Weekend, balloons, THE chocolate cake.

Friday night was date night. It was nice to get out of the house together. We went to dinner, ice cream and video stop. I had a $17 late fee from February when we were watching Lost. Sweet. 

Saturday, we took the boys hiking at city creek. It was all fun and games until, when racing down the trail, Danny tripped and bit the dust. Literally. Running full speed, he tripped and landed straight on his face. We were relieved there was no blood and no loose/missing teeth. Just lots of dirt in his mouth, a bruised nose and lots of little tiny blood bruises on his forehead from hitting all the tiny rocks. A few minutes later, Morg asked him if he wanted to keep racing. He said no. The child is learning.  

The boys are great little hikers! We found lots of beautiful shiny turquoise bugs. We'd never seen that kind before. They were so cool. We threw a thousand rocks in the creek and counted stink bugs. We love our city creek.

Sunday we baked and cooked and made dinner. I'm still so surprised how well I love coconut oil in place of both shortening and vegetable oil. I've never had it fail me. Not once. 

I found the most delicious chocolate cake recipe ever. Mr. Keller's old favorite was a kind that used a box cake mix and instant pudding -- both so full of artificial and genetically modified ingredients. I've been dying for chocolate cake, but I figured I'd have to try out a few recipes to find one we really liked to replace our beloved old one. We got lucky. This recipe was so basic with real ingredients, and I'm not kidding, we both agree it's the best chocolate cake we've ever had. Do yourself a favor. Make this. Chill it in the fridge for a while. And die. 

'Extreme Chocolate Cake' -- allrecipes

2 cups white sugar (I used organic evaporated cane sugar -- Costco)

1 3/4 cups flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Stir these dry ingredients together, then add the following:

2 eggs

1 cup whole milk

1/2 cup coconut oil (liquefied)

1 tsp pure vanilla

Mix with an electric mixer for three minutes.

Add 1 cup boiling water and stir in by hand. The batter will be runny, but it's supposed to be that way.

The recipe was for two 9 inch round pans (350 degrees for 30 minutes), but I used a bundt pan instead and I baked it at 350 degrees for 40 minutes or so.

I let it sit for ten minutes then removed it from the pan. I used a boiled frosting base-- I sort of made it up, but that's because I was very low on powdered sugar and cocoa powder. The frosting turned out okay, but I would've liked it thicker. Here's the frosting recipe that went with the cake recipe:

3/4 cup butter

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder

5 1/3 cups powder sugar

2/3 cup milk

1/2 tsp vanilla 

I chilled the frosted cake for three hours and holy goodness.

And here are some photos from June when we sent Danny's birthday balloons off to Neverland. Happy Monday! 

Cake for lunch today. 

Word.