Dark Chocolate Orange cake is no lie

After the heavenly lightness of the last cake (pineapple cherry chip), I decided to do something completely opposite: dark, rich and decadent. The obvious answer involved chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate. I did have one glaring problem, though... no chocolate cake mix. Yes, I know, I could do the 'hard' thing and make it from scratch but I'm lazy and I *did* have white cake mix. So how do you make white cake mix into chocolate (even, dare I say dark chocolate)? Duh, cocoa powder. And I DID have a metric crap-ton of cocoa powder, so my problem, it turned out, was not so much a problem as an opportunity to adjust the amount of delicious chocolate I could put into my cake. I was the master of my own cake-y destiny! 

So! It's time to gather your ingredients and implements, kids. Remember, this is a chocolate orange cake, so you may have to do some shopping.

Ingredients:
1 box white cake mix
3 eggy-wegs
2 sticks of butter (instead of the oil called for in the recipe on the box)
2/3 c of cocoa powder
2-3 oranges (I prefer Valencia oranges, as they tend to be juicier. You can do blood oranges, navel oranges, whatever floats your boat. You're going to want AT LEAST 1 cup of juice)

Implements:
A baking pan (or pans)
An oven
Measuring cups
Mixing bowl
Non-stick spray
Whisk/spoon

1. Take butter out of refrigerator to get it to room temp
2. Pre-heat oven to 350F
3. Grease pan(s)

PREPARE TO GET JUICY!

4. Juice your oranges into a bowl/cup/whatever you're going to use to contain it. *make sure you keep the seeds out. Some pulp is no biggie, so long as you don't mind biting into it later once it's in the cake. If you're not into that at all, you can use paper towel/strainer/cheesecloth to strain out the pulpy bits. Set the juice aside for later

5.  Pour cake mix into large mixing bowl
6.  Add in cocoa powder and mix until combined well
7.  Slice up butter sticks so they are easier to work with and add to the mix
8. Add eggs into mix
9. Stir CAREFULLY - it will be lumpy, that's ok. We're gonna help it out in a second.
10. Add in 1 C of orange juice (this is in place of 1 C of water from the cake box recipe) and mix. If it feels a little bit thick, you can add more juice to loosen it up a bit. It will still be a thick batter - maybe the texture of brownies
11. Bake @ 350 for 20-25 minutes - until not-gunky in the center

Just like with the last cake, we can make icing quick and easy. This time, instead of letting it just be icing, we're going to put in some orange juice so that we get another lovely kick of citrus. For the icing,  you'll need:

At Least 3 Tbls. Milk
3 Cups Powered Sugar
1/2 cup (like Butter
3-8 Tbs of the orange juice

And all you really need to do to all this lovely stuff is mix it together. Add more/less orange juice to taste. If you feel like it's too sweet, put juice in. If it's too juicy or orange-y, put more sugar in. Tada!

Also, I know I didn't mention this last time but.. it's a good idea to let your cake cool off before you frost it. At least 20 minutes. I know it's PAINFUL to wait sometimes, but it's a better idea to ice it when it's cool because the icing won't run into any cracks and/or run straight off the cake.

Cherry Chip Pineapple Cake

Well, it was about time for me (Rabbit) to make my own post right? So here I am, with dessert. A super-moist, lovely cake that is perfect for summertime and is good for almost a week if you keep it in the refrigerator. Yeah, that is, if it lasts a week without you nomming it down in the first few days.

You will need the following -

Ingredients:
1 box (yes, I cheat) cherry chip cake mix
3 eggy-wegs
2 sticks of butter (instead of the oil called for in the recipe on the box)
1 can of crushed pineapple (20 oz)

Implements:
A baking pan (or pans)
An oven
Measuring cups
Mixing bowl
Non-stick spray
Whisk/spoon

**NOTE!** I am baking at 1,117 ft above sea level in the desert, in the middle of the summer right before monsoon season. If  you are higher or lower by any significant measurement (+/- 1,000 ft), more or less humid and/or living in a place that actually gets rain on the regular, your baking time and/or temperature may need adjustment. I cannot and will not be held responsible for cakes that go flat, take longer to bake or burn pre-baking time in my elevation. Baking is a tricky business! Times and temps change with ingredients, humidity, barometric pressure, elevation, whether or not a squirrel has farted in a 1/4 mile radius and billions of other things that I simply cannot adjust for.

(Kobold's Note: That's FAR too much effort. YMMV, Cook at your own risk, baking is easy :-P )

PREPARE FOR AWESOMENESS!


1. Take the butter out of the fridge if you keep it there, so that you can have it at room temp by the time we have to do anything with it.
2. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees
3. Gather the rest of your ingredients and implements

GENERATE AWESOMENESS!

