Tory and Shelly: March 2012

The Hunger Games.

These books are sooo awsome!!! I love them! They are well written, sweet, kinda gory though, but very interesting. Why am I talking about the Hunger Games you may ask? WHy, because we are going to watch the first one on my birthday!! It is a trillogy about sixteen-year-old Kattniss Everdeen, who lives in a post-apocalyptic world in the country of Panem where the countries of North America once existed. The Capitol, a highly advanced metropolis, holds absolute power over the rest of the nation. The Hunger Games are an annual event in which one boy and one girl aged 12 to 18 from each of the 12 districts surrounding the Capitol are selected by lottery to compete in a telivised battle in which only one person can survive. It is a romance/action story.

Ok, so, here is a little update about my arm. I don't have to have surgery! Yay! And I get to take off my brace/cast thingy on St. Patty's day. (Mar. 17) And, since I have nothing better to do, I decided to make a post about baking. Now, as many of you know, I love baking! For me, there is almost nothing better then seeing one of my projects work out perfectly and beautifully! (well, that may be a slight exaggeration, but still.) The one I am posting about is a cake I made for Mexican Independence Day (Viva Mexico!) It isn't the best cake I ever made, but still, it was tasty and yummy. I tried to make two different Red Velvet recipies, one for the red cake, and another for the green. I personally prefer the Green Velvet one, but sadly, I forgot to take pictures of that cake, so I'll just tell you the one for Red Velvet. But, if you really want, you can go to http://www.lovefromtheoven.com/2011/03/03/green-velvet-cake-st-pattys-day-baking/ to get the full recipe. Here there is a step-by-step intructions for the red velvet cake recipe.

The Recipe:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla
1 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk, before you start cooking, combine 1 cup whole milk wl 1 tbsp vinegar)
2 tbsp liquid food coloring of your choice
1 tsp vinegar

First, preheat your oven to 350F or 175 C. Make the buttermilk, then combine with the food coloring

Mix together the flour, salt, cocoa, and baking soda and set aside.

In a separate bowl, whip the butter until smooth.

Now, combine the sugar and the butter. Make sure that it is mixed together all the way.

Add the eggs, mixing until combined.

Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk mixture. Divide into two pans (I used loaf pans) (Don't forget to grease!) and bake until a toothpic inserted into the center comes out clean.

My green Velvet cakes sunk, I'm not quite sure why.

My red velvet came out nice.

Now for the best part: The FROSTING! I doubled the recipe, as i was making two different cakes. This is the normal recipe
Cream cheese frosting:
one 8oz (1 cup) pkg of cream cheese
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
2 cups confectioner's (also known as icing or powdered) Sugar
1 tsp vanilla