Pina Colada Layer Cake

I was looking for a good end of summer desert to make and since we were having friends over for pork bbq I wanted something big enough to feed all of us. I had a couple of rum cakes in mind, but I decided to flip through my book Sky High -- Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes since I had not used it before even though I have owned it for several months now. The Pina Colada Cake struck me as perfect. Pineapple, coconut, and rum all in triple layer cake form.

There were a lot of steps to making this cake, but it wasn't difficult at all. The cakes themselves are a simple brown sugar cake recipe, although with one of the strangest mixing methods I have seen. The filling is a pineapple jam that you make using sugar, lime juice, canned pineapple and vanilla bean. It takes a while to cook down to the right consistency, but the process is easy enough. The original recipe called for a cooked buttercream frosting using coconut milk and coconut extract but I didn't want to deal with a finicky frosting, so I made a regular buttercream using butter, powdered sugar, a couple tablespoons of coconut milk, and a tsp of coconut extract. The trick to getting a butter/powdered sugar buttercream frosting silky and smooth is to sift the powdered sugar and add it to the butter slowly -- a tablespoon at a time. It's time consuming, but worth it.

Brown Sugar Cake:

3 3/4 cups cake flour

1 3/4 tsps baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 1/4 cups light brown sugar

2 sticks unsalted butter at room temp

1 3/4 cup buttermilk

5 eggs

2 tsps vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350. Spray 3 9-inch round cake pans with baking spray (or butter and sprinkle with flour).

Put the flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt in the bowl of a large mixer. Mix on low and then add the brown sugar, butter, and 1 1/2 cups of the buttermilk. Mix on low until everything is incorporated, then increase the speed to medium and mix until light and fluffy -- about 2 or 3 minutes.

Whisk the eggs with the remaining 1/4 cup buttermilk and the vanilla and add to the flour butter mixture in three additions, allowing the eggs to fully incorporate before adding the next addition. Divide the batter between the three pans.

Bake 25-28 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans and then turn our to cool completely. You may have to trim the tops of the cakes to level them off some.

Pineapple Filling

20 oz crushed pineapple in juice (no sugar added)

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lime juice

1 one-inch vanilla bean, split in half

Combine the crushed pineapple, sugar, and lime juice in a large nonreactive skillet. With the top of a small knife scrape the vanilla seeds from the bean and add them and the bean itself to the pot. Warm over medium-low heat stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Raise the heat to medium and simmer, stirring occasionally to prevent scorching, until the juices have almost completely evaporated and the pineapple has a jam-like consistency Remove from heat and discard the vanilla pod. Let the filling cool completely before using.

Coconut Buttercream

2 sticks butter at room temp

3 1/2 -4 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons coconut milk (or heavy cream if you don't want to use coconut milk)

1/2 tsp coconut extract (you might use more extract if you don't use coconut milk -- basically just add 1/2 tsp and add more if you want a more assertive coconut flavor)

Put the butter in a large mixing bowl and beat on medium speed until the butter is smooth. Add the powdered sugar one spoonful at a time and let each spoonful fully incorporate before adding the next. It will take a long while to get through this process, but the resulting texture is worth it. Once all the sugar is mixed in add the coconut milk and coconut extract and mix completely. If the frosting looks runny at all add more powdered sugar slowly until you get a soft, silky frosting.

Assembly:

2/3 cup rum (dark, amber, light -- whatever you like best)

coconut flakes

To assemble the cake place one layer flat side up on a cake stand or serving platter. Brush the cake with 3 generous tablespoons of rum. Spread half the pineapple filling over the layer, leaving a 1/4 inch margin around the edge. Add the second layer, sprinkle with more rum and then the remaining pineapple jam. Top with the third layer, flat side up and sprinkle with the remaining rum. Frost the top and the sides of the cake with the coconut buttercream. Decorate the cake by pressing coconut flakes to the side. You can also toast the coconut for a more dramatic finish -- just spread the coconut on a baking sheet and put in a 350 degree oven. Watch it carefully because the coconut burns quickly. When some of it is brown it's ready.

Espresso Fudge Cake

I had a really hard time deciding what cake to make for my birthday this year. I flipped through several books looking for inspiration, and nothing called out to me. I didn't want to make the usual carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, even though it is one of my favorite cakes, and I didn't want something bland and boring either. I considered coconut cakes, peanut butter cakes, maple cakes and lots of things in between. I flipped through most of my baking books and even searched online looking for just the cake to make. I found a really promising cake on Smitten Kitchen -- chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and chocolate/peanut butter ganache -- I even printed the recipe and made sure I had all the ingredients, but it just didn't feel quite right to me.

Finally, the night before my birthday I decided I wasn't going to bother with a cake. If I couldn't decide on a recipe then there was no point in messing with it. After all, my sweet tooth gets plenty of attention through my regular baking so there was no need for anything special for my birthday. (not to mention the fact that Chris was already planning to make me incredibly fattening mac & cheese -- which turned out to be beyond amazingly awesome -- for my birthday dinner....)

So naturally after deciding there would be no cake making for my birthday, I woke up with a particular cake on my mind this morning. In my search for a more involved layer cake, something incredibly indulgent, rich and just not the sort of thing you whip up on the spur of the moment, I had flipped through my Death by Chocolate baking book and the Espresso Fudge Cake had caught my eye. Chocolate cakes with a layer of espresso chocolate ganache and a super-rich espresso chocolate buttercream... I had dismissed it before because the recipe was quite involved and included a cooked egg-white buttercream -- something I was definitely not interested in messing with.

However, since it was my birthday and all... I knew I could get Chris to do the cooked egg white part for me and everything else was fairly routine baking and assembly. :) problem solved.

This is not a recipe to undertake lightly. It dirtied a whole lot of my dishes and took several hours of active time not to mention the hour of chilling in the freezer. It involved fairly easy sour cream chocolate cakes that I baked early in the morning. Once they cooled I threw them in the fridge to make them easier to cut later, which was a very good decision considering how soft and moist they were. It also involved a chocolate ganache which wasn't difficult to make, and of course the buttercream which wasn't horribly hard, but it did have many steps and several opportunities for things to go horribly wrong.

Luckily I had Chris helping me out and things did not go wrong. In fact, they went very, very right. This cake is so incredibly rich and indulgent, with so many layers of chocolatey, coffee goodness that I had two bites and I was done. It was so rich and wonderful and incredible.... mmmm... a perfect sort of birthday indulgence... even if I'm the one who has to wash the dishes afterward.

Ingredients:

Cake:
4 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped into pieces
8 tbsp butter,
2 cups cake flour
2 tsps baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups tightly packed light brown sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water
1 cup sour cream

Espresso Ganache:
1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp granulated sugar
8 oz semisweet chocolate broken into pieces
1 tbsp instant espresso powder

Chocolate Espresso Buttercream
8 oz semisweet chocolate broken into pieces
2 oz unsweetened chocolate broken into pieces
2 tsps instant espresso powder
1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
5 egg whites
1 cup granulated sugar

To make the cakes:
Preheat oven to 350. Spray two 9x2 inch round cake pans with baking spray. Melt the chocolate using a double boiler, or by nuking for 30 seconds and stirring, then for 15 seconds at a time, stirring after each trip in the microwave, until the chocolate is smooth. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar on medium speed for 5 minutes. While that is mixing stir the flour, baking soda and salt together in another small bowl. Once the butter and sugar are light and fluffy, add the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition, then add the vanilla, mixing well after adding.

