Aftershock Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees; grease and flour selected pan (see below).

Start with:
1 chocolate cake mix + its ingredients, prepared loosely as directed
- devil's food with pudding in the mix works very well
- use milk instead of water
- replace half the oil with applesauce

Then stir in:
- 1c. chocolate chips
- 1c. flaked coconut
- 1c. chopped nuts

Pour into prepared pan, then use a hand mixer to beat together:
- 8 oz. softened cream cheese
- 2c. powdered sugar

Beat the cream cheese first to loosen it up, then add the powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Be sure to start on a low setting so the powdered sugar doesn't fly out of the bowl, and scrap the sides regularly because the cream cheese likes to stick. The end mixture should be smooth and moderately thick. Spoon this over the chocolate cake mix in an irregular pattern; go all the way to the edges.

There are two tested pan sizes for this cake, and both are great for different things.
- 9x13 bakes for 45-50 minutes. It comfortably feeds 15-18 people, and gives everyone lots of topping.
- 12x18 bakes for 30-35 minutes. It feeds a large number of people, and there is variation for people to select if they want more chocolate cake or more topping.

The top picture shows the cooled cake, but as you can see just above it doesn't start to fall until after it comes out of the oven. It had actually started to collapse already in the 60 seconds or so between the cake leaving the oven and the picture being taken. The obligatory closeup is below.

This recipe is derived from the Earthquake Cake made by my great-grandmother Scelena Brown. Enjoy.

New Things

Good morning everyone.





It's been a bit since we've posted, and I'll pretend it's been because we've been pretty busy. In any case, here's one of the things that we've been into, as of late.

So for a couple nights a week for the past couple weeks, we've been learning how not to kill ourselves underwater. It's been quite an adventure. We'll finish with the opening portions this week sometime, and then have to do 3 open-water qualification dives to get our certifications.

Personally, I'm looking forward to collecting some tasty lobsters, clams, or other tasty denziens of the deep. There's also spearfishing, but we'll have to see how that is around here.

Anyway, all in good fun.

putting CDs in the microwave is fun

yes, they know they're cute

reuben panini

My parents got us a waffle iron/panini press a few months ago, and we have put it to good use. It's especially good for making sandwiches like reubens because it eliminates the problems with the sandwich spilling its guts on the flip.

homemade pan pizza

Behold the awesomeness of pan pizza made in cast iron. Recently Banik also made a version of pineapple upsidedown cake in the square pan. Maybe one day we'll have a gas stove so that we can use the cast iron pans more.
Pre-cooking. ^

His jalepeno pizza.^

Guess which one is my pizza?

It was good, but would have come out fine with a bit less oil than this first attempt used. I'd forgotten about this until a few days ago, so there may be pizza in the near future.

Adventures with Pot Stickers

We made pot stickers last week, and we picked up some little gems of wisdom that I thought we should share. It was an unforgetable learning experience.

1. It is possible for pot stickers to stick to the pan too much.
2. If you aren't careful pot stickers can stick so much that they can carbonize onto the pan.
3. The chicken stock that is supposed to add flavour and make the pot stickers release from the pan will not necessarily help you out at this point.
4. If the pan is too hot, chicken stock can do something that is remarkably similar to vaporizing.
5. The remains of said chicken stock can also carbonize onto the pan.
6. All of this carbonization is really, really hard to get off. If I knew how to get it off, I'd tell you. The next attempt will probably involve oven cleaner....
7. You should really use a nonstick skillet to make pot stickers. Or skip the whole thing and try steamed dumplings.
8. Surprisingly, the dumplings (or remains there of) from this adventure were perfectly edible, and tasted pretty good.
9. Sadly, the peppery flavour of watercress can be lost if your beef dumplings contain a lot of strong seasonings. Alas.