Almond Bergamot Bundt Cake

A couple of weeks ago, I set out to make a pound cake. You see, we’ve been getting an awesome egg share this year from Southtown Farms, and my family and I figured we’d be able to go through the full share at a dozen a week. Well, we were doing just fine with it, actually, until one day someone accidentally bought an extra dozen eggs or two to make quiche, and then we just had a million damn eggs. I’d seen some pound cake recipes online that used a whole lot of eggs, so I looked at a few (here’s one I used for reference) and made up the rest based on what ingredients I had around.

We ended up bringing this cake to my aunt & uncle’s house one evening when we had a BBQ. My other uncle was there, too, as was part of my immediate family and my cousin. Since my Heritage Bundt Pan produces a pretty huge cake, I figured I’d only need to bring half of it with me, but I never got around to cutting it and brought the whole thing. As it turned out, nearly 7/8ths of the whole cake was gone – despite the fact that a few members of the family are trying to avoid sugar! Too tempting, I guess. :)

The flavors here came out really nicely. They layered together well with just an undertone of vanilla, a hint of caramel at the edges from using the natural sugar, and then the headiness of almond and bergamot (which you’ll recognize as what makes Earl Grey tea taste as it does). I finished this moist cake with a drizzle of a nice quality melted dark chocolate – I used a bar of Dagoba I’d gotten as a gift.

*Note: If you do not have the required bergamot extract, you can infuse the milk with Earl Grey tea for a similar result.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups butter
6 eggs
3 cups whole wheat flour (this is what I had on hand – you can use white whole wheat or split between whole wheat and all purpose)
2 cups natural sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla bean paste
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 teaspoon bergamot extract
2/3 cup yogurt (I used one 5.3 oz cup)
1/3 cup milk
1/2-3/4 bar of good dark chocolate, about 1-1.5 oz (optional)
handful of slivered almonds, toasted (optional)

Directions

Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt or tube pan. Do not preheat the oven.

In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, mixing well each time. Add vanilla, almond, and bergamot extracts.

Add flour mixture to the cream mixture, alternately with yogurt. Add milk. Beat until smooth. Pour batter into the prepared tube or Bundt pan. Place pan on a tray to prevent overflow in the oven.

Place cake into cold oven, set the temperature to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and bake for 60 to 90 minutes, or until toothpick inserted into center of cake comes out clean. (This took me about 60 minutes, but your mileage may vary depending on how long your oven takes to heat up.) Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning it out onto a cooling rack.

In a double boiler or CAREFULLY in the microwave (don’t burn it!), melt the chocolate. Cut the tip off a small plastic sandwich bag. Spoon in the melted chocolate, and drizzle lines back and forth over the cake. Decorate with almond slivers if desired. Let the chocolate set before serving.

Lemon Whoopie Pies Two Ways

I’m part of an online baking community, and this month, the monthly challenge was to take a box mix and transform it. I’ve been watching a lot of Chopped lately, so I was definitely interested in seeing what I could do.

I got the idea to make Whoopie Pies, though not the traditional black and white kind. (Chocolate cake with vanilla icing is actually my least favorite.) I picked up a box of Organic Lemon Cake mix at Whole Foods early in the month, and it sat in the pantry for quite a while.

Today I finally got into gear. I used a recipe I found online to turn the cake mix into whoopie pie mix, but the batter really looked too runny to me. Hoping for some kind of miracle, I spooned some onto the parchment. They came out thin and flat, just as I’d expected. So, I altered the recipe with some baking powder and extra flour, and then they came out perfectly.

I went ahead and assembled my whoopie pies, and I let my partner and my little brother eat some of the failed flat ones. I still had four or five of them left, though, and I had some beautiful, ripe peaches from our farm share. I sliced a peach super thin, went to the garden and got some lemon basil, and made a second beautiful dessert.

If you want to make the Napolean variation, just omit the extra flour and baking powder. Use a cup or a cookie cutter to obtain uniform shapes, then layer the thin pastry with slivers of peaches and whipped cream or custard. Garnish with lemon basil to bring together these amazing flavors.

For the whoopie pies, I chose to make them a bit smaller than they traditionally are. I find the larger ones to be sugar-headache inducing! For the filling, I made one buttercream, then split it and flavored half with raspberry and half with lavender.

Ingredients
For the whoopie pies
1 box of lemon cake mix
3 eggs
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup oil
1/3 cup flour (or til the batter is thickened; for whoopie pies only)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder (for whoopie pies only)

For the filling
1 stick butter
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/4 teaspoon lavender extract
2 tablespoons seedless raspberry jam

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

In a mixer or a large bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, water, oil, flour, and baking powder. Stir until smooth.

Drop the batter onto the parchment lined cookie sheet. I used about 1 tablespoon for each; you can make them bigger, but they may need an extra couple minutes to cook. Try to make them round!

Bake for 5-8 minutes. Carefully peel back the parchment and let the rounds cool on a rack.

Meanwhile, make the buttercream filling. In a mixer, combine the butter and sugar until a smooth frosting is formed. Add a few drops of water or milk if necessary. If making two flavors, divide the filling in half. In one bowl, add the lavender extract (to taste) and mix well. In another bowl, add the raspberry jam to taste and mix well.

