'Nother Cake

My dog is sitting here next to me resting her smaller-than-my-fist head on my comparatively giant knee, asking why I haven't written about her lately. Well as an update, I groomed her- now dredlock free- and we've been practicing her tricks, and we're doing ok; not great, just ok.

But about my new cake- not too much to tell. It was my standard chocolate with a chocolate fudge frosting and cheesecake filling, with vanilla butter cream for the crumb layer, because I only had enough frosting left over from my brownies yesterday (family party) to cover the top. It was SO good though. Try it.

Ingredients
1/2 cup butter
4 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened baking chocolate
1 pound confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup milk
Directions
Melt chocolate and butter in the microwave, or in the top of a double boiler. In a large bowl, combine confectioners' sugar, vanilla and 1/2 cup of the milk. Blend in the melted chocolate mixture. Add remaining milk, a little at a time, until desired consistency is achieved.
Let stand until spreadable (frosting will thicken as it cools).

I also made a peanut butter frosting and swirled them on top of the peanut butter brownies I made, but it was a failure in comparison. Marshmallows do not substitute for marshmallow fluff, even when melted to fluffy, and I refuse to try another recipe with either included. One must have standards, after all.

The brownies were awesome, and I thought I'd mention them, because I've discovered that the easiest home made sweet to make and get the most Wows for your work is to add 2 hand fulls each of both chocolate and peanut butter chips to a box brownie mix and bake according to package directions. SO GOOD. They're actually even better cold the next day. Not that I would know today. We came home from the party with a clean plate. :)

So the cake I made today was just for a lesson I taught at church. I've mentioned to the girls that I make them, and I said I would bring one. Now, my last one was for them, too, but I wanted to make another one since I had some leftover blue fondant that I wanted to use. I couldn't decide how to decorate it, but I wanted to play with chocolate. I've used white chocolate before, and I saw a lady make chocolate bows online once, so I decided to try to paint melted chocolate onto folded wax paper and see if I could make a flower. And it worked! These things always failed when I was a kid, and now look at me! Closing in on 30 and I figured out how to use a double boiler.

I put the petals in the fridge to cool and tried to make little birds (trendy, but cute, still). The birds didn't work but the swirlies did. Once I put them on the cake, there was only a smattering of swiriles so I just lifted the pastry bag up higher and went crazy. It was cool. The crowd was pleased. I love it when people say, "You made that?" Makes me feel very talented. Which of course is silly, I just like to play with sugary things.

Which reminds me, always mix the full amount of milk into your cheesecake filling so that it will seep into the cake. Its better than a defined layer between top an bottom.

Pretty, right? I'm just so glad that the flower worked because I couldn't think of how to make it visually appealing. I was surprised at how impressed people were with the cake when I had just dumped a bunch of chocolate on top, but I think the combination of the bright colors made it look cool, with very little effort. I will do that again. And that's a little of what puts breath in my lungs.