Lemon Poppy Seed Cake with Haskap Buttercream

So.  Again.  It’s been much too long.  I feel like that’s the song I always sing.  But, life gets ahead of you.  Plans change.  Seasons change.  And before you know it, almost a year has gone by since you’ve done a single, solitary blog post!

How can this be?!

I’ve been doing some thinking in my brain (it’s really hard to make sense of what goes on there sometimes).  I’m thinking about evolving the blog a bit, which is why it has gone untouched for awhile.

Also, my dinosaur of a laptop died.  😦  Wahhhhh.  A new one will hopefully be on the list of purchases for the next few months.

Let’s get down to business.

There is good reason for this post today.  The cake – immaculate.  It looks soooo good.  It tastes even better!

I couldn’t let another recipe go by, unposted.  Especially this one.  Cake is kind of pound-cakey.  With a hint of lemon and lots of little poppy seeds, making for wonderful crunch.  The frosting!  It is smooth and sweet (like super sweet), with a haskap berry tang.

I guess I should touch on haskap berries!  They’re high in anthocyanins, vitamin C, phenolic compounds and other antioxidants.  To me, it sounds like blueberries on steroids.  They’re a bit more sour than blueberries, and but are slightly more mellow.  Not sure if that makes sense…  My hubby says that they taste like a mix of blueberries and kiwi.  (But he’s weird, so who knows what they taste like to normal people!)

There’s a company in our area called Haskapa.  I used the jam that they sell in the buttercream.  🙂

There’s your lesson pour la jour.

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

This recipe has been adapted from a recipe by Oh Honey Bakes .

• 1 cup, plus 2 tbsp butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tbsp poppy seeds
• 1½ c buttermilk, or 1 1/4 cup milk with 1/4 cup lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans.

Beat the butter and sugar together until they’re nice and fluffy (and yummy).  Add the eggs, two at a time, and beat well.  Add vanilla and lemon juice.

Mix together dry ingredients.  Alternate buttermilk and flour mixture, and mix until batter is light and soft-looking.

It’s really as easy as that!

Bake for 20 minutes, and then check every 3 minutes for up to 12.

Let cool in the pans for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Haskap Buttercream Icing

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2-3 heaping tbsp haskap jam (depending on preference – I used 3)
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 cups icing sugar

Beat butter until creamy.  Add in jam and vanilla.  (You can always add more jam in later, if you want more yummmmmy taste.)

Alternate icing sugar and milk, until you have a nice, rich buttercream.  If it seems to runny, add more icing sugar. If it’s too thick, add some more milk.  Again.  Super easy.

Frost cake as you wish!  (With ALL the icing!)  Or leave some in the bowl to eat as a snack.  You will need a glass of milk.

Enjoy!

 

To the kids!  I couldn’t post after almost a year and not include some kids pictures, so here they be!

Jude – The Easter Egg Fiend

 

Cael – enjoying a nice sunny day. (Which are few and far between.)

Briar. Growing up so much!

[Another] Wedding Cake, a Gorgeous Bride, and Some Cute Boys.

So.  As I can’t seem to post regularly, let’s just get to the point and say…  I cannot post regularly.  It seems an impossibility.  And that’s alright.  I was thinking today, one of the main reasons I started this blog, was to feel like I still had something to do and say other than babies.  It was right after Cael was born, I had just finished university, and my life had made a drastic change from university and work… to everything baby.  This blog kept me sane.  And while I still love it, and it might become a sanity-thing for me again in the future, right now it’s just a thing I do when I feel like it.  No pressure.  Anyhow.  That was my HUGE realization of the day, after feeling bad (once again), for not posting.  Ever.

But here’s how I make it up to you.  With wedding cakes, wedding pictures, and the cutest boys ever!

Oh.  And some wonderful news!

Baby numero three will be joining us early November!  That was worth waiting for, eh?

