I’m different.

Some see this as a bad thing, some see it as a good. I see it as what it is. Chances are, you’re pretty different, too, maybe in some of the same ways, maybe in different ones.

Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all stamped out copies of one another.

I’m not putting a question mark at the end of my previous sentence, even though it is technically a question. It is a question meant as a statement, intended to get you to thinking but true enough that it requires no answer.

So I’ll just ignore all of the grammatical rules I was taught in college in lieu of some better ones I just made up on the fly.

I’m cool like that.

Because I said so. Don’t you agree – period. Of course you do.

When I was born, in the hospital, all the other babies came out bald or with heads full of hair that laid down perfectly.

Mine was white as a sheet and stood straight up all over my head. The nurses tried to slick it back with baby oil and that held for a minute or two until PLINK! a small tuft broke free from the oil to stand up again and then PLINK!PLINK!, two more, and then PLINK! PLINK! PLINK! PLINK! PLINK!

And I smiled.

Some say babies don’t smile – but those are usually folks who have a hard time smiling themselves and don’t want to believe that another human, only hours into this world, would do something so much better than they do.

I was born smiling and I haven’t forgotten how to do it, regardless of what life has thrown me.

And life has thrown me things and they’ve been some hard hits, but you don’t hear me talking about them or focusing on them or wallowing in them like some folks do. You don’t even know most of them exist.

Because I’m different.

I’m not different because I want to be or try to be, I’m different because that is who I am. And this world has tried time and again, and it won’t stop trying in the days and years ahead, to make me be like it, but I can’t do that.

Because I’m different.

And when I make Tres Leches , three milk cake, I make Cuatro Leches, Four milk Cake instead. Because I can’t march to the beat of other drums because I can’t even hear those drums over the roar of my own orchestra.

And I know that if three milks are good, four will be even better, especially when that fourth one is caramel.

Don’t you agree.

Again, no question mark.

Gosh I have fun!

Now let’s make a cake…

You’ll need: Heavy Cream, Sweetened Condensed Milk, Evaporated Milk, Caramel Sauce, whipped topping, and a cake mix.

I like Butter Golden but you can use yellow, white, or whatever you have. You could even use chocolate if you want.

Prepare cake mix according to the package directions.

This butter golden mix is fluffier than regular cake mixes but I promise whatever you use will be just fine so trust me and don’t fret. If you’re going to fret over something there are greater causes than cake mix.

Spray a 9×13 pan with baking spray.

Spread cake mix into pan and bake according to directions on the box, making sure to get cake completely done before removing from oven.

We’re gonna put all sorts of good stuff on top of this cake so we don’t want it sinking in the middle.

Here is the finished cake.

Now poke holes all in the top of the cake using either a fork or the end of a wooden spoon or whatever you grab out of the drawer first.

Pour your sweetened condensed milk into a bowl…

Add your other milks

Now I’m using the big can of evaporated milk, so there is a wee bit left in it. Anyone wanna guess what I do with that?

BOTTOM’S UP! I love evaporated milk. It’s also good in coffee

Stir all of that up really good until well blended.

Pour it over the cake.

Give it a few minutes to soak in good.

Let it cool a bit and then spread your caramel over the cake.

Don’t eat it yet.

I know, this seems like a cruel thing to say…

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Ice with Whipped Topping.

Enjoy!

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you are climbing it”

~Unknown

Submitted by Marian, thanks Marian! Submit your favorite quotes by clicking here.

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2013/05/cuatro-leches-cake-four-milk-cake.html/feed 52 http://www.southernplate.com/2013/04/buttermilk-lime-pound-cake.html http://www.southernplate.com/2013/04/buttermilk-lime-pound-cake.html#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:06:34 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=22824 I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all of the prayers and condolences from everyone on my Facebook Page. Your prayers have been heard, felt, and are deeply appreciated. Although our loss has been difficult to accept, we are comforted by the assurances of our ever loving heavenly Father. After some time has passed, I’ll share more on where my heart is right now on SouthernPlate.

Gratefully, Christy

This cake tastes like the marriage of an all butter pound cake with a key lime pie – and oh what a beautiful marriage it is! I hope you’ll get to make this soon, it would be the perfect finishing note to any spring or summer meal.

You’ll need: All Purpose Flour, Sugar, Lime Juice, Vanilla, Buttermilk, Butter, Baking Powder, Eggs, and Salt.

If you want to do a glaze you’ll also need a little more lime juice, confectioner’s sugar, and milk. Just a weeee little bit.

Place butter and sugar in a mixing bowl.

Beat the living mess out of it until it is all fluffified.

Add in all of your eggs.

Now, most pound cake recipes call for adding your eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

You are more than welcome to do it that way but I think it’s more merciful if we let them go quickly rather than draw it out, don’t you?

Mix this up again until well blended.

I forgot to take a photo of it after this step so use your imagination.

While that is mixing up, we need to stir together the rest of our wet ingredients.

In a 2 cup measuring cup (or whatever you grab from the cabinet first), combine buttermilk, lime juice, and vanilla.

stirry, stirry!

Now to combine the dry ingredients…

In a mixing bowl, stir together your flour, baking powder, and salt.

Now you have two choices: You can go the traditional route and alternate adding a little of the wet ingredients and a little of the dry, then mix,and continue until everything is added in and all well mixed and smooth.

Or

You can dump in your wet and dry ingredients and then beat the living mess out of it like it’s that kid who called you fat on the first day of high school.

Scrape down the sides and beat some more, about 3 minutes total.

Yup. I go with the second option.

~smiles sweetly~

Voila.
Note: Your batter will not be green like this. Mine is only green because I added a few drops of food coloring to it, which is completely optional. In fact, in light of how food coloring is sometimes viewed as a controversial ingredient these days, I suggest you skip adding it unless you have a very good reason.

In this case, I did have a very good reason.

I wanted my cake to be green.

Grease a bundt or tube pan really well.

My pan is a heavier one that releases cakes really well so I’m just going to give it a good spray with cooking spray.

If you have a thinner pan or one prone to sticking, you might want to coat it with shortening and then sprinkle it with flour.

This is a thick cake batter so I kind of spoon mine into the pan and then smooth it out with the back of the spoon.

Bake at 325 for 1 hour and 15 minutes

Or until the cake bounces back a bit when lightly pressed in the center.

Please note: If your cake has been in a 325 degree oven for 1 hour and 15 minutes and you go to press it lightly with your finger, expect the cake to be hot and use a little common sense when deciding how long to leave your finger on the center of said cake.

If you were a fire swallower in the circus earlier on in your life, you’ll probably be fine. If you are a first degree blood relation to Chuck Norris, no worries. Otherwise, I suggest pressing lightly and then immediately releasing – no counting to ten to show your bravado here because I’m just gonna roll my eyes and say you had that one coming if you do.

On second thought, lets just use the toothpick trick to check for doneness. Insert a toothpick into the center of the cake and if it comes out clean, your cake is done.

No using the toothpick as a weapon…unless you happened to grab one of those cute little sword toothpicks and then simply MUST practice fencing…

After the cake is done, let it sit in the pan for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a plate.