Using a spoon or a piping bag (I used a star tip on the raspberry ones and an angled tip on the lavender ones, just for cuteness), fill in some frosting on the flat side of one of the whoopie pies. Add another one on top for the lid. Continue making the little sandwiches, using one flavor for some and the other for others. If you feel inspired, roll the edges in sprinkles for an extra sweet look.

Keep refrigerated. They also apparently freeze well!

Peach Crisp with Honey & Coconut

The weather has been unusually warm here lately, and the Jersey peaches have been available sweet and absolutely ridiculously delicious for weeks. I went to a farmers market one Tuesday almost a month ago and bought a small bucket of peaches that held perhaps five beautiful peaches. I only got to eat one of those incredible peaches, as my littlest brother, age 12, apparently ate the rest of them in immediate succession. The next week, I went back and bought two or three times as many, and I got to eat one in my morning oatmeal.

Charlie has a bit of an allergy to some hand fruits like apples and peaches, and I felt so bad that he couldn’t enjoy these awesome peaches with me. Since they don’t seem to bother him when they’re cooked, on my last trip to the farmers market, I bought enough to make a crisp or a cobbler with. (I never remember if there’s a difference between the two…)

I have a pretty big amount of honey left over from a wedding cake I did several months ago, and I’ve been thinking for a while about making a crisp/cobbler with honey as the sugar. I assumed it would be fine, but I did a bit of googling, and it seemed like people had been successful with it.

I also decided to go out on a limb and change out the fat that I used. I’ve been trying to be mindful of the food I’m putting in my body lately. (I recently got back from a roadtrip, and nearly every time I go on a roadtrip, I clean up my eating habits when I return because I feel crappy from eating so much crappy food on the road.) I decided to give coconut oil a try in this recipe since I’ve been wanting to experiment with cooking with it, and also because peach and coconut are great together.

The flavors in this were amazing. The peaches were perfect (no sweetener needed in the fruit portion). On the first day, the taste of honey shone through, but the next day, the coconut flavor showed itself a bit more. I would definitely make this again with these variations.

With a crisp, I usually just wing it, so unfortunately, these measurements are sort of approximations, but, in my experience, crisps are pretty darn forgiving, so it all works out. :)

*Note: My peaches were very juicy, and after the first day, things got a bit sloshy, so if yours are very juicy, too, I’d suggest mixing a tiny bit of cornstarch in with the fruit.

Ingredients

5-7 large peaches, pitted and cut into slices or large chunks (I left the skins on)
2 plums (optional, these were just very ripe and needed to be used)
1/3-1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil
1 2/3 cup old-fashioned oats
3/4 cup white whole wheat flour
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons pepitas (optional)
1/3 cup coconut flakes (optional)

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Spread the fruit in the bottom of a pan (I used a corningware one about 12x12x2).

In a mixer or large bowl, combine the honey and coconut oil. Mix until blended. Add the dry ingredients (oats, flour, salt, ginger, cinnamon) and mix until large crumbs are form. Add a bit more flour or oats if necessary. Stir in the walnuts. Spread evenly over the top of the fruit. Sprinkle the pepitas and coconut on top.

Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes or until the crisp is brown and the fruit is bubbling. Enjoy warm!

Chocolate Orange Christmas Bundt

Image is of a chocolate bundt cake on top of a red and green quilt. My mom made that quilt, isn’t it lovely?

When my dad and brothers eat out at a restaurant, they always order the “Death by Chocolate” dessert, so when I bake a cake for the family at Christmas, I always try to make something very chocolatey. If I don’t, I’ll get comments like, “This cake is good… but there isn’t enough chocolate.” Last year I made this Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, which was a chocolate layer cake made with black cocoa filled with raspberry jam and topped with both a whipped and poured chocolate ganache.

Chocolate and orange together have always seemed rather Christmassy to me, probably in part due to the seasonal nature of citrus during the winter, and also because my family has sometimes bought those chocolates that are infused with orange that you smack on the table and come away with individual slices of chocolate. This year, I planned a chocolate orange bundt with a poured chocolate ganache on top. (I’m finally ready to face bundt pans again after doing Micah and Casey’s many-bundt wedding cake in September.)

I’ve seen this Cook’s Illustrated chocolate cake recipe talked about all over the internet for ages, and it always seemed like a pain to me. Really? Cocoa and bittersweet chocolate? Boiling water for a cake? But here’s the great thing about using the boiling water – it means that you don’t have to melt down the chocolate in a double boiler, so you don’t have to wash that extra pan, but you still get the lovely richness from the chopped chocolate.

I’ve adapted the recipe to add orange extract and orange zest to add flavor without disrupting the dry/liquid balance of this tried and true recipe. It really came out wonderfully, a cake that wasn’t too sweet and was perfectly complimented by the poured ganache. It looked beautiful on our holiday table and was wonderful with a dollop of fresh whipped cream. If you don’t celebrate Christmas, it would be wonderful for the new year!

Ingredients

3/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa (2 1/4 ounces)
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
3/4 cup water (boiling)
1 cup sour cream, room temperature
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
12 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar (I used a scant two cups rather than packed two cups to cut back on the sugar a bit)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3 teaspoons orange extract
zest of 1 orange
5 large eggs, room temperature

1 batch of poured ganache

Directions

Grease and lightly dust a 12-cup Bundt pan with cocoa powder. Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position; heat oven to 350 degrees.

