Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Irish Cream Buttercream Frosting

St. Patrick's Day is a particularly special day in our house, not just because of my darling husband's Irish heritage but also because 50% of the people in our household are named Patrick. So come mid-March, the Irish tunes go into heavy rotation, the Irish-style brews and corned beef fill our fridge, and my mind turns to chocolate stout (cup)cakes. 

This recipe by TrialAndErin is fantastic: the cake is incredibly tender and moist, and the frosting couldn't be easier to make. For the greatest enjoyment, turn a blind eye to the amount of butter you're using. Then again, it does make 2 dozen cupcakes so (amount) of butter divided by 24 is... never mind. 

I made a few adaptations to the recipe. First off, I have yet to make this recipe with Young's Double Chocolate Stout as suggested (though it is a terrific beer -- my gateway chocolate stout, in fact, twenty-some years ago). I have used Guinness Foreign Extra Stout and O'Hara's Irish Stout in the recipe -- both with great success.

Secondly, I have underage folk devouring these cupcakes so I substitute Baileys (non-alcoholic) Creamer (I call it "Faileys" for Fake Baileys) for the Irish Cream called for. Remember that unlike the beer in the batter, the frosting doesn't get cooked. It doesn't taste exactly like proper Baileys, but it approximates the flavor and is still pretty dang good. (I like to pour some in my midday coffee and pretend that I'm a bad girl.)

I have a little tweak for mixing the cocoa powder with the beer and butter that I think works a bit better at avoiding lumps than the original instruction. First off, it's imperative that you sift the cocoa powder. Next, rather than adding the cocoa powder to the simmering beer and butter, I very slowly whisk the beer and butter mixture into the cocoa powder. It will be very thick and paste-like when you start, but doing it this way minimizes any cocoa lumps. I also let the resulting mixture cool for 10 minutes (it's quite hot) before adding it to the egg mixture and proceeding with the rest of the batter, as I don't want to cook the eggs or activate the baking soda prematurely.

Lastly, I recommend that when you check the cupcakes for doneness, pull the cupcakes from the oven when there are a few crumbs remaining on the toothpick. If you wait until the toothpick is completely clean, the cupcakes with be overbaked and on the dry side. And remember to rotate your pans halfway through the bake time and check multiple cupcakes (in different areas of the pan) for doneness. If your oven is anything like mine, the heat (and cooking time) can vary in different spots.

Making green fondant shamrocks with a tiny heart cutter.

Cut a heart in half down the center and voilà! A stem.

In summary: the whole clan LOVED these cupcakes! The stout lends a (predictably) yeastiness to the cake that's really pleasing and the frosting is sublime. I don't consider myself a cake person and yet even I was a wee bit weepy when they were all eaten. Confession time: there was a little extra frosting left after icing the cupcakes so a few days later I baked up a single-layer chocolate snack cake and slathered on the leftover frosting. When you're Irish, St. Patrick's Day never has to end. Erin Go Bragh!

Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins

These were for my darling husband's turn at hosting his office breakfast. I selected the recipe with his chocolate fanatic boss in mind, but alas, he was traveling that day and didn't get to partake. It's from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My House to Yours, and is one I've made before. However, I think that in the past I may have adapted the recipe but forgotten to write down my tweaks. I remember the muffins as being super dense with loads of chocolate-y goodness, but this time I felt that the chopped-up chunks were not plentiful enough. Next go round, I think I'll double up on the chocolate chunks and throw in a handful or two of mini chocolate chips to ensure that no bite is without ooze. You can find the recipe here, at Epicurious.

Chocolate Pots de Crème

I meant to stick to my intention of blogging once a week, but last week, life got in the way. And a little storm some call Nemo, but which I prefer to refer to simply as the Blizzard of 2013. So here goes: the first of this week’s two posts to get me back up to speed.

Last Sunday was the Chinese New Year. It’s the Year of the Snake, a year that is particularly significant to me because my darling husband’s Chinese zodiac sign is the snake (this happy confluence means he has a birthday coming up that is a multiple of 12). But I digress.

