Divine Chocolate Cake.

I just made this and have been eating it all by myself, and have loved every minute of it! I think you could maybe compare it a little to the chocolate cake at Magleby's, but don't quote me on that. It does have that same type of fudgy, cake-like consistency. Hope you like it!

Divine Chocolate Cake

Image courtesy of "Country Living"

Ingredients:
1 small package of instant chocolate pudding
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup oil
4 eggs
1 bag of chocolate chips (I use milk chocolate)
1 bag of chocolate cake mix (I use Betty Crocker-"Butter Recipe Chocolate" one.)

Mix it all up and put in a greased 9x13 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-55 min. Best HOT out of the oven. I don't usually add frosting, because it is pretty rich without it, but go ahead if you want to!

Top with- Scoop of vanilla ice cream, Caramel Syrup & Chocolate Magic shell over the ice cream!

Enjoy!!

Grenadian Spice Cake

Ingredients
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup unsalted butter - chilled, cut into tablespoon-size pieces
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lime zest
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt, set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the lime zest, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice. Add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk, stirring after each addition. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 75 to 90 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely.

*I left out the lime zest and I used a shallow oval pan instead of a loaf pan so it only took about 40 minutes to cook. This is more like a sweet bread than a desert cake. We liked it!

Oatmeal Cake: don't let the title fool you.

This is super duper delicious.

1 cup oatmeal
1 1/4 c boiling water
1/2 c butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 nutmeg

Heat oven to 350.
Put oatmeal in a medium bowl. Pout boiling water over oatmeal and cover. Let stand 10 minutes. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugars together. Add vanilla, eggs, softened oatmeal, flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Mix. Pour batter into a sprayed or greased and floured 9 inch square pan.
Bake 50-55 minutes.

Frosting
1/4 c butter, melted
1/2 c brown sugar
3 tbsp half and half or evaporated milk
1/3 chopped nuts
3/4 c coconut

In a medium bowl, mix butter, brown sugar, and half-and-half. Stir in nuts and coconut. Frost warm cake. Place cake under broiler and brown until bubbly, watching carefully so that it does not burn.

** My sister makes some very yummy modifications. She pours the cake mixture into a 9x13 pan and cuts the baking time in half until it's just barely done. Then she doubles the frosting. I tasted her product and it was heaven.**

Instant Potatoes Transformed

As we get close to break, we're trying to empty our cupboards so the ants don't have a field day in our absence. Number one thing to eliminate: the GIANT tub of instant potatoes. After the second week of having mashed potatoes with every meal, Dan requested that I get a bit more creative. So this is perhaps the first in a series of "what to do with instant potatoes when you can't stand potatoes anymore."

Salmon Croquettes

• 15 oz can salmon
• 1 cup instant potatoes (or breadcrumbs)
• 1 beaten egg
• 1 tablespoons dried parsley (I use cilantro/coriander)
  
• 1 medium size onion finely chopped
• salt & pepper to taste
• 1 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon dried cumin
  
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 2 tablespoons oil for frying
  

Instructions

1. Open your can of salmon, probably out of sight of any picky eaters in your household. You'll need to pick bones out. Most would prefer to drain and rinse the fish. I saw my omega 3 fatty acids floating on top and decided to keep it. Place salmon in a medium bowl.
   
2. Mix all ingredients together. I added milk because the original recipe was pretty dry and the patties fell apart upon cooking. Add just enough milk to make the patties not crumbly. You can make 4-5 cakes from a can of salmon.
   
3. Fry the patties in small amt. of 100% pure virgin olive oil, or a good corn oil, till golden on one side, then flip over & brown on second side. Drain on paper towels.

Better than Sex Cake

1 pkg. German chocolate cake mix
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 jar caramel, butterscotch or fudge ice cream topping
1 (8 oz.) Cool Whip
1 Heath candy bar, grated

Bake cake as directed on package (9 x 13 inch pan) and let cool. With a wooden spoon handle, punch holes about one inch apart over entire cake. Pour whole can of sweet milk into holes. Pour entire jar of topping over cake. Pour entire container of Cool Whip over the topping. Spread grated Heath bar over all.