Combine cocoa, chocolate in medium heatproof bowl; pour boiling water over and whisk until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then whisk in sour cream. Whisk flour, salt, and baking soda in second bowl to combine.

In stand mixer fitted with flat beater, beat butter, sugar, vanilla, and orange extract on medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium and add eggs one at a time, mixing about 30 seconds after each addition and scraping down bowl with rubber spatula after first 2 additions.

Reduce to medium-low speed; add about one third of flour mixture and half of chocolate/sour cream mixture and mix until just incorporated, about 20 seconds. Scrape bowl and repeat using half of remaining flour mixture and all of remaining chocolate mixture; add remaining flour mixture and beat until just incorporated, about 10 seconds. Scrape bowl and mix on medium-low until batter is thoroughly combined, about 30 seconds. Add orange zest and stir. Pour batter into prepared Bundt pan, being careful not to pour batter on sides of pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F until wooden skewer inserted into center comes out with few crumbs attached, 50 minutes to an hour. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert cake onto parchment-lined wire rack.

Prepare the ganache (Recipe is in a separate post here) and pour it over the cake. Let the ganache set (this could take a few hours). Keep refrigerated until a few minutes before serving. Serve with fresh whipped cream.

Chocolate Ganache

Image is of a wisk in a bowl of chocolate ganache.

I make chocolate ganache often enough now that I figured I should dedicate a whole post to it. It will be short (and sweet!) for now, but I may come back to this in a few days to report back after I use up some leftovers on truffles.

This particular post finally got put up due to my Chocolate Orange Christmas Bundt, but you can use it for all sorts of delicious chocolatey fun.

Nearly every ganache recipe I’ve seen is very, very similar, but I’ll link you to Joy of Baking because it’s got some helpful hints and tips on there, like that you should ideally use a chocolate with less than 58% cacao in it for textural reasons.

But look. Joy of Baking does butter in their ganache. I usually don’t. And then there’s all kinds of confusing crap between cups and ounces when we’re talking chocolate. But in my experience, if you take an average sized bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips (they’re usually about 10oz) and put that to a cup of cream, you’ll get a good ganache going. I’ve made it work with a little less. I’ve made it work with a little more. I’ve mixed bittersweet and semi-sweet. And the one time it all went wrong, it still tasted pretty darn good. Experiment a little.

Ingredients

9 ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 tablespoon dark rum (optional)

Directions

Chop the chocolate into small pieces and place it in a large stainless steel bowl.

In a large, high sided saucepan, heat cream over medium high heat, stirring frequently, until it starts to boil. Watch it carefully to ensure that it does not boil over. Remove immediately from heat and pour over the chopped chocolate.

Wisk the chocolate and cream together until the chocolate is completely melted and mixture is smooth.

For poured ganache, allow the mixture to cool slightly, then pour over the cake.

For whipped ganache, allow the mixture to cool at room temperature for about two hours, then use a stand mixer to whip the attachment into a fluffy frosting.

Store ganache in refrigerator.

An update and some favorite recipes from the past…

Hey Measuring Spoons Readers!

First off, if you celebrate a winter holiday, I hope it’s happy!

Secondly, I wanted to give a sort of general life update post, which I don’t do that often, but you know, sometimes I do particularly when I’ve been slacking off on the blog quite a bit… and I know that I haven’t been posting delicious holiday cookie or cake recipes. Believe me, I want nothing more than to be hanging out, baking cookies lately, but there’s been some stuff going on in my life that’s been keeping me out of the kitchen.

As you might have guessed (if you’ve been following the blog for a while, or you’ve read the About page), part of the reason I haven’t been around much is my health. I have a fancy new diagnosis (Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, Hypermobility Type), which is just another explanation for why my joints are all wonky and sore all the time. Plus, I’ve had some flare ups of an old injury, my RA, and my fibromyalgia, so I’ve been kind of achey and tired.

Charlie and I are also in the process of moving, which, as I’m sure you know, can be exhausting! We’re at a stopover for now with some family since we’re still making some decisions about where we’re going to live, what we can afford, and what our long-term plans before we commit to a lease. The great thing about this is that I’ve gotten to spend some time cooking meals for my 12 year old brother, who is way more adventurous with food than I was at his age, and he’s tried things like brussels sprouts and tofu and butternut squash lasagna and lentil soup and for the most part, really enjoyed the food I’ve made.

And here’s another cool thing. I’ve been focusing on my writing a bit. I’ve recently finished my first novel and will soon begin the editing process to see if I can turn it into something that anyone else will want to read! I’ve also been writing short pieces, fiction and nonfiction, and I’m happy to report that I just had a short piece published in an actual book, you know, the kind that you can buy on Amazon and everything. How neat is that?

So those are just a few of the things that have kept me a bit busy. I’m hoping to make some delicious things for the family this weekend, and if that happens, I’ll try to get them posted before the New Year so that you can them out.

In the meantime, here are some favorites that are great for the holidays:

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
Darling Clementines
Cranberry Sauce Almondies
Irksome Iced Sugar Cookies
Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting
Dressmaker’s Double Stout Cookies
Holiday Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Spiral Herb Rolls

Again, happy holidays, and I hope to be baking and posting more soon!

