Killer Chocolate Cake

Just before Valentine's Day, Clayton asked to make a cake. I had some coffee left in the pot, so we went with chocolate. Could you tell?

The recipe made a lot, so I made a cake for Valentine's and another to throw in the freezer. Last weekend we cleaned out the freezer and I got to make this cake. It's totally leftovers - killer chocolate cake, raspberry cream filling with brown sugar Swiss Meringue buttercream, practice flowers and green leftover from I don't know what. I even used my last cake board.

I made this turtle cake for Cyle and Clayton for Valentine's Day. It's just layered with magic caramel (made from sweetened condensed milk) and pecans. It was yummy. Very yummy.

I really liked the cake recipe I used that day and it got raving reviews in Cyle's office.


Killer Chocolate Cake
This recipe is taken from Cake Central and was posted by dolcesunshine20 and the comments are hers.

This is a version of the ever popular Hershey's Chocolate Cake recipe. I was VERY skeptical when I used it for the first time. I didn't think there was any possible chance for the batter to turn out being so thin, but the trick is filling the pans just a little more than you normally would and lining it with parchment paper. It is sooo moist!!!

4 c. sugar
3 1/2 c. flour
1 1/2 c. cocoa
3 t. baking soda
3 t. baking powder
2 t. salt
4 eggs
2 c. buttermilk*
1 c. oil
4 t. vanilla
2 c. of boiling water or very hot coffee**

*Instead of the buttermilk I have also used 1 c. whole milk & 1 c. of half 'n' half.

**When I'm using the coffee, I find that it changes the texture of my cake, making it more dense and heavy. If you are looking for a tender crumb, use water.

1. Heat oven to 350.
2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla; beat on low speed for 2 min.
3. Turn your mixer down to the stir speed and carefully add the hot coffee. Batter will be very thin. Pour into pans and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Sorry, I never time my cakes! Bad habit I know, but I just eye-ball them.

Valentine's Day Cookies

What better way to tell your Valentine "I Love You" than by baking him/her some cookies?

Sugar cookies are the perfect choice because of their versatility and blank canvas for decorating. If you'd like to get a little more creative you can add different flavors to your sugar cookies, as I've done in the picture above. There are I've Got the Hots for You Mexican Chocolate, You Spice Up My Life Brown Sugar Spice and You Brighten My Days Lemon Sage.

My favorite recipe for sugar cookies is a cream cheese sugar cookie. I've modified the recipe from Karens Cookies just slightly.

Cream Cheese Sugar Cookies

1 c butter, softened
8 oz. fat-free cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 c sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp salt
3 3/4 c all-purpose flour

I like to soften my butter by letting it sit on the counter for a couple hours (or even a couple days). I like to soften cream cheese by unwrapping it and microwaving it for 30 seconds at 40%. If you have a powerful microwave, do less. It needs to be soft, but not runny.

Cream the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add in the sugar and beat well. Add in the egg and extracts. Beat well making sure everything is evenly incorporated. Add in the salt and flour and mix slowly until evenly combined.

Divide dough into thirds (I find this to be the easiest amount to work with). Place each third on a separate long piece of plastic wrap. Place another long sheet of plastic wrap on top and roll out to 1/4 in thickness. Okay, so this doesn't have to be exact, but you don't want them too thick. By rolling the dough out between plastic wrap you 1) don't have to worry about it sticking, 2) don't mix in any flour, 3) can make more cookies without changing the consistency of the dough, and 4) can put them in the fridge or freezer to chill all ready rolled out saving you time chilling and rolling. I know I can't be the only person that thinks it's harder to roll out chilled dough.

Chill the dough well. I usually put it in my freezer and then don't have to worry if I don't have time to cut and bake for the next week. Cut into the desired shapes.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Bake for 10-15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie. Cool on cookie sheet for two minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.