If your bundt cakes stick on a regular basis, you might want to look at getting a good heavy pan. I have several that I like. This one is a heavy Wilton one that I got at Michael’s with a 50% off coupon. I also have two Stoneware ones that I really like. If you find a stoneware one look for a good thick glaze to help your cakes come out intact. They are generally called “Fluted Mold” pans or such because Bundt is copyrighted by Nordic Ware just like “Crock Pot” is copyrighted by Rival brand so other “Crock Pots” are called “Slow Cookers”.

If you want to make a glaze, all you have to do is put about 1+1/2 cups of confectioner’s sugar in a measuring cup.

Add 1 tablespoon of lime juice and 1 tablespoon of milk and stir for a few minutes.

The lumps will come out and it will get all smooth, just go watch something on television and stir patiently. If it needs more liquid, add another 1/2 tablespoon or so of milk but be sure you add the milk just a little bit or so at a time because we want this to be the consistency of glue and it can get too thin really fast.

No worries though, if it gets too thin, just add more confectioner’s sugar.

The state of the world does not rest upon such trivial matters and either way it goes, you got cake!

All smooth!

Slowly pour over your cake until it is all glazified and pertified.

Allow to dry for about ten minutes, or until glaze is hard.

Slice cake and enjoy!

Grab a slice while you can!

and now…..

Sometimes folks ask me what I do with all of the desserts I make on SouthernPlate, so I thought I’d show you!

As soon as this cake got done, I photographed it…then cut it…then photographed it some more…then divided the slices up onto paper plates and covered them with foil. I kept four pieces for my family and the rest found homes in various tummies of faculty members at my kid’s school.

The greatest joy in baking comes from getting to give it away to others!

HAVE A GREAT DAY!

“Take time today to appreciate someone who does something you take for granted.”

Submitted by Renee (thanks, Renee!). Click here to submit your own!

How you can help support your favorite food bloggers:

If you see a facebook group or website that posts my photos and writing onto his or her page instead of linking to SouthernPlate.com directly, they are in violation of both the Federal DMCA Act and Copyright Law. The reason why this is bad is because it costs a great deal of money to operate SouthernPlate.com and other websites where content is illegally taken from, my server bill alone is more than most people’s mortgage payment each month. When people take content that others have written and developed and put it on their sites, it makes it harder for those offering the content to pay the light bill, for services that they provide free of charge to you. Hours, sometimes days, are put into creating one post, that all the offender’s do is copy and paste in order to drive traffic to and  promote their site and/or facebook page. Once our content is stolen, we are also penalized for having duplicate content on the internet, and our recipes receive lower priority in search engines as well.

Often when this happens, it isn’t meant as a violation of a federal law and is just someone who wants to share a recipe that they really liked. But sometimes, this is done by people and even companies who repeatedly copy and paste content from those who have worked hard to develop it, willingly and knowingly.

Often, these people say “You can’t copyright recipes”.  While you can’t copyright a random list of ingredients, our writing (descriptions, introductions, instructions, etc) and photographs are copyrighted – and each post represents hours of work that these folks steal in under a minute and use as a platform to build their sites on.

However,  just about everyone reading this who shares recipes do so with no malicious intent, and bloggers realize that. This is intended for those who willingly violate federal law despite having received complaints, and having been reported, by knowingly and repeatedly stealing content from sites to place on their own.

If you see a site or facebook page with repeated complaints, a blogger who has to build new sites because their old ones are taken down, these are clues that such sites and pages are being run by repeat offenders who fully understand that what they are doing is illegal. A lot of people don’t realize that the websites we enjoy free of charge cost a great deal of money to operate. These sites and pages that run primarily off of stealing content from other sites take all food bloggers one step closer to not being able to afford to continue.

It’s easy for us to share a recipe. While photos are copyrighted, all of the bloggers I know welcome sharing photos as long as a link to the recipe is given to the recipe rather than the entire recipe reposted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

See my examples of how to legally share a recipe and photo below:

I love Stacey Little’s Sweet Cornbread Muffins! Here is a link if y’all wanna check out the recipe! http://southernbite.com/2013/01/09/sweet-cornbread-muffins/

Made this Stuffed French Toast last night. You have to try it. So easy! Here is where I found the recipe! http://www.southernplate.com/2012/02/overnight-stuffed-french-toast.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for helping all of the bloggers who provide free sites around the web for all of us to enjoy and special thanks to all of the Southern Plate Family members who have emailed and messaged me to make me aware of this growing problem. Without all of you, there wouldn’t be a Southern Plate!

*If you are a food blogger who would like to repost the above statement, changing out your url for SouthernPlate.com, please feel free to do so. Let me know in the comments if you have and I’ll be happy to add a link to your blog below so that others can enjoy you recipes, too! Thank you!

Special thanks to the following friends from the blog world for all of their hard work and dedication in helping educate folks around the web on content theft:

The post it place                              

pinchofthissmidgeonofthat.blogspot.com

FoodiewithFamily.com                

LarksCountryHeart.com

CallMepmc.com                        

bobbiskozykitchen.blogspot.com

theCountryCook.net                    

 Cooking with K

MommysKitchen.net

DUE TO THE POPULARITY OF THIS NOTE, I HAVE MOVED IT TO IT’S OWN POST SO FOLKS CAN LINK DIRECTLY THERE IF THEY LIKE WITHOUT HAVING TO GO THROUGH A RECIPE FIRST. CLICK HERE AND THANKS!

If you’re on Pinterest or Facebook and could use one of the buttons above, I’d surely appreciate it!

TODAY I BRING YOU SUNSHINE IN CAKE FORM!

That’s the best way to describe this recipe. I worked it up and Katy and I played with it until we got it just right, then started making samples to send to folks for second opinions. These puppies have been flying out the door (I’ve sent them to six different people so far) and the reports back have me plum tickled and really wanting to make more. Last night, a person who shall remain nameless under the Baker’s Protection Act called and said “I wouldn’t tell anyone else this, but I ate that entire cake all by myself, it was so good!”.

Katy Rose and I could happily make these and feed the world all day long -but alas I can’t stop everything I’m doing in life to open up a factory for Katy’s Lemon Juice Cakes. BUT I can share the recipes with you so you can make your own

Before we get into the recipe, though, I’m feeling a little chattiness rising up within me so get comfy – or scroll down.

I know a lot of y’all are still experiencing a good bit of cold where you are, but in my neck of the woods, spring has finally sprung! Goodness gracious, did it ever seem to take a long time getting here this year!

I’ve been taking walks with my daughter lately. Sometimes we walk around the neighborhood and sometimes we head to a nearby park, which is by far her favorite place for us to go. As we near it, her eyes are searching for kids, and if she sees any she tugs on my hand to speed me up as she shouts “There are kids Mama! Hurry!”

My child could make friends with a hole in the wall. I don’t know where she gets that from. 

The other day we headed over there and there weren’t any other kids so I pushed Katy in the swing a few times and that swing next to her started getting the best of me.

I couldn’t help myself, so I sat down in it.

