I may have mentioned (or spammed you) last week with all of the pictures of my kiddos off for their first day of school. Now that the kids are back to school, I am reminded of all of the wonderful traditions we do in our family to celebrate the back to school season.
If you are a local reader, I also wanted to share the Goodwill Loves Moms Celebration Lunches that are happening in just a couple of short weeks in our area..
Goodwill Loves Moms Celebration
Thursday, September 13th – Windsor Park Conference Center / Mishawaka
Friday, September 14th – Strongbow Inn / Valparaiso
We invite you to join us! Our guest speaker will be, Lorie Marrero, a Certified Professional Organizer and author of: The Clutter Diet. When you attend one of the celebration lunches, you’ll receive a FREE re-useable Goodwill Loves Moms Donation Bag and Lorie’s book: The Clutter Diet!
Visit Goodwill Loves Moms to learn more about purchasing tickets and more about the event!
It has become a birthday tradition in our family to let the birthday girl or boy select their own cake from my modest cookbook collection. When my son spied this Chocolate Almond Cake, he begged for me to make it for his special day. I will be honest and say that Chocolate Almond Cake would have been last on my list of culinary delights at the age of ten, so it surprised me a lot he would select it. Chocolate Almond Cake seemed a rather sophisticated birthday cake choice, but it made me happy to hear that this was the special cake that he wanted and proud of his smart little palate.
Chocolate and almond do make the perfect pairing and the flavors are laced not only through the entire richly moist cake, but it is also throughout the delicate chocolate cream cheese frosting that it is topped with. This cake was a huge hit at our party especially among the chocolate lovers in the group. The cake itself is rich, but the lighter chocolate frosting really pulls the cake together.
I decided to make two of these cakes so we had enough cake for all of our guests and ended up using three of the layers (shown here) for a fuller cake for our family. The last layer that I made was tucked into the freezer for my son & his friends who are coming this week for a birthday get together.
I prefer to make my cakes in a two day process and the best part about this cake is that the flavors seem to meld better if they are allowed a day to set. I went ahead and wrapped the cooled cake layers in plastic wrap and then covered them in foil. When the cake is frozen it is much easier to decorate and I have a lot less crumbs to have to work around. That little tip came courtesy of a Michael’s cake decorating course I took and has served me well over the years of making and decorating special occasion cakes.
I am looking forward to sharing more about his birthday party in the upcoming weeks and hope these ideas will offer some party planning inspiration for your family!
Chocolate Almond Cake With Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting
Author: The Cake Mix Doctor
Recipe type: Dessert
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 16
Ingredients
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, coarsely chopped
⅓ cup water
1 package (18.25 ounces) devil’s food cake mix
1 cup buttermilk
½ cup canola oil
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 package (8 ounces) low-fat cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon pure almond extract (for your frosting)
4 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 9-inch cake round pans by generously greasing them with vegetable shortening and then dusting them with flour. Set your pans aside.
Heat the chopped chocolate and water in a a saucepan over low heat until melted, stirring constantly. Set the pan aside to cool for ten minutes.
Place the cake mix, buttermilk, oil, eggs, almond extract, and melted chocolate mixture in a large mixing bowl. Blend your cake mixture until thoroughly combined.
Divide the batter between the two prepared pans, smoothing with a rubber spatula.
Bake the cakes for 28-30 minutes.
Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for five minutes. Take cakes out of the pans and allow them to cool on the wire rack for thirty minutes.
Place the cream cheese and butter in a mixing bowl. Blend well until combined.
Add cocoa powder, almond extract, and confectioners’ sugar and blend until the frosting is fluffy.
Frost your cake.
Place the cake uncovered in the refrigerator until the frosting sets, approximately 20 minutes.
Cover the cake with waxed paper and store in your refrigerator for up to one week.
To freeze the cake, wrap it in aluminum foil, for up to six months.
Thaw the cake overnight in the refrigerator before serving.
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Looking for other fun cake choices? Here are a few of our favorites!
Head on over to find out some ideas for setting your table, choosing a great color scheme, and get recipes idea for elegant and effortless dishes to serve for your Easter gathering. I hope you will find some great ideas and inspiration for the Easter season!
Looking for other fun Easter projects on MomAdvice? Here are six recommendations for a fun Easter season.
