Chocolate Fudge Cake with Peanut Butter Mousse Filling

Sorry in advance for the resolution-buster recipe I'm about to post!   My youngest turned 4 this week (hard to believe) and he'd seen a cake in a cookbook weeks ago he begged me to make.  The original recipe was filled with a vanilla cream and it did not turn out at all, so the glaze part is from that recipe (Source= Taste of Home Church Supper Recipes), but I had to find another recipe for the filling and I ended up improvising with it a little.  The end result was really good.

Cake:
Devil's Food Cake Mix- make according to directions in a 9x13 pan.  Cool completely.  Remove from pan (make sure you coat it well before pouring the batter in) and slice in half horizontally.  Fill with the peanut butter cream cheese filling, after it (the filling) has chilled at least half an hour.  Top with the glaze.

Filling:
1 cup whipping cream, chilled
10 oz cream cheese at room temp (I used 8 oz of red fat and 2 oz regular)
1 cup powdered sugar
2/3 cup creamy peanut butter

Beat whipping cream on high until stiff peaks form.  (So much easier to do this with a stand mixer).  Put in bowl and set aside.  Mix cream cheese and peanut butter until creamy and consistent.  Add powdered sugar and mix until combined.  Add whipped cream back in and mix on medium high until light and fluffy.  Chill for at least 30 minutes

Glaze:
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup baking cocoa
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 cup cold water
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a saucepan, combine the sugar, cocoa and cornstarch.  Slowly mix water in.  Bring mixture to a boil.  Cook and stir for 2 minutes or until thickened.  Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla.  Cool to room temp before pouring over cake.

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Project Life 2012

Wow, are we really almost a week into 2012?  I can't believe it.  I feel like time goes faster every year.

I've spent the past month getting ready for Christmas, doing all the fun Christmas activities like making gingerbread houses and watching The Polar Express.  I've volunteered in my kids' classrooms and helped with Christmas parties.  My family spent Christmas Eve in downtown Cincinnati taking a carriage ride, seeing Santa, shopping, and having a great dinner overlooking Fountain Square.  And the day after Christmas we headed to sunny Miami for a week where we had great weather.  Unfortunately, we had to get back to real life and I didn't get to stay long enough to watch my Mountaineers demolish Clemson in The Orange Bowl, but seeing it on tv was pretty great too.  I also worked at the SPCA for a couple of days in early December, doing exams, vaccines and microchips.  It was fun to work again and a great easy way to get my feet wet after a 4 year absence!

I hope everyone had a great holiday season.  I always find it a little hard to transition back to the routine after the holidays, especially knowing how long winters seem in Ohio.   I am still writing thank you notes for Christmas gifts and trying to wrap that up also.

I have written several posts about scrapbooking before and I'm sure you're all aware of my love for digital scrapbooking and photoshop.  This year when I finished my yearly book it wasn't nearly as fun for me as it has been the past 6 years so I decided to try something different to document 2012.  I will still do my yearly digital scrapbook because I love the result too much to abandon it, and I also love that I can print multiple copies as gifts.  At this point, my family expects it  so I'm stuck!  But I thought I would add another scrapbook for just our immediate family this year, one that is a little more personal and maybe captures some of the more mundane aspects of everyday life.  I am choosing a format that will allow lots of flexibility and will also let me incorporate some of the digital scrapbooking into it.

So I decided to do "Project Life".  This system is the brainchild of Becky Higgins, and it is designed to make scrapbooking very easy.  The basic kit looks great, but you can customize it as much as you want and make it as elaborate as you want.  It seems to be a great way to start scrapbooking for those who have never done it before and are intimidated by the idea of creating everything from scratch.

Here's the link for the Becky Higgins website that describes Project Life.  You order a core kit that is made up of journaling and decorative cardstock pieces, a binder (I think you could use any 12x12 scrapbook with rings), and page inserts which come in multiple configurations. 

Here's what I ordered so far.  I can't wait to get it!!

Clementine Core Kit

Clementine Cardstock

I'm waiting to order my page dividers because they are out of the kinds I want (I have a few that will work to start with).  I am also waiting for the black binder, which should be available in a couple of weeks.  I prefer the black exterior to the more colorful ones.

If you're looking for a way to organize your photos and memories in 2012 this is a great system.  Take a look at Becky's blog and you'll see many different ways people have used the basic system to create a personalized scrapbook.



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2012 Goals

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Happy New Year!  I can't believe that 2012 is here already.  2011 was a good year for us as a family and I'm looking forward to what this new year has to bring!