Cupcake Sliders & Cookie Fries

I have absolutely neglected this blog lately, and for that I am sorry! As I probably mentioned, September I spent almost all of my baking time testing cake for our dear friends’ wedding because I wanted it to be just right. It was a success! I haven’t gotten any pictures back yet, but when I do, I’ll be sure to share them.

Last week, my youngest brother came to me and told me that he needed to bring in cupcakes for his class for his upcoming 12th birthday, and he wanted my help. He told me that one of the moms from his class actually had a gourmet cupcake business, and so everyone had been super impressed when they’d brought red velvet cupcakes for the class.

We started talking about what my brother likes. We talked about doing colossal mocha brownies, or pumpkin blondies, or tiny pies. Then we talked about things that were more like novelty items, like cake pops. I showed him Bakerella’s site with all the fancy cake pops on there. Then, I remembered something that Bakerella had posted a while back. Something they called Fast Food Fun.

“I know what to do,” I told my brother, and I pulled up the photos. The idea is to make a little “hamburger” brownie, on a cupcake “bun” and serve it with sugar cookie “french fries.”

My brother thought it was just about the most awesome thing in the world. I hardly ever use box mixes, but I told him that if we were going to be making brownies, cupcakes, cookies, AND decorating, we were going to use mixes.

We got little red and white paper trays at a party store to serve the treats in, and before he came home from school one afternoon, I prepared a family size box of brownies in a disposable pan. I made about 30 cupcakes out of a mix that’s supposed to make two dozen, figuring that if they were a little short, it would be more realistic, and he’d have a few more to go around. I doctored the cake mix a bit, adding some cinnamon (to make it look like it was flecked with grains) and some citrusy and vanilla extracts to bump the flavors up a bit. I waited until my brother got home to do the cookies so that he’d be involved in the baking process.

We cut slice & bake cookies into strips, and then cut them again when they were still cooling to get them into thin, french fry shapes. It was a bit painstaking, but not as painstaking as making rolled sugar cookies would have been, since you know how I love doing that.

Finally, it was time for the exciting part. We cut the cupcakes in half. We mixed the store-bought frosting with gel food coloring to make mustard, ketchup, and lettuce. We filled my piping bags, and we went to town!

Here I am pretending to pipe so my mom could take some photos. That’s my brother’s hand sneaking in there to put some bun tops on, but he’s a little young for me to be plastering pictures of him all over the internet. (Give him a few years and he can do that for himself!)

We finished up by brushing the tops of the cupcakes with water and sprinkling sesame seeds on the top. Here’s one of the finished trays:

I think one of the funniest things about this is that I haven’t eaten a real hamburger in about 17 years. (I’ve had veggie burgers, of course, but I haven’t eaten beef in that long.)

We put them in a giant cake box for easy transport.

They really do look like we’re serving sliders!

This was a super fun project. Thanks to Bakerella for the idea!

Irksome Iced Sugar Cookies

There’s nothing irksome about this particular sugar cookie recipe. I just don’t like making rolled sugar cookies! But as I mentioned in a previous post, my mom asked me to mail my brother some cookies, and I decided that sugar cookies and Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies would be the best route.

Of course, it’s been very hot here lately. I’d guess it was 95 degrees the day I decided to make rolled sugar cookies, you know, the kind that have butter that melts all over the place in them. I selected a “no-fail” recipe, but when I halved it, it did not work out, and I had to add much more flour. This recipe is adapted from Amanda over at i am baker, and I also used her icing just about as-is. I just drizzled the icing because I was in a hurry, but there’s all sorts of fancy things you can do with it.

You know what, though? As much as I piss and moan about it, these cookies were really good, so I think that I’m going to put them on my to-do list for this Christmas. You know… when it’s a bit cooler and the dough isn’t just sliding off the kitchen table. *wink*

Ingredients

3/4 cup unsalted Butter
1 cup sugar
1 whole eggs
1 whole eggs yolk
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract (use a little more if you like – I find that it can be overpowering)
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking Powder

For the icing:
1 cup confectioners sugar
1 tablespoon milk (give or take – less milk for thicker icing, more for thinner)
1 drop lemon juice (fresh or processed)
1 tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions

In your stand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until well combined, about 2 minutes.

Add in eggs and egg yolk and mix until combined. Add in vanilla and almond extract; mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly (about a cup at a time) add flour to butter mixture and combine. Do not overmix the dough.

Put dough in some Saran wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, more if possible. When you are ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out, cut out cookies, and bake for 6-8 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

To make the frosting, simply combine powder sugar, corn syrup, and lemon juice in a bowl. For some fancy tips and cool decorating photos, check out Amanda’s post.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Surprise Cookies (Veg*n)

[I started this the other day, but didn't get a chance to post it! Cookies are baked and shipped!] One of my younger brothers is a music education major, and this summer, he’s teaching music at a summer camp on the left coast. I got an email from my mom last week saying that he’d requested a care package “including cookies,” and my mom asked if I felt like baking some.

Chocolate chippers are usually my go-to cookie when it comes to giving them to people, since almost everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie, but seeing as I’m in the NYC area, and my brother is currently in California, and the heat has been reaching triple digits, I figured that mailing anything with chocolate chips would end up looking pretty sad.

