Cherry Cheese Bread

Our family has a tradition of enjoying delicious Cherry Cheese and Easter Bread every Easter. My husband, Jeff, grew up relishing these wonderful treats that his mom, Marie, made every year. He has carried on the tradition by carefully making the dough and baking them like his mom did. And this year, our daughter who lives in Brooklyn, will be carrying on the tradition and sharing it with her boyfriend's family on the East coast!

Cherry Cheese Bread without Sprinkles

Bread Ingredients

• 1/2 c warm water
• 2 packages dry yeast
• 1/2 cup scalded milk (meaning hot, just before boiling)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup salted butter (or margarine)
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 4 1/2 – 5 cups flour

Filling Ingredients

• 8 oz cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 21-oz can of cherry pie filling
• 2 teaspoons grated orange peel

Frosting Ingredients

• 4 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 2-4 tablespoons of milk
• Sprinkles or nuts for on top, if desired

Directions

• Combine yeast and warm water in a small bowl.  Stir minimally but enough to help dissolve the yeast. 
• Scald the milk in a saucepan or in the microwave (really hot but just before boiling) and then add in the butter until it’s completely melted.
• Pour into bowl and then add sugar and salt.  Mix to combine and let the mixture cool a bit.  
• Then add 2 slightly beaten eggs, yeast mixture, and 2 cups of flour, mixing slowly as you add each one.  If using a heavy duty mixer, mix for 3 minutes with a paddle.  (If you’re mixing by hand or using a hand mixer, mix really well until very well blended.) 
• Switch to a dough hook, add 2 more cups of flour, a little at a time and beat your dough another 5-7 minutes.  (If kneading by hand, knead until really well combined……could take up to 10 minutes.)  If the dough is not pulling away from the sides of the bowl, add another 1/2 cup of flour (or if  you’re kneading by hand and it just keeps sticking to your hands). 
• Grease the inside of a large bowl and place the dough inside. Cover with a small towel and let rise in warm spot for 1.5 hours, or until double in size.
• Punch down the dough with your hands and then divide into 2 even balls.  Let rest for 10 minutes.  
• While resting, blend the cream cheese and powdered sugar for filling until smooth. Add orange peel to cherry filling.
• Roll dough into two rectangles 15"x6" and spread 1/2 of the cheese filling into a 3 inch strip down the center of the dough, then top with 1/2 of cherry pie filling.  
• Make 2 inch cuts 1/2 inch apart on long sides. Criss cross strips over filling.  
• Use 2 spatulas to carefully lift the bread onto the back side of greased or parchment covered large cookie sheet. Let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. 
• Bake at 350 F for 20-25 minutes, covering with foil for the last few minutes if it starts to get too brown.
• Combine frosting ingredients and mix until smooth. Drizzle on top of breads and finish with sprinkles (if using). Let frosting set for at least 30 minutes before covering with plastic wrap or it will stick.

Enjoy!

Cherry Cheese Bread with Sprinkles

Happy Memorial Day with red, white and blue Shortcake!

Happy Memorial Day to you all! And much appreciation to all the men and women who have served our country and enabled us to live in peace and freedom today.

We joined friends for a lovely dinner last night in celebration of our national holiday and brought this tasty dessert to top off a delicious meal. Shortcake with red strawberries, blueberries and white whipped cream was perfect to honor our red, white and blue!  Last time I made shortcake, I used a recipe with milk (see here), but this time I used heavy cream. Yum~

This is a great dessert to bring along to your memorial day celebration!

Strawberry Shortcake 
Recipe found here

And talk about a beautifully decked out table, look at how our friend set hers~ perfect for a Memorial Day Celebration!

Christmas Kahlua

I love making and sharing home made goodies for holiday gifts. My favorites are Garlic Rosemary Almonds and Peanut Brittle because not only are they delicious, but they are also quick and easy to make. This year I added special beverages to my gifts- they are another easy to make gift (although they take some "steeping" time) and are fun to package! I gave my husband a taste of this Kahlua and he said it tasted like the real thing~

Christmas Kahlua

3 1/4 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean, diced

2 oz. instant coffee

1 Fifth of Brandy

3 cups boiling water

Put vanilla bean in sterile bottle. Boil water, stir in coffee and sugar. Let cool and add brandy. Pour into bottle and cap tightly. Put in a dark closet for 30 days. Strain and re-bottle in new sterile bottle.

Sweet Potato Roast

We enjoyed this savory take on sweet potatoes as a side dish for Thanksgiving this year. Since I seem to be on a roasted veggie kick lately, this belongs perfectly in my blog repertoire. The combo of sweet potatoes and yams makes a lovely presentation and would be delicious at any holiday celebration.
I sliced all the pieces by hand, so were a bit thick but I liked that they weren't all uniform. It took a long time to bake, but ultimately was very delicious and pretty to serve.

