My family gets together every two or three months to celebrate the two or three Birthdays that took place most recently. Yesterday we were getting together for my Dad's, Clark's and mine. My Mom had mentioned that she still hadn't gotten around to making my Dad his traditional German Chocolate Birthday Cake (His B.day was Jan. 21) so I said I would make him one and bring it to the party.
I have made pound cakes before, but that's the only "from scratch" cake baking I have ever done and it was several years ago. Never made a German Chocolate cake, nor did I have the the three round pans traditionally used. I figured I would use my PC mini bunt stone (it makes 6 mini bunt cakes - so cute!!) I guess I should mention that this was the very first time I had ever gotten around to using that stone and further more, I had never used a stone for cake baking at all!
In the not necessarily clever words of (I just Googled to find out) singer Dierks Bentley "What was I thinkin!?"*
Okay, so to start things off on a completely terrible foot I totally forgot that I was planning to make this cake until Friday evening! After some domestic dramatics I finally set off to the local market (Wal-Mart) (that we HAD a market! *lament*) to gather the necessaries for said cake baking.
I came home and set about taking as long as I possibly could to butter and flower the mini bunt stone. The butter was very difficult to squish around in all the nooks and crannies and the flower caked itself about and would not shake loose to my satisfaction, despite my nearly breaking the stone pounding it about on various hard surfaces. I messed it up the first time round and had to wash the pan out and start over; I finally resorted to blowing the excess flower out. Needless to say, about 30 minutes later and with flower covering much of my body, in my eyes and nose and all over the floor, I finally had the pesky stone ready. (You can ask Clark or Elisabeth ... if there is a longer more time consuming way to do ANYthing ... I will gleefully set about seeing if I can find an even LONGER more MORE time consuming way of doing it...)
So then I put the ingredients together in a reasonable amount of time, and the batter turned out beautiful! I was so pleased with it. The directions didn't say how full to fill the pans, and for SOME reason I seemed to remember my Mom filling them kind of high and that they didn't rise a whole lot. So, it was about 1:30 AM when I finally deposited the stone filled with lovely German Chocolate cake batter in the oven. I started getting the icing ingredients gathered and peeked in on the cake about 10 minute into baking. The batter was barely cooked but looked well on it's way to rising out of the pan too high. I thought to myself, "I can just trim them around the edge if they billow out too much..."
Five minutes later I heard "Tssssss" ... "Tsssss" ... "Tsssss" and upon inspection found that cake batter was all over the top of the pan and spilling over the edges onto the oven floor below. I quickly got a cookie sheet and put it on the rack below to catch the drips. I thought maybe it was finished rising and could just cook like this. I closed the door and tried to deny that there was a monster ebbing to life within the cook thing.
It would not be denied.
Smoke started seeping out of the eyes on the range. I opened the doors and smoke came billowing out. Batter was now over flowing the cookie sheet as well and there was a ball off flaming batter on the bottom of the oven! Thankfully my previous experiences in my teen years with "the flaming tortilla in the oven", "the flaming vacuum cleaner" and the "flaming skillet of butter" had prepared me for this "flaming ball of batter" and I did not freak out but quickly turned off the oven and blew it out.
I stood there staring at this billowing mass of half baked cake batter, cascading down to the bottom of the oven sizzling and popping, wore out and heart sick. The kitchen, living room and dining room were all filled with smoke and I hoped and PRAYED Clark did not wake up and come down stairs! If he even opened the door at the top of the stairs a poof of smoke would have danced upon his face! It would have been so embarrassing and would only confirm his fears that one day I will burn the house down! lol I was sure these cakes were a lost cause and I should just throw the whole mess out. But I just couldn't bring myself to do it, and even though my feet and back were aching, I was determined to salvage the situation.
I cleaned out the bottom of the oven and took a spatula and scraped off all the extra batter into the cookie sheet. I was pretty sure they wouldn't do much more rising and should be fine. So after about 15 minute of mid-baking pause-for-clean-up I had the oven back on and the cake baking once more. While they finished cooking I opened windows and doors trying to air out the smoke. I didn't know if I should have been worried or relieved that the smoke alarm had not come on!
When they were done it was well after 2:00 AM and I just left them in the stone and covered them and went to bed. I would see if they would come out of the pan in one piece and if they were edible in the morning! As it turned out, only one cake didn't come out in one piece, the other were fine. Clark and I ate the messed up one and it was very good! Clark doesn't even care for German Chocolate cake, and he said it was very good! So I made the icing and we set out for my family's house.
