Sweet Pea Journey

Family, Friendship, Food, Fun and Everything in Between!

Tagged: easy

Cooking

Simply Boiled Ribs – Nothing Ordinary About It!

Simplicity is quite often the best recipe. I love this recipe, even though I can hardly call it a recipe. It’s super simple and quick, and you will be making it over and over. Great for kids and adults! I heard on the radio one of the local grocery stores is having pork spare ribs on sale for 99 cent / lb. What a great deal! So, I went and got myself 2 slabs of meaty ribs, for 13 dollars! One slab went into the freezer for later, the other one is going onto my lunch table today, since I won’t have the kids for dinner.

I could only fit 4 ribs in this large bowl I got, but I have way more ribs in the pot on the stove. May not even need to refill the bowl.. These are so meaty and tender!

 

Ingredients:

1 slab of pork spare ribs, or baby back ribs, or rib cutlets, or even cubed meat… you get the idea, any cut of somewhat lean pork meat would do!

1 knob of ginger root, sliced to about 1/4 inch thickness

4 green onions, use the green part – yes green part, the part most recipes tell you to throw away. Save the whites for other recipes, we only need to borrow the flavor of the green onions, we are not eating it!

 

Sauce:

This, my friend, is the money-maker. I will tell you this one, as one of my top-secret recipes. Write it down, print it out, save it, book mark it, put it on your fridge.. do any of that. You will be making this over and over and over! Let me put it this way, I have not yet met a single person so far that is not obsessed with this sauce!

Kids version sauce:

1 tbsp light soy sauce

1/4 tsp dark vinegar, use Asian vinegar if you can find it

1 tsp sesame oil, this is very strong potent flavor, you can even use 1/2 tsp if you prefer. A little goes a long way!

1/2 tsp powdered chicken bullion

Optional:

Remember the white part of the green onions? thinly slice it up and use about 1 tsp of it in the sauce for older kids, may be too strong for little kids

 

Adult version sauce:

All the above in kids version sauce, plus:

1 tsp hot chili oil (I have a family recipe, which is another greatest top-secret of my cooking, stay tuned!) store-bought is fine, but I find the flavor varies a lot. Find a brand you like and stick to that

1/4 tsp white sugar or honey. A little sweetness really balances out the spiciness of the chili oil

1 clove of garlic, finely minced, or grated

 

Method:

Slice between the bones of the ribs, and separate ribs. Put the ribs into a large pot and fill up with cold water. Slice up ginger root and throw into the pot. Fold the green part of the green onions and shove them into the water too. Put pot on stove, lid on, heat on high until water starts to boil. Lower heat to medium, skim off the impurities of the soup and discard. Leave the lid half on, so the water doesn’t over flow. Boil the ribs till tender, about 30 to 40 minutes. Take ribs out using a pair of tongs and place on a plate or in a shallow bowl.

Dip the ribs into the sauce and enjoy! Hint, make an individual dipping sauce bowl for everyone, you will for sure want to double dip!

Cooking

Best Roasted Veggies – Another Super Versatile Recipe

I love this recipe so much, I really don’t mind eating it every day. It’s such a versatile recipe, you can change it up anyway you want, as long as you follow a couple of simple rules. This recipe is like a canvas, you can let your imagination and creativity go wild!

Rule 1: Don’t use too much high water content vegetables, such as cucumbers, large tomatoes (a handful of small cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes add a ton of flavor, FYI)

Rule 2: Lay out vegetables in a single layer on the baking dish, don’t pile them up high. Use 2 trays if needed, otherwise you are ending up steaming the vegetables, rather than roasting them. Vegetables will come out soggy, since the water content is not lowered during the process of roasting. Therefore, the taste of the vegetables are not concentrated like roasting does.

Anyway, today I gathered these vegetables:

Vegetables:

2 carrots

2 Mexican squash

1 white onion

1 red onion

about 1 lb brussel sprouts

2 small heads of broccoli

 

Dressing:

2 tsp salt

1 tsp freshly grounded tri-color pepper (black pepper works just fine, I like the color combo my tri-colored pepper grinder set gives)

2 tsp red wine vinegar (believe me, this will make a whole world of difference in your roasted vegetables!)

