Transition Expert Blog

These cake recipes will take you back to the days when mom and/or grandma baked delicious desserts just for you.  Perhaps the ‘never-fail cake’ will remind you of a birthday cake she made for one of your early birthdays.  Or a delicious piece of white cake topped with fresh fruits or berries from your backyard garden or orchard could be a favorite memory.  Perhaps the apple cake will remind you of picking apples in the fall and coming in from the cold to the scents of apple desserts coming from grandma’s kitchen.  One of the best things about vintage recipes is the memories they bring to mind.  Of course the tastes are special, too!  Get the kids in the kitchen and let them bake up some memories of their own with you.  While working together, you can share some of your poignant memories with them.  It’s a great thing to pass family stories down to your children or grandchildren. 

OLD FASHION NEVER FAIL CAKE

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter or lard

1 egg

3 tbsp cocoa

3/4 cup sweet milk*

1/2 cup boiling water

1 tsp soda

1 rounding cup flour

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream sugar and butter, add unbeaten egg and beat. Add cocoa to egg mixture, blend well. Add flour and milk alternately. Last add hot water with soda dissolved in it. (Batter will be thin.) Pour into a 9×13-inch prepared baking pan. Bake 35 to 40minutes at 350 degrees. Frost with your favorite frosting.

*This is regular milk; not sweetened condensed milk. The old-timers referred to regular milk as sweet milk vs buttermilk.

GERMAN APPLE CAKE

This recipe is said to be from an old church cookbook. I have no way to trace its origins.

2 large or 3 small eggs

1 cup salad oil (butter flavored)

2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

2 cups sifted flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

4 cups thinly sliced apples

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat eggs well, then add oil. Continue to beat while adding 2 cups sugar. Add vanilla and the sifted dry ingredients, mix well. Add the thinly sliced apples and walnuts. Pour into a 9×13-inch baking pan that has been greased and lightly floured. Bake 40 to 60 minutes until done.

ICING:

2 small packages of cream cheese

2 tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup powdered sugar.

Mix all ingredients well with an electric mixer. If too thin, add powdered sugar until of the right consistency to spread. Sprinkle with chopped walnuts, if desired.

Enjoy!

Here is a proven fact: 95% of all blogs fail. This figure even includes those blogs which people set up as hobbies. Most of these blogs never develop a following, other than a few friends and family who may visit it in order to try and help out.

So why do so many blogs fail? Blogs fail for many reasons, but the following are some of the most common reasons:

Reason Why Blogs Fail #1: The Topics Aren’t Interesting

Most people aren’t interested in reading a blog which discusses the development of butterfly gardens. Most people want to read about current events in pop culture and politics. But not only do they want interesting topics, they also want to read an opinion on those topics that is fresh. They want a different opinion that does not match up with the same repeated mumbo jumbo the mainstream press offers.

Reason Why Blogs Fail #2: The Information is Offensive

The majority of people who read blogs possess an adequate amount of intelligence. What I mean by this is that they generally are not ignorant. Maintaining a blog that promotes hate or political views in opposition to democracy is not the best way to build a readership.

Reason Why Blogs Fail #3: The Writing is Poor

The art of writing is truly becoming extinct today. So much emphasis is put on technology and the spell checker that people don’t feel as if they need to be able to compose clean and concise sentences. However, this belief is wrong. If you can’t write it will show. It will also deter people from ever visiting your blog again.

Reason Why Blogs Fail #4: There are no Links

Part of developing a readership is earning trust. One of the best ways to do this is to provide information in your blog that is factual and not fabricated. To avoid the potential of having people question the information within your blog, you should link to other credible Web Sites where the information can be verified.

Newspapers are a great choice for doing this; especially the nationally recognized ones, such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.

Reason Why Blogs Fail #5: People Give Up

It’s very easy for people to get discouraged and give up on their blog after only a few weeks. Most become discouraged when they realize that a strong readership is not developing as they had thought. However, blogs take time to develop and gain popularity. You should make sure and post new articles everyday in order to gain consistent readership. You also must understand that it takes time to develop a popular blog [http://www.HowToMakeMoneyViaBlogs.com]. It won’t happen in a week, or even two weeks. It may take as long as a year, so make sure and give your blog enough time to grow before giving up on it.

Developing a strong readership for your blog won’t be easy; however, if you dedicate yourself to it on a daily basis, and avoid the pitfalls mentioned above, your chances of success will be positive. Even if you never make money with your blog, you may find that if you can develop a strong readership, your blog may lead to other opportunities for you in life. That alone makes it worth not giving up on it.

While many blogs exist,it is sad to know that not all are successful.Some are total failures.

So what is it that makes a blog fail? Several things do but here are 7.

1) Not having a goal for blogging.Before you start a blog,ask yourself,what do I want to achieve with this blog? I believe answering that question objectively will assist you stay on focus.

2)Content isn’t updated regularly.With a blog, you need to post at least once a week to keep the search engines interested and sending you traffic.I make posts almost on a daily basis and if you must succeed as a blogger,you need to update your blog frequently.

3) The content isn’t targeted. If your content isn’t targeted and is too broad, no one will read your content; stay on your blog or return. Focus on the focus of your blog and I tell you, you will make good money sooner than you can ever imagine.I see people make this mistake often.Posting articles on internet marketing on a mother care blog.Please avoid this if you want to suceed as a blogger.

4)Another mistake is to write about a topic you don’t care about just for money. You have to be able to sustain your own interest over the long term, or blogging about the topic will be too much of a chore to keep up.

5)Giving up too easily and too early. Our expectations of instant gratification in the internet age make us impatient for results. Sure there are bloggers who get instant success, getting 2,000 readers a day within 2 weeks of launching a blog. But that kind of success is the exception, not the norm. A successful blogger said that blogging is not a sprint but a long distance marathon. The ones with consistency and perserverance will triumph ultimately simply because the others have given up too soon.

6)Expecting people to visit

Most of us make this mistake when we begin blogging.When I first started out I had no idea how to attract new readers, commenters, interaction etc. I had the impression that if I published new content I’d automatically find readers in my niche.

How wrong I was.Successful blogging involves time, effort, and reaching out to fellow bloggers / publishers / authors (whatever you prefer).

7)Underestimating the time commitment.Blogging is not for lazy people,it is for people who are serious about making a living online,so,don’t underestimate the time commitment.It requires time to research your articles,write them and publish them.

If you watch out for these 7 pitfalls, you’re already way ahead of the crowd.