Genoise disaster

I under beat or (I think) overbeat the eggs.  Also, maybe should have sifted the flour in instead of just dumping.  

Instead of fluffy genoise cake layers, I'm pretty sure I just made a weird cake- Dutch baby hybrid.  Back to the kitchen!

That escalated quickly

Somehow went from "sure, I'll make a cake!" to making something more elaborate and much tastier than my wedding cake.

CAKES!

My cake caddyhas gotten a workout over the last few months...

Chocolate panda cake filled with chocolate ganache and raspberry jam, frosted with whipped white chocolate ganache:

Spice cake filled and frosted with brown sugar buttercreamcheese frosting:

Almond cake filled and frosted with French raspberry buttercream (with raspberries between the layers):

Yellow cake filled and frosted with whipped white chocolate ganache and filled with raspberries and jam:


Posts with recipes to come (eventually).

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Cupcakes

These are wonderfully decadent...


This recipe is from the Well-Fed Newlyweds, who adapted it from the Cooking Club of America.

Cupcakes!

I decided to make some treats for Fat Tuesday... these fit the bill nicely.

I went back to my favorite cupcake recipe (adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cupcake recipe).  This time, I made vanilla cupcakes with almond buttercream and a layer of jam between cake and icing.  

Raspberry Seven Minute Frosting

First of all, this takes more than seven minutes.  If you're in a hurry, make buttercream.  However, this is an amazingly fluffy alternative, plus it's fat-free!  Though it's loaded with sugar and goes on cake, so I wouldn't make any health claims. 

This frosting is wonderfully fluffy, with a kind of marshmallow-y or meringue-y texture.  Plus, it's pink!  (It would be pinker if I'd used redder jam... next time I'm using Smuckers instead of Polaner.)

Yellow Cake

This tastes so much better than using a mix, and not that much more difficult.  It was somewhat similar to the vanilla cupcake recipe I posted ages ago; I think I may like that one slightly better, but it may have been the buttercream. 

This recipe is from How to Cook Everything.  It makes 2 layers (at least 10 servings); in the picture above, I halved the recipe, made one layer, and made a half-layer cake. 

Brown Butter Apple Cake

Continuing my baked apple dessert kick... this is somewhere between a cake and a cobbler.  Either way, it's great hot with ice cream.

I like it even better the next day, after the flavors have blended a little bit.

Chocolate Stout Cake

This was so good... very rich and chocolaty, and not too sweet.


Unfortunately, I need a taller cake dome, as half the top came off with it.


From Allison, who got it from Epicurious. The recipe is there, with detailed instructions; I don't have any notes to add, other than that the best smell in the world turns out to be a bottle and a half of beer with a pound of butter melting into it on the stove. Who knew?

Served with whipped cream and raspberry sauce, because I can't resist any excuse to eat raspberries.

Cupcakes!

Almond, this time, with raspberry butter cream frosting. I didn't overfill them quite as much as last time, but still ended up with mushroom shaped cupcakes. Still, they mostly came out of the pan intact!

And I got to bust out my decorating bag!

Not too bad for a first attempt at the basket weave pattern:

And I like these little swirlys:


I've decided that frosting is my favorite medium to doodle in.

I used the same recipe as last time, just adding an extra 1/2 t of almond extract to the batter, and substituting seedless raspberry preserves for the cream in the frosting.

Adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cupcake recipe

Almond Cupcakes (makes 12, plus a little extra)
1/2 c. (a stick) butter, softened
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 c. milk
1/2 t almond extract
1/4 t vanilla extract
1 c. sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350; line muffin tins with papers.
Mix milk, almond extract, and vanilla in measuring cup; mix flour and baking powder well with a fork or whisk.
Cream butter; beat in sugar gradually and beat until fluffy (~3 mins on medium speed)
Beat in eggs one at a time
Gradually add flour and milk, alternating and beating until incorporated
Spoon batter into cups, about 2/3 full.
Bake 20-22 minutes; cool on rack before icing.

Raspberry Buttercream frosting
1/2 c. butter, softened
4 c. confectioners sugar (or one 15 oz. box)
1/4 c. seedless raspberry preserves (4 T)
1/4 t vanilla extract

Cream butter; beat in half the sugar and all the jam and vanilla.
Gradually add remaining sugar until icing is thick enough to spread.

One thing I didn't think of until I was frosting the last, extra little cake (there's enough batter for 13 or 14 cupcakes-- I made the extra in a little ramekin) was adding a thin layer of jam on top of the cupcake before frosting. I now highly recommend this... particularly if you make the cupcakes a day ahead so that the jam soaks into the cake a little bit. Keep covered in the fridge; take the cupcakes out an hour or two before serving to bring to room temperature.

Cassata cake (again)

It was easier and more delicious the second time around. I've already posted the recipe; here are some pictures of cake assembly.





mmm.

Chocolate panda cake

Apologies, dear readers (both of you), for the long delay in posting. The observant will notice a different kitchen in the background (Hi, Katie!)...


This cake is for chocolate lovers only. So, pretty much everyone. It is a wonderfully rich chocolate cake with luscious chocolate ganache frosting... unlike the earlier cassata cake posting, this is not an all-day project. You can have it mixed and baked in an hour (plus cooling and assembly time).

Adapted from Taste of Home Best-Loved Chocolate Classics.