Now let me fill you in here, Mama don’t swing no mo’. I used to. I spent half of my childhood swinging. But as I’ve gotten older motion has become a bit of a problem for me. I learned this the hard way when we went to Disney world when Katy Rose was just two. My husband and my son wanted to ride roller coasters and things which Katy was too small for (and I wasn’t about to ride) so it ended up being me and Katy a good bit during the day. We’d walk by Dumbo’s flight and every day she’d beg and beg to ride it and I’d tell her that her daddy woudl take her. This went on for three days, they never happened to be near us when we were going near it, so one day I finally gave in and said “Baby, I know you want to ride this so let’s just go.”

We got on that thing and it went up, up, up (have I mentioned I don’t care for heights?). While it was going up, it was spinning, spinning, spinning. Katy was lit up like the morning sun, happy as she could be and having the time of her life. I was so happy for her and it was wonderful to get to see.

But when we got off, I could barely walk. I was gripping that rail and trying to convince my brain that the world was not still spinning. That night it felt like I was on a ship, I had to lay on my stomach with both arms out flat on the bed just to be able to tell myself that it wasn’t rocking. For weeks afer that, whenever I closed my eyes the room would spin, so I spent as much time as possible keeping my eyes open –  a LOT!

This is why I avoid swings. But I couldn’t help myself. I decided at that moment that to swing by my little girl would be worth a few weeks of spinning rooms and I hopped on.

“Mama! You’re swinging!” Her eyes were big as dollars. “I didn’t know you knew how!”

I laughed “Katy baby, I used to do this every single day when I was a little girl, all day long!” She just kept looking at me in delight each time we’d swing past each other.

“Mama, you’re so good at this!” Bless her heart, that was a moment to remember for both of us. As I swang (swing, swang, swung, grammar critics eat your heart out) I didn’t feel that sickness so I went higher and higher still, shedding off years of adulthood and once again trying to touch the clouds with my toes.

I grew younger that day. Those precious moments where I shed the yoke of deadlines, emails, and demands took years off my life. In fact, at the time it felt as if a full three decades worth had been removed. Once I got off that swing and took my daughter’s hand to walk back home, they didn’t pile back on, either. My heart smiles now just thinking about it.

Childhood, no matter how far away it seems at times, is still within us, and sometimes all we need to travel back in time is the nearness of a child and a trusty old park swing.

And maybe one of Katy’s Lemon Juice Cakes…

Lets get to cooking!

You’ll need: Self rising flour, butter (or margarine, ain’t nobody gonna judge here!), sugar, eggs, lemon juice, and vanilla.

For the Lemon Syrup you’ll need: More lemon juice and sugar

For the Glaze you’ll need: Confectioner’s sugar, milk, and vanilla or butter flavoring

You are more than welcome to use fresh lemon juice for this but seeing as how they sell entire bottles of that stuff much cheaper than the lemons themselves, I’m going with the bottled stuff. You’re going to need over 1/2 a cup of it so feel free to take the easy way out here and go with bottled, too. If you prefer fresh squeezed, I’ll be the first to admit that you’re a better woman than I am – and I’m totally okay with that.

Place your butter in a bowl along with your sugar.

Imagine that butter and sugar is a problem in your life and then beat the living mess out of it.

(this is how I remain a non violent person)

It’ll look like this when you are done.

 Add in your other ingredients.

Notice that there is no “gradual” here, just dump it all in there. I’m sure there are many virtues to “gradual” but I’d rather spend my spare time swinging with my kids than babying an egg that wants to be added slowly after every 2 ounces of flour…

Your final dough will look like this and be more like a cookie dough than a cake dough.

Spray an 9 inch baking pan with cooking spray.

You’ll have to kind of pat the dough into your pan a bit, either with your hands or a spoon.

Put that in the oven.

While that is cooking, mix up your lemon juice and sugar.

Stir it real good until all of the sugar is dissolved.

If you want to speed things up, pop this in the microwave for about 30 seconds to get it warm and then stir again.

I have precious little patience in my life so I choose not to waste it on trying to dissolve sugar in lemon juice. 

Here is our finished cake. You’ll notice that it doesn’t rise very much. This cake is about an inch or so tall.

While it is warm, poke holes all over it with a wooden skewer or some such.

Pour lemon juice mixture evenly over warm cake.

Let it cool a bit.

As you can see, I have no patience to wait for this, either Oh how I miss the days of ladies cooling cakes on their porches!

While that is cooling, we want to mix up a good thick glaze to go on top of it.

You’ll need: Confectioner’s sugar, milk, and some type of flavoring. I am using clear butter flavoring but you can use vanilla – clear or brown. If you don’t use clear, the icing will have a slight tint to it but that will be just fine.

Mix this up and stir stir stir until there are no more lumps. If it is too runny, just add more sugar. If it is too dry, add 1/2 tablespoon more milk.

This is pretty straightforward.

Spoon or pour this over the top of your cake.

Spread to cover cake entirely. Allow to sit until glaze hardens.

Then, the hard part. Cover and let cake sit at room temp several hours so all of the lemon juice has a chance to absorb and distribute evenly throughout the cake.

Oh mercy! Looking at this and remembering how it tastes sets my mouth to watering and almost brings tears to my eyes.

Ain’t it purty? 

Hint: They taste even better if you give them away

(Katy was over the moon thrilled when I named this recipe after her!)

*Click here to visit my FAQ page and find instructions on how to make self rising flour from all purpose.

God gives every bird it’s food,

but he does not throw it in the nest.

While I recover from my adventures in the Dominican Republic (which means catch up on laundry and take care of a flu riddled family), I thought I’d bring you a quick and easy idea to decorate my pumpkin muffins (which require only three ingredients to make!) for a party or Christmas get together….

Or just to impress your kids.

Because it is important to impress our kids whenever possible so that they will eventually realize how incredibly cool and awesome their parents are. I don’t know about you but this hasn’t happened for me just yet. I’m thinking it kicks in around the age of thirty or so.

These are simple, 3 ingredient pumpkin muffins (and one of those ingredients is water!), topped with a homemade cream cheese icing, sprinkled with cake crumbs (I’m about to show you how to make those), and then finished off with a store bought Gingerbread cookie.

To get the recipe for the pumpkin muffins, click here.

Now, lets make us some cake crumbs!

Take one muffin and crumble it up onto a baking sheet.

Place that in the oven at 350 for about ten minutes, or until lightly toasted.

Then crush them until they are really fine… 

There are countless ways to crush them but this is how I do it. This is supposed to be part of a salad server set but I just use it to beat things with.

Another fun thing to do is take these crumbs and double seal them in a bag and run over them with the car. Completely unnecessary when a simple rolling pin will do the job but there are days when it just feels good

Mix up your cream cheese icing (recipe below) and place it into a gallon zipper seal bag.

Cut the corner off and pipe a big dollop into the center of each muffin. I used a large icing tip to get it to look like this but they’re every bit as pretty if you just pipe it straight from the bag.

Sprinkle each one with a pinch of cake crumbs and then stick a little Gingerbread cookie in the center!

Look at all of my happy little cupcakes!

This is them doing a conga line!

