Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake

One of my favorite flavor combinations in the entire universe is chocolate and cherries.  Chocolate.  Followed by cherries. Cherries, followed by chocolate.  Chocolate cherry chip ice cream with chocolate chunks. Cherries covered in chocolate. Cherries, dipped in chocolate, and flying through space (I did say the universe).

Many moons ago, I received a very important culinary book in my budding, yet illustrious cooking career.  It was authored by Anne Byrn, the Cake Mix Dr., (aka genius), in which she would take regular old boxed cake mixes, add a few extra ingredients, and made them taste like they were homemade.  Is she a Doctor? An honorary one perhaps, but in reality, she is a wizard. She takes cake mixes as a base and can turn them into, not only scrumptious cakes, but goes on to defy the laws of cake nature by also turning them into all kinds of concoctions, such as cookies, tortes, bars, brownies, crumbles, dump cakes, it's crazy I say!  

Crazy like a fox, I mean.  

Speaking of crazy, try not to lick your screen right now when you feast your eyes on this delectable chocolate covered cherry cake.

Chocolate covered cherry cake - is the bomb diggity

The most ironic part of this post, is that I have made this, my favorite cake, for years. YEARS! I thought for sure I had blogged about it ages ago, but to my chagrin, I realized today I have not shared my most favored, easiest cake with the world.  So here you go.  Be prepared, because this baby only has FOUR ingredients. That's right FOUR.  You will need:

1 box chocolate cake mix (I picked chocolate fudge)
1 21oz can of cherry pie filling
3 eggs
2 teaspoons of almond extract

Anne's original recipe by the way has 2 eggs, and 1 tsp of almond extract - everything else is the same.  Also if you noticed, no OIL is needed in this recipe.  The fruit in the cherry pie filling will add a wonderful amount of moisture into this cake, seriously days later and it will still be moist and tasty and won't dry out.  Ha, like it will really last for days, what am I saying? Once you take a bite, you'll be tempted to eat the rest of it straight out of the pan and not share with anyone. So take these said four above ingredients and put them into a bowl.

Chocolate cake mix, three eggs, one 21 oz can of cherry pie filling, and two teaspoons of almond extract

After that mix them with an electric mixer for about 30 seconds, scrape down the sides, then blend for one minute, 30 seconds more. Pour into a prepared (greased and floured) 9x13 pan.

Nothing to see here kids, just bakin' on a week night to satisfy a chocolate craving

Bake according to package instructions, I baked mine at 350º for 34 minutes, until the center was set and a toothpick inserted into the center came out clean... and the house smelled like a chocolate cherry fairyland.

Let this cool and then top this bad boy with anything you wish.  A dollop of homemade whipped cream, your own homemade butter cream, or a any store bought variety of chocolate frosting.  Wait, I'm having an epiphony, warmed up cherry sauce (Note to self: going to try that next time)! At the time of this particular baking, I was having a major chocolate craving, coupled with a clash of down right laziness, so I went for the Betty Crocker Homestyle butter cream frosting in the tub.  Slather that puppy on the top and take a deep whiff of all that chocolate cherry goodness.

Sorry for the boring 9x13 pan.  This is week night cake, we don't have to look pretty, we just have to taste good.

Time yourself and see how long you can wait before you slice yourself a piece.

It's chocolate, it's cherries, it's covered in more chocolate.  You can NOT go wrong

This thing was so moist and dense that it was hard to cut a piece that looked perfect.  Look at all the goopy molten goodness with chunks of cherry here and there...

One more view from this angle:

Don't forget to put some on your fork.  You can push your fork through this entire piece of cake and the whole section will stick to the tines.

Anyway, this cake is so awesome.  The double hit of almond extract really brings out a nice cherry flavor that is not overpowered by all that chocolate. This is a great go to cake to bring to parties, potlucks, and family gatherings.  The batter also makes for nice, rich, people will be asking for more of them plus the recipe cupcakes.  

The 4 ingredient chocolate covered cherry cake - easy and delicious!

The best part about this four ingredient recipe, is that you can do different cans of pie filling and different flavors of cake, for an almost unlimited combination of flavors.  I have made an apple spice cake in this same fashion (click here) with a cinnamon glaze that is to die for!  I still want to try different fruits with the bases and see what I can come up with.  For now, I will bask in this super awesome chocolate cherry goodness, and know that it was GOOD!  Nay, Delicious. 