When the kids were small, I didn’t really make a proper dessert for our Chinese New Year dinner celebration but kept it simple – fresh fruit, usually clementines. While I still give them clementines with their red envelopes, in recent years I added a simple dessert. Last year, I made Crème Caramel. This year, I decided to make another dessert that I learned in my Classic Pastry class at Johnson and Wales: Chocolate Pots de Crème. I’ve never even really eaten Pot de Crème; the day we made Crème Caramel, Pots de Crème and Crème Brulée in class, the desserts were assigned by team. My team made the Crème Brulée. While knowing how to make Crème Brulée is a fabulous life skill, this meant my team only got to eat the Crème Brulée. So I figured this would be an excellent opportunity to sample some!

I chose this recipe from David Lebovitz’s Ready for Dessert, found on the Culinate site. Baked custards and water baths used to intimidate me, but they really are fairly forgiving and quite simple. One of the terrific things about this particular recipe is that it uses ingredients I generally have in the house (for example, half and half rather than whole milk and heavy cream).

These were a big hit with my family. They would be best described as a chocolate egg custard (without being too eggy); my husband likened it to Chocolate Mousse, but without its lightness. I served them at room temperature without any garnish, but they would be wonderful with a dollop of Chantilly Cream. My discerning eater C. lamented that the recipe makes too little (six ramekins!), so I’m pretty certain I will be making these again. Happy Year of the Snake!

(Vegan) Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles

I had been holding on to the recipe for these cookies for some time. I was largely unaware of the possibilities of vegan baking until a dear friend, Dawn, took me to a local vegan bakery. I tried a number of goodies there and was gobsmacked by how moist and delicious everything was. I would never have guessed that none of it contained dairy or eggs. Dawn is herself a vegan and a big fan of yummy things, so I decided that I wanted to honor our friendship by making something for her. Plus, she’s a great guinea pig and has always been supportive of my baking experiments.

After vetting many recipes, I decided that Post Punk Kitchen’s Mexican Hot Chocolate Snickerdoodles sounded promising, and printed out the recipe, intending to make them as a Christmas offering to Dawn. That would be Christmas 2011. I ended feeling overwhelmed with the holiday baking and never got around to them. Then sometime this fall, our group of girlfriends had a conversation about food (we have many conversations about food) and the subject of chili-infused chocolate came up; Dawn was most enthusiastic. So that sealed the deal; I had to make those cookies this Christmas. And so I did.

I cannot rave about these cookies enough. They were simple to make and did not require any unusual ingredients. No egg substitute or flax meal were necessary. I was worried that the cookies would be greasy with the amount of canola oil used; they weren't.  I was worried that they would lose their crispness when stored; they didn’t. My non-vegan family loved them. Dawn loved them. Dawn’s husband loved them; he even emailed me a plea for help one day because he couldn’t stop eating them and was afraid she would return home from work to discover that they were all eaten.

The cookies are pleasingly chocolaty and have a depth of flavor that I really enjoyed.  I loved how the chocolate and cinnamon played off each other, and the slow burn of the cayenne. The texture is firm but there’s a nice chewiness in there too. Who knew a vegan cookie could be so satisfying?

Bourbon Balls

I made these this holiday season when I found myself with an abundance of bourbon -- not a spirit I would ordinarily choose to imbibe. I thought they'd be a fun, boozy treat for my friends -- drunken cake balls, if you will. Plus, as my friend Allison pointed out, "bourbon balllllllllls" is fun to say.

The recipe posted on Joy of Baking was really simple to make, although dipping the balls in the melted coating chocolate (I used Guittard Dark Chocolate A'Peels because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to temper chocolate) was a little tricky and gave me nasty Johnson and Wales Chocolates and Confections class flashbacks. I drizzled them with melted Ghiradelli White Chocolate Baking Bar, which I thought made them look pretty fancy.

Peeps loved them and couldn't stop popping them -- did I mention my friends like boozy treats? I thought they were delicate and moist and all those good things, but I quickly tired of the bourbon-iness. I think I would prefer rum balls. Maybe next Christmas I will have too much rum on hand and will need to find a way to use it up. I really can't imagine being in that situation but you never know!

Happy 2013!

First off, Happy New Year to all. I hope you survived the holiday season with waistline and sanity intact.

One of my goals for 2013 is to resume regular posting (and baking), so here goes. Our house is still recovering from the glut of baked goodies (ours and gifts from others) that we acquired in the past couple of weeks so I haven't baked anything new this week. I do have a backlog of projects to post though, so that's not a problem!

