I hate it when blogger cuts off my titles… who said a title has to be short. Stephanie Meyer, I applaud you for the mouthful you decided on for your new little book. Anyone read it yet? The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. I think that's it. I usually forget and end up closer to The Short, Unfortunate, No Good, Very Bad Second Life of Bree Tanner. Too many kid's books.
It's hard for me to EVER make a cake instead of cupcakes, since then there's no way to sample it before your big reveal. I can't even make it home with a whole hot pizza. Another one of my very feminine idiosyncrasies. Ross is used to opening a box with a missing triangle. You can imagine the challenge of frosting a big beautiful cake just to "save it for later".
Anyway, the book? It's good. Quick and a bit predictable ;) , seeing as we already know her fate. But so fun to get a little bit of a vampire fix for those of us who don't read books over again. It actually made me want to start (reading them over again.) But let's not get carried away.
Anyway, back to the title, and another thing that is GOOOOD. This is Sheena's, from The Little Red House: This makes me think I should put a little almond extract in EVERYTHING from now on.
Chocolate Cake with Almond Buttercream Frosting and Toasted Coconut
yum.
Copied in from Sheena's blog:
1/2 c unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 c butter
1 1/2 c sugar
2 eggs
1/2 c (or a couple good globs:) of mayonnaise. yup. get over it.
1 tsp pure almond extract
1 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
*this is my grandmas chocolate cake recipe.....be good to it:)
Mix together: 1 cup boiling water and cocoa. Set aside. (I also threw in a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips because I would have eaten them otherwise.....that part is optional!)
Mix flour, soda, and salt together, set aside.
Cream together in large bowl: butter, sugar. Add eggs one at a time and mix well. mix in mayo.
Add almond extract.
Add the cocoa/hot water mixture and beat for 2 minutes.
Add the dry ingredients, and stir just until mixed.
Pour into greased round pans.
Bake 350 for 20-25 minutes.
Don't forget to cool them on wire racks or they will stick to the pan and fall apart into pieces when you try to take them out, forcing you to glue them back together with a sloppy frosting job. Not that I know that from experience or anything.
Almond Buttercream
10 TBS butter, room temp
5 c powdered sugar
4-6 TBS milk
1 tsp pure almond extract (a little more or less to taste)
Cream together.
Toasted Coconut
Heat oven to 475°. Place 2 cups of sweetened coconut onto parchment lined baking pan. Place in oven and watch closely, turning coconut over as needed. 10-15 minutes.
Psshh--- saving it for later, so over-rated.
It seems Mila is after my heart, she would like whatever you'll agree to, NOW, and two of them please. And if you don't agree to it, there are consequences.
Sophia however, has somehow learned this little strength of her father's. Have you ever heard of that study, where they take a bunch of 4 year olds and give them some m&m's and tell them they can eat them now, or they can wait a little while, and they'll be given MORE m&m's?
Well we've always joked that Ross would TOTALLY wait. And I would most definitely eat all of mine, and probably find a way to swindle some of my neighbor's. Well Sophia is SOOO her father. She begged for nothing more than a big lolli-pop for Christmas. Then she takes a few sucks and hands it back to us to "save it for later". She does the same thing with a tootsie pop from church. She rarely makes it through a whole dum dum. And if she ever gets two of something-- anything, she's LEAPING at the chance to hand one over to Mila. If we bake treats, she asks if she can eat some "healthy food first" and then have one cookie, "but only one--- then maybe one tomorrow?". She likes rules--- she's obedient and definitely has some grip on delayed gratification. She's too good for me. This girl brings me so much joy right now.
I, however, still don't have a grip on delayed gratification. And I'm fairly certain that the end of that study said that the kids who waited, grew up to be more successful overall in life. :)
Good thing I paired up with Ross. I'll be alright. We'll work on you, Mila.
Anyway--- off to have another cupcake. The few rules I MIGHT live by certainly don't apply while I'm pregnant, afterall.
P.S. I finished that last shoot--- check out the photo blog if you want to see one of the most perfect looking little families there ever was.
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