Spicy Chocolate Cake

Pinterest seems to have taken over any semblance of free time that I may have had. It's like StumbleUpon for people with ADHD.

But that does not make it a bad thing. If you actually go back to your board and find something that you truly want to create, then I think it is totally worth it.

Take this recipe. I found this pinned on Tuesday and had, had, had to make it. It originally came from this site and I can't seem to find a name to attribute it to. What you may notice if you click on that link is that the blog is in another language. According to Google Translator, it is Polish. Thank goodness Google has a translator.

You must make this cake.

If for no other reason than to smell it baking.

It is that divine.

Mix the yogurt, oil, vanilla and eggs and orange zest together in a bowl.

 In a separate bowl sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa. Add the sugar and salt, spice gingerbread spices.

 Don't know what gingerbread spices are? I didn't either. It is apparently a European thing because I went to two different grocery stores and no one had ever heard of them. Even the three little old ladies in the baking aisle. They were intrigued, though. So a quick Google search turned up a mix that sounded pretty good from food.com. I just added that mixture to the recipe below, but the site suggests adding it to pretty much everything so I might have to experiment with that.

Add the flour mixture slowly to the liquid mixture and then add in 1 cup of Coca Cola. The original recipe called for freshly brewed coffee. I didn't have any and I wasn't about to make any. I did have some Coke, so I substituted that in.

 Pour into prepared pans and bake for about 35 minutes.

 Layer and frost with the greatest cream cheese frosting ever created.

Now you may have noticed something a little bit different in the very first picture.

A few years ago, my kids received a giant pad of Christmas themed hidden picture pages. Every night for the past month, before going to bed, we complete a page. Hidden things are huge in my house. So this hidden Christmas tree cake fit in perfectly with our nightly routine.

Even better, this was super easy to achieve.While your layers are cooling, mix up any white or yellow cake. I used the Eggnog Cupcakes. You are going to use the same procedure that you would to make cake balls. If you have missed out on this craze, don't worry. I made them once and to be honest, I do not believe for one second that they are worth the trouble. Anyway, crumble up about a dozen cupcakes. If I were to plan ahead on this, I wouldn't use cupcakes. There are too many edges and they do not crumble well.

 Mix in about a half a cup of green tinted mascarpone cheese. I used about 40 drops of food coloring. I also did not use actual mascarpone. Our little grocery store does not carry it, but you can make your own or just substitute in cream cheese or even frosting. Mix this well to form a nice dough. About the consistency of play-doh.

 Turn one of your layers over so the bottom is facing up. To make a Christmas tree, you need to cut out a cone. This is a triangular circle, and I am pretty sure there is no more difficult shape to try to cut out of a cake layer. It helps to have some kind of pattern. You probably have a cup that will fit just right. Mine ended up being about 8 cm (3 inches) in diameter.

Slice in at an angle. 

 

It is better to go too shallow at first. You can always go in and make it steeper later.

 Remove the cone and smooth out the edges so you have a nice neat depression in the bottom of your cake.

Take a little piece of the green dough and form a cone that fits into your cut part.

Then form a pancake from the green dough that is a little bit bigger than your first one and press it down on top. 

 Repeat this step.

 Once more until the dough becomes even with the bottom of your cake layer. Flip this over onto your serving plate so the dough is on the bottom.

 Now you are going to make a cut out in the second layer that is a little smaller than the first. Mine ended up being about 6 cm (2 inches) in diameter.

 Repeat with the green dough.

 You will have quite a bit of dough left over. Make some cute little Christmas trees. Just form a tree from the dough. Take a pair of scissors and snip around to make it look like leaves.

 Sprinkle with powdered sugar because, you know, it is snowing.

 Layer and frost with the greatest cream cheese frosting ever created.

 When you cut into the cake, your little cones look just like a Christmas tree.

This was such a hit at supper time. I told The Kids that we had to find four Christmas trees. They found the first three on top immediately (my kids are so smart, you know) and were completely delighted when we cut into the cake to find the last one. I realize my tree isn't as pretty as it could have been, but to tell the truth, it came out so much better than I thought it would.

This really is a pretty simple cake to put together. I actually did it on a Tuesday night in a couple hours that included bake time. You could use any cake recipe, but I highly recommend you try this one at least once. It is super moist and the spices are to die for.