Our family's Christmas Eve food tradition is a dinner of baked ziti, Caesar salad, and Texas Toast, with something rich and chocolatey for dessert after church service. My younger son commented that he was having a hankering for cake so I decided to make the Triple Layer Chocolate Birthday Cake from one of my favorite food blogs, Eat, Live, Run. Jenna Weber is the creator of Eat, Live, Run, and in the past year, it has become my go-to when I need ideas for something to make (savory and sweet). My Pinterest boards are easily 80% Eat, Live, Run repins!

Back to the cake. I used cow's milk (rather than almond milk) in the cake and vanilla extract rather than vanilla bean in the cake and frosting. I was slightly concerned baking the three layers, since I only have two straight-sided 9-inch cake pans; I used an old supermarket-quality (i.e. sloped-sided) 9-inch pan for the third layer. The batter mixed up great and the layers rose nicely and were pretty level when they came out of the pans. I did put greased and floured parchment rounds on the bottom of each pan because I didn't want any surprises when it was time to depan the layers. I tested them at the prescribed 40-minute mark and they seemed perfect -- sides beginning to pull away, a few crumbs sticking to the toothpick -- so I pulled them out then.

No incidents with making the ganache or the frosting... everything went painlessly and I managed to sneak in a 2-mile run while I was waiting for things to cool/set up. The whole cake came together beautifully and I used every last bit of the frosting, thus the sad solitary rosette on the top of the cake! In hindsight, perhaps I should've used a smaller tip to decorate, but I was going for speed at that point, and I rarely run out of frosting (most recipes make way too much) so it didn't occur to me to go light.

The three layers create a MONSTER of a cake. Lift with your knees, peeps!! 

Now -- the eating of the cake. In hindsight, I'm thinking my layers were overbaked because the cake was a tad dry right off the bat. Next time, I would check them a bit earlier and/or brush the layers with a flavored simple syrup. My guys LOVED the frosting, but were just meh about the ganache between the layers; they couldn't taste it. I only had enough ganache to do a fairly thin layer between the cake layers; it just didn't stand up to the dryness of the cake itself. I think if there were more (and the cakes weren't overbaked) it would have made more of an impact. Also, the cake really could've used more frosting (I have never, ever said those words before). The guys suggested that next time I make only two layers, replace the ganache layer with frosting and use the same or more frosting to ice the cake, so that'll be my plan. I'll let you know how it turns out!

revisiting an old favorite

My youngest, C., turned 15 this month and asked for the Cook's Illustrated Devil's Food Layer Cake with Whipped Cream Frosting for his birthday cake. I've made it a number of times before (posted here and here), but had forgotten about it. His memory was jarred when he looked through my old posts.  WNYC was kind enough to post the recipe on their Leonard Lopate Show site (it's at the bottom of the page), so you can look at it there. I used Kate's Real Buttermilk, rather than plain yogurt, and Dutch-processed cocoa (it's all I had) rather than the natural cocoa powder. Also be advised that the cake layers bake up fairly thin, regardless of what the recipe notes say; I've baked it many times and I've found this to be true every time.

The cake was, in a word, amazing. It might be the best-tasting cake I've ever baked. In my whole life. Try it, I implore you.

waste not, want not chocolate cupcakes

Remember how I said I needed to use up the leftover icing in my last post? Voila! Chocolate cupcakes iced with the leftover Chocolate Buttercream and decorated with leftover Vanilla Buttercream.  The cupcake recipe is from Martha Stewart's site, though I substituted plain lowfat Greek-style yogurt for the sour cream. The cake was moist and dense and not overly sweet -- the perfect foil for the icing. Sooooo good.

many, many mini cupcakes!

I was asked to make mini cupcakes for a celebration at church last weekend. They were expecting about 175 guests, but left the specifics (varieties and number of cupcakes) up to me. After much gnashing of teeth and sketching out possible combinations in my notepad, I decided to make 3 different batters and 3 different icings, resulting in 5 different combos: yellow cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, yellow cupcakes with chocolate buttercream, dark chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream, dark chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream, and carrot cupcakes with cream cheese icing. I thought this would provide the best selection for everyone's different tastes while not creating an overwhelming amount of work for me.

