Dark Chocolate Cake

This is my favorite chewy, chocolate cake. It was delicious!

INGREDIENTS: 

2C Flour

1 1/3 C Sugar

1 ½ t baking soda

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

( I couldnt find unsweetened..or sweetened...just plain cocoa)

1/2C melted butter

1 ½ C hot water

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C sauerkraut (pureed until smooth)

1 tsp. cocoa

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven 350 degrees

Coat Bundt pan with cooking spray

Mix together flour, sugar, baking soda and 2/3 C cocoa

Add melted butter, hot water and vanilla. Mix well

Add sauerkraut and blend thoroughly

Pour into pan and bake until tester inserted in center of cake comes out clean…50-55 minutes

Cool cake in pan for 20 min. and then turn out on to baking rack to cool completely

Sprinkle cake with 1 tsp cocoa before slicing.

Don't mention the sauerkraut until it's been tasted !

Apple Crisp

4-6 good size apples, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup softened butter or margarine

3/4 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup flour

1 tsp cinnamon

Peel and slice apples and put in casserole dish. Mix butter and brown sugar together and then mix in the rest of the ingredients. Crumble over apples. Bake at 350F for 35-340 minutes or until golden. Serve with ice cream or whip cream

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 Cup. Margarine

1 Cup. Brown Sugar

1 Cup. White Sugar

Cream these 3 and then add:

2 beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Mix until blended all together.

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

Sift and add to already mixed ingredients. Once blended add:

3 Cups oatmeal

1- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips

Stir the oatmeal and chocolate chips in well. Shape into balls and spread evenly on cookie sheet. Make sure to line your sheet with something so the cookies don't stick.

Bake at 375 fro 10 -12 minutes.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/2 cup applesauce

2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cup pumpkin

4 eggs

2 cup flour

2 tsp baking soda

3 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon (or more)

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

dash of cloves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine sugar and the oil. Blend in the vanilla, applesauce and the pumpkin. Beat in eggs, one at a time.

Mix the dry ingredients together and beat into the pumpkin mixture until smooth.

Bake in a greased 9X13 pan or the batter makes great muffins or smaller size cakes too. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

Cool then ice with cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Beat 8 oz softened cream cheese with 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 tsp vanilla until smooth. Add 3 to 4 cups of powdered confectioners sugar ( I like it sweeter and add 4 cups) -- beat for a few minutes until creamy.

Heart In A Cupcake!

For the cupcakes and the hearts you’ll need:

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/2 c. granulated sugar

3 eggs

2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. baking soda

the seeds from half a vanilla bean

1/4 t. salt

2 1/2 c. flour

1 1/3 c. whole milk

red food coloring 

For the Laffy Taffy buttercream you’ll need:

10 pieces of strawberry Laffy Taffy candy

2 T. heavy cream

2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature

2 c. powdered sugar 

Directions: 

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees (F). 

Mix the butter and sugar together at medium speed for about 90 seconds, until fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing until creamy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl so everything gets well combined. Add the baking soda, baking powder, salt, and vanilla and mix until the batter is smooth. Finally, alternate between the flour and milk, beating on med-high speed until the batter is light and creamy.

Pour a little more than 1/3 of the batter (about a cup and a half) into a smaller bowl. Add red food coloring until you get your desired pink or red color. Pour the batter into a non-stick (or lightly greased) 8x8 baking pan and bake for about 20 minutes until the edges of the cake start to turn golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Allow to cool completely (to speed up the process, I stuck in in the fridge).

Once the sheet cake is cool, loosen the edges away from the pan with a knife and then invert the pan onto a cutting board. Use a small heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out a dozen cake hearts that are small enough to fit into an average-sized cupcake pan.

Spoon two heaping tablespoons of the remaining batter into paper-lined cupcake tins, so they’re about half-full. Put one heart into each tin and press it point down into the batter. Keep all the hearts facing forward in the pan. Cover with another teaspoon of batter and bake for 24 minutes.

Allow the cupcakes to cool before frosting.

Here’s the tricky part—you’ll have to keep the cupcakes facing forward so you get the right cross-section of the heart when you cut or bite into the cupcake (to get the full heart effect). So keep all the cupcakes facing forward as you move them from the cupcake tin to a cookie sheet for cooling/frosting. After frosting, put heart candy on them (or some other decoration) that can also face forward so you know which way to cut the cupcake in order to see the heart shape inside (if you cut the heart in the wrong direction you just get a rectangle shape—not very romantic!).

For the buttercream, melt the taffy and the heavy cream together in a small bowl for one minute on high, stirring every 20 seconds. Stir the mixture together until it’s smooth, then stick it in the fridge so it cools a bit (the cream will keep it from hardening). 

In a mixing bowl, whip the butter for 30 seconds until it’s smooth. Add the powdered sugar, a half cup at a time, whipping until fluffy. Finally, with the mixer on medium-low, drizzle in the melted and cooled taffy mixture. When it’s all in, turn the mixer up to high and whip the frosting until it’s fluffy. If you’d like, add a little pink or red food coloring to get the desired shade. Then frost! 

{recipe copied from here} 

Zebra Cake

      Ingredients

• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup milk (whole, 2% or 1%)
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons Double Dutched Dark Cocoa

Directions

1) Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly spray a 9" x 2" round baking pan with cooking spray. Line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment, and spritz again. Set the pan aside.

2) In the bowl of your mixer, blend the sugar and eggs until lightened, about 2 minutes. On low speed blend in the oil, milk and vanilla until well combined and smooth.

3) In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to remove any lumps. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients. Combine on medium speed 1-2 minutes or until the batter is smooth and lump free. Be sure to scrape down the bowl halfway through mixing.

4) Remove 2 cups of the vanilla batter and place it in the measure you used for the liquid ingredients. Sift the cocoa over this batter, and stir well to combine. Be sure to use a sifter to avoid cocoa lumps in the batter.

5) Now for the stripes. Spoon about 3 tablespoons of vanilla batter into the center of the cake pan. Next, spoon 3 tablespoons of the chocolate batter into the center of the vanilla batter. This causes the vanilla batter to spread out. Continue to alternate batters, in bulls-eye fashion until all batter is used. You will now have thin rings of each batter on the outer edges of the pan, thicker rings towards the center.

6) Bake the cake in the center of the preheated oven for 35-45 minutes, or until the cake is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling. Frost as desired.