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Upside Down German Chocolate Cake

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This is a week of popular reblogs from Chocolate Castles. I made this last night and we both agreed that this is ONE GREAT CAKE. This will prove to be one of your best recipes. The flavor is amazing and it doesn’t need any other frosting. Make this one of your desserts for your Christmas Dessert table. You will get more compliments than you can imagine!!!

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No matter what cake comes out of our kitchen, Randy’s favorite remains the same, German Chocolate. This recipe is a quick version to put on the table when I don’t have time to whip egg whites or spend 12 minutes stirring the frosting that goes on top. I found this recipe on the side of a Duncan Hines German Chocolate cake mix. It is so rich because of the butter and cream cheese. Will keep this recipe right on top. It has Randy’s seal of approval!.

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups flaked coconut

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans

1 pkg Duncan Hines German Chocolate Cake mix

1 ( 8oz) cream cheese (softened)

1/2 cup butter, melted (this is not the same butter listed above, but an addition)

1 lb powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350; grease and flour a 9×13″ pan.

Melt 1/2…

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Breakfast · Fruit · Holiday Fare

Fruit Compote for Christmas Morning Breakfast

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This was a Taste of Home winning recipe.

2 cans (15 1/4 oz each can) sliced pears, drained

1 can (29 oz) sliced peaches, drained

1 can (20 oz) unsweetened pineapple chunks, drained

1 package (20 oz) pitted dried plums

1 jar (16 oz) unsweetened applesauce

1 can (21 oz) cherry pie filling

1/4 cups packed brown sugar

IN a large bowl, combine the first 5 ingredients. Pour into a 13×9 baking dish coated with cooking spray. Spread pie filling over fruit mixture, then sprinkle on the brown sugar.

Cover and bake in a preheated oven at 350. for 40-45 min or until bubbly. Serve warm

Yield: 16 servings

Breads · Breakfast · Casseroles · Holiday Fare

Cheese Sausage & Croissant Casserole

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What a wonderful new Christmas Morning breakfast dish. Taken from Southern Living, all you need is a great fruit compote which will be on tomorrow’s blog post and you have a great way to celebrate Christmas morning.

1 lb ground pork sausage (such as Jimmy Dean)

1 1/4 cups (5 oz) shredded Parmesan cheese

1 teas salt

6 green onions, sliced

1 (13.22 oz) package mini croissants (about 24 of the mini ones), torn

Vegetable cooking spray

3 cups milk

1 cup heavy cream

5 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 cups (8 oz) shredded Gruyere cheese

Cook sausage 8 min in a skillet over medium-high heat, stirring to crumble. When sausage is done, drain and toss with the Parmesan and next 3 ingredients. Arrange in a 13×9 baking dish which you have sprayed with vegetable cooking spray.

Whisk together milk and next 2 ingredients; pour over sausage mixture. Cover and chill 8 hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350. Uncover casserole and sprinkle with Gruyere. Bake 45 min or until golden. Let stand 10 min before serving.

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2ND Annual Griswalds Storage Unit & WallMart Trip

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A frew friends had told me that I should reblog this story. As I reread it just now, I realized that maybe our “keep it simple” theme didn’t last very long..but we have had a little better luck this year with our trips to WalMart. So far, this year, we have not got 1 dirty look or even a “your are not welcome back here” thrown at us. Ah…life is good.

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We haven’t figured out yet why these things always seem to happen to us. I remember Erma Bombeck saying that she felt that God allowed the circumstances in her life so she would write about them and give people the gift of laughter. Maybe that is why these things happen to us. All I know is that if Candid Camera were still being filmed today, Frosty and I would probably be the stars of the show, as we just seem to attract “situations”.

It all began Saturday morning, when, “with visions of sugarplums danced in our heads,”  we set out to storage with our sleigh to pick up our Christmas decorations. After Frosty dropped the first box of “treasures”, and us scrambling around trying to salvage the unbroken nativities and the shattered ornaments,we decided that maybe a flat bed dolly would be good to use. So, in a few minutes…

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Melt In Your Mouth Cookies

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Once again, these cookies are the favorite this year. At a cookie open house that I held yesterday, this cookie was the one that everyone could not get enough of. They simply do melt in your mouth and the flavor is so buttery and sweet. You have to make this cookie one of your Christmas Cookie Keeper Recipes. You will be making them year after year. Merry Christmas!

