PW's Chocolate Sheet Cake

Well folks, I promised a recipe this week, so here it is. If you don't know who The Pioneer Woman is, well you must be living under a rock, and you need to check out her website and cookbook immediately. My big butt thanks her for all her wonderfully delicious recipes, especially this one. I'm just going to copy this directly from her cookbook. Here's what you'll need:

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk you can add 1 Tbsp vinegar to just under 1/2 cup of regular milk)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
4 heaping Tbsp cocoa powder

Icing:
1 3/4 sticks butter
4 heaping Tbsp cocoa powder
6 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb powdered sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir together and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and baking soda. Mix with a fork and set aside.
4. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and add the cocoa.
5. Whisk together to combine. Meanwhile, bring 1 cup water to a boil.
6. When the butter is melted, pour the boiling water in the pan. Allow to bubble for a moment, then turn off the heat.
7. Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture.
8. Stir together for a moment to cool the chocolate, then pour in the egg mixture.
9. Stir together until smooth, then pour into an ungreased jelly roll pan (or rimmed baking sheet) and bake for 20 minutes.
10. While the cake is baking, make the icing: Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. (I just wash out the same one I used for the cake. Makes me feel responsible and productive.)
11. Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
12. Add the milk and vanilla.
13. And powdered sugar. Stir together.
14. Dump in the chopped pecans and stir until well combined.
15. Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, pour the warm icing over the top. You'll want to avoid doing much spreading, so try to distribute it evenly as you pour.

I made this cake last night for the first time, I had eaten it before of course, but it is so easy and quick to make. I had friends over (its so nice to be withing walking distance to most of your friends during an ice storm) for chili and decided last minute that we needed dessert and I had everything to make this. Try it today, you know you want to. And you might eat a piece for breakfast, I'm just saying, it might happen.

OKC's Most Eligible Bachelor

If you know of any eligible bachelorettes, or if you are one yourself, please head on over to Amy's blog for information on one of OKC's most eligible bachelors.

Water

Here's my entry for Mandy's Photography Friday contest, the theme for this week is water.




I took this picture in Füssen, Germany on my way to Neuschwanstein Castle. I had never before seen water that color, and I don't think I have since then either.

Oh an apparently I need to post more since my last post was for last week's contest...I promise to post a recipe this week!

Seeing Red

My entry for Mandy's photo contest






One of the very first things I saw when I arrived in London.
Taken with my very first digital camera, obviously very high quality ha

Perspective

This has totally put my life into perspective. I only hope there is something more I can do for these precious people than just pray.

You can donate $10 to the Red Cross by texting Haiti to 90999, they just add the money to your cell phone bill.

On the Wings of Love

Okay, so raise your hand if The Bachelor is your guilty pleasure (hand raised). What can I say, this is the 14th season and I've only missed one, and that was because it was on when I was living in Vienna. Needless to say, I love ABC. I have been looking forward to this season in particular because I LOVED Jake when he was vying for the love of Bachelorette Jillian Harris on the last season of the Bachelorette. He's from the Dallas area and he just seems like a nice southern gentleman. I mean, I would definitely date him, just saying. So anyway, Monday was the big day, the reveal of the 25 lucky ladies who would spend 6 or so weeks trying to win the love of one Jake Pavelka. Amy K came over to watch with me, its a tradition for us, we've been watching the show together for like almost 8 years, since my freshman year of college. I had obviously looked through their profiles online beforehand and chosen my favorites.



These girls are hands down the trashiest girls that have ever walked through the doors of the Bachelor mansion. I can't even begin to tell you how many bad pilot jokes these girls came up with (because our Bachey is a pilot) and how many of them flat out embarrassed me by what they said. My favorite would have to be Channy from Cambodia who said something to Jake in her native language and told him to find her if he wanted to know what she said. And do you know what she said to him? Brace yourselves, this is bad, real bad. She said to him "You can land your plane on my landing strip anytime". Yeah, she went there.



Nothing, and I do mean nothing, will ever compare to the moment when she said that to him, he was obviously speechless.



To end the show we like to have our own special drinks during the rose ceremony, our favorite, peach Bellini s(recipe here).



Oh, did I mention that we like to get really dressed up to watch the show? Yeah we do!
Come on over on Monday nights at 7 to enjoy this embarrassment to women all over the world with us.