German Chocolate Cake

I baked a German Chocolate cake yesterday and posted a picture on social media and had some requests for the recipe so I thought I would share it here! I had a piece last night and this cake is amazing!! Plus I got to use my new Jadeite Cake Stand that I got for Christmas!

This recipe comes from The Beekman 1802 Heirloom Dessert Cookbook. I've had this book for a few years and I love it! I love just sitting down and looking at all the beautiful pictures of vintage kitchen tools and their beautiful farm! I recently learned that German Chocolate Cake does not originate from the country Germany but rather a man by the name of Samuel German who formulated the bittersweet blend of chocolate that they use! 

Here's The Recipe!

Ingredients for the Cake:

Cooking Spray

3 large eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

12 tbsp (11/2 sticks) of unsalted butter at room temp

4 oz Germans Sweet Chocolate Melted (I used double boiler)

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup plus 2 tbsp Buttermilk

To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Coat 2 9-inch round cake pans with cooking spray. Line the bottoms with parchment or waxed paper. Coat the paper with cooking spray. 

In a bowl, with an electric mixer, beat egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Gradually, about 1 tablespoon at a time, add 3/4 cup of the sugar, beating until stiff, glossy peaks form. 

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a bowl, with electric mixer. Beat together the butter and remaining 3/4 cup of sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add egg yolks 1 at a time, until well combined. Add in the chocolate and vanilla. Alternately add the flour mixture and the buttermilk beginning and ending with the flour mixture. 

Stir about half the egg whites into the chocolate batter, then gradually fold in the remaining whites. Divide the batter between the 2 pans. Tap against counter to get rid of air bubbles. Bake in oven for 35-45 min, or until the cake starts to separate from the edges of the pans. Let them cool in the pan for 10 min,  then invert onto the rack to cool completely. Pull of the paper. 

Frosting: 

3/4 cup cream coconut (NOT COCONUT CREAM OR COCONUT MILK)

3/4 cup heavy cream

3/4 cup granulated sugar

4 large egg yolks

9 tablespoons butter

2 cups shredded coconut

1 1/2 cups chopped pecans. 

In a large, heavy-bottom sauce pan, whisk together the cream of coconut, cream, sugar, egg yolks, and butter. Cook over medium heat, whisk constantly, for 10-12 minutes, or until thickened and the color of caramel. Remove from the heat and stir in shredded coconut and pecans and let cool to room temp. 

Frost the first layer add the 2nd cake then top with remaining frosting. 

Cooking With Honey

One of the perks of being a beekeeper is having fresh honey from your hives. If I don't end up selling it all or giving it away as gifts I am always finding new recipes to try that include honey. So I thought I would share 3 of my favorite go to honey recipes! But first I want to talk a little bit about the process it takes to make and harvest the honey.

A hive of honey bees begins collecting nectar in the spring time. Some of the first flowers to bloom include many trees, dandelions, and white clover. Spring, summer, and early fall are the peak flow season in which the honey bees work to store up honey they need for winter. It takes around 2,000,000 flowers to produce 1 pound of honey. This is why bee keepers are advocating for pollinator plots and the preservation of fields that produce flowers because it takes a lot of flowers to produce honey. One colony can produce around 100 pounds of honey but only 1 bee can will produce 1/12 of a teaspoon of honey in her lifetime. This is why we are constantly monitoring our hives during the summer to insure they have adequate numbers to produce a good crop. Around August or September we begin to collect the honey and start the process of harvesting it. We will leave a substantial amount of honey for the bees so that they will survive the winter and only take the excess for our personal use.

Dad and I checking frames and pulling supers 

After we collect the frames of honey off the hives we uncap (remove wax sealing honey into the cells) the frames and then put them into an extractor. An extractor is basically a washing machine type of contraption that you place the frames in and spin with either a motor or a hand crank until all the honey  is pulled out of the cells. It then collects at the bottom of the extractor. Next we use a screen to strain the honey and remove the wax, wings, and legs as we say! We don't heat the honey or micro filter it like some big name companies do which takes out all the pollen and healthy properties out of the honey. Then we bottle it and sell it or use it in cooking. So now to the good part the recipes!!

Peanut Butter Honey Bars

This recipe is very simple and has only 3 ingredients. I shared this with my Great Aunt and she makes them all the time now for her family!

1 cup peanut butter 

1/2 cup Pure Honey

2 1/2 -3 cups oatmeal (I add it gradually not wanting to make it to dry)

Heat up the peanut butter and honey in sauce pan just until it softens and is easy to mix. Then add oatmeal. Line a 9x9 baking dish with foil and spray with cooking spray. Pour peanut butter honey mixture into pan. Refrigerate. Cut into squares or form into balls. Keep in refrigerator so that they maintain a solid state. 

