Happy Birthday Mac

My mom gave me a cake mold for Valentine's Day, so I decided I wanted to use it and I attempted to make a cake for my brother's birthday.

This is what it was suppose to look like:


I mixed up the cake mix, in this case, gluten free cake mix, so my mom could eat it. The directions said to divide the mix between the two molds evenly. That didn't even cover the mold, but cakes rise some, so I figured it would work out. Always follow the direction the first time, then change accordingly, they always say. It didn't cover the mold, turns out. So basically I had the outside ring, and an awkward cupcake looking cupcake that wasn't connected. But I decided to put together the cake anyway. Earlier I had made a chocolate mousse sort of concoction. I used:

*6 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate morsels
*3 eggs, searated
*1/4 cup water
*1/8 tsp salt
*1.3 cup firmly packed brown sugar


First you melt the semi-sweet chips, you can do it over a double boiler or in the microwave.


Next add the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add water and beat until smooth.


In another bowl, combine egg whites and salt. Beat until soft peaks form. Gradually beat in brown sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.


Gently fold in chocolate mixture.


Chill in the refrigerator a couple of hours or until read to serve.

After I made that, and it was a little runny, and not up the the texture I wanted, I probably should have made a sort of chocolate/whipped cream mixture. Next time!

I put the chocolate mousse in the middle of each cake half and layered strawberries on top, then flipped the top over on to the bottom. I iced it with chocolate icing. After that, since there was a gap between the side ring and the middle section, I realized I'd either need to fill it up with lots of icing or figure something else out. So I just cut up some more strawberries and made a little decoration on top of the cake!


Next I used my not so great piping skills to make decoration around the bottom (which is hard to see in the picture below) and I wrote a happy birthday message to my brother.


I put the cake in the fridge, and the next day we ate some without my brother. He went out of town that morning, and so we celebrated my mom giving birth to him instead of him being born. I know, weird, but we got cake! It was interesting, and didn't look nice when cutting the pieces out, but at least it was edible!


I like how you can make out the bottom of a heart in the cake. I'm definitely going to try to do this again, but with a different center, and more cake mix!


~Taylor~

Ravioli Soup

The other day my grandma got me a dutch oven while we were out at Home Goods. I was really excited because a lot of the recipes I've been wanting to try out have called for a dutch oven to be used. Now, I have no idea why a dutch oven is different from another pot, I guess I could look it up, but I wanted one anyway. So I finally have a dutch oven and I came across the Ravioli Soup recipe in one of the cookbooks my grandma gave me. I thought it sounded really good, and made plans to make it the next day! I will now share the recipe with you!


Ingredients:


1 pound ground beef
2 cups water
2 cans (one 28 ounces, one 14-1/2 ounces) crushed tomatoes
1 can (6 ounces) tomato paste
1-1/2 cups chopped onion
1/4 cup minced fresh parsley
2 garlic cloves, minced
3/4 teaspoon dried basil
1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon onion salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
1 package (9 ounces) refrigerated cheese ravioli
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese





First you want to brown the pound of beef in the dutch oven over medium heat. You could probably use more beef depending on how meaty you want your soup to be.





Just make sure you get all nice and brown, and there is no more pink!





Then you add the water, tomatoes, tomato paste, onion, parsley, garlic and seasonings. I didn't use onion because Kevin and I aren't huge fans of onion and I haven't worked with it too much. I've seen that you can cook up the onions, take them out and then cook your beef and add them back in later so they're already cooked and don't stay so hard. I'll have to try that some time, but for this instance, I left it out!





Bring the soup to a boil.






Turn the heat down, cover, and let simmer for 30 minutes.





Meanwhile, cook the ravioli based on the directions on the package. I got frozen ravioli and I put the whole package in so there was a lot more ravioli than called for, but it's so yummy, so who cares!?





Drain pasta.





Once the soup is finished simmering, stir in the ravioli and heat through.





Stir in the cheese.





Serve immediately! I topped the soup with a bit more cheese.





I've had a lot of fun cooking this soup and it was quite tasty! Let me know if you have any tips in making this soup even better!


~Taylor~