1 tbsp olive oil

 

Process:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Clean and cut up vegetables to bite sizes and throw into a large mixing bowl. Or if you are not using a lot of vegetables, just lay them out on the baking dish. Put dressing ingredients on vegetables. I normally mix up the vegetables using my hands, but today, while cutting the onion, I somehow sliced my left pinkie with the tip of the knife. Another reason why I prefer shorter knives than long knives. Why having such a long blade, if you think about it, how often do you cut something using the tip of the knife 1 foot away from the handle? Anyway, bandaged up, I used a tool today to mix the vegetables.

 

Spread vegetables in a single layer on baking dish. Use 2 baking dishes if needed. Into the oven it goes, and bake for about 25 to 28 minutes.

Serve hot, room temperature or cold!

 

Cooking

Best Carrot Cake

I have to confess, this is not the healthiest cake you ever had. The truth is, it is probably one of the worst, sugar and fat content wise. But, it got 4 giant carrots in it, so I am good. Also, this recipe is easy, doesn’t require tons of bowls and tools.

 

 

Wet Ingredients:

4 eggs

1 1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp ground cinnamon

4 large carrots, grated

1 cup chopped walnuts

 

Frosting:

1 box (8 oz) cream cheese

1 stick butter

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

 

Method:

 

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F. Spray and flour a 9 x 13 inch baking dish.

In a large mixing bowl, mix all wet ingredients together. I still have not found my handy dandy hand mixer, so I did this cake by hand. If you have a hand mixer, definitely go for that!

Peel and grate carrots. This will take some time and muscle. I think I got my right arm work out for the day. I did not really measure the carrots, just eyeballed it, probably a good 3 cups.

Add all dry ingredients into wet, leave carrots and walnuts to later. Mix the batter until no more lumps. Stir in grated carrots and chopped walnuts.

Pour batter into the prepared 9 x 13 baking dish. Bake at 350 deg F for 50 minutes. Let cool completely.

 

For frosting, soften cream cheese and butter, mix thoroughly. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add powdered sugar, 1 cup at a time, using a spoon, carefully mix powdered sugar into cream cheese and butter mixture. Frost cake and serve!

 

Cooking

Ultimate Blueberry Cake with Lemon Syrup

Fresh blueberries are in season y’all!

Go pick some fresh blueberries with your little ones and make some killer dessert with them! I take my kids pick blueberries every year, since my oldest was one and a half years old. Let me tell ya, every year, we pick 30-40 lbs of fresh blueberries, come home, sort out the biggest and juiciest and freeze them in sandwich or quart size Ziploc bags and freeze. These berries last a whole year of desserts, smoothies or just as a simple super healthy frozen treat!

For now, I will focus on the Ultimate Blueberry cake with Lemon Syrup. It’s a huge hit every time it’s made.

Wet Ingredients:

3 large eggs
1/2 cup canola oil 1 tsp vanilla extract (please buy a bottle of the real stuff, makes a huge difference in your dessert)
1 cup Greek yogurt

1/2 cup sugar (with 1 additional TBSP sugar for syrup)

Dry Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of all purpose flour (and additional 1 TBSP flour if you are using frozen berries)
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Star Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries
2 large lemons

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350 deg F.

Grease, flour and parchment paper your loaf pan. I used a 9x5x3 loaf pan, even though it’s non-stick, I still did this step. I had a loaf stuck in my pan before, so, don’t skip this step!

In a medium bowl, whisk all dry ingredients together.

Add all wet ingredients into a larger bowl. Zest your lemons at this time, zest goes into wet ingredients bowl. Save your lemons, you will need the juice later.

Whisk wet ingredients together with the same whisk (I really don’t like introducing more tools to wash, unless I absolutely have to.) The lemon zest and vanilla extract smells so good at this point, you know you will have an amazing cake in the end already!

Slowly add all dry ingredient mixture into wet mixture, that’s why you want to mix the wet ingredients in a larger bowl. You have no idea how many times I used the wrong size bowl, and ended up with a mess when I bake. Ha, lessons learned, pay attention before dirty up a dish, figure out which bowl will end up having all the ingredients together in the end.

The mixture will be a sticky mess, but kinda cool looking.

In a smaller bowl, mix your blueberries and that 1 additional TBSP of flour, this prevents the berries to bleed too much into the batter, and helps them stay afloat during the baking process and don’t sink to the bottom.

Gently fold berries into the batter. I recommend using a rubber spatula for this, scrap the sides of the bowl as you go, try not to poke the berries.

