All About Chocolate

Opps I did it again. No I have not lost my mind or been listening to Brittany Spears. What I did was overindulge with a chocolate basket. Can you even imagine? I started with the idea of creating a hot chocolate basket for the North Carolina State 4-H Volunteer Leaders Conference and what I ended up with was nine pounds of incredible chocolate bliss.

Seriously the plan was to get two mugs, a half dozen different types of hot chocolate and maybe some hot chocolate reciepes and leave it at that. Ok, so you know me better than that by now and I must admit when I got creative with it I just couldn't stop. In my last post I told you about my new favorite web site, Pinterest. One of the things I saw on there was jet puffed marshmellows dipped in carmel and chocolate that are used as hot chocolate stirrers. I was not sure how well carmerl would travel in basket so I adapted. The marshellows were dipped in melted choclate and rolled in choclate chips. I also made chocolate spoons. Two were plain chocolate, two were in white choclate with pepermint and then two were in chcolated with chocolate chips. Of course I did not stop there.

I went a little crazy buying at least six different types of chocolate to fill the basket with. There was carmel chocolate, dark choclate, chocolate covered almond kisses and the list goes on and on. Getting it to the auction was another story. My wonderful puppy offered up photos of some of the goodies on his facebook page. Bless his heart it got more responses than most of his posts, and by the time the basket got to Raliegh, 4-H Agents were plotting to appropriate different parts of the basket. However, once I convinced them that they know the person who got chocolate happy and would be more than happy to get choclate happy or spasdic for them. So with the basket safe for the auction all we could do was wait. Around 9:30 pm it was time for the chocolate basket to be auctioned. The crowd was on the light side at the auction. So when the bidding started off at $5 I wasn't shocked. Dollar by dollar the bidding started up and at $20 someone was going home with a basket, literally on a chocolate high.

A New Twist on the Fairy Tale

"Can you make a tangled cake?" Of course the first thing that runs through my head is a Johnson and Johnson shampoo commercial about less tangles and no more tears. Then a flash of inspiration hits me as the person placing the order, let's call her Penny, is talking about her niece's birthday party and how she loves the Disney movie Tangled. Of course being a fairly new movie I do not have a cake pan for that, but I do have an edible printer.

The cake needed to feed about 25 people so I made a simple rectangular sheet cake with the Tangled main character on it. Apparently the birthday girl is partial to purples and pinks which is good since that was fairly easy to incorporate with this design. I also added some flowers to add to the embellishments on the printed edible design.

Overall the birthday girl seemed as happy with her cake as she was with her tremendous birthday party with her siblings, cousins, and friends who came.

Cake a la Crockpot

I have discovered the most wonderful website, Pinterest. It was described to me by a coworker as the female version of fantasy football. It is absolutely fantastic. Basically it allows you to create virtual bulletin boards and link things from all over the Internet (or things you create) to your boards. You also link with friends and you can see what they pin to their boards and repin it to your own and visa versa. It did not take me long to have well over 1,000 pins and lots of neat ideas I wanted to try. That's where this next cake came from.
I saw this recipe and though there is no way it will work, it was for a crockpot cake, specifically a Rocky Road Cake. It involves a box mix, pudding mixes of different flavors, vanilla, milk and other such stuff that I like alone so it should be good together right? I followed the directions which can be found on my Pinterest food bulletin board, which links you to this blog, and plugged that crockpot in. I must admit as I watched this cook, I got a bit panicked. The lid started rising up and I was sure there was going to be a tremendous mess. Alas no such mess (until I drove it around in my car-not such a good plan by the way, at least not until it is done cooking). I have to admit there were some recipe changes. Not being a nut fan or German chocolate cake fan I adjusted to use a chocolate cake mix and left out the nuts. I had everyone's attention when I added the last two ingredients. Although we were all sure it looked not nearly as good as sheep snot might, my friends, being true friends say serve me up a little piece. A little piece here and there turned into larger helpings and taking some home. I tried a little and must admit it was warm smooshy chocolaty goodness like no other and very easy to make.
It may be ugly but many I suggest indulging, it will be a desert you will never forget.

