Category: cake stands

My Bestie Made Chocolate Zucchini Bread For Me

{ Click here for the amaaazinggg zucchini bread recipe by Two Peas and their Pod }

I know a lot of people will brag about their bestie. And maybe they have a legit reason to. But mine is effing awesome. Like forrealsies.

I spent a couple days with her this week and, as usual, she fed me and fed me and fed me! One of the things she made was this chocolate zucchini bread, and it is so damn good. We are both cake and chocolate lovers but I tell you, I wasn’t sure I wanted any parts of zucchini mixed with chocolate.

This is probably a good time to note, I long ago vowed I would NEVER put zucchini into my mouth EVERRRR! I love a lot of veggies, but zucchini AINT one of them! Quite honestly, I steer clear of the entire squash family. I know…that’s quite controversial, but…I likes what I likes, and I hates what I hates. And this girl HATES zucchini! lol.

OK, so back to my bestie trying to force feed me a veggie I hate… She covered it in chocolate and baked it, and told me “no really, you HAVE to try this!!” I felt like an animal being tricked…like…I know you’re just trying to make me do something I don’t want to do, but you covered it in something that I love and now I’m completely confused. GAAAAHHH!!

OK yall, long story short…I fell for it. I took the bait. The chocolate was just too enticing and I gave in. It. Was. DELICIOUS!!!! I don’t know what happened to the zucchini, and I started wondering if I completely misunderstood what she said about zucchini being in it, but she confirmed, YES it has zucchini in it! It tasted like chocolate cake with chocolate chips on it. lol. Like…you would not know there was any veggie involved in the recipe at all.

So I thought my mother, who loves chocolate but is extremely health conscious, would also love to try this magic veggie cake, so bestie made some for her. And she allowed me to film her doing it so here we go!

She actually told me that she uses a recipe that she found online on the Two Peas and Their Pod blog. She loves their site and owes all of the credit to their recipe. (I won’t rehash their recipe. Definitely go to their site for the ingredients and steps!). I even asked if she altered it in any way, and she said nope! So that’s where she found this decadent trick veggie chocolate cake recipe.

So here’s a little recap here of her baking one.

{ whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and sea salt }

{ combine the the eggs, melted butter, oil, vanilla extract, and brown sugar }

{ this is the mountain of shredded zucchini }

{ combine the wet, dry, chocolate chips and zucchini }

Literally the ONLY thing I would MAYBE change is use milk chocolate chips instead of semi sweet. Or maybe use a mix of the two. But that’s literally the only thing. This recipe is a banger!

{ after the cake has been baked and cooled and put on a cute cake plate }

It seems like it would be a million calories and just an entire plate full of sin, but it’s legit zucchini, so you can eat it and not feel guilty. At least that’s what I did…lol.

{ oh so chocolate }

Have you made chocolate zucchini bread? How did it come out? Do you have something that seems like it should not taste good but actually tastes amazing?? Lemme know!!

justamarylandgirl

DIY Cake Stands

diy cake stands

I served as my agency’s campaign manager for our annual charity drive.  It was a big task, and one with high visibility at my job.  As you can imagine, there were some obstacles to the position, but I was honored to step up to the challenge.

One of our awareness events was a sweets tasting.  My fellow colleagues kindly stepped up to volunteer to bake and donate various sweets for the event, and I did the coordination and decor for the employee lounge.  While expectations are low for meetings and such at my particular agency, the fun and creative side of me wanted to “juj” it up a little bit.  I wanted banners and balloon clusters and tissue paper pom-poms.  And  I wanted cake stands and doilies for every item.  This is where I had to think outside the box a little bit.

My role as campaign manager did not come with a budget.  Everything was either donated or out of pocket.  With 20 people donating baked goods, it was not reasonable for me to spend $10-$15 each on 20 cake stands.  Think woman, think!  To the Google!

After some research on google and pinterest, I laid out my plan.  I saw DIY cake stands using affordable items, and decided to try using plates and candle holders from the dollar store.  So this is what I did.

Materials:

  • candle holders
  • plates
  • gorilla glue

Here are the items I used, all purchased from my local Dollar Tree store (except the Gorilla Glue):

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{glass candle holder}

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{glass plates}

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{grey geometric candle  holder}

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{grey ceramic plate}

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{gorilla glue}

Instructions: 

  • Dot the gorilla glue onto the top of the candle holders.  This doesn’t need to be excessive.

 

  • Press the glued side of the candle holder onto the bottom of the plates and hold in place according to the instructions on the glue bottle

 

  • Let the stands cure overnight upside down

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Here are my finished stands.  They totally looked awesome when I put doilies on top and delicious sweet treats on them for the event!

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I was ecstatic that I was able to execute my vision without breaking my bank!  And I got so many compliments on the presentation!  I wish I took better pics (bad blogger!!!)  In full disclosure, the glass stands made it exactly the length of the event before they toppled.  I’m not sure if they became unstable during the travel to the event or what.  The grey ones lasted and are still in tact months later.  So you may want to consider the fragility of the items that you select for your stand.  I could not have been happier with the outcome.

tata for now -m- (2)

 

justamarylandgirl