Pour the batter with berries into your prepared loaf pan, and smooth it out a tiny bit.

Into the oven it goes. Now it’s the time to wash all the dirty dishes and tools and walk away.

Come back in about 50 minutes and check on your cake. If a clean tooth pick comes out clean from your cake, leave it in the loaf pan to cool at least 10 minutes. If the toothpick doesn’t come out clean, stick the cake back into the oven and bake for 10 minutes more.

While the cake is cooling in the loaf pan, juice your naked lemons into a small pot, add 1 TBSP sugar and stir on medium heat until sugar is dissolved.

Transfer cake onto a plate, poke some more holes on the cake with the tooth pick, this will help the cake to absolve the lovely lemony flavor of the syrup. You guessed it, slowly pour syrup on the cake while cake is still warm.

Slice up and enjoy!

Cooking

Easy as 2-Ingredient Pie

How much easier can it be than a 2-ingredient pie? OK, there are total of 3 ingredients, including a store-bought pie crust. But, as far as the filling goes, there are only 2 ingredients, and nope, sugar is not one of them. So, go ahead, indulge a little, because you can!

 

I LOVE this recipe, because it really got all the goodness of a pie, but none of the bad stuff – no added sugar, no extensive baking, or water bath, super fast, kid friendly, and you can lick off the spoon since there is no raw egg!

Ingredients:

1 store-bought pie crust

2 packages of cream cheese

1/2 cup of Nutella

 

Method:

 

You probably already figured it out. It’s really that simple. Soften the cream cheese, add in Nutella, mix, dump into pie crust and smooth the top. Leave pie in the fridge to set. DONE!

Cooking

Chocolate Cheesecake Pie

I made this one today, totally by accident. But let me tell ya, I am making this Chocolate Cheesecake Pie from now on! Best part? There is no guilt! Notice, I did not add a single granule of sugar! When we tried it, it tasted seriously, restaurant quality. All I needed was some coco powder dusting or shaved chocolate on top for presentation. I may also add some orange zest into the cheesecake mixture.

To tell you the truth, I was making a cheesecake, but after I softened and dumped my cream cheese into the bowl, I realized I was out of one of the key ingredients – sweetened condensed milk. What?! How did this happen? I always have some on hand! But oh well, what can I do at this point? I already leaked out the excitement to the kids that we are having a cheesecake! I was searching my pantry for inspiration, what can I used that may mimic the thick texture of sweetened condensed milk, and gives amazing flavor? Then my eyes gazed on the white mini chocolate chips. I had some left overs from making cake pops for my daughter’s birthday party. That’s it! Here is what I did.  A hint: this is a no bake cheesecake pie! How much easier can that be?

 

Ingredients:

2 packages of cream cheese, softened (either leave the cream cheese on the counter for at least 2 hours in the packaging, or simply follow the instructions printed inside the box, you didn’t know there was instruction there, did you? Took me years to realize that too!)

1 cup of mini white chocolate chips, or  baking chocolate, cut into small pieces (a lot easier to melt)

1/4 cup of unsweetened coco powder

1 store-bought pie crust

 

Method:

I already dumped the 2 packages of cream cheese into a medium size mixing bowl. I melted white mini chocolate chips in another glass bowl in the microwave. 45 seconds on high to start out with, stir, added 30 seconds more, that did all the trick. Or you can melt your chocolate chips in double boiler. Again, I didn’t feel like using the stove and another pot. Now, if I didn’t dump out the cream cheese earlier, I would add my softened cream cheese into my chocolate mixture at this point to save another bowl.

I mixed the cream cheese and chocolate with a large spoon. Don’t use a whisk, the cream cheese will get stick in the middle of the  whisk and that doesn’t really help. Once chocolate and cream cheese is mixed together, I added the coco powder. Slowly press the coco powder into the cream cheese mixture using the back of the spoon. If you try to stir, chances are, you will make a huge mess with the coco powder. The mixture will feel a bit too dry at first, but it will loosen up a bit as the coco powders are incorporated.

Simply remove the plastic cover from the pie crust, pour the chocolate cream cheese mixture into the pie crust. Using the back of the same spoon, even out the top of the cheese mixture. I don’t know any kid doesn’t like chocolate, or cheesecake, or pie… I had a little helper, really a little taster. She was also playing with a spatula, and had tons of fun tasting the cheesecake pie.

