Gorgeous Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Glaze

I did a post on Nami-Nami's Estonian Soda Bread Recipe. That blog post has been viewed by people from all around the world. I found her because I had some leftover sauerkraut that I wanted to use in a recipe. I found some soup. But today I found this gorgeous cake by David Lebovitz. His cookbook is found on Amazon and is called The Great Book of Chocolate.

In this recipe you can go to the Grams to Ounces page to calculate the ingredients. 

For the bundt cake:

100 grams sauerkraut
50 grams unsweetened cocoa powder
280 grams plain/all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
0.25 tsp salt
150 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
300 g caster sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
250 ml milk, cold

For the chocolate glaze:
100 grams dark chocolate (I used Fazer's 71% chocolate)
50 grams unsalted butter
1 tsp light syrup (Dansukker) or light corn syrup

Preheat the oven to 160°C. Butter a 3-litre Bundt or tube cake pan.

Rinse the sauerkraut in cold water, gently squeeze dry and chop finely.

Sift together the cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add eggs, one by one, beating after each addition.

Stir in one-third of the dry ingredients, then half of the milk. Then stir in another third of the dry ingredients, then the remaining milk. Finally, mix in the remaining dry ingredients, vanilla extract and the chopped sauerkraut.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool completely then invert onto a serving plate.

To make the chocolate glaze, heat the chocolate, butter, and syrup together until melted and smooth. Let stand until room temperature, then spoon the glaze over the cooled cake, allowing it to run down the sides.

Beautiful way to use your leftovers.
Love,
Grammy T. 

Cranberry Relish Bundt Cake

Great Picture but not what I want

Thanksgiving is over and we have a ton of cranberry relish.

Now what. 

Well, let's make a cake.

This is the winner;

Thanksgiving Cranberry Sauce Cake

ingredients

1 can (16 ounce size) cranberry sauce, reserve amount listed below for frosting
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing
1 orange, grated rind of
1/2 cup orange juice

Cranberry Frosting
3 tablespoons margarine
2 cups unsifted confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup reserved cranberry sauce

directions

Sift together dry ingredients. Add remaining cranberry sauce, nuts, mayonnaise and orange rind. Mix well. Stir in orange juice.

Grease a 9 x 3 1/2-inch tube pan. Line bottom with wax paper. Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 1/4 hours.

For Cranberry Frosting: Beat all ingredients until smooth. Spread over cake. 

It is divine. 

Try it and see. 

Love, Grammy T.

It's A Scrappy Mess

I looked out my window and what did I see 

a big snowy mess just a staring at me. 

(Sung to Popcorn Poppin')

Looking out my window I decided it was time to work on my Scrappy Mess.

The Scrappy Mess consists of a bunch of scraps from other 

quilts that I have made in the past. 

The blocks are 15 inches square and there is no 

rhyme or reason to getting them 

put together. 

Just sew. 

I think it will turn out really nice for a boy that needs a 

cozy blanket on his bed now that the weather 

has started to really set in. 

Love, 

 Grammy T.

UFO's Finished

I've had some requests for patterns for the apron and the Hollyhocks quilt. So I am going to give you those now. 

The Hollyhocks quilt pattern is from Stitches and Sew Forth. Just call Becky for that and she will send it. She also has a mystery quilt every month that is a wonderful deal. That is how I got Hollyhocks. Her kits range from $29.00 to $39.00. That is for all fabric except the back and the pattern. You really can't go wrong.

The Solids Challenge quilt is Turning Ten by Tricia Cobbs. The pattern is on the right side of the blog. 

The Apron is Strawberry Licorice and the pattern is on the right of this blog in the sidelines. It's at Amazon.com. You can also see the Tutorial at Sew Much Good.

Thanks for liking my fun challenges.

Love, Grammy T.

Thanksgiving Decorations and Creepy Lice

When I was in beauty college 
one of the horrors that was brought
to our attention 
was lice, 
yukky lice. 

I'd never thought much about lice at all really. 
Well one day they shut our school down early because one of the girls had 
found lice crawling around in the shampoo bowl. 
EWWE! 

