Try, try again.

'Tis a lesson you should heed, Try, try again. 

If at first you don't succeed, Try try again."

[1840 T.H.Palmer Teacher's Manual 223] 

Last week, I heeded those exhorting words, per the request of my husband, and attempted to follow the same recipe that prompted my Cake Wreck post back in February.

I know. Crazy.

The never-before-seen image of my cake wreck, taken with my phone. *Sigh*

Despite the sad appearance of the cake I made then, Allen loved the flavor and asked me to give it a second try. So, since it was his birthday, last week, and being the good wife that I am (and humble, I might add), I pulled out the magazine that held the recipe, took a deep breath, and started baking (barefoot, by the stove).

My expectations for my efforts were low, but my love for the birthday guy was, and still is, high, so I meticulously followed the directions, in hopes of producing a much better outcome. After baking the cake and preparing the frosting, I arrived at the point in the process where everything had previously gone south, turned bad, gone kaput. I set the first layer of cake on the cake plate, gently spread frosting on it, little by little, before adding the second layer of cake to the top. I then went around the side and filled in gap between the layers, following that with frosting the sides. Finally, I carefully added frosting to the top, a little at a time, spreading each bit out smoothly. I felt like a professional. Nothing disastrous was happening.

And then it happened.

I was done. Nothing had fallen apart. I didn't have to quickly put the lid on my cake plate to prevent sliding. The cake just sat there. And continued to sit, looking more like a success than before.

Thanks to Allen's encouragement, the recipe proved to be a winner this time! Now it not only had stars for taste, but also for appearance.

So what did I do differently this time?
- I made sure to flip my cakes onto the cooling racks before they were cool, unlike last time when I got occupied with something else and allowed them to fully cool before flipping.
- I chilled the cakes over night, more for convenience sake, but it could have helped.
- Finally, I chilled my frosting. I think it was still a little too warm when I frosted the cake last time, thus causing it to slide off of the cake.

Second time, success! (Apologies for the blurred photo.)

 If you're on the search for a rich chocolate cake to celebrate a special event, or just to satisfy a craving, I present to you the recipe for this Old-fashioned Chocolate Cake and Glossy Chocolate Icing, taken from "Cuisine at home" magazine.

Chocolate Cake

Makes one 8-inch, 2-layer cake.

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. table salt

2 cups hot water

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 Tbsp. distilled white vinegar

1 Tbsp. instant coffee granules

1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees with rack in center. Spray two 8x2in round cake pans with nonstick spray.

Whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Combine water, oil, vinegar, instant coffee, and vanilla in a large measuring cup. Add to the dry ingredients and whisk just until combined -- a few lumps are OK. Divide batter between pans, then bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes. Cool cakes on a rack for 15 minutes, then invert them onto a rack. Leave cakes upside down (this flattens domed cakes) to cool completely.

Glossy Chocolate Icing

To ensure the icing sets up, use heavy whipping cream, which contains 36% or more milk fat.

1 stick unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

Pinch of salt

1 1/4 cups heavy whipping cream

1/4 cup sour cream

1 tsp. instant coffee granules

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat.

Stir in sugar, cocoa, and salt. Mixture will be thick and grainy.

Combine heavy cream, sour cream, and instant coffee in a large measuring cup, mixing until smooth. Gradually add cream mixture to chocolate until blended and smooth. Cook until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth and hot to the touch, 6-8 minutes. Do not boil.

Off heat, add vanilla. Cool icing at room temperature until spreadable, 2-3 hours. (Icing may be chilled until completely cold, then warmed gently in the microwave until spreadable. Heat at high power in 20-second intervals, stirring well after each interval.)

Enjoy!

My Grandmother's Buttermilk Doughnut Recipe.

After posting the blog about my first doughnut making experience, I received several requests for the recipe that we used. Since I had failed to make a copy of it when my family was over, I kept trying to remember to grab it each time I visited my parents' home. My memory finally cooperated with me yesterday, and today I am here to give you a tasty recipe for Buttermilk Doughnuts. A couple of the ingredients may surprise you.

~My Grandmother's Buttermilk Doughnuts~

2 eggs

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup melted shortening (looks gross, but go with it)

1 cup of cold mashed potatoes

1 cup buttermilk

1 tsp salt

4 cups of flour (generous)

4 tsps baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp nutmeg (can use less if nutmeg isn't your thing)

Beat first three ingredients together. Add potatoes and buttermilk and continue to mix. In a separate bowl, sift or whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and nutmeg. Slowly add flour mixture to wet mixture.

