Deluxe German Chocolate Cake

Deluxe German Chocolate Cake
Dorcas Annette Walker

There is always something relaxing each time I step inside the hen house to collect eggs. Invariably a couple at hens will be sitting in their nests brooding over a stash of eggs that I rob while the rest of the flock stays in a frenzy of activity around my feet hoping for some extra crumbs to fall their way. I admit I do spoil my dear hens considering I have to push their feathery bodies out of the way just to gather eggs that range in colors from dark brown to a pale cream (some plain, others speckled) interspersed with a few white eggs. I always make sure to thank my fat hens and praise their bounty, especially when a first small egg has been laid.

Every flock has a pecking order and scrawny Priscilla is the one at the bottom in mine. I can’t help but admire her grit. Regardless of the fact that her white feathers stay constantly in disarray, Prissy is always the first one to greet me diving in between and around the other hens, staying a beak length away from the rest trying to put her back in her place, while inquisitive dark eyes check me out. Even as the hens press closely around my feet Prissy refuses to give up hopping around on her long skinny legs doing all kinds of contortions to dodge the sharp beaks aimed in her direction in order to remain close by. So I was quite proud the other day to discover Priscilla’s first-laid perfectly formed tiny white egg about the size of a quarter. This bedraggled hen, whose lot in life has daily difficulties to overcome, inspires me not to give up when life throws a curve my way. If Prissy can fulfill her duty as a hen, I too can stay optimistic.

My Deluxe German Chocolate Cake is not something put together quickly. Instead it is a culinary masterpiece well worth the effort involved with its elegant 4-layers. Each bite is scrumptious delights of moist cake with caramel amidst toasted coconut and pecans topped by fuggy chocolate frosting. Preparation time for the Deluxe German Chocolate Cake is forty-five minutes (not counting baking or cooling time) and serves eighteen.

Deluxe German Chocolate Cake

1 chocolate cake mix
1½ c black coffee room temperature
3 eggs
2 c br sugar
1 c evaporated milk
2 tb butter
1½ c shredded toasted cocoanut
1½ c chopped toasted pecans
1 (16 oz) container of chocolate frosting

Combine the cake mix, coffee, and eggs beating on medium speed for two minutes. Pour the batter into two 9-inch round greased cake pans and bake for thirty-five minutes at 350º. Remove from pans, cover, and cool. In a small pan mix together the sugar, milk, and butter with a Wisk. Bring to a boil and cook for fifteen minutes stirring frequently until thickened and caramel colored. Fold in one cup of the cocoanut and pecans. Microwave the frosting for a minute or so until runny. Cut each cake layer in half. Divide the caramel mixture into thirds placing one third on the first layer and drizzling a thin layer of frosting on top. Do the same for the second and third layer. Completely cover the top layer with the rest of the frosting letting it run down the sides. Sprinkle on the rest of the cocoanut and pecans. Let sit for four hours at room temperature before slicing!

Weekly tip: Toasting nuts brings out their rich flavor. A quick way to do this instead of using the oven is by placing the nuts in a bowl, microwave on high for one minute, stir, and microwave at thirty second intervals for another minute or two (stirring each time) until the nuts are fragrant and golden!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com

Double Chocolate Malt Brownies

Double Chocolate Malt Brownies
Dorcas Annette Walker

To any chocaholic there is only one way to celebrate and that is by some form of chocolate with the rule of thumb being the more the better. So hang on as we indulge in more chocolate recipes for the rest of the month. After all I did manage to make it for five weeks (with the help of my leftover Christmas chocolate candy) in the New Year before I gave a chocolate recipe. I can’t remember the first time I tasted a chocolate covered malt ball, but I was instantly hooked with the unique combination of malt and chocolate as anything covered in chocolate is wonderful…uh, within reason of course.

And with the upcoming presidential election we need all the chocolate we can get to keep our spirits up as we wade through the bombardment of useless campaign promises that each time around gets larger and more convoluted- Does the average citizen really believe such jargon?- and yet it seems anymore that the candidate who promises the most and spends the largest amount of money wins. Have we Americans become that naive? What our country needs is not a politician, who upon entering office is already bound by promised handouts and positions to his own party, but an honest business man, who will be more interested in what he can do for his country instead of himself with a history of turning bankrupt companies around. Where is the man, who instead of spending billions for election in the face of the struggling financial average citizen to give towards helping the economic crisis in America instead of blowing it on publicity for him? Today’s politicians seeking the presidential office are the total opposite of the founding fathers of our country, who were willing to go bankrupt in order to create a government for the people and by the people.

