How to Make a Perfectly Decadent Chocolate Cake

Hello Friends, I have to tell you that chocolate cake is one of my favorite things in the world. This post even includes homemade chocolate frosting. We usually call it icing in the south. You know how much I love to bake. I am a cake person and I love almost all cakes. My husband, on the other hand, loves pies. Check out this post I did awhile back on making a great coconut cream pie. But my husband does love chocolate cake probably more than I do so when I make one I know I will not be eating the entire thing myself. So here goes. This is going to be a four layer cake because I like to split the layers so that I have lots of room for the yummy chocolate cake icing. So here goes:

Use your favorite cake mix. Cake mix is so easy and inexpensive. I always keep several in my pantry. You can just do so much with them. My favorite cake is yellow or white cake with chocolate icing. I think it offsets the chocolate a little. Now don’t get me wrong chocolate on chocolate is never a bad thing to me. But I usually prefer yellow or white cake with chocolate icing.

Mix your ingredients according to the directions on your cake mix. I always grease the cake pans with solid Crisco and flour them before baking. This is a great way to make sure that your cakes do not stick.

Pour the batter evenly into two 8 x 2 inch round cake pans. Again bake according to the directions on the cake mix.

Before removing the cake from the cake pan, and you should do this as soon as you take it out of the oven, I use a little trick to flatten the top of the cake. This makes it easier when stacking the layers. I put a paper towel on top of the cake and then put a small saucer on top and flatten it just a little. Then just turn the pan upside down and the cake should pop right out. I put them each on a plate with a paper towel under them so they can cool completely.

After the cakes have cooled completely, and if you want to split the layers, this is the best way to do it. This little handy tool is called a cake cutter or cake leveler. It is almost like magic. You can get one at Walmart or on Amazon. A leveler can be used to split a cake into two thinner cakes or just slice the dome of the cake off to make it smooth. I use the small plate and paper towel for this I think that is easier. But when it comes to splitting a cake this handy dandy tool is just the thing. It is adjustable so that you can evenly split the cake. It cuts through the cake like butter. I promise You might be able to do this with a knife if you are Martha Stewart. And remember you don’t have to split the layers you can keep it to a simple two layer cake and you don’t have to worry about the leveler.

This is such a simple chocolate icing recipe. My mama always made her icing like this and I loved it. I have had no complaints about mine. I always double the recipe: I use two sticks of butter, softened, 12 tablespoons of cocoa ( the powdered cocoa in a can) a one pound bag of powdered sugar and Half & Half. I like to use Half & Half because it makes the icing so smooth and creamy. You can use milk, and if you do, make sure to use at least 2% or whole milk. It usually takes about one cup of Half & Half for the icing. I also flavor with a tablespoon of vanilla flavoring. If you are keeping it to a two layer just use half of these ingredients.

Mix the butter and cocoa together first. Make sure the butter is softened. Also, I sift the cocoa and the powdered sugar to make sure there are no lumps or bumps in the icing. Add the powdered sugar and Half & Half in a little at a time.

Now you have a bowl of yummy chocolate icing. If you doubled the icing recipe you will probably have extra left over. You can store it in the refrigerator for several days.

I always put a little icing on the plate before I put down my first layer.

Turn the cake upside down if you didn’t split the cake this will be the bottom. This makes your cakes stack a lot easier whether you are doing two or four layers.

When you put the icing on the first layer don’t worry about crumbs getting in the icing. You are going to cover up that first layer with more cake and more icing.

Add the second layer. If you split your cakes this will be the bottom of the first layer.

Continue with the layers until you get to the top. Make sure the top of your cake is the outside top of the layer so that it will be fairly smooth.

Put a large scoop of icing on the cake and start spreading it along the top of the cake. Always keep the icing in front of your spatula or knife or whatever you are using to spread it. This will make sure you are not digging into the cake and picking up crumbs. At this point you do not want to see crumbs in your icing.

And the finished product. You can swirl the icing a little and use a pastry bag and an icing tip to pretty up the edges, but you don’t have to it’s going to be yummy anyway.

Now grab a big glass of milk or your drink of choice and enjoy!!!!

Oh and don’t forget to LICK THE BEATERS!!!!! That’s the best part.

Love your day your way!!

The Art of Being Mindful

Do you remember the last meal you ate? Were you watching TV or scrolling through your phone? Were you with a person having a conversation? Do you remember what the food tasted like? Was it good? was the flavor something out of this world or just meh?

O.K. do you remember the last conversation you had with someone? your spouse? your child? your friend? Do you remember how they looked? what their voice sounded like? Did they sound sad, happy? do you even remember what the conversation was about.

