April has been a busy month so far, and I totally cannot believe that it's half gone. Imagine my surprise when April 12th rolled around and I thought, "OMG! What am I gonna do for BFD?" Talk about scrambling. This month's BFD was literally cobbled together at the last minute. My mind went into overdrive trying to think of what to make at the last minute that would be a crowd pleaser. Almost immediately I thought, "Coffee cake". You really can't go wrong with coffee cake. And potatoes. Potatoes with cheese. In spite of this poor planning on my part, I think it turned out pretty well. This month's BFD consisted of:
Lemon and Cheese Coffee Cake
Sour Cream and Cheddar/Potato Casserole
Fresh Strawberries with Leftover
Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
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| Batter with cream cheese mixture |
For being thrown together at the last minute, everything turned out yummy. I did not make the coffee cake exactly as directed. Instead of using loaf pans and sandwiching the cream cheese mixture between the batter, I used a 9x13 pan, poured the batter in, then I spread the cream cheese mixture on top. I tried to swirl the cream cheese mixture into the batter (think swirl brownies), but it didn't swirl too much.
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| Coffee cake w/icing |
After baking, I let it cool and then drizzled it with a simple powdered sugar icing. The end result was a very moist coffee cake (did I mention that it's a sour cream coffee cake?) with just a hint of lemon. If you're looking for more lemon flavor, you might want to double the amount of lemon juice called for in the recipe. This was a big hit with the kids!
I forgot to take a picture of the potatoes in their baking dish, but you can see them in the first picture. These were soooooooo good! And if I sound pleasantly surprised, it's because I am. The recipe only calls for five ingredients. Out of those five, I substituted three of them: margarine for butter, garlic salt for the onions, and Costco shredded cheddar/jack cheese for the cheddar. So simple and tasty. The hardest part was shredding the potatoes, and even then, I used my handy dandy KitchenAid Slicer/Shredder Accessory. The potatoes were a big hit with the grown-ups.
I guess I better start planning now for May's BFD. Although, I guess this experience can be a good example of what one can accomplish when the proverbial fire is lit under the proverbial butt. Still.
I usually make the potatoes with frozen hashbrowns. I would love your recipe using fresh potatoes. Thie casserole is always a hit with our family. I serve it with ham on Easter. The casserole is known as funeral potatoes in my circle. :)
ReplyDeleteThe secret is to peel then parboil the potatoes - for about 10 to 15 minutes. Let them cool completely then shred them. I ran across this tip about a year ago for pan fried hashbrowns. (I love those, but it's a nightmare to clean the pan.) Hashbrown casserole is much easier to clean and it's got cheese! The original tip said to parboil he potatoes then put them in the fridge overnight.
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