Perhaps this Presidents’ Day we should take a long hard look at what our country needs for a president instead of letting politics tell us who to vote for. Ironically enough Presidents’ Day evolved out of increasing controversy due to Washington and Lincoln’s birthdays being so close together. In 1968 Congress voted to shift the three existing holidays to Monday thus also moving Washington’s Birthday to Monday. In 1999 bills were introduced to the House and Senate for Washington’s Birthday to officially be called Presidents’ Day, but both bills died in committees. Until the late 1980’s businesses were closed on Presidents’ Day, but this was gradually turned around in order to promote sales. In 1971 President Nixon proclaimed Presidents’ Day to be observed on the 3rd Monday of February honoring all the presidents. Today the spelling of Presidents Day and Presidents’ Day are both considered correct.

My Double Chocolate Malt Brownies are a luscious indulgence of soft chewy crunchy brownies topped by a fuggy chocolate frosting that will satisfy any sweet tooth. The Double Chocolate Malt Brownies make a “finger licking” snack or classy dessert garnished with strawberries or whipped topping. You can use any kind of brownie mix with added chocolate chunks or chopped nuts if you desire. Preparation time for my Double Chocolate Malt Brownies is fifteen minutes (not counting baking or cooling time) and serves twelve.

Double Chocolate Malt Brownies

1 brownie mix
1 c malted milk balls
1 (16 oz) container of chocolate frosting

Mix brownies as directed, cut the malt balls in half, and stir in. Spread batter in a 9 x 12 greased baking dish and bake for 30 minutes at 350º. Let cool for fifteen minutes before spreading the chocolate frosting over top!

Weekly tip: The weight of the world’s largest chocolate bar is 12,290 pounds measuring 21 feet long by 3 feet high!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com

Red Velvet Cream Cake

Red Velvet Cream Cake
Dorcas Annette Walker

I remember as a youngster how the suspense would build each year right before Valentine’s Day. How many valentine cards would one receive? Would you be included in the popular girls’ list? Most important would a certain boy that you had your eye on give you a special card? We didn’t have money to buy store bought cards. Instead my mother would create attractive homemade heart cards years before the idea of crafts became trendy. I wish now that we had appreciated the time invested from an overworked mother and the intricate artwork instead of secretly longing for store bought cards to hand out like the few rich kids. Our mother also didn’t believe in showing partiality so we always had a card for every student in our class.

Finally Valentine’s Day would come and we would arrive at school loaded down with a stack of cards and a batch of cupcakes or a gallon of drink that had been designated for us to bring. That afternoon as our teacher set out the snacks us students would go around putting cards in the decorated boxes sitting on each desk. What anticipation and excitement as you opened up your stack of cards that were mostly homemade and read the signed name on the back.

When my children were young I would take the time and make homemade Valentine cards, but soon I ended up buying store bought cards like everyone else as it was so much easier and quicker. Now each year as I see the aisles stacked full of boxed Valentine cards- some of which look more like a horror movie advertisement than a Valentine card- and all the decorations, bags of candy, and commercialism that surround today’s youngsters, I sigh and remember the days when homemade Valentine cards and cupcakes was the norm.

My Red Velvet Cream Cake is ideal for making into a heart cake for your Valentine celebration with its soft cake texture surrounded by white frosting. The special pudding layer in the center makes this Red Velvet Cream Cake stand out. The elegant Red Velvet Cream Cake is something that even a beginner cook can make with success. Preparation time for my Red Velvet Cream Cake is about seventy-five minutes (not counting the cooling time) and this large heart cake serves twenty-two.

Red Velvet Cream Cake

1 red velvet cake mix
1 (3.4 oz) instant vanilla pudding
1½ c milk
½ c powdered sugar
½ tsp almond extract
1 (16 oz) container of vanilla frosting

Mix the cake mix according to the directions separating the batter in half and baking it in a heart-shaped pan. Cover and let cool. In a small bowl mix together the pudding, milk, sugar, and extract with a Wisk until smooth. Spread over top the first cooled cake layer. Carefully put the second heart layer on top of the pudding. Cover the sides and then the top of the cake with the vanilla frosting. Garnish with Valentine hearts, gel writing in red, or surround the cake with roses!

Weekly tip: Whenever an egg is stuck to the carton, wet the carton, and the egg will come out without breaking!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com

Potato Soup

Potato Soup
Dorcas Annette Walker

I have sneezed, blown my nose, and coughed my way through this past week from a cold that I caught from my husband. With the fluctuating weather the winter season is ripe for colds and flu. The bright spot in my world as I sat in my recliner with a box of tissues close by was the seed and flower magazines that arrived almost daily in the mail to pore and drool over. You’d think I’d be used to it by now, but I’m still amazed at all the new varieties that come out each year while on the other hand it is a good thing that there are pictures to identify various plants as one would never recognize some of the outlandish colored vegetables. Between doctoring my cold and looking at gardening magazines I fixed up a batch of homemade Potato Soup.

