Where do I begin?

It's hard to believe my last food related post was March 22nd. It sounds like a cop-out to say I've been super busy, but I honestly have. I work for the Layoff King in KC and when we went through the last round of layoffs a massive chunk of my group was laid off leaving the rest of us to do our work and all of theirs. So between all the OT, school, trying to workout, and everyday "stuff" I haven't been very connected to the world of blogging or even the internet in general. Today though, I am back! I spent the morning lying in bed and watching 90210 reruns on Soapnet. I haven't just lounged around in months. It felt great.

My back to blogging recipe is one I got from my coworker Eddie. I know I've mentioned before that I'm not a cake person, but this cake could be reason I'm slowly coming around to the stuff. Back in February Eddie brought some into work and I accepted a piece to be polite, thinking I'd have a bite and bring the rest home for Matt. I quickly ate my words and gobbled up the cake in no time. I asked what kind of cake I'd just inhaled and found out it was Italian Wedding Cake.

I assumed it was some sort of secret family recipe and went home and scoured the internets for what I thought could be the recipe. I found one on All Recipes and bookmarked it to make sometime. Before I had a chance to make it Eddie brought the cake in again. This time I asked her if I could have the recipe, she said sure and started to look it up online and told me it’s just so easy. I was shocked to learn that this recipe came from an episode of Sandra Lee Semi Homemade. Eddie laughed at me when I told her I thought the recipe was top secret. She said one day she was home from work watching the food network and she saw good old Sandy whipping this cake up. Eddie makes a few changes to the recipe which I decided to follow as well.

The first time I made this for my Aunt Ann’s 60th Birthday. The girls (I use the term girls to describe those of us age Twenty-Something to age Eighty-Something) in my family decided to surprise Ann with a Girls Weekend. We spent the day at a winery, a micro-brewery, and ended the night just hanging out at the hotel. It was so much fun and everyone loved the cake. The second time I made this was on Easter and my in-laws all loved the cake as well. The cake itself is incredibly delicious, dense, moist, rich, and did I mention delicious?

It has coconut, walnuts, and pineapple both in the cake and in the frosting. Both my husband and brother in-law dislike coconut, walnuts, and pineapple but loved the cake. I know my description of the cake is very vague, but it’s been so long since I made this I’m having a hard time thinking of descriptors. I would make it again but it’s VERY dangerous to keep around the house! The bottom line is this recipe for Italian Wedding Cake is phenomenal. I'm not even sure I'll ever give Allrecipes a shot.

Italian Wedding Cake
Source: Adapted from Sandra Lee

Ingredients
1 (18.25-ounce) box white cake mix
1 stick butter, softened
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
3 egg whites
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 (20oz) can crushed pineapple (do not drain)
1 cup sweetened flake coconut, divided
2 cups chopped pecans, divided
2 (16-ounce) cans cream cheese frosting I made my own homemade cream cheese frosting

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat 3 9in cake pans with cooking spray; set aside. In a large bowl, combine cake mix, butter, buttermilk, egg whites, and extracts. Beat with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping down sides of the bowl as needed. Beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Fold in 8oz crushed pineapple, 1/2 cup coconut, and 1 cup pecans. Divide batter into 3 prepared cake pans.

Bake in preheated oven for 31 to 36 minutes or until tester inserted in middle comes out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes then turn out on to wire racks to cool completely. In a small bowl, stir together remaining 1 cup pecans and frosting. Frost the top of each layer with 1/2 cup of frosting and stack on top of the next layer. Use remaining frosting to frost the entire outside of cake. Slice and serve. If you make homemade frosting, add remaining coconut, pineapple, and pecans to the frosting, frost the top of each layer and entire outside of cake. Slice and Serve (I made my frosting usig 1 8oz cream cheese 4ish cups of powdered sugar, 2 sticks of butter and the pineapple, pecans, and coconut and it was enough frosting for 2 cakes)

And just for fun...

All of us at at the winery with some of our loot (yes, thats frost on the already bloomed trees on March 28th)

Sorry my spacing is messed up... I guess I'm just getting used to this blogging stuff again :)