Turn out onto a well floured surface and knead just until well mixed (note: non-yeast breads need minimal kneading. Too much kneading makes the doughnuts dense and tough). Place in bowl and chill at least 1 hour. 

Roll out dough to 1/2 inch thick and use a doughnut cutter to cut (or improvise and use a glass and apple corer or something similar).

Heat oil (peanut oil produces the best flavor) to 190-198 degrees. Fry doughnuts for approx. 90 seconds, flipping once. Turn onto cookie sheet lined with paper towels and allow to cool.

Once cooled, you can fill a Ziplock bag with cinnamon and sugar or powdered sugar. Drop the doughnuts into the bag, one at a time, and shake to coat.

Sit down with a cup of tea or coffee and enjoy the fruit of your hard work!

(Store in an air-tight container.)

Cake Wreck.

Did you wonder what happened? On Monday I told you that I was making a new cake recipe and promised results the following day.

Little did I know, in that moment, that Monday would be my last day of health in our house for a while. On Tuesday afternoon, my sweet little guy came down with a bad cold. He has only been sick a couple of other times, so I forgot what an awful helpless feeling it is to see him suffering and not be able to do much for him other than sit in a steam-filled bathroom, carefully clean his precious little nose, make him cold smoothies, watch Veggie Tales or Barney, and simply smother him in love. Not much has been done around my house since Monday, due to a lack of time and energy on my part.

Simply put, it's been a rough week.

But I know that it's a part of life, and God has been faithful to bless me with sweet moments to help me endure.

So, as I've been reminded every day as I look at the cake in my fridge, I never told you what happened as I attempted a new recipe.

Don't worry, though, I didn't withhold the #1 cake recipe of all time from you. I'm not that kind of a friend. While the flavor of my new recipe was delightfully rich and tasty, something with the assembly went seriously wrong. 

This was only a two layer cake, my friends. It was not one of those fancy 7-layer cakes that you may have come across in a bakery. Assembly should not have been hard. However, as I piled my frosting on the top layer of my two-layer cake, the cake began to form three unsightly cracks across the top. I frantically tried to fill in the gaps with more frosting, hoping that a final coating over the top would cover all of its imperfection. However, in my attempt to fix my mudslide, the extra frosting only caused my gaps to grow larger. My cake had turned into a mini replica of the Grand Canyon! 

As the three pieces grew further apart from one another, I found no other option than to quickly put the lid on my cake plate before everything had a chance to collapse, slide off the plate and land in a large heap of wasted effort on my floor. Following my mother's suggestion, I also set the cake in my fridge, hoping it would firm up and stop moving. Sure enough, everything firmed up nicely... As I revealed my horrendous masterpiece of a Valentine's treat to my husband that evening, one side of the cake's frosting lifted right off the cake along with the lid. I could only laugh. 

Allen, being the encouraging man that he is, consoled me by saying that the look of the cake didn't matter once it was in a bowl with ice cream. He loved the cake, complimented me on its rich flavor and even requested that I freeze the portion he couldn't eat by the end of the week so that he could enjoy it at a later time. What a sweetie!

So, with that story being told, it is hard for me to recommend this particular cake recipe. The preparation for the frosting and cake took up a good portion of my day, and ended with sad (and I guess you could say "humorous") results. Oh well, I live and learn. What would monumental successes feel like if they weren't balanced by tragic failures. :-)

Before closing, I must say that my Valentine's Day baking endeavor was not a complete misfortune because I was left with these sweet pictures, capturing my little man helping me prepare and taste the cake batter. 

Valentine Sweetness.

Okay. 

I realize that I may have turned away a few readers simply by using the word "Valentine" in my title. But let's not focus on that, my friends. While I love going all out to celebrate this fun day, I will save my sentimental sappy love language for a more private arena.

The word that we are all more inclined to share a common appreciation for is the word, "Sweetness." 

If you've read my blog long enough, or know me in real life, you now that I have a weakness for sweets. A BAD weakness. 

For example, a couple years ago, I bought a large bag of chocolate chips at my local warehouse store for Christmas cooking. At least that's what I told myself and my husband. However, that massive bag (I think it was equivalent to 5 or 6 regular chocolate chip bags), only helped my cooking by keeping me on a sugar high for most of the holiday season. There were only 2 or 3 recipes that ended up having chocolate chips in them and the others were all eaten by me. 

