Toppings | Mixes, Ingredients, Recipes

How to Make Chocolate Covered Caramel Apples

October 27th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

These chocolate caramel candy apples are easy, delicious, and make beautiful gifts. Dip your apples in caramel, chocolate, or even melted candy and top them with cinnamon, candies, or chopped nuts. Use your imagination and the options are endless. Choosing Your Apples for Candy Apples The key to these best candy apple is contrast. Chocolate and caramel are sweet on their own. While adding a crisp apple to crunch into will be nice for the texture, choosing a sweet apple could be a headache. For the best contrast against the sweet caramel and chocolate coating, you’ll want a nice, tart …

Homemade Caramel Recipe

October 9th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

This homemade caramel recipe makes great caramel for coating candy or candy apples. It’s better than the caramel that you buy in the store and is way easier than unwrapping a million little caramel squares. It’s easy and leaves lots of room for variations. The Basic Homemade Caramel Recipe Ingredients 1 lb brown sugar 1 cup (two sticks) butter 1 14-ounce can sweetened condensed milk 1 cup light corn syrup 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon butterscotch flavor Directions Care needs to be taken to assure that there are no sugar crystals in your candy as you make it. A few …

Four Unforgettable Things You Can Make with Cocoa

October 6th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

It’s amazing what good quality cocoa can do for your recipes. It will make them richer, tastier, and more chocolatey. It’s almost like the difference between good European chocolate and old holiday candy–you can easily taste the difference in quality. Get the Cocoa Recipes Click on any of the links below to jump to the recipe: Gourmet Hot Chocolate Chocolate Whipped Cream Chocolate Whipped Cream Frosting Hot Fudge Sauce Made with Cocoa What Cocoa Butter Can Do for Cocoa Look for cocoa that is at least 14% to 16% cocoa butter. Most grocery store cocoa is 8% to 10%. The …

Pumpkin Pie Squares: Better than Pumpkin Pie

October 3rd, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

I’m not lying when I say these pumpkin pie squares are better than pumpkin pie. This recipe is easier, has more emphasis on the pumpkin flavors and filling, and the crust is as simple as oats and brown sugar–no pie crust! Merri Ann and I hardly ever make pumpkin pie anymore when we can just make these. Why We Love These Pumpkin Pie Squares You don’t have to tinker with a pie crust You can make it in three sizes with the big one, big enough for a crowd It’s exciting, different than a pumpkin pie It’s easy The Story …

Pumpkin Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting

October 1st, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

We originally designed this recipe for a pumpkin sheet cake with a very good cream cheese frosting recipe, but we used this to make our whipped cream layer cake and it was perfect. You’ll find both frosting recipes here. We used a Vanilla Bean Baby Cakes Mix. It makes a cream cake, denser than store mixes but lighter than a pound cake. It is the perfect density for a pumpkin cake. You add spices, nuts, and canned pumpkin. Pumpkin Cake Recipe You may substitute one tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice for the cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg listed in these instructions. …

How to Make Cream Cheese Brownies with a Brownie Mix

October 1st, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

You can add a cream cheese filling to any brownie mix to make cheesecake brownies. There are two ways to do this: either swirling the cream cheese filling through the brownie batter or putting a cream cheese layer over the brownie batter to make a layered dessert. We’ll describe both ways. Swirled Cheesecake Brownies Ingredients 1 brownie mix 2 8-ounce packages of cream cheese 1/2 cup granulated sugar 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 4 large egg yolks Directions Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease a 9 x 13-inch baking pan. Dust with flour or line with parchment paper. Mix …

How to Make and Easy Upside Down Cake with Almost Any Fruit

September 26th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

Upside down cake is one of my personal favorites. Pineapple upside-down cake is the most common, but you can make an upside-down cake with any fruit. It’s easy with a cake mix. Choose any fruit, layer it over brown sugar with cake batter over the top, bake it, and turn it over for an ooey-gooey treat. Step 1:Choose the Fruit for Your Upside Down Cake You can choose nearly any fruit for your upside-down cake, as long as it cooks well. Think of any fruit you could include in a pie, and you could use it in your upside-down cake. …