My mom suggested that my brother liked sugar cookies, and although I hate hate hate rolling out sugar cookies, I’ve been feeling a bit more adventurous lately and decided to give it a go. So far this morning, they’ve been a complete failure, but I will try to win again later.

The other cookie that I thought would be a hit with my brother are these chocolate peanut butter surprise cookies. I rarely make them because they (similar to rolling out sugar cookies and then decorating them) are labor intensive. The end result, however, is very cool.

To make these cookies, you first make a chocolate cookie dough (this one happens to be vegan), and then, separately, you make a simple peanut butter filling. The labor intensive part comes next, where you sit at your kitchen table for a looooong time, smushing little discs of chocolate dough, putting a little ball of peanut butter filling in the center, then carefully wrapping the chocolate cookie dough around it. If you work carefully, there will be no trace of the peanut butter on the outside, and only when the person bites into the cookie will they discover the peanut butter filling (just make sure you don’t serve these to someone with nut allergies!).

This recipe is floating around the internet from a million different sources. I don’t have it memorized, so I had a look at the one here before modifying it a bit.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup black cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/4 cup vegetable shortening (you can use all Earth Balance, but I was mailing these and wanted something a little less prone to melting)
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup soy milk
1 egg replacer
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/3 cup chocolate chips (optional – I left them out this time because I was mailing them in during summer)

Directions

In a medium bowl, mix flour, cocoa powder, black cocoa, and baking soda.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the Earth Balance, shortening, sugar, and brown sugar. When combined, mix in the egg replacer.

Add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and mix.

In a separate small bowl, mix the powdered sugar and peanut butter with a spoon or your hands. (I find that your hands work best here, otherwise it will just turn into small crumbs of peanut buttery powdered sugar, and you really want them thoroughly mixed into a paste.) When ingredients are incorporated, add the chocolate chips (if desired) and knead further with your hands to incorporate the chocolate chips.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Take about a 2 tablespoons of the chocolate dough in your hand, and roll into a ball. Flatten the ball on the parchment paper to form a disk. Take a pinch (or about 1 teaspoon) of the peanut butter mixture and place in the center of the disk. Fold the edges of the disk up and over the peanut butter, pressing the seams together. Place the cookie seam-side down on the parchment paper to bake.

Bake for 8-12 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven. Cool on wire baking racks.

Chocolate Cola Cupcakes

For Christmas, Charlie got me both of the Baked books after I’d ooohed and ahhhed over them in Barnes and Noble one day. I’ve tried out one or two of the recipes (let me say right now that I cannot wait to make Aunt Sassy Cake), but since I often make up my own recipes or have other folks request something that they’ve already had, it’s tough for me to follow something exactly from a book.

I’ll start out by mentioning that we really don’t drink soda. I am one of those people who is morally opposed to high fructose corn syrup (there! I’ve said it!) for many reasons (feel free to email me if you want to see me on a soapbox), but Charlie had to run an event for his job the other week, and we ended up with some soda at home. We donated most of it to another event, but there were a few rogue cans that got left behind.

I remembered seeing a recipe that had root beer in it in one of the Baked books, so I hunted it down. They wanted root beer, and I had coke, so that was the first change I made. The second change I made was, as usual, to reduce the amount of sugar in the recipe, but other than that, I pretty much stuck to it.

This recipe is based off of the Root Beer Bundt Cake from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. They came out really good, though they didn’t have too much of a soda flavor. I expected it to be not-too-pronounced since it was coke and not root beer, but I think I may try the recipe again and try the tip that they included: If you can find root beer schnapps, replace 1/2 cup of the root beer in the cake with root beer schnapps for a more pronounced taste.

**I’m giving away a neat set of measuring spoons! Check out the giveaway here!

Ingredients: Cake
2 cups cola or root beer (do not use diet)
1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder (I used KAF’s black cocoa)
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs

Ingredients: Frosting

2 ounces chocolate (the recipe called for 60% cacao, but I shockingly only had semi-sweet, and it turned out just fine)
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup of whichever soda you chose above
2/3 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line cupcake tin with papers. (This recipe was originally made for a 10 inch Bundt pan. If using a Bundt pan, generously spray the inside of the pan with nonstick cooking spray or butter it, dust it with flour, and knock out the excess flour.

in a small saucepan, heat the root beer, cocoa powder, and butter over medium heat until the butter is melted. Add the sugars and whisk until dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together.

In small bowl, whisk the eggs until just beginning. Add a small amount of the cooled cocoa mixture to the beaten eggs to ensure that they are tempered. Combine the two mixtures and whisk. Gently fold the flour mixture into the cocoa mixture. The batter will be slightly lumpy–do not over be, as it could cause the cake to be tough.

Pour the batter into the prepared cupcake tins and bake for 15 to 22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. If using a Bundt pan, bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

To make the frosting, put all the ingredients in a food processor. Pulse in short bursts until the frosting is shiny and smooth.

You may use a piping bag to frost cupcakes or simply use a spatula to spread the frosting on the cupcakes and/or on the bundt. Let the frosting set before serving. For a cute decorating twist, cut straws to be shorter, then stick them into the cupcakes. Serve with ice cream if desired.

