Grandma's Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake With Chocolate Icing

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When I was growing up as a small child, I always looked forward to the homemade chocolate cakes that my grandmother would make for my Birthday. In our family, my grandmother was a dedicated baker and would bake something for us every day. Thankfully, she passed on her love for baking to me.

This recipe is done the old-fashioned way and is topped off with some delicious chocolate icing. Once your cake is cooled, you will want to store it in a cake container. If it's hot and humid outside, I recommend storing it in the refrigerator.

Cake Ingredients:

1/2 pound butter, softened
5 eggs
2 cups granulated sugar
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup evaporated canned milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the softened butter and granulated sugar. Slowly add in the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the all-purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Slowly add 1/2 of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and beat for 1 minute. Pour in the 1/2 cup of milk and beat again, followed by the remaining flour mixture. Stir in the vanilla extract and beat again. Finally, stir in the 1/4 cup of evaporated milk and beat until all ingredients are well combined.

Note: If your batter seems really stiff, add a little additional milk.

Lightly spray a 9 x 13" baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35 to 45 minutes or until cake is done in the center. Cool cake on a wire rack.

Chocolate Icing Ingredients:

2 1/2 squares baking chocolate
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 teaspoon butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large saucepan, melt the baking chocolate over low heat. Stir in the granulated sugar and evaporated milk. Bring to a boil and boil for 2 to 3 minutes or until a soft ball forms when dropped into cold water. Remove pan from heat and stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Beat icing by hand until it is thick enough to spread on your cooled cake.

Healthy Cakes - How to Adapt Recipes and Enjoy Healthy Cakes

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Eating cakes as part of a healthy diet isn't a problem, but it's virtually impossible to be certain that cakes are healthy unless you make your own. That way, you know exactly what's in them and can enjoy them, knowing there are no unhealthy fats or additives lurking. There's nothing unhealthy about a cake made with wholewheat flour, organic butter, free-range eggs - as long as you don't eat the lot at one sitting! The taste and texture will be far superior to anything you can buy at the supermarket.

*Home-made cakes generally contain far less sugar than commercial cakes. Inspect the labels of bought cakes, and you'll find all sorts of food additives that you'd probably rather not eat, especially the spectacularly unhealthy trans fats and hydrogenated vegetable oils, present in many manufactured cakes, which have a proven link to the development of coronary heart disease.

*Home-made cakes are good value for money. Bought cakes are often very meanly sized. A home-made cake usually goes a lot further.

*Be selective about the recipes you use, and go for healthy cake recipes. Save the chocolate fudge cakes, or cakes with thick frostings for special occasions. Look for recipes that use fruit, nuts or carrots. It's a good way of getting extra fruit and veg into your diet. When you're choosing which recipe to make, think of banana cake or carrot cake.

*Use good, wholesome ingredients for truly healthy cake recipes. Choose organic when you can for ingredients such as sugar, flour, oats, fruits including candied and dried fruits, milk, eggs, butter.

*Use wholewheat flour instead of some, or all, of the flour in your recipe.

*Beware soft margarines sold specifically for cake making. These are often made with hydrogenated vegetable oils, and will render your lovely home-made cake as unhealthy as a greasy take-away muffin. Softened organic butter works fine in most recipes, or use a soft spread made from healthy olive or sunflower oils.

*Replace some of the sugar in recipes with fruit puree. Use apples, prunes or apricots. Stew in a little water until tender, blend, and use to replace an equal volume of sugar in your recipe.

*You can also replace some of the fat in the same way. Try replacing half the fat and half the sugar in a recipe with pureed apple. It's very successful, and adds moistness and a subtle fruity flavour.

*Traditional frosting or icing is high in fat and calories. Use low fat cream cheese in frosting recipes, or top your cakes with a sprinkling of toasted nuts instead. Try coating a cake with desiccated coconut before baking. The topping will bake to a delicious brown, crispy finish.

*Cake making is very satisfying, and if you choose simple healthy cake recipes, it's also very quick. Making a large cake takes about 10-15 mins to get the mixture together, plus baking time. Not long, for something that's so much pleasanter to eat, and so much better for you than manufactured cake.

*Cakes made from healthy cake recipes have a habit of disappearing. Before offering them, cut them into squares, or mark them out into slices, depending on the shape.

Baking - and eating - a healthy homemade cake is one of life's pleasures. Don't deny yourself - cook up a healthy cake recipe today!

Easy Chocolate Dessert Recipe

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Chocolate is one of the oldest processed foods enjoyed over the past millennium. It came from the tropical tree called cocoa. This tree is native to South America, Central America and Mexico. The seeds of the cocoa tree are dried and fermented and finally grounded and liquefied. As a result of these processes, pure unsweetened chocolate is formed.

There are different kinds of chocolate. Each is classified according to its composition and color. Milk chocolate is the combination of sugar, cocoa butter and milk. It is considered not a true chocolate because of the absence of cocoa solids formed from the processes involved in production of pure chocolate. White chocolate can be consumed by animals. The addition of sugar and fats makes up the third kind of chocolate. Dark chocolate has high cocoa content and is believed to have health benefits by reducing the occurrence of heart attack. One example of dark chocolate is semisweet chocolate which is used in cooking recipes. Sometimes vanilla is added for a more pleasing aroma.