Chubby Cherry Whipped Cream Cake

September 25th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

Our Chubby Cherry Filling and Topping is really good so we had to make a whipped cream cake out of it. We added Chubby Cherry to the whipped cream frosting, put it between the layers, and spread some on top. It’s very good. Ingredients 1 Vanilla Bean Cake Mix 3 large eggs 1/2 cup water Chubby Cherry Filling and Topping 1 whipped cream frosting recipe and decoratings (We used some caramel sauce in the cake above; put the frosting swirls over the top of the caramel.) Directions Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Mix the cake batter in your stand type …

Caramel Nut Whipped Cream Cake

September 25th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

For this caramel nut whipped cream cake, we used our famous caramel nut flavored whipped cream. The contrast of the salt and sweet and the smooth and crunch is delightful. To make these cakes, we didn’t make many changes. We stayed with the white sugar so that we would have a snow-white cake and used some cream cheese. Of course, people loved the cake. Ingredients: 1 Vanilla Bean Cake Mix 3 large eggs 1/2 cup water 1 whipped cream frosting recipe and decorations (We used some caramel sauce in the cake above; put the frosting swirls over the top of the …

Huckleberry Whipped Cream Cake

September 25th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

This huckleberry whipped cream cake uses our vanilla bean baby cake mix as a base with a touch of huckleberry flavor and is topped with a tasty huckleberry-flavored whipped cream with huckleberry jam between the layers. About the Huckleberry Whipped Cream Cake Huckleberries are a big deal in Idaho and Montana. There are folks that spend their weekends in late summer searching for and picking huckleberries. Huckleberry jam and even frozen huckleberries are sold in gift shops and even convenience stores. They are slow to pick and expensive to buy. A nice couple came into our store wanting a huckleberry …

Easy Flourless Chocolate Cake

September 25th, 2020rrf0 Comments

Flourless chocolate cake is one of our favorites. It’s dense, chocolatey, and elegant–almost more like a brownie than a cake. This flourless chocolate cake is the easiest cake in the world with only four ingredients and three steps. It’s scrumptious and perfect to serve to your sweetheart. Tips for Your Flourless Chocolate Cake We’ve made dozens of these flourless chocolate cakes and served them to our customers in the store plus we’ve used them in classes. There are two keys to success: really good cocoa and a springform pan with a tight seal. We recommend a silicone springform pan.” Dennis …

Six Kitchen Breakthroughs I Love

September 24th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

I may have the most fun job on the planet! I’m a food explorer. I have an office just down the hall from the test kitchen. I don’t do all of the baking but I know what’s going on. I get to explore new foods and methods and recipes. Including flavored whipped cream to add a boost of flavor to desserts and pie shields to prevent burnt crusts, these six breakthroughs will change your life. 1. Pie Shields I never bake a pie without a pie shield. Remember when we used to fold tin foil around the edges of pumpkin pies? …

How to Make Lemon Cream Rolls

September 22nd, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

If you can make cinnamon rolls, you can make these sweet rolls. These lemon cream sweet rolls are reminiscent of a lemon meringue pie with the lemon pastry filling and the lemon cream cheese frosting. FREE Baking Guide! Making Your Sweet Rolls with a Mix You can make these sweet rolls with a bread mix, but we’ve found that using a donut mix makes them sweeter, lighter, and fluffier–as close to bakery-style sweet rolls you can get. We like to use our Original Raised, Glazed Donut mix, but you can also use our Daily Dozen Donut mix instead. If you …

How to Make Raspberry Cream Rolls

September 22nd, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

If you can make cinnamon rolls, you can make these sweet rolls. These raspberry cream sweet rolls have the essence of a raspberry cream pie with the raspberry tidbits kneaded into the dough, the combination of raspberry and Bavarian cream filling, and the raspberry cream cheese frosting. Sweet Rolls Made with a Donut Mix We’ve found that using a donut mix for the base of these sweet rolls results in a sweet, fluffy roll that tastes just like it’s from the bakery. Only our raised donut mixes will work for this, so either the Original Raised, Glazed Donut mix or …

