Cake

Molten Lava Cakes

Earlier this summer I was so excited when I found this Baking challenge… except, it let me down. Okay, I’ll explain. I was really looking for a reason to get excited about baking. I was also looking at finding new things to bake. Something to learn or a new recipe to try that may be different than what I already bake or something, right? Isn’t that the fun of a challenge? To learn something new… That’s what I thought…

So I was so excited to see September 1 come around. That meant something new on Sally’s Baking Challenge, except I was sorely let down. It was decorating a cupcake. Seriously? I’ve been working on making and decorating cupcakes already. I’ve had cake decorating classes. Decorating with icing and tips is nothing new to me. I wanted a challenge. And all she was doing was decorating a cupcake to look like a sunflower. You choose your own cupcake recipe. Well crap.

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Baking Challenge – Checkerboard Cake

I’ve mentioned a few times that I challenged myself to the “cupcake” challenge this year. You know… the Food Network January/February 2017 cupcake for every month challenge. Then a couple weeks ago I was talking to the hubs and told him that I needed a challenge for next year. He laughed at me saying, “But Nicole, you still have the rest of this year. We’re only at July.” I know, I know, but I’m thinking ahead. My idea was to do a pie for every month. Come on… who doesn’t like pie. And I may still persue that… who knows…

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Cupcake Diaries

Wow, it seems like here lately I’ve been obsessed with cupcakes. Especially thought with the title of this post. But… I have news for you… I might be. So what’s going on? Well… If I put this out there, 1) I’m afraid I’ll be judged. 2) I might actually have to follow through. 3) I feel like I sound stupid. I keep telling myself I shouldn’t care what other people think. What does it matter anyway. I saw a quote once that said, It’s none of your business what other people think.

Okay, I’m getting a little off track. I think I’m having to give myself a pep talk. Here we go… I’m going to tell you what my plans are. Now help me follow through and please by all means, HELP ME! My plans:

I’m going to write a cookbook.

Over the weekend I focused on a cake recipe. Not just any cake recipe… My cake recipe. We made it from scratch. Totally from scratch. Wow! I researched. And I read. Then I researched. Followed by reading some more.

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Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

Do you ever just get it in your head you want to do something? Please tell me I’m not alone on that! Friday I spent the day decorating some cookies for a birthday party. I asked my friend Jody if she had a cake for her son’s birthday and she said that her kids don’t really like cake. Not like cake? What a sin. haha! Nah, not really.

I can’t always say I’m a huge fan of cake, but sometimes I just want cake. That day I just so happened to get it in my head I wanted cake. Earlier int he week I found a recipe for a cake I thought I might want to try but the “icing” has white wine in it and it isn’t cooked down. When you cook with alcohol, if you actually cook it, you’ll get rid of the alcohol. If you cook a cake such as a rum cake, the icing on it doesn’t get cooked either.

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Banana Pudding Poke Cake

Yesterday was the 1st Thursday of March. That means that it was Dive Club meeting. It was also National Banana Cream Pie Day. Here recently I was reading through the March 2017 Southern Living Magazine and ran across this Banana Pudding Poke Cake recipe. It looked phenomenal. I decided that Banana Pudding and Banana Cream Pie are similar enough, it counts so I decided to make the cake for Dive Club. Can I just say, I’m glad I did…. WOW!

They also had a little information about Poke Cakes which I found really interesting and want to condense down and share with you. I loved the opening 2 sentences: “Most cake names don’t include the punch line. But yes, true to its name, a poke cake is a cake that is punctured with holes–on purpose.” Hey that’s pretty cool right?

Usually once the cake is punctured, then the baker adds something sweet over the top that will seep into those holes and add to the richness of the cake. The intent is to infuse a lot of flavor into the cake to add that extra punch of flavor.

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Red Velvet Cake Recipe + Ganache Recipe

So let’s step back in time to last month when we had our cake decorating day. Why on earth would we go back in time? Well I held off on sharing a recipe with you because I knew we’d be using it again! So my goal was to wait and share it this month.

Here’s the story. So as I mentioned earlier we had a cake decorating day. That day when I showed up I already had my chocolate cake made, Deb chose a Red Velvet Cake, Kristi chose a butter cake, and Tracy went with a chocolate cake as well. Deb and I went to work on her cake when I showed up… and I use me loosely because I more so stood and watched. She had this Red Velvet Cake she absolutely loved so I took a picture of the recipe and sat and watched her make it. I believe it was out of the newspaper from years ago.

 

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Bonnie Butter Cake

Let’s jump back in time a few weeks, back to our cake decorating day. When I got to Deb’s house, I had already made my chocolate cake I used to decorate, but Deb whipped out a Red velvet cake real quick from a newspaper clipping she had. When Kristi got there, we debated what type to make her so we quickly grabbed Deb’s 1970’s version of Betty Crocker’s Cookbook and had her flip through the different cakes.

 

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3-Ingredient "Diet" Icing

Yesterday hopefully I changed your life with a “diet” cake. Seriously… a cake mix and a diet coke. That can’t be real bad. A few sugars/carbs scattered throughout all the pieces of cake so it’s not even one slice. Just think of that.

But I mentioned that when I heard about that, I wasn’t sure how to ice that baby so we made full-fledged sugar icing. Still better because of the cake but……..

The other day I was searching the internet. I have no idea how I came upon this recipe, but it changed my life for the better. And seriously, you could eat it just plain, I’m telling you.

Ingredients: Milk (I chose skim, but you can do unsweetened almond milk and remove even more sugars although the skim milk doesn’t have many sugars at all…..), Sugar free coolwhip, and sugar free pudding mix (I went with cheesecake so this stuff tasted just like cream cheese icing, only better).

Then you’ll need a bowl to mix in, a whisk, and a spatula (if you pronounce like Paula Deen, Spatuler)

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Chocolate Cake – 2 Ingredients!

You just never know what we’ll be doing on Wednesdays. I typically spend my Wednesday’s at the Extreme Sports Scuba dive shop. Today happens to be Wednesday so you know where I am, right? Well what am I doing you may ask?

  • I wrote a blog post about a SCUBAPRO Nova 720 Flashlight with as many puns as I could about flashlights, ✓.
  • I ate lunch, ✓.
  • Oh and I made a diabetic friendly cake with icing, ✓.

Wait, what?

Are you confused? Don’t be, I’ll explain. A few years ago, like 10, someone told me about a cake to try. I laughed when they told me what the cake consisted of… A Chocolate Cake mix and a can of diet coke.

 

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