Chocolate Fudge cake with Marshmallow Icing

I was about 12 years old when Mama had mailed in some stuff to some place and in return received some paper back cookbooks…

I poured over those, again and again… each and every picture made me want to run to the kitchen and use up all of Mama’s butter…. ( or Papa’s butter, however you wanted to look at it) blueberry muffins, popovers, and various other baked goods, that I promptly  scarffed down once the timer went off.

But no matter how many times I made a recipe… they could never look like the picture…

Even now.. I get a little ticked when I work all day on a cake or other baked goods and it comes out looking like a 12 year old made it.. or 5 year old… depends on how foul I feel.

My latest kick in the face on how elementary my food looks, was when I was trolling in a certain site called foodgawker…. Apparently  you submit your recipe/blog and it can get more hits, meanwhile troll around and look at other people’s blogs/recipes…. Problem is…..

They ALL look like from the same person…  these people must spend hours setting up the back ground to take a picture of one cookie..  and none of them look like they even thought about using flash... as they set up their slice of cake on a table made from walnut….

Makes my burnt Formica countertop look like… well… burnt formica…

Oh well…

I can only hope their food tastes like crap.

Here is a cake that doesn’t taste like crap… in fact this is my go to recipe for chocolate cake…

Sugar, flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl

Coco powder, butter, and water in a pot… bring to a boil or heat till butter is melted

Add your dry ingredients

Add some eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla

Prepare you pans… for this time I used two round cake pans… that I have oiled and dusted with coco powder.. don’t skip that step.. the dusting part.. other wise your cake will come out of the pans in chunks, and that isn’t very pretty…

I made a marshmallow icing this time, added some pastel psychedelic colors and walla!! An ugly cake!

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Recipe:

1 cup (2 sticks) butter 

1/2 cup  unsweetened  cocoa

1 cup hot water

2 cups All-Purpose Flour

2 cups  sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" cake pan. ( or pan of your liking.. bundt, two round pans . Just make sure you adjust your time accordingly.. it took 25 minutes for the round pans)

Melt the butter; stir in the cocoa and hot water. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, soda and salt. Pour the cocoa mixture over the dry ingredients, stirring to blend. Beat in the buttermilk, eggs and vanilla.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 30 minutes, or until it tests done. (You'll smell the chocolate aroma, and the cake will begin to pull away from the edge of the pan). Remove from the oven and cool on a rack

Marshmallow Frosting:

Yield: 4-1/2 cups
ingredients
1  1/2 Cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1  16 ounces jars marshmallow crème
1 Cup powdered sugar


Directions

In very large mixing bowl beat softened butter with mixer on medium for 30 seconds, until light and fluffy. Add marshmallow creme. Beat until smooth, scraping sides of bowl. Add powdered sugar; beat until light and fluffy. Frost Cake. To store frosting, cover and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Bring to room temperature before frosting cake. Makes 3 cups.

Becoming my Mama, one day at a time...

I am almost my mother….

The one thing I remember about getting out of the hollow and going to town was the frantic clean-up we had to do BEFORE we left the house…

Why did we have to wash dishes??

Why did the floors have to be swept?

Who cares if there is clutter all over the floor! We wouldn’t be there!!

So naturally, as normal ingrates do, we managed to irritate Mama even before we got to the store…

So when I do go anywhere I try and have no dirty dishes, laundry picked up… and if someone were to come home with me there would be a path to the toilet.

And in tune the ingrates chime in… “why wash dishes?”, who cares if there is three feet of sanddirtleavestwigstoycarsdirtysocks on the floor?

Going to church is no different…  

Usually I am up before the rooster next door… cooking.. while everyone is still sleeping…

Washing up all the dishes…. While everyone is still sleeping…

Cleaning…. While… yeah.. you guessed it…. Everyone is still sleeping

It is awesome!! Next time you should try it..

So by the time they all wake up I have worked myself into such a foul mood, that reaching octaves that only dogs can hear, is an ease ….

Puff Pastry

I feel so French….

 I am even thinking about letting my mustache grow out and have those little swirly ends...

Even more I feel like I stuck it once again to Pepperidge farm….

That itself is worth my arms feeling like they are going to fall off…  

Every time I came across a recipe that called for puff pastry I avoided it.. not that I disliked the pastry… it was more to the fact I disliked spending any amount of money on something I was viewing as a extravagant expense.

And when I felt adventurous I   would go trolling for recipes on how to make it.. “ lots of work” , “ takes forever to make” , “ be prepared to be all day making it” .  

The lazy person inside of me was screaming, “NO!”

Then last night as I was recipe browsing  for brunch idea’s… puff pastry was one that kept popping up… and I just felt like I could do it…

It was really just the fact I was majorly sleep deprived, I tend to make some stupid decisions when there is bags under my eyes.

So I made it…

I had a Silence of the lambs moment …After the final roll of this dough I wanted to wear it… it was so smooth and silky….

Butter…. I slice the sticks length wise like so…

With another piece of wax paper laid on top I flattened the butter to about ½ inch thick.  Stick that in the freezer for about 20 minutes

In mixing bowl add your flour and salt

With the dough hook add the water

Mix until the sides of your bowl is clean…

In a floured counter pat our your disk of “dough” to a large flat round thingy… let rest 10 minutes…

Get side tracked with the cake you are making and everything ends up resting for about ten minutes more…

Roll out your dough to a large rectangle. Add your disk of butter

Add fold the dough over the sides of the butter like so…

Roll out… carefully.. with this first round of rolling, your butter can pop out, just make sure you smoosh the dough back around it before you roll over it.. we want the butter IN the dough… not out.

Fold in thirds and roll out again..

Again in thirds , I poked two dimples on the pastry so I would know what number I was at with the rolling… since I had 15 irons in the fire and didn’t want to lose track

Continue two more times.. each time rolling out, folding, rolling out, folding.

I am making a Danish ring ( sticks out tongue at panera bread) for brunch so I just trimmed off the ends of the dough to bake some… 

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Puff Pastry


Ingredients:


2-1/2 cups bread flour
1-1/2 teaspoons salt
1 cup water, or as needed
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature




Directions:
Mix the flour and salt together in a large bowl or in the bowl of a stand mixer that is fitted with a dough hook. Gradually stir in water until the dough holds together enough to clean the sides of the bowl. You may not need the full amount of water. Shape into a flat ball, and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes.
Place the butter between two pieces of plastic wrap and pound into a flat disc using a rolling pin or other heavy object. Refrigerate until firm, about 20 minutes.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Place the disc of chilled butter in the center and fold the two ends over it so that it is completely encased in dough. Roll out the dough again, taking care not to let the butter break through the dough, to about 1/2 inch thickness. Fold into thirds. This is the first ''turn''. Rotate the dough 90 degrees and roll out into a rectangle again. Fold into thirds. By this time the butter is starting to warm up. Place the dough on a baking sheet and mark it with two pokes from your finger (two turns). Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Repeat this rolling, folding and turning two more times, then refrigerate until firm. Repeat two more times for a total of 6 ''turns''. Wrap and refrigerate. The dough is now ready to roll out and use in any recipe calling for puff pastry. Roll the dough out as thin as 1/4 inch to make pastries. Bake in a preheated oven of at least 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) to get the maximum puff from your pastry