Devil's Food Chocolate Cake Birthday

We've been on vacation this week.  It's the week we call birthaversary - our anniversary (5 years this year!) and my birthday (41 years this year!).

I used to be very tra-la-la-de-do-da-la about aging.  Each birthday was a "how cool, I'm older.  It's time to buy more underwear."  Now, though, after forty I feel a little weirded out.  First off, how did I get to be 41?  The idea that 41 years has happened seems mind blowing to me.  Secondly, they let me drive a car and buy houses and stuff?  I feel like a kid pretending to be a grown up a good amount of the time.  Hopefully, not because I am hopelessly immature but because I hold on to my youthful zest for life.  Yeah.

We celebrated with some nice walks and nice dinners.  We ate at Bertucci's for our anniversary.  We just love that place.  It's the rolls.  I think it is really all about those rolls.  We went to Red Stripe in Providence with Hilarie and Cara.  Always yummy there.  We ate at Not Your Average Joes one night - I had their special pecan crusted chicken with sweet potato wedges.  The chicken was so moist.  I had the other half for lunch the next day.  Last night we went to Bittersweet Farms.  It's one of my favorite places.  I had a chicken and spinach panini.  It was perfection in a sandwich.  I look forward to the second half of that for lunch today.

The more I bake, the more I discover that most restaurants have crappy desserts.  I ordered desserts from almost all of these places.  Don't judge.  From Bertucci's I got a lemoncello (sp?) cake - not so good - soggy and not lemony.  From Red Stripe, we got a key lime tart - not so good - lousy crust - bitter limes.  From Joes, we got the peanut butter thing - peanut butter ice cream pie with oreo crust and hot fudge.  It's always great.

For someone who likes to bake.  Just make your own cake.  After much fantasizing, I decided to make a devil's food chocolate cake.  Nate said he wanted just whipped cream for frosting.  So last night when I baked, I made up some whipped cream (which I put in my coffee this morning).  But I read online and discussed with a real baker that whipped cream falls apart as frosting.  I'm planning on adding cream cheese to it to stabilize it today and then take some pictures.  Okay, I'll be back.

(time passes)

After much time, I decide to stabilize my already whipped cream with some cream cheese.  Old faithful cream cheese.  Why not?  I melted some milk chocolate, added a bit more sugar, and a bit of cocoa powder.  I mixed up the cream cheese, then added the whipped cream and blended until incorporated.

So here are the cakes out of the oven and cooled.

Sorry, I am no where near food photo mastery.  Sigh.

So then I frosted them with my light brown frosting.  

It was too loose to truly decorate with but I think it came out okay.  I shaved some milk chocolate on top.

Okay, recipe:  The recipe is slightly modified from this recipe from food.com  It is a lovely devils food cake.  Is it devil's or devils?  Whatever.

2 C flour
1t salt
1t baking pwdr
2t baking soda
3/4 C cocoa pwdr
1 1/2 organic cane sugar
1 C veg oil (or liquified coconut oil)
1 C boiling water
1 C buttermilk
2 eggs
2t vanilla (one in the original recipe didn't seem like enough to flavor something so intense)

Sift dry stuff together into mixing bowl.  Yes, you really need to sift this one.  Pour in water, milk, and oil and mix.  Once combined, add eggs and vanilla and mix til smooth.  The recipe says it will be liquidy but mine seemed like normal cake batter.

Pour into two 9 inch rounds or similar and bake at 325 until toothpick comes out clean (somewhere between 15-25 mins depending on your oven - never believe a recipe - always check your cakes often).

Frosting:
Whip one pint whipping cream.  Add agave to taste.  Then realize that whipped cream won't work.  Add 2 packages of cream cheese.  1/2 bar melted milk chocolate, 2 T sifted cocoa powder.  Taste.  Lose yourself in the deliciousness.

Just Cake for Cake's Sake

This silly self portrait of Ayla and me makes me laugh.  Ayla is so snuggly and adorable and nearly impossible to photograph.  She always moves at the last minute.  So although this picture is grainy, I'm including it for joy.

I made a box cake tonight.  It's good on a Monday when there is no dessert in the house to consider a box.  We went to Trader Joe's yesterday (yay!!!) - and bought all kinds of yummy things, including a box cake of theirs.  I actually stuck to the box preparation recipe and it was great.  All you add is eggs, oil (or butter but I chose oil), and water.

