Red Velvet Nicks Blouse

We're making festive frosting over here.

Happy Birthday, Tim: S'more Layer Cake

Duuuuuuudes, this cake is good.  So good.  

When I saw this S'more Layer Cake recipe in the Smitten Kitchen cookbook, I knew I had to make it, but I needed an occasion.  Luckily it didn't take much convincing for Tim to agree that his birthday was just that occasion.

Plus, this recipe required the use of a kitchen torch, which I always secretly wanted to buy, but could never really justify.  Heh heh... cool... fire! fire! fire!  Now I have to plan some cooking around that new flaming utensil.

A moist graham cracker flavored layer cake with a milk chocolate ganache filling and toasted marshmallow frosting...  what's not to love?

The cake itself is made by processing a bunch of graham crackers until they turn into a flour (thanks to Amy for bringing American graham crackers to us across the world!).  Buttermilk (or in my case milk plus sour cream) keeps it super moist (I actually had to cook my layers a few minutes longer to get them cooked through, but that may be my wonky oven).

Super rich milk chocolate ganache in the middle mimics the traditional Hershey's bar (I kinda wished there was more of that- maybe next time a layer of it under the frosting would do the trick?) and fluffy, sticky, marshmallowy frosting (not dissimilar from the frosting I made on this cake) is dolloped on top and torch toasted to perfection.

We ate the cake early, the weekend before his birthday, because Tim had to attend and present at a conference this week.  Don't feel too bad for him, though, because the conference is in Bali (life is tough, eh?):

Franny's Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Frosting

Back in December, Amy and I had been texting back and forth about chocolate cake recipes.  She wanted to know if I had any favorite and/or family recipes for chocolate cake... the first cake I thought of off the top of my head was this super moist chocolate cake with fluffy, marshmallowy frosting that my great aunt, Franny, used to make for every family birthday party when we were kids.  I thought Amy might like it because of the ethereal, marshmallowy frosting, since she can, on occasion, down an entire bag of marshmallows without blinking.

I got the recipe from the Real Martha and passed it on to Amy, who made it almost immediately (her photo above).  Amy and her family thought it was quite tasty, although they said it was better the second day, strangely enough.

Sadly, my great aunt Franny recently passed away... in her honor, I decided to make her cake to bring to a party we were invited to here in Jakarta last week.  She probably never would have guessed someone would be making her recipe literally acoss the world.  The cake was awesome and won raves at the party; everyone asked for a piece di bungkus (wrapped up) at the end.

Below is the recipe, although a word of warning if you live in a humid climate:  this frosting does not fare well in the heat and humidity.  I didn't know this, so Tim and I took the cake on the road, trying to walk it the 5 blocks from our air-conditioned apartment to the party.  Bad plan... the frosting literally melted off the cake, pulling away from the sides and liquidizing.  Oops!  It still tasted good, but the consistency was a little bit off.

Moist Chocolate Cake

Step 1:  Sift together:

3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

½ tsp salt

2 tsp baking soda

5 tbsp cocoa  

Step 2: Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients.  In one put 2 tbsp vanilla extract, in the second put 2 tbsp white vinegar and in the third put ¾ cup vegetable oil.

Step 3: Pour 2 cups water over top and mix well

Step 4: grease and flour cooking pans (either two 9-inch round cake pans or one 9”x13” rectangle pan)

Step 5: Bake at 350◦F oven, 30 minutes for 9 inch pans or 40 minutes for 9”x13” pan 
                                                                                                                                              

Fluffy White Frosting

1 cup sugar

½ cup water

1/8 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp corn syrup

2 egg whites, stiffly beaten

1 tsp vanilla

Step 1: Heat first 4 ingredients slowly to boiling and cook without stirring to 212◦F or to soft ball stage. (My candy thermometer is not super reliable, but I looked up other similar recipes and one stated that you should cook it until you saw "thick, clear bubbles.)

Step 2: Pour over beaten egg whites.  Beat with mixer until fluffy, billowy and shiny (about 5 minutes).

Happy Fourth of July! American Flag Cake

A Fourth of July BBQ calls for a dramatic red, white and blue dessert. I made this massive white sheet cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh summer berries, shaped like a giant star-spangled banner, while the neighborhood kids set off their own massive fireworks in the alley.
America... f*ck yeah.The recipe (care of the Other Martha) is really good, and there's a video to show you how to handle the giant layers. The cake itself is light and fluffy (probably due to the 16 whipped egg whites in the batter), almost like angel food cake. The only change I made was to put parchment paper on the cookie sheets rather than buttering and flouring them, for sake of convenience.

Baby Shower Goodies: The Sweet Stuff

Barbara's baby shower was capped off by lots and lots of mini-cupcakes, which were the hit of the party. Joanne says I could sell the cupcakes out of a truck and be the next lobster truck. I don't know about that, but I know these cupcakes were really tasty, and that I got to use my piping set, which was really fun!

One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes with Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

I'd made these cupcake and buttercream recipes successfully in the past, so I knew they would be reliable for the party. My prediction proved to be true- Amy threw the cupcakes together with little fanfare, but the fanfare when the party-goers snatched them up was another story.

Carrot Cake Mini-Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting

Molly made this cake for Colleen's birthday and it was so good I begged her for the recipe. I made it exactly as she had- substituting some oil with applesauce- and achieved really good results. Here's the recipe:

Carrot Cake Mini-Cupcakes

4 eggs
¼ cup vegetable oil
1 cup applesauce
2 cups sugar (1 white, 1 brown)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch pan or use paper liners in mini-muffin tins
3. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla.
4. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon
5. Stir in carrots
6. Pour into prepared pan
7. For 9 x 13 cake, bake 40-50 minutes; for mini-cupcakes, bake 10-12 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Cream Cheese Frosting

½ cup butter, softened
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, sugar and vanilla
2. Beat until smooth and creamy

Turkey Cupcakes

Vanilla Cupcakes...chocolate frosting...candy corn beaks and tail feathers...marshmallow eyes (with red gel) and chocolate sprinkles for flare!

Voila!

Amy's great, she bakes me a chocolate cake!

Amy baked and hand-decorated this kick-ass double chocolate cake for my birthday party. Amazing. Super rich, moist and chocolatey. I think it's the coffee in the batter, and Amy's magic touch. She tells me that left out 1/2 C of sugar, and used Ghirardelli chocolate.

Delicious. Got this song in my head.

The decorations were made with this buttermilk frosting recipe:

Buttercream icing for decorating:

1/2 c. vegetable shortening

1/2 c. butter or margarine, softened

4 c. sifted confectioners' sugar

2 tbsp. milk (+ more milk or light corn syrup for easier spreading)

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and shortening with electric mixer. Add vanilla. Gradually add sugar, one cup at a time, beating well on medium speed. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often. When all the sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at high speed until light and fluffy. Keep icing covered with a damp cloth until you're ready to decorate. For best results, keep icing in refrigerator when you're not using. Makes 3 cups icing.

Happy Birthday, Chuckie: Take Two

For Chuckie's birthday kegger, I made a million (well, 72, minus the 7 or so I accidentally flipped onto the bottom of the oven) bite-sized chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. Tasty!

I doubled-down on this easy chocolate cupcake recipe, and made 2 times Ina Garten's PB frosting recipe. Since I was using the mini-muffin tins, I sprayed the tins rather than use paper liners, and I cooked the cupcakes for 10 minutes.