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.

I looked up the word ‘trifle’ in the dictionary. Yes I did.

All the definitions pretty much said the same thing: Small, insignificant, of little value. . .

Then this, sticking out like a sore thumb:

English Cookery . A cold dessert of sponge cake and fruit covered with layers of custard, jelly, and cream.

What?? Not that I was surprised to see it there, but it’s just so different from the other definitions, you know there’s something wacky going on with the English language here.

So I turned to an etymology dictionary. Yeah. . . I know. Even using the word ‘etymology’ makes me feel all scholarly. Please tell me I’m not the only one who is pathetic like that.

And what did I find? Well, nothing. The etymology dictionary didn’t say a word about sponge cake and custard. Dead end.

So much for my braniac pants.

Want to know a secret? The only part I had in this trifle was helping to eat it. My husband, who is quite the accomplished trifle maker, put this thing together from start to finish. That’s his red apron, and his hand there, spreading those huge dollops of Cool Whip. Be still my heart.

I love trifles. They’re quick and fool-proof and delicious, and the glass dish means instant pretty. If you’re not in a hurry, you could do all of the ingredients homemade from scratch. As awesome as that all sounds, how could I resist a dish with Instant pudding, Cool Whip, and Oreos? Nope. Not today, at least.

Raspberry Cheesecake Trifle

Ingredients:

32 Oreo cookies, including the creme filling

1 large container of Cool Whip

2 packages of Instant pudding, cheesecake flavored

3 cups of raspberries, fresh or frozen

Directions:

Make up the pudding and put it in the fridge to chill. Meanwhile, chop or process the Oreos into small (1-cm) pieces.

In a glass trifle dish, put a thin layer of pudding on the bottom. Sprinkle Oreo pieces over the top. Gently spread some Cool Whip over the Oreos. Finally, sprinkle raspberries over the Cool Whip.

Continue layering the ingredients in that order — pudding, Oreos, Cool Whip, Raspberries — until you get close to the top of the trifle dish. Decorate the top with any remaining ingredients.

Refrigerate, and serve cold.

Quick tip: It will look prettier on the outside if you make sure that all the layers are showing through the glass on the outer edge of the trifle. For instance, I usually create a raspberry “border” around the edge before I sprinkle more raspberries in the middle where nobody sees.

Can I share my favorite with you? Can I just get this off my chest? Okay.

Q: Oh LaChelle, how come you’re not 500 lbs, with all these treats and goodies you eat all day long?

A: *facepalm*

I love this question. See, people come to this blog and assume that my family and I subsist on cake and cinnamon rolls. I think that’s pretty hilarious.

Honestly, I eat very little of the goodies I make. They’re usually for an event, or to give away to someone. And when I do make something just for fun, I send 98% of it away with my husband to work. He puts it in the break room for all of his office buddies to consume. And good grief, they do.

Now, take a moment and read over that last paragraph. Got it?

Good. See, that’s actually the answer I would have given you, if you had asked before I made these sweet rolls.

I made a whole bunch of these rolls for that Return of the Jedi party I mentioned earlier. Did I send the leftovers with my husband to work? Good heavens, no. I kept them home and had inhaled at least four of them by 10:00 a.m. Yeah, not one of my finer moments. But ooooohh, they were good.

I’ll be honest, if I were forced to choose only one baked treat for the rest of my life, there would be none of that wishy-washy “oh-I-could-never-choose-just-one” bunk. The winner would easily be fluffy, sticky, chewy, yeasted sweet rolls. Heaven. Just, heaven.

I’m not sure what else I can say to convince you to go make these. Just . . . go make them.

Promise me you will.

Orange Cranberry Sweet Rolls

recipe for dough adapted from Lion House Bakery

2 cups warm water

1/3 cup nonfat dry milk

2 tablespoons Instant yeast* (such as SAF)

1/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1/3 cup butter, room temperature

2 eggs

5 to 6 cups all-purpose flour or bread flour

filling:

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon orange zest

1/3 cup melted butter

Dried cranberries

glaze:

2 tablespoons butter, room temperature

2 cups powdered sugar

3-4 tablespoons orange juice

Directions:

Prepare the filling first by creaming together the sugar and cinnamon with the orange zest. Set aside.