Honey Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

These cookies are great because they use only honey as the source of sweetener. I entered them in a cooking contest and have won prizes with them! 

1 cup Honey

1/2 cup veg. Shortening

1/2 cup butter (softening)

2 eggs

1 tsp Vanilla

2 Cups flour

1 cup quick oats

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped pecans 

Cream honey, shortening, and butter until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and beat. In a separate bowl, combine flour, oats, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix well. Add dry ingredients to honey mixture; mix. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans. Drop by big tablespoon not greased baking sheet. Bake 12-16 min at 350 degrees. Let stand 1 minute, then remove to wire rack to cool. 

Honey Snack Mix

This stuff is amazing!! It's sweet and savory and probably one of my favorite snacks now. Plus you can change up the ingredients to make it to your liking. I will give the recipe I received so you know the amounts of stuff to use then you can change it how you like. No matter what I use I keep the measurements the same. 

3 Tablespoons Sesame oil (I used vegetable oil because that's what I had on hand) 

3 Tablespoons Honey 

1 Tablespoon Soy Sauce

1/2 tsp Garlic salt

1/2 tsp Onion Powder

Whisk the above ingredients together in a small bowl 

4 cups Chex cereal

6 cups mini pretzels

1 cup soy nuts

1 cup dry roasted peanuts

Toss together in a large bowl

Pour sauce over cereal mixture. Toss it gently to coat cereal. Scatter on foil lined jelly roll pan. Bake at 205 degrees for 25 minutes stirring frequently. Turn oven Off and let the pan stay in the oven 1 hour to continue crimping. When cool store in zip lock bag or box. 

Stuff I used in mine: 

5 cups Chex cereal

5 cups oyster crackers

1 cup peanuts

1 cup cheese it's 

If you are looking for more recipes using honey check out www.honey.com

Christmas in the Country 2015 Reveal

This year was my third year participating in the Christmas in the Country. Like the previous years I enjoyed getting to shop for and receiving a gift from other bloggers! It has been a great way to connect with bloggers across the country. I have to give a big shout out and thank you to Laurie from Country LINKed, Jamie from This Uncharted Rhoade, Lara from My Other More Exciting Self, and Kirby from 15009 Farm House for their work on making this possible for us!

This year my package came from Alica who blogs at Happily Married to the Cows. She is from Pennsylvania!

When I opened my package I found a letter telling me about herself and her family and the special meaning behind each item.

She spent the time to find stuff that not only I would like but that were personal to her and her area or that had a tie to her family and friends!

Inside there was: 

Coffee: This coffee was roasted by a friend of her family. It is delicious! I'm enjoying a cup as I write this post! 

Chocolate Goat: Yes I said a Chocolate Goat!!!! She knew that I showed goats and who doesn't love chocolate!! It is so cute and I hate to eat him. This was made by her cousins family candy business.

Stroopies: These are thin cinnamon waffle cookies that have caramel in the middle and dipped in chocolate. Can you say YUM!!! They are delicious!! They go great with a hot cup of coffee. They were made by another cousin's business. 

Greeting Cards: Theses cards were made by her daughter. She took the photos that are on the front of each card. I love to write letters to people so these are perfect.

Post Cards: She included 4 post cards that represent her state. 2 include recipes one for Whoopie pies and shoo-fly pie and the other 2 show Lancaster county and Amish Country. 

Potholder and Dish Cloth: The pot holder was made from quilt squares from her mom and the pot holder was handmade by Alica!! 

I was very happy with all of my gifts and the opportunity to make a new friend from Pennsylvania!! If you haven't already go check her blog out and give her a follow!

This year I sent my package to Texas! I sent mine to Kristin who blogs at Rice Roundup definitely go check out her blog as well. 

Missouri State Fair 2015

Wow! I can't believe it's September already, where has this year gone? Just over a week ago I returned home from being at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, MO for 11 days. I volunteered to work at the Missouri State Beekeepers Association booth for the entire fair. I was required to work a few days as the 2015 Mo Honey Queen but I wanted to do the entire fair. It was a long and tiring 11 days but a very enjoyable time as well. The majority of my time was spent at the booth but I was able to venture out and experience some of the activities and visit the buildings with exhibits. Our days started early arriving at the building sometime before 9:00 am. We were housed in the AG building which opened at 9:00 am. The building didn't close until 9:00 pm so we had to stay until the doors were locked. That made for a long day.

Our Booth

4 different days during the fair I gave a talk, in the Home Economics building, about honey bees. They have a consumer showcase where people from different organizations or businesses can demonstrate or educate about something. 

