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Still trying out Anna’s meal plan, this week we made dinner based on a baked lemon pasta recipe. The original recipe has some gorgeous pictures to go with her instructions. We changed the pasta to brown rice and added in some veggies.

Baked Lemon Rice

Prep Time: 15 Minutes
Cook Time: 40 Minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 cups uncooked brown rice
1.5 Tablespoons Butter
2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
1 zucchini
2 cups frozen spinach
2 cloves Garlic, Minced
1 whole Lemon, Juiced And Zested
2 cups Sour Cream
Kosher Salt to taste
Plenty Of Grated Parmesan Cheese
Extra Lemon Juice

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cook rice in rice cooker.

2. In a skillet, cook zucchini in olive oil until soft.

3. Turn heat to low. Add butter. When butter is melted, add frozen spinach and minced garlic. Squeeze lemon juice into the pan. Turn off heat.

4. Add sour cream and stir mixture together. Add lemon zest and salt. Taste, then add more salt if necessary. Add rice to skillet and stir together, then pour into an oven safe dish.

5. Bake, covered, for 15 minutes. Then remove foil and bake for an additional 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t bake too long or the rice will dry out.)

This was actually a bit too sour/tangy for me, but Ian enjoyed it. I think I might use a milder dairy element next time — maybe ricotta or cottage cheese, or use half sour cream and half something else. The lemon flavor was fantastic though!

Ian and I went through a phase a while back where we were making and eating a lot of hummus. This lead to a costco trip one day where we thought it was a good idea to buy a can of garbanzo bean. You know, one of the 110oz cans.

It seemed like a good idea at the time. A good value, etc.

So after snowmageddon and snowpocalypse, I decided today was the day. Inspired by my sister-in-law and my future sister-in-law, I made a chickpea curry for dinner tonight, started falafels for tomorrow night, and have containers of chickpeas for other dishes, depending on which recipes we like. I also made about 3 cups of hummus for snacking.

And with all these chickpeas, I figured I would also take a crack at making some pitas. So I found a recipe online that sounded promising and tried it out.

And as it turned out, they were pretty easy to make. So after the first few, I tried making a pocket pita:

A couple people I know were celebrating birthdays a couple weekends ago, so I volunteered to make cakes!

TattooGirl was turning 30 and her husband threw a party for her. It was a little hindered by the snow that day, but there was still a good turnout and we had loads of fun! And after driving 45 minutes to MD, I even met one of my neighbors… Go figure.

So, not knowing how many people to expect at this party, I decided an 8″ round cake would not be sufficient (~15 servings). I knew there would be at least 13 people, but didn’t know about the maybes or people who didn’t reply. Unfortunately, I don’t have a 9″ round cake pan, so I had to go with the 10″ cake pan Anna lent me for the second tier of a wedding cake (~30 servings). Everyone likes extra cake… and I figured it would be good practice for me anyway.

Ian’s mom’s birthday was also that weekend, so I made a cake for their Gilmore night dinner. For that one, I made a 6″ cake, which I’ve been using for practice.

I decided to go with the same cake for both just to simplify things: Caramel Chocolate Cake. I attempted to make a caramel syrup, but was a little impatient, so I mostly just made a plain syrup. I was also still intimidated by the meringue buttercream frosting in the wedding cake books, and with my stand mixer out of commission, I went with my old standby simple buttercream. I used a caramel frosting for the filling and chocolate frosting for the top and decorating.

I tried out the star tip on the 10″ cake, which worked out pretty well. But the frosting I made was too liquidy to hold its shape on the side of the cake, so I had to resort to just piping lines around the side. I was going to try out a basket weave on the 6″ cake, but had trouble again because of the consistency of my frosting. So I just went with stripes.

Things to work on:
- Brushing more syrup on the layers
- Leveling layers
- Making frosting
- Piping

Ian bought us a stand mixer a couple weeks ago and we’ve been on somewhat of a baking rampage since then.

The first night, we baked a double batch of peanut butter oatmeal cookies. This may not have been the best idea, what with never having used this recipe or mixer before. Plus, Ian and my ridiculously bad volumetric estimation skillz. We started mixing around 11:30pm and finished baking close to 1am. Loads of delicious cookies, but also a little bit of a mess. ;)

Next up was a practice cake. I tried out the basic yellow cake recipe from one of the wedding cake books Anna loaned me. Very quick/easy recipe. And I got to practice torting (slicing the cake in half horizontally). The book said to use a ruler to go around the cake and mark off where you’ll cut with a toothpick. I took a chef’s knife and just sliced. For the size cake I made, that worked out ok.