On to the cake.  This was for one of my best friends ever.  And she had free-reign over what kind of cake she could have.  Obviously.  She was the bride.  But this was epic.  For me anyway.  Three-tiered goodness.  Chocolate cake sandwiched with peanut butter cream cheese frosting.  Followed by white cake with a lemon curd filling.  And topped with white on white.  All completely covered in white and daisies.  Super cute, super yummy.  What more could you want?  Really.

Another cool this about this wedding was that I got to travel to a warmer place.  All the way to North Carolina.  Which was pretty cool.  Actually, it was wonderfully warm.  Especially since it hasn’t gone over 10C here in weeks (except for that one random day).

Sarah was a beautiful bride in her lovely lace dress.  So gorgeous.  Got to meet up with another best friend that I hadn’t seen in quite awhile (you’ll remember her from this wedding cake).  Which was super great.  Super duper great.

Since then, we’ve had my birthday, a trip to the zoo, and rain.

Cael found the 3D glasses from a movie. Bug eyes.

Jude eating breakfast like a champion.

And that’s that!  Maybe next time I’ll have some belly pictures and a recipe for ya!  That’d be nice, eh?  Maybe.  Here’s to hoping.

Update. And a Birthday (or Two).

Alors.  It has been much too long since I last posted.  Which really seems to be a theme for me.  And may very well continue to be a theme.  But such is my life.  Full of procrastination and lovely things.  I believe that it was early December the last time I posted, and while I will try not to bore you with too many details, and update on life is needed!

*Warning:  You may be bombarded with pictures in this post…*

December went by in a flash, as it is wont to do.  So much food, and great company, so many lights, presents, and giggles.  Jude loved his first Christmas, and Cael really appreciated it this year for the first time.  Christmas morning was exciting for all of us.  Not to mention how cute they were in their pajamas opening their stockings.

(Side story:  I had sewn stockings for the three of us, and had material for one for Jude.  However, the closer it got to Christmas, the more determined those stockings were to not be discovered.  So.  No handmade stockings being filled this year.  About 2 days after Christmas, guess what I found?  You guessed it.  Right [not] on time….  Story of my life.  But it’s okay.  They’re actually somewhere that I WILL find them next year.  I will.)

January brought in much more snow and Jude’s first birthday!  This little dude decided he would learn to walk that week, and he hasn’t looked back.  Watch out world.  Jude is here.  And he is 100% mobile.  We had cake and friends over to celebrate.  You’d have thought it was Cael’s birthday though, when you walked in, because he was loving the party for all he was worth.

{Homemade Ice Cream Cake for birthday numero uno}

February.  (How in the world is it February?!) It is flying by like every other month seems to.  My mother turned the big 5-0.  And we partied!  Surprise party, actually.  Much of that week was planning, booking a surprise flight for one of my brothers, cooking, and trying to conceal it all.  Turns out, she had no sweet clue.  We [somehow] sat 35 people in my parent’s living room for a meal, plus probably 15 kids and other adults roaming the house.  Much fun, but I was zonked when it was over.  Lots of help from my brothers and friends, which was amazing.

{Mom’s 50th – an inferno}

The week following, was Hubby’s birthday.  A cake was baked.  And this will be the foodness I’ll be sharing.  Because I’ve made it many times before, and it’s a hit every time.  First though.  I’m super thankful for my hubby.  He is great.  The best friend ever.  Best everything ever.  And I really don’t know what I’d do without him.  Happy birthday to him!

Now, on to the cake.  It’s a chocolate cake, coffee infused.  Sour cream frosting, also with chocolate and coffee.  It makes for a moist, deep chocolate, coffee-laden cake.  And it’s good.  The boys like it, hubby likes it, I like it.  We are all happy.

Mocha Cake

So, the cake is actually the same as this chocolate cake, with one exception.  Instead  of the hot water, you use strong, hot coffee.

On to the frosting.  Sour cream makes for a great tang and texture.  It’s actually lovely.  And I probably ate some of it by the spoon. No, maybe not ‘probably’, more like ‘most definitely’.

