Irish Cream Chocolate Bundt Cake

I never did make a dessert on St. Patrick's Day, so with that in mind, I'm still in the mood to try a new recipe with some "Irish Flare". My first thought was Irish Cream cheesecake, but I'm out of cream cheese. So, when all else fails, pull out a boxed cake mix and jazz it up. This recipe can be found on various sites, with slight variations. Some people use a yellow cake mix, with vanilla pudding and some substitute real Irish Cream, with Irish Cream Coffee Creamer. My cake is being shared with a friend, so with her input (and her Irish Cream), we opted for Chocolate, with real Irish Cream. 

Ingredients

1. 1 box chocolate cake mix                  
2. 1 small package chocolate instant pudding    
3. 1/4 cup water
4. 1/2 cup oil
5. 3/4 cup Irish Cream Liquor                                     
6. 4 eggs
7. 1/2 cup butter
8. 1 cup sugar
9. 1/4 cup water
10. 1/4 cup Irish Cream Liquor                                    

1. Preheat oven to 325. Grease and flour a bundt cake pan (using cocoa powder instead of flour) or spray generously with Pam.
2. Mix cake mix and pudding mix in a large bowl. Mix in 1/4 cup water, 1/2 cup oil, 3/4 cup Irish Cream and eggs. Beat together for several minutes then pour batter in the prepared bundt pan. Bake for 45-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes then invert cake onto a serving dish.
3. Pokes small holes all over the cake using a fork, then pour glaze all over the cake. Let it absorb the glaze and then pour more glaze on. Repeat until all of the glaze is used. (Or use as much of the glaze as you'd like)
4. For the Glaze: Melt butter, sugar, and 1/4 cup water together in a small saucepan and bring to a boil and let boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 cup Irish Cream.

My Personal  Notes:  My baking time was only 45 minutes. Next time, I think I'll even cut off 5 minutes and check it at 40. I used the fork as instructed to poke my holes, but the cake didn't absorb the glaze very well.  Next time, I think I'll use a tooth pick and make my holes a bit bigger. You can see in the photo, that even though I waited in between drizzles, most of it still pooled to the bottom. I thought the ratio of the glaze was perfect, but I think I'd like to increase the Irish Cream in the cake to 1 cup. It just didn't pop as much as I would have liked.

My St. Paddy's Day 2013

Well Hello Strangers...I thought I'd stop by and share my St. Patrick's Day with you. Because so many things were going on this year and so many variables, I decided to cancel our big dinner and just cook for the family. I did try a new recipe and I'll share that here in a moment, but with not much to say I'll share my day with photos. 


I woke up to find a pretty shamrock plant and a Green Mickey Mouse card from my bestie... Luckily he's around to help me keep this thing alive, because we all know I might be Irish, but I do not have a Green Thumb. And a Green Mickey card...who would of thought? 

In addition to wearing green, I thought it would be a good day to wear my Pink and Brown Polka Dot Ireland hat that's signed by Gaelic Storm. It's not something I wear on a daily basis, so St. Patrick's Day is always a good excuse. 

 

With a beader in the house, I always have something new to wear. This time it was a copy piece from a bracelet I had seen on Etsy. This was the original piece sold online ... 

And this was the piece he made for me..

On one of my thrift store trips, I happened to find two gifts for my daughter in one shot. A book with Irish Authors and an Irish owl. Now my daughter is an owl fanatic, but an IRISH owl. What's the likely hood that I would find an Irish owl at the thrift store. I did some research yesterday and this owl is from a line called Happy Owlidays, Lil' Whoots from 1998. They made several holiday themed owls.

Here are two new decorations  I picked up last year on Clearance. I love both of them. Since I've been sick all week, I haven't made it out to do any clearance shopping, so I doubt I'll find anything at this point. 

My vintage find for this year were these two ceramic pieces. When I went to my favorite store "Oh, So Charming" this month, I remembered seeing them last year and knew that if they were still there calling my name after 2 years, I had to buy them. They look a little rough on the bottom, because they had some super old lace that was glued to the bottom and it was falling off and brown. So I've detached it and plan on replacing it once I find the perfect cream lace. 

Dinner was good, but instead of sitting down to this....

I had dinner for one....

But, in that little dish was Colcannon (Mashed potatoes and cooked cabbage mashed together). I'd not made it at home before, but highly recommend the dish. It really is very good if you enjoy cabbage.

Last, but no least is the Irish Lemon Pudding I made. Being a Lemon lover, it just looked like something I had to try. It's not a traditional milky pudding like we serve in the US, it's more of a cake, custard mix. After having a couple pieces apiece, with fresh whip cream, my daughter and I had similar reviews. "It's different..Hard to describe...I'm not sure if I like it or don't like it..." Literally, we both just couldn't say it was something we liked or didn't like, but agreed it's probably not something we'll put in our cookbook as a favorite.

If you'd like the recipe, be sure to link to The Baker Upstairs for the recipe. I did follow her suggestion and double the recipe and bake it in a 9" springform pan. 

Overall, I won't complain. I'm very blessed and remind myself that life can throw you curve balls and just go with the flow...St. Patrick's will be here next year and the year after. I've had plenty of Green memories and will be blessed with many more. In the meantime..I'm thinking of all of you!!

Random Idea-A Tooth Fairy or Leprachaun Door

I just ran across this idea at Smart Bottom Enterprises and it's SOOOOOO cute. I wish I had a little one around to make one for. But you wait, I'm going to keep this idea locked deep inside for 10 years down the road and my first grand baby is going to have one of these little doors. 

Here is what it looks like on the wall with the door closed and the door open to expose the little bag to hold your little ones tooth.

Many people do Magic Leprechauns during March for St. Patrick Day visits, this would be the perfect addition for that as well. Be sure to check out the link above for the full set of instructions.

Christmas in July: Day 8 Let's Eat Cake!

Today was my BFF's birthday. We were having a surprise dinner for him, so that mean I also had to make him a very special cake. I've been wanting to make him a rainbow layered cake for several years and just never did. When I was participating in several link parties over the past few weeks, I seen several of these cakes and knew NOW was the time.

The tall, colorful candles I found years go and had stashed, finished it off perfectly! 

When I brought it out, he told me he was wondering why in the world it was so tall. When he cut into it, he was so surprised and LOVED IT!

You're probably wondering why I posted this cake today. How is this Christmas? Well, when I was making this cake last night, I thought about how easy it would be to use this same concept and make it in Christmas colors. Sure, enough I did a search and found exactly that at I Am Baker. She has made a fabulous layered cake in Red and Green. 

I Am Baker, took it one step further and even made a 25 layer cake for 4th of July. Yes, 25 layers!! 

I'm on a roll, so I found this as well for Halloween. At Elle's Studio  they made a fabulous looking Coconut Layered cake in Brown and Orange. Sounds and LOOKS yummy! 

And for St. Patrick's Day, you guessed it GREEN. All colors of Green. 

I think I'll close on that cake and say goodnight. Just remember, with a little creativity and time, you can make any ordinary cake...extraordinary!