So go ahead, make a "fancy" cake for the holidays. Just try not to puff up too much with all the oohs and ahhs.


Click here for Printable Recipe


Spicy Chocolate Cake
1 and 3/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup baking cocoa dark
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup coca cola
Zest of 1 orange
2-3 teaspoons of the gingerbread spices
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and cocoa. Add the sugar and salt, spice gingerbread spices. In a separate bowl mix the yogurt, oil, vanilla and eggs and orange zest. For the wet ingredients gradually add the flour mixture. Blend, adding in coca cola. Mix only just combined. Pour into two prepared round cake pans. Bake about 35-40 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. After baking, wait 15-20 minutes before removing. Baked layers allowed to stand until completely cool.

Dracula's Dentures

For years now, The Girl has been wanting me to let her take treats to her class Halloween party. I love Halloween, but this is never a good time of the year for me to try to add in anything, no matter how small.

This year, somehow, she talked me into it. We then hem-hawed around, putting it off until finally, this morning, we sat down to figure out what to make.

I get a newsletter from Nestle and these adorable treats were apart of last weeks update. The Kids fell in love and we ended up making these.

You need some cookies. Of course, Nestle wants you to use chocolate chip, so we did. Next time (and I'm sure there will be a next time with these) I think I will use sugar cookies. The chocolate chips just add in a whole new dimension of mess to this project.

You also need cookies that are more or less round so they match up. You could even (gasp!) use store bought cookies. Either way, they need to be pretty big. About three inches across is good.

Cut a cookie in half.

Spread a nice layer of red tinted frosting onto both halves.

Add mini marshmallows in a semicircle along the front edge to create the teeth. Another one in the middle helps to stabilize the whole thing.

Put the two cookie halves together to form a mouth.

Slivered almonds on either side of the two front teeth make the fangs.

These are the cutest scary cookies ever. They are really simple to make. Kind of messy and not really quick, but not difficult, either. So far, everyone who has seen them have laughed out loud.


Click here for Printable Recipe

Dracula’s Dentures
24 - 3 inch round cookies
1/2 cup prepared vanilla frosting, tinted red or pink
1 3/4 cups miniature marshmallows
48 (about 1 tablespoon) blanched slivered almonds

Cut each cookie in half for a total of 48 halves.
Frost bottoms of all cookie halves with frosting. Place 6 marshmallow teeth around curved perimeter of 24 halves. Top with remaining 24 halves. For additional support, an additional marshmallow can be placed behind the teeth. Insert two almond slivers in between teeth for fangs. If fangs do not adhere, dip tips into frosting.

Orange Creamsicle Fruit Dip

The Boy was playing a computer game today and at the end, the little cartoon girl made fruit kabobs with apples. He was excited. We had to go to the grocery store and get red and green apples RIGHT NOW.

Luckily, I apples (and strawberries, a pineapple and two colors of grapes) on hand.

My kids eat a LOT of fruit.

So fruit kabobs it was.

But I wanted dip to go with it. It's just been that kind of a summer.

There are a lot of different mixtures into which you can dip fruit. I found this one over at Madigan's kitchen. The orange part of it intrigued me. The Boy has been downing orange juice like nothing else, so I figured he would go for this.

And it was easy.

And I had all the ingredients on hand. So there was nothing holding me back.

Mix the pudding and whipped topping together. And next time, for goodness sake, help The Poor Girl get all of her fingernails painted.

Stir in the orange juice.

Spend the rest of your day cutting up fruit and pound cake and skewering them onto kabobs. Unless your Boy insists, just skip this part and put all the fruit a bowl. My Boy insisted. That was the whole point of this snack, after all.

This was yummy. The orange went really well with every fruit we dipped it in. We had some left over and took it camping the next day. We didn't bring any back.

Click here for Printable Recipe

Orange Creamsicle Fruit Dip

1 8 oz Container Whipped Topping

1 Small Package Instant Vanilla Pudding Mix

6 oz Orange Juice 

Fruit for dipping (strawberries, mango, grapes, pineapple, etc)

Mix the first three ingredients together. Add a little more orange juice to thin out to desired consistency, if needed. Wash, cut and prep the fruit. Refrigerate until ready to serve. 