1. Empty box'o'cake mix into mixing bowl
2. Add eggy-wegs
3. Add now-soft butter sticks (I like to cut them up into squares with a butter knife so I don't have to fight with giant lump-sticks).
4. Mix until thoroughly combined
5. Add pineapple chunks - be sure to include juice.


BAKE AWESOMENESS!

1. Grease pan(s)
2. Pour batter into pan(s) - if you're using more than one, make sure to spread out the mix evenly
3. Put pan(s) into preheated oven
4. Bake @ 375 for 25 minutes. Mine took 28 total, but 25 is when you should start checking

And the Kobold Says:

What Rabbit didn't tell you is when it comes to the finer points, I come from a long line of people who know how to bake. What happens when Rabbit doesn't have frosting? "Kooobbbooolllddd make me a simple white frosttiiinnggg!!!" Yep. You can tell we are related, right?

You will need:

• At Least 3 Tbls. Milk
• 3 Cups Powered Sugar
• 1/2 cup (like Butter
• 1 Tbls. Vanilla Extract - I like vanilla. 

And what do you do?

You mix it. All of it. Mix it real good. You might need a little more milk. It happens. I wanted a thinner frosting, because we didn't want to coat this already super sweet thang in a super thick layer of sugar. This, spread over a slightly hot cake makes for a thin coat of vanilla-y goodness.

We frosted, stacked, frosted. We didn't do the sides. It was an almost subtle touch for something made with 3 garsh darn cups of powered sugar. Sweet, sweet, Columbian... Ahem sorry I got lost.

Change of Venue!

Hello readers! For those of you who didn't know, our little hiatus was partially due to the fact that the Amazing Kobold and I have moved from Las Vegas to Phoenix. I know, I know... it's sad, no more super awesome Vegas recommendations for the moment, but we have been working our way around the Phoenix valley and have found some awesome places to eat. Please stay tuned for awesome updates and delicious ideas for those of you in, or visitng the Haboob capitol of the Southwest!

Wendy's Noodle Cafe

We were in the mood for Chinese food (ha.. that rhymed... I'm funny) and so we headed to the place where any good Las Vegan would go when they were in that sort of mood. Toward Spring Mountain Road, near the West side of town near the strip. We were on Jones near Desert Inn when we found what used to be a Pizza Hut (lovely architectural trademark as that is) marked Wendy's Noodle Cafe.

It had been rated very highly on the inter-tubes, so we thought we'd give it a go. Man, those inter-tubes are right sometimes. In fact, if anything, they were exaggerating on the low end. This place was way past good. It was fan-damn-tabulous. Let's start with the staff.

Cheery, awesome, willing to help the only two white kids in the establishment muddle their way through the gigantic menu of things that sounded delicious and tantalizing. Quick, clean and totally deserving of our praise! In fact, our favorite waitress (because now we've been there way more than once) is usually there, running the whole freakin' floor by herself and we're pretty sure she's over 20... Not to say that she's not rockin' it, but I'm also sayin' she's not exactly a spring chicken anymore. Props to you, woman! She even took the time to show Kobold how to properly mash and enjoy his Hong Kong iced tea!

Now on to the food. First time out, Kobold had the braised beef and I had the roast duck. Both of which were excellent (because you know we had to try each other's food). His beef was tender, sweet and savory and not a second overdone, served with rice and yum-tastic. My duck? Oh yeah. Duck yeah. Not greasy at all. Moist insides, crispy skin, and awesome flavor. Duck yes, duck me all night long.

And desert was even more excellent. All I have to say is mango crepes. Not made with what you would normally think of when you think 'crepe.' Not the french pastry cooked thin on a grill type crepe thing. No. Rice pasta type wrapping with sweet creme and mango slices crepe. The kind of thing that would make you punch your own newborn infant crepe. Fucking awesome.

Blue Ox

Upon the referral of our friend, Killjoy, we were told we HAD to check out the Blue Ox. Apparently there are multiples of these in town, but as it is a local favorite, we decided to check it out... Mostly because Killjoy is very rarely wrong about these sorts of things and we trust his judgement. Also, it appears that the Blue Ox owner is a huge Minnesota Vikings fan. For those of you who don't know, I (Rabbit) am from Michigan, so I feel a certain type of kinship with people who are also from god-forsaken cold places. That and we Midwesterners have some kickass food. (Woot woot to the Midwesterners in the hizzy!)

So we dropped in yesterday evening and were pleasantly surprised by the laid back, Pulp Fiction type feel the diner had. We took a seat and perused the menu. And it looked good.

Now, Killjoy had insisted that we try the chicken fingers (not a giant twist of my arm by any means) so that's what I ordered. Generally, that entrée comes with home made potato chips but I opted for the french fries, as I don't usually care for chips to begin with (unless you're British and by chips you mean fries. . . but I digress). Kobold had the Minnesota Viking (roast beef on a bakery style roll with tomato and onion, served with horseradish on the side) and he got the home made potato chips.