While the mixer is running on low, add part of the flour mixture to the egg/butter mixture, then add half of the sour cream. Add more flour, then the rest of the sour cream, mixing all the while. Finally add the last of the flour and then the boiling water. Let the mixer run until the water mixes in. You don't want this process to take a really long time, so just let the mixer go around a couple of times before adding the next ingredient in the process.

Once the batter is uniformly mixed divide it between the two cake pans and place in the oven. Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. The book says 55 minutes, but mine were done in 35 so err on the side of caution and check them early. When they are done remove from the oven and set aside to cool for 15 minutes before turning them out onto a rack. When they are completely cool wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate until you are ready to decorate.

For the ganache:
put the chopped chocolate and espresso powder into a medium, heat-proof bowl. Heat the butter, heavy cream and granulated sugar in a saucepan, stirring to dissolve the sugar. When the mixture comes to a boil pour it over chocolate and espresso mix and stir until smooth. Set aside until needed.

To make the buttercream:
melt the chocolate -- either in a double boiler or the same microwave method described above. once it is smooth set it to one side until needed.

Cream the butter in a stand mixer on medium, for at least 3 minutes, then on high for another 3 minutes -- you want it really light and fluffy. Scrape it into a large bowl, then wash and dry the mixer bowl. Next, put the egg whites and the granulated sugar in the bowl of a double boiler (we use a metal bowl set over top of a pan of boiling water) and gently whisk the eggs and sugar -- the book says until 120 degrees, but we didn't keep track -- we just whisked for 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer the egg whites to the mixer bowl and whisk with the whisk attachment on high until stiff peaks form -- about 4 minutes. The egg whites will look like marshmallow fluff when they are ready.

The next step is to fold the melted chocolate into the whipped butter -- but make sure the chocolate is below 80 degrees before folding it in, otherwise you will melt the butter and ruin the frosting. Once the chocolate is completely folded into the butter, gently fold the egg whites into the chocolate butter mixture until no streaks remain.

Last: assemble the cake. Cut each cake in half giving you four layers to work with. Place one layer in the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. Spread 1 1/2 cups of buttercream evenly over the layer. Top with another layer of cake, then spread 1 1/4 cups of ganache over that layer. Add another layer of cake, then another 1 1/2 of buttercream. Finally add the last layer of cake then wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap and freeze for an hour.

After an hour pull the cake from the freezer and unwrap. Run a knife along the inside of the springform pan to loosen the cake (this turned out to be far more difficult and messy than anticipated...) Remove the cake from the springform pan, trim any edges that are ragged (quite a lot on mine) then frost with the remaining buttercream. Run a knife under hot water for a few minutes, then wipe it dry before cutting the cake to get pretty slices of cake.

Wedding in Oregon

We are back safe and sound from Oregon. As you can see from the picture we had a beautiful day on the Oregon Coast for our beach wedding and we had a fantastic time celebrating with our family and friends. My goal was for a simple, easy, relaxed celebration and that is exactly what we got. Our only complaint is that our DJ was terrible, but that was funny more than anything (Du Hast was playing at one point... I'm not against Rammstein, I even have the album the song is on, but not necessarily appropriate for a wedding.) Luckily the DJ was one of the least important aspects of the whole thing since we decided we didn't want to do any of the traditional dances and we knew that the people we were expecting at the wedding were not really into dancing anyway.

And since this is a food blog... about the cake. I refer to the cake as a little Forest Gump. It looks great from a distance, but when you got up close you could see the problems. The first problem we ran into is that I did not bring the recipe with me to Oregon. I intentionally didn't bring the book the recipe was in because I was SURE that I had blogged about it. Have I mentioned that my memory sucks? Because I hadn't blogged about it. I intended to blog about it, but I never quite got around to it. Oops.

The recipe I intended to use was from the Sweet Melissa Baking book. It was a superb lemon pound cake that was soft and moist, and yet firm enough to stand up to being done in layers with frosting and fondant. I searched high and low online and could not find the recipe posted anywhere. The book was not in the local library and the town does not have a book store to speak of. (lots of used book stores which are normally great, but not so great in this case.)

So I started looking for alternatives. I had the Cake Love Lemon Pound Cake recipe online and that certainly has the qualities I was looking for -- soft, moist, yet still firm -- but that recipe calls for a lot of obscure ingredients that I wasn't even sure we would find in the small town grocery stores and I didn't feel like driving to the bigger towns -- at least 2 hours away -- to hunt for them.

I had found other recipes in my blog, but I wasn't thrilled enough with them to use for my wedding cake. I looked around the blogosphere and found many great-looking recipes, but I didn't want to try something new either. In the end I went with one of my go-to lemon cake recipes -- the Ina Garten Lemon Cake. It's a great, fantastic, wonderful cake... but it's awfully moist and soft and I was very concerned about how it would hold up as a stacked layer cake with fondant.

Luckily my mother has lots and lots of stuff for baking and decorating cakes and she had a great wedding cake stand that would serve quite nicely and eliminate the extra weight of the cakes stacked on each other. Which was a good thing because the cakes were so soft that when the fondant went on they got a little bulgy and crooked. The fondant was also stretched, lumpy and/or torn in a few places, but we were expecting a certain amount of that because our experience was limited and we were okay with it.

What I loved most about this cake though was that it was a true group effort. I did the cakes and the buttercream. Chris did the fondant work. My friend Lindsay, who is a whiz with arts and crafts and created all of the decorations for the reception, did the ribbon work. And my mom did the finishing touches with the buttercream dots. The cake in the picture below is not actually how it looked at the wedding -- but I didn't think to take pictures of it then, too many other things on my mind I suppose. At the reception there was a cake topper as well as rose petals scattered around the edges of the cake and it looked pretty damn great for a wedding cake we made ourselves and decorated in a vacation rental.

The cake also tasted great which is always a plus. :)

Red Velvet Cake

I have to admit, the red velvet cake is very striking looking with the white frosting and red cake. This was my first experience with red velvet cake -- both making it and eating it. Flavor-wise it's not much of a standout, just a regular, nice, moist, buttermilk cake that happens to be dyed red. The cream cheese frosting on this particular version (found in my Sweet Melissa Baking Book) is quite good, but it's nothing spectacular or different either.

Don't get me wrong, the cake tastes great and you can rarely go wrong with cream cheese frosting. My only quibble -- and it's not even much of a quibble -- is that as far as flavor goes, it's not really different or unique in any way. In fact, without the red dye I would just call it a buttermilk cake with cream cheese frosting. Add the red dye and it suddenly becomes a red velvet cake...