Sweet Potato Roast

3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons olive oil
kosher salt and peper
2 pounds yams, 2 pounds sweet potatoes
2 shallots, sliced thinly
fresh thyme sprigs

Melt butter and olive oil. Place 1 tablespoon of oil/butter mixture in bottom of baking dish and sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Slice potatoes in uniform slices. Place in prepared dish in decorative pattern and intersperse shallots throughout potato slices. Brush top of potatoes with rest of olive oil and butter and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Top with fresh thyme sprigs.

Cover with foil and bake at 375° for 1 hour. Remove foil and bake until potatoes are cooked through, 30-40 minutes more. 

Recipe from Smitten Kitchen

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

And happy anniversary to Keeping it Real with Joy~my blog is officially one year old!

Thanks to my faithful readers~ I've appreciated all your visits and hope you continue to stop by!

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

Here's an easy sweet treat to make for your kids or yourself~ just takes a second and it will make everyone smile!

Mini Ice Cream Sandwiches

20 vanilla wafer cookies
vanilla ice cream
colorful sprinkles

Put a spoonful of ice cream on one side of the vanilla wafer and top with another. Roll in sprinkles and pop back into freezer. Offer them to your kids (or yourself!) as a fun afternoon snack. Enjoy!


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Monkey Bread

I know Christmas was a long time ago, but I just wanted to include a post about one of our beloved Christmas morning traditions--- Monkey Bread! We have this ooey gooey bread once a year (or maybe for an occasional special request on birthdays) and boy do we look forward to it! Some years it turns out better than others, but this year it was delicious. Just the right amount of carmel topping and nice poofy bread. 

Monkey Bread

   

 1/2

cup granulated sugar

 2

teaspoons ground cinnamon

 4

cans (7.5 oz each) Pillsbury® refrigerated biscuits

1 cup butter

 3/4

cup packed brown sugar

Spray a bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray. 

Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon in 1 gallon bag. Open packages of biscuits and cut each biscuit into four pieces. Shake the pieces in the the bag to coat and put them into the bundt pan.

Melt butter and brown sugar in small pan over medium heat until bubbling, stirring constantly after the butter melts. Pour over biscuit pieces.

Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes and turn upside down. Dig in and enjoy!

Lunch at the Ivy and New Year's Day at the Rose Bowl

Happy New Year to you all!!

My husband, Jeff, and I are ready to cheer on Stanford at the Rose Bowl!

My mom, son Andrew, Dad, daughter Sophie, nephew McKinley, daughter Madeleine and niece Anika
in the stands at the Rose Bowl

My family just spent the past few days in Southern California enjoying incredibly warm and beautiful weather and having some fun adventures along the way. We were fortunate enough to attend the Rose Bowl again this year to cheer on Stanford and although they lost, we still had some fabulous days together with the fam.

On the way down, we took a side trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain where our kids had a ball going on all sorts of crazy roller coasters. Andrew and I experienced the Superman Ride  together which scared me silly- the ride goes up to 100 miles per hour backwards and sounds like a jet airplane. I had my eyes closed the whole time~What a terrifying thrilling experience I had with my son!

Sophie, Andrew and Madeleine about to go on the crazy Superman ride at Magic Mountain

My mom treated the girls in our family to a lovely lunch at The Ivy on Robertson Boulevard in Los Angeles where we thoroughly enjoyed the quaint atmosphere, the beautiful pottery plates and cups and very attentive service. Even though we had no celebrity sightings, it was a wonderful afternoon with just us gals while the guys were hanging out at Venice Beach.

My daughters and I were happy to be together for a special lunch 

 Delicious Lobster Ravioli

Grilled Vegetable Salad with Lobster

All of us enjoyed our fun New Year's Eve lunch together at the Ivy

There were beautiful bunches of roses in every room

Snowballs- Christmas Dessert from the Past!

Happy Holidays to you all!! I hope this special time has been filled with smiles and love for you with your family and friends~

We had a very special Christmas eve that started out with an amazing service at our church. We felt blessed to have our family together in one pew at the packed  5 pm service where we enjoyed beautiful Christmas music (my all time favorite song every year is Peace and Silent Night sung in a round together with the congregation and choir at the end, which always makes me teary in a great way) and listened to a meaningful message about happiness- the question being, where do you feel you are most happy? During this holiday season, I was very conscious of feeling profound happiness in my little house with my dear family filling the spaces around me with hearty laughter and love. That's where I find my happiness!

Back to Christmas eve...our family tradition is to have Christmas eve dinner at my parents' house where we often enjoy delicious beef tenderloin and Yorkshire pudding. This year my mom surprised us with a "new" dessert that was awesome! We love the persimmon pudding she usually makes but she decided to introduce us to a recipe dear friends of her parents made for her family when she was young.  It is a delicious whipped cream and coconut wrapped surprise that you can't quite figure out if you don't know what is inside. Thanks for introducing something new to us this Christmas, Mom, and to all our old traditions, too!! 