Since it's now the new year with a new start, I thought I would post my goals for this next year.  I posted a while ago about how to go about goal setting.  To be a goal, it has to have 5 elements:


·  Be specific
·  Be measurable

·  Have a time limit

·  Be yours (aka, something you want to do, not something someone else wants you to do)

·  Be in writing

Personally, I have 5 different areas that I like to make goals for, so I thought I would share my goal for each area for 2012:

spiritual goal:  Read through the Bible in 90 Days, starting January 1 & ending March 31.  I did this in 2010 and it was the first time I had ever read through the entire Bible!

health/body goal:  Complete the Flying Pig 10k on Saturday, May 5 & the Little Miami Triathlon on Sunday, June 3.  I would also like to lose some of the baby weight I've accumulated over 3 pregnancies, but I'm going to focus more on being healthy than actual numbers on a scale.

financial goals: Complete Baby Step #3 by July 1 (fully funded emergency fund of 6 months expenses), start on Baby Steps #4 and 5 (investing for retirement and college funds for the kids).  We've been working the Dave Ramsey plan for a couple years now and excited to go to the next level and then start paying off the house!  My long-term goal is to have the house paid off before I'm 40, so we have a max of 12 years from now to get rid of the mortgage.

family goal: take a vacation!  This doesn't seem like a true "goal", but this will be the first year ever that Steve gets more than 1 week of vacation!  We have never taken an actual vacation with the kids (other than our trip to Louisville, but it was actually a work conference for Steve), so I'm excited to do some exploring with the kids!

business goal:  Limit bookings to no more than 7 wedding cakes for the year...I need more time with the kids!!!

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Progress!

So, I posted pictures of my house on Tuesday evening.  Just wanted to show you the progress I made on Wednesday.

In the living room, we picked up the junk new toys, put the train table back together, took down the Christmas tree and the Christmas decorations from the mantle.  I also swept and really need to shampoo, but didn't get to that yesterday.

In the kitchen, I swept and mopped and even pulled out the stove and fridge and swept and mopped under them as well.  That's a job that I think should be done every 3 months or so but I usually only get to it once or twice a year.  Yuck.  Anyway, I also organized the Christmas cards and presents that were on the counter.  I cleaned the microwave.  I still need to put away the dishes in the drainboard and get rid of the pile of stuff in the corner of the counter, but I still have a few Christmas goodies to give away so it will stay there until I am finished with that task.

The dining room was the dumping ground for most of the new Christmas presents.  It now looks much better!  And even better than looks, most of the Christmas presents are actually put away!

I still have a lot left to do, but it's progress!

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Keepin' it Real

Does your house look like this?

Because I seriously think someone snuck in and sent a tornado through our house.  Or, maybe it was Santa?!

Whatever the case, tomorrow will be spent cleaning the entire first floor.  Then Thursday will be spent cleaning the entire 2nd floor.  And then Friday, it's time for the basement.  Saturday, Steve can help me with the garage.  Sheesh.

Oh, and I will work on some blog posts in my "free time" when I'm not cleaning and not keeping the kids from destroying the progress....

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New Year's Resolutions and Goals

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I've always enjoyed making resolutions for the new year.  Although, my resolutions aren't just things I want to do (or don't want to do).  I try to make my resolutions be real goals.  I'm a big fan of Dave Ramsey, and he helps people set goals on his radio talk show all the time.  According to Dave, "For a goal to work, it has to have five components.  It must:

1. Be specific
2. Be measurable
3. Have a time limit
4. Be yours
5. Be in writing

I'm not sure if Dave actually came up with this list...I would guess not.  You can hear him talk about goals by going here.  It seems simple, but most people who set new years goals just say something like, "I want to lose weight".  It's a great thought, but it's not actually a goal.  I guess if you lost one pound during the following year you would have achieved your "goal" but it's not a very good goal because it doesn't have the five components.  

In addition to the five components, I also like to make goals for different areas of my life.  I like to make spiritual goals, health/body goals, financial goals, family goals and business goals.  You could also have reading goals, education goals, marriage goals, etc.  I like making categories because it makes my life seem a little more balanced.

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So why am I writing about New Year's goals mid-December?  Because now is the time to start thinking about them.  What do you want to accomplish next year?  I'm a planner, so I like to start coming up with my goals and a plan to meet these goals before the year begins.  While some people can come up with their resolutions in a few seconds before the clock strikes midnight, I think those are typically the people who don't achieve their goals.  So start thinking now about what you want to accomplish in 2012.  Make sure they meet the 5 components, and then set a plan to achieve those goals!

Need some help keeping your goals?  Here are some links to pretty ways to keep your goals where you can see them!

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Homemade Laundry Detergent

Something totally unrelated to Christmas!! 

I found this recipe online a few months ago and decided to try it.  I love clean smells, like soap, rather than perfumy or floral smells.  This detergent smells lemony/soapy and I really like that about it.  It also cleans really well and it's very inexpensive.  The borax and washing soda were each between 3 and 4 dollars and will make several batches of detergent.  The bar is between 1 and 2 dollars and you use one per batch.  I haven't measured to see how many loads a batch does, but I would say it is similar to a regular sized bottle or box of detergent.

To make it, combine 1 cup each of the borax and the washing soda (both found near the laundry detergents, as is the bar of soap).  Grate the entire bar of soap (Fels-Naptha) with a cheese grater and combine with the other ingredients.  Store in a tub and use 1 tablespoon per load (sometimes I use 2).

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