Heart-Themed Party

Well, as promised.  I am giving you more ideas for a heart-themed party.  My daughter actually planned this for her birthday party when she turned seven.  Her birthday is in November, shortly after Halloween, so pink and red heart-shaped things are very hard to come by in a sea of orange, black and purple harvest items.  Thank goodness she is a planner (a chip off the ol' block I tell you), and told me her idea for her birthday ten months in advance, so I could take advantage of all the 50% off Valentine sales mid February.  This is one of my keys for thrifty party planning.  If you know far in advanced what the theme will be, you can pick up sale and clearance items along the way, all year long.

It was all about heart shaped things at our heart-themed birthday party

Well, the first thing we decided to do was get heart themed party items at the dollar store and of course Valentine's clearance.  They had paper plates, napkins, favor bags and buckets, all for, you guessed it, $1 or less if you hit a sale.  I always buy extra tablecloths to help decorate flat surfaces around the house.  Just cut them to the width you need and you are good to go.  Even these cute, extremely fancy bags were found on clearance.  I will often use the bags or presents found in the theme in the entry of the party to add to the decor.

These little buckets are filled with some garden foam blocks that had been cut into smaller pieces and stuffed with one piece of shiny tissue, a long dowel that had been cut to make many smaller dowels, and a foam heart shape taped on.  I made a few of these and used them as centerpieces around the house.

I used the same tablecloths and matching paper favor bags to add a cohesiveness to the rooms.  The favor bags were filled with clearance Valentine's toys.

I line the favor bags up on the fireplace mantle to help add to the room decorations

Another mention about the decor.  I found on clearance a TON of these adorable heart-shaped ornaments.  I wasn't sure at the time what I was going to do with them... but knew I could use them somehow. You can't passed up $1 for 25 ornaments, right?  Then a thought struck me a few weeks before the party.  What if we put our tree up a month early (it was November) and deck it out with the mini hearts and some pink ornaments we already had on hand? It felt slightly wrong to put up the tree before Thanksgiving, but for this theme it really worked adorably. It made quite a statement as people came in the door.  Plus it was a bonus, the tree was already up and ready to go for the Christmas holiday season.  Oh, and by the way, it doesn't hurt to dress your birthday person in the heart theme as well.

We knew we wanted a heart-shaped cake.   I bought two heart pans in the holiday clearance for mere pennies (score!) But with friends from school, and then our big family coming later in the day, I would need more than one kind of cake.

I had read in Family Fun magazine that year about an easy way to make heart shaped cupcakes as well, using a regular muffin tin and glass marbles.  Click here for a full tutorial on how to make them.

These were a BIG hit with the party goers.

For drinks I served pink raspberry soda (sold in 2 liter bottles) but for added fun, a few days before the party, I made a ton of heart-shaped ice cubes from some silicone molds I got on clearance.  I made them out of Crystal light strawberry orange banana flavor, but you could use any flavor.  The kids really got a kick out of their heart-shaped ice cubes floating in their drinks.

For food I went pretty simple.  Sometimes our food themes go over the top, but this year it was simple sandwiches, chips, fruits and veggies.  I try to put them on heart-shaped plates, and cut the sandwiches into hearts as well.

For crafts, we had two.  If you have a larger number of kids coming to the party, I have found it is sometimes easier if you have two crafts happening at the same time.  Half the party peeps can do one craft in one room... and the other half can finish a different craft in another room.  If you only have enough money for one craft, I usually make the other craft a stack of free printable coloring pages in the party theme.  Having two crafts at once works well if you are tight on space.  For example, in one room, we had a simple heart sticker craft, with foam letters and shapes.  The kids had a great time designing their pictures.

In the kitchen, we had them make bracelets with heart-shaped beads.

Games! Of course what's a party without games?  We always try to make our theme match the games we play.  We had three great ideas.  The first idea was to play the "Achy Breaky Heart Game".  This was like "hot potato" only we had a heart that was filled with strawberry candy.  We played Achy Breaky Heart as they passed the heart around.  If they passed too hard, the heart would break open and they were out.  If the music stopped when they had the heart, they were out (and of course were heart broken).