Mocha Sour Cream Frosting

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

4 tbsp hot coffee

1/3 cup sour cream

2 cups icing sugar

Melt butter and chocolate chips on stovetop or in the microwave.  Stir in coffee and sour cream until smooth.  Add icing sugar.  This will probably be runny…  Throw it in the fridge for a bit.  Until it comes to spreading consistency.  Eat it with a spoon, or frost your cake!

Then I actually took the time to photograph it.  Which really hasn’t been happening much at all lately.

Shout out to the doily you see:  I have a post about it here.  I just have it folded over a bit to fit the table.  Love it though.  I’m definitely going to make another.  Supplies are had, time is needed.   (Which should be my new mantra…)

Thanks for reading!  It really feels good to be back.  And thanks to the lady who asked me recently if I’ve been writing… it inspired me.

Happy Birthday Daddyo!

I had a great weekend.  I know this post is late in coming, but I have been feeling slightly exhausted…  So that’s my excuse.  There you have it folks, Kayleigh is exhausted.  But getting better.  🙂

Back to my weekend.  My parents went away for the night on Friday, so I was going to keep my youngest brother for the night.  I had the [brilliant!] idea of inviting his best friend over, and her little sister ended up joining us too.  So I actually had some female company for once, and we weren’t outnumbered, which was really weird, but great.

This is our story.  Friday night, we had s’mores on my new fire pit thing (that my wonderful parents-in-law bought me for my birthday) – the kids loved it.  And I LOVED watching them have fun.  They snuggled up on the driveway with blankets and roasted marshmallows and stuffed their faces.

Then we came inside and they snuggled in to watch ‘The Quest for Camelot’ (my most favourite movie ever).

Then came bedtime (midnight).  (One of my other brothers decided to crash here that night too (he was in for it… keep reading, haha)).  One slept on a couch, two on the floor, and my brother took the other couch.  I didn’t hear them at all until 7 the next morning (I got to sleep in!!).  However, my brother wasn’t quite so lucky.  Apparently, they had been awake since 5:30.

Anyhow, I got them settled into another movie (Robin Hood) and they enjoyed some ‘baby tea’** while I started cleaning up and getting ready for breakfast.   After the movie, breakfast still wasn’t ready, so they took some chalk to the driveway and coloured it up.

**Baby tea is really milked down, sugared up tea.  About 1 tsp sugar, 1/4 cup tea and fill to the top with milk.  Kids love it, and get to feel ‘grown up’ too.

Breakfast menu – Homemade waffles with strawberries and whipped cream, smoothies and perked coffee (for those old enough to have it).  Breakfast went great.

The youngest girl told me that ‘You make the best waffles ever!’  Then she thought about it for another minute, and decided she’d better not say that, so she changed to, ‘You make the second best waffles ever (after Mommy)’.

I thought it was pretty cute.  After breakfast, we went for a walk, and then made cards for my Dad for his birthday.  Then their mom came and picked them up, and I had to get started on my dad’s birthday supper and cake!  Whew.  What a day.

So – my father had a birthday and I want to share his cake with you!

He requested a Hershey recipe that he loves to make (and eat too, apparently!).

The link to the recipe is here.  I’ll type it out for you too though.  I did make a few changes to the buttercream icing, so I’ll give you my version of that.  🙂  Hope you enjoy!  The icing is amazing – just to warn you.

Oh oh oh!  And I used my Kitchen Aid Mixer for the first time ever!  It was really awesome.  I can’t wait to use it again.  I know, I know, you’re probably asking yourselves why I haven’t used it before.  Well, I am slightly old school, and a tad lazy.  Old school:  I tend to use a wooden spoon or a hand mixer for a lot of things (but I just couldn’t for cake, it needed a REAL tool).  And lazy:  I just didn’t want to drag the mixer over to my counter (it won’t reach the plug in my under-sized kitchen) and then have to clean all the parts…  *sigh.  But it was totally worth it.