Okay, time for me to stop playing with my food. Anywho, this is a quick and easy idea for a fun cupcake during the holidays. Because I’ve never once woke up during the Christmas season and said “Man, I really hope I can come across more ways to make my life more complicated and hectic today!”

Enjoy!

Cream Cheese Icing and Gingerbread Topped Cupcakes

You ever have one of those days where you just feel a little bit defeated, a little bit battle weary, and you kinda just want to hide in a hole but life won’t let you? We all have those from time to time, they’re par for the course of us being humans. I’m grateful for those days, though, because going through them helps me to be able to recognize when someone else is there – and that is when I can be the most helpful.

You know the great thing about that? It takes so little to perk someone right up. A sincere smile with eye contact, someone taking the time to give you a hug and say “Hey, hang in there, this too shall pass.”

The tiniest gesture from a good hearted person can shine through like a solar flare when you’re feeling a little darkness in your heart.

In the past years I’ve come to realize that sometimes God shows us our own needs to help us realize that they are other people’s needs as well. So if you’ve ever needed someone to comfort you, to tell you that you’re doing great, to give you a hug and tell you they’re proud of you…that is your cue to do that for someone else.

Be the person you need for someone else today.

P.S. Christy G from DotMom, you are awesome (call me soon!) and Beth, I’m thinking of you today!

And now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, on to apples

This is an old fashioned cake that really has the texture and taste of a pound cake with apple-y goodness tossed in. Although the traditional ingredients for pound cake aren’t there – there is far less sugar and no butter, you’ll still get the feel and taste of pound cake with the dense moistness.

The cake itself is clean and simple in flavor, just slightly sweet and not enough to fight with the apples for the main attraction. This is a great treat to have with coffee or as an afternoon snack. Oh who am I kidding? It has fruit so it can TOTALLY count as a breakfast, too!

You’ll need: Sugar, vegetable oil, orange juice, baking powder, vanilla, eggs, all purpose flour, cinnamon, and about five apples.

I’m using a mix of Gala and Granny Smith but whatever you have will work just fine.

Place sugar, flour, eggs, baking powder, oil, vanilla, and orange juice in a large mixing bowl.

Blend with an electric mixer until smooth and well blended.

In a small bowl or cup, combine sugar (see exact amounts at bottom of this recipe) and cinnamon.

Stir them together until they’re mixed up good.

Grease the living daylights out of your bundt pan.

Last week my friend Jyl got her first ever bundt pan and called to tell me about it. I was kind of suprised she hadn’t had one before because I think they’re just the bees knees. She asked if I greased mine with shortening and flour or if I just used cooking spray. I replied “I never use cooking spray in my bundt pan, I always use crisco and flour to make sure it comes out of the pan easily.” I really truly thought I was telling the truth because in my head, that is what I do. Then I started doing this tutorial and reached for the baking spray and sprayed this pan until it cried uncle – and I felt bad because I realized that I hadn’t been truthful with Jyl, although I didn’t mean to.

So Jyl, I’m sorry. I was telling you the best way to do it – I just prefer the lazy way

Oh Wait, do y’all watch Duck Dynasty? I know a lot of you do. Mama and I had lunch with Kori Robertson and her Mama this past weekend so I thought I’d share the photo in case you missed it on the Southern Plate Facebook Page. They are what Southerner’s refer to as “plain old people” which is one of the highest compliments you can pay to someone who is “famous” and “known”. It means that they are good hearted and hold others in higher regard than themselves, and that they don’t put on airs. They are both as friendly, gracious, and kind as the day is long. I can’t say enough good things about them.

My brother and sister were having cow fits wanting us to get something autographed for each of them so I hooked them up, how do you like this? ~giggles~

Anyone with siblings will get a giggle out of this one. I haven’t decided which one I’m going to give it to yet…

Back to the cake

Pour in half of your cake batter and top with half of your chopped apples.

Generously sprinkle those with half of the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Then top with the rest of your cake batter.

Now add the rest of your apples to the top and sprinkle them with the remainder of the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Bake at 350 for about an hour to an hour and ten minutes.

This is what it looks like after about fifteen minutes.

It was pretty cool looking so I took a photo in case any of y’all are as easily amused as I am

While that is baking let me tell you what Mama and I were up to this past weekend!

We went to the Lifeway DotMom conference in Birmingham, Alabama and I wish all mothers could go to one of these! It was SO encouraging and just gave mothers a weekend of being built up, enriched, and encouraged.

Whoops! Is that the oven timer?

Our cake is done!

Allow to cool in pan for ten minutes before turning out to cool completely.

Before serving, dust with confectioner’s sugar.

Enjoy this dense, moist, and lightly sweet cake

Please note: This is not a really sweet cake, it is more filling like a coffee or pound cake. If you’re looking for a sweeter apple cake, I suggest trying Apple Dapple Cake. Actually, the best thing you could do is make both! heehee!

Tune in to Facebook of your Email this week while we embark on APPLE WEEK! I’ll be sharing delicious apple recipes with you each day!

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To join us on Facebook, click here. 

“Good nature will always supply the absence of beauty ;

but beauty cannot supply the absence of good nature.

~Joseph Addison

If you have Pinterest or Facebook, I’d love it if you could help me out by using one of the buttons above. Thank you!

If you were raised anything like I was, you’re scratching your head right now saying “Red Velvet cake in AUGUST?”.

Well yes, I know it seems odd. This wonderful cake is usually made around the holidays but since it’s gone mainstream I’ve seen red velvet everywhere all year long. From those fancy schmancy cupcake joints with the four inch high icing to frozen yogurt flavors and it’s even showing up in snack cakes! Still, I usually only made it around Christmastime at home out of well…habit, tradition…and a little bit of “well it never occured to me to make it any other time of year!”

This past weekend, though, my Katy Rose got her first ever taste of red velvet. Now y’all don’t go decrying my parenting skills over that, the child has had plenty of chances to try it but it was of her own accord that she chose not to eat the cake that looked like an animal had been slaughtered and stirred up into the cake batter. ~giggles~ You know, I think someone came up with that deep red color just to scare off the newbies so the diehards could have more for themselves!

So Katy Rose had Red Velvet – frozen yogurt. ~sighs~ I know, her first taste and it wasn’t even the cake!

Anywho, I’m not gonna split hairs because it was enough to get her hooked and when we were in the Opryland Hotel this past weekend she saw a Red Velvet cupcake in a bakery and just about had a dying duck fit wanting it.

I, being the loving mother that I am, refused to get it for her - because it was $6.50! I said “Katy Baby, you know we can make those at home, right?” She turned to me with eyes wide with wonder. “YOU know how to make RED VELVET?”

Honestly, somedays I wonder if my children have ever met their mother.

“Yes Baby, I know how to make Red Velvet. I’ve been making it since I was a little girl and I use a really old recipe that Grandmama taught me.”

Once I told her that we could make 18 of them for about the same price of that one, she was a happy camper and we went back to our fun day out while looking forward to a nice little baking session together later.

Now let me tell you something, I LOVE cake mixes and use them often. They are a lot of fun and a whole lot of convenience. HOWEVER, this from scratch red velvet cake is above and beyond anything a cake mix could possibly produce so make time for a few extra minutes of work because I promise it will be well worth it!