I got to see several different livestock shows including the Open Boer goat Show, pig shows, cattle shows, and a draft mule show. It was nice being able to see some of my friends show. 

Here's a pic from the draft Mule show

My dad came down for a couple of days to work in the booth and we went and saw the cowboy mounted shooting. Which is always unique and interesting to see. 

Horrible picture. They move to fast and it was smoky in the building.

2 of my favorite buildings to visit were the Home Ec. and floriculture buildings. In the home ec building they had all the food and quilt contest entries. The floriculture building had many flowers on display. Here are just a few pictures from each. 

One day while I was out searching for lunch I saw that the antique tractors were going to do a parade. I made my way to the front and found a park bench and sat and watched the whole thing. It was a  beautiful day and perfect to sit outside and watch it. They had several unique antique tractors. 

Probably my favorite thing I got to see at the fair was the Draft Horse Hitches. I went 2 evenings to that event and enjoyed it immensely. They had several different classes including 1 horses hitched to carts, youth drivers, unicorn hitches (3 horses), and all the way up to 6 horse hitches. My favorite was the 6 horse hitches. The sheer power of having 6 huge draft horses working together to pull a wagon was neat to see. Also the sound of the pounding hoof beats and jingling of harnesses in the small indoor arena was amazing. I think it would be so cool to have a team of draft horses. The Budweiser Clydesdale's were at the fair and they had them come in during the show and they demonstrated how they would dock the wagon. We got to see them exercise them and they paraded them around the fairgrounds each day. 

At the end of the 6 horse hitch class all the entries came into the arena! There were 13 hitches which meant 78 horses and 13 wagons. It was the most impressive/beautiful thing I've seen!  

Here are some other random pictures from throughout the 11 days. 

Myself and the State Fair Queen pictured with the Observation hive

Tiger Stripe Ice Cream from the Mizzou Area- Great stuff

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The honey I entered in the open show. I didn't place.

I wanted to take this vintage camper home so bad!!! 

The Beef house. Great food. 

The winners from the Governors wife's Pie Contest

The Budweiser Clydesdale's 

The Missouri Elk Farmers booth was right across from ours. I learned a lot about elk!

This is at the entrance of the fair. 

It was a great time and I got to meet so many wonderful people! It was so great to promote something that I'm so passionate about. While I was at the draft horse hitches I had this little boy and his sister come up to me and ask for my autograph! The little girl also wondered what it took to become the honey queen some day and so I told her about it. It absolutely made my night and really let me know that hopefully during my reign as honey princess and queen that I've inspired some young beekeepers to get involved and to continue with their passions! 

Letting Go

This is a horrible way to come back from not blogging for so long but there was something I needed to let go of and free myself from. I felt writing it out would help me have closure and I can move on from it. 

It's crazy how one single day, or really one single moment, can change the course of your life. That day for me was July 21st, 2014, exactly one year ago today. Eleven Months before that I started my journey to becoming a nurse. I made it through 2 almost 3 semesters of classes with 1 day of finals to go before finishing the 3rd and final semester. I showed up to class that day, got my computer set up, and was ready to destroy the finals. That's when the teacher asked if we had our last regular test to turn in. I froze and that horrible feeling that forms in your stomach appeared. I realized that I had not touched the test since she gave it to us the week before. It was the week of our county fair, we had a day of clinicals, and I had another test to take and I forgot all about it. I told my teacher what I had done but there was nothing she could do. So I quickly filled in as many answers as I could and turned it in hoping there was some sort of saving grace. I remember calling my mom telling her that I've screwed everything up not knowing if bombing the test would ruin my grade. My teacher graded the test and it dropped my test average low enough that I couldn't take the final for that one class. Which more importantly meant that I would not be finishing LPN school and I would need to retake that class. The instructors pulled me into one of their offices and told me about retaking the class and I don't really remember what else because by that time I had lost it and was just so heartbroken. Even worse I still had a final to take that afternoon for the other class I was in. I left the school and went to my moms work and just cried. I was devastated. Even with my mom's encouraging words I saw no positive aspect to this situation. I went home and studied my butt off for the final I had to go back and take for the other class. Walking back into the room I wished I was invisible. I knew everyone knew of my failure and It just made it that much worse. Adding salt to my wound I passed my maternity class final with flying colors and probably would have done the same with the other class if i'd had the chance to take it. The next few days and weeks were horrible. I don't think I had ever been so sad and felt so hopeless. I cried a lot and did not think that I could ever be happy again. Going to bed each night I thought for a short while I could forget what happened but instead I had nightmares about that day and would wake up realizing that it wasn't just a dream that it was reality. But probably the hardest thing about it all was telling my friends and family that I didn't finish school. I had told everyone when I was going to be done with school so of course everyone asked about if I was done and when I was taking boards and everything. It was so hard telling them that I had failed. I disappointed so many people all because of my own stupid mistake. There was no one to blame but myself. So the next couple months I went on with my life not knowing what was ahead. That was until I got a call one day from one of the staff at the college I attended. They told me about retaking the class I failed at another school instead of waiting a whole year to take it at the same school. I jumped on the chance and started that in October. I went and that class ended up being a great opportunity. The teacher was amazing and I had the chance for more clinical experience, and got better grades than the time before. I remember walking into the class room ready to take the final later that December and had a moment of sudden panic. What if I fail again. I went and talked with my teacher asking what I needed to pass the class and she said even with a poor grade I'd be fine. I ended passing with a B and just couldn't believe I was actually done. I took my boards in February and have been working as an GPN and LPN now for 7 months. Thinking back to that day looking forward I never thought I could be where I am now. This past year hasn't been easy but with a lot of  prayer and patience things did work out and I guess God had a plan and good reason for me to go through that trial. 

