Mix it Up Disaster

So, yesterday I was already to give you pretzels. There was such an outpouring of enthusiasm about my pizza dough (hello, anyone...) that I thought you were ready for another dough recipe. I also thought this would be a fun recipe for Hollis since you rolled the dough into "snakes" and then folded them into pretzels. Here is what I learned:
-2 3/4 cups is a lot of sugar for pretzels. It's a lot of sugar for cookies.
-1 cup of water can not dissolve a packet of yeast and 2 3/4 cups of sugar.
That glaring fact did not stop me from dumping 2 3/4 cups of sugar into a bowl with yeast and warm water, twice. The first time I dumped it out because by the time I got all that sugar in the bowl, the water was cold. It takes some time to measure out that much sugar. The second time I let it sit and waited for the yeast to activate and it never did. After dumping out 2 packets of yeast and 5 1/2 cups of sugar, I decided to read the recipe. It was actually 1 TABLESPOON of sugar and 2 3/4 cups of FLOUR. Duh, that makes a lot more sense. In my defense, the ingredients in the recipe were written out of order. Whatever, that was all the yeast I had, so no Mix it Up Monday. Today I bought more yeast and a bundt pan to try out a Sandra Lee Semi Homemade recipe. Hollis decided that today was a good day for a birthday party, so we made the cake. Sandra Lee recipes are great, because they usually start out with some type of convenience food that she then dresses up. Tonight we made the Marbled Sour Cream Cake. The base of the recipe is a yellow cake mix, but it turns into a lovely marbled, moist bundt cake. I also have to say that her way of layering the batter to create the marbled effect is much easier than trying to swirl it once it is in the pan. I made the recipe as written except I already had milk chocolate chips open, so I used those instead of semi sweet and I used reduced fat sour cream.
Marbled Sour Cream Cake
Non Stick Cooking Spray
1 c. semi sweet chocolate morsels
1 package yellow cake mix (18.25 oz)
1 c. sour cream
1 c. water
3/4 c. vegetable oil
3/4 c. granulated sugar
4 eggs

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Spray a 10 inch bundt cake pan with cooking spray.
Melt chocolate chips in microwave. Stir to blend.
In a large bowl combine the remaining ingredients.
Using an electric mixer, beat until well blended, about 2 minutes
Spoon 2 cups of cake batter into the melted chocolate and mix thoroughly to create a chocolate batter.
Spoon chocolate batter and yellow batter alternately into pan.
Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 55 minutes.
Let stand until completely cool.

While you are waiting for the cake to bake, stop by I Think You Should to hear a awful and yet somehow hilarious story of multiple root canals. Sounds funny doesn't it, believe me, when Mandee tells it, it is.