If you have my cookbook, you can find more on our Red Velvet Cake and what we do different from most people (and why) by reading page 170. If you don’t have my cookbook and want a copy of all the recipes I’d ever need if stranded on a deserted island with a fully stocked Southern Kitchen, as well as learning my childhood nickname and how my Papa Reed scared me to death when he was teaching me how to drive in Toney, Alabama: click here.  I do tend to share a lot, don’t I?

Let’s get cookin’!

You’ll need: Baking Soda, Sugar, Salt, Eggs, Red Food Coloring, All Purpose Flour, Vegetable Oil, Buttermilk, Vinegar, Cocoa Powder, and some cupcake papers….

All of these ingredients are at the bottom of this post in the handy dandy printer friendly recipe thingiemawhosit so don’t go studying them here like there’s gonna be a test or something.

Oh yeah, Vanilla. You gotta have that, too.

This is pure vanilla but don’t go thinking I’m getting all high falootin‘ because I’ll still buy the cheapest stuff I can get my hands on. When the cheap stuff is sold out (maybe because y’all are buying it too..~sniff~ I’m s’proud!) I end up having to buy higher end stuff.

So here is my snooty little vanilla ~rolls eyes at the vanilla~

Place your flour in a medium mixing bowl.

Add salt, bakin soda, and cocoa powder.

Stir it up and strike a really cute pose.

That is a butterfly temporary tattoo on my daughter’s cheek. Those things usually only stay on a day at best, but apparently this was a good one because it was with us for several days – nigh on a week!

Mildly interesting fact: I have no tattoos and won’t ever have tattoos. There is a simple reason for this : My Mama told me I couldn’t ever get any.

Some advice stays with you. This is also why I have never ridden a motorcycle. Mama said not to. I’m not missing out on anything though. I get my rebel jollies by eating raw cake batter and occasionally looking directly at the sun. 

In a separate bowl, pour in buttermilk…

Add in Oil, Sugar, vinegar and eggs.

If you’ll notice in that previous picture I did use a Christmas patterned pyrex bowl.

It just felt odd not somehow incorporating Christmas into red velvet cake. 

Stir that up really good.

Til it is kinda like this.

Now dump the liquid into a large mixing bowl and then dump your dry mixture on top of it.

It’s all in there, I promise.

Mix with an electric mixer until smooth and blended, about two minutes.

This is my Hamilton Beach Electrics Stand Mixer. The bowl on it is much wider than the bowl on a Kitchenaid mixer so you can easily add ingredients while it’s mixing without getting mess all over everything. I’ve turned the folks at Taste of the South onto these mixers, too, and they’re using them in their test kitchens now. Oh! Speaking of Taste of the South, the debut issue with my Southern Plate Suppers column will be on newsstands as early as next week! If you’ll nose around on this page a bit you’ll see an offer where you can get a subscription to the magazine for almost half price. Each issue will feature a new column from me and a complete supper menu of never before published recipes.

Here it is, all mixed up.

It isn’t really this dark but the sun refuses to bend itself and bounce across my kitchen in order to shine in this one little corner.

Stubborn sun.

This is Katy Rose, squeezing in an entire bottle of red food coloring.

Yes, you need a whole bottle, most recipes use two bottles!

Of course you can make this cake without the food coloring. Just like you can draw a unicorn without the horn, or have Santa Claus ride a bicycle instead of a magical flying sleigh..

@,@

You can do it, but it t’ain’t fittin’ and it t’ain’t right. 

Here is our red food coloring and some of that uppity vanilla.

Notice how the vanilla is staying off in it’s own little corner as if it is too good to associate with the red food coloring. pfft!

Mix that up really well with the electric mixer again until it is deep red and fully blended.

BOOYAH!

Get something cute to put cupcake papers into two pans for ya

This will make about 18 or so.

Fill your cupcake papers about 3/4 full.

Bake at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until cupcakes spring back when lightly pressed with a finger in the center.

Allow to cool before icing.

I don’t have photos of the icing because Karo and I got a little involved in having fun and I set the camera down somewhere to enjoy the moment. I did use an icing bag with a 2D tip in it though. I just use an even pressure and outline the outside of the cupcake top, then continue circling around until I get to the center.

The recipe and instructions for icing are below though, and it’s really easy. you just dump everything in a bowl and beat the mess out of it until it’s smooth and creamy If you want to see how I make cream cheese icing, you can visit my Chocolate Velvet Cake Post for photos.

Don’t feel like you have to put the icing on pretty like I did here. My original goal was to pile it up really high like the ones Katy had saw in the Opryland Hotel but my icing kept wilting down..then it dawned on me that trying to have a stiff and full cream cheese icing in August, especially while decorating cupcakes in the sunroom, is not the easiest thing to do

Slather the icing on there with a knife and just don’t worry about it. ENJOY!

Oh wow! Here is a thought with an impact! Can you imagine?

“How would your life be different if…You walked away from gossip and verbal defamation? Let today be the day…You speak only the good you know of other people and encourage others to do the same.” 
― Steve Maraboli

]]> http://www.southernplate.com/2012/08/phenomenal-red-velvet-cupcakes.html/feed 103 http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/cappuccino-cake.html http://www.southernplate.com/2012/01/cappuccino-cake.html#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 15:18:05 +0000 Christy Jordan http://www.southernplate.com/?p=18026

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Incredibly moist Dark Chocolate Cake iced with a Whipped Cappuccino Buttercream icing and served with chocolate ice cream drizzled with chocolate syrup… 

We used to have this great restaurant in Huntsville called Darryl’s. Everyone loved that place. As a teenager, anytime homecoming, birthdays, or any other eating out occasion rolled around, we all went to Darryl’s. It got to be kind of funny because you’d show up with a date or a group of friends and it would turn out more like a class reunion with practically every other table filled with folks you know.

Unfortunately, Darryl’s closed a good while back. There is only one remaining in North Carolina, but I live in Alabama so I’ve spend over ten years pining away for my very favorite thing on their menu – Cappuccino Cake.

Cappuccino Cake was one of their signature desserts and they always brought out a huge wedge of it for birthdays and special events. My sister got her first job working there as a hostess and we’d never been more proud of her than when we’d come home on the rare occasion and find an entire cappuccino cake in our refrigerator! They served it cold (I think it is better that way) with a side of chocolate ice cream and generously drizzled chocolate syrup over the whole thing.

This is a deep dark chocolate cake iced with a whipped cappuccino buttercream icing. Does it get any better than this? Maybe, but not right now because right now, we’re focusing on this little side of heaven .

After pining away for over a decade, I decided it couldn’t be that difficult to duplicate the recipe so I set out to do just that. You can’t find a copy anywhere on the internet so I went by memory and a basic starting point of dark chocolate cake, coffee infused buttercream – and we have a winner. We have  grand prize winner. This puppy deserves one of those 6 foot tall trophies.

If I didn’t share this recipe I could retire and just bake Cappuccino cakes the rest of my life. But it’s not nice not to share recipes and I don’t really want to wash that many dishes. 