The whole process went about as smoothly as I could have hoped, thanks to careful planning on my part. I knew I would have a limited amount of time to bake on the day of the gathering, so I made the icings the day before and refrigerated them. Before I used them the next day, I brought them to room temperature, gave each a quick whip in the mixer and I was good to go.  I also "mis-d" my cupcake ingredients the day before, with the plan that I would get up at 5am and have a solid 3 - 4 hours of baking before I had to leave for the morning, then return at lunchtime to ice the cupcakes, and have them delivered to the event by 2:30pm.  Everything really went according to plan aside from my anxious brain waking up at 3am and refusing to settle back down again.  At 4:30am, I called it quits on the night's sleep and got to work.

All the cupcake batter recipes were from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.  Each recipe makes 24 full-sized cupcakes according to the book; when I made them, I portioned them with a #40 (3/4-oz.) scoop which worked out to between 65 - 70 mini cupcakes per batch.

The icings were from a couple of different sources.  The vanilla and chocolate buttercreams were from Brown Eyed Baker (vanilla here, and chocolate here). Both were scrumptious! The cream cheese icing recipe was the original Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting recipe from Kraft's site.  I've tried a number of other cream cheese icing recipes and this one remains the most consistent.  I also added a tablespoon of Wilton Meringue Powder to each batch to stabilize the icing, since all were mostly butter (and cream cheese -- notoriously hard to work with in warm temps). Note that the carrots on the carrot cupcakes were vanilla buttercream and not cream cheese icing. One more thing: a single batch of each icing was enough to ice all the cupcakes, with icing to spare.

The cupcakes were well-received and I was really pleased with the results.  There were a few minor snafus (AKA learning moments) that I have made note of -- mostly having to do with juggling the fiddly little mini cupcake trays in the oven when rotating them and issues with air circulation in the oven, but nothing anyone else would probably notice.  Now on to planning my next batch of cupcakes... need to use up that leftover icing!

mexican chocolate cupcakes with dulce de leche frosting

I decided that this summer I would try my hand at making some less pedestrian cupcakes. For my birthday, I selected these goodies that I pinned a few months back on my "Things to Bake/Make" board on Pinterest. I also attempted (and succeeded) making Dulce de Leche from "scratch" (i.e. from a can of condensed milk) for the first time. When I originally selected the recipe, I thought I was going to be able to find already-prepared (canned) Dulce de Leche quite readily at my local supermarket, but no such luck. In spite of the extra step, they were undoubtedly the better for my having made my own Dulce de Leche.

I did a fair amount of research before making my own Dulce de Leche. The standard way is to make it by submerging a sealed can of sweetened condensed milk in a simmering pot of water for a couple hours or so, but apparently that technique comes with a fair amount of risk, of the can exploding.  That really didn't sound appealing to me.  There are other techniques as well, including baking the contents of the can over a water bath (as David Leibovitz describes here) for an hour, or the method I employed: slowly microwaving the sweetened condensed milk at 30% - 50% power and whisking at regular intervals.  I felt the most comfortable with this technique because (a) it seemed to be the least time consuming, (b) it was a warm day and would heat up my kitchen the least, and (c) I felt I had the most control over the process this way.  I didn't want to burn it or heat it to the point of turning the milk into rock hard candy. Since I would be taking the Dulce de Leche out of the microwave every couple minutes and whisking it, I would have a better handle at its state at any given point. I was really happy with this method and definitely would make it this way again. One tip -- place the milk in the biggest bowl that will fit in your microwave. 14 ounces of sweetened condensed milk doesn't look like that much, but when it starts to boil in the microwave, it really bubbles up. There were times when I was intoning "stop, stop, stop" as the milk rose to the top of the bowl. Fortunately, the microwave power always seemed to cycle off before it could boil over.

Here are directions I used, from Carnation's site.  They seemed to use the most conservative time and power settings of the different microwaving instructions I've read. I cooked mine an additional 2 minutes at 30% power, for a total of 14 minutes at 30%. Note also that after the Dulce de Leche has cooled, you may have to warm it slightly over a warm water bath to make it pliable enough to beat with the cream cheese for the icing.

Pour 1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk into a large microwave-safe bowl. Cook on medium (50%) power for 4 minutes, stirring halfway through heating time. Reduce power to medium-low (30%) power; cook for 8 to 12 minutes, stirring with wire whisk every few minutes, until thick and light caramel-colored. 