Next make the dough. In a large bowl, combine the water, dry milk, yeast, sugar, salt, butter, eggs, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix just until smooth. Add two more cups of flour, and mix until incorporated (I do this by hand with a wooden spoon). Then mix in just enough of the remaining flour to make a very soft dough. Don’t go by the exact amount in the recipe — go by the feel of the dough. The dough shouldn’t be so sticky that you can’t knead it, but just barely manageable. The less flour you add, the softer the rolls will be, generally. Knead for about 6-8 minutes, or until the dough is smooth and elastic.

Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangular shape, roughly 20″ x 12″. Brush dough with the 1/3 cup of melted butter, and sprinkle evenly with the sugar/orange zest mixture. Sprinkle with dried cranberries. Carefully roll the rectangle up lengthwise and cut into 1-inch slices using thread or floss. Place rolls on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat. Cover with plastic wrap and allow to rise until doubled in size. Halfway through rising, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Bake for 14-16 minutes, or until golden brown. While the rolls are baking, prepare the glaze by mixing together the butter and powdered sugar, and stirring in enough orange juice to make it “drizzling” consistency. Stir briskly until smooth. As soon as the rolls are removed from the oven, drizzle or brush the glaze over the hot rolls.

*Note: If you want to use active dry yeast instead of instant yeast, I can’t make any promises, but you should make these adjustments:

• Dissolve 2 tablespoons active dry yeast with the warm water and sugar for about 5 minutes before you add it to the other ingredients to make the dough.
• Once you are done kneading the dough, place it in a large greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and allow it to rise until doubled. After it’s risen, punch it down and roll it into a rectangle, resuming the recipe as written.

Sugar Duchess is now on Facebook!

I would be tickled pink if you hopped on over there and became a fan. Or Like. Or whatever it is you do on Facebook these days. It’ll be a party. Honest. Actually, friends, I’m feelin’ a little insecure about this whole fan business, and I’ll feel pretty darn silly if I only get one fan, and it’s my mom. Oh wait, my mom isn’t on Facebook.

Now, here’s the deal. Twitter. . . I’ve been having Twitter thoughts, but I need a little input. Worth it? Or waste of time? Any of you Twitter Kool-Aid drinkers out there want to give me a yea or nay?

Third item of business: These truffle pops.

My husband and some coworkers recently had a “Return of the Jedi” party, because two of them had never seen it. And as we all know, party = treats.

I had made cake pops for them before, so they were requesting cake pops again. I looked at my schedule and decided Oreo pops would be more prudent.

After all, these pops:

A) Come together quickly, no oven required, with only

B) Three ingredients. And one of them is cream cheese. And one of them is Oreos. And one of them is chocolate. You still with me?

C) And they’re bite-sized.

D) This is a no-brainer.

Oreo Truffle Pops

adapted from Bakerella

Ingredients:

1 (1 lb. 1 oz) package of Oreos, minus about 6-8 cookies

1 (8 oz.) package of cream cheese, softened to room temperature

Dipping chocolate

Directions:

Crush the Oreos (including the creme filling) in a food processor until finely ground. Or place them in a heavy duty bag and very finely crush them with a rolling pin. Cream together the Oreo crumbs with the softened cream cheese until completely blended. You may want to use your fingers.

Form into 1″ balls and place on a wax paper-covered baking sheet. Gently poke a sucker stick down into each ball. Freeze for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, melt your chocolate in a double boiler, or as directed on the package.

For the next step, only remove one ball from the freezer at a time. Dip it into the melted chocolate, lightly tap off the excess, and place it on another wax paper-covered baking sheet to dry.

Let the balls cool on the wax paper for at least 1 hour before very gently peeling them off.

Drizzle with white chocolate coating or decorate as desired.

In the spirit of turning seasons, my little blog has been undergoing some changes. The astute reader will have noticed. And of course all of my readers are astute. And attractive. And clever.

It’s really nothing major, mostly just a couple of useful sidebar widgets, and an updated About page.