I've Got the Hots for You Mexican Chocolate
Decrease the flour to 3 1/4 c
Add in:
3/4 c cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp chili powder, more if you're adventurist

You Spice Up My Life Brown Sugar Spice
Replace sugar with 1 1/2 c unpacked brown sugar
Add in:
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Penzeys Baking Spice or pumpkin pie spice

You Brighten My Days Lemon Sage
Add in with the extracts:
2 Tbsp lemon juice
1 Tbsp lemon zest
2 generous Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
These were particularly good with a lemon glaze...1 c powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp lemon juice and 1/2 tsp lemon extract

Happy Baking!

Tres Leches Cupcakes

We went to a Mexican Dinner in early November and I was asked to bring dessert. I needed an easy, finger-food...Tres Leches Cupcakes. A yellow cake that is then doused with a mixture of three milks that makes them so moist and so good. I filled mine with a mango filling and topped them with a dulce de leche buttercream. When all was said and done, I don't recommend making the cake into cupcakes. They weren't able to absorb as much of the milk mixture and were dryer than a traditional tres leches cake. But the mango filling was muy delicioso! So this is the recipe I came up with...

Tres Leches Cake with Mango and Dulce de Leche Buttercream

• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk
• 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup lightly toasted flaked coconut
  

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cream the butter and shortening until smooth. Add in the sugar and beat until fluffy. Add in egg yolks one at a time. Mix the vanilla with the buttermilk. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. Alternate mixing in the dry ingredients with the buttermilk mixture. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in the eggwhites to the cake batter and mix just until combined.
Line a 9x13 pan with foil and grease well. Pour in cake batter and bake 30 minutes or until golden and just set.
Meanwhile, combine the evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk and the coconut milk.
While the cake is still warm, with a skewer or toothpick, poke lots of holes in the cake and pour the milk mixture over it. Let set until cool and then refrigerate.

Mango Filling

• 2 c frozen mango
• 3/4 c brown sugar
• 1/2 water
• 2 T corn starch
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and stir until thoroughly combined. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until mixture comes to a full boil. Boil for one minute and then remove from heat. Cool completely. Place mixture in a blender or food processor and puree until smooth.

Dulce de Leche Swiss Meringue Buttercream

• 1/2 c (approximately 5) egg whites
• 1 c brown sugar, firmly packed
• 1 1/2 c softened butter

Using a stand mixer is the easiest way to make a Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I just put my sugar and egg whites in the mixing bowl of the mixer and place them over a pan of simmering water. I tend to need two hands to add in the butter...
In a double boiler, mix egg whites and brown sugar. Place over simmering water and cook until mixture reaches 160 degrees. Remove from heat and beat until stiff peaks form. While beating, add in the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. At one point while adding in the butter, the mixture will appear to separate or look curdled. Don't worry! Just keep adding in the butter and keep mixing. It will come together to form a beautiful buttercream.

To assemble the cake: If you want, you can remove the chilled cake from the pan with the foil. For simplicity's sake, I just leave the cake in the pan. Top the cake with the mango filling and chill for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Once chilled, top with the buttercream. If you arent' serving this cake right away, it does need to be refrigerated. Be sure to bring it to room temperature for serving. Enjoy!

Baking in a Winter Wonderland

Tis the season for cookie baking! And that's mainly what I've been doing. Last weekend I did do a couple of cakes. The snowflake cake is a White Almond Sour Cream cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream. I made royal icing snowflakes to decorate the top. Amazingly, by sheer luck, only one broke in the process of removing them from the wax paper and placing them on the cake.

I was looking for a simple way to dress up a rum cake and needed something I could do in advance. So I made a few poinsettias. I had forgotten how fun (and easy!) it is to do flowers.

Taking away from my cake time, also, was sewing for a craft fair. CLO put on the fair and I made baby blankets and angel dolls.

Merry Christmas and Happy Baking!

Garlic Bread

There is nothing I love to bake more than bread and nothing compares to a warm loaf right out of the oven. This Garlic Bread makes the house smell so good!

