Featured Recipe: Mamaw's Fresh Apple Cake

Mamaw's Fresh Apple Cake 3 cups flour ½ tsp. ground cloves ½ tsp. nutmeg 1 tsp. Cinnamon 1 tsp. salt ½ tsp. soda 2 cups sugar 3 eggs, slightly beaten 1 ½ cups vegetable oil 1 tsp. double-strength vanilla 3 cups peeled, diced Jonagold or Granny Smith apples 1 cup chopped pecans Cooking Spray Sift together flour, spices, salt, and soda. Combine in a bowl with sugar. By hand, stir in eggs, oil, and Watkins vanilla. Add apples and pecans, stirring until well mixed. Batter will be very thick. Spray a fluted Bundt pan or 3 loaf pans with Watkins Cooking Spray. Bake in preheated 350° oven for 1 hour. Remove from oven and cool. When cool transfer to serving plate and cover with icing (if desired). Icing: 1 - 1 lb. box powdered sugar ½ stick margarine melted 1 tsp. double-strength vanilla Enough apple juice to make the icing the right spreading consistency. Optional: I would add 1 tsp. caramel extract. This cake freezes well and will keep up to two weeks in the refrigerator. Easy Print Recipe

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Featured Recipe: Hot Cinnamon Cider

Hot Cinnamon Cider 8 cups of apple cider ¼ to ½ cup of cinnamon candies, to taste (Red Hots work great!) Put apple cider into a clear, glass coffee percolator. Pour the cinnamon candies into the coffee basket. Perk the apple cider until all the cinnamon candies have dissolved into the cider. This makes a beautiful drink that smells as wonderful as it tastes. My grown children and my grandchildren would drink gallons of it, if they were allowed to! As the cider perks, the aromatic fragrance of cinnamon apples fills the entire house. Children and adults alike enjoy watching this beverage percolate almost as much as they enjoy drinking it! It is especially great for the holidays. Easy Print Recipe

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Recipe Book Review: KitchenAid© Great Baking and More

Published by Publications International Ltd., KitchenAid© Great Baking and More is a great buy at only $9.98. The cookbook starts with a four page section covering information on how to use your KitchenAid© stand mixer. The contents include:

• Starters and Sides
• Essential Breads
• Extroidinary Entreés
• Classic Cakes
• Sweet Bites
• Delicious Desserts

While this cookbook is designed specifically for the owner of the KitchenAid© stand mixer, there are recipes in this book almost anyone would find enticing--with or without the stand mixer. Cream puffs with creamy feta olive filling, lemon tea bread with lemon glaze, mushroom Swiss onion quiche, and basic egg noodle pasta or spinach pasta with pesto sauce are examples of the recipes included in this cookbook. The glossary at the back of the book gives detailed definitions of cooking terms used in the recipes. Nutritional information provides calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, cholesterol, and/or sodium content for each recipe, making it easy for cooks to adhere to special diets.

Recommendation: (5 of 5 red plates)
Highly Recommended: My favorite thing about this cookbook is that it tells me exactly how long and at what speed to run the mixer to whip up the recipe and have it turn out perfect. I have yet to find a recipe that calls for ingredients I don't recognize, which puts this cookbook far above most I have found. At $9.98, this cookbook fits everyone's pocketbook, and is a great gift idea, especially for the cook on your list that owns the KitchenAid© stand mixer.

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Kitchen Tools Review: Black & Decker CK1500R Cordless Electric 57-1/2-Ounce Dome Kettle, Red

There is nothing I enjoy more on an early morning than a hot cup of tea—my favorite is Earl Grey. For years, I used a cheap coffee pot heat water for my tea, but a few months ago, I was gifted with the red Black & Decker Cordless Electric Dome Kettle and started using it instead. I must say that in some ways I was delighted, but in others very disappointed. The kettle lifts off the base for filling, with water marks for maximum fill clearly marked. Water boils very quickly, which is great when I want a cup of tea or cocoa right away. Once the water boils, the kettle turns itself off. This is the feature I don't like much. I prefer to keep hot water hot for a while, since I seldom drink only one cup of tea. By the time I am ready for another cup, the water is too cold to make it, but still too warm for the pot to come back on. I was really disappointed until I tried putting the boiling water into a coffee carafe (see below), which kept it ready for my next cup. The pot is fairly easy to fill, but not so easy to clean. In a hard water area like mine, cleaning is mandatory due to hard water deposits.

Recommendation: (3 ½ of 5 red plates)
Recommended: If the pot kept water hot until I was ready to turn it off, I would recommend it much higher. As it is, it is a great kettle for someone who is forgetful and might not remember to turn it off. Even though the safety aspect is great, I would much prefer to at least have a switch that would allow me to keep water hot for a couple of hours.

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Kitchen Tools Review: Thermos 34-oz. Red Hot Cold Serving Carafe for Coffee Tea Hot Water and Cold Beverages

When I bought the Thermos Carafe, it was on a whim. It was the right color for my kitchen, and I thought that I might use it someday when I had guests to keep coffee warm while another pot was brewing. It was the perfect solution to the problem I had with the Black & Decker Cordless Electric Dome Kettle, since it keeps liquids hot or cold. The first time I tried it, I made two cups of tea, then forgot to empty the carafe. Twenty-four hours later, I emptied it to dry it and put it away (all it had in it was water), and the water was still hot enough to make tea!

Another great feature of this carafe is that it comes completely apart for cleaning and easily goes back together. I threw the previous carafe I owned away when mold grew inside the carafe between the insulated bottle and the plastic encasement, because I couldn't get it apart to clean it.. With this carafe, I don't have to worry about mold! The Thermos bottle inside is glass, so it has to be handled carefully. I have never had a problem with the seal not holding after taking it apart and reassembling it.

Recommendation: (5 of 5 red plates)
Highly Recommended: This is the best carafe I have ever used and highly recommend it to anyone who needs to keep liquids hot or cold for an extended period of time. It would be a great addition to a football game goodie bag with hot cocoa or coffee for cooler or cold nights. A great gift idea for under $20!