Choose Your Own Recipe Week

I continue to hang on in the baking club world, lets just hope my latest infraction doesn't get me axed :)

So this week we were supposed to make the chocolate blackout cake. For reasons which I shall not divulge here, I purchased all of the ingredients for the individual hot fudge pudding cakes instead. Upon coming home and studying the other cake recipe, I realized I could hardly make it in the time left (the pudding alone was going to take 4 hours) and therefore I proceeded with baking the wrong cake.  However, it was good, and it had coffee in it-which I replaced with hot chocolate-so I guess it might sort of halfway count. (I will have to make the chocolate blackout cake soon though-it looks just like the one at Cosco and my Dad thinks that is the best thing ever!)

Here is a photo:

check out the real chocolate cake at http://cookinwithsnort.weebly.com/ 


As per usual, L came over and did most of the baking while I ran around like an idiot-for example I made her put the incorrect amount of coco powder in (though in my defense, she should have followed the recipe instead of my voice) and had to throw out the first batch of batter. The best thing about this recipe-it took all of 15 minutes to put together! L thought it was good, though she said more than one bite would kill her (she says that about everything so I'm not sure how to take it). I thought it was great (though I also only had one bite, it was a bit on the dark side for my palate). I am a lover of all things sour patch kids so I'm not sure I'm the best one to review a chocolate cake anyways. Generally, I make the baking assignment, take a little taste and a token picture, then try for 3 days to lure O into tasting it (which he never does). I then have to throw the whole thing away (which is a shame because the all seem like such nice desserts). The past two weeks I have sent the dessert up to my fam and they all rave and rave over the stuff (does wonders for my self-esteem as a budding pastry chef). I think I'll have to continue with that in the future. This week was ultra fab as I had my first official taste test panel to give actual reviews. My aunt and cousins all found the cake to be awesome (though they did think it needed a little vanilla ice cream to balance it out). O even came home and tried one tinsy little bite (just so he could say he does try my cooking, I'm not giving him any points for that though) before he broke out the dessert he purchased for himself on Monday at the grocery store, a tiny little birthday cake.

O and his little cake. He first attempted to get an entire dozen awful looking cinnamon rolls which I vetoed (and suddenly realized why I don't take O to the grocery store, he is such a bad influence) and so I thought this small cake was a bit of a compromise.

O has sort of been all about making points lately. For example, the other day I told him he was not going to eat 20 chicken nuggets from McDonalds (that should have not even needed to be said). He insisted he would. He came home and of course ate 10. So, I laughed a bunch and told him to throw the others away. Instead, he insisted (once again) that he was going to eat them later. I was like "you don't eat McDonalds later". Against everything I stand for, he put them in the fridge. I thought "well, I'll just throw them away in a day or two, like I do for every leftover in the world that I myself don't eat" (actually, I probably said that out loud) (O is forever telling me that he loves leftovers etc but in our married life, I have only seen him eat leftovers 3 times. However, he has deluded himself so effectively that he insisted on saving all his leftovers, and therefore making me throw the away). Anyhow, as I told everyone about the chicken nuggets, he pulled them out and proceeded to eat them all (just to prove his point, I'm convinced). He even had the audacity to claim they are better the second day. I'll let you know how tonight goes-if you remember the time O ate a purple hot dog, you'll have a likely guess. (Poor O, you've never met a person who suffers from food poisoning so regularly, though I sort of think this time it might be his own fault. Come to think of it, I did gently point out to O that the hot dog thing was his fault too, while he was violently throwing up for hours. I don't think he appreciated my words at that time.)

Anyhow, I still have not got the photos of Disneyland nor have I got the photos of my fabulous Easter Eggstravaganza. I'll be getting those for sure and posting soon!!-this year my eggs superseded all of my past creations. I will say, one of my Easter bunnies this year was quite convinced I should start washing my face-I received more soaps than I would have believed existed. I have been looking shiny (no more is my complexion dull) and a bit nude (not used to not having layers of makeup on) ever since. I think it could become a habit :) I suppose vacationing with Easter bunnies exposes all of ones innermost secrets.