Then, I got intimidated by the buttercream frosting recipe in the book and went with my old stand-by from the Joy of Cooking. Butter, powdered sugar, liquid/flavoring. Mix.

This worked out pretty well, but I added some cocoa and didn’t put enough liquid in. This made it really difficult to spread, so after I got through 2 layers, I decided to add more milk and it whipped up almost immediately! Oh yeah, and did I mention I got to use the whisk attachment for this? So cool.

Then I tried out the cake decorating kit I borrowed from my mom. Piping is way more difficult than I thought! I started over at least 4 times. And once I got halfway through and I started messing up because my hand was cramping, I just went with it. That’s why there are spots where the frosting is falling off. Oh well. It was my first try.

Lessons learned:
- Do not put all the frosting in the piping bag to start. Body heat will soften the frosting.
- Make sure the consistency of the frosting is perfect *before* you start.
- Making line-type patterns are way more difficult than repeated individual patterns. There are seams everywhere and no good place to stop and rest.

Yesterday was time to test out the hook attachment. So, Ian and I made some honey wheat bread.

I bought a huge bag of flour from CostCo this summer and have only used ~5 pounds of it, so I decided I shouldn’t buy all these different kinds of flour for these recipes. I mixed in some vital wheat gluten to make my all-purpose flour glutenier to substitute for bread flour. And I mixed up a container of cake flour mixing all-purpose with corn starch. (I also have some pancake mix pre-made, so I don’t need bisquick anymore!)

My mom shared her stash of CostCo yeast with me, so I made use of that to yeast up some dough and then let Ian punch it.

I hope he continues to find that as amusing as he did yesterday. That’ll save me a lot of work. ;)

We baked up 2 loaves, since I only have 2 loaf pans. And froze the remainder of the dough (after the first rise step) for another day. It was pretty fun to make, but a pain to clean up after. I could picture myself mixing up some dough once a month or so though. And with 3 loaves out of it, that should last us a while… or so I thought.

Got home from work today to find this:

Half a loaf was missing! Guess the recipe was a success! :)

I’ll paste in recipes soon and add in our modifications.

I’ve been having these cravings for deviled eggs since last week when I had a craving for corn dogs, but didn’t have access to any and ended up going to the deli in my office building and buying an egg salad sandwich instead. So, I made some yesterday to bring over to my family lunch. But then I found out that the paprika is what makes them “deviled.” And since I didn’t have any paprika, we decided they were angeled. Well, that and the whole miracle thing.

Angeled Eggs
6 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and cut lengthwise
1/4 cup Miracle Whip
1/4 teaspoon dijon mustard

Remove egg yolks and mix with Miracle Whip and mustard. Fill egg whites with mixture.

Yeah, tough recipe, right? This seems easier than egg salad. Especially since I’m not fancy about filling the egg whites. I just use a spoon.

Tried out a new cookie recipe today for Ian’s company outing thing. Modified from Brownie Mix Cookies:

Mint Brownie Cookies

1 package Ghirardelli triple chocolate brownie mix
1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3 Tbsp water
2 eggs
1/2 tsp peppermint extract

Mix the brownie mix (dry), flour, oil, water, eggs, and peppermint extract. Drop by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees just until set, 10 to 12 minutes. Let stand 2 to 3 minutes before removing from cookie sheet and then cool completely. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.

Note: I would recommend a leavening agent, such as 1 tsp baking soda. You’ll get the same brownie flavor, with a cookier consistency. You might also be able to accomplish this by cutting back on the oil by a tablespoon or two to lower the density of the mixture, but that will make them a little cakier.

The batter was kinda liquidy, but was able to hold its shape long enough to get into the oven. They were pretty fragile after taking them out of the oven and letting them cool closer to 5 minutes on the cookie sheet, but did set after some time on the cooling rack.

In any case, the recipe as-is got rave reviews from Ian’s coworkers. So it’s definitely a keeper for me. And with a base that’s a mix I typically have around anyway, that’ll be a convenient backup.

Baked up some strawberry cupcakes yesterday to celebrate my mother’s birthday early (next week). They were a bit sweet, so I didn’t put any frosting on them, but they probably would’ve been good with some unsweetened whipped cream.