Carrot Cake with Bourbon Cream Cheese Frosting

Charlie’s birthday was last Sunday, but Sunday, we were at the tail end of a 30+ hour train ride from New Orleans back to New York. Our trip was delayed a bit because of the tornado in Alabama. We actually rode right through Tuscaloosa, AL, and the damage was just incredible. It was super sad and almost unbelievable to just see huge trees absolutely snapped in half. If you’d like to help the folks out in Alabama, one way you can do it is by texting FOOD to 27722 to donate $10 to the West Alabama Food Bank.

Now that we’re back in New York, and I’ve spend the week resting and doing laundry and other mundane stuff, it’s time to catch up on Charlie’s birthday. We had about four pounds of carrots from our last winter CSA delivery, so a carrot cake was certainly in order.

As usual, when making this recipe, I looked at a whole bunch of different carrot cake recipes and then mishmoshed them together, though I’d say the one that was the closest to what I was looking for was over at The Joy of Baking. I still made a bunch of changes, including reducing the amount of raisins and nuts and pineapple and making a spicier cake, since those are things that (if I recall correctly!) I’ve heard Charlie say he prefers in a carrot cake.

Charlie’s mom was around when I was baking this cake, and I let her taste the batter. She made a noise of exclamation. “What did you put in this?” she demanded. “It’s going to smell so good,” she said. She went to the kitchen window and started to open the window, then looked back at me. “That way the neighbors can smell it and be jealous,” she smiled.

Usually when I bake, it’s all about the flavor and nothing about the presentation. Friday night, though, I took a nap while the cake was cooling, then got a second wind and baked a whole second cake! I decided to really spend some time decorating the carrot cake while the chocolate chip cake was in the oven. The decorating didn’t come out perfectly, since it got to be two in the morning, I was getting sleepy, and the sequence that I did certain things in was not necessarily the most efficient, but it came out pretty darn nice.

I almost never write on cakes [the last time I did was probably last year's super silly birthday cake for myself, when I couldn't even find the tip for writing] so I was really, really happy with how the script came out. I took a half dozen semesters of typography in college, so I would have been gutted if my cake lettering was awful.

I think I’m getting the hang of this baking thing. *wink*

Photo of the cake topped with drunk raisins, drunk pineapple, and drunk ginger.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups oil
4 large eggs
3/4 cup granulated white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound carrots, shredded (about 3 1/2 cups shredded, or about a dozen small carrots)
1/3 cup walnuts, chopped
1/2 cup raisins
2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
2 tablespoons finely chopped pineapple (optional)
a few tablespoons of flavorful bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon cardamom

Ingredients: Cream Cheese Frosting
(sorry, I just kind of flung things into the mixer on this one!)

2 bricks of cream cheese
3/4 stick of butter
2 cups (or more, according to taste) confectioners sugar
2 tablespoons bourbon (I used Woodford Reserve)
2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste
toasted coconut (for garnish)

Directions

Carrot Cake: Several hours before beginning, make the “drunk raisins.” I learned this tip from a new friend when we were out in New Orleans – thanks, Darnell! Place the raisins and ginger (and pineapple, if desired) in a small bowl. Add a small amount of bourbon – enough so that the fruit is covered. Let it soak for at least an hour, preferably more. Reserve a few tablespoons of this mixture for the decorating step.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and place rack in center of oven. Spray two 9″ cake pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, ground cinnamon, nutmeg, and cardamom.

In bowl of a stand mixer mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the eggs until frothy (about 1 minute). Gradually add the sugar and beat until the batter is thick and light colored (about 3 – 4 minutes). Add the oil in a steady stream and then beat in the vanilla extract. Add the flour mixture and beat just until incorporated. With a large rubber spatula fold in the grated carrots, drunk raisins (don’t forget to reserve some!), and chopped nuts. Evenly divide the batter between the two prepared pans and bake 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove from oven and let cool on a wire rack. After about 5 -10 minutes invert the cakes onto the wire rack and then cool completely before frosting.

To assemble: place one cake layer onto your serving plate. Spread with about half the frosting. Sprinkle nuts, ginger and raisins if desired. Gently place the other cake onto the frosting and spread the rest of the frosting over the top of the cake. If desired, garnish with toasted coconut around the sides of the cake. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.

Note about decorating: If you’re like me, and you prefer a much less sweet frosting, your frosting won’t be as stiff. What I did was frost the cake with the thinner icing, then, for the remaining 1/3 or so of the frosting, I added an extra cup or two of confectioners’ sugar. That way, the frosting was stiff enough to pipe the letters and the edge, but the entire cake wasn’t sickeningly sweet.

Tea Tasting: Whisky Cake

Thanks to Traczie for the great photos of the tea party!

I have several books from this really cute series of Favourite Recipes that cost about $2 each on Amazon, and they feature recipes from various parts of the UK. The recipe that I’m using today is from the Scottish Teatime Recipes book.

I made this for the Tea Tasting we had last month. Instead of one big cake, I made it in mini muffin tins, which were a great size, but the brown sugar in the recipe really caramalized onto even my awesome nonstick pan, making them a little hard to get out. I also made a couple of mini rounds, which would probably be a perfect personal cake size.

I made a few changes, and you can play with the ratio of the icing until it suits you, but these were quite popular and I’ll likely make a variation of them again.