Cake
3 c. sugar
1-1/2 c. buttermilk
1-1/2 c. brewed coffee, cooled
3 eggs
3/4 c. vegetable oil
4 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate, melted (do in the microwave on half power, in 30 second increments.)
3/4 t. vanilla extract
2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1-1/2 c. baking cocoa
2 t. baking soda
3/4 t. baking powder
1-1/4 t. salt

Frosting
1-1/4 c. heavy whipping cream (save the rest of your 2 c. container to whip and serve with the cake)
2 T. sugar
2 T. corn syrup
20 squares (1 oz. each) semisweet chocolate
1/4 c. butter

Preheat your oven to 350 and prepare three 9" cake pans by oiling and cutting parchment rounds to fit. If you can make paper snowflakes, you can make easily make parchment rounds. (You can also just grease and flour, but parchment makes removing the cake in one piece so much easier.)

In large mixing bowl, thoroughly combine the dry ingredients with whisk. Add liquid ingredients; mix until combined. Pour into prepared pans; bake at 350 for 30-35 mins. Cool for 10 minutes, then remove cake from pans by running a butter knife around the edges and inverting onto a wire rack. Peel off parchment paper.


For frosting, combine cream, sugar, and corn syrup in a smallish saucepan. Bring to a full boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Remove from the heat and stir in chocolate and butter until melted (this is easier than it sounds-- dump in all the chocolate and butter, let it sit for a couple of minutes, and it will stir right in.) Transfer to a heat-proof bowl and refrigerate until spreadable, stirring occasionally. If it gets too hard, simply pop it in the microwave or onto a shallow pan of simmering water (double-boiler style) and stir for a couple of mintues until slightly melty.

Spread frosting between layers and over the top and sides of the cake (use sheets of wax paper to transfer cake layers).


I'm still working on my cake assembly and frosting skills; like many Christmas trees, this cake had a definite 'room side' and a 'wall side':


Still, delicious. Serve with whipped cream, which you conveniently have left over from making the frosting. Also, if you want to get really elaborate (again, looks harder than it is), put raspberries on top of the cake and serve with raspberry sauce and whipped cream.


Raspberry sauce
from Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book
3 c. fresh or frozen raspberries
1/3 c. sugar
1 t. cornstarch

Puree thawed berries in blender; press berries through a fine-mesh sieve. Discard seeds.

In a small saucepan, combine, combine sugar and cornstarch. Add berry puree. Cook and stir until thickened and bubble; cook for an additional two minutes. Transfer to a bowl; cover and chill for at least 1 hour.

A note of caution: do not serve this cake straight from the refrigerator; let it sit out for an hour or so before serving. The frosting gets hard and cracks when sliced cold; you can see the difference in cold (cake on wax paper) and room temp (raspberry cake) in the pictures (also, stick with baking bars-- if you must substitute chocolate chips, stick them in the cake, not the frosting. You can taste the difference.)

Happy Birthday, Me!

Sadly, I did not make this cake for my birthday (if I had, I could go eat some as soon as I post this.) I made it a couple of weeks ago. But this is the sort of cake I had for special occasions growing up (birthdays, graduations, even my wedding cake was a variation of this.)


It is the best cake in the world.

Spongy cake, creamy custard, strawberries, and LOTS of whipped cream. And, of course, white chocolate shavings on top.



I found the recipe here, and won't re-type it... it's quite long. Completely worth the effort, though. And completely perfect. Here's just the ingredient list (yes, you need eleven eggs):

Cassata Cake!
For the cake layers:
2 1/4 c. cake flour
1 1/4 and 1/4 cups sugar, divided
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt
3/4 c. cold water
1/2 c. vegetable oil
1 t. lemon zest
1 t. vanilla extract
5 large egg yolks at room temperature
8 large egg whites at room temperature
1/2 t. cream of tartar

For the custard:
6 large egg yolks
1/2 c. sugar
2 c. half and half
3 T. cornstarch

For the macerated strawberries:
3 lb. strawberries
2 T. sugar

For the whipped cream:
2 c. chilled heavy cream
1 T. sugar

Cupcakes!

When a recipe says to only fill a cupcake pan 3/4 of the way, it apparently means it. If you ignore that and figure that since you have batter left, you should fill them all the way, you get this:


And it makes it very difficult to get the cupcakes out of the pan. On the plus side, you get to eat all the brown edges before frosting them. I thought that maybe the buttercream would cover it up, but it didn't quite. I need a pastry bag or just more practice frosting; they weren't very pretty.


They were, however, amazingly delicious.

Adapted from the Magnolia Bakery Cupcake recipe

Vanilla Cupcakes (makes 12, plus a little extra)
1/2 c. (a stick) butter, softened
1 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 c. milk
1/2 t vanilla extract
1c sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350; line muffin tins with papers.
Mix milk and vanilla in measuring cup; mix dry ingredients in a bowl.
Cream butter; beat in sugar gradually and beat until fluffy (~3 mins on medium speed)
Beat in eggs one at a time
Gradually add flour and milk, alternating and beating until incorporated
Spoon batter into cups, about 3/4 full.
Bake 20-22 minutes; cool on rack before icing.

Vanilla Buttercream frosting
1/2 c. butter, softened
4 c. confectioners sugar
1/4 c. cream (or milk)
1 t vanilla extract

Cream butter; beat in half the sugar and all the milk and vanilla.
Gradually add remaining sugar until icing is thick enough to spread.