Do you pull up to your workplace or your house or wherever you may be going and discover you don’t remember anything about the drive. You’re secretly thinking wow I hope I wasn’t speeding or I hope I didn’t run a stop light. Or worse.

We have all been guilty of not being mindful. In this day and time with technology all around us I think we are getting worse at being mindful of what we are doing. Even the good stuff. Information overload is something we deal with constantly. Sometimes when I am at work taking a work call I find myself closing my eyes so that I can focus on the person I am talking to. If I don’t I find myself looking at my computer screen, or my phone, listening to what is going on in the background around me. I know that when I am doing this I am not totally focusing on what is going on with that phone call. The person that I am talking to deserves my attention.

A few years ago when I was doing some travel shows I noticed this lack of focus had gotten particularly bad. The shows were an opportunity for you to sell your location or attraction to potential clients. You had about five minutes to sit down at a booth with a prospective client and give them your main selling points. The booths were set up in rows and you sat at their booth across the table from the potential buyer. In the meantime there was still the traffic of people walking behind you. It was a bit distracting. But what I noticed the last few times I did a show, was that the buyer instead of being focused on what I had to say, and heck I don’t think it was that boring, was constantly watching what was going on in the isle behind me. Their eyes would wander from mine to the people behind me. You would have thought Jason Momoa was walking by. Maybe something more interesting was going on in that conversation by those other people. I started having less and less confidence in the shows. they were expensive and I didn’t feel I was getting what I needed to get from them.

Multitasking is the evil twin of mindfulness. We are all trying to get more and more done so we’re on our phone while we’re watching TV, watching a ballgame, while trying to listen to the person in front of us talking to us.

Being mindful takes practice. Start with being mindful when you eat. This will not count when you rush through drive through and eat on your way home or on your way to the ball field or to your next stop. Because then you are already multitasking. We all do it. Sometimes we have to do it if we want to eat at all. Life gets in the way and you do what you have to do. I do it all the time. But start slow and practice and see if you don’t get more out of what you are doing.

I don’t have children but I know that I look back on when my nieces and nephews were young and I was spending time with them. I wish I had given them more of my attention and enjoyed everything they had to say and do. I wish I had listened to my mom and dad and grandparents when they told family stories that I thought I had heard a hundred times and couldn’t stand to hear one more time.

Multitasking causes stress. You may think you are getting more done but you are actually not getting anything completely finished because your mind is going in so many different directions.

As I said being mindful takes practice so start slow. The next time you are doing laundry feel the clothes in your hands, feel the fabric, notice the warmth if the clothes just came out of the dryer. When you are eating notice the texture and the flavor of the food. When you are talking to someone, and this is something I learned from a good friend a few years ago, look that person directly in the eye, listen to their voice, hear what they are saying. So many times what someone is truly telling you is in their eyes, the sound and range of their voice or the expression on their face. If you are looking at your phone or something else going on around you, you just might miss something very important.

So yes I think mindfulness is a lost art. We are only here once so pay attention!!!

I took this picture one morning on my way to work. I looked over my shoulder while driving down the road and saw this scene and had to turn around and go back to get it. I was late for work but it was totally worth it to me.

Love your day your way

Happy Friday

Hello friends and Happy Friday!!!! I don’t think I have ever been so happy to see Friday get here. But wasn’t Monday like about five minutes ago? Wow!!! I do not know how this week went by so fast. It has been a long week physically. I have had something to do every night this week after work. Weeks like this stress me out sometimes. Monday night was book club. I didn’t t read the entire book. I checked out the book on audio through Tennessee Reads which is the online library that I often use when the books I need are available. It’s free so that is definitely a plus. If you haven’t checked this out you need to. Each state has an online library and usually it is through your local library. I felt like this way I could at least listen when I didn’t have time to sit and read. The book is Glory Over Everything and it is really good so far. One thing I like about my book club is that we have such a diverse group and many different books are chosen. Some of these are books I would not normally pick for myself but when I get into them I really like them. After planning to go to book club all weekend and trying to finish the book. I didn’t make it. I had to work later than I expected and then had to run home and take care of fur babies because it was my husband’s late day at work. So by the time all of this happened It was just too late to get there.

I have been trying to add some workouts into my daily routine. In doing this instead of the usual forms of exercise I have been trying to do more physical work around the house and yard. Oh man did I make a mistake trying to work in my yard Tuesday evening after I got off work. First of all it was about ninety degrees and the humidity was even worse. I started trimming bushes in my yard and I was only able to work for about an hour and a half before I was soaking wet and had sweat running in my eyes. I am so ready for cool weather. I did get a lot of my shrubs cut in the front of my house and it actually looks like someone lives there now.

