Sweet as Sugar-Twice as nice!

So, I made a cake today...mainly because I didn't really want to work on my thesis.  (oops!) I just used a plain ol' chocolate cake box mix, but added a box of chocolate pudding to make it extra moist! To do this, just add the pudding mix to the cake mix, stir it together and then follow the directions on the box. I had to add a little bit of water (about 1/4 cup) extra to get it the normal consistency of a typical cake batter, but you don't have to do that.  Just be prepared it'll be a little thicker.

Okay...That little sucker is right out of the oven and I realise I don't have any frosting. I can handle that I think, I will just make some with powered sugar and milk.  Uh...CRISIS! We are currently out of BOTH powered sugar AND milk! EPIC fail as a house wife! What to do, what to do?!

We are on a no-spend week, so I didn't want to go out and spend money on those things (especially the powered sugar-total non-essential!) So I put on my thinking cap and it dawned on me I could make my own powered sugar!

I "googled" how to make powdered sugar and it was super-de-duper simple! You can check it out on Wikihow.  There are even photos...but I took some of my own! :)

1cup of sugar, 2tablespoons of corn starch, a blender and a little bit of patience. 

Ohhhh-aaahhhh, watch the smoke billow out! SUPER COOL!  I may or may not have done this a couple of times to see the sugar dust come out...leaning more towards the may. ha!

Anywho! Blend the sugar and corn starch up until it becomes the desired consistency.

So after I had the powered sugar, I needed to make he actual frosting.  Easy Vanilla Butter cream here I come! This super easy recipe is from Taste of Home.

However, I still had this tricky little issue of no milk.  But then I remembered we had Non-fat French Vanilla coffee creamer! WOO! That'll work!

Whip up your butter, whip it real good. And yes...I have a hand mixer and a stand mixer-don't judge me!

Add your powered sugar, coffee creamer (or milk) and a splash of vanilla.  Mix it all up and you've got yourself a nice easy-peasey frosting!

The Mister is lucky I need to wait until the cake is cool to frost that sucker...or else it'd be in my belly.

Quick Chocolate Fix

Okay, so I love chocolate. I'd like to say that I could live without it, but I know that would be a lie.  I like darker chocolate (around 70%) and the mister loves the hard stuff (90%-99%), he's hard core.

So I stumbled across Chocolate Covered Katie's blog and couldn't WAIT to try some of her recipes. The mister is a huge fan of Reese's Pieces (and peanut butter in general), so when I saw her Reese's Pieces Fudge Frosting, I knew I had to make it. You can find the recipe here.  It is delicious! Like, lick off the batter, the spatula, the bowl, your fingers good.

I did tweak it a little bit...I used chocolate milk and added a touch of powdered sugar.  I also used my little hand blender to mix it all together as I don't have a magic bullet and didn't feel like lugging out my blender!

So just measure out all the ingredients (start with 4tsp of maple syrup and add it one tsp at a time so it isn't too sweet).  Then whip it up!

 Within a few minutes you have a lovely frosting...make sure you taste it before you put away the blender and add more milk or syrup depending on the texture and sweetness you are going for!

So now that I had this lovely frosting, I needed something to put it on! I didn't want to make a whole cake so I decided to give her One-Minute Chocolate Cake a bash (check it out here) Oh heavens! for 45 seconds...THIS IS AMAZING. I put it on a pretty little plate (do make sure you let it cool before taking it out of the dish), put some of that delicious frosting on it and dug in! A perfect and simple chocolate dessert!