I typically use 3-oz boxes of jello when mixing into a recipe, but the only strawberry jello I had was in a 6-oz box. And for some reason, I really wanted these to be strawberry cupcakes. I guess I was baking too early in the morning or something because I was most of the way through the mixing process when I realized that I should’ve just made a double batch and had more cupcakes. Oops…

Strawberry Cupcakes (modified from here)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 3-oz box, strawberry gelatin
3/4 cup milk

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9×9 inch pan or line a muffin pan with paper liners (makes 18 cupcakes).

In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven. For cupcakes, bake 20 to 25 minutes. Cake is done when it springs back to the touch.

Risotto: fancy Rice-a-Roni. :)

I made this zucchini risotto a while back and decided that I really like risotto. So I made more tonight, with some added protein and dicing the squash for some added texture.

Turned out pretty well and was quite filling (plus leftovers for tomorrow!).

4 cups water
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup finely diced shallot (or leek, or spring onion, or whatever onion you have on hand)
1 medium zucchini, diced
1 1/3 cup risotto rice (such as Arborio, Carnaroli, or Violone Nano)
1/2 cup dry white wine
1-2 Tbsp butter (optional)
A squirt of fresh lemon juice
A handful of feta (optional)
2 cans tuna, 9 oz each
Salt

Pour the water into a kettle and bring to a boil.

Set a medium-sized, heavy sauce pan over med-low heat. Add the oil and shallots. Add zucchini and saute until tender.

Cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent and tender.

Turn up the heat to medium, add the rice, and cook, stirring constantly, for 2-4 minutes or until the grains are mostly translucent and only white in the center.

Pour in the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until the wine is absorbed. Add tuna.

Add enough water to cover the rice by 1/2 inch (about 2 cups), 1 tsp kosher salt (or 1/2 tsp table salt), and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the water is absorbed.

Keep adding water 1/2 cup at a time and stirring as necessary. The less water you have in the pot, the more you have to stir.

After 15 minutes of cooking the rice with water, start tasting it. Continue cooking stirring constantly and adding water 1/2 cup at a time as necessary so that the rice doesn’t stick. Taste the rice every few minutes and as soon as it’s almost tender, but still toothsome, turn off the heat.

Add a bit more water if risotto looks stiff. Stir in the butter and a little cheese (if using). Reserve the rest of the cheese to sprinkle on top during serving. Give it a good squirt of lemon, taste and correct seasoning (you might need more lemon juice and/or salt). Cover and let rest 5 minutes. Serve sprinkled with cheese and drizzled with good olive oil. ??????????? ???????????? ??? ??????? ????? ??????? 12 ??? ??????? ?????????? ????? ?????? ??? ????????

And a belated cookie post…

I used some of TLD’s home-made strawberry jam for the heart cookies. And Ian had the idea for the fancy spiral cookies. I might try different flavors with those next time. We just used food coloring this time to test it out.

Got together for Saturday brunch this weekend to pre-celebrate TLD’s birthday. There was an abundance of waffles, bacon, and marble cake. Sarah and I didn’t coordinate, but that just meant there was more marble cake to be consumed!

Marble Cake (Derived from Betty Crocker Chocolate Mocha Cake)

INGREDIENTS:
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

1 2/3 cups sugar
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
2 eggs

1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tbs instant espresso coffee (dry)
3/4 cups water

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease well and flour three 8″ round cake pans.
2. In medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda, and salt.
3. In medium bowl, cream sugar, butter, vanilla, and eggs. Stir in dry mixture.
4. Split dough between 2 bowls.
5. In first bowl, add 1/2 cup water and extra vanilla. Beat on high until blended, scraping bowl occasionally.
6. In measuring cup or small bowl, mix 3/4 cup water with cocoa and coffee.
7. Pour liquid mixture in second bowl. Beat on high until blended, scraping bowl occasionally.
8. Alternate pouring batter into pans and drag knife through to create marble pattern.
9. Bake 25 minutes.

Frosting
1 cup butter
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
4 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup water
1/2 tsp instant coffee (dry)
3 tbs cocoa
4 oz melted unsweetened chocolate

1. Cream the butter until smooth and well blended.
2. Add vanilla extract.
3. With the mixer on low, gradually beat in the sugar. Scraping bowl often.
4. Mix water, coffee, and cocoa before adding to mixture.
5. Beat on high speed until frosting is light and fluffy (about 3-4 minutes).
6. Beat chocolate (melted) into finished icing.

