Autumn-ness

Apple Picking Time!!!!  We picked some apples.... Macs, Cortland, and Ozark Gold this year.  I canned some apple pie filling using my favorite apple the Ozark Gold.   I also bought some fresh Cape Cod cranberries  and canned some whole fruit cranberry sauce.

Chocolate Cake and PB Frosting

             Okay just a quickie post for myself and a friend.  Here is a cake from last year (Holley's Birthday), and is now to be revisited this year (Hope's Birthday) in the form of cupcakes.                                           

CAKE:

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® devil’s food cake mix

1 box (4-serving size) chocolate INSTANT pudding and pie filling mix

3 eggs

1 1/4 cups milk

1 cup vegetable or canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup semisweet mini chocolate chips              

Preheat Oven to 350 degrees

Grease 2 nine inch cake pans, then sprinkle cocoa powder (gives a better flavor and color than flour)

In large bowl, beat cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla  with electric mixer on low speed 1 minute. Beat on medium speed 2 minutes. Fold in chocolate chips and pour batter into pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  When cool wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate at least one hour before frosting,  I used a peanut butter frosting recipe from AllRecipes.com here is the link: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/fluffy-peanut-butter-frosting/  You can adjust accordingly, I used a double recipe on both recipes to make the cake pictured.  I then made a "moat" of ganache.. link for that recipe is here: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/satiny-chocolate-glaze/detail.aspx.  I then chopped up and cut severeal types of Reese peanut butter cups and decorated to my hearts content.

         

Pickles

Pickles, Pickles and more Pickles....YUP that's what I did today, thanks to my Mum and Pappy purchasing an abundance of cucumbers, I made pickles!!  I am now painfully aware (cut on my index finger and burned fingertips) as to why pickles must sit in a cool dry place for 4-6 weeks to cure.  After a full day of making these lil' buggers nobody wants to see them for a month ;)  However, I know the end result will be well worth it once the cuts and burns have healed :)