Hershey’s Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

2 cups sugar

1 3/4 cup flour

3/4 cup cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 tsp vanilla

1 cup boiling water

I’ll give you my directions, as I make things differently than most recipes tell you to…  I just can’t follow directions!

Preheat oven to 350F.  Cream together sugar and vegetable oil.  Add eggs, vanilla, and salt, and beat well.  Add cocoa and boiling water.  Mix until combined.  Mix in milk.  Add flour, baking powder, and baking soda, and stir until smooth.

Pour into two 9×9 cake pans that have been greased and floured.  Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Let them cool for about 10 minutes, and then take them out of the pans and cool them on wire racks.  Frost with One Bowl Chocolate Buttercream Icing.

One Bowl Chocolate Buttercream Icing

1/2 cup margarine, softened

2 2/3 cups icing sugar

3/4 cup cocoa

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Beat butter until smooth.  Add the rest of the ingredients, and beat until smooth.  If it’s too runny, add more icing sugar, and if it’s too thick, add some more milk!  Easy as that.  Now frost that cake.

It’s sooo good.  I hope you really like it.  And I’d use the icing on just about any recipe that you need chocolate icing for – it’s super good.

Happy birthday Daddyo!

What kind of cake is your absolute fave?

Happy Birthday To MEEE!

So, it was my birthday yesterday, and I had a request for a birthday post.  I do realize that it’s not my birthday today, so technically, this is the day-after-my-birthday post.  But I warned her that I would probably be late in doing this…  I enjoyed every second of my birthday doing other things.  🙂

{I think Cael had a good day too.}

I’m getting on in my journey towards 30, which is pretty crazy.  I had decided a long time ago, that I really wanted to reach 20, but after that, I would just stay 20 forever.  So let’s just say I’m 20.  And I’ll say that forever.  Sounds pretty good to me.  What do you think?  Will it work?  Will it have staying power?

Aging is not actually something that bothers me.  I love getting older.  And I think I always will.  It means that I’ve made it through another year.  And this past year was pretty exciting.  I had my first baby [EVER!], and we bought our first house.  I’d say that’s a fairly productive year (if you were going to ask me what I thought…).

So to my birthday!  It was awesome!  I always feel let-down by birthday (well, not always, but sometimes).  Because you wait for them all year, and then they’re not entirely awesome, and then it’s a day gone and you have to wait 365 more days until the next one.  But yesterday when I woke up, I decided that I was going to make it a good day.  It’s all about how you think, and how your heart is.  Wake up with a prayer and sunshine outside your window, and I’d say it’s going to be a pretty good day.  I got an awesome hug from my hubby first thing, and then went to my mother’s house for a shower!  For those who don’t know, we don’t have a shower at our new house, so this was a really great thing.

Then, I made the frosting and filling for my birthday cake!  Mom had already made the chocolate cake.  I made myself a hot chocolate, and helped myself to lots of the chocolate cream cheese frosting.  Then I had my dad’s amazing chili for lunch, and Cael, Mom, and I walked back to my house, stopping to visit my grandparents along the way.

Keep reading, the awesome continues.

{Don’t you love the scarf?!  It was a gift from an amazing family.}

After I put Cael down for a nap, I was going to go outside to clean up a garbage mess that some rambunctious raccoons had made through the night.  BUT, on my way down the driveway, an amazing family came barreling up in their minivan. With tidings of the best coffee ever, homemade birthday cards and origami, a present AND cookies.  Like, the best day ever, right?

Over coffee and cookies, we hung out and talked for quite awhile.  Eventually, I lost track of a few of the boys in the family, and they came in my door bearing a bag with all of the garbage!  They picked it up for me!  Yay!  So happy at this point.

Soon came suppertime at my parent’s house, with all my family, and a friend.  Do you know what the best dinner ever is (in my books)?  It consists of BBQ chicken, BBQ potato slices, vegetables, Greek salad, corn bread, and butternut squash.