My beautiful mom in the midst of snowball preparation

The snowballs pre-wrap 

Delicious holiday dessert!

Snowballs

1/2 cup sugar

6 tablespoons butter

1 well-beaten egg yolk

1 cup drained, crushed pineapple

1 egg white, stiffly beaten

60 vanilla wafers

1/2 pint whipping cream (sweetened with powder sugar and vanilla to taste)

1 cup coconut or pretty candle sprinkles if your family doesn't care for coconut

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add egg yolk and pineapple. Add beaten egg white and fold in lightly. For each snowball, take three wafers, spread mix between wafers, stacking together. Let stand in refrigerator three hours or overnight. Whip cream and sweeten and add vanilla. Spread over each snowball. Sprinkle with coconut or candy sprinkles. Let stand again for three hours in refrigerator. Enjoy!

just a note---this is an old recipe and does indeed call for uncooked eggs, so if you are not into eating uncooked cookie batter or that sort of thing, you might want to skip this recipe :)

Christmas Eve PJ Tradition
Our family also has a wonderful tradition of our kids opening new Christmas pajamas and posing with Omi and Papa in front of their house in them...we have such fun pictures of our kids and their cousins over the years as they have grown up.This Christmas we actually got to enjoy another Christmas eve service after dinner to see our son's girl friend sing beautifully in her church, so our kids didn't change into into their pj's to have their photo with their grandparents until we got back to their house close to midnight! What amazing grandparents our kids have!

Homemade Christmas Advent Calendar

Advent calendars can be such a fun part of December! I remember loving the anticipation of opening little "somethings" that were tied on rings to a beautiful embroidered Christmas tree that my mom made when I was younger.

This year, I felt inspired to create an advent calendar with small inexpensive gifts for my kids to look forward to opening together (some years I'm not as inspired to do this kind of thing, but this year I was...you know how it goes!)    I used a photo collage frame my daughters already had in their room. It had three rows of jute rope that were normally used to hang pictures which were perfect for hanging plain white lunch bags with mini holiday clothespins (found at Michael's craft store). These kind of bags could also be easily strung from a pretty ribbon stretched across a wall. Here are great free printable numbers that I used to mark the bags.

Even though my kids are teens, they have really enjoyed opening their little daily surprises.They wait to open the bags until they are all together at some point in the day and that can be tricky sometimes with their schedules.  Surprisingly, my son (who is 18 years old today!) just told me how much he has loved the tradition of our advent calendar which totally made me melt because this will probably be the last year I will be making an advent calendar for him...our kids grow up so quickly, we've got to savor the time we have together when we can!

You could even start a 12 day advent calendar today (if you are feeling inspired :)

A few ideas for what to put inside~

1. A Christmas movie your family can enjoy together 
2. Candy canes
3. Minty M&M's
4. Silly Puddy (my teenage kids still get a kick out of it!)
5. Holiday window decals
6. Crafting kits
7. Notes suggesting an activity, such as "Bake cookies with mom and bring some to our neighbors",  "Put on pj's, fill a go-cup with hot chocolate and drive around looking at xmas lights tonight", "Give a gift card for Starbucks to a homeless person"
8. Gum 
9. Pencils
10. Socks
11. Treats for their lunch like caramel popcorn or  Pocky Sticks
12. Toothbrushes :)

July 4th Decorative Banner

I think colorful banners of all sizes can make a wall or window festive for a variety of fun occasions like birthdays and parties. Susan Branch made a cute patriotic paper bunting  (which you can buy here) that inspired me to create some decorations to celebrate our country's birthday. We are lucky to have the opportunity to live in the USA and showing our patriotism is a perfect way to emphasize our appreciation for all the freedoms we are able to enjoy here.

All you need are three different colors or patterns of card stock, some bakers twine and a glue stick. Cut multiple diamonds about 5½  inches long, fold in half and glue along twine. You can hang your mini banner in a window, on a mirror, or wherever you want a little festive touch. I made some for our cabin in Tahoe and they were the perfect decoration for 4th of July!

All the materials you need to make a fun, decorative banner

Mini patriotic banner on our back door

My cute parents on July 4th in Tahoe with mini banners above the doors in the kitchen

         

Easter Traditions

Our family's Easter tradition begins with hunting for Easter eggs at home, where the Easter bunny hides eggs inside and out, and making Easter Bread and Cherry Cheese Bread. Both breads start with yeast dough, so take some time to make. My husband makes the bread with our girls like his Italian mom did when he was a kid.  Then we carry on the tradition of sharing a delicious lunch with my family and having another egg hunt in my parents' beautiful garden. I love having holiday traditions we carry out every year that our kids look forward to with fond and familiar anticipation.

Cherry Cheese Bread

Easter Bread