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Erin

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with Coconut Buttercream Icing

This past weekend, we celebrated my mom's birthday. I was in charge of the cake, and I'm always looking for new recipes. This time I wasn't necessarily opting for the healthiest option. My mom doesn't have a favorite dessert. She likes them all. She often makes coconut desserts when she cooks on the holidays. So in my attempt to try a slightly different recipe (a potato in a cake?!), to be slightly Southern in style (mmm, sour cream), and to be not at all healthy (a pound of butter in the icing), I chose a Chocolate Sour Cream Cake with Coconut Buttercream Icing. It turned out to be a great pick. I've made chocolate cakes from scratch before, but this was by far the best tasting. The sour cream and the potato made it very moist, and had a great chocolate flavor. The icing was very rich, but I could handle it.

I found the cake recipe on a great food blog, A Sweet Spoonful. Scroll to the bottom for the recipe. The icing recipe is as follows-

Coconut Buttercream Icing

6 large egg yolks

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup coconut milk

1-2 tsp coconut extract

1 lb. unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, softened

4 cups grated coconut

In a small saucepan, combine the sugar and coconut milk. Stir to combine and then bring to a boil. Put yolks in bowl and mix with electric mixer. Use a whisk attachment if you have one. I didn't so I just used the mixer. As the mixture heats, begin whipping the eggs on high speed. Boil the coconut milk and sugar until the mixture reaches the soft-ball stage (238°F on a candy thermometer). Again, no thermometer so I just eye-balled it. It took about 10 minutes. Remove the mixture from the heat. Stop the mixer and pour a small amount of the syrup into the egg yolks. Quickly beat on high again. Repeat twice more until all the syrup is incorporated. (You can also add the sugar syrup in a steady stream with the mixer on, but be careful not to let it hit the beater or the syrup will be flung to the sides of the bowl where it will harden.) Continue beating until the mixture is cool.

Add the coconut extract. With the mixer on medium speed, begin beating in the butter 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time. When the butter is completely incorporated, scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat another minute.

Use the frosting right away to frost the cooled cake, or cover tightly and refrigerate until ready to use. Pat on a generous coating of the shaved coconut over the sides and top and, if you have a layer cake, between the layers.

For aesthetic purposes, I regret not making a layer cake.  I think layer cakes always look nicer. I also should have made it the night before to let the icing set up, and I would have had time to take pictures. My dad and I were both busy in the kitchen for our cook out. But overall, it was a hit among everyone.

Art on the Square

We had beautiful weather Saturday. It was a perfect day to be out at Art on the Square with my family. The annual art event is set up around the Limestone County Courthouse, an elegant Classical Revival structure built in 1919.

Art on the Squre was started a few years ago by the AOTS Arts League and allows you to meet and talk with local artists. The day offers free art activities for children and features local painters, sculptors, metal artists, photographers, ceramicists, fiber, jewelry, and mixed media artists selling their work. It makes me happy that there is an organization in my community that places emphasis on art and offers this event to showcase the work and promote art education for children. I'm eager to get acquainted with more events and groups like this that are nearby.

I also took a moment to take photos of buildings and their details around the downtown Square.

Outfitting the Warehouse

Guest post by Jewel Cole

Before I chose a security system for our commercial warehouse, I had to do some research. Our warehouse is over thirty thousand square feet, ten times bigger than any home that we have ever lived in. I thought it was going to be uber-expensive to get an alarm system for the warehouse, but we had to do it. Our insurance policy for the warehouse was only valid if we had a security system installed in it. I checked with HomeSecurity101 and was surprised that it was not much more to have the warehouse outfitted with a security system than our own home. Because the cost was so much lower than I thought it would be, I have decided to outfit my two retail stores with alarm systems too. A few of my friends who are also business owners can’t believe that I have not already put systems in before now. They said that it was the first thing that they did when they bought their new offices. Truth is, I never thought the systems would fit in my budget. I guess I should have checked into them earlier!

Dog Days

Rainy and chilly day around here. I guess I asked for it. It started raining Sunday afternoon and hasn't stopped since. But before the rain on Sunday, my family and I woke up early to go to Dog Days Flea Market in Ardmore, TN. Unknown to me, Ardmore is the Crape Myrtle Capital of the South. Dog Days is about a 15 minute drive from where we live. It's in a big open field just east of I-65. Driving up the interstate, you never would think a 100-acre Flea Market is just on the other side of the grove of trees separating it from the major throughway.  There are two big four-day weekends each year, Memorial Day and Labor Day. We went a handful of times when I was growing up, but I was too young to remember. I went with my mom and sister on Memorial Day and found some interesting glassware, insulators, and a huge frame and bathroom vanity made from old barn wood.

The market originally began as a place for hunters to trade dogs, and over many decades it has expanded to sell other animals, antiques, collectibles, and junk. I took my camera hoping for some good photo opportunities. My mom had a few good finds. I saw some potential treasures, but there really was just a lot of junk. Here are pictures of the various collections for sale there.

Blueberry Cornbread

When I told my dad I wanted to make blueberry cornbread, he gave me a funny look and said cornbread is for sopping up turnip green juice. Well, I don't like turnip greens, and I have quite the sweet tooth. So blueberry cornbread it is. I came across the recipe on a food blog, The Year in Food, that I've recently started following.

To me, cornbread is a Southern food. When I lived in New York, Southern-themed restaurants would often serve cornbread as their table bread. It was always sweet, as were the corn muffins for sale in bodegas or from street vendors. I had never eaten sweet cornbread- except the time my mother accidentally used powdered sugar instead of flour in her recipe. That batch was pretty sweet.

It wasn't what I was used to, and it definitely wasn't what I would eat with my Thanksgiving dinner. I did like it as a sweet snack however. So when I came across this recipe, I was all about making a traditional dish with an unexpected twist, especially if I can pass it off as a dessert.

I came across a really cool recipe infographic on Tumblr, and decided to make one for my cornbread. I think it's an interesting graphic representation for the ingredients. Each time I cook something new, I use a Mokeskine template to add the new recipes to my collection. Maybe I'll try this for each of my recipes instead. Imagine opening up a recipe box full of visually interesting and colorful cards. I think that would be awesome. 

Cider Slushie

This is a strange time of year, a transition of the seasons. It feels kind of like limbo. Summer and fall are fighting for center stage. Outside, I can feel the breeze and coolness of the air, but then the stifling heat takes over. The leaves are falling off the trees, not because of cool temperatures, but because we haven't had rain in I don't know when, and it's so darn hot. It is September 3rd, and yesterday my sister's car thermometer read 100 degrees. It's been like this since May, more or less. Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer, and I am looking forward to cooler temperatures.

Today I went to the orchard with my parents to get our staple vegetables, and probably the last batch of peaches for the summer. In anticipation of fall, the orchard has apples and butternut squash for sale, with their summer produce as well.

One thing they had, which contributed to my seasonal limbic state, was an apple cider slushie. I've never seen such a thing! Every fall, this orchard has freshly pressed cider that's just the right amount of sweet and tart.  But my associations with cider are having a warm cup on cool fall days when the foliage has turned rich red hues, or drinking it mulled (sometimes spiked) with friends for the holidays. This was a tasty chilled surprise, and a great find on this hot end-of-summer day as I anticipate fall's arrival.