Note: Microwave ovens may vary; adjust timing accordingly. 

The cupcake and icing recipe is from Jennifer's Bake or Break blog. The addition of cinnamon to the chocolate batter is what gives them a Mexican chocolate flavor. I used Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder (a mixture of Dutch-processed and unsweetened cocoa powders) for a darker, richer and mellower chocolate flavor, rather than using the straight unsweetened cocoa powder called for.

I also converted the volume measurements in the cupcake recipe into weights, as I am a compulsive scaler.  Here are my conversions:

• 8.5 oz. all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt (I used a slightly heaping 1/2 tsp. of coarse sea salt)
• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1.5 oz. mixture of Dutch-processed and unsweetened cocoa powder (such as Hershey's Special Dark cocoa powder)
• 8 oz. unsalted butter, softened
• 10.5 oz. granulated sugar
• 4 oz. light brown sugar
• 3 large eggs
• 1 tbs. vanilla extract
• 8 oz. milk

You can read the rest of the cupcake recipe and the frosting recipe on the Bake or Break site.

To ice the cupcakes, I piped the icing on in a swirl (I don't really like how it looks when I spread it on with a spatula), using a Wilton #12 round tip.  I had just enough to ice all 24 cupcakes with no icing left over, so ration carefully (and sample sparingly!). To finish, I garnished each cupcake with a piece of chewy caramel candy, cut into quarters. 

The cupcakes were phenomenal.  The cake itself was moist and rich and the icing's cream cheese-Dulce de Leche combo was a great compliment to the cake -- not too sweet and just a hint of caramel-y goodness. My husband took a few into work and they were very well-received. Thanks to Jennifer for a fabulous pair of recipes!

it's apple season!

I made these cute cupcakes a few weeks ago, in celebration of the boys' return to school. The cake itself was from a mix (Wilton-approved Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge) that I happened to have on hand. The icing was the Chocolate Frosting recipe from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I don't know what the problem was with my icing recipes this summer -- maybe it was just the increased warmth -- but they typically did not turn out well at all. I remember it being a fairly cool day, inside and out, and still the icing turned out soupy, about the consistency of warm pudding, even after refrigerating the icing for several hours before piping. It was such a disappointment. You can see that the icing in the photo doesn't look very sharp; I took this picture after chilling the iced cupcakes overnight. After about 15 minutes out of the fridge, the piped icing lost much of its definition.

For the toppers, I tinted some fondant with Americolor soft gel pastes -- Super Red for the apples, and Leaf Green for the leaves. I really love this product -- the colors turn out bright without using a ton of gel paste; I much prefer them to Wilton icing gel colors. I also painted on a little straight gel paste for some highlighting on the apples so they wouldn't look quite so flat. I love how they turned out!

summer birthday cake #3: america's test kitchen's devil's food cake with cream cheese frosting

 

C. requested a chocolate cake with cream cheese icing for his birthday. I selected the Devil's Food Layer Cake and Cream Cheese Frosting from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I have to say I no longer hang on to ATK's every word when it comes to baking, as I've had a few of their recipes not turn out well (including one which caused Team Awesome to blow our grade on the Baking For Health and Wellness practical).  No issues with the Devil's Food Cake but the Cream Cheese Frosting was really disappointing. It was too soft to work with in spite of being well-chilled. I know it's a cardinal sin in the cake business to even attempt using cream cheese icing in the summer, so I was already asking for trouble, but I believe this recipe was a bit wonky to begin with.  This morning I conducted a postmortem and compared the ratios with the cream cheese frosting recipe I ordinarily use (from the Philadelphia Cream Cheese folks). ATK's uses a quarter of the amount of confectioner's sugar that Philly's does, slightly more butter and includes a small amount of sour cream (which the Philadelphia Cream Cheese recipe does not have).  I really should've compared the recipes before making the icing and recognized that there might be a problem with the ATK recipe.  Baking is a science, so call this a failed experiment.

Icing failure or not, it was an adorable cake.  I enlisted the birthday boy, AKA fondant modeler extraordinaire, to create the figures for his cake.  My original idea was to model little schnauzers but he has more experience than I do with making dogs so I asked him if he might like to give it a go.  He suggested making something else entirely.  Recently he's been on a Pikmin kick so he created different figures from the game. He mixed the colors and modeled everything himself. Clearly he's the real artistic talent in our family. (Happy 14th birthday, C!)