The book mentioned that the original red velvet cakes got their color from beets... now that would be something. I think I'm going to have to read up more on where the cakes came from and what actually makes them different from other cakes. And then I might have to go get a armadillo cake pan and make a Steel Magnolia's throwback red velvet cake. :P


From: the Sweet Melissa Baking Book
Ingredients:

For the cake:
3 3/4 cups all purpose flour
3 tblsp unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 tsps ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsps baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 tsps vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 tsps red wine vinegar
2 tsps natural red food coloring

For the cream cheese frosting:
12 oz soft cream cheese
3 sticks butter, soft
3 cups powdered sugar
2 tsps vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. Spray two 9x2 inch round cake pans with baking spray.

In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, baking soda and salt until combined.

In a small bowl whisk together the buttermilk and vanilla.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whip attachment, cream the sugar and oil. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the vinegar and food coloring and mix to combine.

Add the flour mixture to the batter in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk mixture. Mix well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for 10 more seconds.

Divide the batter evenly between the pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until a wooden skewer comes out clean. Remove to a rack and cool for 20 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely before filling and frosting. (you can also wrap the cakes well in plastic wrap and store them in the fridge for 3 or 4 days)

To make the frosting:
Cream the butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a mixer until thoroughly combined and no lumps remain. (it's best to use soft cream cheese and soft butter so that it mixes properly) Add the powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time, letting each one incorporate before adding the next one. Add the vanilla and mix until combined. If the frosting is too soft to use, cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 10 to 15 minutes, or until it's a good consistency to frost with.

Irish Car Bomb Cake

The name of this cake is problematic. I found the recipe on Smitten Kitchen's site (she made cupcakes instead of a cake) and she had originally named it Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes -- however she caught a LOT of grief from people for using that distasteful name. The problem is that the drink or the cake is actually pretty hard to describe, but if you just say Irish Car Bomb (most) people immediately have an idea of the flavor combinations and what they are getting into.

For those who don't know - -the drink is made by filling a shot glass half full of Irish Cream, then floating Irish Whiskey on top of that before dropping the shot glass into a half-full pint glass of Guinness and chugging it as quickly as possible so that it doesn't curdle in the glass. It is a variation of a boilermaker and for some reason whoever invented it thought it was a good idea to name it after a common form of Irish domestic terrorism of the time, which -- understandably -- pisses the Irish off to no end.

Therefore, I understand why some people, especially the Irish, hate the name of the drink and I understand why some people gave Deb from Smitten Kitchen so much grief for calling her cupcakes that. However, the simplest, and easiest way to describe the flavors of this cake is to call it an Irish Car Bomb. Besides, I figure I have only a few readers so maybe I won't catch all the hate thrown Deb's way.

Chocolate cake with guinness, filled with chocolate ganache with just a touch of Irish whiskey, and then topped with an uber rich Irish Cream butter cream frosting. The whole thing is incredibly rich and decadent. I made a layer cake -- the base cupcake mix poured into to 8 inch round cake pans, baked for 15 minutes at 350, then lowered to 300 for another 10 until done in the middle -- then doubled buttercream to ensure I had enough to go around. If you make cupcakes, go with Deb's proportions for sure. If you go the route I did and make a layer cake you could probably get away with not doubling frosting sinceit is incredibly rich, but you might have to really stretch a single batch of the frosting to get the cake covered.

Makes 20 to 24 cupcakes baked for 15 minutes OR

Two 8 inch round cakes baked at 350 for 15 minutes then lowered to 300 for another 10-15 minutes, or until done in the center

For the Guinness Chocolate Cupcakes

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Ganache Filling

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 to 2 teaspoons Irish whiskey (optional)

Baileys Frosting
3 to 4 cups confections sugar
1 stick (1/2 cup or 4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperatue
3 to 4 tablespoons Baileys (or milk, or heavy cream, or a combination thereof)

Special equipment: 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer and a piping bag (though a plastic bag with the corner snipped off will also work)

Make the cupcakes: Preheat oven to 350°F. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners. Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, rotating them once front to back if your oven bakes unevenly, about 17 minutes. Cool cupcakes on a rack completely.

Make the filling: Chop the chocolate and transfer it to a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream until simmering and pour it over the chocolate. Let it sit for one minute and then stir until smooth. (If this has not sufficiently melted the chocolate, you can return it to a double-boiler to gently melt what remains. 20 seconds in the microwave, watching carefully, will also work.) Add the butter and whiskey (if you’re using it) and stir until combined.

Fill the cupcakes: Let the ganache cool until thick but still soft enough to be piped (the fridge will speed this along but you must stir it every 10 minutes). Meanwhile, using your 1-inch round cookie cutter or an apple corer, cut the centers out of the cooled cupcakes. You want to go most of the way down the cupcake but not cut through the bottom — aim for 2/3 of the way. A slim spoon or grapefruit knife will help you get the center out. Those are your “tasters”. Put the ganache into a piping bag with a wide tip and fill the holes in each cupcake to the top.

Make the frosting: Whip the butter in the bowl of an electric mixer, or with a hand mixer, for several minutes. You want to get it very light and fluffy. Slowly add the powdered sugar, a few tablespoons at a time. When the frosting looks thick enough to spread, drizzle in the Baileys (or milk) and whip it until combined. If this has made the frosting too thin (it shouldn’t, but just in case) beat in another spoonful or two of powdered sugar.

Do ahead: You can bake the cupcakes a week or two in advance and store them, well wrapped, in the freezer. You can also fill them before you freeze them. They also keep filled — or filled and frosted — in the fridge for a day. (Longer, they will start to get stale.)

Banana Coconut Rum Cake

When I first bought my Nick Malgieri The Modern Baker book there were a few recipes that jumped out at me immediately, recipes that I knew I would have to make sooner rather than later, and this was definitely one of them. One simple cake combining three of my favorites: coconut, banana, and rum -- yes, this was on the short list.

The cake is banana flavored with dense, moist cake that has a lot of good banana flavor going on. There is rum in the cake itself, but only a tablespoon for all the batter and I didn't notice a lot of rum flavor in the cake itself. The frosting is a basic whipped cream frosting with another tablespoon of rum, but you couldn't really taste it there either. After frosting the cake you just throw some coconut on it and you're good to go.

The advantage of whipped cream frosting is that it mixes up quickly, goes on easily and in general looks pretty good with a minimal effort. The disadvantage is if it gets too hot it tends to melt and run which means freeing up room in the fridge to store the sucker. The other disadvantage is that the whipped cream frosting is so soft and slick that it's kind of difficult to cut the cake since the cake itself is so dense -- you end up smooshing the cake layers together and squeezing the frosting out from the middle of the cake. It still tastes good of course, but it's not the easiest thing to keep pretty as you're eating it.


Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
12 tbsp (1 1/2 sticks0 unsalted butter, softened
2/3 granulated sugar
1/3 firmly packed dark brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 large eggs
1 cup mashed banana (2 large or 3 medium)
2/3 cup milk
1 tbsp dark rum

Whipped Cream Frosting
2 1/2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp dark rum
2 1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat oven to 350. Spray two 9x2 inch round cake pans with cooking spray.

In a large bowl combine the dry ingredients and set aside.

In the bowl of a large mixer cream together the butter and sugars, 2 to 3 minutes until lightened in color. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.

In another medium bowl combine the well-mashed bananas with the milk and rum.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in the mixer then 1/3 of the banana/milk mixture. Alternate between the two until the flour and banana mixtures are thoroughly mixed in.

Divide the batter between the cake pans and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean and the edges look set. Let the cakes cool in the pans for 5 minutes, then turn them out on a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

When you are ready to frost them, whip the whipping cream with the sugar and rum until it is the consistency of frosting. Spread half onto the bottom cake layer, top with the other cake layer and spread the frosting on. Sprinkle the coconut on the top of the cake and press it against the sides to get it to stick.

Keep the cake cool, or the cream might melt.

Big-Ass Cake

From the looks of it I have been neglecting my blog -- over a week since my last post, the longest I've gone between blog entries in the year and change I have been doing this. *gasp*

Don't let the lack of blog entries fool you though, because I have been baking, I just haven't been blogging. A big part of that is that I have been attempting to develop a cookie recipe and have made at least 6 versions of the cookie, but I haven't succeeded with it yet, which is why I haven't posted anything about it. Soon though... soon.

The other thing I have been messing with is this cake. Chris and I have been talking about making and decorating our own wedding cake for a while now. We figure that with my baking and his decorating/fondant rolling skills -- we can make something just as attractive and probably better tasting than what we would get from a store. We're not completely crazy -- we are planning to do something very basic, but that will still look elegant and nice -- a round layer cake stacked, covered in basic white fondant, the bottom edges covered in ribbon, and topped with flowers that will mimic the bouquets.

We have done similar things before and figure with practice we could make our wedding cake look pretty good, and then, even it looked a little less than perfect it would still taste good and it would be ours. The problem we have run into though, is how big to make it?

We have looked at the charts and looked at our guest list... we have only invited 47 people to the wedding, and we figure maybe 35 will show up. Making a 10-inch round cake and a 6-inch round cake will supposedly feed 40-50 people -- but how big are those pieces? We also have a 14-inch round cake pan and that will feed 50 by itself -- so we figured at least give it a try and we would have enough cake to feed everyone twice over -- which would be better than having just enough cake.

So we made a 14-inch round layer cake that is 4 and 1/2 inches tall to practice and to figure out the feasibility of the whole thing. What did we discover? A 10-inch cake and a 6-inch cake should be enough. :)

Most of the problem is that we just don't have the room to actually decorate the sucker. After baking the cakes and putting the buttercream on them, Chris measured and figured out that he would need a 25-inch circle of fondant to cover it -- and we just don't have the counter space to pull that off. Not to mention that the cake weighs around 10 pounds by itself and we would need another 7 pounds of fondant to cover it. Yeah, just not going to happen in our kitchen with our equipment.

It's actually very good to find this out now, rather than right before the wedding. That's why I insisted on practice runs, even if it means giving away or even throwing away a lot of cake between now and then. So the next step is to actually make the 10-inch and 6 inch cakes and practice covering those with fondant so that when the big day actually does get here (under 5 months at this point) we will know what the pitfalls are and hopefully be experienced enough to make it all look good anyway.

The cake itself for this run was the rum pound cake from the Cake Love book -- but it basically just tastes like a vanilla pound cake. It tastes good, no question about that (and thank god considering just how much cake we have at this point) -- but it doesn't taste much like rum. Although, I will admit I did not use the rum simple syrup on the cake which probably would have added a lot more rum flavor.

Ingredients:
Dry:
14 oz (2 3/4 cup + 1/2 tsp) unbleached flour
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 tbsps potato starch
1 tsp vanilla powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp baking soda

Liquid:
8 oz sour cream (1 cup)
3/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup dark rum
1 tsp molasses
1 tsp vanilla extract

Creaming:
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp
20 oz (2 1/2 cups) granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
4 large eggs
2 large egg yolks

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 12-cup bundt pan with cooking spray.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl.

Mix the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl.

In the bowl of a mixer, cream the butter and sugar on low speed for 3 to 4 minutes, until very smooth and creamy. Add the vanilla bean seeds and mix for another 2 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing for at least one minute between each addition. Then add the egg yolks and mix for another minute or two until everything is well blended and creamy.

Add the flour mixture, alternating with the liquid mixture, until everything is well combined.

Pour the cake batter into the bundt pan and bake for 50-55 minutes, until a skewer comes out clean.

For Soaking Syrup:
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup dark rum

Stir the rum and sugar together then brush it on the cooled cake.

Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Frosting

I have been taking a bit of a break from baking the last couple of weeks, mainly because of the relentless stream of sugar that has been in my face since mid-December. And while I did contribute to the stream of sugar, it got really ridiculous the week of Christmas at work with almost every flat surface sporting a platter or a tin with some sort of sugary goodness for the "poor, pathetic souls who have to work on Christmas."

So between all that sugar, and the box of goodies that Chris' mom sent, and the chocolate in my stocking, and the fact that my weight has crept up (horror!!!) I have been taking a bit of a break. Which is why I had no intention of baking this week, but Chris called me from work and asked if I could please make a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for a coworker who was leaving their office, and of course I said yes, because the fact of the matter is I like baking. a lot.

The request was easy enough, and I tend to keep all the basics on hand, so it was only a matter of finding a recipe. I have never actually made a basic chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream, but I knew that any number of my books had what I was looking for. In the end I turned to my Passion for Baking book and the recipe she provided worked out perfectly.

The cake is super soft and moist -- in fact she recommends partially freezing it before attempting to frost it -- something that I wish I had done. The chocolate flavor of the cake is there, but it's not overwhelming -- luckily the frosting more than makes up for it. It's a buttercream frosting which means super sweet and rich, but the flavor is great, which is a very good thing considering I tore part of the soft cake apart attempting to frost the damn thing. Fortunately copious amounts of frosting can hide a multitude of sins. :)



Ingredients:
cake:
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 1/4 tsps baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup sour cream

Icing:
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips, melted and cooled
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup cocoa powder, measured and then sifted
3 to 4 cups powdered sugar, measured and then sifted
1/2 cup half and half or milk

Preheat oven to 350. Spray two 9 inch round cake pans with cooking spray.

In a mixer bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and blend well. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Fold dry ingredients into the wet and mix, adding buttermilk and sour cream as mixture blends. Blend on low speed until everything is incorporated, then divide between the prepared pans.

Bake on middle oven rack for 35 to 40 minutes, until cake springs back when touched. Let cool in pan.

For icing, in a mixer bowl on low speed, blend melted chocoalte with butter. Add vanilla, cocoa, and half of the powdered sugar. Add remaining powdered sugar and mix slowly. Once sugar is more or less blended in, whip on high speed, adding a bit of half and half to get a light, fluffy consistency.

