Update and a Cake

Wow, it has been a while since I posted last.  I don't know were the time has gone - it seems like I lose months at a time when things get into marking season at my new job!

I am not entirely sure what all I have been cooking in the last month (mostly things I can through together quite quickly).  I have been trying some slow cooker recipes and hope to get a few posts prepared while I have a break from marking over the next couple of week.

To hold you over I am going to tell you about a delicious bundt cake I made a few weeks ago.  Sadly I did not get a picture of this cake, as my husband whisked it off to hockey before it had even cooled.  Apparently it smelled good and the team needed goodies, I am still not sure why the hot cake went (it was a little difficult to carry in the car). 

This cake came about as I went to use up some apples and make a quick apple crisp, sadly I forgot that I didn't have any oats in the cupboard and needed something to use up all the cut up apples.  I did have some cream cheese in the fridge (not sure what I had bought that for), so I went for this cake recipe from Mel's Kitchen Cafe.

Apple Cream Cheese Bundt:
Ingredients:
Cake:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
4 medium apples, (for about 4 cups pealed, cored and chopped)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoons dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla, divided
1 1/4 cups vegetable or canola oil
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs

Cream Cheese Layer:
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg

Directions:
1.  Grease and flour a 9 inch bundt pan and preheat the oven to 350F.
2. Toss the apples with lemon juice, dark brown sugar, and 1 tsp lemon juice. Set aside for now.
3. In the bowl of a mixer combine oil, sugar and vanilla until well mixed.
4. Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition.
5. To the oil/sugar/egg mixture add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix until just combined - it will be a very thick batter.
6. Fold the apples into the batter.
7. Pour into the bundt pan.
8. In a bowl beat togther the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and egg until creamy and smooth.
9. Form a well/ tunnel in the batter in the bundt pan (I had to remove some of the batter at this step to make it work), and pour the cream cheese mixture into the tunnel. 
10. Add the batter back in over the cream cheese if you had to remove any.  Swirl the cream cheese into the batter with a butter knife.
11. Bake cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes.  Allow the cake to cool. 

Reviews:
This cake smelled fantastic and the small pieces of cake that I was able to snag were great!  I never got a chance to make the glaze or caramel sauce, but the cake was fantastic without it.  I never got more than crumbs as the hockey team devoured the cake.
They did remark that it was one of the best things I had baked for them in a long time - even if it was a little difficult to eat as it wasn't even sliced when my husband stole it.  I was still getting compliments on it at the next game I attended 3 weeks later!  It is a total winner. 

So for any hockey team members, that is the recipe, sorry it took so long.  For anyone else, I do suggest trying it and if you can keep people from eating it right away try the glaze or sauce - i am sure that would take this cake from excellent to out of this world!

Burger Cake

A coworker had a birthday and it was my turn to bring the cake.  I didn't want to do a cake with flowers for a couple of reasons.  The first being that this cake was for a male coworker, and although he would not have complained, flowers just aren't really him.  The second reason - I had only recently finished my cake decorating class (alright, well it had been a few weeks) and I was not ready to start making more flowers again.

I came across pictures of a cake that looked like a burger on pinterest and decided to give it a go.  It is a white cake with chocolate frosting (darker for the burger, less coco for the bun), and regular buttercream frosting for the ketchup and cheese.  The lettuce was made using rolled fondant.  The sesame seeds on the bun are large sprinkles.

Everyone at work loved the cake which was great.  I had lot of fun making it and it was nice to make something less girly than I had been making for the last few months.

Peanut Butter Jam Bundt

A couple people at work take turns baking cakes for people’s birthdays. Recently it was my turn to make the birthday cake for my cake decorating buddy. I was getting a little tired of making cakes with flowers on them, and knew she probably was as well. From previous discussion I knew that she was a fan of bundt cakes – both look and texture wise, so I decided to give everyone a break from the icing laden cakes that had been coming from class. I have loved following the Food Librarians “I like big bundts” over the past years and thought that would be a good place to start looking for something to make. When I came across the Peanut Butter and Jelly Swirl Bunt, I had to make it – especially as the recipient loves peanut butter!