Notes: I only used the coffee/cocoa in the frosting because I forgot to halve the coffee/cocoa when I was mixing that part for the cake and had a bunch leftover. Worked out well in the frosting though. I would recommend trying a little more coffee and a little less cocoa next time to bring out the flavor more. I cheated on the chocolate and used 2/3 cup semi-sweet morsels. Definitely should try unsweetened or bittersweet next time. The coloring and flavor in the frosting was a little light and a little too sweet compared to the cake.

And for the adventurous, try a different flavor in the vanilla/plain part of the cake. The chocolate mocha part kind of over-powered the rest, but would probably work well with a white chocolate, caramel, or hazelnut.

Thursday started out with breakfast with Ian’s parents. I got my first stocking and have plenty of Christmas candy to last me until the new year. :)

Thursday afternoon was with Ian’s extended family. The big differences from previous years was the musical extravaganza and birthday cake for dessert. We sang happy birthday to Jesus. It was a fun day.

Did Christmas with my family on Boxing Day. There was dancing, more snorking, and bingo! Plus, Anna had a chance to enjoy the activity book I received the day before.

Mac & Cheese (I made this for Thanksgiving too, but forgot to link the recipe. Thanks to Anna for sending this to me!)

INGREDIENTS
For topping
1/2 stick unsalted butter
2 cups panko (coarse Japanese bread crumbs) or 3 cups coarse fresh bread crumbs (from 6 slices firm white sandwich bread)
1/4 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (1 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

For macaroni and sauce
1 stick unsalted butter
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
5 cups whole milk
1 pound coarsely grated extra-sharp Cheddar (6 cups)
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
1 pound elbow macaroni

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle.

Make topping:
Melt butter, then stir together with panko and topping cheeses in a bowl until combined well.

Make sauce:
Melt butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat and stir in flour. Cook roux, stirring, 3 minutes, then whisk in milk. Bring sauce to a boil, whisking constantly, then simmer, whisking occasionally, 3 minutes. Stir in cheeses, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper until smooth. Remove from heat and cover surface of sauce with wax paper.

Make Macaroni:
Cook macaroni in a pasta pot of boiling salted water (2 tablespoons salt for 4 quarts water) until al dente. Reserve 1 cup cooking water and drain macaroni in a colander. Stir together macaroni, reserved cooking water, and sauce in a large bowl. Transfer to 2 buttered 2-quart shallow baking dishes.

Sprinkle topping evenly over macaroni and bake until golden and bubbling, 20 to 25 minutes.

NOTES: Add a tablespoon of mustard to the roux. I’ve been using progressively more pasta each time and I think for my taste, about a pound and a half of pasta with some ham mixed in was a good cheese ratio (can reduce final baking time to ~15 mins). I mixed whole wheat with regular rotinis and started that when I started the sauce and let it sit in the water to overcook the noodles until the sauce was ready.

Baked cookies today for the first time in months. I really need to resurrect the cookie exchange. Especially now that Sonny’s overseas again and needs a care package.

So, I made a rookie mistake today while baking. Don’t worry, I used the right amount of butter this time. I checked twice before I started, once as I was mixing, and again after I taste-tested for quality control and was just sitting in my room. I’m that

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paranoid about measuring butter.

Anyway, I took the first cookie sheet out of the oven, put the second sheet in, waited 2 minutes, then moved the first tray of cookies onto the cooling rack. I then rotated the cooling rack to the other counter and moved sheet #1 to the stove to refill so the other cooling rack would be ready for sheet #2 when it came out of the oven. Repeated: sheet #2 out of oven, sheet #1 back in, wait 2 minutes, move cookies. Then, I attempted to move sheet #2 to the stove… with my bare hand. And I whimpered like a dog that’s been kicked.

It felt like a full second that my hand was on the corner of the cookie sheet before my brain registered that I shouldn’t be touching that. It was seconds after I had whimpered, pulled my hand away, and Ian called from the other room to find out what had happened that I realized what a dumb move that was. Whoops. Put some ice on it, good as new.

I haven’t burned my hand baking cookies since junior year in college. And that was because I didn’t have an oven mitt. I grabbed the pan with a potholder and the potholder slipped just enough that my thumb was touching the pan, but I couldn’t do anything until I finished putting it down on the counter. (No way I’m dropping fresh-baked cookies. I’m not that big a wimp.)

The cookie sheets I have now are fantastic. My mom got them for me a few years ago. They’re thick aluminum like I see all the fancy people on Food Network use. Distributes the heat evenly and I have never burned cookies on those pans. But they also hold the heat in really well and I don’t use them often enough to make sure I remember. I guess I’ll remember a few weeks longer now.

