The Scoop:
Hi guys!! I hope everyone has been having an absolutely lovely holiday full of family, friends, and tons of good food. I sure have! In fact, my holiday has been so great that I’ve ignored any and all “adult responsibilities”and spent my time hanging out with my little cousins and vegging in front of the TV. Laziness to the max, baby!
Laziness, why yes. That brings me to my next point.
Maybe you’ve noticed a little something missing from the blog this November… like… I don’t know… Thanksgiving recipes! Seriously, what kind of food blogger doesn’t post a single Thanksgiving recipe!? Not even a creative use for leftovers! Truth be told, I just let my parents do all the work this year and I’m relatively certain that my mom would have killed me if I had tried to follow her around the kitchen snapping food photos as she attempted to prepare dinner for twelve people. So when she instructed me to “bring nothing” and “let her work” I kindly obliged. In all honesty, I don’t make it back to my hometown very often, so when I do, I automatically morph into a lazy teenager again. I’ve spent hours (like way more than I feel comfortable admitting) with my butt glued to the living room floor next to the fireplace listening to Taylor Swift and doing things like….
THIS AND THIS AND THIS
So instead of Thanksgiving recipes, I’m going to flash back a couple weeks and bring you some birthday recipes (whaaaaaaat?) instead. Ok cool. Hope you like it!
As I’ve been mentioning a lot these past few weeks, life has been jam packed lately. So many prospects, so many challenges, so much excitement. Just SO much. I find that it is really easy for me to get all caught up in the whirlwind and completely forget to appreciate what’s actually happening all around me. So in all of the madness of the last month, it was nice to take a couple days to celebrate the turning of another year with some very dear friends. The first celebration I’d like to recap was actually the seventieth (yes 7-0) birthday of my co-worker Chaz.
Seventy is a pretty big milestone in life so we knew this was one that we could not let slip by unnoticed. My co-workers and I planned a SURPRISE lunch at Chaz’s favorite restaurant The Olive Garden (he’s a man of fine taste) and boy was he shocked!
The look on his face was priceless, and it was adorable listening to him re-tell the story to anyone and everyone who stopped by his desk over the next week.
In addition to The Olive Garden, one of Chaz’s very favorite things is playing the slots at the casina (yes, he says casina, not casino). When choosing a cake recipe, I knew one thing for sure: his cake absolutely had to be slot machine themed. I decided to go with a plain white cake and a standard whipped buttercream frosting, but to kick things up with a maraschino cherry filling. This filling is light and fluffy and sweet; the perfect way to take any basic cake recipe to the next level. My co-workers inhaled it, and the birthday boy asked me to pack the leftovers up so he could take them home to share with his grandkids.
*sigh*
See, this is why I love to cook : )
The Goods:
INGREDIENTS:
- 1/4 cup butter (half stick), at room temperature
- 8 oz cream cheese (1 package), at room temperature
- 1 1/2 c powdered sugar
- 1/2 Tbs milk
- 1 Tbs maraschino cherry juice
- pinch salt
- 3/4 cup maraschino cherries (I used the contents of a 10 oz jar), chopped
The Deets:
Beat the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar, a half cup at a time, and mix on low speed until incorporated. Add the liquids and the salt, then beat on high speed for 3-5 minutes, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. Finally fold in the chopped cherries and spread generously between the layers of your favorite cake.
The Inspiration:
Annie’s Eats Cherry Vanilla Layer Cake.
This Maraschino Cherry Cake Filling is a JACKPOT… You can bet on it!
XOXO,
Tall One
THE SPATULARETTE 