so many posts, so little time!

i am finally getting around to posting

a picture and results of the outcome of the 'challenge' of the rum raisin cake. here is how it looked...o.k., but i was not totally satisfied with the results. the flavor of the cake was just o.k...but it was really rummy from the raisins being soaked a good long time. i guess the big thing was, i really was not very happy with the frosting. i am not a big fan of frosting for one. i don't really care for buttercream, which is what this one was. it was actually a little bit of a strange one anyway. it was 'brown sugar buttercream' from gourmet magazine, and it was kind of a combination of a boiled 7 minute frosting, which the butter was later beaten into it for the buttercream part. i found the texture a little unpleasant in the mouth. it kind of coated the roof of the mouth when you are eating it...not what i care for at all. i am going to give the cake another try though. i will make it in a kugelhopf pan and instead of frosting i will either make a simple glaze, or just dust it with powdered sugar.

here is a cake i made on new year's day on impulse, after seeing one similar on rachel's blog coconut & lime. she also got an award for best food blog - original recipes...how cool is that!? anyway, i love her blog because it has some great stuff on it, AND the title contains two of my very favorite flavors in the world!

anyway, this is called a 'jello poke cake', since you make the cake and when it is done and cooled, you poke holes into it, and then pour jello that is still liquid over it, then refrigerate. when you cut into it, it has the various colors of what ever flavor your jello was. i had an ancient recipe from an old magazine clipping of a jello ad, and decided to give it a go. since i had the ingredients in the cupboard, (i always have jello...i love it!) and it seemed like a fun thing to do! rachel's was a scratch cake, but i used a box cake, like the jello recipe did. i made the same boiled frosting from rachel's blog ,but i put peppermint flavoring in it, instead of the vanilla. i really liked the peppermint flavored frosting!

i have been curled up with a blanket and cookbooks the past several days since our last snows, (can't get my little mustang out of our inclined, icy driveway!) and i found another cake that uses jello in the ingedients. it is really simple, jello in the cake mix, and then, jello in the frosting as well! there was one other that i HAVE to try, rachel would maybe appreciate this one...a coconut lime cake. it is a coconut cake, and the frosting is lime with chunks of lime in it. maybe it only appeals to a lime freak like me, but i don't think so! i joked to my daughters, at this rate, i could go for a goal of a cake a week! that's REALLY not good for the waistline, anyway!