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This truly do melt in your mouth, due to the amount of corn starch, they seem to just disappear the minute you pop it in your mouth. They are just such a light and wonderful Christmas cookie.This is one of Frosty’s favorite cookies.
1 cup butter
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 teas vanilla
1 cup flour
3/4 cup cornstarch
Cream butter, sugar and vanilla. Sift flour and cornstarch and add to creamed mixture. Drop by teaspoon onto lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 12-14 min. Makes
5 1/2 – 6 dz cookies. When completely cool, frost with the following:
2 cups powdered sugar
4 tables butter
2 teas vanilla.
Mix the above 3 ingredients together with enough cream to get it to a good spreading consistency. About 1/3 cup cream. If you need more liquid, add by tablespoons, one at a time. (I use either whipping cream…

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Daily Thoughts

No More Bah Humbug

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2014-12-11 12.21.15

This morning has me in the kitchen baking for the cookie open house I am having tomorrow. I have been so busy that I didn’t stop to ask Frosty why he kept going in and out the back kitchen door, but when I went to get more butter out of the garage fridge, there he was with wrapping paper, scissors and tape, just wrapping away. When I ask him what he was doing, he responded that this year he was not waiting until Christmas Eve to wrap presents, as was his normal tradition. Since we had only bought Sponge Bob and Princes Elsa wrapping paper thus far, (for the grandkids presents, not outs supposedly),  he informed me that one of my presents would be wrapped in Sponge Bob, one in Frozen  and one in Trader Joe’s brown paper sack, but he had actually cut ribbon and wrapped it around the brown paper wrapping..

Last night we had sat and watched The Middle and laughed till we cried. If you have not watched it, you must take the time to do so. That show is just so real regarding how Mom’s and Dad’s think about Christmas trappings and what we spend so much time and energy on the last few days before Christmas morn. I guess it really made an impact on him, as I cannot remember in 20 years, Frosty wrapping presents before the 24th, much less doing it with a smile on his face, listening to our Ipod playing Christmas carols. What has happened to my Bah Humbug Frosty and what has retirement done to him?

This is the same man that surprised me a little over a week ago, when he turned down the tollway and headed downtown to look at the Christmas lights! WITHOUT ME ASKING!!!!. This is actually getting a little scarey. I  have come downstairs in the mornings the last couple of weeks to the sound of our TV playing Christmas Carols at 7:30 a.m. He has already replaced the battery in my Christmas Carol clock. I wonder if he has seen me thumbing through travel magazines of ” how to spend your husbands insurance money after he is gone”? A wife does have to plan you know!

He has just walked back through the kitchen with the presents which he finished wrapping, singing Frozen………now I’m worried. Let it Go, Frosty, really, Let it Go….

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Raspberry Thumbprints Cookies

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This Friday I am giving an open house for my neighborhood ladies for a Cookie Gingerbread Open House. We are new to the neighborhood and I thought it would be a great way to meet some of the neighbors. This recipe goes with me where ever I go…it is our favorite little thumbprint cookie and reeks of butter with the delicious flavor of the raspberry jam in the center. So easy to make (especially using the Thumbie to make the indentions).

2014-12-10 13.49.59

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teas salt

2 teas vanilla

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup of raspberry jam or preserves (love Trader Jo’s brand)

Combine butter and sugar and beat until well combined about 2 minutes. Add the vanilla and salt and beat on medium for about a min. Add the flour and mix in until all is incorporated with butter mixture. Form 1″ balls and place on baking sheet.

Make indention with thumb or the Thumbie (which can be purchased from Etsy shop, “Chocolate Castles for $3.00). Put about 1/4 teas of raspberry jam in center of indention. I also sprinkled red colored sugar over the top of the cookies before baking.

Bake in a preheated 350 oven for about 10-12 min. Let cool and keep in air tight container. Makes 4 dozen

Chocolate · Desserts

Praline Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Castles2 Comments

Last evening we were invited to a birthday dinner for my BFF here in Dallas. One of Cora’s favorite things is to stand in my kitchen and eat my praline frosting with a spoon straight out of the pan. She also loves chocolate cake, so I thought about it and decided to combine her two favorite flavors into one big chocolate cake with praline frosting. The inside layers of frosting were the praline and the outside was covered with a great chocolate cream cheese frosting. The results were amazing.

