Curly Chocolate Cake

One of my favorite dessert cookbooks is the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Book of Desserts.  I have made several cakes from this book and they all have turned out DELICIOUS!!!  Better than many cakes that I have gotten in restaurants or specialty dessert stores.  I am working on getting my results to "look" like they do in the book, but have been quite happy with how the results "taste".  That's the most important thing anyway, isn't it?  I have the 1991 version that I got from a little gourmet kitchen store where I used to work.

The first cake I made from this book was the Curly Chocolate Cake.  I made this for my good friend Kim for her birthday.  I wouldn't make this for just anyone...but Kim is a special friend.  A lot of care went into this cake and it was fun to make.  It was covered in chocolate curls which took some time to make.  Here are some before and after shots.

Kim was happy with it which made me happy!  She has always been extremely supportive of my baking hobby and I really enjoyed baking for her.  Baking with her was fun too!  We spent a couple of weekends baking and decorating millions (literally, it seemed like) of cookies!  I will post more on that later.  Miss you Kim :o)

LOLLIPOP PIC OF THE WEEK...week 4

Two of my favorite things...lollipops and cookies! Genius to combine them! These are Swirly Sparkly Cookie Pops designed by Meaghan Mountford as seen on her blog {the decorated cookie}. This girl is basically living my dream! She's a professional cookie decorator who has her own book, sells cookie kits, and has an extremely informative blog with awesome cookie photos of her own work (such as this one). I have her book "Cookie Sensations: Creative Design for Every Occasion" on my wish list! You can never have too many cookie books. NEVER.

LOLLIPOP PIC OF THE WEEK...week 3

Eek! This is a day late! So sorry! This past weekend was not only ridiculously humid, but also very busy. I'll go into that in a sec. First things first...these cute l-pops. They are bright and summery and totally cute. Sometimes it boggles my mind how creative people are. I wish I knew how to make lollipops like this. I need to go through my cookbooks to see if there's a recipe or something.

Okay...speaking of cookbooks...holy mama! I HAVE TOO MANY COOKBOOKS. I know I have a bit of an unnatural obsession with them but it really became clear this weekend how crazy my obsession is. So, as I mentioned, this weekend was very humid. I recently moved back to this state and have all of my "stuff" in a 23-foot storage unit--okay...two 23-foot storage units. I have been worried about leaving certain items in storage all summer long knowing that it is awfully sticky here. I was particularly concerned about my photos. My mother and I went to get them out and discovered that a lot of boxes looked like they were caving in and sort of "soggy". The majority of these boxes were filled with books, books, and many, many more books. I opened a few and saw that some (my yearbooks!) were getting soggy! So, in panic mode, I packed up 3 carloads of heavy book boxes back home. I was sweating my patootie off! I loved it! Not. Anyway, I now have about 30 book boxes sitting in my living room. Cookbooks, novels, textbooks, yearbooks, magazines...sheesh! I would have to read for every second of the rest of my life and I still wouldn't make it through them all. So, why, why, why do I keep them? I have a sickness...a disease...it is so bad that yesterday I told a friend at work about the book fiasco and mentioned that I have a collection of cookbooks that I rescued and she said, "Oh! I have some set aside for donation. I'll bring them to you." Instead of declining them I said "YES!" All night I kept wondering which ones she had...I obviously didn't need them, but I was THRILLED to get them today. One was the reproduction edition of the Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book originally published in 1950. Little did she know that I collect vintage Betty Crocker cookbooks and have been wanting this one! SCORE! I know I didn't need it, but I wanted it!! I'm sick!

Just for fun, here are some pictures of my Betty Crocker cookbooks. They are so cute! The photos inside the books are so old fashioned and poor quality, but I love that about them. The cute red & white one in the top right is from my friend. Thanks Ann!

The one below is my favorite. The Betty Crocker's Cooky Book, Copyright 1963, First Edition, spiral bound.