Hershey's Old Fashioned Triple Layer Chocolate Cake

We are celebrating 4 birthday's in the family tomorrow with a giant fondue and 4 desserts, one for each birthday guy or girls..Just finished Dave's dessert of choice, has it every year..unless I don't feel like making it for him. This year he was a good boy most the time so I made him a triple layer Hershey's chocolate cake.   I made it in 3 layers because I only have smaller rounds and not the 2 larger sizes called for.  They worked perfectly.  I believe they are 8 inch...Here is a picture of his cake!  I may have posted the recipe before, but will check and if not post it soon.

 

Guess I haven't ever posted the recipe for here it is in case you use cocoa powder other than Hershey's.  I believe this recipe and frosting are on that can still..

 

HERSHEY'S COCOA DEEP DARK CHOCOLATE CAKE

 

 

2 cups sugar

1-3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1/2 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup boiling water

 

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour (I spray the pans with Pam spray and then cut parchment paper rounds and put them in the bottom of each round pan and spray it lightly again so it doesn't stick to the bottom) 2 round pans 9 x 1-1/2 inches, or 3 eight inch pans, or a rectangle 13 x 9 inch pan.  In a large mixer bowl combine dry ingredients.  Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla.  Beat on medium speed 2 minutes.  Remove from mixer.  Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin).  Pour into prepared pans (not over half full on the 8 inch pans so when it rises it stays in the pans) and bake 30-35 minutes for round pans, 35-40 minutes for rectangular pan, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool cake in rounds for 10 minutes; remove from pans sliding knife around the outside perimeter first. Do not remove cake if baked in rectangular pan.  Frost with one-bowl buttercream frosting or frosting of your choice. 

 

 

ONE BOWL BUTTERCREAM FROSTING

 

6 softened Tablespoons of butter

Cocoa- 1/3 cup for light flavor, 1/2 cup for medium flavor or 3/4 cup for dark flavor-I use dark..

2-2/3 cup powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

In small mixe bowl cream butter.  Add cocoa and confectioners (powdered) sugar alternately with milk, beat to spreading consistency (additional milk can be added if too thick-add small amounts at a time).  Blend in vanilla.  

 

MILO NEEDS A COSTUME

My granddaughter, Sam, is going to be Snoopy and Grandson, Kyle, Charlie Brown for Halloween this year, so they asked me if I could make their dog, Milo, into Woodstock  Guess what, they don't have many Woodstock for dogs costumes out there to get ideas from, so I looked up pictures of the little yellow bird and came up with this..I am hoping it will pass!  It's extra hard since he doesn't live here and so got measures from my daughter, Shellie, and bought some yellow fleece and went for it.  Here is the final result.  If I get them to send me a picture I will post it later with the trio!  (and they say dogs can't fly..)

Chicken Soup with White and Wild Rice

There is a chance of snow during the night tonight and it's rainy and cold today, so, since I had a whole chicken in my freezer, I thought I'd make a pot of soup for supper..Joe said he'd pick some up and Dave can make a grilled cheese if he wants one or eat his crackers and butter with it.  I will just eat it the way it is and be totally happy!  Joe and I are trying to lose some pounds, so you may be seeing less baking and more soups and lower cal meals on here coming up for a while..plus I love soups this time of year anyway and there are a million good ones out there!  I am not going to repost the whole recipe..if  you do a search above and write in soup it should come up with the recipe I posted for chicken noodle soup and this is basically the same except I had a box of Uncle Ben's white and wild rice in my cupboard, so I reserved the seasoning packet to use another time on something and dumped in the box of rice..it seems to be the perfect amount. 

