Baking Experiment

Saturday was a day filled with baking for me.  I was finally going to try out a recipe that had been calling my name for a while.

I found the recipe for a Red Velvet Cake at How Sweet It Is.  You can see the recipe I followed here.

The cake was paired with a Cream Cheese Frosting originally but I decided to use another frosting recipe I found at How Sweet It Is, a White Chocolate Frosting.  You can see the recipe for the frosting here - along with some yummy looking brownies.

I baked this cake under the supervision of my grandma.  And let me tell you it definitely came in handy to have her around when one of the cake pans overflowed a bit while baking so when it was time to remove the cake from the pan it stuck.  My grandma came to the rescue and got the cake out!

Here are some pictures of the finished product.

Thanks G-ma for making it look pretty!

mmmm frosting

Definitely a red cake!

Overall there were mixed reviews of this cake.  My mom had trouble getting past the red color.  I personally didn't think the cake had much of a taste to it - probably due to the small amount of cocoa?  I always thought a Red Velvet Cake was a chocolate cake that's colored red.  My dad ate it and thought it was alright.  One of my aunts thought it was really good.  My uncle enjoyed it as well.  My other aunt is a bit picky and nothing about the cake thrilled her at all - not even the white chocolate frosting because it was too "stiff".

This was the cake I thought I would be taking to work for a food day but after this run through I decided not to.  I decided to make a Devil's Food Cake with the same frosting.  Yesterday I spent the day at my grandma's baking since I would have no time today to bake and frost a cake.  Tomorrow is the big day where I get to find out what my co-workers think of my baking skills.

I'll probably do a post including the recipe that I followed sometime soon after the food day tomorrow.

Wish me luck!

Questions for you...

Do you enjoy baking or cooking more?

Have you ever made a Red Velvet Cake?  How much cocoa was in your recipe?

Currently listening to...

Baggage Claim - Miranda Lambert

Shrimp Recipe??

Wow it's been a while since I've posted, sorry :( I am going to work on this, promise!

And speaking of things to work on I have a few other things I need to work on.

• Homework - Just like with my blog posting I've been putting homework off.  I am getting it done though, just very rushed at the last-minute.  As a result it is obviously not my best work.


• Cleaning - My room is a mess and needs to be cleaned, badly.


• Work outs - I've been making excuses to not work out, bad idea.


• Mountain Dew - I've been drinking it when I want and as often as I want.  Empty calories are not helping me reach my weight loss goals.  I'm going to start working on cutting back to 2 (12oz) sodas per week.

Four things to work one, well five including the more consistent blogging, will be enough for me to work on for the rest of the month.  Too many goals will make me go into overload and I'll fail miserably.

Now to the title of my blog.  Do you have any recipes for shrimp? With Lent right around the corner seafood is starting to go on sale so it seems like the perfect time to try out a new seafood recipe.  I really like shrimp so I would like to find a recipe for that.  If you have any suggestions or any suggestions of where I could look for a shrimp recipe let me know!  I enjoy pasta and rice so the shrimp could be paired with either one of those.

Sorry for the short post but I don't want to bore you with all the boring details of my life since my last post.  I will definitely work on posting more consistently so this doesn't happen again.

Another question for you bloggers...how do you change the font color when posting a blog??  I see others doing and haven't been able to figure out how to do it myself. Please help!

Update: Thanks to Alexis I now know how to change the font color in my blog. Yay!

Music I Love

I know it's late (10p) but I told myself I couldn't post a blog today until I had my assignments for History of Rock and Roll done.  I was still a bit naughty and read some blogs when I should have been reading but I just couldn't help myself!

While reading other blogs I noticed people are doing this 30 Days of something and Day 11 was to put your iPod on shuffle and list the first 10 songs that come up.  I decided to expand it to the first 15.  *Warning! May contain large amounts of country* ;)

Here you go...

1. "Just Fine" ~ Bomshel

2. "When You Got A Good Thing" ~ Lady Antebellum

3. "Something 'Bout a Woman" ~ Lady Antebellum

4.  "You" ~ Bomshel

5. "Church Pew or Bar Stool" ~ Jason Aldean**

6.  "Hey Stephen" ~ Taylor Swift

7.  "Satellite Heart" ~ Anya Marina

8. "One Day You Will" ~ Lady Antebellum

9. "Barn Burner" ~ Jason Michael Carroll

10. "Let's Make Love" ~ Faith Hill

11.  "The Razors Edge" ~ AC/DC

12. "Ignorance" ~ Paramore

13. "Thirsty" ~ Hank Williams Jr.

14. "Whiskey Girl" ~ Toby Keith

15.  "Brick By Boring Brick" ~ Paramore

Wow my iPod was really in the mood for country and Lady Antebellum tonight!  Normally I get a lot of AC/DC when I use the shuffle feature because I have all of their CDs.  But anyways, obviously you can tell I like country music :)

**Jason Aldean is one of my absolute favorite artists right now.  I was really happy when he popped up on my iPod.  I can't help but smile when I hear his music.  I love his voice and his songs...and he's definitely not bad-looking either ;)

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Picking an image to share with you was hard, I wanted to post them all.  If you're even slightly interested in country music I highly suggest that you listen to some Jason Aldean.  I love all of his albums!  Let me know if you want some recommendations for songs.

My love of country music is part of my motivation to shed the extra, unnecessary pounds.  June 23rd - 26th I will be in Cadott, WI at Country Fest 2011.  In four days I will see the following artists: Brett Eldredge, Joey & Rory, Lonestar, Gretchen Wilson, Trace Adkins, Steel Magnolia, Justin Moore, Craig Morgan, Gary Allan, Miranda Lambert, Josh Thompson, Collin Raye, Chris Young, Dierks Bentley, Carrie Underwood, Bucky Covington, Jerrod Niemann, Clay Walker, Josh Turner, and Lady Antebellum.  Yes, all of those artists in just four days!  How awesome is that?!  Because it's in summer I want to look good in a pair of shorts and a tank top so I am going to work my butt off to shed some pounds before then.  Also, another nifty little fact, I'll be 21 for Country Fest as my birthday is the weekend before on the 18th which I also want to look good for.

I'm thinking maybe I'll share some music and possibly some facts about the artists that will be at Country Fest in my blog?  What do you think??  I don't want to bore anyone with stuff they don't care about.

I'm so incredibly excited for the month of June!!  I'm also incredibly excited to get home from class and my work out tomorrow.  I will be stopping at the store to pick up some missing ingredients for a Chocolate Peanut Butter Bunt Cake which I will then proceed to make once I am home.  I just about drooled all over my keyboard at work today when I read Holly's blog where she shared the recipe.  If you want to drool over the cake and see the recipe you can check it out here.

Well I'm off to bed now.  I have my second exam in my marketing class tomorrow so I need to get up *hopefully* early to do some last-minute studying.  Tomorrow I will definitely be posting a blog about how that cake turns out :)