It makes me itch to tell you about it. 
Our instructors all bleached their hair that night to kill any unseen threat. 

About two weeks later I was shampooing a clients hair and I noticed 
tiny little flying insects and of course you know what I thought they were. 
I excused myself carefully and got one of the now very blonde instructors. 

She assured me that they were only fruit flies coming from the 
Thanksgiving decorations near the 
shampoo bowl. 

Whew!! 

That was such a relief. 
Such a relief. 

Love,
Grammy T.

A 10 year old boy, A BB gun, Little Mice and a Big Picture Window, OOPS!!

Tim's picture window

This is still a good story. 

I have this adorable big family and my grandchildren can do some outrageous things at times. In the year 2000 six of them were born. They are now 10 years old. Two of them, the boys, were born on the same day in California but in different towns and hospitals. Two of the girls are twins so of course they were born on the same day and the other two, the oldest of the group and the youngest of the group are girls and were born in the same hospital months apart. 

The boys really are unique. To show you just how adorable they can be, later in the day yesterday, one of the boys, we’ll call him Tucker for the heck of it, went mouse hunting with his bigger brothers and their BB Guns, yep BB Guns. The mice had found the chicken feed from the adorable coop the boys father had built at Easter time and were having a feast. No problem….the boys will rid the neighborhood of these pesky little critters one little mouse at a time by shooting them. Great thinking right? Well, as the story goes the big boys did the shooting, let’s just call those big boys Tanner and Tyler for the lack of good judgment, and our youngest, Tucker was being very good and didn't aim at the mice at all. Not At All.  Heck no, but he did accidentally pulled the trigger and shoot the window, the picture window. I have to tell you that I am so glad that I wasn’t around when their folks got home. 

Fortunately for these Cowboy Casanova’s their dad had some time to think about it before attacking the problem. What did I do when I found out? I cracked up totally and completely. I was still laughing at prayer time, which puzzled my husband a bit.


Remember Tim when you took my new queen sized mattress out to the backyard so that you and all of the other kids in the world could have a soft landing when you and they jumped from the roof. Yep, I still remember too. And remember your BB Gun escapades in Idaho? Well, me too honey. And as far as I am concerned, I love you to pieces and you will always be my little boy. And it isn’t the problems we have in this ol’ life that matters it is how we handle them.

Love,
Grammy T.

How The Heck Are They Called "The GOOD Old Days?”

Kenna

When I was pregnant with Timmy, Little Grandma came to town. She lived in Idaho and traveled to see all of her children and their children. She had 125 grandchildren at the time. You see she had 14 children and twelve were living in 1967. The folks called and asked if she could come over and help me make a quilt for the baby. She brought the fabric, batting, frame and yarn.  We called her Little Grandma because she was truly little, 4 feet 10 ½ inches to be exact. She had snow white hair that she wore in a cute little bun on the top of her head. When she took her hair down at night it was very long, down to her waist. 

While we sat tying that little quilt she told me about making bread and keeping the yeast start on the top of the wood burning stove and how she would add flour and water from the potatoes to it. She always had yeast that way.

She told me about the olden days when she had baby’s. She told me how her tiny baby Rosetta had died because the midwife had told her not to give her any liquids for her fever. As we know now that was not good advice. The baby seemed much better at bedtime so she put the baby next to her in bed to keep her warm but in the morning she found that the baby had died.  She explained that they always slept with the baby to keep them from freezing from the cold in the night.

She told me that her twelve year old Leo had Rheumatic Fever and got so sick that the doctor told her to put his bed in the front room so that he could see all of his family before he died. He did die and that was so sad for them all.

I asked her “How could you stand loosing those babies, your heart must have broke.”

She said “You have to handle it,  you just have to handle it.”

I understand now but how in the heck are they called "The GOOD old Days?”

Love Grammy T.

Remember My Story

Remember my story about the 

two cows that came visiting 

in the middle of the night?

Well I just had to share this darling picture. 

If you love cows you will love this. 

Love, Grammy T.