Psalm 27:1 – 3  “The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?  When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall.  Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”

Random Thoughts

Right now as I'm writing this i'm sitting at a desk in a hotel in the middle of St. Louis. My stuff is strung all over the room, a random movie is playing, and happy thoughts are running through my mind. I should be sleeping since I have an early start and a long day ahead of me but i'm to excited to sleep! I think travel does that to a person. On this trip, like many recently, i'm by myself. I have come to learn that traveling by myself is actually pretty great. Sure it's always nice to share your experiences with someone but hey that's what FB is for. I find that I can travel at my own pace. I don't have to worry if the people i'm with are bored with the random things that i'm interested in. I can take a random road in the middle of nowhere and no one's there questioning my motives! Today I traveled to a small town that sits right along the Missouri River. It's the cutest little town that really transforms you to a different place. The town is full of colonial style brick buildings, is surrounded by farms with beautiful old farm houses and barns, and is set upon some beautiful bluffs. They have done an amazing job of preserving the buildings and preserving the towns history. I got to explore the shops and try some amazing food. One of my favorite moments of today was when I walked into this antique store that was in an old building. The moment I stepped into the building and my boots hit the hardwood floor, I was instantly transported about 200 years back. The floors creaked and made a beautiful song as I walked around the store. It's like it was telling me its story and about all the people who have walked upon it. But hey you're probably thinking i'm crazy but I love old things. I'll tell you this you can't walk through Walmart and feel that kind of connection! Anyway enough for tonight I had really better get to bed. One last thought if your up for an interesting route of travel try highway 94 from Jeff City, MO to Hermann, MO. I saw bluffs, flat cropland, beautiful farms, free range goats, a random outhouse along the road, and enough curves and hills to almost make me sick! On that note Good Night!!

Mark Twain, Wine, and Beginning Beekeepers!

This weekend was a busy whirlwind! Friday I left bright and early to head to St. Louis, MO for a Honey and Wine tasting event that night. On my way there I stopped in Hannibal, MO to eat lunch and to visit some of the Mark Twain stuff. I had been there when I was a kid but that was many years ago! After the Honey/wine tasting I made it part way between St. Louis and Columbia to spend the night. Early Saturday I traveled on into Columbia to attend a Beginning beekeeping class. It lasted all day so I wasn't able to drive all the way home so I crashed at my cousins house about half way home! It was a crazy weekend that didn't last long enough. But I had fun at both places I went!

Here are several pictures from my weekend!

Huckleberry Finns House

Mark Twins Boyhood Home. 

This random sign on one of the buildings in Hannibal. 

Bale of cotton

Norman Rockwell Paintings!! They had 14 ORIGINALS!!! I was so excited he Is my favorite artist!

Stopped in here to get some Ice Cream

Huckleberry ice cream on top and some butter pecan on bottom. Both very good!

The Mark Twain Memorial Light House. I climbed up the stairs to the top to see the view!

The View from the top of the hill where the light house was. 

Another view from the top of down town Hannibal. That's my car at the bottom.

Where I ate Lunch

Some homemade root beer complete with a frosty mug.

My Lunch at the Mark Twain Dinette. It's a Made Rite Burger and some onion rings with Chili ranch sauce. Delicious!

I got to sell raffle tickets at the honey/wine event

The Food that was made by the Culinary institute of St. Louis

Each table had 2 different honeys and 2 different wines.

The head Chef.

Me Speaking at the Beginning beekeeping class in Columbia.

Students putting together wooden ware