Totally NOT Papercraft Related: Michigan State University Moves to the Final Four!!

Happy Dance!! Happy dance!!!  My Michigan State Spartans are on their way to the final four!!  I just had to share - Donna Mundinger and I are both celebrating tonight.... We MSU Alumni take our basketball seriously - as does Sparty - just look at the photo above.

Sparty is quite the guy!  Look at him rallying the team during a game!!  I love Sparty... but then he is the ULTIMATE Spartan! 

Too funny - I just checked Donna's blog to copy the link to her site - and she too has a MSU post.  We Spartans take our team seriously!!!!

Spring Steeplechase and Birthday Bash ... What a Saturday!

I have to tell you that I am wiped out today.  Yesterday was such a full and wonderful day.  We attended the Aiken's 44th Running of the Steeplechase, T H E spring event in Aiken, as well as hosted a 50th birthday party my husband threw for me. 

Steeplechase is a day of tailgating, horse racing, sun (!), friends, food and beverages.  We had such a nice time attending with a few friends, my mother, and two of our three children. We took our E-Z up canopy, tables & chairs, and tailgated from the backend of my minivan.

We then came home and set up a couple of round tables with chairs in our backyard.  We served a selection of food, beverages and of course, birthday cake and ice cream.  We finished the night off with funny rounds of Catch Phrase and Apples to Apples.  It was seriously so much fun.

Today is my actual birthday and it has been a slow lazy day... Now that I am 50 apparently I need a recovery day! LOL. 

I just wanted to share some of my birthday weekend fun with you.  I hope that you will stop back on Monday for the BBTB2 new projects (hint - BBTB2 is celebrating with me also).

Chocolate Cake IS Serious Dessert Time!

I have been MIA from my scrap room this week.  Family and work have kept me busy, which was nice.  But I have no such excuses for today. I have spent a big part of the day in the kitchen and I enjoyed every moment (except for the milk splash).  I made a layered salad as a side dish for dinner, which is done is staged steps.  And then I moved on to dessert!   I made this FABULOUS Chocolate Zucchini Pecan multi-layer cake!

For those who may be wondering, I am going to be including an occasional recipe here on my blog.  In addition to paper crafting, I also really enjoy cooking.  I am currently especially enjoying baking, but I will add other recipes as time passes. 

And speaking of baking, I love chocolate cake.  Chocolate cake is the stuff of serious dessert time!  And this cake is better than most.  The layers are sweet and moist.  The zucchini cooks nicely so that it is not screaming "veggies hiding here".  And the nuts are a nice flavor and texture addition.   And the frosting.  OH MY GOSH!  Fluffy, sweet, and creamy.

I am including the cake recipe below, include my adjustments.  This cake would be great with several different types of frosting.  I went with flour paste based frosting, one and one-half batches of my recipe (posted previously).  Yummy.

Chocolate Zucchini Pecan Cake
Ingredients:
• 3 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1.5 teaspoon baking soda
• 1.5 teaspoon salt
• 3 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup (1.5 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1.5 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 3 cups grated unpeeled zucchini (about 2 1/2 medium)
• 1 1/4 cup chopped pecans

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 325°F. Prepare three 9-inch cake pans with butter and flour.
Sift flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt into medium bowl; set aside.
Beat sugar, butter and oil in large bowl until fluffy. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in vanilla extract. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk in 3 additions each. Mix in grated zucchini. Mix in chopped nuts. Divide batter evenly into prepared pans.

Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes.  Cool cake completely in pans.
-Prepare frosting-

Remove pans and bring to room temperature. Frost each layer as you add it to the cake plate.  Spread remaining frositng on the sides of the cake.

Cake and Frosting Recipes - From Last Weekend

The cake I made last weekend is just crumbs in the platter now, but I was asked by a few of you to share the recipe.  I changed the original recipe in that the recipe called for seedless raspberry jam filling, but my dh prefers strawberry so I used strawberry preserves.  Otherwise I followed the recipe exactly.  This is my version of the cake recipe (Name changed to reflect our preferred filling). One more note, the frosting recipe is for a two layer cake.  I would suggest making 1.5 batches of the frosting for better coverage on your cake.

Strawberry-Laced Vanilla Cake

1 1/2 Cups of Butter, softened

1 1/4 Cups of Sugar

3 1/3 Cups of Cake Flour ( or 3 cups of all-purpose flour) * I used cake flour

2/3 Cup of milk

1 Tbsp of Baking Powder

1/2 tsp of Salt

1 1/2 tsp of Vanilla Extract

1/4 tsp of Baking Soda

4 Large Eggs

1 12 oz. Jar of Strawberry Preserves

Frosting (Recipe below)

Grease and flour three nine-inch round cake pans.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl with mixer on LOW speed beat butter and sugar just until blended.  Increase mixer speed to HIGH and beat for ten minutes, scraping bowl often.  Add to the bowl:  flour and the next six ingredients (though the eggs).  Mix on LOW speed until well mixed.  Increase mixer speed to high and mix for two minutes, occasionally scraping the bowl edges.