I did make a couple changes with the jelly. I used a strawberry rhubarb jam (complete with fruit chunks) that I had made in the summer and I increased the amount as it didn’t look like there was enough jelly in the pictures.

I also topped it with a peanut butter frosting, and served it with additional jam should people wish to add more (I don’t think anyone turned down the extra jam, and by the time it was done my 2 cup jar was almost empty!)

Below is her recipe (originally from Welsh’s) with a couple of small changes.


Peanut Butter & Jelly Swirl Bundt Cake

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick), at room temperature
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter (smooth worked fine)
2 tsp. vanilla
3 large eggs
1 cup dairy sour cream

¾ to 1 cup Jam

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place the baking rack in bottom third of oven.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.
3. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Continue beating as you add the peanut butter and vanilla.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating until incorporated, followed by the sour cream.
5. Slowly add flour mixture and mix until just blended (if using a mixer, use the lowest speed). Spoon half of the batter (about 3 cups) into greased 12 cup bundt pan. Dollop 1/3 Ts of the jelly over batter avoiding edges of pan.
6. Partially stir jam into batter using a skewer or thin bladed knife. Spoon remaining batter into pan and dollop and swirl remaining jelly into batter.
7. Bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes, then invert onto wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Peanut Butter Frosting
¼ cup peanut butter
¼ cup butter, room temperature
2 cups icing sugar

Directions:
1. Cream together the butter and peanut butter.
2. Mix in the icing sugar until smooth.
3. Enjoy


Reviews:
Everyone loved this cake, especially the birthday girl. It went so fast I was unable to get a picture of the inside of the cake with the jam swirls.

I will be making this cake again soon – I think it would be great with some blueberry jelly, and I am looking forward to trying it.

Happy Valentines!

I had some leftover fondant from my last cake class, and decided to use it up on a cute Valentines day cake. It started with the green fondant and then I had the great idea to make some lady bugs. As it was Valentines, I decided to try some writing. I think it turned out pretty good considering I had no idea what I was going to do when I started!

The cake was a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting - everyone at work enjoyed it and I had no trouble finding someone to take the last piece off my hands!

Lady bug with her antennae (I couldn't decide if I liked them better with or without).

Final Cake - Gumpaste and Fondant

My Wilton Fondant and Gumpaste class has ended and I had a great time. It was a lot of fun playing with fondant and the flowers all turned out really great. I decided to play around a bit, and convinced O to shape me a new cookie cutter, and ended up with some great looking Plumeria flowers! I love the tropical look (especially as it is February and I am anxiously awaiting spring).

Thank you Erin for a great class. I am looking forward to the upcoming Advanced Gumpaste Flowers class later this spring.

Cake Decorating - Flowers and Cake Design

I finished the second cake decorating class (and am signed up to do the third - Fondant and Gumpaste in January). Here is a look at some of the flowers I was able to make and the final cakes.

My Lily Cake


Cake with all the other flowers

I was lucky enough that my instructor showed us how to do a few things that Wilton had taken out of the class when they redid the course, so I also got to learn the rope border and the butter cream pansy (which is one of my favorite flowers I leaned to make).




I also did a little playing around with the leftover gumpaste and some online tutorials to make a gerber daisy!



Thanks Erin, can’t wait for the next class!

Lemon Blueberry Cake

I had some fruit that was around leftover from the first fruit delivery of year and I decided to try a Blueberry Buttermilk Cake.  I had some lemon curd in the fridge as well that hadn’t gotten thick enough to fill cupcakes with and decided to add it to the cake.  What I ended up with was a wonderful moist lemon cake filled with fruit.

Lemon Blueberry Cake


Ingredients:
½ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tsp. lemon zest or more — zest from 1 large lemon
3/4 cup + 1 T. sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. kosher salt
½ cup buttermilk
½ cup lemon curd
2 cups fresh blueberries

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F and prepare a 9x9 pan by lining with parchment paper or buttering and flowering.
2. In a bowl cream together the butter and ¾ cup sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add in the egg and vanilla, mix until well combined.
4. Mix in ½ the flour and baking powder, followed by the buttermilk.  Then add the remaining flour and baking powder.
5. Fold in the lemon curd and blueberries.
6. Pour in the prepared pan ( you may have to spread it out to the edges as it is a thick batter), and bake for 35-45 minutes.  After 20 minutes remove from the oven and sprinkle the 1 tbsp of sugar over the top before you finish cooking.  Check if the cake is done by poking a toothpick into the middle (as long as you don’t hit a blueberry it should come out clean).