To frost cake, semi-freeze layers, 20 to 45 minutes for easier handling. Frost and layer the cake.

Furry Cupcake Monsters

I saw this post last year on Cake Journal's site and have been looking for the #12 Wilton tip ever since. Of course I only looked a couple of places and did a few half-hearted searches online but never ran across it. Today, while doing some unrelated Christmas shopping, I noticed that a store that I go to infrequently now has a cake decorating display, including a whole rack of tips. Sure enough, there was the tip I wanted.

The truth is that I had absolutely no reason in the world to make cupcakes today -- but seriously -- look at how cute those are!!! (I think it's the closet girl in me coming out...)

Since I had no reason to actually make cupcakes though I didn't want to make a huge recipe. I finally remembered that Dorie had a chocolate cupcake recipe in her book that only makes 12 cupcakes, and despite the fact that chocolate and buttercream frosting wasn't at the top of my list of flavor combinations, I decided to do it anyway. After all, I really cared far more about what they looked like then what they tasted like, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who will be delighted with chocolate cake and buttercream frosting.

And the sad thing is that those super cute little cupcakes are really, really easy to make. The hardest part is filling the piping bags... honestly. The grass/fur tip is really forgiving, and if you smudge a bit or go a little heavy-handed, it just looks like a particularly hairy furry monster. :)

For the cupcake
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Fit the 12 molds in a regular-size muffin pan with paper muffin cups, or butter them with flour and tap out the excess.

To make the cupcakes—
Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter at medium speed until soft and creamy. Add the sugar and beat for about 2 minutes, until it is blended into the butter. Add the egg, then the yolk, beating 1 minute after each addition and scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Beat in the vanilla, then reduce the mixer speed to low and add half the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear. Scrape down the bowl and add the buttermilk, mixing until incorporated, then mix in the remaining dry ingredients. Scrape down the bowl, add the melted chocolate and mix it in with the rubber spatula. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin molds.

Bake for 20-23 minutes, or until the tops of the cakes are dry and springy to the touch and a knife inserted into their centers comes out clean. Transfer the muffin pan to a rack and let the cakes cool for 5 minutes before unmolding. Cool to room temperature on the rack before frosting.

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting

This is going to be very strange... but I don't have any pictures to go with this post. It seems wrong to post without pictures, but between the 12-hour shifts and some other plans, it was all I could do to get the cakes made (I also made a Cinnamon Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese frosting -- you can find the recipe here...) before falling into bed.

Basically we had a going away party for a girl from work and she requested strawberry cake with strawberry cream cheese frosting. I had never made a strawberry layer cake before but I turned to Food Blog Search to find a recipe and quickly discovered that most people have never made a strawberry layer cake. Lots of strawberries on cakes, and strawberry cupcakes, and strawberry shortcakes, but no strawberry layer cakes. Well crap.

I finally figured though that cupcakes are just small cakes so I would just adapt one of those recipe. I found a promising looking recipe on Genesis of a Cook and made a small test batch. The cupcakes were very good, although the strawberry flavor was subtle you could still tell it was strawberry, and with strawberry cream cheese frosting the flavor came through nice and strong.

When I made the real cake I tripled the recipe, but I did change it a bit. In the first version the strawberries were cooked down with some sugar -- in my final version I defrosted some frozen berries and then pureed them, making sure to leave some chunky bits. Again, the flavor was subtle, although it did come through a bit more after cooling completely, but still definitely strawberry. My big problem was that the finished product seemed to have a gummy texture, although I only tried a very small corner, so that might have just been my imagination.

The other problem I had with the recipe was the frosting. Despite having my cream cheese chilled and my butter at room temp -- it was a gloppy, sloppy mess. I had to put the whole thing in the fridge for a few hours to make it even close to manageable. Luckily, when I let it come to room temp before serving the frosting retained some of it's shape instead of reverting to the disaster it was before a stint in the fridge.

Here is the small batch recipe -- triple it for two 9x2 cakes and a couple of cupcakes.

1 1/3 cups flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/8 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup pureed strawberries

Frosting -- this is more than enough frosting for two 9x2 layer cakes, so you might want to cut it in half... unless you just want to eat the frosting...
1 stick butter room temp
8 oz cream cheese chilled
3 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
strawberry puree to taste

Preheat oven to 350. Grease muffin pan.

Mix dry ingredients in a small bowl. Cream butter and sugar in a mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the strawberry puree (I think I ended up adding a bit more than 1/2 cup...) and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until they disappear. Divide into muffin pan and bake for about 10 minutes.

For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese in the mixer until well blended. Add the powdered sugar and mix well. Add the vanilla and then the strawberry puree a little at a time until you have the flavor and consistency you want -- probably between 1/4 and 1/2 a cup.

Irish Oatmeal Cake with Butterscotch Filling and Buttercream Frosting

When I was at the library last week I checked out Moosewood Restaurant Book of Desserts for a trial run since I've been considering buying it for a while now. The extensive and incredibly intriguing sections on cake, poundcake, puddings, and bar cookies will probably make me buy it, but at least this way I can try out some of the recipes before shelling out for the book.

The first thing I tried was the Irish Oatmeal Cake with Butterscotch Frosting. I was a little perplexed because the cake does not have any cinnamon or other spices in it which seemed odd for an oatmeal cake, but I figured the butterscotch frosting would give the cake most of the flavor. I thought that we were going to do fondant with the cake though so I used the butterscotch as a filling and covered it regular buttercream. Turns out we didn't do fondant, but oh well...

Frosting the cake was a royal pain in the ass. This has probably been the most crumbly cake I have ever dealt with. I couldn't get the frosting to stick to the cake at all, and the beautiful white frosting I made quickly turned into a crumbly mess. I managed to get a bit of a crumb coat down, then threw the whole mess in the fridge for 20 minutes. After that the rest of the frosting was a bit easier to deal with, but it was still pretty crumbly and probably could have stayed in the fridge a longer.

As for flavor -- this is probably the sweetest thing I have ever made. I warned Chris as I gave him the piece to try that I hoped he didn't like his teeth because one piece was likely enough to rot them out of his head. Holy crap it was sweet. Sadly, the cake by itself was "eh" on flavor. It had a nice texture from the oatmeal and it was moist and soft, but it didn't really taste like much at all.

The butterscotch was nice and buttery and sweet and went okay with the oatmeal cake, but if I make it again I will likely put it on a different cake. And if I make the oatmeal cake again I will definitely add some cinnamon and some nutmeg to kick up the flavor and highlight the oatmeal. The buttercream I used came from my Southern Cakes book and it made an already sweet dessert even sweeter. Chris liked it quite a lot and happily finished the entire piece I gave him, but a few bites was more than enough for me.



Ingredients:
Cake:
2 cups all purpose fl0ur
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 tsp baking soda
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Butterscotch Frosting
6 tbsps butter
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsps vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350. Butter and flour two 9x2 pans.

