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What do you bring over to your dear friends' house that will go well with champaign (New Years Eve champaign) and also make 5 kids under 10 happy? Chocolate - mint cake. I made this for our New Years Eve celebration after drooling over the recipe here.

My layman's attempt

Chocolate, peppermint and almost 3 full sticks of butter? Yes please! All that's missing is bacon and this would be the worlds best recipe. OK, maybe not bacon in the cake, but you know what I mean. And, even better, I had a bag of peppermints left over from my wreaths. It was obviously ment to be.

You can get the cake recipe from the link above, so I won't repeat it here. Instead I've give you my insider tips. The perfect 'I wish I'd known this' accompaniment for all your baking needs.


1. You need some muscle. The thing that makes peppermints perfect for wreath making is what makes them 'challenging' for cake decorating. Those suckas are hard.

I had them switch to something stronger than serving spoons.

The whole 'haphazard, randomly broken into varying shapes and sizes peppermint' is actually hard to attain. I had two helpers whacking away at those suckers for a good 20 minutes. I would recommend 1 - 3 glasses of wine (depending on the strength of your whackers) to drown out the loud ringing in your ears. (hard candies equal hard whacks)
2. Invest in a vat. If the cake serves 18-20, then the frosting must serve 40-50. We cooked the frosting in my big pot. The one I use for spaghetti. And that sucker was full. We had enough left over to frost 2 other cakes and a dozen cupcakes. Luke suggested I freeze the rest in a tupperware container and use it the next time I bake a cake. I'm sorry, I don't have a tupperware container big enough to hold a vat of frosting.

Leftover frosting

 4. Feeds an army...or 18-20. Wait, what? Had I noticed the small print that says serves 18-20 I might have rethought the whole thing. But as Dr. Phil would say - lets get real - is there ever too much chocolate cake? Turns out the answer to that is yes. A little piece of this goes along way. It is rather tasty, but be sure to enjoy it with your entire neighborhood, church or office...or friends (if you are that popular).


With all of that said, it was a fun family baking activity. And a tasty treat.

 
We finally finished the last piece...yesterday.

It is getting cold 'round these parts and the wind is picking up. We are full of coughs and runny noses. Fall is in the house. So this morning, while reading this post, I drooled over this picture.

oliveourhouse.blogspot.com

Warm, caramely (is that a word?) apple goodness. I was still dreaming about it when I turned on Ina at lunch and what was she making? Apple Crisp. I took these as signs from the culinary gods that I needed to make some apple crisp. When Ina speaks, I listen.

I had made this recipe a few years ago at Christmas and it was a crowd pleaser. Syrup is the bacon of the dessert world, so anything with syrup is awesome (I did add a bit of Ina's flair though by adding some lemon and orange zest).  I also opt for one baking dish rather than ramekins. I love a cute ramekin as much as the next girl, but it sounds a lot better when you can say to yourself "I only had one big piece of apple crisp." rather than "I ate 4 ramekins of apple crisp."


Nice warm apple crisp, cozy slippers and a little Bravo. A good Thursday night.