Ingredients: Cake

3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup whisky (I used Jameson)
zest of 1 orange

Ingredients: Icing

2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup confectioners sugar
1/4 cup honey
juice of 1 orange
toasted sliced almonds to decorate (optional)
1 tablespoon whisky (I used Jameson)
orange extract to taste

Directions

Preheat oven to 375*F. Grease mini muffin tins (or two 7″ sandwich tins).

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl. Add the orange zest. Beat in the eggs one at a time and whisk until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Sift in about half the flour and add the whisky. Fold into the mixture. Sift in the remaining flour and fold in.

Distribute the mixture into the tins. Bake for 12-15 minutes for mini muffin tins, 20-25 minutes for sandwich tins, until light golden. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

To make the icing, put the butter into a mixing bowl. Add the honey, whisky, orange extract, and the orange juice. Sift in the icing sugar slowly and work the mixture gradually until the ingredients are combined. When it reaches the desired consistency, spread over the cakes.

Lemon (Not Poppyseed) Ginger Cake

A few weeks ago some of our dearest friends, Micah & Casey [of Casey's Chai Cake], had an engagement party, thrown by some of our other wonderful friends, Kai & Sarah and their new baby! The party was on a Sunday, and Micah actually came to hang out with me on the Saturday beforehand since Casey was busy with some other stuff. They recently moved several hours away from us, so it was absolutely awesome to just get to hang out all day.

One of the things I’d been planning to do that day, though, (before I knew he was coming) was to bake a bunch of stuff. Our winter farm share pickup is usually on Wednesdays, but there had been so much snow that week that it had been rescheduled to Saturday. Since Charlie was working, it was going to be a huge hassle for me to get there, but, the internet saved the day. A quick post to Facebook asking if anyone would be in the area where the share was yielded a friend from high school willing to snag it and bring it over to this side of the river with her, and, well, that was definitely deserving of a batch of Dressmaker’s Double Stout Cookies.

And, of course, I was planning to bake a cake for the engagement party! I hadn’t yet completely decided on what to make, and I considered attempting to pull the wool over Micah’s eyes and pretending that the cake was for something else, but instead, I decided to get his input on what sounded good. Since he’s such a cheery, helpful person, I even had a kitchen assistant and, bless his heart, a dishwasher.

We decided on a Lemon Poppyseed Cake, since I had either a bunch of lemons or a bunch of oranges floating around, and lemon was the victor. I started stirring and mixing while Micah rounded little balls of chocolate stout cookie dough onto baking sheets.

And then, when it was almost ready… I couldn’t find the poppyseeds.

I knew I had poppyseeds. More than one container of them, in fact, as I’d bought some in a package and then found them in a different package in bulk. Unfortunately, when you live somewhere that you’re not the only single person in the entire house, sometimes things get moved or tossed, and despite searching high and low in every freakin’ cabinet… there are no poppyseeds to be found.

The weather was still a bit crummy, and we’d already gone to the store once, so Micah and I decided to make it a… Lemon NOT Poppyseed Cake. I started to rattle around in the cabinets and came up with some candied ginger that I bought for some cookies but rarely have use for. A new cake was taking shape.

I minced the candied ginger as best I could (it’s a sticky, stick job!) and added a bit of powdered ginger to the batter to meld with the lemon and cardamom flavors that were already dancing around.

The cake was a huge success, with people eating piece after piece, and asking for the recipe. So, here it is!

Ingredients

3/4 cup oil
1 1/3 cup white sugar
3 eggs
1 cup sour cream
3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon salt
zest of three lemons
juice of one lemon
3 tablespoons minced candied ginger

Directions

Sorry I don’t have a picture of this one! It’s for a 10-cup bundt pan, and I used my Heritage Bundt Pan, so it looks a lot like my Counting Cups Cake.

Adjust oven racks – you’ll be baking this on the bottom rack. Preheat oven to 325*F. Grease and lightly flour a 10 cup bundt pan.

In a stand mixer, combine the oil and the white sugar. Add the eggs one at a time. Stir. Add the lemon juice. Stir.

In a separate, medium bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom, powdered ginger and mix completely.

Alternate adding the dry mixture and the sour cream to the oil/sugar mixture a little at a time until they are all completely mixed together. Fold in the lemon zest and the candied ginger.

Pour into the prepared bundt pan. Bake on the bottom rack at 325*F for about an hour, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

Thanks to my Uncle Dan for this great photo!

Cakes are not usually my thing.

I make a good cookie, a tasty muffin, and a damn good brownie, but I usually don’t put the time and energy into making awesome cakes. Sometimes I’ll make cupcakes, but whole cakes with fancy frosting, definitely not. They’re just not easy to cut up and pass out, and in a small household, we’re not going to eat a whole cake.

But a few weeks ago, I sent my mom a simple, one-line email asking her if Christmas Eve dinner was going to be at her house as usual. It’s a tradition that the immediate family gets together the night before the holiday so that everyone can spend some time together and open presents before everyone has to travel on Christmas.

My mom sent me back about five paragraphs about how hectic the week was. This brother had to be picked up from college out of state, that brother was coming home on this day, the next day we were doing that, and, since my mom is a social worker, she had to actually work on Christmas Eve. So, she said, she wasn’t sure when she was going to have the time to cook.

