My Thanksgiving Cake

I just want to show off my Thanksgiving cake. I do not celebrate Thanksgiving the traditional way, I mostly just celebrate the life of Michael Hutchence. Well, this was the cake I made to celebrate his life with.

I know I am not the best cake decorator, but I just wanted to add this message to him. It's a simple devil's food cake and I admit I did cheat this time. The cake is from a box mix. Duncan Hines makes the best cake mixes. But I always make my own frosting. In this case, it's a dark chocolate frosting. I saved a bit out of the mixture to create the white frosting I used to write the words. I also decorated it with some vertical stripes along the side of the cake.

Anyone can make a cake as good as homemade using a box mix, with a little tweaking, it can even be as good as it would be from a professional bakery. This is the trick I learned:

1 box cake mix (any flavor or variety)
4 eggs (5 eggs for a really rich cake)
1 cup of milk

More eggs make for more volume in your cake, and note the water called for in the mix's directions is replaced with milk. This makes a softer, more flavorful cake. After you mix those ingredients, take the amount of oil from the directions on the box, and instead of oil, use melted butter, and double the volume. For example...

• The cake mix calls for 1/3 cup of oil, you would melt 2/3 cup of butter and add that to the mix instead.
• The cake mix calls for 1/2 cup of oil, you would melt 1 full cup of butter and put that in the mixture instead.

I like to combine the eggs and milk with the mix first, and beat in my mixer on medium-high speed until it's thoroughly combined. Then while the mixer is going, add the melted butter. This is important, because the mix will be cold. Adding the butter with the mixer off can cause the eggs to curdle and the butter to solidify on contact. You don't want that. So, make sure your mixer is turned on high when adding the melted butter. I keep the mixer going for about 10 minutes, which adds the little bubbles needed to make the cake light and fluffy. This will give the cake that "as good as a bakery" taste and texture. It always works for me! My cakes always come out as good as those made in big bakeries.

The icing I made is my simple buttercream icing, and I added about 1/4 cup of Hershey's Dark Unsweetened Cocoa.

For National Chocolate Day!

Enjoy the Chocolate!! Each of these movies will show you what you can make with chocolate.

Food dolls - Buckeye Brookies

Interesting concept of combining brownies with chocolate chip cookies. Though for the sake of the cookies, I'd double this recipe to fit a 9x13 inch baking pan. Use a family-sized brownie mix, then use the Pillsbury cookie dough available in all grocery stores, or you can make up your own chocolate chip cookie dough. I prefer to use Nestle Toll House Cookies recipe, and my own recipe for brownies. I will post those at a later date. Try it and enjoy the recipe!

The Best Banana Cake Ever!

I finally did it! I made a to-die-for, melt-in-your-mouth banana cake!!! I love how it came out too! I was thinking that I'd have to order online for a banana cake mix in order to get a homemade banana cake! Or move down south. But no! I made a perfectly good banana cake tonight from scratch that came out fluffier and feather-light as any mix!! I was amazed! The last time I tried to make a cake, I made a devil's food cake with swiss buttercream icing. We were living in Ocean Shores then. The cake was terrible!!! It came out hard as a rock and I never was able to pinpoint exactly what happened! The swiss buttercream came out awesome though. Such a shame! Well, tonight I decided to try home baking a cake on my own, and I got very pleasing results making this banana cake! It's even as fluffy as the cakes you can get in bakeries! I remember I ordered a banana cake for my birthday when I was living in Bozeman, and this cake came out even better than that one! And she was a professional! I am thrilled! It was hard work too! But the end result was worth it!

It really is all in how you mix the cake. I use my Kitchenaid stand mixer, which, if you are a serious cook, you should not be without. This was the recipe I followed and how I got the results I got...

Best Banana Cake Ever!
1 1/2 cups of milk
2 Tablespoons of lemon juice
Place in a bowl, stir and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, combine
1 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of white sugar
3/4 cup of softened butter
Whip for about 3 minutes until thoroughly combined. Then add
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon of vanilla
1 teaspoon of salt
Whip on high speed until creamy, about 5-7 minutes. Measure and sift
3 cups of cake flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda
(I sifted 3 times, the more it is sifted, the smoother and softer the cake will be)
Pour in milk mixture and flour mixture a little bit at a time, as the mixer is going on medium speed. Occasionally, stop to scrape the sides of the bowl.
Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. I prepared 3 8-inch cake round pans by spraying with cooking spray and dusting it with flour. Once the milk mixture and flour is all combined, let the mixer go on mixing for about 7-10 minutes on medium-high speed. Then pour in
About 3 ripe bananas, crushed
Turn mixer back on for about 1 minute just to incorporate.
Pour evenly into cake pans. Bake for about 32-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out dry. Allow cakes to cool for about 15-20 minutes.

While the cakes cool, I make the icing. It's a simple recipe for regular icing. You can use cream cheese icing if you prefer, but I myself prefer the regular white icing. This is the recipe I always follow...

6 cups of powdered sugar
1/3 cup of shortening
(Butter can be used instead too)
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1/4 cup of heavy whipping cream
pinch of salt
Mix for about 2-3 minutes on low speed, until the powdered sugar combines with the wet ingredients. Increase speed when all ingredients are combined and let whip on high speed for about 10 minutes, the longer it whips, the fluffier your frosting will be. Frost each layer as preferred.

This is how I made this cake, and this is what I got as the end result! Believe me, it's better than any boxed cake mix...

Oreo Pancakes

This is more of a dessert item, but it certainly looks very interesting! Here's a wonderful combination of Oreo brand cookies with pancakes. They are stacked between layers of marshmallow-type creme. The full recipe is like this...

Pancakes:
8 Oreo cookies
1/3 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
4 Tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup buttermilk

Separate Oreo cookie wafers from the icing and crush wafers. Combine flour, cocoa, salt, baking powder and baking soda in one bowl. Mix together egg, oil, vanilla and sugars in a separate bowl. Combine together, along with the buttermilk and crushed Oreo wafers. Cook in greased pan for 10-15 minutes on one side, flip in the pan and cook 3-4 minutes on the other side. Then make the creme topping...

Creme topping:
1/4 cup shortening
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup marshmallow creme
Oreo cookie icing
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch of salt

Mix together until fluffy and thoroughly combined.

Layer pancakes and icing on top of each other. Garnish with chocolate syrup or cocoa fudge and some crushed Oreo cookies. For a visual demonstration, watch this video!

How To Make Bubble Gum

YouTube's SimpleCookingChannel shows us how to make our own bubble gum. This is real gum like you could buy in a store that you can actually blow bubbles with. Subscribe to his channel by clicking on this link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsWpnu6EwIYDvlHoOESpwYg also remember to give his video a thumbs up!

The gum mixture is basically from gum tree sap, which is from trees found in Central America. You can buy the gum pellets he uses in this video on this website: http://www.gleegum.com/product/make-your-own-chewing-gum-kit/