I’m also excited to announce a new recipe index. It was time. And it feels good. Mostly. As I’ve been spending time in my archives, I’ve been reminded of some pretty awful posts and photos. That’s embarrassing. Not that I’m any photography whiz now, but good grief, there are some ugly photos on this site. And weird formatting. Yikes. Sorry.

Stay tuned for some Facebook action. . .

. . . And some oh-so-rich Oreo truffle pops. . .

. . . And don’t miss the upcoming giveaway!

I’ve been baking like a mad woman for the past couple of weeks. Yeah. Do mad women bake?

That didn’t sound like a confession. Let me try that again:

I’ve been baking like a madwoman for the past couple of weeks, and my camera spent most of that time in another room of the house, NOT documenting any of the kitchen action.

No photos, no blog post. I’m ashamed, really.

See, the hardest part of food blogging for me is snapping a well-composed, well-lit photo so I can put it in a blog post. It seems like I’m always either in a big hurry with not a second to spare for photography, or I’m baking something for an event where it’s just not convenient or even possible to get a good photo. Yeah, I’m actually just making lame excuses here.

Exactly one second before these photos were taken, I was feverishly tossing sprinkles onto these cupcakes like my life depended on it. And exactly one second after the photos were taken, I was dashing out the door with them.

I love my blog readers. Know how I know? Because I was willing to run a little late in order to document these cupcakes, because they are just that good, and I wasn’t about to let you miss out. See? I’m here for you. I’m on your side.

These chocolate cupcakes are not light and fluffy. They’re dark and dense and down-to-business. These are grumpy-pants Mr. Darcy cupcakes. I really hope you don’t think I’m a weirdo because I just said that.

The light and creamy peanut butter frosting is a perfect complement. A friend of mine told me she could bathe in this frosting. Enough said.

Chocolate Fudge Cupcakes

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/3 cup sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

3/4 cup canola oil

1/2 cup sour cream

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa, salt, and baking soda. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated and smooth, about one minute.

Scoop evenly into lined muffin cups (fill each cup about 1/2 full) and bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes to a wire rack to cool completely.

Creamy Peanut Butter Frosting

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, room temperature

1 cup creamy peanut butter

4 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup milk

2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions:

In a large bowl, cream butter and peanut butter together until smooth. Stir in the powdered sugar a cup at a time, and beat until well-blended. Add the milk and vanilla and mix until smooth and fluffy.

]]> http://www.sugarduchess.com/2010/06/chocolate-fudge-cupcakes-and-peanut-butter-frosting/feed/ http://www.sugarduchess.com/2010/05/coconut-lime-scones/ http://www.sugarduchess.com/2010/05/coconut-lime-scones/#comments Thu, 06 May 2010 03:57:00 +0000 Sugar Duchess http://www.sugarduchess.com/?p=395 Last week my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary.

We now have an entire four years of wedded bliss to our credit.

Have I ever introduced my husband to you? He’s quite the guy. This is the man I was crazy about in college, but never dreamed I’d actually end up with. Life can be good like that.

Back in our dating days, I had a coconut-lime body spray that I wore a lot. Every once in a while I get a whiff of something coconut-lime, and suddenly I’m in college again, and we’re taking a slow walk around the stadium on a warm summer night, and going out for ice cream, and the feel of his hand in mine is still novel and exciting. That’s what coconut-lime does to me.

Whew. Mushiness aside. Let’s talk scones.

These are everything you could ask for in a scone. Fluffy, moist, rich, flavorful, all of the above. . . The secret? Cream, my friends. Heavy cream. Don’t fight it. And don’t work the dough any more than you absolutely must, once you add the liquids to the dry ingredients. I also threw these in the freezer for about 15 minutes before baking them. It helped them keep their shape and rise better. If you go that route, increase the baking time a bit so they won’t be underdone.

You won’t be knocked over the head by the lime flavor, but there’s a definite citrus presence here, which plays well with the coconut. I think I struck a pretty good balance, but if you prefer one flavor over the other, go ahead and play around with it.

Happy anniversary, Love. Here’s to many, many more.

