Spring Flower Garden

2 1/2 to 3 cups white frosting
1 baked 13- by 9-inch cake - your choice
8 baked cupcakes, leave cups on - your choice
1/4 cup green icing
Candy and gel icing for decorations

Frost the 13- by 9-inch cake with the white icing. Using a pastry bag (or a plastic bag with one small corner cut off), draw stems and leaves for the "flowers" on the larger cake. Frost tops of cupcakes and decorate top to look like a flower using candies. Arrange them on top of the cake, wherever you put a stem. If you'd like, you can also add green gel icing grass. The kids will love getting to pick either a cupcake or a slice of cake. Happy Easter from the Cave City farmers' market.

For more recipes and other information, visit the market's website at: www.rebelhome.net/ccrfm.html or contact me at: bswitzer@scrtc.com.

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Last week I promised recipes to use the Easter eggs you may have. We're going to start with one basic recipe and go on from there.

Basic Egg Salad

Hard boiled eggs, chopped
Onion, minced
Sweet pickle relish
Celery, minced
Mayonnaise or salad dressing
Yellow mustard if you want
Salt and pepper to taste

Mix all together. At this point you can make sandwiches, stuff tomatoes or other vegetables or just eat with crackers. To make other salads, add the following:

Drained, canned tuna
Chopped cooked chicken, ham or turkey
Drained canned peas and spaghetti cooked and broken into small pieces
Macaroni or any other pasta
Cubed, boiled potatoes

If you can't make up your mind if you want potato or macaroni salad, put both in and make Tater-Mac Salad. You can also add many other vegetables like peppers, mushrooms, zucchini, cucumbers, carrots, even apples, grapes, raisins and other fruits can go well with this. Add any herbs you may like such as fresh chopped parsley, dill, thyme etc. Chopped nuts go well, too. The point is to experiment and use what you have. No amounts were given because you can add as much or as little of anything you like.

For more recipes and other information, visit the market's website at: www.rebelhome.net/ccrfm.html or contact me at: bswitzer@scrtc.com. We would love to hear from you.

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Recently on the Food Network TV Channel, there was a competition and one woman used tomatoes in a cake. Several people told me about it and were shocked to see her put them in there. There's a tried and true recipe that's been around a long time that uses tomato soup. Basically, it is a spice cake but the addition of the soup makes it moist and gives it a little different kind of sweetness than you get with plain sugar. I normally don't recommend one brand of product over another but this DID come from the Campbell's Soup Company back in the twenties I believe. On the radio program, Hints from Heloise in 1959, this recipe was given and called the "Conversation Cake" due to its unusual ingredient that people would supposedly talk about at parties where it was served. This is Campbell's original recipe but you can also add chopped nuts or other dried fruits if you wish. You can also double the recipe and make a two layer cake.

Campbell's Tomato Soup Cake

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup granulated sugar
1 can Campbell's tomato soup
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour a 9 x 9 x 2" pan. Cream shortening and sugar. Blend in spices and flour. Add baking soda to the can of soup and combine before adding the soup to the creamed mixture. Blend well then add dry ingredients and blend well again. Fold in the raisins. Pour batter into the prepared pan. Bake until toothpick comes out clean. Cool and frost with cream cheese frosting.

For more recipes and other information, visit the market's website at: www.rebelhome.net/ccrfm.html or contact me at: bswitzer@scrtc.com. The market will be opening on May 2 this year. We look forward to seeing all of you there.

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