Waffles or Pancakes?

On a snowy delayed school morning I pretend like it is a weekend and make a hot breakfast for the boys.  "Waffles or Pancakes?" I call out, and of course one asks for waffles and the other pancakes.  Now because I am addicted to kitchen "gadgets", gadgets being all things kitchen related, I then offer "What about Waffle Pancakes?".

A few years ago a browse through Williams & Sonoma led me to a pan I thought was so clever, a Waffle Pancake Pan.  You use any pancake batter to make waffle looking pancakes, it comes in handy when we can't agree on which to have.  Makes everyone happy!

Black Russian Cake

I can see how people tend to pack on the pounds during the snowy winter months, I feel the need to do some baking on a snowy day, followed up with eating of what I have baked on a snowy day.  With another pending storm today I broke out the Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor as I had seen a recipe a few weeks ago that I had been itching to try.

A Black Russian is a cocktail made from Vodka and Kahlua, well the cake is no different.

Here are the rest of the ingredients:

Black Russian Cake
1 yellow cake mix
1 large package (5.9 oz) instant chocolate pudding
1 cup oil
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
1/4 cup Kahlua
1/4 cup Vodka

Glaze
1/2 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup Kahlua

Preheat over to 350 degrees and prepare a bundt pan with cooking spray or shortening.  Place all of the cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl.  Mix until all ingredients are well blended.  Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 60 minutes.

While the cake is baking prepare the glaze.  Once the cake is removed from the oven cool in pan for about 10 minutes and remove from pan.  Slowly pour the glaze over the warm cake.  Enjoy!

The final product was delicious.  The cake was so moist, and the alcohol was not over powering.  This will definately be made again.

Nugget Boxes

I was never much of a YouTube watcher until I discovered craft videos, who knew there was that much excitement out there.  Okay, so they may not be that exciting but there is allot of talented people out there with some really clever ideas.  Now the nugget box was one I had seen years ago so after a search of YouTube for a nugget box I came across Fabulously Artsy, she is funny and gives clear directions.  In the video she makes she makes a large boxes holding more nuggets than I had intended, so I used the templates from Split Coast Stampers.

At the end of the month I am getting together with some girlfriends to make these as valentines gifts for the kids to give out to their friends.  These were practice boxes so I am ready when the gals arrive.

On a completely separate note, I want to give Pam a shout-out for helping me with the links.  In case you didn't notice this one had two links.  Cheers!

Heart Cake Throwdown

I felt like I was on an episode of the Throwdown! with Bobby Flay, but mine was a Donna Buckley challenge. She threw it out there and I knew I had to give it my best attempt. The directions came from this webpage, http://iammommy.typepad.com/i_am_baker/2010/02/heart-cake-tutorial.html, and they gave a blow by blow direction. (P.S. I still have not figured out how to post a link on a blog, may make that a goal for 2011)

I didn't use the cake recipe provided on that blog, only because I had a bunch of cake mixes on hand I would have had to gone to the supermarket for alot of the required ingredients. This cake was more about the design than the cake to me. This cake actually required three different cakes, a red one for the heart and four white layers. They all needed to be baked and cooled completely. That is when the real fun began.

I read the directions step by step, as I sometimes miss a step here and there on regular occassions, but this one was a challenge and I needed to do my best. Plus it was so time consuming I may have smashed the cake if it didn't look good when I was done.



I had to make two 2-layered cakes. Each layer got cut at an angle, as if you were cutting a cone from each layer. One "cone" got filled with the mashed red cake, and the other "cone" got refilled slightly with an inverted cone and filled.



I was nervous about flipping one of the layers upside down to top the cake but that went better than expected. Then the cake got frosted and went into the fridge for the night. I was anxious to cut it, so we cut it after breakfast and ate it in our pajamas.



This was my official taste tester, and he approved.