February is also National Potato Lovers month. So I looked up some facts about the potato:

- Potatoes were first cultivated by the Inca Indians around 200 B.C.
- Marie Antoinette wife of Louis XV was known to wear potato blossoms as a hair decoration.
- Up until the late 18th century, the French believed that potatoes caused leprosy. To accept the potato as a safe food reverse psychology was used by posting guards around potato fields during the day leaving them unguarded at night. Every night thieves would sneak into the fields and leave with sacks of potatoes!
- The first established potato fields in North America were in 1719.
- The ‘Idaho’ potato or ‘Russet Burbank’ potato was developed in 1871.
- The Yukon Gold potato honors the Alaskan Klondike gold rush where potatoes were actually ‘worth their weight in gold.’ Potatoes were so valued for their vitamin C content that miners traded gold for potatoes.
- In 1912 the Idaho Potato Museum was built in the old Oregon Short Line Railroad Depot.
- In 1974, an Englishman named Eric Jenkins grew 370 pounds of potatoes from one plant.
- The world’s largest potato chip was produced in Jackson, TN by the Pringle company in 1990 measuring 23’ by 14.5’
- Instant mashed potatoes (dehydrated potatoes) were introduced commercially in 1955.
- The potato is the fourth most important crop in the world and requires less water to grow than wheat, rice and corn.
- The potato produces more food per acre than any other crop and one acre of land can provide sustenance for nearly10 people.
- Potatoes are grown in all 50 states, and in 125 countries; New York consumes more potatoes than any other state.
- The average American eats about 140 pounds of potatoes each year; the most popular is the Russet Burbank.
- The potato is about 80% water and 20% solid, grows underground, is actually swollen stems, not roots, and changes its chemical structure after harvested by the outer layer thickening and hardening converting to the same substance that is found in corks.
- An 8-ounce baked or boiled potato has only150 calories.
- The Potato was the first vegetable grown in outer space.

Potato Soup

2 large potatoes
½ tsp salt
1 (12 oz) can evaporated milk
1 tb dried onion
1 tsp dried parsley flakes
pepper & salt
½ stick of butter

Peel, wash, and cut potatoes into small chunks. Add water to cover, salt, and bring to a boil. Let cook for ten minutes until potatoes are soft then mash. Stir in milk, onions, parsley, pepper & salt to taste, and butter. Simmer for five more minutes until butter is melted. Preparation time is twenty-five minutes and this recipe serves four!

Weekly tip: Don’t store uncooked potatoes in the refrigerator as the taste and texture will be affected!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com

Homemade Pretzels

Homemade Pretzels
Dorcas Annette Walker

I started the month of January with pretzels and I am going to end the month with another pretzel recipe. Our family always ate big fat pretzels with ice cream, but then we were Pennsylvania Dutch, who’s German and Swiss ancestors immigrated here to America in the early 1700’s searching for religious freedom. For years my sister has made Homemade Pretzels, but it wasn’t until this month that I decided to try it myself. To my surprise pretzels aren’t that hard to make and Homemade Pretzels are softer than store bought ones.

Pretzels originated in Europe made of dough in soft and hard varieties, savory or sweet flavors, tied in a knot-like shape known as the pretzel loop. Most agree that pretzels were invented by monks and became associated with Lent and Easter. By the 12th century the pretzel was an emblem of bakers. The custom of using lye in baking pretzels evolved in the 18th century and became well liked due to baking out excess moisture and increasing self life and crispness. In the 20th century pretzels had become popular throughout the United States as Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York became renowned for their soft pretzels. Today Pennsylvania is the center of American pretzel production.

Some pretzel facts:

- The annual U.S pretzel industry is worth over $550 million.
- The average American consumes 1.5 pounds of pretzels per year while the Philadelphian consumes 12 times more pretzels as the national average.
- In the early 1950’s the Volkswagen Beetle was nicknamed the “Pretzel Beetle”.
- The Pretzel Museum opened in Philadelphia in 1993.
- Governor Ed Rendell declared April 26 as “National Pretzel Day”.
- The Anderson Pretzel Factory produces 65 tons of pretzels daily.
- The largest pretzel weighed 40 pounds and measured 5 feet across.
- Speyer Germany is called the “pretzel town” and has a weekend festival in July that attracts 300,000 visitors with over 100 bands and floats where 22,000 pretzels are thrown out to the crowds.
- On January 1st some people give each other pretzels for good luck.
- In Germany the fourth Sunday in Lent is called “Pretzel Sunday” where boys give girlfriends pretzels.
- On May 1st love-struck boys paint a pretzel on the doors of sweethearts.
- An upside-down-pretzel means a sign of disgrace.
- Some pretzel sayings: “today the sun pretzeled down” means the sun is hot, “he got pretzeled” means he crashed, “I pretzeled him one” means I punched him in the nose, “he pretzeled down the road” means he went fast, and a “pretzeled appearance” means stylishly dressed.