Since just reading her email was stressing me out, and I didn’t even have to DO any of the stuff that she had to do, I suggested that Charlie and I be in charge of cooking. My sister ended up getting involved, and my brother who just graduated college was around and helped, and even my littlest brother, who is 11, felt pretty important with some of the things he was tasked with (like helping me make lasagna) that day.

But almost more important than the actual dinner was the dessert. My family loves chocolate. They think I’m the weirdest kid around for preferring more delicate flavors like fruits, teas, or vanilla. I made sure to prepare something I’d enjoy, but I also knew I had to really bring it in terms of dessert.

I recently bought some black cocoa from King Arthur Flour, and I wanted that to make an appearance in the dessert I made, and it ended up in the cake itself.

This dessert looks complicated, and my family thought it was downright professional, but when you break it down into steps, it isn’t that difficult.

• Chocolate cake (based very loosely off of a Texas Sheet Cake) made with black cocoa
• Raspberry jam filling
• Whipped semi-sweet chocolate ganache
• Poured darker chocolate ganache

This was my first time making ganache, and it went very well. I also made sure that this cake wasn’t too sweet so that I was really featuring the richness of the cream, the depth of the chocolate, and the layers of the chocolate.

P.S. The Art & Baking Giveaway is open until Friday, so hop over there for a chance to win!

Ingredients
1 cup of butter
2 cup of all purpose flour
3/4 cup of white sugar
1/2 tsp of salt
3 tbsp of tablespoons cocoa
3 tbsp of black cocoa
1 cup of boiling water
1/2 cup of buttermilk
2 eggs
1 tsp of baking soda
1 tsp of vanilla
3/4 cup of raspberry jam

For the whipped ganache:
1 cup of heavy cream
8 ounce of semi-sweet chocolate

For the poured ganache:
1 cup of heavy cream
10 ounce of 65% dark chocolate

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Prepare a 12″ x 17″ sheet pan by greasing the edges of it and putting a piece of parchment paper, trimmed to size, in the bottom.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt.

In a small pot, melt the butter.

Add the cocoa, and mix into the butter. Add the boiling water. Let boil for a few seconds, then turn off the heat. Pour the cocoa mixture over the flour mixture and stir slightly. In a separate small bowl, mix the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the cocoa mixture.

Pour into the prepared sheet cake pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Immediately when the cake has come out of the oven, flip the cake out onto another piece of parchment paper and peel back the parchment paper from the bottom. Let cool.

When the cake is completely cool, cut into four even pieces. Use a pastry brush to paint the layers on all sides with raspberry jam.

Next, make the whipped semi-sweet ganache. In a double boiler over medium heat, bring 1 cup of cream almost to a boil. Turn off the heat and stir the semi-sweet chocolate into the cream. Mix until smooth.

Set this mixture aside to cool at room temperature for about two hours. When cool, use a stand mixture to whip into a frosting. Stack the layers of the cake, then spread the whipped ganache around the outside of the cake.

Repeat the process of heating the second cup of cream, this time, using the dark chocolate.

When the mixture is smooth, let it cool and thicken for about three to five minutes, so that it is almost the consistency of honey. Then, pour the mixture over the frosted cake. (It will run over the sides, so you’ll want a pan underneath to catch it!)

Let the ganache set. Keep refrigerated until serving. Decorate as desired. (I used a thin glaze of confectioner’s sugar and edible glitter.)

Cranberry Sauce Almondies

After NaNoWriMo was over, my friend Anna and I decided we wanted to keep challenging ourselves to do more creative, wild, ridiculous challenges. Between the two of us, we wrote over 100,000 words in a month! We started making lists of what we thought would be good challenges, and some of them were food related, some of them were art related, and some of them were completely random. But the first one we decided to do was to participate in at least three out of four weeks of a bake-off (weeks of pies, dessert bars, cookies, and cakes) that was happening in December, so the next few recipes you’ll be seeing here will be from that. If you want to see more about our process, or join us for the next challenge (that we’re still deciding on!), go to our new blog, Scrawl Zoom Stir.

Ingredients

3/4 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 egg replacers
1/3 cup almond paste
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup toasted almond flour* (Available here or toast almonds at 400*F for 10 minutes then grind up!)
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup cranberry sauce
1 egg replacer

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350*F.

In a stand mixer, mix Earth Balance and brown sugar on low speed until creamy.

In a separate small bowl, mix the water and the 1 tbsp. commercial egg replacer until frothy.

Add the egg replacer/water mixture to the stand mixer bowl and stir. Add the vanilla extract and almond paste and mix until fully incorporated.

In a separate medium bowl, combine the whole wheat flour, the all-purpose flour, the salt, the baking powder, and the baking soda. Stir.

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in the mixing bowl.

Spread the mixture into an 8×8 cake pan. Bake at 350*F for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, mix the cranberry sauce (I like to use my homemade Clementine Cranberry Sauce, a little easy on the clementine for this one) with the remaining 1 1/2 tsp. of commercial egg replacer. Mix thoroughly.

When the initial 25 minute cook time is complete, remove the pan from the oven and carefully spread the cranberry sauce mixture in a thin layer evenly over the top. Return the blondies to the oven for about 15 more minutes, or until the surface of the cranberry sauce is tacky and the edges of the blondies are brown and crispy.

Cool completely before cutting. Garnish with almonds and pear slices.