The bottom line is that I have a real thing for yellow cakes with chocolate frosting.  I mean, I can't get enough of that right now.  I can't even think of baking other things.  I have to keep making different versions of it until I am done with it I guess.  This one had more chocolate in it by melting down Trader Joe's milk chocolate (big giant bars of baking chocolate in the baking section).  It's nice to have a cake without any butter as my last yellow cake was way too buttery.  Also, I'm not a fan of butter in my frosting.  A lot of cream cheese frosting recipes call for half cream cheese and half butter but it's just too much for me.

Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

1 8 oz package cream cheese
1/4 C cocoa powder
1/4 C melted milk chocolate
2T heavy cream (milk would work too)
Blend til smooth.  

Health-wise, I had a tough day.  My nervous system was tweaky today and I spent a good portion of the day being shaky.  I've been diagnosed with MS but it's a weird form of it.  I don't have major attacks and I've just had funky neurological stuff for years and years.  It may be the cause of the esophagus problem but who knows?  Oh, and I have a weird rash on my chest that is driving me batty. I was supposed to see the surgeon today to make some plans but I rescheduled it.  I NEVER reschedule doctor appointments.  I was quite proud of myself for knowing that I needed to stay home tonight and chill out and make frosting and a box cake.  I did, however, talk to the surgeon on the phone and we are hoping to wait until June for the next surgery.  He said it will be same day or one night in the hospital.  Easy to plan and only a few weeks of recovery.  I don't know how I can get myself to feel ready for it, except that the leg pain is so insidious.

You know, I gave myself this blog to think *out loud* about my health and struggles but I feel terribly self-conscious about it.  I think you think, "Is she done whining yet?"  or "maybe this chick should eat less frosting and sugar" or "whatevs get over it already."  Oh, inner critics are very judgey and snarky.
I'm surprised that snarky is not a spell check red line and judgey is (even if I spelled it judgy).  I love making up words.

Anyway, here's pics of cake.  Come on over and sit on my new leather couches and eat cake with me.  And then watch me grade 2 mountains of class work!

Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcake Google Event

I had big plans for the first recipe of this blog - honey lavender goat cheese chocolate blackberry cupcake tart fancy something or other.  That's not how it went down today.

The Weekend.  Yesterday, the house was being cleaned.  I took Ayla for a walk around the park with a friend, went to lunch, then took another walk in the woods with another friend.  I felt good in my body until the end of the second walk, when my body became super unhappy with my choices for lunch.  I spent the rest of the day watching netflix in my jammies.  Hubby was away until late last night.  Maybe I just underestimated how much down time I really needed.  I am so glad the house got cleaned though!  I recently admitted that I am not capable of cleaning myself anymore.  A few people were recommended and I ended up going with my friend's nanny.  She's been doing a great job.  Not sure how often I can afford it, but now all the deep spring cleaning has been done (even my gross microwave).

Sundays are tough sometimes.  I often get headaches or generally feel crappy from overdoing it during the week and Saturday.  Today I stayed in bed until 1pm which was a good way to avoid feeling crappy.  It's almost 5pm now and I still haven't showered or gotten dressed.  We have made Sundays a lot more fun these days by playing cards with our friends, Rob and Sue.  Sunday we head over to their house around 6 or 7 and play cards until 9 or so.  It's really changed my outlook on Sundays.  We laugh a whole lot, snack, and enjoy each other's company.

So, while I was lounging with my sweetie dog, Ayla, I googled "chocolate cream cheese cupcakes" and was led to a cupcake from childhood.  Do you remember these cupcakes with the black bottom and cream cheese middle?  With and without chocolate chips?  Yeah, me too.  I haven't seen these anywhere lately so I'm assuming they are out of style, but they are fresh in my memories.

These are so easy I couldn't resist.  They are so simple it will take less than 10 minutes to get them in the oven.  I suppose you will all have to wait for honey lavender.

I combined a few recipes here from the Joy of Baking website and All Recipes.

Cream Cheese Middle:
1 package cream cheese (room temperature)
1 egg
1/3 C sugar
Vanilla
Lemon zest
Mix in a mixer for a few minutes to combine.

Chocolate Cake Part
1 and 1/2 C flour
3/4 C sugar (I use organic cane)
1/3 C cocoa powder
Vanilla
1 t baking soda
1 C buttermilk
2-3 T water (to get the right consistency)
1/3 C vegetable oil
Chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet normal size)

Sift dry together, then add buttermilk and oil.  Add water until it's batter consistency.

Put chocolate cake mix in cupcake paper lined muffin tin - fill to 1/2 to 3/4 way up.  Dollop the cream cheese mixture on top.  Sprinkle top with chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes until the cheese part is set and the cake comes out clean with a toothpick or knife.