I hope you get to make this soon. It is definitely a showstopper cake perfect for any special occasion.

Come to think of it, today seems pretty special to me, doesn’t it to you? 

For the cake part, you’ll need: 

Chocolate Cake Mix*, milk, sour cream, eggs, dutch process cocoa powder (dark cocoa powder), and oil. 

*You can use any dark chocolate cake mix such as devil’s food, dark chocolate, or even regular chocolate if you like. You can also use your favorite chocolate cake recipe if you like but I like this one because it is dense and extremely moist.

In a mixing bowl, place all of your ingredients. 

Mix that with an electric mixer until well blended and smooth, about 2-3 minutes, scraping down sides as needed. 

Some folks have you add gradually but unless you’re just now joining this party, you know I’m really not a gradual person. 

If you are just now joining this party Welcome to Southern Plate! Come holler at us on Facebook so we can all welcome you proper and love on you a bit!

Be sure and visit our Front Porch forum too. There is a recipe sharing and request forum that has literally hundreds of recipes already on it. We have fun there You have to register to post but once you register, we’ll approve your account and you have Front porch and sweet tea privileges for the duration!

While that is mixing, grease two or three 8 inch round cake pans. I’m only using two. 

To grease my pans I fold up a paper towel and dip it in vegetable shortening and then smear it around real good.

Instead of flouring our pans, since this is a chocolate cake, I like to use cocoa powder. Just put a tablespoon or so in your pan and then…

 tilt your pan all around while patting it to distribute it evenly like this. 

Dump excess out into the trash or back yard. Squirrels need chocolate too. Just kidding. It may be bad for squirrels and then I’d get all sorts of squirrel rights activists boycotting my website and such, which is utterly ridiculous considering I’m practically running a squirrel wildlife refuge here at my house considering I have two of the biggest pecan trees you’ve ever seen in my yard but have gotten a grand total of two pecans in the past three years. The squirrels sure are plump though. And happy. In fact, I don’t think they could be any happier unless I started giving them chocolate…

Then you divide the batter evenly between your two baking pans.

This batter is going to be really thick and will likely remind you of jello.

Remember, never ever eat raw cake batter. 

But I don’t count licking it off the spatula as eating it. 

So many things are all about perspective…

~grins~

Bake cake layers in the oven at 350 for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

Note: If you are making more than two layers, check on them after twenty minutes. Mine are thicker since I’m only doing two layers so they will need to cook longer.

Once they are finished baking, remove from oven and let sit in the cake pans for ten minutes. 

After ten minutes, turn cakes out and allow to cool completely. 

I like to let mine cool and then wrap them really well and refrigerate overnight for easier icing the next day

Time to make Cappuccino Buttercream Icing!

You’ll need: Butter, milk, instant coffee, vanilla, and powdered sugar. 

I only use instant coffee for recipes such as this so I got those neat little packets that have a sleeve you open for each cup. They were just $1.00 for a box of seven so that seemed like a pretty good deal to me and my instant coffee stays fresh for whenever I need it.

When it comes to my daily coffee, I need the hard stuff. The real stuff. I’m talking coffee so strong you’d have to put quarters on your eyelids if you wanted them to shut anytime in the next eight hours. 

Take the instant coffee and stir it into your milk until dissolved.

 This may take a minute. 

You don’t have to heat your milk first though.

Place your well softened butter in a mixing bowl. 

Important: Don’t be tempted to soften your butter in the microwave, on the stovetop, or any other trick we use to soften it when we’re in a hurry for this recipe. We really want to just leave our butter on the countertop for a few hours until it softens on it’s own for this recipe. Normally, I’m all about shortcuts but this one is important because we’re gonna have us a whipped icing in the end so bits of melted butter won’t help us achieve our purpose

.

Beat for a minute or two, until fluffy like this. 

Add in all other icing ingredients. 

and beat until smooth, scraping down the sides as needed (like in this picture)

Now crank up that mixer again and beat this icing until it is fluffy, 5-7 minutes. 

If you haven’t tasted this icing by now, I’d sure like to know where you get your willpower from.

Time to ice the cake!

This cake is best if made ahead and refrigerated until good and cold. 

I know that is torture but just try it for me once, it’s totally worth the wait!

Serve with chocolate ice cream, chocolate syrup (I used Hershey’s) and a strawberry.

Eat the strawberry last – your body might get confused and think you just finished a fruit plate

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

 “Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.”

Proverbs 16:24

The honeycomb is one of the strongest structures designed. Strengthen those around you with uplifting speech. Everyone needs cheerful words these days. Life and death are in the power of the tongue, Choose LIFE.

~Submitted by Marilyn Miller. Click here to submit your quote.

I just love this time of year. After our sweltering summers I can’t help but feel a rush of excitement when a cool breeze begins to blow. The cotton is in full bloom now and they just sprayed the defoliant this past week which means all of the green has died away and we now drive by fields that look like they’re filled with suspended balls of snow. It also means we have one jim dandy of a sinus headache with all of that defoliant in the air but we can pop a few sudafeds and still enjoy the beauty of those fields

Do you remember being a kid in the fall? I remember wearing my brother’s hand me down jacket, pulling the hood up over my head to block out the wind, and me and my sister would rake up every leaf we could find into a huge pile and then spend the day jumping in it, burying ourselves in them, and raking them up again once the pile was depleted from all of our antics. You can sure bet our neighbors didn’t have any stray leaves hanging around their yard when we were done!

I always looked forward to Mama getting out our fall clothes because that meant a fresh crop of my brother’s flannel shirts from the year before were handed down to me. I’d rather have an old worn flannel shirt than a new one any day. The soft worn flannel and slightly too large size were like being wrapped up in a hug from sun up until we were called back into the house at supper time. Most of my childhood was spent wearing my brother’s old clothes, which I have to laugh at now because I know my daughter would be mortified at the very thought of putting on “boy clothes”. But for us, we were just proud to have what we had and I thought he’d hung the moon so I was proud to be following in his footsteps, even if it was just because I was wearing his old shoes.

I experienced fall more back then than I do now, because as a child I absolutely lived in it. Whereas now, I’m sitting here looking at it through my living room window. But you know what? A ray of sunshine is calling my name and the breeze just floated an orangish red leaf by. I think it’s time to pick the kids up from school and show them how to build a jim dandy of a leaf pile…

First, let me show you how to make pumpkin roll cupcakes.

All the flavor and goodness of a pumpkin roll but with a lot less fuss.

You’ll need: All purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, and pumpkin pie spice.

Goodness gracious, this looks like a commercial for Great Value brand! The ironic thing is that I’ve gotten in the habit of shopping mostly at Krogers nowadays, mainly because the people are so very nice there. I love it when you can shop someplace and get to know folks. When you walk in the door and they say “Hi” and you know they recognize you. It just feels like a community. Like the good old days.

I know a lot of the folks at my Wal Mart are very friendly as well, but with the size of the store and turnaround and such, it’s just harder to get to know people there. Just wanted to clarify that I like people at both places!

In a mixing bowl, place your flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, salt, and sugar.