Sad, I know. 

I have never bought another bag that size since then, even if it is a better price than buying 5 or 6 individual bags of chocolate chips. The temptation is too great, and I love sweets too much.

Whether you're into Valentine's Day or not, I'm sure you are aware of the "sweet"ness that surrounds this frilly pink holiday. I, personally, love to take advantage of this month and spend more time in the kitchen baking extra treats. Growing up, there was hardly a Valentine's Day where my mom wouldn't have heart-shaped cookies of some variety prepared for me and my sisters. It was just one of many treats that she compiled to make the day special. I can't help that I love making special treats around this day, as well.

This year, I wanted to prepare some sugar cookies for decorating. However, as many sugar cookie recipes that I have tried, I have never been fully satisfied. Either they were too crunchy and hardly lasted 2 days before being too crumbly to enjoy; or they were so soft that icing them was a tough challenge, and ended with my hearts falling apart (not a romantic sight). 

My friends, my trouble with sugar cookies has come to an end. Thanks to my dear sister, Anna, I now have a wonderful recipe to use. The recipe she gave me produced the perfect crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle cookie that was perfect for decorating. It is from my all-time favorite recipe site, Allrecipes.com:

 **The Best Rolled Sugar Cookies**

1 1/2 cups butter, softened

 2 cups white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

5 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt 

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. 

Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. 

Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. 

Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

*I only made one slight adjustment to the recipe by adding 1/2 tsp of almond extract to my batch. Just enough to set the flavor apart from regular sugar cookies.* Enjoy!

Today, I attempted to prepare a chocolate cake from scratch for my Valentine...err...hubby. While he thinks it's nice and sweet of me to make pink heart-shaped sugar cookies, and will even enjoy one or two to show me love ('cause that's the kind of man he is), the way to his heart is through chocolate. So, when I found a recipe (accompanied by an incredibly mouth-watering picture) in a cooking magazine last month, I knew that I had to make it for him on this "sweet" day. If the cake is worth recommending tomorrow, I will share the recipe with you.

To all of my friends, whether or not you celebrate this day of love, 

I wish you the happiest "Sweetness Day!" :-)

A New Appreciation.

This week my oven broke. I love to bake, so when this happened, a little piece of my heart broke (for just a few minutes). I tried to contemplate life with out my oven and it was not a pretty sight.

My oven is digital, and while I enjoy the way it looks in my kitchen, I often lament over its lack of simplicity. When I lived in my apartment, I had a basic, five knob, gas stove that served me very well. It had no bells and whistles, but nicely accommodated my baking. We were friends.

Our friendship ended when Allen and I bought our home. I gave my old, simple stove a good cleaning and left it to meet my new, shinier, but more complicated stove. To turn on my oven, I have to press, "Bake," adjust my temperature using the up or down arrows, and then press "Start," whereas my previous stove only required a simple turn of the knob. While I like some of the new conveniences that my new stove has to offer, the digital buttons frequently tend to "push MY buttons". Sometimes they respond to a gentle push of my finger, and other times I find myself giving the top of the stove a solid bang with my fist to see if that will make it cooperate (doesn't banging fix all things like televisions, computers, etc.?).

A few days ago, the digital board on my stove decided to give out on me. I guess I don't realize how much I appreciate something until it is gone (isn't there a saying about that...). Suddenly, all I could think about what how much I wanted to bake something! On top of that, I was planning to have a dessert prepared for our small group from church that was scheduled to meet at our house on Tuesday night. What was I to do?

I managed to keep myself from hyperventilating (not really...I'm not that dramatic for those of you who don't know me well), took a deep breath, went to one of my favorite websites, Allrecipes.com, and looked up "No Bake Cookies." I vaguely recalled one of the ladies from church, as I was growing up, making some tasty cookies that she said didn't require any baking. Without hesitation, my trusty website produced a wonderful recipe for me to try. So, my faithful readers, I have a recipe to pass on to you for you to add to your collection to reference on a day when your oven may choose to kaput (have you ever typed out that word? I use it all the time, but it looks funny typed out).