{Dad makes these – my Grampie’s recipe.  Don’t they look awesome?  And my crazy little bro… haha}

Followed by my favourite cake EVER.  Let me describe this cake to you.  This chocolate cake recipe, made into three layers.  The layers are filled with whipped cream, and then the whole cake is iced with chocolate cream cheese icing.  Pretty close to perfect.  Mind you, the cake never stands up quite straight, but that does nothing to how wonderful it tastes.

Then, there were presents.  Enough said.

Around 9 o’clock, I convinced my hubby to watch a chick flick with me.  Flicked through Netflix, and chose Vanity Fair.  I must say, it was pretty good.  He was bored, but oh well.  My birthday, right?  😉  (Thanks babe for watching it with me.)

So there you have it.  That is most of my birthday summed up in, well…  I guess it wasn’t really summed up.  Quite detailed actually.  Oh well.

Here’s the recipe for the cake!

Cream Cheese Trifle Cake

One chocolate cake, made into three layers

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing (recipe follows)

Whipped Cream Filling (recipe follows)

Place first cake layer on a plate, top with whipped cream.  Repeat for next layer.  After you’ve placed your third layer on, coat the entire cake with the chocolate cream cheese icing.  The more you can slap on, the better.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

1 pkg cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup margarine, softened

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 heaping Tbsp cocoa

3 cups icing sugar

Cream the cream cheese, margarine, and vanilla together.  Add cocoa and sugar, and beat until smooth.  Frost that cake!

Whipped Cream Filling

1 1/2 cups whipping cream

1/2 cup icing sugar

Whip together until firm peaks appear.  Fill that cake!  Do it.

Enjoy.  It’s really the best thing since sliced toast bread.  (That actually went through my brain, I had to write it.  Toast is completely different from bread, right?)

30 Day Challenge

Day 4 – Your views on religion

Religion, as such, is not something I believe in.  Religion is performing acts to achieve a purpose, normally eternal peace, life, etc.  Works does not get you these things.  Obedience does not get you these things.  The sole way to salvation is through Christ Jesus; believing in Him, that He died for you, that you’re a sinner and he can reconcile that.

“I am the way the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me”  John 14:6

He is the only way.  You can never work your way into heaven.  There is no possible way we can be good enough on our own.  Only through Christ’s death and His covering of our sins, can we come to God.

Cake=Gateau

So, it’s been a bit longer since my last post.  I’d really like to be able to post every day, but I just can never find time.  Ever wish there were a few extra hours in a day?  I’d love 3 or 4 extra hours.  You know what I’d do?  Bake, sew, knit, scrapbook… and READ.  I love to read.  In fact, I just finished (I couldn’t put it down… it only took me a few days) the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.  I read the first one in the series, and it was SO good.  I can’t wait to read the next two.  However, I’m in the middle of 2 or 3 other books, so I’d better wait.  It’s just so hard though!  I. Want. To. Read. The. Next. Book.      SO.      BAD!

Anyways, a few weeks ago, I posted a few cake posts.  Check out my KitKat birthday cake, and my rose birthday cake.  Since then, I’ve made another cake.  This one was a character cake for my hubby’s birthday.  He turned 22!  Old eh?  😉  Happy Birthday Babe!

It just so happens that he likes to play Super Smash Brothers with my younger brothers.  And I just so happened to have a Mario cake pan.  Therefore…. well, you know what happened…

Tada!  Super Mario!

Now, you can tell who he is here… right?  But when I first started, it was kind of scary.  First of all, how could this possibly be Mario?

But, after much time, effort [and frustration]… hemhem… Mario came to life.  My mother came to me when it was done and said, ‘So, it is Kirby?’  Which it most obviously is not.  But she enjoyed the exasperated look on my face, I’m sure.

After the cake was done, I made icing for it, and dyed it the colours I needed (Warning:red is HARD to achieve).  Then I coated the cake with a layer of white icing.  I then outlined my Mario and started to fill him in.  There are a LOT of little stars of icing on this guy!