Sift together the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. In a blender whirl the oats to the consistency of corn meal. Stir into the flour mixture and set aside.

With an electric mixer, cream the butter and brown sugar until light. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine the vanilla and buttermilk and add alternately with the flour mixture. Mix until well blended.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for about 30 minutes, until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool in the pans for about 5 minutes and then turn out onto racks to cool completely.

For the frosting, melt the butter in the saucepan. Add the brown sugar and simmer on very low heat for at least 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. (Don't cheat on the time -- the longer it cooks the smoother the frosting.)

Transfer the butter-brown sugar mixture to a bowl. With an electric mixer, beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla. Add the milk a little at a time until the frosting is smooth and creamy. While the frosting is still warm, fill and frost the cake.

Carrot Cake Dorie Style -- and a fondant version

I finally got around to that carrot cake I kept promising myself. I thought really hard about doing my regular Pastry Queen version, but in the end I opted to try Dorie's version. Both cakes are very good, Pastry Queen wins points for using coconut milk and pineapple, but Dorie's is traditional and incredibly moist and flavorful.

After my last gloppy, gooey mess of cream cheese frosting I read a few blogs on the subject and the consensus seemed to be that for a frosting that is pipe-able and doesn't run all over the place, the butter should be at room temp, but the cream cheese should still be cold from the fridge. I had my doubts that it could really be that simple, but sure enough, it was that simple. Just that one little change and I had frosting that was thick and creamy and smoothed out beautifully.



I also loved the flavor of the Dorie frosting with the hint of lemon. I actually opted to use a 1/4 tsp of lemon oil rather than lemon zest or juice for my flavoring and it was just the perfect amount of citrus flavor to bring out and balance the rich, sweet frosting.

I made two 8x2 cakes for one layer, and then two 6x2 cakes for Chris to cover in fondant. He used the fondant recipe from Cake Journal which he said worked and tasted great, however, when he rolled it out to cover the cake it picked up all the hard little bits that were stuck to the countertop. We're not quite sure what was up with that, but it marred the surface of the otherwise gorgeous cake. *sigh* Chris also dyed some marzipan green and orange for the finishing touches on this cake -- and of course did 99% of the work decorating the fondant version.




Ingredients:
For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups grated carrots (about 9 carrots, you can grate them in food processor fitted w/ a shredding a blade or use a box grater)
1 cup coarsely chopped walnuts or pecans
1 cup shredded coconut (sweetened or unsweetened)
1/2 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or dried cranberries
2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 large eggs


For the frosting:
8 ounces cream cheese, cold
1 stick ( 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 pound or 3 and 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice or 1/2 teaspoon pure lemon extract or 1/4 tsp lemon oil
1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional)
Finely chopped toasted nuts and/or toasted shredded coconut (optional)

Getting ready:

Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Butter three 9-x-2-inch round cake pans, flour the insides, and tap out the excess. Put the two pans on one baking sheet and one on another.

To make the cake:

Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In another bowl, stir together the carrots, chopped nuts, coconut, and raisins.

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the sugar and oil together on a medium speed until smooth. Add the eggs one by one and continue to beat until the batter is even smoother. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture, mixing only until the dry ingredients disappear. Gently mix the chunky ingredients. Divide the batter among the baking pans.

Bake for 40-50 minutes, rotating the pans from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until a thin knife inserted into the centers comes out clean. The cakes will have just started to come away from the sides of the pans. Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes and unmold them. Invert and cool to room temperature right side up.

The cakes can be wrapped airtight and kept at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to 2 months.

To make the frosting:

Working with a stand mixer, preferably fitted with a paddle attachment or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Gradually add the sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is velvety smooth. Beat in the lemon juice or extract.

If you'd like coconut in the filling, scoop about half of the frosting and stir the coconut into this position.

To assemble the cake:

Put one layer top side up on a cardboard cake round or a cake plate protected by strips of wax or parchment paper. If you added the coconut to the frosting, use half of the coconut frosting to generously cover the first layer (or generously cover with plain frosting). Use an offset spatula or a spoon to smooth the frosting all the way to the edges of the layer. Top with the second layer, this time placing the cake stop side down, and frost with the remainder of the coconut frosting or plain frosting. Top with the last layer, right side up, and frost the top- and the sides- of the cake. Finish the top with swirls of frosting. If you want to top the cake with toasted nuts or coconut, sprinkle them on now while the frosting is soft.

Refrigerate the cake for 30 minutes, just to set the frosting before serving.

Serving:

This cake can be served as soon as the frosting is set. It can also wait, at room temperature and covered with a cake keeper overnight. The cake is best served in thick slices at room temperature and while it's good plain, it's even better with vanilla ice cream or some lemon curd.

Storing:

The cake will keep at room temperature for 2 to 3 days. It can also be frozen. Freeze it uncovered, then when it's firm, wrap airtight and freeze for up to 2 months. Defrost, still wrapped, overnight in the refrigerator.

Madeira Cake with Swiss Buttercream

For our latest attempt at fondant cake we used a Madeira cake recipe from a book called Cakes to Inspire and Desire which is specifically how to make and decorate crazy cakes with fondant. The cake is good for this kind of thing because it's dense and easy to work with and carve on for crazy shapes. The downside is that the flavor is very generic and dry. I bake for flavor though, I don't care how great it looks, if the flavor doesn't impress me then it probably won't make a repeat appearance and this was not impressive at all.

In an attempt to make up for the dry cake I put a ton of buttercream frosting on it -- in this case a Swiss Buttercream frosting that I got from Smitten Kitchen. The frosting was easy to work with, easy to make and had a rich, smooth flavor that wasn't overly sweet. It spread well and was generally a great success. The problem we ran into was that in my overzealous application of the frosting, I made it more difficult to get the fondant on the cake. *sigh*

As usual, Chris did the fondant work which is why it looks so great. We used the Satin Ice pre-made stuff, we bought the black the way it is, and dyed some white lavender to get what we wanted. He wasn't that happy though because of all the cracking we got in the fondant and because some of the corners look like crap. The corners were my though -- too much buttercream which kept oozing out of the corners making it impossible for him to get them smooth. The rest is just practice.

I thought the cake looked cool. Chris chose the colors inspired by a band we like called Birthday Massacre, and we've wanted to practice a bow cake since they tend to look pretty cool and yet seem pretty easy to make.



Madeira Cake
1 lb unsalted butter
1 lb superfine sugar
1 lb self-rising flour
8 oz all purpose flour
8 eggs
2 tsps vanilla

Preheat the oven to 325 and grease two 9 inch round or two 8 inch square pans.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and smooth. Sift the flours in another bowl. Add the eggs to the creamed mixture one at a time, following each with a spoonful of flour, to prevent the mixture curdling. Add the vanilla, then add the remaining flour and mix until smooth. (It will be quite thick)

Transfer to the prepared pans and bake. Mine baked for about 45 minutes, but I started checking them after 30. Cool in the pans, then turn out and cool completely.