No Bake Cookies
~2 cups white sugar~ ~3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder~
~1/2 cup butter~
~1/2 cup milk~ ~Pinch of salt~
~3 cups quick cooking oats~
~1/2 cup peanut butter~ ~1 tsp. vanilla~ In a saucepan, bring sugar, cocoa, butter, milk, and salt to a rolling boil.
Once the rolling begins, set your timer for 1 minute.
Remove from heat. Add oats, peanut butter, and vanilla and mix well.
Working quickly, drop by teaspoons onto a cookie sheet, lined with wax paper.
Allow to cool and then enjoy!

Upon the ingredients in my saucepan reaching a rolling boil, I, without thinking, set the timer on my stove. Then I realized what I had done. I had set the timer on my stove! It had begun working again! So, for the time being, I will enjoy my working oven. However, I am grateful for its temporary kaput (I had to type that word again), so that I could try this new recipe. I was very pleased with the results and will continue to make it, even with a working stove. :-)

Toodleloo!

Allrecipes.com.

Hello, friends!
I hope you are staying bundled up today! It is so chilly outside, here in Georgia! It's a perfect day for soup! Tonight, I am going to be making Allen and myself some warm chicken noodle soup, so we can heat up from the inside out. :-)

Although I have a Chicken Noodle Soup recipe that I've enjoyed using in the past, tonight, I am going to be trying a new one from one of my favorite websites, Allrecipes.com. You may have run across this site, yourself, while looking for a specific recipe online. I used to see it as I perused various recipe sites, and frequently found myself choosing my final recipe from it. After several months, I noticed that 95% of the recipes I had bookmarked were from Allrecipes.com. Now, instead of wasting my time Googling recipes, I go directly to my favorite place.

The feature that attracts me the most to Allrecipes, is the plethora of reviews and ratings that accompany the recipes. Fellow cooks share their thoughts on the recipes and how they've tweaked it to make it as close to perfect as possible. I love reading these helpful hints, and I have learned so much by simply reading these extra reviews!

Have you ever had a day when you didn't feel like trekking out to the grocery store, and wanted to make a nice home-cooked meal with the ingredients already in your fridge and pantry? Well, Allrecipes has a wonderful tool to assist you on those days. You simply list the ingredients you want to use, and Allrecipes shows you a list of all the recipes in their databases that contain those items. Brilliant! I love that tool, and have used it on several occasions.

Anyway, I'll let you know how my new recipe turns out!
Have a wonderful, cool, October day! Stay warm!

Toodleloo!

Pumpkin Bars.

Last night I spent some time in my beloved kitchen baking pumpkin bars. I love baking and cooking in my kitchen and savor every opportunity I get to do that. For 15 years, I have been baking these bars each fall. As much as I enjoy the recipe, I just can't bring myself to make them in any season other than fall. I think if I made them in the summer, it would take away that wonderful sensation of knowing it's truly fall when you inhale the aroma of pumpkin and a variety of spices for the first time. Typically, I just make the pumpkin bars without a frosting, but last night I decided to try my hand at whipping up a cream cheese frosting to go on top. For those of you who may want a simple, new recipe to try this fall, here is the recipe I follow:

Pumpkin Bars
4 Eggs
1 2/3 Cup of Sugar
1 (16 oz) Can of Pumpkin
(Most small cans are 15 oz, so you can just use that,
or I throw in a little piece of banana to make up the difference.)
1 Cup of Oil
(I actually use half oil and half apple sauce, and they come out fine.)
2 Cups of Flour
2 Tsp. Baking Powder
1 Tsp. Salt
2 Tsp. Cinnamon
(I like to add other spices, such as nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.)
1 Tsp. Baking Soda

Beat eggs and sugar well. Add pumpkin and oil; beat until light.
Slowly add dry ingredients.
Pour into a large, greased, jelly roll pan, and bake at 350 for 25 minutes.

*If you choose to make a frosting to go with the bars,
I would recommend the recipe I tried, here.*

A little closing story for you:
I made this recipe for the first time when I was going to spend a day with my best friend, Olivia. Her parents and older brothers left us at home by ourselves for the first time, so we enjoyed our freedom by watching some old movies and eating pumpkin bars. Well, by the end of the day more than half the sheet of pumpkin bars had disappeared! My slender friend, Liv, had managed to eat half the pan of bars, single-handedly! To this day, we still love to laugh about that. Pumpkin bars hold a special place in our hearts (and stomachs). In fact, last fall, I received a package in the mail from Olivia. She had creatively found a way to send me a portion of the pumpkin bars she had baked. I felt so loved!

Enjoy your fall day!

Toodleloo!