German Chocolate anyone?

Every year at work we pull someones name out of a "hat" and then we put together all the things for their birthday (cake, card, flowers). This year I pulled Karen's name out of the hat. Karen's favorite kind of cake just so happens to be German Chocolate. If you've ever had a homemade German Chocolate cake you will know that the ones they sell in the store are not an acceptable substitute. I've never really been a huge fan of coconut, but this cake made me forget that all together; kind of like those girl scout cookies with the coconut, they are my favorite!

Here is the link to the recipe I followed:
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2005/09/german_chocolat_1.html

So, I don't recall ever having made a cake from scratch, they have these ones that come in a box that are way easier nowadays, and they don't create nearly as many dirty dishes. But, I must say this cake was certainly worth the effort and might just have me rethinking the whole boxed cake thing. The fact that the recipe looked like it had so many steps didn't really bother me, I've always been pretty good about following directions, it's when I have to improvise that recipes go wrong, hence I'm much better at baking then cooking. It was a long night but well worth it, here are my posts from facebook while baking the cake (did I forget to mention I made this cake on the hottest day ever recorded in Seattle). Notice the time I started and finished this thing... yikes!

Amy Davis is toasting coconut and pecans... it's way to hot for this... July 29 at 6:34pm

Amy Davis isn't sure how to make things "room temperature"... everything is just hot... the temp in my kitchen is 88.8 degrees.... not exactly room temperature for baking. July 29 at 7:25pm ·

Amy Davis has all the pieces to the cake done... now for them to cool down so I can put it all together. :) July 29 at 10:03pm ·

Amy Davis doesn't think the icing will ever be room temperature enough to ice with... ugh. I put it in the fridge, hopefully that'll help... now I have to figure out how to put the cake in the fridge. July 30 at 1:13am ·

Amy Davis Lets hope it tastes good... but it was so worth making on the hottest day EVER in Seattle. :) July 30 at 1:30am ·

P.S. This cake tasted amazing! There wasn't a piece left at the end of the day other then the two Karen was taking home. Long story short, if you like German Chocolate cake or if you know someone that does; make this cake, it's amazing!

Watermelon, Jello Cake, Water Balloons and Fire(works)

Yesterday was the Fourth of July, and for the second year in a row we decided to host the family at our place for a BBQ and to watch the Fireworks that our neighbors light off (and maybe to light some off as well). I started the day off doing a bit of last minute cleaning, running by the store and attempting to cut the tip of my thumb off. Unintentionally of course, thank goodness for nails that's all I have to say! I suppose there just might be a good reason Dani always takes the knife away from me when I cut potatoes, to bad she wasn't here yet when I was preparing them for the BBQ. No worries though, it'll be awhile before the nail grows out enough to not have a cut there, but it'll heal up fairly well I'm guessing, though I'll probably have to keep a bandaid over it for awhile to keep from catching things on it.

We had said, show up between 3 and 4pm, being my family the first person got here around 4pm and they trickled in from there. In the end we had nine people here including ourselves, nothing huge but it was great having people over to celebrate with. Before people started showing up I had been thinking how the Fourth at my house is nothing like it was at the lake growing up. It's sad to think that we won't have another Fourth at the lake with Grandma, as the lake is just not the same without her there.

After sitting around for awhile talking and catching up with each other we finally decided to start the food! And the Fourth of July food is always the best summer food! We had watermelon, grilled corn, potatoes, hamburgers, hotdogs and various other snacks. Richard grilled up the stuff on the grill while the rest of us proceeded to dowse each other with water balloons. With as hot as the day was the water felt wonderful!

Following the food we moved out to the front to watch fireworks, and light off a few as well. I'm not big on lighting them off myself, my neighbors do such a good job of it there really isn't a huge point, my neighborhood sounds like a war zone on the 4th. Cassandra brought a few fireworks however so we did have a few to light off. In the process of lighting various things they managed to light my front yard on fire, nothing major but it really did remind us just how dry it is out there. We also had a firework tip over and shoot right into our neighbors yard and start a tiny fire there as well (it also went flying into our yard right at the cars as it spun around launching explosions up and down the street).

All in all it was a fun filled day! I quite enjoyed myself!