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).

S'mores Cookies-The City S'more

In honor of Labor Day and end of summer, Tony and I had some friends over for dinner.  We made the Real Martha's pulled pork and potato salad.  I was looking for an easy, yet summer-y dessert.  I found this recipe on Pinterest (my new obsession).

Quite delicious, but next time I would add more marshmallows for more gooeyness.

UPDATE:  This is Meg.  I tried out Chuck's recipe this weekend- good stuff!  All the chocolatey/marshmallowy goodness of s'mores, but in a pre-made cookie package.  I took Chuck's advice and added much more marshmallow.  I only have large marshmallows, so I cut them up with scissors and wedged probably one and a half between the cookie dough and the graham cracker.  They tried to flop over in the oven, but once you smoosh the whole thing down with the Hershey's, it's all good.

I made marshmallows... and it was messy.

After making a couple batches of ice cream in the past week, I had about 8 egg whites lounging in the fridge, waiting to be put to good use.  I did some Googling to try to find a recipe I could make with all those egg whites that didn't involve an oven, which we are not yet in possession of....  My ice cream guru, David Lebovitz, had some suggestions which included homemade marshmallows.  Marshmallows don't require an oven, so I decided to give them a try. 

Tray of sticky marshmallow dough.

 Messy, very messy.  First sticky, then powdery.  Then, in my case, sticky again.

Cutting and powdering the marshmallows.

I used sheet gelatin since they didn't seem to have plain powdered gelatin at our grocery store here (despite the Indonesia's love of weird jiggly gelatin desserts).  Luckily, David's instructions included options for sheet gelatin.  I also ended up using cane syrup in place of corn syrup, which I didn't find here. 

Marshmallows.  Fin.

Overall, my version seemed to work out pretty well... bouncy, fluffy, light, sugary, just like marshmallows should be.  However, they were a little damp, which I think is because I got impatient when the mixture was cooling.  I should have let it go longer.  Also, apparently I am not very good at cutting a sheet into equally-sized squares.  My talents lie elsewhere.

Now we just need to see if they melt properly, because, as you well know, marshmallows are best when they're crispy on the outside and melty on the inside.  S'mores are on the menu this weekend, provided I can find graham crackers.

S'mores Brownies

I have been thinking about making these S'mores Brownies from Joy the Baker for months.
I love s'mores, I love brownies- what could be bad about these?

After reading some of the comments on Joy's recipe, I was a little nervous about the brownie part of her recipe, so I decided to take her general s'mores idea and combine it with my favorite (reliable, but ridiculously named) brownie, the Man Catcher brownie.
Good idea... the brownies were fudgey and delicious, with bits of graham cracker scattered throughout, topped with gooey toasted, caramelized marshmallows. Awesome.

Happy Birthday, Chuckie!

When she was little, Chuckie had an obsession with those Little Debbie Oatmeal Creme Pies... so we re-created them for her birthday, in lieu of a birthday cake. And by "we," I mean Tony baked them on his day off while I provided moral support to him over IM from my cube at work. He's a novice baker, but after a few minor missteps, he was victorious in the end. And now he knows what "cream" means in the baking context... and knowing is half the battle.

Using a recipe I found on a blog, they came out pretty close to the original- soft oatmeal cookies with a gooey marshmallow frosting on the inside. I think maybe if we were to make them again, we would try to use less sugar... they were borderline cloyingly sweet. But tasty nonetheless.