CAKE!!

Don't you hate it when you try a new recipe and it totally BOMBS? It happened to me twice this week. Twice. *insert very dramatic sigh here*

Monday: I made Molasses Sandwich Cookies. The filling was grainy and the cookies were nasty. I chucked 'em.

Wednesday: I made Turtle Pumpkin Pie. It was a no-bake recipe but had to be refrigerated for "one hour". Yeah. The next morning, the thing was still total soup. I chucked it.

But I was NOT to be defeated. This girl does not make two failed recipes only to quit in utter disillusionment. Nay, she saw it as a delicious challenge and would be appeased only by a culinary victory.

Thursday Afternoon: Grocery store baking aisle.... I zipped through the store and picked up semi-sweet baking chocolate and peppermint extract, as well as buttermilk, heavy cream, unsalted butter and peppermint candies.

I was going to bake a Chocolate Peppermint Cake and, so help me, it was GOING to be heaven on a platter.

Friday Morning: The kitchen is prepped and the ingredients are measured out. The chocolate and butter are melted in a heat-safe bowl over a pan of hot water. This looks good. The chocolate is melting beautifully and it looks like dark brown silk.

The other ingredients are added and I whisk while in a state of confectionery bliss.

The batter is poured into the pan and I have all I can do not to dive head-first into it and slurp down every last scrumptious-smelling drop.

Fifty minutes later, my house smells like chocolate euphoria and I take the cake out of the oven. It cools in the pan for five minutes and then I turn the pan upside down on the cooling rack in the hopes of the cake being released in one piece. Oh my gosh, look at that - it worked!! God bless parchment paper.

I take in a huge whiff of the warm deliciousness and then make the icing and spread it on the cake.

Wow. This looks amazing. It's definitely time to sample a piece!

Hey, it looks just like the picture in the cookbook - only better, because they used chocolate shavings to garnish the whipped cream and I used crushed peppermint candies!

I take a forkful. SOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!! .....Not one to be too self-indulgent, I share my piece of cake with my girl. I suppose this picture speaks for itself.

I decide that if I keep this cake in the house, I will devour it within twenty-four hours, so I pack up the cake and the whipped cream and my girl and we head to Daddy's work. His co-workers loved it. One of them even said to him, "Was your wife raised by Betty Crocker or something?" Coooooool!

Oh and hey, I think I thought of a name for my future cafe: "Sweet Lissy B's." You like?