Rebecca – Page 136 – Andelin Adventures

Chocolate Cake

This is my most favorite homemade chocolate cake. I just eat it without frosting it’s so good!

2 cups boiling water
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup butter, softened
2 1/4 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 3- 9 inch round cake pans or I have used a bundt pan or one large 10 in x 15 in pan.

In a medium bowl, combine the boiling water with the cocoa, and whisk until smooth. Don’t be tempted to taste it. 😉 It looks and smells a lot better than it tastes at this point. Let this mixture cool, while you prepare the rest.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and set aside for now.

In a large bowl, (I use my kitchenaid) cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla.

Alternately add the flour mixture and the cocoa mixture. So I pour a bit of the cocoa mixture in, let it mix a bit then a bit of the flour mixture and let it mix a bit, and repeat until I’ve added all of the cocoa and flour mixtures.

Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s).

Bake in preheated oven.

3-9inch rounds for 25-30 minutes

10 in x 15 in pan for 50-60 minutes

I don’t remember how long the bundt pan took, but I tend to set the timer for the lower number and then just keep checking it until it’s done.

Allow the cake to cool in the pan before pulling it out. And then just dig in and eat it because it’s so GOOD! 😉

Shhhh!!!

While Ethan and Tyra were at school, I heard Jeremy in the living room talking to Dinah, and he said ” Shhhh! I want to hear the Holy Ghost talk! Dinah don’t you want to hear the Holy Ghost talk???”

See when you think that kids aren’t listening in their primary classes, they really are hearing what you say. So cute!

Happy Easter

We had our big family Easter dinner yesterday. Laurel & Roine came out with their kids. Sandy & Robert and Grandma Shirley came from the hotel to spend some time with us. Debby and Jeff and their friend Lindsay came, and my parents, Tom & Jenny and their kids, Patsy, Wendy, David, Jonathan and Tiffany were already here (since they were staying at our house). So our house was packed but it was SO nice to have everyone here. We had conference on, and we had a really early dinner, it was more like a giant Easter lunch. I don’t have any pictures from having everyone over, but the food was great. After getting home from the wedding Friday night, Kyle and I just threw the roasts in the crock pot and got them started and we woke up to the smell of yummy food. We had a pot roast, and a lamb roast, a medley of broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and yellow carrots, fresh pineapple and strawberries, mashed potatoes and rolls (with lots of homemade jams of course). After dinner, Sandy, Robert, Grandma, Wendy, David, Jonathan, & Tiffany hit the road to head back home to California, since Robert was really adamant about leaving AT 3:00 that afternoon.

This morning we woke up pretty early due to excited kids who were anxious to search for Easter eggs. So we waited until everyone was awake and we gave them each a basket and said go find them. This year the Easter bunny changed things up and instead of hiding the hard boiled eggs, he hid plastic eggs with goodies in them.

Jeremy thought it was so funny that the Easter Bunny hid an egg in Daddy’s shoe. 🙂

Chloe was introduced to her first lolly pop, and she LOVED it! She had quite the sticky drool all over her front she was salivating so much over her lolly pop!

The girls received cute glasses in their Easter baskets:

I love this picture of Dinah and Annaleah playing with the whistles they found in the plastic eggs:

After the morning festivities, and breakfast (which consisted of turnovers and bacon mmmmm) our remaining visitors gathered up the rest of their stuff, and finished loading up their cars so they could head back home to California. But not without a little bit more fun. 😉 Our silly Californian visitors were so excited to see snow that they couldn’t leave without having snowball fights.

Mom and Dad went at it while they were brushing off their car. I LOVE that you can see the snowball Dad threw at Mom, mid-flight! And they were having such a good time.

Tommy and Tyra were having a great time throwing snowballs at Tom too.

We had a really nice Easter, and now our guests have gone, and it’s time to get the house back to normal! 😛

Coloring Eggs

Grandpa, Grandma, Tom & Jenny, Tommy and Annaleah were here to color eggs with us this year, and the kids (as always) had so much fun.

I boiled 5 dozen eggs, and two of them cracked while boiling. Then if I remember correctly we only had 2 dropped during the egg coloring, which is pretty good. 🙂

Last year Kyle had gotten out our raw eggs to color as well, since the kids colored all of the boiled eggs so fast. And going to the fridge to get eggs last year was not fun, because only Kyle and I knew which we boiled and which were raw. So this year Kyle colored 2 raw eggs, and just for a joke he used the wax crayon to write ‘raw’ on them before dipping them in the color.

Debby & Jeff

Well Debby & Jeff finally tied the knot and all I can say is I’m glad it’s finally over! I spent the past couple of months making cakes and cake balls to prepare for the wedding, and the past day or so I thought I would never be done with the cake balls!

I love this picture of Dad walking Debby to the building.

All 4 of Debby’s niece’s got to be flower girls:

Tyra was just soaking up the attention, she is such a social butterfly.

Dinah loved spilling flower petals everywhere. 🙂

I had to escort Chloe down the aisle since she can’t walk yet and that was terrifying! All I can say is I’m glad that Kyle and I were married in the temple and that I didn’t have to walk down any aisle to get to my wedding. 😉

Annaleah was the fourth flower girl, but I couldn’t find a decent picture of her in her tutu. She was throwing a fit when it came time for the flower girls to walk, and Tom got to escort her down the aisle. Then as soon as the wedding was over she stripped her tutu right off!

After the wedding Kyle and I missed the luncheon because we ran home to finish the cakes up and bring them over to the wedding. And let me just say that it takes FOREVER to finish something when the phone is ringing every 5 minutes or so, because somebody (always someone different, but occasionally the same person) keeps calling to find out if you’re done and when you’re coming back! I actually had a meltdown during one such phone call. Kyle answered all the calls because everyone was calling his cell phone, and finally when Patsy called for the second time, I yelled over to the phone ‘How are we supposed to get anything done when the phone keeps ringing and we have to keep answering it!”

The top two layers are actually rice krispie treats covered in fondant, and they look beautiful! We had some issues with the bottom layer, and it actually looks a bit odd compared to the other two layers. Kyle read somewhere that you’re supposed to freeze the cake before icing it to keep it from crumbling, and I think that I’m going to try that next time. But hey I MADE a beautiful wedding cake!

And here are the cake balls:

They truly are beautiful. Perfect little bite sized pieces of cake. And I’m glad they actually got finished before the wedding.

Kyle and I also made the mint julip for the reception, and I had made an ice cream sheet cake, but I was so rushed and stressed about trying to get it to the reception that I totally forgot to take pictures of that.

Aren’t they so cute?