Swiss Buttercream

The recipe comes from Smitten Kitchen

For a 9-inch cake (plus filling, or some to spare)
1 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
26 tablespoons butter, softened (3 sticks plus 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whisk egg whites and sugar together in a big metal bowl over a pot of simmering water. Whisk occasionally until you can’t feel the sugar granules when you rub the mixture between your fingers.

Transfer mixture into the mixer and whip until it turns white and about doubles in size. (Here’s a tip: when you transfer to the mixer, make sure you wipe the condensation off the bottom of the bowl so that no water gets into the egg whites. This can keep them from whipping up properly.)

Add the vanilla.

Finally, add the butter a stick at a time and whip -- it may curdle on you, just keep whipping and it will come together.

More Fondant Fun

We found a cake and candy store in Annapolis the other day. We saw a reference to it online, but only two mentions of it, and no indication if it was open still or not, I had a pretty good idea of where it was though so we decided to check it out. It's just a tiny little store, but it's stuffed full of all sorts of fun stuff. We ended up getting some glycerin and glucose and a few other things to try yet another version of homemade fondant, but we also found a pre-made fondant called Satin Ice that the ladies in the store claimed tasted better than the Wilton stuff (which isn't that hard to do considering the Wilton stuff tastes like slightly sweet play-doh and has a nasty aftertaste).

The new fondant did taste much, much better than the Wilton pre-made fondant -- a bit like marshmallows actually. It also rolled out beautifully and was very nice to work with. We put it on the small cake we had leftover from the 4th and played with a simple interlocking circle design using the neon color packs of pre-made Wilton fondant. We need to roll the fondant out smaller if we make this design again, but overall we were pretty happy with how it turned out.

Lemon Cake with Lemon Buttercream Frosting

Man, what a busy weekend this turned out to be. Chris and I got fairly ambitious with our fondant plans -- we wanted to attempt a tiered cake, blue fondant on bottom with a smaller red cake on top, decorated with something for the 4th of July. I made the lemon cakes from my new Cake Love book but instead of baking them in two 9x2 pans I did two 8x2 pans and two 6x2 pans. Once they were cool I realized that the 8 inch cakes were awfully thin for a layer cake -- ridiculously thin in fact. So, I opted to make two more cakes...

I knew there was a problem with the cakes once the batter was all mixed up. The first time around the batter was a typically thin cake batter, the second time around it was very thick and heavy. I thought about it for a few minutes, but couldn't figure out what the difference was, so I baked them anyway. When they came out of the oven there was something clearly off about them -- crackly and fragile and just wrong looking. But, I still couldn't figure out what I had happened.

One of the cakes fell completely apart when I was taking it out of the pan, but it still tasted okay. Despite being incredibly fragile, the second one came out of the pan without too much of a problem and I figured at that point that it tasted fine, so I would use it in the layer cake anyway. Since we planned to frost and decorate the next day, I wrapped all the layers up in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge -- cold cakes are just easier to deal with. Look -- the middle layer is the funky one...



At 5 am one of the cats woke me up by sitting on my head and taking over my pillow. Highly irritated by it, I started going through all the steps I took with the cake earlier -- I really wanted to figure out what had happened. I had my eureka moment and said fairly loudly: "I forgot the eggs." The cats had woken Chris up too, so luckily he couldn't blame me for that part. But seriously... I forgot the eggs. And not just one egg or two eggs... no we're talking 4 eggs and an egg yolk. Wow.

Despite the lack of eggs in one layer of the cake we opted to stick with our plan. I made a lemon buttercream frosting and frosted up the layers. Then we started rolling out the marshmallow fondant that we had made the day before. What a disaster. It was dry. It was cracky. It ripped. We had spent hours trying to dye it -- we were aiming for blue and red -- we ended up with turquoise and pink. We decided to just roll with it and kept working the whole mess.

The blue eventually went on the cake, but we couldn't get it smoothed out, plus it kept cracking and tearing on us. We attempted to cover it up the worst spots with some fondant decorations and we were going to make it work, but then we moved on to the red/pink for the other layer. That fondant cracked and ripped and was a general pain in the ass too -- so we gave up and threw out both fondants. We figured that the cake would have buttercream frosting and blueberries and that would be good for our small 4th of July gathering, and it was. I'm not much of a buttercream fan, but the lemon really helped counteract the usually overly-sweet flavors of the buttercream.

I suppose I could have just considered the whole thing a waste since we spent hours messing with it all, but it was actually a great learning experience. Frustrating, but educating. The eggs mistake though.. that was just boneheaded. I can't believe I did that!



Adapted from Cake Love by Warren Brown
Ingredients:
Dry:
8 1/2 oz all purpose flour
2 tbsp potato starch
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda

Liquid:
2 lemons, zested (the zest goes in the creaming stage) and segmented
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 heavy cream
1/4 cup whole milk
1 tbsp limoncello
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp lemon oil

Creaming:
4 oz (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temp
3 oz cream cheese
16 oz (2 cups) granulated sugar
2 tbsp turbinado sugar
1 tbsp of lemon zest
4 large eggs
1 large egg yolk

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a bundt pan or put a round of parchment paper in two 9x2 round pans (no need to grease the sides of the round pans)

Zest lemon and segment it.

Cream the butter, sugars and lemon zest at low speed in an electric mixer for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing well between each addition and scraping the sides as needed.

Mix the dry ingredients together in one bowl, and the liquid ingredients together in another bowl. Add the liquid and dry ingredients alternately to the creamed butter mix, mixing until everything is incorporated.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes for the bundt, or 30 minutes for the round pans.

Cool and frost as desired.

For the Lemon Buttercream
1 stick of butter at room temp
2 1/2 - 3 cups of powdered sugar
1-3 tsps of lemon juice
1/4 tsp of lemon oil (optional)
1 - 2 tsps of water.

Cream the butter. Add the smallest amounts of each of the other ingredients and gradually add more of each to get the flavor and consistency you want.

Bluebery Lime Cake with Lime Cream Cheese Frosting

I had a bunch of blueberries to use up. They were on sale at the grocery store and looked fantastic so I couldn't pass them up. I also had several limes to use up and I figured since the lemon blueberry thing had been done so many times, why not do lime blueberry instead?

Once again I turned to the fantastic Barefoot Contessa/Smitten Kitchen Lemon Yogurt Anything cake. What a great recipe. I doubled the recipe, subbed lime for the lemon, made two 8 inch cakes and several cupcakes, and topped the whole thing with a lime cream cheese frosting. I was expecting it to be good, but I was blown away by what a great combination the whole thing was.

If you double the recipe below, I would recommend using two 9x2 pans for the layers -- unless you want a bunch of cupcakes too, in which case two 8x2 pans and a muffin tin.