Variation:
Switch out the blueberries for raspberries for a yummy twist on this cake!

Reviews:
This cake got great reviews and quite a few people thought it was better with raspberries than blueberries.  I suggest going with the fruit you prefer.  

Even O who isn’t a huge cake fan loved this cake so much he ate a ⅓ of it in a single day.  Both times I brought it to work, I didn’t have any leftovers (and I didn’t have to work too hard to get people to eat it either!).

Glueten Free Cherry Chocolate Pudding Cake

I have a friend who should not be eating a lot of gluten but she loves baking. She was drooling over the Cherry Chocolate Pudding cake that I made, so I decided to try making her a cake of her own (well actually I put her to work in the kitchen to show her how to do it). I also decided to make it a smaller cake, as it is a fairly rich cake and even with taking it to work with me it was hard to get through a 9 x 13 pan of it. What we ended up with was an 8x8 pan of gluten, egg and dairy free cake!

Ingredients:
¾ + 2 tbsp all purpose GF Flour mix (I used Kinikinik brand)
¼ cup organic whole brown sugar
3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1 ½ tbsp baking powder
3 tbsp coconut milk (you could also use almond, soy, or rice - I just had coconut on hand)
¼ cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1 cup cherries - rough chopped

½ cup organic whole brown sugar
1 ½ cup hot water
2 tbsp cocoa powder

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. (if using a glass pan cook at 325F).
2. In a bowl mix together the flour, sugar, ⅓ cup cocoa powder, baking powder, milk, and applesauce. (I had to add an extra 2 tbsp of milk, try mixing without before adding it. The batter should be thick but not dry).
3. Fold in the cherries.
4. Spoon the batter into a greased and floured 8 x 8 pan (or a pan lined with parchment paper).
5. In the same bowl mix together the dark brown sugar, hot water, and ¼ cup cocoa.
6. Poor overtop of the batter.
7. Bake 35 to 40 minutes (the cake will be set but not firm, you should see some pudding bubbling up on the edges.).

Chocolate Angel Food

I recently had a birthday, as seeing as how my birthday falls in August, I usually have ice cream cake. This year though, the weather has been cooler and I wanted something different. I wanted chocolate, but light and airy as it is summer. When I saw a chocolate angel food cake, I knew I had to make it!

Ingredients:
¾ cup all-purpose flour
¼ cup cocoa powder
¾ cup granulated sugar


¾ cup granulated sugar
12 large egg whites (make sure not to get any of the shell or egg yolk in with the whites or they won’t beat up properly)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ teaspoon cream of tartar

Directions:
1. Heat the oven to 325F.
2. In a bowl combine the flour, cocoa powder, sugar (3/4 cup) and set aside for a minute.
3. In a bowl with a stand or hand mixer (I guess you could do this by hand but there is no way my arm is that strong) mix the egg whites and vanilla. Beat the egg whites on medium high speed until they are frothy.
4. While beating the egg whites sprinkle the cream of tartar into the bowl mixing it in as you go.
5. Continue to beat the egg whites until soft peaks form (the egg white will come up with the beater if you remove it, but will flop over and not really hold its shape).
6. While beating the eggs slowly add the remaining ¾ cup of sugar and continue to beat until the eggs white become glossy and stiff peaks form (will hold a peak shape when the beater is removed).
7. With a whisk fold in the mixed dry ingredients.
8. Pour into an angel food pan (do not grease the pan, or flour it). Using a spatula smooth out the top of the cake.
9. Bake for 40-45 minutes (mine actually took about 55 minutes, but I think my oven might be a little off). The top of the cake should spring back when touched and the cracks should appear dry.
10. Let cool upside down (I stick mine on a top of a bottle or the top of the cake will get soggy).
11. Slide a knife gently around the pan to release the cake.
12. Enjoy

Reviews:
I love this cake! It is great without anything on it, but fantastic with strawberries and whipped cream. It was a great light birthday treat!

