For a lunch with friends last week, I was asked to bring dessert ~ something chocolate.  Yay!  A chance to bake something new!  I had seen Ina Garten make some little individual cakes on her show recently, and my mind went to those little gems ~ Orange Cakes covered with Chocolate Ganache.  Yes, please!

These are made in forms, but if you don’t have little cake pans, use a cupcake tin.  It’s going to get covered with the chocolate ganache, so it will transform a plain cupcake into something divine!

The recipe is from Ina Garten:

Orange Cakes with Chocolate Ganache
Ingredients
1/4 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1/8 cup grated orange zest (2 large oranges)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour plus 1 tablespoon
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
3 ounces buttermilk at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup good semisweet chocolate chunks
For the syrup:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
For the ganache:
4 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon instant coffee granules

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 6 individual serving baking molds, such as the flexible non stick 100 percent silicone molds.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, then the orange zest.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, the baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, combine the orange juice, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately in thirds to the creamed butter, beginning and ending with the flour. Toss the chocolate chunks with 1 tablespoon flour and add to the batter. Pour into the pans, smooth the tops, and bake for 30 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in the molds on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

This is what mine looked like before the covering of chocolate.  So don’t despair! If your cakes aren’t pretty at this point, they will be once the ganache is spooned  over them!

Meanwhile, make the syrup. In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, cook the sugar with the orange juice until the sugar dissolves. Remove the cake from the pans, put them on a rack over a tray, and spoon the orange syrup over the cakes. Allow the cakes to cool completely.

For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of the cakes.

If you need a “fancy little cake” for a meal, these are fantastic!  They’re easy and fast to make and are an eye and palate pleaser!

What do you bake up for lunch dessert?

With love from my country kitchen,

Isn’t this a happy little mess?!

In all the things that are demanded of us every single day, it’s really, really important that we take time to have a break.  Even 15-30 minutes of scheduled time to do something other than the work before you will refresh you and make you more ready to go back to the normal demands of your life.

I have lots of interests that I pencil into my days.  Playing Words With Friends is something I only “allow” myself to do when I’m in the car, on my way to sleep at night or a when I’ve scheduled a 15 minute time on the swing for a break.

I also love making cards.

The picture above was taken after about 30 minutes of cutting, gluing and punching.  I love that I’m also being productive while taking a break!

We can really get discouraged and down if we don’t take a little time for fun!  Lysa TerKeurst said,

College tuitions brought some belt-tightening to our household when both of our girls headed off to the Christian university.  It wasn’t easy to pay that bill each month, but we were determined that, by God’s grace, we would send them to college and pay the bill for the tuition so that they might finish their years there debt-free.

They were expected to work to pay for their personal expenses, as well as books, which you probably know, can set a person back a good chunk of change!  They did their part, and we did ours.  Praise the Lord, He allowed both girls to finish not owing the school a penny.  It wasn’t necessarily easy, but the sacrifice was well worth it!

During those years, extra money wasn’t available.  Money for gifts and little projects around the house, just wasn’t there.  I began to pray and ask the Lord what I could do to earn some extra money.  I was still homeschooling, so I needed to be able to work from home.  Remembering the biblical principal to do everything with all our might, I knew I had some “might” that could work.  Surely there was something I could do or offer that could stir up some extra income.

The Lord brought my love for baking to mind.  So, I began to bake sweet breads, muffins and pies and offer my goods at my bank, the place where I got my hair cut, and to professional people working at the hospital.  I loved my business, and I saw it really flourish in the years I worked it.

The last year I had my business, I was so busy at Christmas I didn’t even have time to do my own baking.  That’s when it came to a close.  The need was now behind us, and my husband wanted us to have a home life, so I stopped, in deference to him.  But it had served its needed purpose and was such a blessing.  At the time I stopped, I had grown to baking specific orders of cakes, pies, cookies, cheesecakes…you name it.  There was  a need for busy people to hire someone to bake for them, and the Lord had brought that to my mind, given me a love for it, and provided for our family in that way.

Do you have a financial need that you’re praying about?  Think about what you have to offer.  What service do you enjoy doing that others would pay to have you do for them?

A Peek Into My Life This Past Week

Click on picture to enlarge.  Click twice and it’ll look like you’re up close!

There are some days when things seem overwhelming minutes after waking up.  The demands seem great, the energy minimal.  Too many obligations for the hours that lie ahead.  That’s how Saturday morning was.  Ahead of me I needed/wanted to accomplish –

He will direct your paths.  Yes.  What a comfort.  What a relief.  Then I prayed out loud…

“Lord, You know what I need to get done today.  I know I can trust You.  I want to be a blessing to others and to my husband, and if that will happen through meeting our friends for lunch, then I trust You.  Help me to accomplish what is important today and let go of the rest.”

I went home with peace in my heart and the overwhelming feeling gone.  I had a spring in my step – even after a little more than a two mile walk in the country!

While I was getting cleaned up and dressed for the day, my husband sent me a text (he was still out running) –  Our friends got a late start and can’t meet for lunch after all.  While I knew our time with our friends would’ve been sweet, this was the Lord’s hand, and I knew it.  He had directed their steps, and mine, too.

All day I kept asking myself what the next right step was, and I kept my hand to the plow.  You know what?  At the end of the day, I had accomplished everything on my list, plus we had even taken off for a couple hours in the early evening to go out for supper and a drive through the country – something we hadn’t even planned to do!  Isn’t God good?

Starting my day with the Lord in His Word and prayer was, I know, the best thing I could’ve done – especially on a busy day. It’s easy to think I need to move on to my list when I’m overwhelmed in the morning, but how wonderful to see the Lord direct me and enable me to accomplish exactly what He had designed for my day.

On your overwhelming days, stop and ask the Lord to help you take the next right step.  The first thing will always be to seek Him.  He will direct you and that will make for a profitable day!

Lovingly,