Okay, so basically just measure out all of your dry ingredients and toss them in a bowl.

Stir that up with a spoon just to mix it up a bit.

Now add in your eggs and pumpkin.

And mix it up until well combined and smooth.

Yes, it will be this horribly putrid orange color. This always looks like bad baby food to me, but I promise it will taste amazing. In fact, it tastes pretty dern good right now. Not that I want you to taste it, because it has raw eggs in it, and everyone knows that if folks taste anything with raw eggs they’ll keel over and die within the hour.

So don’t do that. And just ignore that I said it tasted good in batter form because, you know, there is no way I could POSSIBLY know that without tasting it and with those raw eggs, had I of had even the smallest taste, I would have met certain doom and obviously would not be here typing to you now after doing such a reckless thing.

~breathes~

Now that we’ve got that settled…

Divide batter evenly among the cups of a twelve cup muffin tin, that has been lined with cupcake papers.

I was trying to decide if I wanted to make mini cupcakes or regular cupcakes for this tutorial so as I was getting ready to photograph it I texted my friend Jyl:

Me : “Full cupcakes or minis?”

Jyl : “I say full because I don’t just want a mini. I want more. And it sounds better to say I ate one cupcake than it does to say I ate five mini ones.”

Her wisdom made sense so we have full size cupcakes in this tutorial

Bake those at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the center springs back when lightly pressed.

Allow to cool completely.

I stick mine in the refrigerator so I don’t have to wait as long. Patience is a virtue but I’m afraid it isn’t one I often possess.

Now we’re gonna make our icing.

This icing is the traditional filling for a pumpkin roll and you’ll notice that it doesn’t use near as much sugar as traditional cream cheese icing does, and I actually like that better. It still tastes plenty sweet though.

You’ll need: Confectioner’s sugar, butter, a brick of cream cheese, and vanilla.

You don’t need this gallon looking thing of imitation vanilla that I have but that was the best deal at Sam’s club and you know how I am about buying in bulk…

Okay, you probably don’t know how I am about buying in bulk, but trust me, my husband (who recently had to load and unload six months worth of tomatoes and apple juice from my car) thinks you are better off NOT knowing how I am about buying in bulk.

Toss all of your icing ingredients into a mixing bowl.

You know a lot of recipes want you to add things gradually, sift things, and hold your pinky toes a certain way while making them. I’m not like that. Dump. Mix, Bake, Eat. If I’m gonna treat something with that great of care it needs to be cute, bald, have teeny tiny feet, and my last name.

I have no idea where my final icing picture went. So just beat this up until smooth and creamy and then imagine a photo of it being all smooth and creamy.

While you’re at it, imagine my house is clean, too!

~grins~

Alrighty, now we’ve got our icing mixed up and we’re ready to fill come cooled cupcakes.

Note: You can TOTALLY skip this step if you want and just put a big old gob of icing on the top of these puppies. Half the time I skip this step, but I went the extra mile for you today on accounta I love you so much.

What I do is get a gallon freezer bag and then I place a big piece of tape over one corner of it before snipping off the point. Insert whatever icing tip you can find, preferably one with a point on it, and you’re ready to go.

Okie Dokie, now fill you bag with icing and seal it shut really well. Take the pointed tip and stick it down as far as it will go into the cupcake like this. Give it a good squeeze.

Or just skip ahead to the part where we put a big old gob of icing on these things

Note: My plastic bag went kapoot after about six cupcakes and icing went all over tarnation. Clearly, some plastic bags are made better than others and clearly, if plastic bags were people I’d not be a very good judge of character.

Some will end up with more icing in them than others but it is the thought that counts.

Top each cupcake with a big dollop of icing and spread slightly.

I think these are prettier if you leave a bit of the edges showing. Enjoy!

I store these in the refrigerator. They’d be beautiful topped with a pecan half.

Enjoy with a cup of coffee or as a special after dinner treat

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

“If you treat every situation as a life and death matter, you will die a lot of times.”

~Dean Smith

Today one of our family’s dear friend, Kate Burhop, was gracious enough to share her Grandmother’s Peanut Butter Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting recipe with us. She even brought me a piece, too! It was absolutely amazing and I’ll soon be making one of my peanut butter loving family. This is similar to my Old Fashioned Yellow Cake With Peanut Butter Fudge Icing but the from-scratch cake and cream cheese twang in with the peanut butter icing really differentiate it and I know you’ll love it as much as I do! Thank you so much, Kate!

Gratefully, Christy

From Kate:

My mamaw passed away when I was just a little girl, but since then there are two major things I’ve learned about her from my family.

1. She was shorter than your average woman.  She was 4’11’’ if she stood up as straight as she could, which was a big difference from Papaw’s height of 6’6’’. But just because Mamaw was short didn’t mean she couldn’t hold her own. Papaw would call her “Banty Rooster” because she had red hair and a temper to match.
2. She could cook like no one’s business.  Mamaw was a true Southern cook with a natural know how in the kitchen. She knew all of her recipes by memory and was never once seen with a measuring cup.  Intuition was a large part of her cooking, which made it difficult for anyone to borrow her recipes.

Mamaw was particularly well known for making a to-die-for peanut butter cake and frosting.  When asked to write down the recipe with ingredient measurements, she never could.  She would say, “Just do it ‘til it looks right.” Finally, people realized that the best way to copy her cooking was to watch her firsthand.  That’s how the family finally managed to get her “Peanut Butter Cake” and “Peanut Butter, Cream Cheese Frosting” recipes on paper.

This is the first cake that I learned to bake from scratch, and I can say that it is absolutely the most requested dessert recipe from my family. It’s stick-to-your-mouth good and never leaves a crumb to spare!

For the cake and frosting you’ll need: Self Rising Flour, Sugar, Baking Soda, Peanut Butter, Cream Cheese, Powdered Sugar, Butter (Mamaw liked Blue Bonnet), and 2 eggs.

Place sugar, butter, peanut butter and eggs in a mixing bowl and mix up with an electric mixer until well combined and smooth.

Mix self-rising flour with baking soda. I don’t sift. Neither did Mamaw. A spoon works just fine for this. Add flour to wet mixture alternately with the buttermilk.

Frost your cake however you wish!

I assure you it will taste just as good if not better slopped on the cake as it will neatly decorated.

Don’t forget your glass of milk!

I’d like to hear from you in the comments below!

Kate’s Family calls it “Frosting” and my family usually calls it “Icing”. What does your family call it?

If you aren’t grateful, you’re not paying attention.

Today I had planned on impressing you with my detailed listing of the name of every teacher who has ever taught me. I even had the entire post written up in a rough draft, weaving a storyline in betwixt of the impact all of my teachers have had on who I am today. But sometimes, just because you are ready to tell a story, doesn’t mean it is time for that particular story to be told.

You see I just returned home, and now I have another story.

This morning Brady had to go take a placement test at his school so I took my computer up there with me, thinking I’d sit and work on my blog post while I waited – but apparently that wasn’t what I was meant to do today. I just love it when our own plans are pushed aside for something better, don’t you?

