Archive for the ‘cakes’ Category

The title of this post should actually be “How a Cake Broke my Heart.”

I didn’t get enough time to love this cake. Or take decent photos, really, but that’s beside the point.

I had just declared it finished and whipped out my camera. Then the doorbell rang, and it was time for my darling cake to go out into the wide world without me. Just like that.

I didn’t get enough time to love it. I’m still trying to shake the jilted feeling. I know. Maybe a few Jeeves and Wooster episodes on YouTube might help.

You wouldn’t think it to look at it, but this cake was actually a fudge cake under the surface. This fabulous recipe has quickly become my new favorite of all time in the whole universe cake recipe dot com. And luckily, chocolate happens to be my most requested cake flavor. I love how that works.

Happy spring, friends!

Thank you for being here. You make my day when you come show your smiling faces and leave kind words. I think about you all the time. Did you know that? It’s true.

I just finished a Fondant and Gum Paste course, and I’m bouncing off the walls with excitement, wanting to show you the end result.

Picture a wide-eyed six-year-old, running at top-speed through the door after school, so breathless and eager to show Mom the art project that she made in kindergarten — all covered with pipe cleaners and popsicle sticks, and smeared with orange marker and glitter.

Look, Mom! Look!

Fondant is new territory for me, but I have had a blast learning how to work with it and make it do what I want. I’m not a fan of the flavor of fondant — even the homemade marshmallow fondant — but when the end result is so smooth and pretty, what’s a girl to do? Peel it off and eat the incredible chocolate cake underneath, that’s what.

Gum paste flowers. You can do some pretty cool stuff with gum paste.

Oh, you want the recipe for this incredible chocolate cake underneath? Gladly.

This chocolate cake comes together in one bowl, as easy as falling off a log. The result? It’s a sock-knocker-offer. The King Arthur Flour blog recommends a chocolate ganache icing. Please promise me you’ll do that. It wouldn’t have worked on this particular cake, since I was covering it with fondant. But you can bet your buttons I’ll be playing with ganache next time this cake shows its face in my kitchen.

Fudge Cake

adapted from Bakers’ Banter

2 cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons Instant ClearJel or cornstarch

3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

4 large eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/4 cup water, room temperature

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare two 8″ rounds with grease and parchment paper. (If your 8″ rounds aren’t 2″ high, you’ll want to use 9″ rounds instead.)

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together all the dry ingredients. Add the eggs, oil, and vanilla, beating until smooth. Gradually add the milk, beating until smooth.

Pour the batter into prepared pans and bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool the cakes in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips, room temperature

Directions:

Place the chocolate chips in a heat-proof bowl. In a small saucepan, bring the cream just to a boil. Immediately pour over the chocolate chips. Let it stand for 2 minutes, then stir gently until the chocolate is all the way melted, and the ganache is dark and glossy. Let it cool slightly before spreading it on the cake. It will be very messy and delicious.

The powdered sugar has settled, the dishes are washed, the green and blue food colorings have faded from off my hands, and I’m back to my old, normal sleep schedule (whatever that is).

Yes, this project was a doozy. But this particular project was a particularly fun doozy. One with turquoise waves, tropical vegetation, and a bamboo hut.

My sister-in-law just celebrated her sweet 16 birthday party, complete with a tropical theme, a couple dozen teenage friends, loud dance music, and the ever-inevitable water fight that just about sent me into cardiac arrest several times (seriously, you’d think the teenage boys would have been hyper-aware of the fact that there was an enormous, edible cake right there. But then, I’ve never been a teenage boy).

Admission: I stole the palm tree and flip-flop idea from an old Joy the Baker post. Although, let’s be honest, hers look a bajillion times better than mine. And please, don’t be too hard on my poor little palm tree. The first one broke into pieces in the last half hour before the party, so this poor thing had to come together in a matter of minutes. And yes, I know the coconuts are supposed to go under the leaves and not on top. But, you can still tell that it’s a palm tree, right?

I have to chuckle when I think that being so busy with baking has kept me from posting on my baking blog. Ah, irony. If I had worked just a tad less furiously on this thing, I might have been able to provide some “work in progress” photos. Alas, not so.

So… you wanna play a game?

Q: What has two legs, a weak stomach, and spends half the morning on the couch with a bowl of cereal?

A: Sugar Duchess in first trimester!

Yes, it’s true. We’ve got a little one coming in December! We are totally thrilled. But I’m afraid it has been quite nausea-inducing for me to spend much time in the kitchen lately. Thankfully, first trimester is over, so I think I’ll be back up and at ‘em for the next little while. Thanks for sticking with me!

