temperature for about 4 hours)
1/2 a stick of cream cheese (4 oz) softened
3 cups of powdered sugar
1/2 cup of Carolan's Irish Cream (etc etc, same as above)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions
Preheat oven to 350.  Butter two 9-inch cake pans (make sure to get the bottom corners or they may refuse to come out.)

In a large bowl, beat together all of the cake batter ingredients.  Add more yellow coloring if needed to get the right shade of green.  The batter will be thicker than most cake batters due to the pudding mix, so don't be alarmed.

Spoon batter into pans, dividing it as equally as you can.  Smooth out as well as you can with a spatula and tap the pans on the counter a few times (knocks out the air bubbles).  Now is the time to redistribute if you notice one pan is much more full than the other.

Bake for 35-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Leave them in the pans on the stovetop (or countertop) for 10 minutes to cool, then flip out onto a cooling rack if you have one or a dishtowel if you don't.  Let them cool completely (at least an hour)

In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese until thoroughly combined.  Add powdered sugar ON LOW* and blend until thoroughly combined (will be VERY stiff and hard to work with).  Blend in the Irish cream (start slow and then you can speed up) and the vanilla.

Smooth onto the cake with a cake or rubber spatula (I've actually had better luck with the flat side of a butter knife than a rubber spatula, truth be told) and top with green sprinkles.  If you want to get really fancy, take a stencil of a shamrock and hold it over the icing and only use sprinkles in that area for a nice pattern (I was not feeling that fancy)

*Go ahead.  Add it on high, I dare you.  Just don't come crying to me when more of that sugar is on your kitchen walls and you than in the bowl.