Chocolate-Cinnamon Sundae Cake

Earlier this week, I mixed up my own homemade baking mix.  I'm trying little by little to make more things from scratch and to rely less on prepackaged/processed food.  This mix will be a great time-saver for me in the kitchen.  The first thing I tried were biscuits because typically that is what I use baking mix for.  I have a Bisquick cookbook, though, and decided to peek through it and see if I could find something sweet to whip up.  This chocolate cake looked so good so I had to try it!  In the cookbook, it is suggested to serve this with ice cream and a chocolate cinnamon sauce,  (hence the name "sundae" cake), but I wasn't prepared for that.  Instead, I whipped up a batch of my favorite chocolate cinnamon frosting to go on top!  You can find the frosting recipe HERE.  Chocolate-cinnamon perfection!

Chocolate-Cinnamon Sundae Cake

adapted from:  Betty Crocker's Bisquick Cookbook

1 1/3 cups baking mix (find the recipe HERE)

1/2 c. sugar

1/3 c. baking cocoa

1 t. ground cinnamon

1 egg

2/3 c. milk

3 T. butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease an 8x8 square pan.  Beat all ingredients in mixing bowl until well-blended.  (I mixed by hand, but will try the mixer next time in order to incorporate the baking mix a little more.)  Pour into pan.  Bake 25-30 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. 

NOTE:  I used a 9x9 pan and it only needed to bake for 15 minutes.  

Homemade Baking Mix

Over the past year, I've tried little by little to make our meals and snacks from scratch as often as I can and to purchase fewer prepackaged or convenience items.  One of the things that I've been wanting to eliminate is the use of Bisquick.  I use it for biscuits, pancakes, shortcakes and we love this cheeseburger pie too!  There are lots of versions of the homemade mix out there, but I finally found one I thought would be good and so far I've had good results.  It was super easy to make and is easily stored in the fridge.  The biscuits I made were way better than the Bisquick version and today I even made a chocolate cake with this mix.  

 Just mix all the ingredients with a pastry blender until you have coarse crumbs.  I am storing my mix in a Zip-loc bag in the fridge.  I will be on the lookout for a container with a lid to store this in, because I know this is the mix I'll be using from now on!

The biscuits were fabulous!

Can't wait to try to this chocolate-cinnamon sundae cake tonight!  If it tastes as good as it smells, I'll be sharing that recipe soon!

Homemade Baking Mix
Source:   Food Fanatic

6 cups all-purpose flour
3 T. baking powder
1 1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. salt
3 T. sugar
1 1/2 sticks butter, unsalted cut into small cubes (I used salted because that's what I had on hand- worked fine.)

Whisk dry ingredients in mixing bowl.  Cut butter into flour mixture using a pastry blender until you have coarse crumbs.  Be sure there are no big pieces of butter remaining.  Store mixture in airtight container in the refrigerator for up to two months.

Rosemary Roasted Cashews

We are snowed in this weekend and what's a girl to but try out new recipes!  This started with a recipe that a friend shared and then I just happened to discover something a little different on Pinterest.  What I came up with is a combination of the two- my own little creation!  These cashews smelled so good while they were roasting and they tasted even better! 

 

Rosemary Roasted Cashews

 

2 1/2 cups unsalted cashews

1 T. extra virgin olive oil

2 t. dried rosemary

a couple of dashes of ground (cayenne) red pepper

3/4 t. salt

 

In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and blend until cashews are well-coated.  Spread mixture evenly onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Bake at 325 degrees for 20 minutes.