Don’t forget, I also have a fun Rolled Ribbon Rosette Hair Bow that would make the perfect Easter accessory for a little girl in your life. Be sure to head over to that tutorial and find out how to make this craft that requires no craft skills at all.
Baked donuts have become our family’s new way of celebrating all of the special occasions in our life and I couldn’t wait to share with you my snickerdoodle donut creation I made this week. These baked snickerdoodle donuts are a fun & frugal family treat that are easy to create with a simple nonstick donut pan ( we have two of these Norpro 6-count Nonstick Donut Pans) and pantry ingredients.
My husband celebrated his birthday this past weekend and I wanted to create something special for his birthday morning. Every year I try to find a snickerdoodle treat for him since it is his favorite cookie in the whole world. We have enjoyed everything from the cookies to snickerdoodle cupcakes to snickerdoodle biscotti in our house. It seems no matter what version of snickerdoodles we are creating, we love them no matter what. Who could resist that cinnamon flavor?
I will admit the first batch of these was a giant fail, although they photographed beautifully. I played with different leavening agents that yielded gummy and heavy donuts. I ended up baking a second round later in the week using cake flour and it helped to yield a much lighter donut and more the consistency I was after. It is proof that sometimes it takes a couple of tries before you get it right when baking.
Each donut was dipped in butter and then dipped in a bowl filled with sugar and cinnamon. The coating adds that crunch and more cinnamon flavor that remind me so much of our favorite snickerdoodle cookie. We all agreed, that these donuts were heavenly and there was not a single one left once I perfected the batch.
These baked cake donuts are full of cinnamon flavor with a crunchy cinnamon & sugar topping that you are sure to love!
Ingredients
2 cups cake flour (or 1¾ cup all-purpose flour + ¼ cup cornstarch)
¾ cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
¾ cup milk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Cinnamon & Sugar Topping: ¼ cup of butter, melted
⅓ cup of sugar
1 tsp cinnamon powder
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Whisk together the cake flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and salt into a large bowl.
Pour in the milk, eggs, butter and vanilla extract.
Gently mix the ingredients together. Be careful not to over-mix the batter.
Lightly grease a doughnut pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Carefully spoon the batter into the doughnut pan, filling each one halfway (you should get twelve donuts total)
Bake the doughnuts at 400 F for eight minutes. The donuts will remain light in color, but should spring back when pressed.
Allow to cool for five minutes.
Unmold each donut gently and lightly brush each with the 4 tablespoons of melted butter.
Dunk in a bowl with the sugar and cinnamon mixed in.
Shake off excess sugar and serve immediately.
2.2.1
Emily & Ethan presented their Dad with these fabulous donuts for his birthday treat. We all sang to him and Emily presented just one more gift for her dad…
Her front tooth.
It is too adorable for words.
Looking for really great baked donut recipes? I have you covered!
Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! The kids and I had a lot of fun working on our handmade Valentine’s this year and I wanted to show you what we created. In year’s past, I haven’t been this ambitious, but I am beginning to realize that our days of crafting Valentines are numbered. I really wanted to take advantage of our time together and thought this would be a fun way to spend it.
Emily has been begging me to make fabric flower barrettes for her friends and I thought this would be the perfect time to share them with her friends. I found these fabric quarters at Walmart and used them to create matching hair accessories for all of her friends. The flip side had white felt hearts to pull them together. These are so inexpensive to make, but I hope that her friends have fun sporting their new hair accessories.
I happened to have some Valentine’s Day themed stamps in my craft supplies and I had Emily stamp and sign cards for all of the girls We just clasped the barrettes right on to the cards and they were ready to hand out to all of the girls in her class.
For the boys in her class, we made Superhero Valentines using Zakka Life’s free superhero cape and mask printables. These are the cutest and I love that other than cutting them out, they basically held together by themselves with just a single piece of tape. Thanks, Zakka Life, for helping us create cool Valentine’s for boys this year.
Do you have any fun projects, recipes, or crafts that you did to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year? Feel free to link up your projects below and share them! I would love to see what you created this year!
I may have mentioned (or spammed you) last week with all of the pictures of my kiddos off for their first day of school. Now that the kids are back to school, I am reminded of all of the wonderful traditions we do in our family to celebrate the back to school season.