Cherry Chocolate Pudding Cake

I came home from vacation with a bunch of cherries and knew I had to do something with a few of them before I made myself sick eating them. I found a recipe for cherry chocolate pudding cake, and I had been wanting to try a pudding cake for a while. I had remembered them from when I was younger and loved the goey pudding mixed in with the cake, so I decided to give it a try. I did change the recipe a little bit to cut down on the sweetness and make a darker richer chocolate.


Ingredients:
1 and 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour
1/2 cup Sugar (1 original recipe)
1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
3 tablespoons Baking Powder
¼ + 2 tbsp cup Milk
1/2 cup Unsweetened Applesauce
1 cup Cherries, fresh/frozen, pitted
1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
3 cups Hot Water

Method:
1. Preheat the oven to 350F.
2. In a bowl mix together the flour, sugar, ⅓ cup cocoa powder, baking powder, milk, and applesauce. (I had to add an extra 2 tbsp of milk, try mixing without before adding it. The batter should be thick but not dry).
3. Fold in the cherries.
4. Spoon the batter into a greased and floured 9 x 13 pan (or a pan lined with parchment paper).
5. In the same bowl mix together the dark brown sugar, hot water, and ¼ cup cocoa.
6. Poor over top of the batter.
7. Bake 35 to 40 minutes (the cake will be set but not firm, you should see some pudding bubbling up on the edges.).


Reviews;
This cake got good reviews and it was even good cold the next day. However, O decided that he would like it better without the cherries, or with the cherries chopped into small pieces. I am sure I will make this again at some time.

Lazy Daisy Cake

One of my friends used to often make this cake - Lazy Daisy Cake. I don’t know were the name came from but this cake, but who cares, it is a cute name and oh so yummy. I finally got the recipe from her (it was out of an old 4H cookbook!).

Lazy Daisy Oatmeal Cake

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 cup quick oats
1 ½ cups boiling water
½ cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 ½ cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon

Topping
⅔ cup butter
⅔ cup brown sugar
¼ cup cream/milk
2 cups coconut

Method:
1. Combine the oats and boiling water and let soak for 20 minutes (it will turn into a nice mush).
2. In another bowl cream the butter, white sugar, brown sugar and cream together. Once it is mixed and fluffy, beat in the eggs and vanilla.
3. Mix together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon.
4. Add the flour mixtures and the rolled oats to the butter sugar alternating (1/2 the flour, ½ the rolled oats, ½ the flour, ½ the rolled oats).
5. Bake at 350F for 30 minutes.
6. As the cake bakes, cream together the butter, sugar and milk for the topping. Mix in the coconut.
7. Spread the topping on the cake and return to oven for 10 minutes.
8. Cool, serve and enjoy!

Variation:
You can make the topping with 1 cup coconut and 1 cup of chopped nuts as well if you prefer.

Reviews:
This cake is moist and delicious. I love the cinnamon in the cake mixed with the golden coconut crust on the top. Everyone who tried it like it, and for me it is a great comfort food.

Caramel Apple Bunt

We just recieved our first order of apples - just over 200lbs! (Don’t worry I did get some apples for other people and most are windfalls for making juice.) So I have an abundance of apples around the house. I also tried a couple of new varieties this year and wanted to see how they held up in baking before I started the mass pie production. This cake seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out the new baking apples - that and it was my husband’s birthday, so I was in need of a cake.

I found the original recipe on all recipes.com, but modified it a bit to suit my tastes (well hubby’s tastes and my aversion to 1.5 cups of oil in one recipe). Below is what I came up with and it was a delicious fall cake, even without the topping. I may make it again adding cinnamon to the batter and leaving off the topping.

Ingredients
CAKE:
3 eggs
1 cups sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cups vegetable oil
1 cup apple sauce
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups chopped, peeled apples

TOPPING:
1/4 cup butter or margarine
2 tbsp milk
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
Pinch salt


Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs until foamy; gradually add sugar. Blend in oil and vanilla.
2.Combine flour, salt and baking soda; add to egg mixture.
3.Stir in apples and pecans.
4.Pour into a greased bunt pan.
5.Bake at 350 degrees F for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cake tests done (toothpick comes out clean).
6.Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove cake to a serving platter.
7. For topping, combine all ingredients in a saucepan; boil 3 minutes, stirring constantly. Slowly pour over warm cake (some topping will run down onto the serving plate.)

