Another Best Chocolate Cake!

I feel like I haven't been on here forever! It's been a really busy busy week - ACL, work, birthday, cake! I got this recipe from Smitten Kitchen - she's my role model.

3 cups cake flour
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
3 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
3 eggs
1 1/2 cups freshly brewed coffee, cooled to room temperature (I haven't made coffee in forever! It was scary to do, but apparently not really hard to mess up.)



1. Preheated the oven to 350 degrees F. Lined the baking tins with wax paper (two 9 inch rounds and one 8 inch square).

2. In a large mixer bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. With the electric mixer on low speed, blend for about 30 seconds. Add the butter and buttermilk and blend on low until moistened. Raise the speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Whisk the eggs and coffee together (I did this when the coffee was still a little warm and there was no curdling), and add to the batter in 3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl and beating only until blended after each addition. Put the batter in the tins.



4. Baked for 38 to 40 minutes - and ate cake!



I made the chocolate frosting that I used for Jessica's birthday cake! It went pretty well because the cake wasn't overly sweet. You could barely taste the coffee! I'm not a huge coffee fan, so this was a pretty big deal.



This cake is just awesome. So soft and great flavor! I'll be making it again for sure.

Pumpkin Spice Everything... Even Cake!

Probably the greatest creation on earth in the world of cakes. I loved this one!


1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/4 cups (270 grams) light brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 cup (240 ml) fresh or canned pure pumpkin (about 1/2 of a 15 ounce can)

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (200 grams) sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon (5 grams) baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup (120 ml) buttermilk, room temperature

(http://www.joyofbaking.com/PumpkinSpiceCake.html#ixzz11Qx87MoC)

1. I said: Butter and sugar - please fluff up together in my electric mixer.
2. Please accept the eggs... but only one at a time. And make them feel welcome, fully incorporated in your dwelling.
3. Meet the belle of the ball: Little Miss Pumpkin Puree and her friend sweet Miss Vanilla.
4. You all should spin around in the mixer and be happy as one.
5. In a separate (but equally important) half-sphere bowl, the spices of life frolicked in the flour.
6. The Spices of Life and Little Miss Buttermilk wanted to join the party in the mixer bowl...
7. So they fought their way in and became one with the mix.
8. Then they baked... in two eight in rounds until a perfect bake they made... at 350 of course.

I covered the sweet delightful layers in buttercream and fondant. mmMMmm.

I have a 5 gallon bag of frozen strawberries = Strawberry Cake.

I had made some strawberry cupcakes before using Sprinkle's recipe, but now I have this huge bag of frozen strawberries, and I really don't want to make the recipe a million times. So, I googled and found this recipe at www.jasonandshawnda.com:

3/4 cup strawberry puree, room temperature
1/4 cup milk, at room temperature
6 large egg whites, room temperature (I didn't use room temperature ones)
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup cake flour, sifted (I didn't sift this)
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened

1. Combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix well.
2. In a mixer combine sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix.
3. Mix at a slow speed and add butter. Mix until it resembles moist crumbs.
4. Add liquids and beat at medium speed until evenly combined.
5. Bake at 350F for about 20 minutes.

I made one cake and some cupcakes out of this recipe.

For the cupcakes I used chocolate icing with strawberries to garnish (Do not use frozen strawberries, they will thaw out and fall off the cupcakes and then dry up and look like shriveled pieces of stuff on your cupcakes. Lesson learned. sigh.)



For the cake I used a dark chocolate icing - which I don't really prefer, but I thought I would try something different.

Julie's Birthday!

Julie wanted my yellow cake (the successful one) with simple butter-cream frosting, covered in fondant. She told me that I could make any design I wanted to on the front - so dealing with time limitations I knew that I really wanted to do something pretty, but it had to be simple.

Here's a picture of it in black and white for your viewing pleasure! (It's really hard to see the design when it's just a regular photo.)

Nutella Brownies. I licked the spatula.

Nutella is this amazing hazelnut spread that deserves to be put in every chocolate-y dessert out there. That is why I decided to try out this recipe from www.chow.com:

Nutella Layer:
* 4 oz Philly cream cheese
* 2 tbs softened butter
* 1/4 cup granulated sugar
* 1 large egg
* 1 tbs flour
* 1/4 cup plus 2 tbs nutella

Brownie Layer:
* 3/4 cup all purpose flour
* 1/3 cup Herseys Special Dark Cocoa
* 1/2 tsp baking powder
* 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
* 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened
* 1 cup granulated sugar
* 1 tsp vanilla
* 2 large eggs

Make the nutella layer first:
1. Cream together butter, sugar, flour, then add 1 large egg until mixed very well.



2. Add the nutella until mixed completely then set aside.



Brownie layer second:
1. Cream butter and sugar, then add vanilla and eggs til mixed completely. Set aside.
2. Mix flour, cocoa, powder, salt in a mixing bowl.
3. Add the creamed mixture to the dry mixture.