Overall the meal was quite good, though the waitstaff needed to be slapped around a bit. Kobold and his hatred of poisonous death apples (tomatoes) caused a small ordering malfunction (the sandwich came with tomatoes which he asked to be left off, and did not include onion or the horseradish). My meal came with the chips, but I did eventually get my fries.

Kobold's roast beef was quite good, though lacking in onions and horseradish and tasted slightly of tomato. The sandwich was a little smaller than he had anticipated, but he helped me eat my chicken fingers, so it was all ok. He said that the chips were also good but a little on the bland side.

My entrée was very good indeed. I ordered the mild chicken fingers and was surprised by the heaping portion. Each "finger" was damned near 6, 6.5 inches long and I got 5 or 6 of them. Quite a meal indeed. It's a good thing that Kobold was there to help me. I got a very small order of fries when they did come, but I'm not sure that that was the full order...

So, overall the rating is probably around a B+ for the food, but a C or so for the service. Don't get me wrong; we'll go back (Because I think the waitress was either a little "special" or really new) to give it another try.

Tiki Too?

All right, kids. I know that this is technically a food blog but I've fallen in love with a little local hole-in-the wall bar and I thought I'd let you know about it. It's called Frankie's Tiki Room (Charleston and MLK) and the site page is here.

It's dark, it's cozy, it's popular with the locals and the bartenders can pour a MEAN drink. I'm not a lightweight by any measure, but let me tell you. Three Kahiki Kai's and I'm a happy, happy Rabbit. The drinks are around $8 per... but trust me, it's totally worth it. Also, for a little extra scratch, you get a rad collector's mug!

Kobold is a fan of the "Three Rum Scum" and my drink is the Kahiki Kai (A little fruity and much easier to take than just a straight shot). Each drink has its own special collector's glass, including the "Bearded Clam" whose glass features a four-legged, four-armed woman whose..eh... "lower region" hair forms a grass-skirt type thing. It's pretty darned cool, if I say so myself.

So if you're in the mood for a Tiki type drink, chill people and a really cool ambiance, check out Frankie's. The staff is excellent and the people are pretty damned rad too.

Peirogi!

Dobry wieczor! (That's Polish for good afternoon...) Kobold had heard from the night time security lady at his workplace (who is Polish) that there is a little Polish deli in town that is amazing. We were originally in the market for paczki but as they are seasonal (only for fat tuesday-ish time), we were out of luck on that. I do recall from my time in Russia, though, that there were these lovely little potsticker-like things called Peirogi. Oh... em... gee... they were amazing, but I could never remember the name of them. On visiting Kobold's work one evening to help keep him company and bring him dinner, we came upon the little security lady and asked her about said potsticker-like foods. Of course she knew what we were talking about and said that yes, the deli had these things.

Being the excited little Rabbit that I can be, I asked the lady where it was. She couldn't remember but in a few minutes, produced the top portion of her most recent receipt from the place, which had the address on it. Win for us. So today we were out garage sale shopping with Kobold and his father, Dadoo... and decided to make a stop. We're not Polish, necessarily, but we are good fatties and we're all about trying something new.

So! We get to the little market on Charleston past the 15 (the address is 5900 West Charleston - think Charleston and Jones area) and pull into the shopping complex. It's confused. It has a Polish deli, a Mexican market, a sushi place.. Very multicultural. I'm not complaining.

The three of us walk in and are greeted by friendly staff and a surprisingly busy environment. You'd think, given the location, that it wouldn't be bustling, but apparently there's a larger Polish community in Las Vegas than I had previously considered. We were immediately wowed by the array of goods available here: from fresh-baked breads to in-house made meats and sausages, to candy, chocolate, spices, frozen foods, drinks... and Oh, Em, Gee so much delicious stuff, it was making me bounce like a giddy schoolgirl.

We chose a couple of cold drinks from the fridge, including some lemon-flavored soda which was very good.. almost a lemon creme sort of thing, to strawberry carrot juice (in which, the first four ingredients did not contain sugar... and corn syrup was not listed at all). We also scored some sausage, candy, peirogi (potato and cheese) and tea. Turns out, the Poles are serious about their tea.

We couldn't wait to try the sausage, and as it was pre-cooked, we nommed it while in the van in the parking lot. The sodas were excellent and the juice was rad. The candy was a sort of yoghurty.. vanillay... something but also very good. We had to wait 'till we got home for the peirogi, but it was boiled, then pan fried and YOMMY. Punch a baby yommy. For real.

If you're in the mood for something different, swing by this little place (but not on Sundays - they're not open) and grab a bit of this-and-that. Prices are totally reasonable, things are fresh-made or imported and the staff is excellent.