I learned back on my book tour how important it is to pay attention to people who are placed right in front of you, or in many cases beside you. Up until last October, I was not well acquainted with traveling by myself and had never thought I would be. But I found myself on countless flights that month, each time traveling alone, and just about every time sitting  right next to the exact person I needed to be sitting next to. At the start of my tour I would carry a book as a backup plan but by the time the end of my tour rolled around I would just get on the plane, situate my stuff, and sit and wait to see what was in store for me. I’d watch the door  as other passengers boarded and got so in tune with the ebb and flow of fate that oftentimes I instantly recognized who my seatmate was the moment they came on the plane. “Well, lets see what I’m gonna learn on this leg of my trip” I’d think to myself.

Sometimes it would be a person I would have an opportunity to help in some way, sometimes it would be a person who was there to help me in some way, but each time I sat beside someone with an open and receptive heart, I was able to glean the wisdom they were there to give and as a result, each time I got off an airplane, I was a better person than when I had boarded.

Interesting point: Every time this has happened to me, it has always begun with the other person looking me straight in the eye and smiling. Perhaps that single gesture is the divine prompting or introduction saying “Alright Christy, here we go..”

It’s amazing how many people like this are put into our lives every single day. It’s like a fishing pole with bait is placed right before us all throughout the day and whenever we bite, whenever we pay attention to it, we get the benefit of the worm. I shudder to think of how many times I’ve waded right through water infested with worm filled hooks just waiting on me and I never noticed a single one because my mind is too busy with tasks at hand or worries of the day.

Like most other fish in this big ocean of ours, I’ve suffered some severe malnutrition in my time simply by not taking notice of the worms around me.

And so, as I’ve grown in years and lessened slightly in my own foolishness, I’ve learned to be more receptive.

Such as today, when a lady walked into the empty art room I was busy typing away in and sat down, looking into my eyes with a smile and a whispered “I’m sorry, is it okay to wait in here?” I smiled back and said “Oh sure, and don’t worry about being quiet. I’m so used to having kids hollering about that the quiet actually bothers me to work in anyway.”

Her smile had come just as easily as my own and over the next few minutes we struck up a conversation that had me closing my computer and leaning in on it as she spoke. It was one of those conversations where a stranger begins suddenly sharing their heart with you and every word seems to echo one that was already in your head. Definitely not a coincidence, but a meant-to-be.

Teresa and I were both still talking when her son got finished with the test and came in to patiently wait on us. We were still talking several minutes later when Brady came in and sat down to patiently wait on us. When we finally rose to exit, we continued talking down the hallway, down the stairs, into the lobby, and down the front walkway of the school. She encouraged me, she enlightened me, she shared with me words of wisdom that echoed thoughts already in my head and words of wisdom that turned on light bulbs.

I had expected to get some work done but I didn’t realize when I woke up this morning and someone else was planning on orchestrating an encouragement session for me through the guise of a stranger waiting in an empty classroom.

I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe in meant-to-be. It’s not only early birds who get the worm. It’s the person who has the sense to see it when it looks them in the eye and smiles.

I think we’re all offered worms each day. It is our own fault if we go away hungry.

This cake is from another gem of a person who was placed into my life, Miss Patsy McGough. We had a ladies meeting at church this past Sunday and everyone was asked to bring a dish. Lo and behold, I ended up with a piece of one of the best coconut cakes I’ve ever had on my plate and guess who should make it but Miss Patsy herself!

I chatted with her a few precious minutes and it turns out she follows Southern Plate. I said, “This cake is wonderful” and she replied “Aw honey, I hate to tell anyone the recipe because it’s just too easy!”. I assured her that the recipes I always thought of as “too easy” were the ones that were the biggest hits on Southern Plate and when she shared it with me I remarked about how it was very much like my Butterfinger cake, which is one of the most popular recipes on the website. She was kind enough to give me permission to share her recipe with you and I know you’re going to enjoy the ease and amazing coconut infused taste of this light tasting cake.

Miss Patsy, just getting to talk to you those few minutes made my step a little lighter and my heart a little happier. I hope you read this post and understand that when I say you were definitely a worm for me that day, I mean that in the best kind of way!

You’ll need: Yellow Cake Mix (which you will prepare according to package directions), Cream of Coconut, sweetened flaked coconut, sweetened condensed milk, and some whipped topping*.

I’m using Dollar General generic whipped topping because I’m all elite like that ~grins~

Prepare your cake according to package directions.

Normally, we’d make a 9×13 cake but with only four of us and all of the baking I do, that is just too much cake. So today I’m dividing it up and making two 8×8 cakes instead, then I can send the other one to a neighbor, friend, or family member. Whoever picks up the phone when I call

Pour your sweetened condensed milk in a bowl…

You know, any time a recipe calls for a whole can of sweetened condensed milk, I always add almost a whole can…because I have to have a little bit for myself! I love this stuff.  A few folks have posted on Facebook and in comments that they use it in my iced coffee concentrate to make the perfect cup of coffee and that is at the top of my to do list to try one of these days.

Add your cream of coconut.

Give that a good stir

As soon as your cakes are done, poke holes all in the top of them with a fork.

I am using a plastic fork because I was photographing this and sent Brady into the kitchen to get me one and this is what he brought back.

For a moment I paused and thought about “Now it won’t look very nice if I’m using a plastic fork in the photos on Southern Plate”. Then I immediately got over myself and just used it. We’re all family here, anytime we feel the need to put on airs we’re just wasting energy that can best be spent cleaning our kitchens anyway.

Pour the mixture over your hot cake.

Like so.

It’ll all soak in there real good over time. Now cover your cake and let it cool, then put it in the refrigerator until it is completely cold.

Once your cake is good and cold, ice with whipped topping.

If you want, you can make this from scratch but I usually opt for doing it the easy way because it saves a lot of money and is one less dish to wash.

My recipe for homemade whipped cream is on this post (click here).

Now we need to toast our coconut. You can add it on there as it is but toasting it gives it a neat, nutty texture and a beautiful color. Either way, just go with what you’re in the mood for but I’m gonna show ya how to toast it just in case.

Place coconut on a baking sheet and put it in a 350 degree oven.

Watch this carefully and stir it often until it is nice and uniformly brown, anywhere from 10-15 minutes.

Here it is, all done! You can toast it more or less, depending on the level of patience you have at the time you are fooling with it.

Let it cool for a few minutes when you’re done before moving on to the next step.

Sprinkle that on top of your cake and you’re ready to go!

Enjoy – and share!

Note: There is a print link embedded within this post, please visit this post to print it.

This recipe format and the “save recipe” feature (see top of recipe above) is brand new to Southern Plate! You can now save Southern Plate recipes to a recipe box and use that box to add ingredients to a grocery list as well. There is even a free corresponding iPhone app that allows you to access your recipe box on your telephone (Just search for ZipList in the app store). I am in the process of coding every single recipe on SouthernPlate.com to work with this great new feature so in the meantime you may notice that some recipes do and some don’t as of yet. I hope to have them all converted in the next few weeks so stay tuned!

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.”

~ Melody Beattie

Submitted by Michelle. Submit your quote by clicking here (I always need more quotes!)

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