They look pretty chipper here...

If you are going to play an elimination game like musical chairs or hot potato, it is good to have a consolation prize.  We said if you got "out" you were able to have a heart sucker.  That way, no one really minds being out, and they are happy to enjoy a small treat while they watch the rest of the game play.

The next game we played was the "Wandering Hearts Game".  This was like musical chairs, only we had foam heart shapes on the floor and they had to walk around and land on a heart when the music stopped.  

Having a fun time in the wandering hearts game

We played "Queen of Hearts" for this song.  My hubby, by the way, had a great time making a CD of music for the party with only songs that had the word "heart" in them.  "You'll be in my Heart", "Heart Breaker", Don't go breaking my Heart", "Heart of Glass", Wild at Heart"... The third and final game we called "Love is Blind".  Players would be blindfolded with an empty bowl and a large spoon, next to a pile of cotton balls.  They then had 30 seconds to try and find the cotton balls, using only the spoon and no hands.  The cotton balls are so light weight, they are hard to feel, so you never know how many are going into the bowl.

Sometimes NONE go in the bowl

 The kids loved this game.

The people that are watching are laughing so hard at the people scooping up mostly air.  A good time was had by all during this game.  I highly recommend it.  Matter of fact there was a few adults who took a very competitive liking to this game!

The birthday girl's aunt Jenny really going to town on the Love is Blind game.

After the games it was cake and present time!

Love this girl!!

The party turned out to be a big success.  I love it when you can plan way in advanced and really get a lot of theme, for not a lot of money.  I also love the challenge of letting my girls pick a theme that is not necessarily a "normal" birthday party theme, where you can easily find plates and cups in the birthday section at the store.  Having a "rainbow" or a "heart party" can be tricky. Working food, games, shapes, and crafts into your theme, while still keeping an end budget in mind can be challenging.   Feel free to use some of these fun heart-shaped ideas in an upcoming Valentine party at work or school.  Enjoy!

Chocolate Dipped Pretzel Rods

A few years back I was in charge of crafts for our MOPS (mother's of preschoolers) group.  One of our easiest and most fun hands on edible snacks were chocolate dipped pretzel rods.  They were a pretty big hit and made for wonderful gifts too.

It's really quite simple.  Melt some good quality chocolate chips with a little bit of vegetable oil or shortening, dip in your rods and roll in your sprinkles or toppings.  We were doing this on a grand scale of 50 women at one time, so we melted a giant 10-pound bag of chocolate chips from Costco into our crock pot.  

Ten pounds of melted chocolate.... you are welcome. (Try not to lick the screen)

If you are doing this at home with your kids or grandkids just take a bag of chocolate chips (and a tiny bit of vegetable oil or shortening) and melt for 30 seconds at a time until the chocolate is warm and ready for dipping.  It's a good idea to have all your toppings out and ready to go before hand.  We chose crushed honey roasted peanuts, mini chocolate chips, heart sprinkles, and red and white sprinkles.  Oh and here is a great tip for cheaper sprinkles.  Go to your local bakery (Fred Meyer, etc) and ask the baking department if you can buy some of their holiday sprinkles.  Often times they can give you a small container of them and you will get a lot more and it will cost a lot less then the tiny jars you get in the baking section.

Toppings, just ready for dippin'

 
For pretzel rods you want to buy the large ones, they come in a bag (usually in the chips section) but you have to watch out when you are buying them and try to find bags without any broken ones inside.

We found large paper plates worked good for each person to have their own "space" in which to create their dips

The crock pot was ideal in the fact that is was deep.  So try to melt your chocolate (if you are doing it at home) in a deep or even long microwave safe bowl so you can maximize dippage.  Another way is to spoon the chocolate over the area you want covered, or tip the bowl as you dip and spin the rod in the chocolate.

Dipped pretzel rods, fresh from the chocolate pond

 
Be sure to leave around 1/3 of the end not dipped for the "handle".  The dipping and dunking was the most fun we had that night.  Everyone loved the variety of toppings as well.  Because of our time constraints (a little over an hour) we ended up chilling ours in the big church fridge, so we could get to the cute packaging in time.