Reviews:
My husband liked this cake and didn't mind having an apple birthday cake rather than the traditional birthday cake. The leftovers were fed to my coworkers and received rave reviews. Everyone really enjoyed the cake, and it was still nice and moist a couple days later.

Chocolate Dream Cake

I received a cakepan that would allow me to make filled cakes really easily. I couldn’t wait to try it and and decided to make a dreamy chocolate cake filled with all sorts of different kind of levels of chocolate.

Starting with Martha Stewart's One Bowl Chocolate Cake, I then filled it with a dairy free chocolate mousse (my friend coming over is lactose intolerant, so I wanted something she could enjoy), and topped it all with chocolate butter cream (Martha Stewart) and chocolate shavings.

The cake was very easy to put together – pop out of the pan, fill, stack, ice. So simple, with fantastic results.

One Bowl Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

Makes 2 eight-inch square or 3 eight-inch round layers

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for pans
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups soured milk (I used 1% plus 1tbsp lemon juice)
3/4 cup safflower oil (or any vegetable oil)
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 cup warm water
Unsalted butter, for pans


Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter round or square cake pans, and line bottoms with parchment; butter parchment, and dust with cocoa.
2. Into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. With the mixer on low, stir in eggs, 1 cups warm water, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla until smooth, about 3 minutes.
3. Divide batter among prepared pans. Bake, rotating once, until tester inserted in center comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes for 8-inch layers, depending on amount of batter.
4. Let cakes cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes, then remove from pans and cool completely, right side up on rack.

Note: the original recipe calls for 1 ½ cups of warm water but only in the directions, which I thought was weird. After adding 1 cup of water, I thought it was a good consistency and baked it. It turned out great.


Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

4 ounces 80% cocoa chocolate (I used Lindt)
3/4 cup margarine
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs

Directions

1. In a mixing bowl, cream the margarine.
2. Add the sugar, vanilla and melted chocolate and beat until fluffy.
3. Add the eggs and beat for 3 minutes until smooth and thick.
4. Refrigerate until serving, or in this case fill the appropriate areas of the cake.



Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

Makes enough for 15 cupcakes

1 cups sugar
1/2 cup egg whites (about 3 large)
¾ cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
8 ounces dark chocolate, melted and cooled slightly (I used an 80% cocoa Lindt bar)

Directions

1. Place sugar and egg whites in the bowl of an electric mixer set over (but not touching) a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly until mixture is heated and sugar is dissolved. Whisk (with an electric or stand mixter) until cooled and stiff peaks form (the peak remains after you remove the beater).
2. With the mixer running, add butter, one piece at a time, until completely incorporated. Continue whisking until a light, fluffy cream has formed. Stir in chocolate until well combined.
3. Use as needed.

Reviews:
Oh wow, this cake truly was a dream. It was 8 to 9 inches high and full of delicious chocolate. The mousse was divine, and I admit I licked the bowl out, not the normal lick off the spoon, but I full on broke out the spatula and scraped every last bit out of the bowl. So good! The cake was moist and delicious, I will using this recipe again.

The only thing that I would have done differently? Used white chocolate and milk chocolate shavings on the top as well as the dark chocolate. mmmmmmmmmm

Carrot Cake

This year was great for carrots, and as I was on a roll with the baking, Mom requested a carrot cake. No problem I though and pulled up a couple of recipes, she then informed me that she wasn’t a fan of the recipes with pineapple, she wanted one with just carrots. Well that made things more interesting. Allrecipes came to the rescue and I ended up with a great cake.

Carrot Cake Adapted from Allrecipes
INGREDIENTS
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
3 cups grated carrots


1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened (room temperature)
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt


DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour a 9x13 inch pan.
2. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, oil, white sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla. Mix in flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Stir in carrots. Pour into prepared pan.
3. Bake in the preheated oven for 40 to 50 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Note for all you nut lovers out there, you can add 1 cup of pecans to the batter when you add the carrots, and you can add some to the frosting if you like. I did not do this, as my family isn’t a big fan of nuts in their baking.