Man, casseroles are so easy to make. I put this together for a party last weekend, but didn’t end up making/serving it, so I baked it up tonight and had way too much food for myself. But that’s ok. It was pretty good and sooo easy.

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INGREDIENTS
3 cups uncooked egg noodles
2 (6 ounce) cans tuna, drained
1/2 cup chopped celery
1/3 cup chopped green onions
1/3 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons prepared mustard
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 small zucchini, sliced
1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese
1 tomato, chopped

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 2 quart casserole dish.
2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil, add noodles, and cook until al dente; drain.
3. In a large mixing bowl, combine noodles, tuna, celery, and green onion. Stir in sour cream, mustard, and mayonnaise. Season with salt and thyme. Spoon 1/2 of the noodle mixture into the prepared casserole dish. Arrange a layer of zucchini over the mixture. Top with the remaining noodles, followed by a layer of zucchini. Top the entire casserole with cheese.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly. Sprinkle the casserole with tomatoes before serving.

Notes: I didn’t follow most of the recipe, so that might explain why it wasn’t as awesome as the reviews said it would be. I used regular noodles (whole wheat, actually, for most of it and a handful of regular noodles because I didn’t have enough), frozen veggie mix instead of celery, and no thyme. And I forgot the salt, but I didn’t notice a difference because I don’t salt my food much anyway.

I think next time I would put a layer of cheese between the noodle layers. I think this would also have made a good cold pasta salad.

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It turns out salt is a key ingredient when baking. The recipe I was using had two columns of ingredients, except that the only ingredient in the second column was salt. I forgot the salt and found that my cookies came out thin with some air bubbles. This could be due to a number of reasons:

1. I had no rolling pin. I thought I had moved it with me, but it turns out I forgot it at Sonny’s place and haven’t had a need for it until now. The first tray, I used a drinking glass, which was ok, but wasn’t the right length, so it left some lines in the dough from the ends. I finally ended up using a wine bottle, which worked out really well.

2. I had no wax paper. You’d think with me planning to make cookies for 2 weeks I would have the necessary supplies when the time came. You’d be wrong. I ended up using freezer paper, which had a plastic coating on one side, so the dough didn’t stick to it. It was thicker than wax paper and not translucent, so it was hard to ensure there was a uniform thickness to the dough.

3. I forgot the salt. I’m not exactly clear on what that does, but I think it means that not all the CO2 that reacted from the baking powder was able to be released. Salt facilitates the release of carbon dioxide because it brings little air bubbles into the mixture that helps diffuse the CO2. Since the baking powder all reacted properly, but the gas couldn’t get out, the cookies didn’t rise and ended up with bubbles in them. (If someone has a better explanation, please share. I had difficulty finding a good explanation on the internet. *gasp*)

End result: not the best texture, but they still taste like regular cookies.

There’s a duck, a fish, a dog, a stegosaurus, left and right feet, a t-rex, and a bone:

With the final dough-ball, I made a kind of creepy-looking leprachaun and a gold coin:

Rich Rolled Sugar Cookies

(from The Joy Of Cooking)

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup Unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup Sugar
1 large Egg
1/4 Tsp Baking powder
1/8 Tsp Salt
1 1/2 Tsp Vanilla
2 1/3 cups All-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease cookie sheets.
2. Beat the butter and sugar until very fluffy and well blended. Beat in egg, baking powder, salt, and vanilla. Stir in flour.
3. Divide the dough in half and roll out a scant 1/4-inch thick. Keeping the wax paper in place, layer the rolled dough on a tray and refrigerate for 20 to 30 minutes, or until cold and slightly firm but not hard.
4. Working with 1 portion of dough (leave the other refrigerated), cut out cookies, using 2- or 3-inch cutters. With a wide spatula, carefully transfer them from the wax paper to the cookie sheets, spacing about 1 inch apart.
5. Bake, 1 sheet at a time, in the upper third of the oven for 6 to 9 minutes, or until cookies are just slightly colored on top and slightly darker at the edges. Rotate sheets halfway through baking for even browning. Transfer sheets to wire racks and let cookies firm up, 1 to 2 minutes, Then transfer the cookies to wire racks and let stand until thoroughly cool.

Store, airtight, for 1 or 2 weeks, or freeze for up to 1 month.
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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

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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.

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