 

After smoothing out the top, doesn’t have to be perfect. I didn’t fee like adding extra bells and whistles to this one, I put the lid back on and stuck the pie in the fridge to let it set  a bit.

 

If you want to go fancy, shave some chocolate shavings and sprinkle on top, or you can arrange marsh mellows on top, and quickly torch it before serving, it would be a s’more version! The alteration is endless!

Have fun making this one! Everyone would love it!

 

 

 

Cooking

Chicken and 40 Cloves – my way

If you have never tried this recipe, you are missing out, unless you are a hard-core vegetarian. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe, and gave it a twist, well, pretty much every time I made it. Chances are, I would never really duplicate any of the times I made it, but, surprisingly, every twist I threw in, made the dish tasted equally amazing.  Hint, that’s my way of saying, you really can’t mess it up!

Ingredients:

40 cloves of garlic, peeled. Honestly, I never really counted, but a good 4, 5 handful of garlic. If you don’t feel like sitting at dinner table peeling garlic for an hour (which is quite therapeutic by the way), most grocery stores sell these already peeled in a bag, this cuts your prep time drastically.

1 whole chicken, cut into pieces. Or, you do what I do, buy a package of drum sticks, or skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs. You can ask your butcher to cut these into smaller chunks, like 1-inch pieces, or use them whole. Either way it works beautifully. If you use whole thigh, or drum sticks, you can always score the skin and meat a bit, using a sharp pairing knife. This allows the flavor to penetrate into the meat and also speeds up the cooking process. If you are using drum sticks or thighs, I’d estimate 3 drum sticks per person, or 2 thighs per person. It may sound like a lot, but you will be surprised how delicious this dish is, and wish you made more.

1 cup low sodium soy sauce, for flavor. You can use dark soy sauce, but your chicken will come out much darker, and be sure to lower your heat for cooking. Dark soy tends to burn a bit quicker.

1 cup fresh basil leaves. I used sweet Italian basil, Thai basil, a mixture of both, all works. Depends on what you have on hand – this is one of my twist, and I LOVE the aroma basil leaves add to the dish.

1 inch of ginger root, no need to peel, you won’t eat it anyway. Just slice the root, don’t even need to be paper-thin, the cooking process will release all the goodness of ginger.

1 cup chicken stock. Or, do what I do, use a cup of water and a chicken bouillon cube and call it a day. Seriously, what am I going to do with the rest of the stock? And nowadays, who has the time and patience to freeze stock in ice-cube trays?

You will need a heavy bottom pan with lid, the best is a dutch oven. They are my favorite in my kitchen. I swear I have like 5 of these, different sizes and colors, and I use them all. I think they help me feel better on the days I don’t do any exercise just by taking these out, washing them and putting them away. That, my friend, is intensive upper body workout!

2 green onions, thinly sliced, for garnish, optional. Highly depends on if I have them on hand, and if I totally forget about it at the end. Yes, I do that all the time.

 

Method:

Prepare chicken pieces. Either cut them into smaller chunks, or score the skin and meat with a sharp knife. Put chicken pieces into a large bowl. I use about 1/4 cup of the soy sauce and a couple turns of freshly ground pepper to marinate the chicken. Mix and set aside.

While the chicken is marinating, set aside garlic cloves, slice ginger root, pick and rinse basil leaves, slice green onions. Once you have everything good to go, the rest of the cooking will be a breeze. Heavy bottom pan on medium high heat, go in with a couple of table spoons of mild flavored cooking oil. Let the oil heat up and add ginger. Give it a few seconds and let the ginger smell infuse the oil, go in with chicken pieces. Don’t over crowd the pan. If you really have the patience, put chicken in skin side down to let the chicken get some color and let the skin crisp up. Or, you can go with the lazy way, like I always do, dump the chicken into the pot, spread it out a bit with a spatula and leave it alone for a few minutes. Once the chicken / skin is ready, the chicken will be very easy to be flipped. If you have to really scrape the pan, or pull the skin off the bottom, it’s not ready yet. Be patient.

Turn the chicken to let it cook evenly. Once the chicken is browned on all sides, go in with all the garlic. It may seem awful lot of garlic, but just bear with it. Stir the chicken and garlic around, lower heat to medium. Add remaining soy sauce, chicken stock and basil leaves. Lid on, lower heat to medium low once the liquid is boiling. Let it go for about 10 minutes. Lid off, stir around the chicken a bit. At this point, garlic cloves are soft, but still hold their shape. Some smaller pieces may have melted, that is what makes this dish incredible. If you like the sauce a bit thicker, leave the lid off and cook for a couple more minutes, the sauce will thicken up.