Firecracker Floats

In the same issue of Taste of Home that revealed the layer cake, The Girl found a page covered in different variations of sundaes, floats and other ice cream delights. While they all look delicious and will eventually all be tried in due course, the Firecracker Float just pulled us in. We were going to serve these with the cake when my nephew was here for his birthday. That was the plan, anyway.

The big obstacle was finding Pop Rocks. I went to every store and gas station in town that might possibly have supplied them to no avail. Not a single Pop Rock to be found. We were so excited to try this one and were going to have to give up the dream until we could get to a metropolis large enough to carry such a delicacy.

So, so sad.

I happened to be in the dollar store yesterday and at the end of the aisle was a great big display of Pop Rocks. I KNOW that those were not there when I looked earlier this week, and sure enough, when questioned, the lady said she had put it up the day after I came looking. 

So I stocked up and rushed home to try these out.

Add a scoop of ice cream (any flavor) into a tall glass. Sprinkle with Pop Rocks. The instructions called for a third a package, but I think it needs a little bit more. Be careful. They are called Pop Rocks for a reason. They pop. Everywhere. They are even activated by ice cream. The Boy is forever scarred.

 Repeat these layers until the glass is most of the way full.

 Fill in the spaces with lemon lime soda. The first thing Jeff said was "won't my stomach explode and kill me?" No. It won't. What it will do is cause the Rocks to start Popping. This is good.

 Add a straw and mix it up.

You cannot enjoy this float with out giggling at least once. I'm not sure how these little tiny candies can cause so much joy. And they are tasty.

Click here for Printable Recipe

Firecracker Float
3-4 Scoops Ice Cream
1 Package Pop Rocks
1-2 Cups Lemon Lime Soda
Scoop ice cream into a tall glass. Top with Pop Rocks. Repeat to you heart's content. Top with soda.

Five Minute Mousse

The Girl is enrolled in Cooking as a 4-H project, so it has become her job to help with the menu planning. She decides on our Saturday lunches and any snacks we have are entirely her choice. Well, okay, The Boy has helped. Depending on what she chooses, it is her responsibility to make the snacks and clean up afterwards. The first part is going well, not so much the second.

She recently started a blog and wanted to post this recipe. I jokingly suggested she could make it into a cooking show. She loved the idea. So we set about figuring out how to do that.

So I have my first guest blogger and a video blogger at that :)

Go here to see her page: http://secretsofawizard.blogspot.com/2011/03/five-minute-mousse.html

Click here for Printable Recipe

Five Minute Mousse

3 3/4 ounces instant pudding mix, any flavor

1 1/2 cups milk

2 cups Cool Whip - thawed

Beat the pudding mix with a wire whisk into milk for 2 minutes. Fold in Cool Whip. Spoon into 4 dessert dishes.

Spaghetti Tacos

Why, yes, we do have a tween girl who watches Nickelodeon. However did you know?

For those of you who do NOT have a tween girl, these are from iCarly. There are lots of unusual, creative foods on that show, but The Girl has been wanting to try Spaghetti Tacos for a long time.

The Boy wasn't so sure.

So one day, when we had left over spaghetti, I gave in.

Before you shudder in disbelief, just let me tell you...

...these weren't bad.

They were actually pretty good.

Snow Ice Cream

Snow days are awesome.

Take a day that was originally full of places to go, things to do.

Then Mother Nature comes in and says, "you know, I think you all need to slow down."

And so you are given the perfect excuse to NOT do anything.

Of course, your children will insist on going outside to play in the snow, but you can easily lure them back inside with the promise of Snow Ice Cream. I've had this recipe for a long time and I can't seem to remember where it came from. It is the same one that Paula Deen has on here site, so that could be the original source.

You will need snow. Clean snow. Around 8 cups.

Pour in a can of sweetened condensed milk and a little bit of vanilla.
Get all of the milk.
Every last drop.
For Heaven's sake, someone get her a spoon.
Maybe The Boy can help.

Then stir. Be sure to have this in a really big bowl!
It takes awhile.
But mix it up good and it will start to resemble homemade ice cream.

Of course, we need to taste test to be sure it is up to standard...

Click here for Printable Recipe

Snow Ice Cream

8 Cups Clean Snow

1 Can Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 teaspoon Vanilla

Stir.