Spoon the batter evenly into the three prepared pans.  Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and cool in the pans for 10 minutes.  Remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack to cool completely.

Make the frosting (recipe below). 

Using a serrated knife, cut each cake layer in half horizontally to make six cake layer.  Assemble as follows:

Place the bottom half of a layer with the cut side up on a cake plate.  Spead 1/3 jar of strawberry preseves over the layer.  Top with the cake top half layer; spread with frosting to cover.  Top with the second cake bottom half and agains spread with 1/3 of the jar of preserves.  Top with the second top half layer and again spread with frosting.  Repeat for the last two layer, ending with frosting on the top of the cake.  Spread the remainging frosting around the sides of the cake.  Enjoy!

Whipped Frosting

1/4 Cup of Flour

1 Cup of Milk

1 Cup of Butter

1 Cup of granulated Sugar

Dash of Salt

1 tsp of Vanilla

Prepare the flour paste:

In a small sauce pan combine 1/4 cup of all purpose flour and 1 cup of milk.  Whisk to blend.  Over medium high heat cook mixture until thick and smooth.  Set aside and cool completely.

Prepare Frosting:

Beat 1 cup of butter for four minutes.  Add 1 cup of granulated sugar and beat for an additional four minutes.  Add the cooled flour paste and beat again for four minutes.  Add a dash of salt and 1 tsp of vanilla and beat to mix well. 

Frosting will be light and fluffy, like whipped cream.

Last of the Weekend Layouts

This is the last of layouts that I will be sharing from last weekend's crop at Lake Murray (thank you Sally & Beth)!! Let me see... We featured Aaron, then Bethany... So it must be time for Ian. I must tell you that my photo stash of Ian has declined significantly since he went away to college. I am going to have to speak to him about being IN the photos he takes and posts.

The photos in this layout were from January 2009 when the Carolina Panthers were in the playoffs. I was excited that I had a reason to use the Carolina-Like Panther cut that I designed a couple of years ago.  Sadly they were destroyed by the Cardinals.... and it rained… And the quarterback threw a zillion interceptions…. OUCH. My poor guys - there they were in the rain watching their team loose. My husband assured me that except for the game the guys enjoyed their trip to Charlotte. That is one of those "huh" statements. They only went to Charlotte for the game!!! Yes they did spend the night and have dinner, etc. But they went to see the game!!!

I think the look on Aaron’s and Ian’s faces in this photo says it all - they look so annoyed with the game. I will add that Ian was better trained as a scrapper child - I not only got photos, he also brought me his game ticket to go on his page. Alas, now I would be happy to just have photos!!

Trip to Beaufort

Yesterday my husband and I made a trip south to Beaufort, SC to visit our older son.  We were celebrating his birthday a week late while meeting some of his friends and enjoying the area.  We had lovely outdoor lunch at a small sandwich shop that was FABULOUS - round sandwiches!  Dinner was at a local seafood establishment.... With THE BEST crab legs every!

We also did a little Christmas shopping while we hung out with Aaron and his girlfriend Crissie.  On the way to our Christmas shopping we did a littel half hour detour to the Old Sheldon Chruch ruins for a few photographs.  We had no idea that a wedding was getting ready to begin or we would have timed a visit a bit differently.  I spoke with the wedding planner who told us we had 20 minutes until the wedding so to feel free to grab a few photos. 

We quickly spent 10 minutes grabbing a few photos, though my son refused to relax due to the wedding. But overall I think we did okay for a ten minute photo shoot!

High School Graduation.....

My youngest child graduated from high school this evening. What a milestone... for Ian and for his parents!!! In just a few weeks he will be off to college and I have to wonder at the lightening-speed passing of time!!! Tomorrow will be Ian's graduation party, a low key affair to celebrate his achievement with friends and family. Tonight we are all tired and happy.

 

Doggie Update

Our new family member, our little sweet Pomeranian boy, has been with us for a little over week now and all I can say is - we completely love him! We have renamed him Duncan, which he is beginning to respond to, probably because we say it with such affection. Well that and three of us call him Duncan constantly... Duncan is a character in a movie our family likes and watches over and over. Duncan is kind-hearted loyal friend. We thought the the name fit our little guy well.

Duncan has a funny sense of humor and loves to play - almost as much as he loves to snuggle. And what a snuggler he is!!! Sadly, he has exhibited some behaviors that suggest his first owner may have been unkind to him. But we are convinced with love, patience, kindness, spoiling, and devotion he will overcome any unpleasant memories. We are just thankful that Ms. Mary rescued him and allowed us to adopt.

We feel very blessed to have Duncan as part of our family... And we hope he feels the same about us.