Chocolate Cake in a Mug

My girls asked for some quality "mommy-daughter" time today. Just me, Morgan, and Ava. The babies are supposed to be sleeping.

I asked if they wanted to bake something. As soon as I asked, I regretted it. Because sugar junkies that they are, they will say yes. And as little as they are, my kitchen will get trashed.

So, I tried a recipe that contains the mess to a tablespoon and a mug. Here are the reviews:

Morgan: It's ok. Not sweet enough. (she didn't mix up her white chocolate chips well enough, so the top of the cake didn't have any.)

Ava: Good. (Ava doesn't have such a refined palate - stuff is either good or bad.)

Me: Spongy, yet dense. One dimensional taste. Not great cake. Not even good cake. BUT it contained the mess in my kitchen to one mug, the kids did it all by themselves, and I got to spend precious time with my chocolate addicted girls. Overall, I'm keeping this recipe. Not because it was great cake (I'll never make it for me). But because it contains the mess and makes memories.

Looks good though. Too bad it wasn't.

Chocolate Kahlua Cake

I had a special birthday party to go to today. And so I wanted to make a special cake. For those who know me, nothing says "special" to me like coffee and chocolate. So I perused through my recipe notebook to find something good.

One look at this:

And I went weak in the knees.So, I made it.

This cake was way too time consuming. It took all afternoon to make it. And I cut corners like crazy. It said to let the cake cool completely before cutting it in half. Yeah, I didn't do that. I just didn't have the time. I didn't use cake flour, just regular all purpose. And even if the cake tasted better than it did, it's just not worth taking all day to make.


Here's how it turned out:

Yes, it looks very different from the picture above. And not just I-made-my-own-chocolate-covered-coffee-beans-because-i'm-too-cheap-to-spend-all-that-money kind of different. The frosting looked different. The cake wasn't as pretty. And I'm pretty sure mine didn't taste as good as the other one either.

The verdict: I'm tossing the recipe.

Blueberry Streusal Coffee Cake

My favorite part about this recipe is the guy holding a knife and onion.

Yum. Yum. Yum. When a recipe calls for almost 2 cups of sugar and 2 sticks of butter...can it ever be a bad recipe?!

I got this years ago from a magazine. Whenever I've gone to make a new dessert, it's almost always chocolate. So this one has been getting the shaft for a while now. However, July is National Blueberry Month and as a part of home school curriculum, we made this to celebrate.

Here's how it looked after baking:

And yes, we couldn't even wait to take a picture before we cut into it.

And up close yummyness:

The recipe is a keeper.