* lots of ways to make this cake, you can also use a Devils Food Cake mix.

Carrot Cake

4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots
1 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans


DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Fold in pecans. Pour into prepared pan.
Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.
To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Stir in chopped pecans. Frost the cooled cake.

Spice Chiffon Cake

Everything is better with cool whip...


separate 4 eggs, set whites aside with a bit of cream of tartar or lemon juice

sift together 4.5 oz flour, 1/2 tbsp baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice (about 1 tsp each)

in a bowl/mixer add egg yolks, and 2 oz brown sugar, 3 oz white sugar. Mix these until the ribbon stage is reached. (about five minutes with a mixer) Add 1/4 cup water, 1 tsp vanilla, and the flour mixture until smooth.

in a separate bowl, beat egg whites until foamy, then add 1 oz sugar, beat for about 2 minutes until stiff peaks are formed.

Fold egg whites into rest of the mixture in stages, taking care not to mix too much. Pour into cake pan, or loaf pan that is not non-stick, and bake for about 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

Take out the spices above, and use all white sugar and you have a low-fat shortcake, or any other kind of cake you want to make (we like lemon, strawberry rum, etc, according to the filling)

When cooling, turn upside down immediately and let cool in the pan. The cake needs to stick to the pan, so no greasing is needed, or you will have a thick pancake at the end.

This recipe is disgusting....try it

Dry:
12 oz flour (maybe a cup and a half)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
2 tsp cinammon, or allspice, or whatever you want

sift these together, set aside

Wet:
1 cup yogurt (plain)
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup oil

mix these together

add dry to wet, stir 10-12 times (will be somewhat lumpy), then pour into a greased 9X13

pour about 1/2 C brown sugar in a line down the middle (hot-dog style) and then drage a butter knife through it to spread the BS.

You can also add your favorite strudel topping to this, or maybe put in a can of peaches for a cobbler type of feel (cut down on some of the oil in that case)

we usually eat it with cool whip after baking for about 30 minutes in a 375 degree oven, but you can also drizzle it with whatever frosting you want.

Fondant

(definitely not the most beautiful cake you've ever seen, but
it's one of the cutest ones I've made! It was for Zane and
Renny's white coat ceremony.)

Sara mentioned fondant the other day and so I really wanted to try and make it. I found this fabulous recipe online. Here's the link.

I used Alton Brown's cupcake recipe for the cake: here.
You can find the recipe written here.
Then just pour half of the batter in one 8 inch round cake pan and the other half in the other one.

And then Jayson just melted down frozen strawberries with sugar to make the filling in the middle of the two layers. Plus some buttercream frosting.

After assembling the cake put a thin layer of buttercream frosting over the entire cake then decorate with the fondant! Have fun!

Turtle Cake

This is a variation I made of a cake my mom has made for a long time. It's usually made with a toffee candy bar melted into a thick sauce. Instead, I used a caramel sauce recipe we already had. If anyone has a suggestion on how to make the caramal sauce thicker, it would be greatly appreciated. That way the caramel layer would be more distinct in the cake. But regardless, this is very delicious!

Turtle Cake

Swiss (or regular) chocolate cake mix
1 c. pecans
1 bag chocolate chips
Caramel Sauce

Make cake mix and pour half into greased 9x13 pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350. Let cool for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the caramel sauce:
1 cup butter
2 cups brown sugar
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1/4 cup corn (Karo) syrup
Bring to a boil, and let boil for a couple of minutes. Done.

Pour most of the caramel sauce over baked cake and sprinkle nuts and chocolate chips. Pour remaining cake batter on top. Bake for 30 minutes. When the cake has cooled a bit, you can pour the remaining caramel sauce on top. It makes the cake even more divine!

Let me know how it works out for you.