How to Bake Focaccia From Scratch or with Your Bread Machine

September 22nd, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

This is just about as easy as it gets for some really good homemade focaccia. Make the dough in your bread machine (or with a stand-type mixer). It doesn’t take a lot of time and it’s a great project to tackle with the kids. How to Make Homemade Focaccia Start with a lean, white bread machine mix . . . or use the recipe below. By lean, we mean one that is low fat and doesn’t call for fresh eggs. A buttermilk bread mix is perfect. Homemade Focaccia from Scratch Focaccia Ingredients 1 1/4 cups water 2 tablespoons olive oil …

Apple Pie Stuffed French Toast

September 21st, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

Now you can even turn your French toast into apple pie! Is there any better combination than that? And it’s so easy to make. All you need is some bread, apple pastry filling, an egg wash, and whipped cream topping. Try Other Pie-Inspired French Toast Not a fan of apple pie? Why don’t you try another pie flavor then. Whether you want a Bavarian cream pie French toast or lemon meringue, we’ve got you covered with our endless options of premade pastry fillings. Just choose your favorite pastry filling, follow the directions below, and run with it. Let us know …

How to Bake Like a Pro with Pastry Fillings

September 18th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

Those scrumptious filled donuts, turnovers, and other filled pastries at your favorite bakeshop—chances are, they’re filled with Dawn pastry fillings. Dawn is the largest supplier of baking ingredients to bakeshops in America. And their fillings are outstanding. These fillings come in two categories: Fruit and cream. The fruit fillings include raspberry, lemon, cherry, blueberry, and apple. The cream fillings include Bavarian, cream cheese, and chocolate Bavarian. Our best selling fillings are Bavarian, apple, and lemon. Use Pastry Fillings to Bake Like the Pros Pastry fillings are like pie fillings on steroids!Yes, you can use pie fillings in your pastries and …

Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies with Ganache Filling

September 18th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

This is really a recipe for peanut butter yoyo cookies—thin peanut butter slice and bake refrigerator wafers sandwiched with a creamy chocolate ganache filling. This recipe is bound to be a hit at your house. It’s one of our favorite recipes. For the very best ganache cookie filling, use a quality chocolate, though good quality chocolate chips will make a fine cookie. Peanut Butter Slice and Bake Wafer Cookies These peanut butter wafer cookies are perfect slice and bake refrigerator cookies. You can make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze it until you’re ready to bake. Ingredients …

Blueberry Lemon Upside Down Cake with Lemon Cloud Whipped Cream

September 10th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

We served this blueberry lemon upside-down cake to customers, and they loved it. Blueberry and lemon is a classic combination and blueberries make a perfect upside down cake. (You can use either fresh or individually frozen berries.) The cool lemon whipped cream is delightful. This blueberry upside-down cake uses a cake mix, so it is super easy. It’s a great recipe for a busy day. If you choose, you may make this cake with your favorite white or yellow cake recipe. Ingredients 1/4 cup butter 1 cup packed brown sugar 12 ounces of individually frozen blueberries 1 yellow cake mix …

How to Make Legendary Sugar Cookies with Flavors

September 10th, 2020Dennis Weaver0 Comments

Sugar cookies with banana flavoring and cinnamon chips

To make your sugar cookies memorable, add flavor and colors. You can also add small inclusions like mini chips or chopped nuts. By simply adding color to the frosting and maybe cutting them into interesting shapes, you make the cookies visually stimulating. Add a burst of flavor and you’ve got legendary good-tasting cookies. How to Add Flavor and Inclusions to Your Sugar Cookies You can add flavor to your sugar cookie dough, but it’s more effective to add the flavor to your frosting as well. In our flavored sugar cookie mixes, we add flavor to both but we depend on …