Garlic Bread

2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 c lukewarm water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 1/4 tsp or 1 pkg yeast
2 1/2 to 3 1/2 c all purpose flour
2 tbsp parmesan cheese
1/4 c romano cheese

In a small skillet, combine the garlic and olive oil. Heat over medium heat just until the garlic starts to brown. Remove from heat and pour into a large bowl and allow to cool.
Meanwhile, combine the water (not over 110 degrees) sugar, salt, and yeast. Let set for 5 minutes or until yeast starts to foam. Add to the cooled oil. Add in 2 1/2 c flour and mix with a wooden spoon until a thick dough forms. Turn out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth - about 5 minutes. I prefer a slightly sticky, looser dough. You may not need all of the flour.
Place dough in a well oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap. Place in a warm, draft-free place for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk. (I like to turn my oven on to 150 degrees and set my bowl on top of the stove.)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Once the dough has doubled in bulk, punch down and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Shape into a rectangle and place on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with cheeses. Bake for 15 minutes or until browned.

Baking Up a Storm!

This was a baptism cake. It's an Italian Cream Cake with coconut filling covered in marshmallow fondant. The letters are painted with gold pearl dust. I think it turned out so pretty.


An autumn wreath! It's just sugar cookies pieced together on a cake circle and glued together with royal icing. The bow is made out of fondant. My brother-in-law helped me color the dough of the cookies and cut-out the leaves. He did a really good job. The acorns are chocolate cookies. I dusted it with shimmer powder and sold it at the bake sale!


A birthday cake for the Ambassador. It's a French Vanilla Sour Cream cake with strawberry filling iced in chocolate and vanilla Swiss Meringue Buttercream (another post...). He's from South Carolina and loves baseball. So I added the palmetto palms to the baseball field. This cake was missing something. I wasn't totally satisfied with it. But it sure did taste good!


For my mother-in-law's 50th birthday I made her a stained glass glass cake. I pieced together fondant and used royal icing painted with silver pearl dust for the leading. It turned out really pretty. The cake itself was chocolate zucchini with chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream.

Lemon Ricotta Cookies

I had a tub of ricotta in the fridge and wanted to use it for something sweet. One of the reasons I LOVE ricotta cheese is that it can be used for both sweet and savory. These cookies are light and not too sweet. This is a Giada recipe...

Lemon Ricotta Cookies with Lemon Glaze

2 1/2 c flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 c butter, softened
2 c sugar
2 eggs
1 15 oz container whole milk ricotta (I used light...)
3 T lemon juice
1 lemon, zested

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt and set aside.

In the large bowl combine the butter and the sugar. Using an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until incorporated. Add the ricotta cheese, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Beat to combine. Stir in the dry ingredients.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. (Very, very important to use the parchment paper! The dough is very soft and will stick to your cookie sheet. Once you're done baking, save the parchment paper to put under your cooling rack to catch all of the glaze that drips off. ) Spoon the dough (about 2 tablespoons for each cookie) onto the baking sheets. Bake for 15 minutes, until slightly golden at the edges. Remove from the oven and let the cookies rest on the baking sheet for 20 minutes.


Lemon Glaze

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 1 lemon, zested

Combine the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest in a small bowl and stir until smooth. Spoon about 1/2-teaspoon onto each cookie and use the back of the spoon to gently spread. Let the glaze harden for about 2 hours.


Okay, so how did I change the recipe? Well, first, I didn't have any lemons, so I replaced the zest with a teaspoon of lemon extract. I don't recommend this. If possible, use the zest - it's much better. But the extract does work in a pinch. Secondly, I used light ricotta. I try to save calories where I can. Thirdly, I used the whisk to drizzle the glaze onto the cookies. It was a good recipe, what can I say?

I really liked these cookies. They were easy to make and not overly sweet. They'd go well with a cup of coffee.

To find more of Giada's recipes visit http://www.foodnetwork.com/giada-de-laurentiis/index.html