Can you tell I'm excited?
Either that or completely bored. Scott rented Men in Black 3 at the library tonight to watch. Seriously. Men in Black 3. The first one wasn't horrible enough, they had to make a second and THIRD?? Our trip to the library was a complete and utter fail tonight. I'll spare you the details, but I'll at least give you this: Scott insisted that we don't put a pull-up on Sean since he's been doing so well in underwear over the past week. Yup, mom knows best here. We experienced 2 poopsplosions in underwear (poor guy told us he needed to go, but couldn't hold it until we made it to the bathroom) in the 40 minutes we were at the library. And he decided to make it a complete trifecta by another experience in the shower while Scott was hosing him off. I'd wager to say Scott learned his lesson.
Anywho, the past week flew by with lots of ups and plenty of downs. I'll start with the positives.
Evan is now taking a bath in the big bath tub! Bonus! Only having to give one bath that takes care of both kids is amazing. Although, Sean is still learning not to be as aggressive with the splashing now that he has a new guest in the tub.
Sean went his first week in underwear with only a handful of accidents! Despite my paragraph above, I've been pleasantly surprised that pull-ups were just holding him back from being ready to try out underwear. We don't have the fights about going to the bathroom anymore and he's been excited to pick out his drawers every day.
I had my girlfriends over on Saturday night for an HP Wake Up Your Walls House Party that I was selected to host. The best part: I got a bunch of free canvas and mounted photo prints to show off at the party!
On the down side, I had another horrific week at work. Between parent-teacher conferences on Thursday night that made for a long cooking day, a parent meeting that I had to translate to Spanish for (the parent didn't even show up), and a group presentation that was supposed to be at the next staff meeting, but was rescheduled, I was ready to enjoy the last few months of our unlimited sick days before that's taken away. But, like a good employee, I sucked it up and moved on. After all, I'm about 2 weeks behind on curriculum and time is ticking!
The one redeeming thing this week was having several leftover pieces of Peppermint Patty Cake I made on St. Patrick's Day to help cheer me up when I was feeling down about work. This cake was a ton of work, but I'm proud to say it's my first layer cake and homemade frosting I've ever made! So, I'll start by showing the finished product:
I'll pause while you wipe off the drool...
Here's how it goes:
Cake -
- 2 sticks 1 Cup Butter
- 4 Tablespoons (heaping) Cocoa Powder
- 1 cup Water, Boiling
- 10 whole Miniature Peppermint Patties, Unwrapped
- 2 cups Sugar
- 2 cups All-purpose Flour
- 1/4 teaspoon Salt
- 1/2 cup Buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- 2 whole Eggs
- 1/2 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- 1/4 teaspoon Mint Extract
- 4 sticks 1 Pound Butter, Softened
- 6 cups (more To Taste) Powdered Sugar, Sifted
- Dash Of Salt
- 1/4 teaspoon Mint Extract
- 2 whole Vanilla Beans, Caviar Scraped Out
- 4 Tablespoons Half-and-half, More To Taste
- Extra Miniature Peppermint Patties, For Decorating
CAKE
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two round cake pans.
In a medium saucepan, melt 2 sticks of butter and stir in 4 tablespoons cocoa. Pour in boiling water, let mixture bubble up for 30 seconds, then turn the burner to low. Add 10 peppermint patties and stir until almost totally melted. Remove pan from heat and set aside.
In a measuring cup mix together the buttermilk, baking soda, egg, vanilla, and mint extract. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, and salt. Pour the hot cocoa mixture into the bowl, stirring to slightly cool. Pour in the buttermilk mixture and stir until smooth.
Pour batter into cake pans and bake for 16-18 minutes, or until done. Remove from pans and let cool completely on a wire rack.
FROSTING
Beat butter until fluffy. Add vanilla caviar to bowl. Slowly add powdered sugar and salt and beat until fluffy. Add half and half and mint extract and beat until totally fluffy.
Place one layer of cake face down on a platter and spread a good layer of icing on top. Place the second layer face down on top, then ice the top and sides of the cake, getting plenty of icing around the sides. Decorate the cake with a circle of peppermint patties.
Store leftovers in the fridge!
I'm going to be honest. It was a lot of work, like I said above. And it was absolutely delicious. But, four sticks of butter and 6 cups of powdered sugar in the frosting alone? About 5 minutes after I had my slice, I felt like I had a brick sitting in my stomach.
Bottom line: Next time I'm going to play around to see if I can reduce the amount of butter in the frosting. It was sinfully decadent, but a little too rich and buttery for me.
On that note, I'm off to bed to read some sleep training books. Mr. Evan's nightly shenanigans has got to stop...
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