Imagine an unsuspecting church goer opening this baby up and finding liquid-dipped GOLD!

Of course if you are making these at home feel free to eat them as soon as your are done making them.  You can also let them cool on wax paper at room temperature, or in the fridge for 20 minutes to set up.  Store them in an air-tight container and they are best eaten in a few days.  I must say they make great gifts for care givers, teachers, neighbors, and friends.  An easy way to package them was only a quick trip to the dollar store away.

just a few bucks and cute packaging is yours

Some simple cellophane bags in holiday colors (that came with twist ties) and some free "thank you" printable tags, ribbon, and a hole punch was all that was needed to make these treats extra beautiful.

Who would not LOVE to get this as a little Valentine's thank you or pick me up?

So there you have it.  Just a few ingredients and a fun and yummy craft is within your arsenal.  This works great for any holiday by the way, just change out the colors of the toppings and the cellophane bags.  Enjoy and have a very happy Valentine's day.

Heart Shaped Cupcakes

My oh my it's been a busy week.  There has been out of town house guests, a science fair tri-fold project, I've designed a website for a friend, and I'm learning how to make comfy flannel blankets with satin binding (post on that coming soon).  In the mean time, I thought I would show you  some heart shaped cupcakes we made for my daughter's sweetheart party last year.

Heart shaped cupcakes

I want to say we got the idea out of a Disney Family fun Magazine because I can't remember if pinterest was around, or if I was even using it back in 2011, but luckily the technique is pretty simple.  First, you have to find a mesh bag of glass marbles.  That's harder than it sounds.  I ended up on a quest to find them.  Do kids even PLAY with marbles these days?

 
After some facebook post inquiries I finally found them in the "novelty" section of the toy section at walmart.  They were near the rubber balls and barrel o' monkeys.  You get a bag of 50 (plus a larger shooter) for pretty cheap.  Now you want to make your cake batter as usual and place your paper or foil liners in the cupcake pan.  Fill up your batter halfway, do not overfill.  Place one glass marble gently down the side of your cupcake until it touches the bottom of the pan.  Sometimes I had to "help" ease the liner as I dropped the marble in.

picture used from instructables.com

After baking be sure to cool in the pan completely.  Don't touch them while the pan or the marble is still hot.  Once totally cooled you can pull the cupcakes out of the pan and either the marble will be left behind, or will be slightly stuck to the wrapper, which you can peel off.  The shape of the cupcake will still be a little pointy and not quite heart shaped.

Heart shaped cupcake before frosting

 
The real trick to getting this into more of a curvy heart shape is all in the frosting technique.

heart shaped cupcake with frosting

Use the frosting to really "round" out the top of the heart and I tended to pull the frosting in ever so slightly at the bottom to make the triangle end of the heart.  Otherwise you will have a more rounded, lumpy-bum shaped heart.

cupcake hearts with pink frosting, pink sprinkles, and heart toppers

 
These would be great for a class treat at school, gifts for friends and neighbors, or even a fun weekend project for the kids near Valentine's day.  My daughter wanted a heart party (her birthday is in November) so I just made two different flavors in contrasting colors and simply placed them around a larger heart shaped cake for fun.

 
I will post about the full heart party next time, as we came up with some cute ideas you might be able to use for a Valentines party or birthday party in the future.  All in all the hearts were a very big hit.

not to mention delicious!  Now go tell someone you "love" them with cupcakes today.  :)

 

Hot Lava Love

You know there are those time as a mom when you are tired, worn out, and plumb exhausted.  It is those exact times when one of your little ones crawls up into your lap and snuggles with you that can make all the difference in the world.  It can change your whole day, your whole outlook on life.  It can give you that boost of energy needed to carry on doing endless mundane tasks like dishes and laundry and dinner prep.  

So during one of those extra long days my youngest (she's 4) came up to me with a big grin on her face.  She was wiggling her fingers and said what I thought was, "Mama, I'm covering you with love.... I'm covering you with love".  Awww.  My heart just melted.  Like the Grinch I could feel it growing three sizes.  I could leap tall buildings with a single bound, I could do another load of laundry and get dinner ready with one hand tied behind my back!  All was right again with the world, thanks to my sweet and caring thoughtful daughter.