Wednesday night I went to “The Village” I have probably mentioned this before. This is where my mother in law is living. It is an assisted living village. Very nice with only about 25 people living there. Each room is like an individual apartment. The meals are served in a small cafeteria. There is always a nurse on duty to give meds and assist if anything goes wrong. There are also people to help bathe the residents and there is even a hair salon for those who cannot go out by themselves. My mother in law has been there for a little over a year. She broke her hip in March of 2018 and because of complications from a really bad infection she can no longer walk on her own. She uses a walker and a wheelchair. She is not able to stay at home by herself. At least once a week I go and pick her up and we go out and get something to eat and take a good long drive. We are usually out for a couple of hours and it gives her some time away from the village.

On Thursday night we had a Spaghetti Dinner and Auction fundraiser for a civic group that I am a member of. This dinner and auction is a ton of work. As it is with just about any organization like this there are only a few dedicated people who seem to get stuck with all the work. So it was really late by the time I got finished with all of this and got home.

But today is Friday!!! Yay!!!! and I really don’t have a lot planned for the weekend and that is a good thing. I wanted to share with you a few things I have been loving the last couple of weeks.

I finally finished the granny square blanket I have been working on for so long. This is actually made up of 20 large granny squares with ten rows in each square. There was no rhyme or reason to the colors. I just had about twelve balls of yarn in a basket and I would pick them out randomly and crochet them. Now that I have finished and I need another big project to work on or maybe two or three. You can see more of the individual squares from this post.

Look at this little cactus flower that bloomed from my cactus family. I have had this cactus for several years and this is the first time it has bloomed. Those two stalks came up overnight and bloomed the next day. But by the next day it had wilted down to nothing. Such beauty for such a short time.

Isn’t she beautiful. I know I may be a tad bit prejudice but Kitty Kitty has totally stolen my heart.

My work place early in the mornings before it gets too hot to be outside.

I am loving this iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts. We don’t have a Dunkin in our small town but my coworker lives in Maryville and there is one there and she brings us an iced coffee a couple of times a week.

So how was your week? and what are you up to this weekend?

Remember to always love your day your way!!!

Sister Lunch

For more than a decade me and my sisters have been having sister lunch every Wednesday at noon at a little restaurant in town. It started with “hey let’s get together and have lunch.” I think it has always been on Wednesday. We have had to change the day a few times because of one sister or another being out of town. We sometimes do it on Friday. But for the most part it is always on Wednesday. The restaurant where we meet is a combination of American and Italian food. The Gondolier in Sweetwater. The owners know us and when we walk in we have a particular side of the restaurant and a table where we sit. Well this actually depends on how many people are coming to sister Lunch. I’ll explain more about that in a minute. The waitress knows our drink order and usually meets us at the table with our drinks.

When Sister Lunch first started it was me and my two sisters Sandy and Pat. My sister Carolyn lived in Georgia at the time and couldn’t often make it to sister lunch.

The three of us would get together and catch up on the weekly happenings in our lives. We would give encouragement, advice, listen to troubles and basically solve all the world’s problems. You would be amazed at what all we could discuss in an hour. We have been there through kids, grandkids, illness, breakups, jobs, retirement, death and just about anything you can imagine. Oh and we laugh and laugh.

When we leave the restaurant we stand in the parking lot and hug and yell I love you to each other like we won’t see each other for months. People sometimes look at us a little strangely. Most of the time we will be seeing each other in a day or two. But hey you never know.

After a few years my sister Carolyn retired from her job in Georgia and moved back to Tennessee. She became a regular at sister lunch.

My niece also came to lunch when she could and her two boys would join us when they weren’t in school. Then my nephew and his wife started meeting us when they had a free day. My cousin Cathy and her husband Carl came from Texas to visit their granddaughter in Tennessee and came to Sister Lunch.

My sister Carolyn passed away suddenly a couple of years ago. We didn’t go to sister lunch for a while because it was just too painful not having her there.

We soon returned to having Sister Lunch though because we knew she would want us to do that.

Me and my sisters and my niece Tammy also do a Sister Trip. We usually go somewhere close by like Gatlinburg Tennessee for a few days. Here is a recap of our Sister Trip last year.

After my sister passed away her daughter started joining us. At times we might have up to eight or nine people at Sister Lunch. If someone is having a birthday or getting close to their Birthday we put a balloon on their chair and bring a Birthday cake. We never miss a reason to celebrate and have cake.

The number of people who come to Sister Lunch goes up and down but it is almost always me and my sisters, Sandy and Pat.

We figure we have been to over 500 lunches and spent thousands of dollars and shared billions of laughs. I think that is time very well spent.

I wouldn’t give anything for our Sister Lunches. So if you are ever in Sweetwater on a Wednesday at noon. Join us at the Gondolier. The more the merrier.