I have to tell you though, the hardest part of this whole cake experience was cutting into it.  All the work…  Eaten.   At least it tasted good.  🙂

Cael enjoyed it too.  He loves EVERYTHING.

Back to cakes – I have done other cakes as well, and I’ll share those with you some day soon.  There are always so many things that I want to try and share with you, but again – never enough time.  Those who live close to me – need anything baked – call me.  I’d love to help you out (my dream is to bake for a living – wouldn’t that be great?).

By the way, any suggestions, questions, etc – please let me know!  Thanks for reading!  Hope you enjoyed!

Ever get sick of cake?

As I said on Thursday, here is my next cake post.  Last post, you saw my cake in the oven.  Here it is now, just about to be frosted:

Add another, layer, smoother on the frosting, and smooth it out.  Voila!  Next step accomplished!

Finally, the moment you’ve all been waiting for – here’s the finished product!

Want a close up of those roses?  Not near as good as my teacher (my grandmother), but still pretty snazzy I think!

I made a white cake (family recipe) and just regular icing.

ICING (“Buttercream”)

1 1-kg bag of icing sugar

1 1-lb block of shortening

1 tsp almond extract

2 tbsp milk or water

Just beat all of these ingredients together.  If it’s too thick, add more liquid.  If it’s too runny, add more icing sugar.  Easy as pie (or cake… haha)!  This is a great recipe for decorating with.  Just add food colour to change it to whatever colour your heart desires (or your cake is in need of).

Do you ever get sick of cake?  Personally – no.  Well, depends on what kind of cake I suppose.  I’m personally not a fan of carrot cake, I think I’d literally get sick if I took a bite of one of those.  But any other type of cake (pretty well), I don’t even think it’s possible to get sick of it.  It’s a staple.  Didn’t you know that Canada’s Food Guide has an extra category for ‘Daily Cake Intake’?  (Not really, but I wish it were so!)

I LOVE to decorate cakes. I don’t do it often enough (therefore don’t get enough practice), and have a tendency to go too fast, but they seem to turn out alright.  I’d love to do it more often though.  Anybody need a cake?  Contact me.  Those in the local area anyways.  I have done a few different cakes.  I’ll share some pictures of past cakes/cupcakes soon!

So, my grandmother had asked me to make a cake for a combined birthday supper for my mother and her sister.  She said I ‘made them look better’.  When I arrived with the cake, she even told me it looked professional!  Wowzers.  My self-confidence blew right up at that one.  😉

There’s a story behind this.  My grandmother has decorated cakes for a long time as a side-income.  She was amazing at it.  She made my birthday cakes for me from the time I was 1, until I was 17.  Always sooo yummy, and always looked too good to eat.  She’s since had a few medical problems, so she doesn’t do it anymore, but I’ve inherited a lot of her tools  and her love for doing it.  Food really should be an art, and this is one way to express that.

Meet my Nannie.  She’s the best.

Random, yes.  But have you ever tried a dragon fruit?  They’re pretty good.  Kind of like a mild kiwi.  Not to mention, they look gorgeous.  I just couldn’t let this photo opportunity pass.

This week is my hubby’s birthday.  I’m not entirely sure what’s going to happen for his birthday yet.   I’ve got planning to do.  But I’ll let you know once I figure it out…

Just a question…  Do you need something sweet after a meal?  Always seem to?  I do.

Let Them Eat Cake!

Sorry it’s been too long again.  I know I keep saying that and not doing anything about it.  But hey, life is busy, baby boys don’t just stop when I want to bake or do a post.  (However, he is down right now….  And I did find time to bake this…)

How was Valentine’s Day?  We had a fairly normal day.  I got FOOD for Valentine’s.  It was great.  Coffee ice cream, chocolates, organic vanilla yogurt and a smoothie.  Pretty close to heavenly I’d say.  I provided hubby with breakfast in bed – brown sugar french toast and coffee.  We had some friends over deseert that evening and enjoyed a German apple cake/pie thing, cupcakes, and mousse.  Each couple brought a dessert.  I made the mousse.  Did I mention it was in chocolate or peanut butter cups, also made by me?  Soooo good.  My hubby doesn’t eat a whole lot of baked goodness, but that is one dessert he’ll eat.  Sorry to say I didn’t get any photos of those desserts, but I’m sure I’ll get around to doing it another day.