My heart, now filled with love and joy, thanks to the love of a child

 Really sweetie?  You love mama and are covering her with love?  Thank you so much that was so sweet of you to say... she then interrupts me.

NO Mama, not LOVE.... I'm covering you with hot LAVA.  She wiggles her fingers sneakily again at me "I'm covering you with hot LAVA, I'm covering you with hot LAVA" while beaming from ear to ear.

Oh... I see.  Well that's a little different.  Lava. Love.  Sure it almost sounds the same....  The first way I was covered with admiration, respect and adoration.  Now I'm covered with fire red burning magma from the center of the earth scorching everything in its path. Sure.  I can see how you would get those mixed up little one.  But she was so adorable in her wiggle finger lava covering I had to laugh anyway.  So now when I think of lava I think of my heart just melting... in a good way...

Easy Glass Votive: Pretty and Fun

I thought I'd give you an extra "bonus Valentine's craft.  I originally did this as a Christmas craft with my MOPS group, and it was a big hit with all the moms.  Makes great little homemade gifts for friends and family too. 

Christmas Glass Votive with fabric paint

After the Valentine Doily heart T-shirt craft yesterday I had all this left over fabric paint that was still wet and I didn't want to let it go to waste, then I remembered I had a few of these glass votives left over and knew I could make some Valentine's day themed ones.  Now I know you're saying, wait a second here, did you say FABRIC PAINT?  Wouldn't those be made of glass, not fabric?  Well I'll tell ya, these won't ever go in the dishwasher and I would recommend not getting them wet in any way, but if you are just going to use them for tea light candles or the new pretend tea light battery operated candles, it will work just fine.

Ok so you will need:  A 4 inch glass votive (found at the Dollar Tree).  Mine was a round cylinder shape but you could go for whatever size and shape you want.  The round lends itself to easier taping which I will show you in a minute.

So take some masking tape and tape off the top 1/4 inch of the votive.  Make sure the tape is tightly pressed to the glass.  Do the same thing around the bottom of the glass.  I cut the masking tape in half down the middle to make it thinner and it would wrap around the base easier.  This gives the finished piece a nice edge and looks more professional than painting all the way up to the top or getting paint on the brim at the bottom.

fabric paint votive with tape removed

So then I just started dipping into my left over fabric paint with my round foam paint brush. Dabbing between the two lines of masking tape.  It is good if you use a transparent or sparkly color so it is more see through for this first layer  I used all three colors or purple, red, and hot pink here and there, adding some of the left over silver sparkle as well.  As SOON as the whole surface was covered the way you want it, REMOVE all the masking tape right away.  If you let the paint dry before removing the masking tape, it will stick in places and pull off chunks of dry paint with it.   If you have trouble getting the paint on you can also put your hand IN the candle votive and hold it upside down while you dab paint on.

Hold the votive with your hand inside of it to get a better angle to paint

This is how I was holding it while I was dabbing on the sparkly fabric paint.  Now you can let this part completely dry for an hour or two, or, if you are impatient like me, you can start hand painting decorative touches using metallic paint.  Metallic fabric paint is the best for this because it really stands out and adds some shine.  Thankfully, the tips of the paint bottles are very slender and lend themselves to some neat designs.  As you can see above, the Christmas ones I tried snow flakes, dots, holly, swirls, you don't have to be an artist here.  Since it was Valentines I added some hearts which I filled in, and some swirls.  I went back after and added some hot pink dots here and there as well.

Two glass votives using opposite colors

I did a second votive using the same idea, only reversing the colors.  The transparent layer looks awesome with a ton of sparkle, then the metallic layer comes out a bit in a raised 3D effect.

Here they are all finished the next day and standing guard over my pretty roses my honey gave me for Valentine's day.  They look even better when they are all lit up.  (See below)

Let me give you a list again of materials you will need to do this project:

4 inch glass votive
masking tape
fabric paint (both sparkly and metallic)
foam sponge brush
paper plate
steady hand and a couple design ideas in mind
tea light



And here they are all done and lit up.  Didn't they turn out so cute!! I know you want to run and make these.  The shimmer of the sparkle paint really reflects when the candles are lit.  Very romantic if I do say so myself.

finished Valentine's tea light candle votives