Cake mixes — we should all hate them, right? They’re filled with all sorts of crazy preservatives and radioactive substances that you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

BUT! But. But when it’s your sister-in-law’s birthday, and you’ve been asked to make the birthday cake, and you get home from church and have less than an hour to throw it all together — while keeping track of a busy toddler and making lunch for your husband — before dashing out the door to the party, which you’re already late to… well, let’s just say that hating cake mixes isn’t all that simple.

If the fates combine against you to necessitate the use of a cake mix, take comfort in the knowledge that the universe will not implode if you deviate from the instructions on the box.  Now, you can’t take the radioactive materials out of the mix. Sorry. What you can do is turn the finished product into a sly counterfeit of a real, homemade cake. I’ll show you.

• First off, I know, the instructions tell you to add water. Want to know a secret? The cake only needs liquid, and the box says water, because it’s a liquid that people generally have easy and cheap access to. Forget water — use milk instead. The fat from the milk will make the cake a little more moist and tender.
• Because cake mixes are never moist enough for me, I like to add 2-4 tablespoons more oil than the box asks for. Or, you could throw in 1/2 cup of yogurt instead. Any flavor will do nicely, although I tend to prefer plain yogurt, because it doesn’t compete with the flavor of the cake (unless you want the cake to feature the flavor of the yogurt, in which case, go to town). Pudding also goes nicely in a cake mix. Give it a whirl.
• I live at a high altitude, so cakes usually need slightly more moisture anyway. I sometimes add one more egg than the instructions call for. However, if I add the oil/yogurt as well as an extra egg, I have to decrease the milk by about 1/4 cup. You really have to experiment to get a feel for how much of each ingredient is the right amount. Now. You wonderful people who don’t live at a high altitude: take this one with a grain of salt. I’ve never baked at sea level.
• For chocolate cakes, throw in a couple tablespoons of cocoa, or a melted square of baking chocolate.
• Don’t forget to jazz things up with some extracts. Try vanilla, almond, lemon, coconut, rum, cherry, or even root beer. But not all together, okay?
• Toss in a handful of berries. Or nuts. Or diced apples. Or grated zucchini. Or dried fruit. Or chocolate chips. The sky is the limit, friends
• Don’t forget — if your add-in is high in moisture, such as apple or zucchini, it will add moisture to the cake (Heh, duh). Adjust accordingly.
• And as always, let a good dose of common baking sense be your guide.

What do you do to schnazz up your cake mixes? I’d love to hear!

I think people underestimate the value of a good cry.

I’m not just talking about crying in general - I’m talking about the hard-core, tear-jerking-movie-induced, that’s-what-I-get-for-investing-myself-emotionally-in-the-characters kind of cry. The kind where you give up trying to keep the tears inside the brim of your eyelids, and you stop trying to invent discreet ways to send your hand up to your face. You could even blow your nose and not be ashamed a bit. That kind of a good cry. And then the credits role, and you feel so much better than when the movie started. It’s so healthy for you.

Tonight I watched Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. Rather, I watched the movie Shadowlands, which stars Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. And really, I’m a different person now. If you’re feeling up to an emotionally draining, rewarding, deeply moving, beautiful movie, go get Shadowlands. Grab a box of tissue, a fleece blanket, fuzzy socks, and a cup of hot cocoa. Turn off your phone, turn off all the lights, turn off the pesky movie critic in your head, and press play. And be sure to find a trusted friend, spouse, sister, mom, or cat to enjoy it with.

Now, for an unbelievably tasty, crazy-moist cake that really has absolutely nothing to do with crying.

Space Needle Cake. It’s nothing more or less than a simple, decadent chocolate cake, but where’s the fun in that? I’ll continue to call it Space Needle Cake for as long as I live, because I love the reactions and curiosity I get from people when they hear the name.

Now, why the name Space Needle? Well, for no other reason than that that was the name that it had when I was given the recipe. I got it from my mom several years ago, who got it from an old college roommate, who got it from somebody else, and I’m not sure how far back the chain goes. The story is that this is the chocolate cake recipe that is (or was) served at a restaurant at the Space Needle in Seattle, Washington. Is that true? I have no idea. Does it matter? No. This rich, chocolatey, insanely moist cake brings smiles and groans of pleasure to everyone it comes in contact with, so I’m not terribly concerned with it’s nebulous origin. And Space Needle Cake is still a great name.

Although this recipe makes two 8-inch round layers, I chose to make the recipe twice so I could have a tall, dramatic three-layer cake. And so I could hand over the fourth layer to someone special.