To Make Frosting: In a medium bowl, combine butter, cream cheese, confectioners' sugar, salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Do not frost until the cake is completely cool.

REVIEWS:
I halved this recipe as we already had a chocolate beet cake and multigrain cinnamon buns around the house, It made a lovely small cake that is a great option for when you just need a bit of cake.

My mother really enjoyed this cake and happily took it along to share with friends at a party that night. Owen managed to sneak a piece and while carrot cake isn’t his favorite he had no problem eating it and trying for more.

Chocolate Beet Cake

I have a confession – I am not a fan of beets. No matter how many times I try them, I just don’t like them. So this year, my mother as usual ended up with an abundance of beets in her garden. After helping with a couple batches of pickled beets, we were both done with the canning. Still having a sink full of beets however, we had to think of something. I did a little searching and came across Chocolate Beet Cake on Straight from the Farm. Hmmmmm, chocolate – I do love chocolate. Could this be the answer to my aversion to beets – sneek them into a chocolate cake?

I got to work pureering beets, hunting chocolate out of the cupboards and mixed up the cake.

CHOCOLATE BEET CAKE
vAdapted Straight from the Farm
1 c. margarine, softened, divided

1 1/2 c. packed dark brown sugar

3 eggs at room temp

3 oz. dark chocolate

5 medium beets/2 c. pureed beets

1 t. vanilla extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 t. baking soda

1/4 t. salt

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/4 t. nutmeg

confectioners’ sugar for dusting
 


To make beet puree,
1. trim stems and roots off beets and place in heavy sauce pan filled with water.
2. Bring to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 50 mins or until the beets are tender.
3. Drain off remaining liquid and rinse beets in cold water as they’ll be too hot to handle otherwise. Slide skins off, quarter the beets and place in blender or food processor. Pulse until a smooth puree forms. Let cool slightly before using in cake. Puree can be made several days in advance.
To Make the cake:
1. In a mixing bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and brown sugar.
2. Add eggs; mix well.
3. Melt chocolate with remaining butter; stir until smooth. Cool slightly.
4. Blend chocolate mixture, beets and vanilla into the creamed mixture (mixture may appear separated).
5. Combine flour, baking soda , salt, cinnamon and nutmeg; add to the creamed mixture and mix well.
6. Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. spring form pan.
7. Bake at 375 degrees F for 50-55 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
8. Cool in pan 15 minutes before removing to a wire rack.
9. Cool completely before dusting with confectioners’ sugar.

Reviews:
The cake came out really nice, with a slight red color to it, which I found really cute and appealing. So this cake was a great texture, really moist but not too dense. I loved that about the cake. The beet flavour was subtle, but sadly so was the chocolate. Next time I make this cake, there will be more chocolate!

Devil's Food White-Out Cake

Note: I apologize for the bad pictures, this cake had survived a trip to and from work (with my husband) before I got to take the picture, and this point the lighting was aweful but I couldn't wait to eat it any longer.

When I took the cookbook Baking:From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan out of the library, it was initially because of this cake. The chocolate and fluffy white layers called to me, they entered my dreams and made me wake up in the morning with my face in a pool of drool. I HAD to make this cake, I NEEDED to take out the book.

Well, i took out the book, I drooled over the cover, but never seemed to have a good enough reason (or enough time) to make this beauty of cake. Then came my husband's birthday - here was the perfect time to try my beloved cake. Little did I know that this cake would become my husband's boss's birthday cake, good thing it turned out all right.

I followed the directions as printed on Confessions of a City Eater. I would type out the recipe, but it is long, I am lazy, the cookbook had to go back to the library, and well, someone has already done it. So click the link, I promise the instructions are good and her cupcakes are adorable! (she make it into cupcakes as well - I will have to try that some time soon!)

The only difference from my cake to the original is that I ended up with four layers. The cakes had large domes on them, so after they came off I didn't need anymore cake to make crumbs and decided to make four layers. Even with that I have leftover crumbs sitting in my freezer to be used to make cakeballs soon.

Anyways the cake was a huge hit. O's boss loved it, O loved it, I managed to get myself a small slice before it was all gone and it lived up to my every dream. I am still in love with this cake.