Pink Lemonade - All natural, no dyes!

This recipe came about because my oldest daughter loved pink lemonade growing up, but she's allergic to red food dye.  It was a hot summer, maybe 4 years ago, and my kids really wanted pink lemonade. So this was the result.

All Natural Pink Lemonade Recipe
Yields 1/2 gallon (2 quarts)
Ingredients

• 1 cup lemon juice
• 3/4 to 1 cup sugar (depending on how sweet you want it)
• 1 pint strawberries, fresh or frozen - and they can even be too soft and wilty to eat
• 1/2 cup blackberries, fresh or frozen
• water

Directions

This is a great way to use up those strawberries that haven't gone bad, but are too soft to eat raw.

In a blender, add the lemon juice, sugar, strawberries and a bit of water. Blend until it's pureed. Pour it into a 1/2 gallon container.

In the same blender, place the blackberries and some more water. I usually keep a bag of frozen blackberries in the freezer just for this recipe. Puree the blackberries to a fairly smooth consistency. Add them to the container, and then add enough water to fill the remainder. Stir and drink.

It may get foamy, but the foam will go away. The strawberries add that pink lemonade flavor, but the blackberries really give it the color. And my kids don't miss that powdered pink stuff.

Red, White and Blueberry Cake

What would the 4th of July be without some very decadent dessert to enjoy after the barbecue?


Step 1: The Pound Cake
The term pound cake didn't mean that the cake weighed a pound or that you gained a pound by eating it. It referred to the original recipe: 1 pound each of butter, sugar, flour and eggs.

Pound Cake Recipe
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups butter, left to soften at room temp (that's 3 sticks!)
• 8 oz cream cheese, left to soften at room temperature (that's 1 pack)
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 eggs
• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract (real, not artificial)
• 1/2 tsp almond extract (real, not artificial)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 8" round cake pans. You might consider flouring them as well - mine stuck a little.
Now place the butter, cream cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl. You can chop the butter into smaller pieces. Mix on low until creamy and all of the lumps are out.

If your ingredients are not soft and at room temp, at this point you'll realize why they should be. It won't mix properly unless it's soft. If you did good and set your ingredients out a few hours ago, it'll start to look like this picture.

One at a time, add the eggs to the butter mix. On low, stir well between each egg. Okay, so I did 2 eggs for this pic. But I did stir really well between them. And I did one egg at a time after that.

In a separate bowl, mix your dry ingredients together (both flours, salt and baking powder). I like to use a little tubby that has about twice the capacity as the dry ingredients. I put them all in, pop the lid on, shake it up and it's nice and mixed. I hate sifting - very tedious work.

After all of your eggs are mixed, gradually add the flour mix about 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, mixing well between each addition. Once it's all mixed, add your extracts. Your batter will be pretty thick by now.

Pour half the batter into each 8" round cake pan. Smooth it out even with a rubber spatula. Place them in the oven on the center rack. Cook for 40 to 60 minutes until a tester when inserted comes out clean.

That means poke it with a wooden toothpick or bar-b-que skewer. If the toothpick or skewer comes out with batter stuck to it, it's not done. Stick it back in and try again in 10 minutes. It's okay if a little cooked cake comes out on the stick, but I hope you can tell the difference between cooked cake and cake batter.

See how golden it looks - but not burnt. That's important. Don't burn it!

Now, it is July, and it's hot. So I baked the cakes last night, let them cool, and then popped some saran wrap on them to finish this morning. You can store it in the fridge, but I didn't have enough room. Leaving it on the counter is fine too, as long as it's wrapped well.

Step 2: The Whipped Cream
It is NOT cool to use Cool Whip! Making fresh whipped cream takes minutes, and the flavor is divine. Don't cheat!

Whipped Cream Recipe
Ingredients

• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 2 TBSP powdered sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions

I recycle as much as I can. So use a couple of those take-out containers you get when you order Egg Drop Soup. A large sour cream or ricotta cheese container also works. Pour all of the ingredients into one.

This container is the perfect size to fit your ingredients and your hand-held beater. Turn the beater on low to mix the ingredients fully. Now pour half of the mixture into your second container (once the mixture gets fluffy, there's not enough room in one).

Whip it with the hand mixer on high. It will start getting thick in about a minute (like in the picture on the right), but it is not yet done.

Keep beating it. It will get thicker and start having the ability to form soft peaks, like in the picture on the left. But it's still not done.

Keep whipping it. Eventually, and probably not as long as you would expect, it will have the ability to form stiff peaks - that means when you pull the beaters out of the cream, the cream can form a peak (like a mountain peak) and the tip is nice and pointy. I have a heck of a time getting a picture of one (see right), but you should get the idea.

Now it's done.