Ring In the New Year with Chocolate

Everyone has little traditions that they repeat during the holidays. I have started a couple of them for New Year's Eve myself. One involves my inflatable bed in the living room so I can spend the last night of the year ( and the last night my Christmas trees will be up) enjoying the ornaments and twinkling lights for one last night. My other tradition of course involves champagne which can be very dry, and chocolate. Not mixed together mind you, but at the same time.

Actually several years ago I received a Hershey's kiss fondue pot as a gift. So each year I melt down some semi sweet chocolate chips, sugar, light cream and vanilla to make a chocolate fondue. With it I had some jet puffed marshmallows, pound cake, bananas, and strawberries. Of course the sweet of the chocolate and dipped items offset the champagne just right and made it the perfect treat to ring in the new year.

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope 2012 brings you prosperity and health, and if you feel like celebrating feel free to shoot me an e-mail so I can create a cake to add to your celebration.

Happy Birthday the Disney Way!

It has been a long time since I have done a Mickey Mouse cake. So long as a matter of fact that when Penny asked me to make one for her 16 year old's birthday I had to stop and think about what Mickey pans I have. I have a few, by the way. After a brief discussion she settled on the standing Mickey Mouse, traditionally decorated with a sheet cake under it to make sure they had enough food to feed the crown coming to his party. I made a butter cake and decorated the backgrounds in white so that they would allow Mickey to literally standout. The border was done with white swirl drops with red and yellow drops added in every other drop. It all made it pop, and pop for the birthday boy who was thrilled with his Mickey themed party.

Excellence in Families

I have often said how much I love my job. This cake is just another reason why. Robeson County Cooperative Extension delivers a program to families with youth between the ages of 10 and 14 called Strengthening Families. Families meet at the Cooperative Extension office one night a week for six weeks in a row. During that time they have the opportunity to have dinner together, then parents work in a group on discipline, communication and gaining a better understanding of their children. The children work on understanding their parents and gaining respect for them, communication and receive tools on how to handle tough topics like peer pressure, drugs, and sex. To date the program has been held three times with more than 10 families taking part in the program. About a month after the sixth session the group comes back together to meet, go over topics, talk about what works, and finally graduate from the program. Now needless to say, I always volunteer a cake but this time I did not know what to make. Finally the night before it came to me, make the kale like the certificate they would receive that night. Since we make the certificates it was nothing for me to save the certificate as a photo and print it out on edible paper. The cake was a butter cake and when I baked it it was much thinner than I expected so I cut it in half and made it a two layer cake. I already had an inkling that my audience liked icing so I was sure an extra layer of icing would not hurt any one's feelings. I printed the image on edible paper and then cut it down to fit the cake. It took less than a second to choose red for the border to highlight the red in the image. My other issue was that I could not find my traditional cardboard base to put the cake on. It so happened that the cake was the perfect size for my grandmothers cake plate/stand that I have yet to find a place for so it has been sitting on my dinning room table. Voila not only did we have a neat looking cake for a wonderful graduation for our families but I was able to kick it up a notch when I presented it. Which is exactly what tout families deserve. Congratulations to all of them on their graduation.

Ho Ho Holidays!

It wasn't just two days ago when a customer asked me if I had a bunch of orders for Christmas and I had to admit that I did not have a one.  Then just a few hours later I had a request for a Christmas cake of my choosing for an office Christmas celebration.  I love when people give me the choice because it just so happens, not long ago, I saw a cake design that I really wanted to try.
I used my paisley cake pan to create this Santa Clause.  I baked a double batch of my butter cake batter to make the cake and then went to work decorating.  The nice thing is that color wise it is simple.  Three colors and white icing to decorate the entire thing and there is not a lot of detail work until you get to the white icing with a rather large tip.  Then it was a case of making sure Santa had all the mustache, and beard detail that the spry old gent should have in all of our imaginations.  When I got done the cake had help give me a little more holiday spirit and I hope that those who had the opportunity to partake in the cake enjoyed it and got a little of the holiday spirit as well.