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 1/2 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain whole-milk yogurt
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
3 extra-large eggs
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (approximately 2 lemons)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen, thawed and rinsed
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 1/2 by 4 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Sift together 1 1/2 cups flour, baking powder, and salt into 1 bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the yogurt, 1 cup sugar, the eggs, lemon zest, vanilla and oil. Slowly whisk the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Mix the blueberries with the remaining tablespoon of flour, and fold them very gently into the batter. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 50 (+) minutes, or until a cake tester placed in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Meanwhile, cook the 1/3 cup lemon juice and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in a small pan until the sugar dissolves and the mixture is clear. Set aside.

When the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan for 10 minutes before flipping out onto a cooling rack. Carefully place on a baking rack over a sheet pan. While the cake is still warm, pour the lemon-sugar mixture over the cake and allow it to soak in (a pastry brush works great for this, as does using a toothpick to make tiny holes that draw the syrup in better). Cool.

Frosting:
about 3 cups powdered sugar
one 8-oz package cream cheese
pinch of salt
juice and grated zest of 1 lime
milk as necessary for thinning

combine the sugar, cream cheese, salt, and lemon juice and zest in the bowl of a mixer. Mix until creamy and smooth, and add the milk only if you need to make the icing easy to spread.

Mojito Pound Cake

I'm not sure what search led me to the website Erin Cooks that had pictures of the Mojito Pound Cake on it, but I knew as soon as I saw it that I wanted to make it. I left that page up on my web browser for days and made a list of the ingredients I would need. I was initially going to make the cake based on her version of the recipe, but then I kept hearing about the book that the recipe came from -- Cake Love by Warren Brown. I found a copy at Borders and one quick flip through the book and I knew it was coming home with me since there are at least 8 recipes I want to try.

Other recipes in the book seriously intrigued me, but I decided to start with the Mojito Cake since that's what led me to the book in the first place. The book has pretty specific instructions on measuring, mixing and ingredients, and uses certain ingredients I had never seen used in cakes before, such as potato starch. The instructions for this recipe wanted fresh mint dried in the oven, but I opted out of that and used store bought pre-dried mint -- I'm sure the flavor would have been better the other way, but it would have added quite a bit of time to the cake and I just didn't want to use that time.

The recipe also called for an entire lime. The zest went into the butter and sugar for creaming, and the lime segments (after being separated from the white pith and membranes) were put into the liquid ingredients. One of the other interesting things about the recipes in the book is that almost all the recipes call for a dollop of liquor -- in this recipe rum and limoncella.

The cake itself wasn't that difficult to make -- no harder than most cakes with lots of mixing. Warran Brown's methods of measuring do create a whole kitchen's worth of dirty dishes though which is a bit annoying. Oh well, can't make a cake without creating a little mess. *sigh*

For the frosting Chris and I made a rum-flavored Italian Meringue Buttercream frosting. This was my first experience using the meringue method for buttercreams and the flavor of that frosting was amazingly rich and creamy. The frosting doesn't set up so well though, so probably not that great for piping, although with the creamy swirls you can make on a basic layer cake you don't really need much in the way of piped decorations.



And the most important part -- the flavor: rich. I took two bites of the cake and had enough. Not that it was bad -- far from it, just that the frosting was so buttery and creamy that two bites were more than enough to satisfy me. (plus there was a special on t.v. all about obesity which kind of ruined some of the pleasure of it...) The mint and lime were balanced and the rum flavor faint... it's a different sort of cake and different sort of frosting for me, but if you like mojitos then this is definitely a cake to try.

As with most of the other books I own I would recommend that everyone interested in this recipe buy the book. The recipe I put here does not do a bit of justice to the author's descriptions and variations. Plus, there is also always the risk of typos (I made a big mistake on the oreo recipe the other day which I only discovered the next day...) which could easily ruin a good recipe.

Ingredients
Dry
2 1/4 cups + 2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup potato starch
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3 whole cloves (ground into a fine powder with a morter and pestle or coffee grinder)
1/3 cup oven dried mint crumbled

Liquid
2/3 cup sour cream
1/4 cup half-and-half
3 tablespoons dark rum
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 teaspoon molasses
1 teaspoon limoncello
1 lime outer rind removed and segmented

Creaming
2 sticks room temperature unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups extra-fine granulated sugar
2 teaspoons lime zest
4 large eggs
2 large egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Incorporated all of the dry ingredients into a bowl, whisk briefly, and set aside. Incorporated all of the liquid ingredients into a bowl, whisk briefly, and set aside. Measure the butter, sugar, eggs, and yolks into separate bowls and set aside.

In the bowl of a standing mixer (fitted with the paddle attachment) cream together the butter, sugar, and lime zest on the lowest setting for 4 to 5 minutes.

With the mixer still on the lowest speed, add the eggs one at a time followed by the yolks, fully incorporating after each addition.

Add the dry ingredient mixture, alternating with the liquid mixture in 3 to 5 additions each, beginning and ending with the dry mixture. Move swiftly through this step to avoid overworking the batter. Don’t wait for the dry or liquid mixtures to be fully incorporated before adding the next. This step should take a total of about 60 seconds.

Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Mix on medium speed for 15 to 20 seconds to develop the batters structure.

Prepare the cake pans. For 9-inch-round cakes, line the bottom of each pan with parchment. Deposit the batter evenly into the pans and smooth out with an offset spatula, making sure the pans are two-thirds full. Bake for approximately 30 minutes.

Remove the pans from the oven and cool to room temperature on a wire rack, about 25 to 30 minutes before removing from the pan. Loosen the cake gently from the pan with a small offset spatula and invert onto a flat surface. Remove the parchment from the bottom of each cake and wrap the layers tightly in plastic. You can refrigerate the layers overnight or up to 5 days before frosting.

Rum-Flavored Italian Meringue Buttercream
5 egg whites 1 1/4 cups extra-fine granulated sugar 1/4 cup cold water 1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter at room temp 2 - 4 tablespoons of dark rum (to taste)

Set out the ingredients and the equipment. Make sure that the bowl of the mixer and the whip attachment are completely clean and dry.

Separate the egg whites into the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the wire whip attachment. Measure 1 cup sugar and the water into a 1-quart, heavy-bottomed saucepan. Gently stir with the candy thermometer to combine. Place the remaining 1/4 cup sugar into a small bowl and set aside. Cut the butter into tablespoon sized pieces and set aside in a medium bowl.

To make the sugar syrup, place the candy thermometer in the saucepan and heat the mixture over medium-high heat. Partially cover with a lid to capture the evaporating water-this helps to moisten the sides of the saucepan to prevent sugar crystals from forming.

With the mixer on high speed, begin whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks. When the peaks are stiff you have a meringue -- this took about 2 minutes mixing on high speed. Keep the mixer running and pour the 1/4 cup of sugar into the meringue.

Raise the heat under the sugar syrup to bring the syrup to 245 degrees, if it is not there already. When the syrup is at 245 degrees, remove the thermometer and slowly pour the syrup into the meringue.

After 1 or 2 minutes reduce the mixer speed to medium for 3 or 4 minutes, or until the meringue is cooled. Add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Increase the mixer speed to high for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the butter is fully incorporated. Finally add in the dark rum and spread onto your pound cake. Decorate as desired.