by Kristen on February 4, 2010
My Grandma Sumner was an extremely charitable woman. Even though she had a pretty tough life, her attitude was one of positiveness and looking forward instead of behind. Her house always had bowls of dog and cat food outside for any stray animals that came around. She had numerous people in her neighborhood who considered her a surrogate mom. Even in her late 80’s, she would walk up to the senior citizen center to “take care of the old people.” She was quite poor when it came to money, but extremely rich in love, kindness and friendship. She has always been an inspiration to me, and her example of helping others instead of competing with others has always stayed with me.
It is this attitude of mentoring and helping others to succeed that brought about Adopt-a-Blogger in the first place. I never have understood those people who would run over people to get to the top. I guess I am just not that competitive. I have found that building a firm foundation and helping others along the way is the best way to achieve what you want to achieve. If you have knowledge, share it. If you have strengths, share it. If you have a way to help others, do it.
I am so excited to announce that Adopt-a-Blogger #4 has been our biggest Adopt-a-Blogger yet with almost 140 participants! We still have a small handful of bloggers who would love to be adopted. If you are an experienced blogger and missed out on signing up, please let me know so I can find the rest of the bloggers adoptive homes!
If you had signed up, please check out the spreadsheet with the matches, and please contact your match ASAP. The adopt-a-blogger guidelines are very loose for a reason. Build your relationship, find out how you can help each other, and work together to have a successful partnership. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me! Please remember to let me know of any posts you make about your adopt a blogger relationships. I’ll do my best to link back from Dine & Dish!
If you want to use a badge to promote Adopt-a-Blogger on your blog, please feel free to take this one. If you need the html code, just let me know.
Thank you again for participating! For those of you here for a recipe, these Chocolate Cocoa Pancakes are sure to tempt your tastebuds. Using Scharffen Berger cocoa (a company that is well known for being extremely supportive of food bloggers and the food blogger community), these pancakes were rich, delicious and almost too dessert like for breakfast!
Chocolate Cocoa Pancakes (adapted from Recipezaar)
14 min | 10 min prep
10 pancakes
- In a small bowl, combine milk, egg, vanilla and butter; whisk until blended.
- In another bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda and salt; mix well.
- Add milk mixture; whisk just until dry ingredients are moistened.
- (Batter will be slightly lumpy.) Heat griddle over medium heat until hot.
- For each pancake, pour scant 1/4 cup batter into griddle.
- Cook 1-2 minutes or until batter is set around edges.
- Carefully turn over pancake; cook 1-2 minutes or until pancakes are cooked through.
- Repeat with remaining batter.
- Sprinkle pancakes with powdered sugar; serve warm with desired toppings.
by Kristen on January 31, 2010
I’ll do a proper post for this, but in the meantime I wanted to let you know that the matches for Adopt-a-Blogger #4 have been made. I still have a few people waiting to be adopted, so if you can adopt one of them, please let me know!
I have to give an extra special, couldn’t have done it with out her, shout out and thank you to Kate at Serendipity for her help getting this all together. Kate scoured through the comments and did the majority of the inputting of the information in the spreadsheet that I use. Adopt-a-Blogger #4 couldn’t have happened without her volunteering, so thank you, Kate!!! I truly, truly appreciate it! Everyone – please go visit Kate’s blog and give her an extra special thank you for making this happen!
The matches for Adopt-a-Blogger #4 can be found HERE.
by Kristen on January 10, 2010
A little under 8 years ago, I took a cake decorating class. It was my first foray into domestication after my first child was born. I was determined that as the perfect mom I was sure to be, all of my kids’ cakes would be extra special and decorated by me. Well, to do that, I needed to take a cake decorating class, of course!
Armed with just about every tip and tool and gadget you need to decorate a cake (because, you know… if you are going to pick up a hobby, you must own everything there is to own in association with it, right?) I went to my first class. The class was taught by a lady named Millie. Millie seemed 800 years old and had been decorating wedding cakes and party cakes professionally for 50 years. She was about as sweet as they come.
Cake decorating did not come easy for me. I even struggled with just getting the base frosting on the cake without getting crumbs in the frosting. Millie taught me well though, and I kept plugging through the class, bringing home cakes I wasn’t totally embarrassed to show everyone. Then, the final two classes came about and we set out to learn how to make roses and flowers. Patiently, Millie helped me, guiding me with each stroke of my tip… and with each completed flower, I looked down and would see a head of cabbage. Not a rose, not a flower… a giant head of cabbage. For the life of me, I could NOT master creating frosting flowers. I tried, Millie tried with me, and it just wasn’t happening. The things I were creating could barely even pass as a head of cabbage if I wanted to make some kind of produce related theme cake (and there is such a thing, if you were wondering)!
My cake decorating skills have not improved, at all. I can bake the cake, I can most certainly eat the cake, but I can not decorate the cake past slapping some frosting on and adding sprinkles. My kids don’t seem to mind. Thank goodness I’ve raised them to have low expectations of their mom 
Jacob’s 8th birthday was this past week and he asked for wedding cake cupcakes (aka the kind of cake we eat at weddings…white with white frosting). I gladly obliged, pulling out Millie’s recipe which is the best I’ve had. It does use a boxed cake mix but trust me on this one… you will be hard pressed to find a white cake with a better flavor or crumb.
Oh – and the picture above of the wrecked cupcake? You can find the back story on that on my Flickr page!
Millie’s White Wedding Cake
- 2 (18 ounce) boxes white cake mix (Betty Crocker or Pillsbury)
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
- 2 2/3 cups water
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 teaspoons real vanilla
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 2 cups sour cream
- 8 large egg whites
Place all ingredients into a large mixing bowl and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes, until fully incorporated.
Pour into greased and floured cake pans or cupcake liners, filling each slightly over half full.
Lightly tap cake pans on counter to bring air bubbles to top.
Bake in preheated 325° F oven until cake tests done.
Baking time varies according to the size and depth of pans being used.
(For cupcakes, I bake at 325 for approximately 18 minutes… test with a toothpick to make sure though!)
I used this recipe on Recipezaar for the frosting – yum!
