Scrunchy Puppy

I took this on my way out the door this morning. Since Murphy is so long, he usually stretches out the long way in his crate. I thought it was funny he was all scrunched up on the short side.

Demonically Chocolate Cake (Part 4) - Putting It All Together

My brother contacted me a month or so ago and told me he wanted me to make him a cake for his birthday. Typically, he gives me a challenge when he wants me to make his cake and this year was no different. The challenge was to bake a "demon chocolate cake."

The slice of cake we took to my Grandmama Morton

I made 2 9-inch chocolate cake layers. I let them sit overnight so that they would be firmer. I filled the layers with half a recipe of chocolate mousse filling and frosted it with half a recipe of chocolate frosting.

In the future, I would advise chilling the cake layers and mousse together before frosting them. It was very hot both outside and in the house yesterday and the mousse was so soft, when I frosted over it it mixed with the frosting and didn't make for a very pretty cake once it was all together.

The taste, however, was perfect. The layers were moist and dense. The mousse was the perfect consistency and the icing was dark and fudgy. This is an extremely rich cake and even I, the Queen of the Sweet Tooth, could only eat a small piece before going into chocolate overload.

Demonically Chocolate Cake (Part 3) - The Frosting

This is my take on my maternal Grandmother's chocolate frosting recipe. The measurements were guesses because she does everything from sight and taste and doesn't measure.

Grandmama Pittman's Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients

1 stick of butter, softened

1 lb. powdered sugar

¾ cup cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa)

½ cup milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1 tsp. coffee liqueur

1 tsp. crème de cacao

Directions

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add cocoa and milk and beat until combined. If mixture is too thick, you can add more milk. Add vanilla and liqueurs. Will frost 2 9-inch layers.

Thoughts

The frosting came out perfectly and was far better than canned chocolate frosting. My grandmother's recipe includes prepared coffee as part of the liquid instead of all milk and she only uses the vanilla flavoring.

Demonically Chocolate Cake (Part 2) - The Filling

Chocolate Mousse Filling

Ingredients

1 packet gelatin

Mousse on bottom layer

½ cup milk

4 tbsp butter

12 oz. semisweet chocolate (I used 13 oz. - 7 oz. of 90% cocoa and 6 oz. of 67% cocoa chocolate)

2 cups heavy cream

½ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp coffee liqueur

1 tsp crème de cacao

Directions

Put mixing bowl and beaters into the freezer to chill. Dissolve the gelatin in ¼ cup of milk. In a glass bowl or double boiler, melt remaining ¼ cup milk, butter and chocolate. Cook in microwave or over low heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Swirl gelatin over heat until melted and milk is hot. Do not boil. Stir hot gelatin mixture into chocolate. Transfer to a mixing bowl and let cool.

While chocolate is cooling, whip heavy cream, powdered sugar, vanilla and liqueurs until stiff peaks form. Stir ¼ of whipped cream into the chocolate mixture. Then gently fold remaining whipped cream into the chocolate mixture in two stages. Do not over mix or your mousse will go flat. Chill in refrigerator before filling cake.

Thoughts

I thought when I first set out making this that the chocolate mixture would be too grainy. Once I began adding the whipped cream, it seemed too wet but it got thicker as I folded in the rest of the cream. Once it was chilled, the texture and consistency were perfect. If I were to make this again, I'd use chocolate with a little less % of cocoa because it was not quite sweet enough.

Demonically Chocolate Cake (Part 1) - The Cake

My brother asked me to make him a "demon chocolate cake" for his birthday this year so this is what I have come up with.

Chocolate Layer Cake

Ingredients

2 sticks butter, at room temperature

1 ½ cups sugar

4 eggs (the eggs I used were small to medium in size)

2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

¾ cup cocoa (I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa)

1 ½ cups milk

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 tsp coffee liqueur

1 tsp crème de cacao

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 9-inch cake pans. In a mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and liqueurs and beat until combined. Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pans 5 to 10 minutes. Invert cakes onto cooling racks.

Thoughts
The cake is very moist and tender and is flavored quite well. Very dark from the dark cocoa and very very chocolate without being too sweet.

The Presence

As she rode the lawnmower in the twilight under the mimosa trees in the backyard of her childhood home, she was vaguely reminiscing about her summers in this same yard when she was a child and she drove happily along. As she turned the corner and faced the old blue pickup truck she felt a presence watching her. Without hearing a voice or seeing a face, she knew who it was.

She continued driving, trying to beat the darkness, and her mind turned from happy memories to past regrets.

"I miss you," she thought, "I'm sorry for all the time I could have spent with you but didn't. I wish you were still here."

The presence faded and she vaguely wondered if it had gone to visit the house next door.

Nature Lovers?

You just have to admire the people who come out to enjoy natural treasures...

Seriously, people, CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELVES! This is disgusting!

This was taken at one of the parking areas around Catfish Lake in the Croatan National Forest.

Croatan National Forest - Catfish Lake

This was the last place we explored in the Croatan National Forest this past weekend. We still need to explore some of the hiking trails and such.

