Happy New Year from A Heaping Spoonful!

Haven't posted in a while, but will start back up after the New Year.  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, and hope your 2009 is wonderful!

He's Making a List

Merry Christmas! 

Betty Crocker: Where Did the Three-Layer Cake Go?

 

My mom has been gone for 21 years now, and I don't have a lot of her belongings.  But one of the things I do have is her Betty Crocker's New Picture Cookbook from the fifties.  It's worn and falling apart in places, but all still there. 

Flipping through it, it's clear that it was written during a different time, a time when a woman's place was in the kitchen and nowhere else. 

Thank God, women can do and be anything they want these days.  Ironically, one of my daughters is toying with the idea of becoming a chef. 

Back to the cookbook: I love the retro drawings and the pictures of food you'll probably never see today. 
The degree of creativity that went into some of the creations is mind-boggling.  Today, most people, including myself, rarely take the time to make a three-layer cake.  It's a sheet cake or nothing. 

But it's fun to look back and dream of a time when life wasn't quite so hurried, and a three-layer cake was the only type.

I'm Salivating Just Thinking about These Cinnamon Rolls

 

Just saw this at The Pioneer Woman Cooks and had to post.  These look like the best cinnamon rolls EVER.  Check it out!  Have a look around and drool.

Chocolate Decadence Recipe

Ingredients:

2 cups Nestle's Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels
3/4 cup butter or margarine
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup milk

Topping

1 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tbsp. powdered sugar.
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract


Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F and line 9-inch-round baking pan with foil. Lightly grease.

• Microwave 1 cup of morsels in a medium, microwave-safe bowl on HIGH for 1 minute, then stir. Microwave at additional 10- to 20-second intervals, stirring until smooth. Cool to room temperature.

• Beat butter and sugar in large mixing bowl until creamy. 

• Add eggs and beat on high speed for 2 minutes. Slowly add in melted chocolate.

• Gradually add in flour, alternating with milk. Stir in remaining cup of morsels.

• Spoon into prepared baking pan.

• Bake for 40 to 45 minutes until wooden pick inserted comes out clean.

• Cool completely in pan on wire rack.

• Beat whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla extract in small mixing bowl until soft peaks form.

• Lift cake from pan and remove the foil.

• Top with cream.