Space Needle Cake

adapted from an unknown source probably relating somehow to the Space Needle

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1/3 - 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

For the chocolate ganache:

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

1-1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:

In a small mixing bowl, mix together flour, salt, and baking soda, and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Add eggs, oil, cocoa, and vanilla, and beat until smooth. Mix in the boiling water. Mix in the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix just until smooth. The batter will be very thin.

Pour batter into two prepared 8-inch round pans. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool in the pans on a cooling rack for 10-15 minutes, then invert onto the cooling rack. Cool completely before covering with icing or chocolate ganache.

For the ganache, bring the whipping cream to a boil in a medium saucepan. Pour the boiling cream over the chocolate chips in a medium mixing bowl. Let stand for 2-3 minutes, then stir until completely smooth.

When covering the cake with ganache, first cover the edges of the serving platter with several 6-inch squares of wax paper, forming a circle of wax paper pieces. Place the cake on top. Go crazy with ganache. When you’re done, slowly pull each piece of wax paper out from under the cake, to reveal a clean, ganache-free platter.

***(High altitude baking adjustments: Add an extra egg, reduce boiling water by 1-2 Tablespoons, and reduce baking soda by 1/8 teaspoon. Increase oven temperature by 20 degrees and bake until done, about 25-30 minutes.)

I’m still in the process of getting settled in here. You probably noticed the wacky reposting on Google Reader after I imported all my posts from Blogger. And you’ll notice some funny formatting and font issues with several of the posts that I imported from Blogger. I’m not sure why it decided to do that, and what’s worse, I’m not sure how to fix it. I’ve tried a couple of things with no luck. I’ll get that figured out soon, or else I’ll just decide to live with it. Oh, Blogger. Bless your heart.

Yesterday was a Frankenstein recipe day. What is a Frankenstein recipe, you may ask? I will tell you.

I had visions of chocolate pound cake dancing through my head all day yesterday, and I thought surely, surely, it wouldn’t be difficult to dig up dozens of good chocolate pound cake recipes on The Internet, and then pick the one that looks the best. And the result? Well, I only came up with about four, total. That is, from reliable sources. Even my trusty, loyal cookbook that has never let me down, let me down. Somebody needs to do something about this horrific chocolate pound cake deficit. Forget the national, financial one.

So, I took a look at the small handful of recipes I had found, and I read through the reviews and ratings. Most of them had several negative reviews. That could be because 1) silly people didn’t use good baking judgment and ended up with a miserable failure of a cake, and then blamed it on the recipe, or 2) the recipe is finicky and may or may not turn out right, which is risky for me because I live at a high altitude, so cake is finicky for me anyway.

Enter Frankenstein. I put the three most promising recipes side by side, and compared them. Then, using bits from each, I brought a new chocolate pound cake recipe to life. Sans lightning storm. And considering that this was one big science experiment for me, I’m pretty pleased with the end result. You won’t be hit over the head with chocolate; rather, the chocolate joins forces with the rum extract, and beautiful things happen.

Chocolate Rum Pound Cake

adapted from Paula Deen (2007), Joy the Baker, and BHG

Ingredients:

1-1/8 cup (2-1/4 cubes) butter, at room temperature

1-1/2 cup white granulated sugar

7 eggs

1/3 cup whole milk

1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1-1/2 teaspoons rum extract

4 squares (4 oz.) semi-sweet or bittersweet baking chocolate, chopped

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, nutmeg, and baking powder.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and rum extracts. Melt the chocolate by placing in a microwave-safe dish, and cook on high until the chocolate is partially melted (less than a minute). Stir slowly until all of the chocolate chunks have melted completely. Add the chocolate to the egg and sugar mixture and mix completely.

Add the dry ingredients and stir together until the flour is completely incorporated, but just barely.

Spoon batter into a prepared 10-cup bundt pan. Bake until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean, about 65 minutes.

Let the cake cool in the pan on a cooling rack for ten minutes, and then invert onto a serving plate. When completely cooled, dust with powdered sugar, or top with chocolate glaze or ganache.

***This recipe is for a regular, not-high altitude, so if you live in a place like that, you should be able to use it as it is. I live at a high altitude, and if you do too, here’s how you can adjust it: Add one extra egg, decrease the milk by 1 Tablespoon, and decrease the baking powder by 1/8 teaspoon. Set the oven temperature 15-20 degrees higher, and bake for a shorter amount of time (around 55-60 minutes). Keep a close eye on it as it bakes, so it won’t get overdone.