Enjablog

Most of my weekend was filled with party preparations and entertaining for Ian’s birthday. There was a fantastic turnout with almost everyone on the guestlist attending. A group of Ian’s coworkers (including one that I know from VT somehow… though I haven’t figured out how yet), my sibs and roommates, the TJ crowd, and a few other friends.

The dynamic worked out pretty well. People made the effort to mingle for a while and then it kind of split with coworkers in the kitchen/dining room and nerds in the sitting area at the back of the living room. But everyone still close enough that they could overhear things like the Fortran conversation in the other group. Yeah, you’re really cool, guys.

It was a nice evening too. So even though the condo started getting really warm from the food cooking in the kitchen, people were able to go out on the balcony and leave the door open to get a nice breeze coming through.

Food… the usual appetizer stuff. Sonny brought over some Trader Ming’s orange chicken that he cooked up while people were arriving. So there was plenty of hot food for people to snack on. Didn’t get a picture of cakes, but I made a butter cake with vanilla frosting (Fashiongrrl got to frost her first cake!) and a chocolate mocha cake with chocolate frosting.

Lots of fun, but now I just need to clean up… ;)

Betty Crocker Chocolate Mocha Cake and Frosting
(From the Bake’n Fill Cake Pan booklet)

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
2/3 cup baking cocoa
1 1/4 cups water
1 tbs instant espresso coffee (dry)
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

DIRECTIONS:
1. In large bowl, beat all cake ingredients on low 30 seconds, scraping bowl constantly.
2. Beat on high 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally.
3. Bake at 350 degrees, 25 minutes in three 8″ round cake pans.

Frosting:
2/3 cup whipping (heavy) cream
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped

DIRECTIONS:
1. In 1-qt saucepan, heat 2/3 cup whipping cream over low heat, stirring occasionally, until hot.
2. Remove from heat and stir in chocolate until melted.
3. Let stand about 5 minutes. Frosting is ready to use when it mounds slightly when dropped from spoon.

Notes: Used regular cake pans instead of the tall/dome cake pans. Make sure to grease pans well. Cakes did not want to come out. Filled in between layers with Chocolate Frosting that I used last time.

Substituted 2 tbl dry coffee instead of espresso. Used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of baking chocolate (6 oz ~= 1 cup chocolate chips). Came out kind of syrupy, so I used it as a glaze, refrigerated after pouring some on, and added a second layer after the first had cooled and become easier to spread. I was later informed that I should have added additional chocolate to thicken.