Chocolate is enjoyed in a wide variety of preparations nowadays. If one would go to a nearby restaurant, cafeteria or snack bar, one would definitely come across chocolates in various attractive servings ranging from breads, cakes, drinks and ice creams.

Below is an easy chocolate dessert recipe that you can enjoy doing. It's a recipe on how to make your ice cream richer, creamier and attractive when served after a sumptuous meal. It is very easy to prepare.

Chocolate Caramel Sauce
Ingredients:

½ gallon vanilla ice cream of any flavor
10 caramels
¾ cup of Nestle Carnation Evaporated Milk
1 ¾ cups of Nestle Toll House Milk Chocolate Morsels

Directions: Combine caramels, 1 ½ cups morsels and evaporated milk in a saucepan under low heat. Continuously stir until mixture is smooth. Serve as a topping on ice cream.

This easy chocolate recipe has an estimated cooking time of ten minutes. It yields to seven servings of ¼ cup each. In case of left over, refrigerate and reheat in saucepan while continuously stirring.

You can also use this sauce to add flavor to your brownies and cheesecakes. You can even add peanut butter chips, colored chocolate chips to make it more attractive for kids. This stuff is heavenly and your friends will compliment you for its rich and tempting taste.

This is just an example of an easy to prepare chocolate recipe. Other recipes vary from their ingredients, procedures, cooking time, skill level and the number of servings. Nestle, a multinational packaged food company, offers a wide range of easy chocolate recipes for you to choose from to fit your interests. With its line of chocolate products, dairy products, and ice cream you can surely select a wide variety of easy recipe suggestions to satisfy your eagerness to learn more about easy chocolate recipes.

These easy chocolate recipes let you spend little time in your kitchen yet let you delight anybody's taste buds. These are easy to follow recipes that you alone can enjoy doing even on a busy day. Enjoy the chocolates. Enjoy the recipes.

Cherry Recipes in Honor of Our First President, George Washington

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Bring some history into your kitchen. Get the kids in the kitchen to help you bake some cherry treats. As you work together, talk to them about the early history of our country and our first President George Washington. This can lead to even more talks about our history. Don't leave it to the schools to teach your children the history of their country. Unfortunately, many of today's textbook don't even have the correct information in them. Let your kids learn from you as you build up our country in their eyes. Most kids like to bake cookies and these Chocolate Cherry Cookies would be a good project for you as they are simple and made from a cake mix. And they are diabetic friendly so even the diabetic children (of all ages) can enjoy them. Or you can use a regular chocolate cake mix for regular cookies. Tiny Cherry Cheesecakes are also a delicious choice and they are also diabetic friendly. However they, too, can be made regular by replacing the Equal with sugar. These tiny cheesecakes have a chocolate crust and who doesn't love chocolate and cherries together? And speaking of chocolate, how about some Oh-So-Easy Cherry Brownies?

CHOCOLATE CHERRY COOKIES

1 (8 oz) pkg sugar-free chocolate cake mix

3 tbsp skim milk

1/2 tsp almond extract

10 maraschino cherries, rinsed, drained and halved

2 tbsp white chocolate chips

1/2 tsp canola oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat cake mix, milk and extract with an electric mixer at low speed. When mixture looks crumbly, increase speed to medium and beat 2 minutes or until smooth dough forms. (Dough will be very sticky.) Coat hands with cooking spray and shape dough into 1-inch balls. Place balls 2 1/2 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten each ball slightly. Place cherry half in center of each cookie. Bake 8-10 minutes or until cookies lose their shine and tops begin to crack. DO NOT OVERBAKE OR COOKIES WILL BE HARD WHEN COOLED. Remove to wire racks and cool completely.

Place chips and oil in a small microwave-safe bowl and cook a few seconds at a time, removing and stirring until chips are melted. Drizzle over cooled cookies. Allow drizzle to set before serving.

TINY CHERRY CHEESECAKES

Crust: 1 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup Equal-Lite

1/4 cup cocoa powder

1/2 cup cold butter

2 tbsp cold water

Filling:

6 oz cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup Equal-Lite

2 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

1 can sugar-free or lite cherry pie filling

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease 24 mini-muffins cups and set aside.To make crust: In a small mixing bowl, combine flour, Equal and cocoa. Cut in butter until crumbly. Gradually add water, mixing with a fork until mixture forms a ball. Divide dough and shape into 24 balls. Place in prepared miniature muffin tins and press dough onto the bottom and up sides of each muffin cup.

To make filling: In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese and Equal until smooth. Beat in milk and vanilla. Add egg; beat on low just until combined. Spoon approximately 1 tablespoonful into each muffin cup. Bake for 15-18 minutes or until set. Cool on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Carefully remove from pans to cool completely. Top each cake with a dab of pie filling before serving. Store in refrigerator.

OH-SO-EASY CHERRY BROWNIES

If you are a fan of Black Forest Cake, you will love these cherry brownies.

1 pkg. (21.5 oz) brownie mix

1 cup cherry pie filling

1/4 cup oil

2 eggs

1 1/4 cups chocolate chips

Combine brownie mix, pie filling, oil, and eggs together and mix well. Grease bottom only of a 13" x 9" baking pan. Pour batter into pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes until done. After removing from oven, sprinkle with the chocolate chips and spread when they melt. Cool and cut into squares. To make a tasty and pretty serving, top brownie square with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and a spoonful of the leftover pie filling.

Enjoy!