Pretzels can be seasoned and decorated with: salt, sugar, sesame, poppy, sunflower, pumpkin, or caraway seeds, nuts, melted cheese, bacon bits, mustard, icing, and cinnamon. You can use different flours such as whole wheat or rye. Christmas pretzels are made with gingerbread and covered with chocolate frosting. For unique shapes boil the dough in baking soda water for 30 seconds. For a darker look glaze with egg yolk before baking. Preparation time for my Homemade Pretzels is around 1½ hrs and this recipe makes (depending on the size of pretzels) close to 30 pretzels.

Homemade Pretzels

1½ c warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 pkg dry yeast
4 c all-purpose flour
cooking spray
4 tsp baking soda
Kosher salt

Combine water, sugar, and yeast in a cup and let sit for 5 minutes until yeast rises. Put flour in a medium-sized bowl and add the yeast. Knead dough for 5 minutes until smooth adding a little flour as necessary. Place dough in a bowl coated with cooking spray, spray dough, and cover. Let rise for an hour. Take a pinch of dough and roll out into a thin string with your hands then loop and knot. Dip into a small bowl mixed with baking soda and ½ c of warm water. Place on greased baking sheet and sprinkle with salt. Bake at 350º for twenty minutes until browned. Cool and store in a zip-locked bag!

Weekly tip: Pretzels can be used as a crunchy topping for salads, desserts, and soups!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com

Bacon, Egg, & Potato Fry

Bacon, Egg, & Potato Fry
Dorcas Annette Walker

We’ve been having winter weather lately here on the mountain with cold temperatures and a few skiffs of snow, although overall winter this year has been mild. To pamper my hens we put out heated water dishes, turned the heat lamp on, and on cold days I fix up a batch of warm rice give to my hens- all which helps them keep laying. I’ve also mucked out the henhouse a couple of times giving them fresh straw and making sure that all the nests are soft. In return my hens continue to lay big fat brown, white, and cream colored eggs of which I’m expecting a double yolk any day now. Even in the midst of frigid weather there is lots of activity in the henhouse.

The big rooster, which was attacked by my hens, put in a separate pen, and lined up for beheading has managed to escape his fateful day. In fact Red Pepper is beginning to remind me of a cat with nine lives. When I was down with my arm, Dana decided it was too much work to fool with the rooster, who had started growing feathers back and looked healthy again, and without my knowing it, put my rooster back in the henhouse. As soon as I found out I protested indignantly -considering all the work I had given the rooster to keep the old boy alive-, especially when Dana admitted that the hens had begun attacking him again. I convinced Dana to rescue my poor rooster again and had him put Red Pepper in the back enclosed garden. Red Pepper shook his remaining bedraggled feathers looking quite the sorry sight as he began surveying his new domain. Since then I’ve fixed up a temporary shelter for my rooster, who has another batch of feathers coming back in while starting each day out with loud crows like an alarm clock. Once again the dear fellow has managed to avoid getting his head chopped off.

My Bacon, Egg, & Potato Fry is a hearty dish perfect for a winter day that can be prepared for breakfast, lunch, or supper. You can substitute sausage, hot dogs, or leftover ham for the bacon or add mushrooms, black olives and peppers if desired. Preparation time for the Bacon, Egg, & Potato Fry is around forty-five minutes and this recipe serves four.

Bacon, Egg, & Potato Fry

2 pieces of bacon
4 large potatoes
salt & pepper
6 large eggs
¼ c milk

In a medium-sized iron skillet fry the bacon crisp. While the bacon is cooking peel, wash, and dice the potatoes. Remove the bacon when done adding the potatoes to the hot grease. Salt and pepper to taste, cover, and let one side brown. Turn over the potatoes, crumble up the bacon and sprinkle over top, and re-salt and pepper. Cover and cook for about fifteen minutes until the potatoes are soft flipping the potatoes a couple of times. Beat up the eggs and milk in a small bowl. Pour the egg mixture over the potatoes and cover. Stir until the eggs are cooked and scrambled. Serve hot. May garnish with ketchup!

Weekly tip: To determine if an egg is good or bad put in salt water. If it sinks it is okay, but if the egg floats throw it out!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcasannettewalker@gmail.com For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com