Croatan National Forest - Flanners Beach on the Neuse River

We found a nice little beach off of Highway 70 in Havelock that is on the Neuse River and part of the Croatan National Forest. There were several dogs running around off-leash and we think it could be a good place to take the dogs, at least Angus and Brogan, for right now, to get the accustomed to playing in the water. It also has a cool forest view!

Two Dogs, One Bone

Sometimes Angus and Murphy will chew on or play with the same toy.

Picture of the Day: Nearby Haunted House?

There are some conflicting accounts about whether or not this house is haunted but it's fun to speculate! This is a few miles from our house.

(The picture is not great because we were stopped at a stop sign with someone directly behind us...)

Here are some stories I found about it:

Get Out! (there is music here imbedded in the site)
Hearing Noises in the Night (JDNews)
Home Sweet Home or Haunted House (JDNews)

Picture of the Day: Croatan National Forest - Great Lake Area

I've been on hiatus a couple of days with my blog entries. I've been engrossed in a book which I just finished yesterday and didn't even think about this blog.

Anyway, Matthew and I drove around in the Croatan National Forest today to find Great Lake. It is only about 12 miles from our house and it's very pretty. However, we forgot to bring insect repellent and almost got eaten alive by the deer flies.

Picture of the Day: Rain! Rain! Come and Stay!

It started raining pretty hard when I was at the office today. It continued raining for about an hour.

Unfortunately, when I got home, I found out we'd only had a few sprinkles. We need some rain so badly! The fields of corn on our street are all stunted and brown.

The Best Advice I Ever Received

Money!

A long time ago, when I was first joining the workforce, my dad told me not to worry so much about the money a job was going to pay. He said that if I did my best and worked hard, the money would come. So far, I feel like this has held true with any job that I have had.

Picture of the Day: Hammock Beach State Park

Matthew and I took the ferry out to Hammock's Beach State Park yesterday afternoon and walked around a little bit. It costs $5 per person to ride the ferry (round trip) and the ride each way takes 15 - 20 minutes. The water was calm on both trips and the view was very pretty. It takes another 15 minutes or so to walk to the beach which is very clean but we didn't get to stay long because we had to catch the last ferry back.

This is supposedly a good place for surf fishing and seashell hunting.

Click on the thumbnails for larger pictures.

Missing Plinkys?

I haven't answered my Plinky questions in two days because I just can't think of an answer...


Sunday's question was, "In the third-person voice, tell a story about an awkward school experience." I've either blocked out all awkward experiences or don't wish to relive/reveal them...


Today's question was, "If you could go back and relive one day of your life, which one would it be? And why?" I just don't know. I can't think of one day that was so bad that I'd want to go back and do it over. I guess I'm too much of an optimist and try to find the bright side of just about everything.


So, instead of Plinkies, today you get an update, work is good, home is good. I was on vacation for a week during the week of my birthday. My mom was here the whole week and my dad was here for part of it so I had a good time hanging out with them. Of course, when I got back to work, I learned that I had been really really really missed...


On the diet front, things haven't been so great. Matthew and I started back on Phase 1 of The South Beach Diet yesterday. We did okay for two out of three meals but then we found a place in Cape Carteret with Newcastle Brown Ale on draft, and, well...

Picture of the Day: Rainbow

Yay, it finally rained a bit.

Picture of the Day: Fun with Hair Clips

What have I done to deserve this?

*sigh*

What are you people doing?

The Scariest Moment Came When

Garden cross spider

The truck hadn't been running in quite some time so she was excited to take a ride in it with her husband even though they were only going to her parents' house. As her husband was starting to back out of the driveway, she noticed some movement from the sun visor. Down came a scary spider and she jumped towards her husband to get away from it causing him to slam on the brakes and yell at her. The spider got away and she trembled for the rest of the drive not knowing where the scary thing had gone.

The Most Confusing Part of Life Is...

The part of life that confuses me the most is how we expect young people to decide their future in high school or early college with little to no life or work experience to back up their decision.

Case in point, when I was looking at colleges and majors back in high school, my dad suggested I think of business and I scoffed at him. I wanted to be a teacher. Had ALWAYS wanted to be a teacher and that is what I first went to college to be. After an unforeseen failure to get accepted into the School of Education at the university I was attending, I had no focus or drive to figure out something else. I had never had more than a summer job that would not have led to a career and had no idea what I was supposed to do.

I dropped out of school and got a job. I ended up working for a business, an airline, as a receptionist working with a human resources department. I loved it! I loved every aspect of human resources. I never would have chosen that as a career path without this hands-on experience.

So, three years after dropping out of school and three years working with human resources, I started school to finish my degree with a major in business and graduated two years later.

Picture of the Day: Why...

...are you making that weird noise, Mama?

Picture of the Day: Silly Co-workers

While I was out on vacation, on my birthday, to be exact, I posted this status on Facebook:

What a morning! All three dogs have misbehaved and the "nice" rooster attacked me.

So, my wonderful co-workers came up with this "story":