My Dad really liked his little cakes and said they did taste a little different, but they were just as good.
And they were eaten Happily Ever After(all)!
*Disclaimer: I personally don't care that much for most country music and the only reason I am familiar with this song is because we play Country on our radio station and I have to keep it on all day at work so I can hear if we go off the air. The most notable thing I know Dierks Bentley from is the random box of Cracker Jacks we got in the mail that had a sticker with his name on it.
Wow, I thought I got my tablet in October or something; it was August! Hmm. Well, I finally installed it and ... I am agog! It is amazing. It came with some really cool software that allows you to paint digitally! You can choose different paints (oil, acrylic and watercolor), chalks and pencils! The pen responds to pressure, and you can also turn photos into paintings. I have "painted" an orange flower on a brown background and I would say it turned out decent. I hope to get much better though.
I have been working on websites lately. I recently rediscovered www.freewebs.com (I used to have a website back in 2000 (or so) with them but it was pretty basic at that time and I let it fall by the way.) So I found it again and the site it much nicer now. I made a website for my handcrafted goods located at www.TheShadyHollow.webs.com and designed another site for a friend: www.ZephyrChildcare.webs.com and am currently working on building a site for the radio station, so needless to say I have really been enjoying that!
I had plans of making wire trees for the Christmas season shaped like Christmas trees made with silver wire and green or silver bugle beads. The design didn't work out so well and I think I'm going to pass up on that idea. Oh well. Right now I am making some trees for family members who have or had recent Birthdays. The one I am working on right now looks like it is going to turn out quite nice! I will post pictures soon. As far as selling my trees; I have a couple posted on my website and I am trying to decide whether or not I should try selling them on Ebay or www.etsy.com. The latter is like Ebay but it is set up specifically for handmade stuff so I think I'm leaning toward Etsy. My latest tree:
As for my crochet endeavors... I recently finished a blanket for a friend, who is expecting a boy in just a couple of weeks, along with a matching pair of booties! I am almost finished with an afghan for her two year old daughter as well. I will post pictures of those things when I am done with them. I have lots of other things I want to crochet and not enough time to make them all! Learning to crochet was one of the best things I ever got around to doing! I don't know why I didn't learn sooner.
Well, that's all for now. Peace, love and grapes!
P.S. Here is my latest facebook graffiti app drawing:
"Femme Fatale"
And this is the Orange Flower painting I did with the software I was talking about:
So, I finally got a tablet but it looks like I'm going to have to wait until we get a new computer to be able to use it. Our computer is on the fritz. Bleh. I can't wait to use it. I think I will be able to do a lot better on the graffiti when I get the hang of it. And it comes with some software, so I can't wait to find out what all I can do with that!
I've been reading a lot of comics lately. I'm really enjoying that. So far I've only been reading Batman stuff, but I'm about to start in on some Final Crisis and Justice League stuff. It should be interesting.
The weather around here has been so nice due to Hurricane Fay. It's been pretty cool and windy and we're getting some rain! August has been much nicer this year.
I've made more wire trees and hope to sell a couple of them soon. It's been difficult mounting them on bases; still have to find the right glue.
We are still enjoying the house, I don't think we will ever stop enjoying it! It's so nice to have space.
Oh, Elisabeth and Joseph's little daughter was born August 3rd at 10:06 AM. Her name is Reese and she is VERY cute! I can't wait to get to see her again.
Clark and I are watching the show "Heroes" and it has been pretty good so far. I think we are about halfway into the 2nd season now. I'm glad we ended up watching it.
So, it was about 1:30 AM when I finally deposited the stone filled with lovely German Chocolate cake batter in the oven. I started getting the icing ingredients gathered and peeked in on the cake about 10 minute into baking. The batter was barely cooked but looked well on it's way to rising out of the pan too high. I thought to myself, "I can just trim them around the edge if they billow out too much..." 
I opened the doors and smoke came billowing out. 
Batter was now over flowing the cookie sheet as well and there was a ball off flaming batter on the bottom of the oven! 
Thankfully my previous experiences in my teen years with "the flaming tortilla in the oven", "the flaming vacuum cleaner" and the "flaming skillet of butter" 
So I made the icing and we set out for my family's house.
I will post pictures soon. As far as selling my trees; I have a couple posted on my website and I am trying to decide whether or not I should try selling them on Ebay or 
Our computer is on the fritz. Bleh. I can't wait to use it. I think I will be able to do a lot better on the graffiti when I get the hang of it. 
And it comes with some software, so I can't wait to find out what all I can do with that!
