Friday night I picked up the girls after they had been earning a few community service hours. They’d been helping to set up for a fundraiser for Jamaican Self Help (an organization near and dear to my heart).  While there I spied the bake table that my mom had told me about earlier in the month (“Do you think you could bake anything?”). So I went home and made 1 1/2 dozen giant peanut butter cookies, wrapped them and priced them for the sale. Done. And I ate one.

Saturday I went to the sale (to drop off the cookies and spend some money), then dropped in to my favourite antique store on the way home. Picked up a lovely cake plate and cover for $12 (steel is a bitch – it took a long time to take a pic that didn’t reveal me in my pjs in too much detail). I also found two small carbon steel pans for Paul and I ($20 each, which may be a great deal but the jury is still out). A while ago I read an article outlining the horrors of cooking with a non-stick (aka coated) pan … it’s a miracle I’m still alive, according to the article. So I watched a couple of vids on You Tube and have decided that I need to make the switch so that I live longer and stop poisoning my children. According to an informative Cook’s vid, the best one is Matfer Bourgeat. It’s approx a 12″ pan, and with shipping and tax would be about $100, so I thought the wee ones for $20 were decent. They have an 8 on the handle which refers to something that only other people know. (It’s got a 4″ diameter base and flares to 6 1/2″, so you can stop thinking those thoughts…)  Can’t wait to make an omelette in mine and see how much oil I have to add so that scrambled eggs won’t stick it does.

Made my fav layered chocolate cake Saturday evening. It’s my Uncle Ian’s 80th sometime soon and we’re having dinner with him tomorrow, so OF COURSE we need a traditional birthday cake! My recipe was given to me from a fav secretary approx 20 years ago. It’s “Bid’s Chocolate Cake” but I changed the recipe to “Super Chocolate Cake” after I gave it to several people and they were “uh, who’s Bid?”. In my head I think Bid is short for Sheryl or Sheila but that makes no sense. I have had too much wine though, so whatever. ANYHOW, it’s been the “go to” birthday cake since that time (you can tell by the condition of the recipe card). The best thing about this cake is that it’s always moist and rich and it’s made with super basic ingredients. Butter, sugar, eggs, dutch cocoa, flour, water, baking soda, baking powder, salt. That’s it. It gets better the 2nd day too. Not kidding. Probably even better on day 3 but haven’t had the chance to find that out. (Go ahead, roll your eyes.)

Dana, my CYW and fellow blogger who won’t actually turn her blog on, has told me to get a fancy recipe widget that will make a recipe card that you can print from. OMG I got freaked out after the first paragraph. So forget it. If you really want the recipe, leave me a comment and I’ll happily add it to the post.

Once the cake was baked I decided to utilize the heat of the oven and make some granola, since I’m out and I can also give some to Uncle Ian as a gift. (Seriously, what do you give an 80 year old?) It’s a fab recipe given to me by my good friend Deborah. I wrote about it on another blog post. Go make it! So crunchy and yummy and healthy-ish:

Truly the most delicious granola EVER!

Finally, made the icing, sliced the cake into 4 layers, iced it and TA DA! What a beauty.

And… delicious.