BLUEBERRY YUM YUM DESSERT

I've been looking for a few days for different dessert recipes for a little party we are having at work tomorrow.  I said I'd bring the dessert and others are doing other things..It's a belated party and hopefully will be a surprise so I can't tell who it's for on here.  Anyway, I came up with 3 choices and bought ingredients for all three, but settled on this one because it just looked so darn good to me!  It pretty much did it for me with using Lorna Doone cookies in the crust and topping, and I liked the idea of fruity things since we usually have chocolate something or another for these events.   I used two pie fillings half blueberry and half peach in mine so they had a choice and instead of using the pecans in the middle, I put them on top with the crushed cookies.  Other than that I did it the same as the recipe.  The filling is really good, not sour at all like some cream cheese fillings.  As long as you have  your ingredients at room temp it will go fast and easy for you!  Here's the link to the recipe:
http://southernbite.com/2014/05/27/blueberry-yum-yum/

Baby Aiden's baby blanket finally finished!

Ta Da!  I told myself when I went to bed last nght that I was going to get up and do nothing else but finish this baby afghan before Aiden went to college.  I did decide mid morning though that it was probably a good idea to get dressed, comb my hair and brush my teeth when someone decided to come and knock on my door and I looked like I was dressed in a Halloween costume with my hair really wacked out and in my housecoat. BUT, I did stick to it and finished the last of the crocheting and wove in the zillions of ends!  I am so happy to have one of my 4 unfinished projects done and I am sure his mom will appreciate having it with the weather turning chillier and chillier besides.  Tomorrow I have to make a costume for my granddog, Milo, and sew a belly on Alana's deer costume for Halloween..(her friends and her are going as a herd of deer with a hunter.  If she sends me a picture I will post it later-I think they will look adorable.  Anyway, here is the latest and greatest completion!

Yet another step done on THE ROOM!

Happy girl today! Dave got the floor down in the cave! Now to do a little cleanup, get the switchplates on, and get the room back together..he said it went together really well, but when I said we should extend it into the rec room, he was not excited at all and looked like he was going to take the high bridge, so that might have to wait...

New Fallish Snack Mix to Try.

This recipe came up on Facebook as a popular post from Pinterest a week or so ago, so I printed it off, picked up the ingredients I needed and figured one day I'd try it since it looked pretty good.  Today I finished painting the second coat on my ever lasting bedroom project and had some time left in the day, so threw it in the crockpot.  I did 4 cups of Rice Chex and 4 cups of Graham cereal and omitted the broken up graham crackers.  I bought a can of mixed honey nuts and dumped the whole thing in.  I also added the 2 Tablespoons of pumpkin pie spice and it's perfect to me.  When it cooled enough I added about half a bag of candy corn to brighten it up and I actually like the taste even more with one of those with a some of it in my mouth.  Alana said she liked dried cranberries so that's what I threw in there, but personally I think I'd leave them out next time. they are okay, but I don't think they enhance it at all.  Alana, the middle grandkid, is having her friend birthday party this weekend, so I will be giving it to her for that, otherwise I would be constantly picking at it, I can already tell.  I definitely thought it was great for this time of year..the link to the recipe is  http://www.averiecooks.com/.../crock-pot-maple.../print/

Treats just because

I haven't baked or cooked a meal in a week.  I've been too busy trying to get projects done and work and survive.  I was feeling kind of guilty..another night of throwing fast food on the counter for supper just wasn't going to fly in my book or Dave's, so I cooked a quick spaghetti supper and then put together the Toll House cookie recipe on the back of the mini chips (add some chopped pecans) and am baking them for a surprise for the old man when he comes in the house tonight.  He loves cookies and milk before bedtime!  I had to taste test, of course, so made myself an ice cream sandwich and shoved it in because it tasted so good to me.  Back to the oven to get another batch out!

Ongoing basement cave room completion..

okay, progress made today..walls sanded, woodwork taped, ceiling painted, walls first coat put on. One more coat and I turn the job over to dave to put down the plank flooring!! only 3-1/2 months since I started the job..we'll see how long it is until the room is ready to have sleepovers in. my mind has turned to decorating at this point..good sign! Wednesday I should get the second coat on..tonight it's prep for work with more laundry to finish up. I ended up with almost a white color, but turns a tint of gray when dry..although I am proud of the wall prep I did after that wallpaper mess there are still some slight imperfections here and there and I thought it would hide them better and also lighten up the cave room.  The ceiling looks really white, but this picture sure doesn't show that..final picture soon I hope