This dish goes beautifully with some roasted vegetables, or a nice crisp mixed green salad. Or, you can add potatoes into this dish, it would be amazing. Serve over steamed white rice, or pasta, or pull the chicken off the bone, serve in a warm tortilla, or eat it as is, mop the sauces with naan bread…

I have not read the recipe since the first time I made it, which was about 2 years ago. That’s why every time I made it, something was different. But I have never messed it up. If you got a bunch garlic cloves and chicken, soy sauce you are good to go.

Give it a try, and let me know what’s your twist.

Cooking

Easy Snow Peas with Garlic Sauce

This is a keeper, I promise. Even my 5-year-old gave me a two thumbs up! It’s a super easy and nutritious dish.

Ingredients:

1 lb snow pea, trimmed and veins on the edges pulled. Snow peas are tenderer than snap peas, they seem slightly sweeter to me as well. This is a great choice for kids. For some reason, kids love to bite into slightly crunchy, sweet snow peas and from time to time, find the smallest and cutest little peas inside.

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and minced.

Salt, powdered chicken bullion to taste

2 tbsp of corn starch

1/2 cup of water or stock

 

Method:

Pan on medium high heat, add in 1 tbsp mild flavored oil, throw in garlic and move around for 30 seconds. Immediately, your house is going to smell amazing! Add snow peas into pan and about half of the water or chicken stock, lid on lower heat to medium. This allows the liquid to evaporate, hit the lid and comes back down to steam the snow peas gently for about 3 minutes. In the mean time, dissolve corn starch in the remaining liquid, keep the liquid moving just before adding into the pan, otherwise the starch will sink to the bottom. Move the snow peas around, and let the sauces thicken up. It only takes about 20 to 30 seconds. Add salt to taste, and it’s DONE!

 

Cooking

Cold Day Beef Stew

This is one of the easy comfort food recipes. It’s easily prepared, basic techniques, doesn’t require exotic ingredients. Once you are comfortable with the basic method, you can put your own twist on it.

Ingredients:

2 lb beef chuck roast, cubed into 1 inch chunks.  Doesn’t have to be exact on the weight, a bit more or a bit less doesn’t really make much difference in the final product. Chuck roast is a great cut for beef stew, the connected tissues will break down during the cooking process and the meat will be tender and flavorful.

1/4 c plain flour, salt and pepper to taste

2 carrots, peeled and roughly cut into chunks.

3 golden potatoes, scrubbed clean and cut into rough chunks about 1 hours into cooking process. Or you can cut them early and soak in water to prevent browning.

1 large yellow / white / sweet onion, roughly chopped

4 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed

1 large sprig of rosemary and 2 sprigs of thyme, perfect aromatic for beef stew. If you don’t have access to fresh herbs, use about 2 tsp of dry herb instead, no biggie

about 3 cups of beef stock, or water (or 1 cup of red wine + 2 cups of stock / water, flavor would be much deeper)

1 tbsp tomato paste

 

Method:

In a large bowl, season beef with salt and pepper, mix to combine. Dust flour onto beef cubes, mix to even coat beef with flour. This will help thicken the sauce in the end. Heat a dutch oven or a heavy bottom stew pot on medium high heat, drizzle about 2 tbsp mild flavored oil until oil is heated up. Drop beef cubes in and brown on all sides, about 5 minutes. Brown beef cubes in batches if needed, please do not crowd the pan, otherwise the temperature will drop too much and beef won’t be properly browned. Don’t be tempted to move the meat around, just drop the beef in, and let them alone. Once the beef is browned, they will be much easier to be turned. There will be some darker bits at the bottom of the pan, don’t worry about it at all, it’s all good flavor. Put browned beef cubes into a bowl and set aside.