Step 3: Assembly

The cake should be completely cool before you start assembling. Otherwise the whipped cream will melt. With a large bread knife or a cake leveler, level the cake. That means cut the bumpy part off and set it aside on the "cake scraps" plate for those people who come in the kitchen asking for a piece and if you're done yet.

Flip the cake over so that what was the bottom side in the pan is now the top side. Now you can see what I meant about needing to flour the cake pans. It didn't stick horribly, but if I wasn't as good at getting cakes out of the pans as I am, it would have been a cake wreck.

Spread a layer of whipped cream on the top (about 1/3 of the total whipped cream mixture).

Now we are going to add fruit in so that the weight of the top layer doesn't squeeze out the whipped cream from the middle. Place strawberry chunks and blueberries so that when pressed into the whipped cream, they don't stick up too much. These will act as pillars to keep the top layer from pressing too much on the bottom layer.

Now level the other cake round and place it on top of the first so that the side that was on the bottom in the pan is now on top.  Spread another 1/3 of the whipped cream on top. This will leave 1/3 of the whipped cream leftover.

Make sure that leftover 1/3 is pretty stiff (remember stiff peaks). If it's gone soft, beat it again with your hand mixer until it's nice and stiff.  Now place your largest star tip in an icing bag, nip the end off the bag, and scoop the remainder whipped cream (nice and stiff) into the bag. You are going to make a border and a dam for the fruit on the top of the cake. Just squeeze a little, and then pull up. Move over a bit, squeeze a little, and then pull up. It makes a simple star flower that adds a nice touch to the cake.

At this point, while you are busy with the fruit, keep the cake refrigerated so that the whipped cream doesn't go soft.

Step 4: Simple Syrup over the Fruit

You can skip this step and just add blueberries and chunks of strawberries to your cake top, or you can make a simple syrup for the fruit first.

A simple syrup is a one to one (1:1) ratio of sugar and water.  I used 1/4 cup of each. Add them to a small pot, bring it to a simmer and simmer for about 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, rinse your blueberries and strawberries (about 2/3 to 1 cup of each). Slice up the strawberries and pour both into a ceramic bowl. Once the syrup is done, pour it over the fruit. Stir it until the syrup coats all of the fruit. Pop it in the fridge until it is very cool, otherwise it will melt the whipped cream.

Once cool, use a slotted spoon to strain the fruit out of the bowl, letting the excess syrup drain back into the bowl. Arrange the fruit on top of the cake. Discard the extra syrup.

It was so yummy!! The cake is fairly heavy, which I love, but you can also cut it with some vanilla ice cream.

Strawberry Pepper Jam Recipe

Continuing with my jam and jelly recipes . . .

Strawberry Pepper Jam Recipe
Ingredients

• 5 1/2 cups sliced strawberries
• 1/2 c minced Serrano peppers (measure after mincing)
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• 1/2 large bell pepper, also minced
• 1 tsp butter
• 4 cups white sugar
• 1-1.75 oz pack powdered pectin, plus 1 TBSP from another pack
• 1 1/2 tsp Serrano pepper seeds
• 1/2 tsp bell pepper seeds

Directions

1. Clean and sterilize jars, lids and rings.
2. Make sure you wear gloves when dealing with the peppers. Also, set the seeds aside for later use.
3. Place strawberries in a blender with the lemon juice. Blend until it reaches the desired chunkiness. Pour into large pot with peppers, butter and sugar.
4. Place pot on  medium heat and bring to simmer. Turn heat to low and simmer for 15 minutes. Add the pectin and the pepper seeds.
5. Turn heat to high and bring to a rolling boil (bubbles stay when you stir). Boil 3 full minutes or until it reaches 221 degrees.
6. Ladle into prepared jars. Screw on lids.
7. Water bath: place the jars in a large stock pot or canning pot. Add enough water to cover plus 1 to 2 inches. Bring the water to a boil, and boil for 10 minutes.  Remove the jars from the pot and let cool at room temp for 24 hours. 
8. Check to make sure the lids sealed by depressing he center. If it pops back, it is not sealed. Try giving it another water bath. If it still doesn't seal, refrigerate it and use it within the month.

Abita Strawberry Beer Jelly Recipe

With the last of my jellies simmering on the stove, I'm going to try to take a minute to get another recipe written down. Right now, 6 or 7 of my original recipes are floating around the kitchen written on the backs of receipt paper. As they emerge, I'll post them so that I don't lose any. The ingredients are all similar - it is, after all, jelly or jam, which is always some fruit, sugar and pectin with a couple of other optional things thrown in. But the proportions for each one is different.

So before I lose one . . .

