Holiday Candy Cane Cake

This isn't a recipe so much as an activity. Christy and me used up a cold afternoon in a warm kitchen with this one. A much better cake decorator than me can really make this look snappy. Actually, a drunken Capuchin using only it's tail could do a better job, which is just another reason I tend to stick to pies. As it was, we just took it Grandpa & Grandma's and most of it was gone the same night.

• 1 packaged yellow or white cake mix. We used a Duncan Hines butter recipe white cake mix
• 1 cup milk
• 1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract (depending on whether or not you like peppermint. Be careful how much you use; a little is okay - too much is overpowering. )
  
• 2 tubs of white frosting. This sounds like a lot of frosting, but you're going to be using it to "glue" parts of the cake together, so better to have too much than not enough.
  
• 2 to 3 rolls of that strawberry fruit stuff called, "fruit-by-the-foot."
  

Heat oven to 350°F. The recipe calls for generously greasing a bundt cake pan with shortening - but who has actually has shortening laying around? For this cake, I've never had any success with the various no-stick sprays you can buy, so instead I'll lightly coat the inside of the pan with butter, which works just fine, thank you. Lightly flour.

While the oven is heating up, I'll place the cream cheese on the range, towards the back, where the heat vents just a little - but not too much. By the time the oven is heated up, the cheese is soft enough to beat. (Children may be confused and say something silly, like, "you're putting cheese in the cake?!" Ignore them. This step makes for a much tastier and moist cake.)

Beat cake mix, milk, cream cheese, vanilla and eggs in a large bowl with electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute, scraping bowl as you go. Beat on medium speed another 2 minutes, or until you can pour into the pan.

Bake about 40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan 15 minutes; then loosen sides with a knife and turn upside down onto wire rack and remove pan. Allow to cool completely, about 1 hour.

To assemble, cut the cake in half crosswise. Place half of the cake on a serving plate to form the crook of a candy cane. Cut the remaining half into 5 equal pieces (about 2-inches wide).

This next part is optional and, depending on my mood, I'll go easy with it (which can give you just a hint of peppermint) or do away with it entirely. It just depends on how big a fan of peppermint you are. I can take it or leave it. Stir half of the peppermint extract into each tub of frosting. Attach the cut pieces to the crook of candy cane with frosting, alternating pieces to form the straight part of the cane. Frost cake.

To decorate, arrange strips of fruit snack rolls on cake to look like stripes on a candy cane. Since I'm doing this with my kids, we tend to get a little creative, though you're going to have to work hard to restrain an 11 year-old armed with red and green sugar crystals.

And voilà! You have a fun and tasty treat for any holiday occasion.

Whole Wheat Banana Craisin Walnut Bread

I've been sick the last four or five days and only today was I feeling any better, so I decided to do some baking. My breakfasts are pretty spartan these days (thanks to my doctor and private nurse who have me watching my weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, sugar, etc., etc.), so I have a recipe for whole wheat bran muffins that generally make up my morning meal. They're tasty, moist and have no processed sugar in them, so I'll cook up a dozen or so every couple of weeks and alternate between them and the oatmeal and cholesterol fighting cereals that you can find every where these days.

At any rate, I had some wheat flour left over so I experimented a little and came up with a recipe for whole-wheat banana craisin walnut bread that everyone liked, so I thought I'd share it here. It's a fairly healthy recipe and the craisins give it a holiday taste without being cloying. And it must have been somewhat good - my kids ate it like there was no tomorrow and both loafs disappeared overnight!

• 2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
• 1 ½ cups mashed very ripe bananas (about 3 to 4 medium sized bananas)
• 1 ¼ cups packed brown sugar
• ½ craisins
• ½ walnuts
• ½ cup plain, non-fat yogurt
• ½ cup fat-free cholesterol-free egg product (I told you I was watching my cholesterol) or 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla.

1. Move oven rack to lowest position. Heat oven to 350 ° F. Grease two 8x4-inch loaf pans.
2. Stir together all ingredients and spoon into pans.
3. Bake 50 - 60 minutes or until you can run a knife down the middle and have it come out clean. Cool 10 minutes before removing from pans.

The long list of ingredients makes it sound like a long recipe, but it's pretty simple - after all, I can do it!

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Sona Duit!

St. Patrick's Day is a pretty big holiday around here. While my wife is Italian (and, thus, so are my kids) my background is more varied. However, I think it's safe to say that I'm predominantly Irish. The brown hair, dark eyes and skin so pale that I don't tan - it's all I can do to just tone down the blue.

So, every year we use the holiday as a excuse to buy Guinness Draught, listen to the Irish Rovers, and (like everything else we do) get the family together for dinner.

A family tradition is that me and the kids (well, okay, Christina - the other two are too "mature") get together and bake a giant shamrock cookie.

The recipe isn't rocket science:

• Pick up any 18 oz. package of sugar cookie mix.
• Shape it roughly into a shamrock shape; as it bakes the sugar cookie dough will spread out and change the shape of your cookie anyway.
• Bake 15 - 20 minutes or until you can lift an edge of it and see that it's golden-brown.
• Let it cool on the baking sheet for two minutes, then carefully loosen cookie with a spatula (so it doesn't stick to the sheet.)
• Before decorating, let it cool completely. Say 20 minutes. Decorate it hot and your frosting will melt and run all over the place.
• Decorate with green frosting, green sugar crystals. Just so everyone knows it's a shamrock, outline with white chocolate chips.

If you really want to do it right, say for all those black-tie St. Patrick's Day parties you'll be attending with the Rockefeller's, you can cut out the outline of the shamrock after the cookie has cooled and before decorating. As you can see in the picture, I won't be going to such parties anytime soon.

Still, it's a fun craft, especially if you have wee bairns who're not above green a little frosting on their hands.

Sláinte chugat