Cake and dog treats...

YAY!  After an extremely busy weekend I am back.  Exhausted, but content with my progress. I (of course) worked, took the kids to swim, did some shopping at A.C. Moore and did some baking.  While I will never be a home wrecker, I will always be a diet wrecker.  I bought a few new pans while at A.C. Moore and wanted to test them, as well as bake a cake for a friend who just moved into a new home. I pulled out some old cook books and got to work figuring out what I wanted to do.  Something basic yet indulgent was the goal and I think I managed it perfectly. 

A double layer chocolate cake with an amazingly light and fluffy buttercream frosting and semi-sweet chocolate shavings on top.  It is pure awesomeness. Completely from scratch, this cake taught me a couple of things:
1. I NEED a stand mixer. No wants about it, at this point it is a NEED. My poor hand mixer almost died.
2. I need a sifter, like a real, larger size sifter.  using my little one it took almost 40 minutes to sift all of the dry ingredients
3. When done right, simple is great.
I ended up making 2 cakes, one a true double layer with 2, 9" round cakes and the other I used one cake but cut it in half and made it 2 layer that way.  The smaller of the 2 I kept for home while the other was packaged awesomely and prepped for our friend who moved.

On a foil covered round of cardboard and in a cake box. I added pink star clusters to hers. She came down to ride with me to our body pump class and I gave her the cake. She was surprised and happy all at once.  She agrees that I am a diet wrecker, but she loves it. Splurging is ok once in awhile, just can't do it everyday, I am also a firm believer that home made from scratch is always better for you.  I can pronounce everything in the cake and frosting, while most of the box stuff, you don't know half of what is actually in it.

I spent most of yesterday hanging out with Crankybear. We had to take my truck back to Firestone. Sunday night I was leaving Walmart and the truck started beeping like crazy and my indicator light said "low brake fluid".  So we took it back to Firestone since they just did the brakes a few weeks ago and they said that the washers were bad. They fixed it and for free, but we had a lot of time to kill. We went to Petco and got some treats for the dog and a new collar. I love clearance deals and especially when it's for pet stuff, so I found an awesome little tub of Gourmet Dog Treats for $2.   They are cranberry and flax biscotti made with wheat flour, eggs, dried cranberries, and flax.  Nothing fancy, but the dog loves them and so does Monkey.

Yes, this is a picture of our dog(eating the biscotti) and Monkey (eating the biscotti) and the cat looking jealous. Monkey is willing to try just about anything and she thought by the looks of the container that the treats were for her and Toad, but was shocked when I said they were for the dog. After reading the ingredient list I let her know that she could try one if she wanted and she squealed with glee.  A crunchy minute later she was raving about how good they were and asked for another...lol She promised to share with the dog, as I had originally bought them for him.