Abita Strawberry Beer Jelly Recipe

Yields 24 ounces of jelly
Ingredients:

• 1 - 12 oz bottle Strawberry Abita Beer
• 1 cup thinly sliced strawberries
• 1 - 3 oz pack liquid pectin (I used Certo)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 TBSP lemon juice
• 1/2 tsp butter

Directions:

1. Wash and sterilize lids and jars.
2. Use a pot that is much deeper than the ingredients - this jelly will foam quite a bit, even with the addition of the butter. Place all of the ingredients in the pot. 
3. On high heat, while constantly stirring, bring to a full rolling boil (a boil that doesn't stop bubbling when stirring) for 3 minutes. 
4. Skim off any foam and then ladle them into the prepared jars. Screw lids on tightly. 
5. Place jars in a large stock pot or canning pot. Fill the pot with enough water to cover the jars plus 1 to 2 inches.  Cover the pot with a lid, and bring the water to a boil. Boil for 10 minutes, then remove from water using a jar lifter device. 
6. Let the jelly sit at room temp for at least 24 hours to make sure to gelled.

A Jelly Tale of Woe and Strawberry Jam Recipe

Ever since I stepped off the path well-traveled (i.e. using other people's recipes) I knew that one day my jelly would fail to gel. Especially with my goal of using less sugar and more fruit.  The Strawberry Jam I made Thursday failed to gel. It's runny to say the least, and even when refrigerate, which gels even runny jelly. So lets give this story a happy ending and turn that runny jam into toast and jam.

4 reasons why jelly fails:

1. Didn't reach the correct temperature.
2. Not enough sugar. 
3. Acid content too low.
4. Not enough pectin.

I boiled the heck out of it - 3 minutes of a rolling boil at least.  A rolling boil is where there are big boiling bubbles even when you stir.

I'm not willing to add more sugar. Most jelly and jam recipes have far too much sugar in it. The ratio is often 1 cup fruit to 1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar. Insane! I want jelly fruit, not fruit flavored sugar. I reversed the ratio for this recipe to 1 1/2 cups fruit to 1 cup sugar, so I knew there was a good probability that it wouldn't gel. Still - no more sugar.

Acid content was good. 1 cup of lemon juice to that amount of sugar and fruit is fine.

What went wrong? I suspect my ruby liquid was a product of the last. By pureeing the strawberries before measuring, I used a much higher quantity of fruit than standard recipes would use. I think 1 1/2 boxes of pectin powder would have been fine, but 2 boxes would make it perfect.

How do I fix it now? Start by pouring all those jars of jelly back into the pot. Now rewash and re-sterilize those jars. I need to get another 1/2 box of pectin into the jam, but at this point, the powder would not dissolve in the slightly gelatinous state of the jam.

Also, I want to fix this recipe in a way that I can duplicate the recipe without having to go through this "re-batching" process again.  I'm going to use 1/4 cup of warm apple juice to dissolve the pectin. Next, bring the jelly to a simmer, and then add the juice/pectin mix to the pot.

I bring it to a rolling boil for 3 full minutes, and then re-jar them.

Result: It's much better, but still a slight bit runnier than I'd like. I'm leaving it as it is - it's a great Strawberry Butter, but next time I make it, I'll start with 2 packs powdered pectin.

And now the recipe in it's new and improved form:

Low Sugar Strawberry Jam Recipe

Yields about 70 ounces 

Ingredients:

•  7 cups fresh strawberries, pureed in the blender
• to measure after pureeing, first add 1/2 cup lemon juice to the blender, add strawberries and blend until you have 4 cups (that would 3 1/2 cups berries and the 1/2 cup lemon juice). Repeat once more for a total of 7 cups pureed strawberries and the 1 cup lemon juice called for below)
• 1 cup lemon juice (see above)
• 1 1/2 tsp butter
• 5 cups sugar
• 2 - 1.75 oz packs powdered pectin (such as Sure Jell)

A note on berry selection. If you look at my pic above, you'll see some green berries. Why would I put very unripe berries into the jam? Because the less ripe, the more pectin it has. A few unripe berries added to the mix are like pectin filled pearls and help the jam set better. But don't use too many; they're also less sweet.

Directions:

1. Prepare lids and jars like normal (see previous posts)
2. Put pureed fruit, lemon juice, butter and sugar in large pot.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer, and simmer on low for 15 minutes, while occasionally stirring.
4. Add both packs of pectin. Increase heat to med-hi and bring to a rolling boil for 3 full minutes while constantly stirring.
5. Remove from heat and ladle into prepared jars filling to 1/4 to 1/8 inch from top. Make sure rims are clean and screw lids onto jars.
6. Place jars in a large stock pot or a canning pot and cover with water plus 1 to 2 inches. Bring the water to a boil, and then boil for 15 minutes. This water-bath helps prevent the jam from spoiling.
7. The only thing left to do is to let it cool and enjoy!