Making ta brownies!
8"x8" pan
- Put 3/4 of brownie batter in the pan (really really really thick batter).
- Put 3/4 of nutella mixture on top of that.
- Put dollops of brownie batter on top of that.
- Put remainder of nutella mixture on top of that.
- Level the top and mix around the brownie mixture some with a toothpick/knife/spatula.



Bake ME!
- Put in a preheated 350F oven for about 30 minutes... until cooked to your desire. Less time for a more goey brownie, more time for a more cakey brownie.



Eat ME!
mmmmmmmmmmm. Good dessert.

Carbonara and CAKE!

If you're familiar with making carbonara, then you know that it requires like 1 million egg yolks... or in this case - eight. Just for fun:

Chicken Sausage Carbonara:

* 2 teaspoons olive oil
* 2 links of sausage cut up thin (probably should have added more!)
* 2 teaspoons minced garlic
* 2 1/2 cups whipping cream
* 1 cup freshly grated Parmesan
* 8 large egg yolks
* 1/4 cup of italian seasonings (that's what the bottle said!)
* Salt to flavor
* Enough spaghetti - pretty much as much or as little carbs as you want
* 1 breast of coarsely shredded chicken
* 1 small pkg of cut up mushrooms

1. Put oil, sausage, garlic on large saucepan on medium heat to brown.
2. Mixed cream, parmesean, yolks, and seasoning.
3. Added chicken and mushrooms to the large saucepan.
3. Added cooked spaghetti to saucepan.
4. Added cream mixture to the saucepan, stirred, then set the heat on low and simmered for about 10 minutes.

We ate it all... before I took pictures. It was really good!

So I had this problem! I had like 10 million egg whites ... or eight. I had one more egg, so I cracked it open and got the egg white and started finding a recipe for angel food cake. I googled a recipe and found this one at cooks.com:



1 cup sifted cake flour
1/2 cup sifted sugar
1 1/4 cups (10-12) egg whites (room temperature) - I only used 9 whites, but it turned out fine.
1 1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup sifted sugar

1. Sift 1 cup flour and 1/2 cup sugar together 3 times. - which I actually did!
2. Place egg whites in a large mixing bowl. Beat with wire whisk attachment of mixer on high speed until all egg whites are foamy. Add cream of tartar, salt and flavorings. - This was really easy with the mixer - I couldn't imagine doing this by hand.
3. Beat eggs until stiff enough to hold stiff peaks but not until dry. (I wasn't sure what dry meant, but I just beat until it had stiff peaks then stopped.)
4. Add sugar, 2 tablespoons at a time, while continuing to beat on high speed until sugar is just blended.
5. Sift flour-sugar mixture over egg-white mixture about 1/4 cup at a time. (I actually sifted the mixture in! It really wasn't that difficult...)
6. Using a silicone spatula, fold in gently but thoroughly after each addition. (I was worried that there would be huge globies of flour, but it turned out just fine.)
7. Pour batter into an ungreased 10x4-inch tube pan. Smooth top of batter evenly in pan with a wet spatula.
8.Bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 40-45 minutes. (Cake will not bake in this time if your oven is not preheated for 15 minutes before putting cake in oven.) - I followed their tip in parentheses, but I used 2 glass loaf pans and they were finished at different times - not taking more than 30 minutes to cook.
9. Invert pan and cool cake in pan for 1 hour upside down, or until completely cold before removing the cake. Insert a dull knife along sides to free cake if cake is still attached after cooling. (I did this as well - and the loaves came out with no problem... just a litttttle pulling.)

I just couldn't stand the idea of throwing away those egg whites!

When life hands you lemons... make cake!

This probably should have been my first cake. Either way, here goes:

I walked into HEB and they handed me some lemons:



I went home and googled and found this:

Ingredies (found this at http://www.joyofbaking.com/):

1 cup (226 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (200 grams) granulated white sugar
4 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Zest of 1 large lemon (outer yellow skin of lemon)
2 cups (260 grams) all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup (60 ml) fresh lemon juice (fresh from the juicer!)



1. Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
2. Added eggs, and mixed well. Then added vanilla and lemon zest!
3. Suggested sifting (but we all know how long that takes) - I just mixed together flour, baking powder, and salt.
4. Added flour to mixer then put in the lemon juice.
5. Baked about 40 minutes in 350F.

Let it cool off, covered in buttercream, then put the lemon glaze on top. Like so:

1 cup (115 grams) confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar, sifted
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

1. Mix together.
2. Pour on top of cake.

I ate the part of the cake that I leveled off to make it look pretty and it's a pretty pleasant lemon-ey taste. The glaze on top tastes like lemonade! It's reminds me of summer. Something that you should eat sitting by the pool with a tall glass of milk reading a great book. Can't wait til next summer! Bon appetit!

Picture coming soon!