Drop in onions and sweat in the same pot, no need to clean after browning beef! Moisture released by onions will help loosen up the brown bits in the pan, just scrape the bottom of the pan as needed with your spatula or wooden spoon, while moving onions around. After a couple of minutes, add in garlic. Again, no need to finely chop, the long cooking process will break them down for you beautifully. In about 30 seconds, you can smell the aroma of garlic. Add carrots and cook for a couple of minutes. Push the veggies towards one side, add the tomato paste into the open area and let the heat “wake up” the flavor. Move it around with the spoon, and mix with the veggies after about 10 seconds. Drop in herbs, let them wake up. Add red wine, if you are using it. De-glaze the pan and give the alcohol a chance to cook out. Add the remaining liquid in a couple of minutes. Mix it together. Add beef back into the pot, juices and all. Mix and bring the whole thing to a boil. Reduce heat to medium low, cover and walk away.

Return after about 1 hour,  add potatoes into the stew, mix to combine. Lid back on and let it simmer for another 40 minutes or so. Stir every 10 minutes or so to make sure nothing is stuck at the bottom and there is enough liquid. When the stew is done, taste and adjust with salt and pepper as needed.

I’d like to serve the stew over white rice, pasta, or with nice warm tortilla, make a beef stew taco! You can also mop the juices with dinner rolls, use left over beef chunks on pizza, make empanadas or even enchiladas! The possibility is truly endless.

How do you like your beef stew, and how would you serve it?

Cooking

Tres Leches Cake – Speedy Version

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this recipe. It’s super easy, literally no work at all. And the recipe and process is so easy, that I only followed the recipe the very first time. The best part of it? The cake is SO delicious, my kids prefer this cake over fancy expensive professionally made birthday cakes since 2 years ago! However, before you promise your little one you will make this cake for them, make sure tell them it’s going to be ready tomorrow, because the cake needs to sit in the fridge over night to soak up the milky goodness.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 box of store bought yellow cake mix (yep, that’s a great start, isn’t it?)

Eggs, vegetable oil and water as required by the yellow cake mix box instruction

 

For the tres leches part:

1 can of sweetened condensed milk, any brand

1 can of evaporated milk, any brand

2 cups of any kind of milk you have in your fridge, or a mixture of milk of what you have. Can’t be simpler than that! I used half and half, heavy cream, 2%, whole, fat free, soy, almond, coconut milk…

 

If you want to go fancy and want to cover up imperfections:

1 can of whip cream (or you can whip heavy whipping cream, which I think is actually worth the effort)

2 cans of fruit jam / spread of your choice (I made strawberry jam myself this time. It’s my son’s birthday after all)

 

How to:

Follow the instruction on the cake mix box and bake the cake. Use either 9″ x 13″ pan, or 2 off 8″ pans (especially if you want to gift one and keep one, and you will be GLAD you kept one!) Pay attention to the different time required to bake the cake, based on the baking dish size.

After the cake is done, take it out of the oven, leave on the stove top to cool (I am not a cooling rack person, and always seem to lose mine anyway) for roughly 10 minutes.  Use a wooden spatula, or small rolling pin, poke the cake all the way to the bottom, literally every 1 inch distance or so. Don’t worry about the look of the cake, you will either keep it for your family, in which case, trust me, everyone will devour the cake and no one will pay attention to the look of the cake, or, you can cover it up with the whipping cream.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and whatever milk you have on hand. The third kind, don’t stress too much about the quantity, a bit more a bit less doesn’t really matter. That’s another reason why this is my kind of recipe. Make sure scrape the bottom of the bowl with your whisk, the sweetened condensed milk tends to stay at the bottom, way longer than you may think it would. Have fun with this process, put on your favorite music and dance a little, it won’t hurt! Or, you can recruit your little helpers, they always love this part.

Carefully pour the milk mixture onto the poked cake(s). Divide evenly, if you are baking 2 cakes. It may seem like the cake(s) are swimming in the milk mixture. Don’t panic, the milk goodness will be all absorbed by the cake, and the cake will be so luscious and soft, and melt in your mouth.

At this point, I normally cover the cake with plastic wrap and stick them into the fridge and fight the urge to taste it. Next day, take the cake out of the fridge, slather the fruit jam / spread and cover with whipped cream. I promise you, proper dessert is served!

 

Alterations to the cake:

In the cake mix, add a can of drained and pressed crushed pineapple, use coconut milk as the third milk, you have your piña colada version cake

You can add a can of any sort of chopped fruit, very well drained into the cake mix

At the bottom of the baking dish, sprinkle brown sugar, arrange rings of pineapple and put a cherry in the center, dump the cake batter on top and follow the rest of the recipe – fancy pineapple upside down cake version

The changes are endless, let me know what you did with this, I’d love to try your version too!