Cake:

1 box Duncan Hines Devils Food Cake mix

4 eggs at room temp (this is important as they whip up and allow the cake layers to be fluffier)

1 cup COLD water

1 envelope of Dream Whip (yes you can still find it on the shelves in baking isle of grocery)

Mix all ingredients, beating well for 4 min on medium speed. Bake in 3 prepared pans as directed on back of box. When you have turned the cake layers out on waxed paper allowing to cool, until you frost them, prepare the frosting.

Praline Frosting

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

1/2 stick of butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/3 cup whipping cream

1 teas vanilla

Combine the butter, brown sugar and whipping cream in a sauce pan to allow the sugar and butter to melt. Stir constantly and when mixture begins to bubble around the edges, pour over the powdered sugar which has been placed in a mixing bowl. Beat well until all powdered sugar is incorporated then add 1 teas vanilla and beat until spreading consistency. Add a little more whipping cream as needed to spread over the layers of cake. If frosting begins to get to thick while waiting to spread on 2nd inside layer, add a little more whipping cream. Place the bottom layer on a serving platter and spread half of the praline frosting over the cake layer. Place the 2nd layer on top and use the other half of the frosting (I saved about 2 tables to drizzle over the top of the cake) to spread over the layer. Then place the 3rd chocolate layer over the praline frosting but do not frost it until the sides of the cake have been frosted with the chocolate frosting. Then frost the top of the cake with the chocolate frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

1 (1 lb) box powdered sugar

1 stick of butter

1 (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teas vanilla

In a small saucepan, combine the butter,  chocolate chips and cocoa. Stir until all is melted and combined well. Pour over the powdered sugar and add the softened cream cheese. Mix on medium speed until it is combine and no more lumps remain in the frosting. If necessary, you may use milk or whipping cream to thin frosting to spreading consistency. I did add just a touch of whipping cream. (about 2 tables). 2014-12-05 12.42.04 2014-12-05 19.52.41 Add the vanilla and blend in well. Frost sides and top of cake with chocolate mixture. I drizzled a little of the praline frosting over the top of the cake as well.

Daily Thoughts

The Best Seat in the House

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Last night we had friends over for dinner and I was just going along with cooking, setting the table to make it look festive. I wanted it to be just the perfect December entertaining evening with great food, all the while our guests would be listening to beautiful Christmas music in the background. I envisioned that they would get in their car on the way home saying, “how does she do it? How does she create such a beautiful meal with beautiful decorations and just make the evening so special?”

That dream came crashing down on me this morning as I was over on the side of the table putting away a few of the “special” Christmas dishes that I had brought out to use last night, when I glanced down and saw something that any “perfect hostess” would not want to see.

There in the chair that my friend, Janet, was sitting was a stack of about 6 placemats that I had forgot to take out of the chair and put away. So the entire evening, as we sat around the table, refilling tea glasses and taking in all the compliments of, “you really did make these delish individual peach streusel pies”? my precious friend was spending her entire evening trying to balance herself atop the placemats…quilted placemats, no less.

If we still lived in California and I was still having to find innovative hiding places for all our things, because no closets, I could maybe use that excuse, but being back in the land of Big Closets Texas…the only excuse I had now was….oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m going to say this…”I’m old and forgetful.” There I admit it…I thought she was a little ADHD last night when she kept fidgeting, but thought maybe she is just ansy to get to the living room couch where we could just stretch out and talk about how lovely the dinner was and how great it was to be around all the Christmas décor that my oldest son, Jason, says, “looks like it is a craft store in here mom where you should have price tags on everything.”

Well, maybe I’m no Martha Stewart, but maybe I have invented a way of getting rid of guests that you hope won’t stay to long after dinner…….

I just texted Janet (yes I texted my apology, I told you I am not Martha) and she texted back that she wondered what it was but thought it might just be more decorations….I guess she looked around and figured that that was about the only space left that needed filling with Christmas décor…Jason, I think you might be more right than I care to admit.

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Frosty’s Light Repairs

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I knew we shouldn’t have driven around this early in the Christmas season looking at the lights of the season. Frosty came home from our ride through decorated neighborhoods a couple of nights ago and now has decided that the few thousand lights we had up is not enough. So back to Santa’s workshop (aka Wallyworld) he went yesterday and is now taking down his first attempt at lighting up our small abode like an airport and is back up the ladder with several more (actually a lot more than several) strands which is going up as I type. I need to get this posted before he blows a fuse and we have no electricity so will close for now and help hold the ladder so we don’t have to make an emergency run to the ER…….or guess they could send the ambulance. for sure they would be able to spot the correct house tonight.

Frosty Light Additions
Frosty’s Light Additions