Coconut Lime Scones

1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons sugar

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

5 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces

3/4 cup flaked coconut

1/3 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1 egg

zest from 3 limes

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Add the cold butter and rub it in until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Stir in the flaked coconut.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients. Add to the dry ingredients, and stir just until the dough comes together. Knead gently a couple of times, and shape into an 8″ circle. Transfer to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Cut into 10 wedges, and separate the wedges slightly.

Bake for about 15-16 minutes, or until they are golden brown. These are best if eaten within a couple of hours after removing from the oven.

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.

Neither do I. It’s all kind of a giant blur of roast turkey, wedding cake, and contractions.

And pomegranate juice. The lovely people over at POM Wonderful contacted me and sent a case of pomegranate juice accompanied by more facts and figures than I have fingers and toes to count. Bottom line: This stuff is insanely good for you. To say the least. (Mosey on over to their site, and I’ll let them handle all the physiological nitty-gritty.)

So, I gathered a handful of recipes, placed my juice in the fridge, and told my husband not to drink it, because, hey, I had big plans. But that night, we decided to open just one of the little bottles of juice. Just one. Just to try it out. Surely I wouldn’t need all 12 bottles for baking, right?

And that’s how it started. Every couple of days we would buckle, and another little bottle would disappear from the fridge, and I would shave down my list of pomegranate recipes. At last we were left with one bottle. One little bottle of pomegranate juice, sitting all by his lonesome.

My husband asked me several times if he could just go ahead and drink it. No. Are you sure? Yes. Please? No. Part of it? No.

That was two months ago. Two months that little bottle has been sitting in the fridge. Two months my husband has been pestering me to let him finish it off. Two months I have said no, and secretly wondered when I would get around to it.

Valentines Day. That’s when I would get around to it. Here we are, two months later.

So, Happy Valentines Day! I brought you pink cupcakes. Last Valentines Day I brought you pink cupcakes too, but they weren’t as cute, and the photography was embarrassing. And I didn’t bother including any recipes. This time around I’m doing it up right.

Golden Vanilla Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

3-1/4 cups flour

2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter, room temperature

1-1/4 cup milk, room temperature

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1/4 cup vegetable oil

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin tin with papers.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Add the butter and beat until mixture looks sandy. Combine the milk and vanilla and add to the flour mixture all at once. Add the vegetable oil, and mix at low speed just until incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs one at a time, beating between each egg. Scrape the sides of the bowl again and beat the mixture on low for 30 seconds.

Transfer the batter to the cupcake papers, filling about 2/3 full. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean. Remove the muffin tin from the oven and place the cupcakes on a rack to cool. Make sure cupcakes are cooled completely before frosting them.

POM Cream Cheese Frosting

adapted from www.pomwonderful.com

1-1/2 cups Pomegranate juice

4 oz. butter, room temperature

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

14 oz. powdered sugar

Directions:

In a small saucepan, reduce the pomegranate juice, over low heat, down to 3 fl. oz. Allow to cool.

Place butter and cream cheese in a large mixing bowl and cream together until soft and fluffy. Turn the speed down to low and slowly add the powdered sugar and pomegranate juice reduction. Mix until the sugar is fully incorporated.

Place icing into a piping bag with a round or star tip, and decorate cupcakes.

This sweet boy decided to surprise us by coming on his big brother’s birthday. I was just getting ready to put together a Curious George cake when, uh-oh, my water broke. New plans for the evening! Less than four hours later, we were holding a tiny 5 lb, 15 oz. bundle in our arms. And I fell in love.

This is life at its sweetest, friends. Forget all the discomfort and fatigue — I don’t think I’ve ever been happier. Honest.

So, I’ve only been home from the hospital for four days, and I’m already toying with the idea of playing in my kitchen instead of “napping while the baby naps.” Either (a) I’m feeling pretty good for having just given birth, (b) flour, sugar, and butter have a dangerously strong a hold on me, or (c) Christmas is in the air! Must. bake. goodies. I like to think it’s a case of (d) all of the above.

But my goodness, making the jump from a one-kid mom to a two-kid mom takes a little bit of shuffling. So stick with me, and I’ll be around. Promise.