Did I mention that this is our ….  7th Valentine’s day together?  (I think… I’m starting to lose count…)  But only our second married.  It’s been great.

It’s still winter!  But it has been wonderfully warm and sunny out the past 2 days, it almost feels like spring!  And spring IS coming, which is amazing.  I cannot believe how fast this year is going!  Me and the baby went for a walk yesterday with another mom and baby and had a blast.  It was a great almost 2 hour walk.  The awesome thing about walking with someone else is you don’t even notice how long you’ve been walking because you are so preoccupied with what women do best…  Talking!  So encouraging to talk to other ladies, especially when you can relate to them and share a faith with them.

Anyways!  February had two busy weeks in it for me and mine.  And it includes a lot of cake-eating and baking.  My mother’s, aunt’s and husband’s birthdays.  Plus, Valentine’s Day.  AND, we had company over last week one day for lunch, and made a cake-type thing for dessert that day as well.  I am a fan of cakes.  But truly, it’s not the cake that I look forward to eating the most.  It’s most certainly the icing.  I.  LOVE.  Icing.  When I slice my cake, I make sure to scrape that little bit of icing that stays on the platter off of that platter and onto my plate.  My mother on the other hand, will scrape any of what she calls, ‘excess’ (I NEVER have had ANY excess icing!) icing and I normally will inform her that she’s wasting and proceed in transferring it from her plate to my cake.  Did I mention that I love icing??

Mom got a very, very chocolate cake on her birthday.  I was on Pinterest, and discovered some pictures of this cake.  You use a chocolate cake, frost it, and then stick KitKat bars the whole way around.  Mom’s favourite chocolate bar just so happens to be the KitKat bar.  Therefore, I knew I just had to make this cake.

I used our traditional, family chocolate cake recipe and made some chocolate icing to frost the cake.  Then I used 8 KitKat bars for around the sides.  I wasn’t sure what to put on the top, but I found some Rocket candies, and some SweetHearts.  It looked really pretty.  🙂

Tanner’s Chocolate Cake 

2 cups brown sugar

1 cup canola oil

5 HEAPING Tbsp cocoa

2 eggs

2/3 cup hot water

1 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking soda

Pinch salt

Preheat oven to 375.  Blend together the oil and sugar.  Add eggs, salt and vanilla.  Stir in cocoa and hot water.  Mix in 1 cup flour and baking soda.  Stir in 1 cup milk.  Add remaining flour, mix.  Stir in remaining milk.  Batter will be runny and oh, so chocolaty.  Make sure to lick the bowl out when you’re done.  Pour into 2 9′ round pans (that have been greased and floured), or a 13×9 baking dish.  Bake for 45 minutes, or until middle is set.  Cool for 15 minutes on a wire rack.  Take cakes out of pans.  Cool completely before frosting (or you will have a mess!).

Today, I’m starting a cake for a birthday celebration for my mother and aunt tomorrow.

This will be completely different from Mom’s previous cake.  Notice the light colour (not chocolate at all).  It won’t have chocolate frosting either.

This finished cake will be posted this weekend – I’m not quite sure how it will look yet, but keep checking for those pictures!

I will also be posting the cake that I previously mentioned that I made for company earlier this week.  With testimonials! (Company’s idea…)  😉  It’s really cool.  Here’s a sneak peak:

If you are more a fan of coffee cakes, (ie – no icing, less sweet…) check out this Blueberry Cake recipe.

How was your Valentine’s Day?  How did you celebrate?  Who did you celebrate with?