The Wollywog squashing a blue Pikmin.

Different pellets, and a purple Pikmin carrying a marble.

Dwarf Red Bulborb

summer birthday cake #2: flour's yellow birthday cake with fluffy chocolate ganache frosting

My darling and very easy-going husband requested a yellow cake with chocolate icing for his birthday this year so I decided to try a recipe I'd been eying for awhile: Yellow Birthday Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Ganache Frosting from Flour by Joanne Chang.  The photo in the book looks delectable -- thick layers of yellow cake, filled and iced with light brown (thanks to the incorporation of lots and lots of air), super fluffy icing. As you might be able to deduce from the artfully-lit photo above, mine didn't exactly turn out that way.  The cake was fine -- a little dense, but moist enough for a scratch cake and not excessively greasy the way many scratch yellow cakes seem to turn out (not greasy = dry; moist = greasy). I followed the icing recipe to the letter, but it came out soupy. It was the consistency of cake batter -- imagine trying to ice a cake with that.  I can't quite decide what went wrong. Basically, you melt the chocolate with heavy cream over a double-boiler and let cool completely.  Then you whip the butter and cream that with confectioner's sugar, salt and flavoring. Finally you add the chocolate-cream mixture and whip 'til it lightens and thickens.  Easy-peasy, right? No. The most obvious culprit might be excessive warmth, but my kitchen wasn't particularly hot that day. I even went so far as to see if there were any corrections to the recipe posted on Flour's website, but nadda.

In the end, it was yummy, if very frustrating. It was impossible to ice and smooth, and very difficult to decorate. Chilling the icing before piping just made it go straight from wet to rock hard, so I gave up on that. I attempted to pipe buttercream flowers on the top, but they just sank under the soupy icing. Piping on a border was out of the question. Yuck. The peeps were very understanding and appreciative nevertheless and proclaimed it delicious. I have the sweetest family!

summer birthday cake #1: henri's chocolate cake by zoe bakes

People tease me when they hear that I bake my own birthday cake.  They think I have to bake my own cake, rather than want to bake my own cake.  But I spend so much time baking what others want, it's a treat to bake something of my choosing.

This year, I baked Henri's Chocolate B-day Cake (it's a Devil's Food Cake) topped with Dorie Greenspan's Chocolate Malt Buttercream from Zoe Bakes. The cake itself is a recipe that I've turned to on a number of occasions, including here and here. Instead of baking it in a single 3-inch tall, 8-inch round pan and torting the cake, as Zoe recommends, I baked two layers in 2-inch tall, 8-inch round pans. The biggest reason for this was that I don't own a 3-inch tall 8-inch pan. Also, I didn't feel like torting the cake. But mostly the first thing. Instead of prepping the pans in the conventional manner (grease, flour and parchment), I brushed on the handy-dandy pan grease that's never ever failed me in the past few hundred times I've used it. Maybe this recipe has less fat or is too soft, or I just don't know why, but the corners stuck like a, well, like a really bad compound word. Next time, I'll be lining the bottom with parchment in addition to using the pan grease.

Broken cake aside (13-year-old C. thought the stuck parts made a fabulous breakfast, by the way), I spackled the missing bits with the Chocolate Malt Buttercream and moved on.  I was inspired by Zoe's decorating job on her site, but somehow my big dots looked like something less appetizing.  I think it's the brown icing that pushed the resemblance over the edge.  Luckily, it's a very scrumptious cake -- the cake is moist and tender and the icing is rich and chocolatey.  It's one of the rare cakes where no one leaves a glob of excess icing on the plate.  It's soooo good -- I love, love, LOVE this cake!

That's one cake down, and three more to go in our house this summer!

happy bday, pj!

My first post post-school year! This was a little something that I baked for my darling husband's 45th birthday a week ago. The cake was Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake with Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting. The icing job came out looking a little rough but it was sweltering that day and I had to chill the cake for 15 minutes for every 2 minutes of work I got done because otherwise the icing was turning to soup. By now, I've had plenty of experience working in hot kitchens, but since it was for just us, I didn't sweat it too much. I would've liked to make the sides a bit smoother before combing them though.


Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

(from Hershey.com)
About 10-12 servings.
2 cups sugar
1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup Hershey's Cocoa, sifted
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water

Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks.


Philadelphia Cream Cheese Frosting
(from Kraftrecipes.com)
Kraft says this is enough to ice two 8- or 9-inch layers; I made 1 1/2 times the recipe to be safe and it was barely enough.

1 8-oz. pkg. Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 16-oz. pkg. powdered sugar (about 4 cups), sifted

Beat cream cheese, butter and vanilla in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add sugar gradually, beating until well blended after each addition.

chocolates

I'm currently in the midst of Chocolates and Confections class at school. The class is really more like part chocolates - part really hard science class (at least for me). At any rate, above is a picture of some of what I made yesterday. On the top are peanut butter pralines (with rice krispies for crunch), painstakingly hand-dipped in lovingly table tempered milk chocolate. Arranged on the bottom of the sheet pan are mocha ganache-filled pralines, dipped in milk chocolate and garnished with cocoa nibs. We also made a raspberry ganache that we will cut and dip next Sunday. By the end of the (very long) day, we were all chocolate-covered! Thank goodness for Oxyclean.

whoops! an omission

I forgot to call out the brownies in the first photo in the last post. They are on the left, below the Raspberry Wreaths and above the Harlequins. The brownies themselves were actually from a King Arthur Flour recipe and we glazed them with chocolate ganache (not part of the original recipe).

another practical is upon me

I'm wrapping up the first segment of my second trimester next Sunday -- Cookies and Petit Fours. I'm shocked to find that I will soon have four Baking and Pastry classes under my belt; it seems like such a short time ago when I was so overwhelmed and crazy from the pace of the classes. Now it seems (mostly) like old hat.

Below are a few of the items we made during this segment.


Clockwise from top left: Raspberry Wreaths, Chocolate Biscotti, Checkerboard Cookies, Almond Spritz, Arachides, and Harlequins.

The Raspberry Wreaths have a layer of short dough on the bottom, with butter spritz dough and a raspberry jam filling on top. Chocolate Biscotti have chocolate chips in the cocoa-flavored dough. The Checkerboard Cookies are made with vanilla and chocolate shortbread. The Almond Spritz contain almond flour and are garnished with a sprinkle of almond flour and slivered almonds. The Arachides are filled with a mixture of Pralinosa (a hazelnut-flavored paste) and peanut butter and are dipped in ganache and sprinkled with toasted peanuts to finish. The Harlequins are made from short dough and are filled with orange jam.

Above are another Petit Fours -- Japonaise Mochas. They are tiny Japonaise wafers sandwiched with a layer of a mocha-flavored Swiss Buttercream and are finished with a little more buttercream on top, a drizzle of chocolate and a mocha coffeebean. These were P.'s favorites!


And last are the Petit Fours Glacé. Two layers of frangipane, spread with thin layers of orange jam and topped with a thin layer of marzipan. The whole thing is glazed with a layer of poured fondant and decorated with a chocolate filigree. The sugar in these makes my heart race!

scenes from a busy fall trimester...

Here are just a few of the things I've baked the past few months. There's so much more than I just didn't have time or forgot to photograph -- sorry.

Practicing Palmiers at home for my Classic Pastry practical back in October. I blame the cheap butter.

Some sort of chocolate chip bar cookie... not for school. I honestly can't remember what they were or where the recipe came from.


Dutch Apple Galette, from first day of Pies and Tarts class.


Lattice Apple Pie, also from Pies and Tarts class.

Ungarnished but partially eaten Turtle Pie.

Chocolate Cream Pie -- a big hit with the kids at Thanksgiving.

Lemon Curd Tartlets (my favorite) and Fruit Tartlets.

This is actually from the first day of Winter Trimester -- Linzer Torte from Cookies and Petit Fours class.

nick of time cranberry-white chocolate (and a whisper of oatmeal) drops

One of the perks of being a habitual baker is that I usually have a fairly well-stocked pantry. And even when it's not well stocked, there are usually enough odds and ends that I can pull something together in a pinch if necessary. Case in point -- this morning I received the call to send in a sweet goodie with L. for tonight's teen book group. After perusing my pantry, I managed to cull enough oatmeal, dried cranberries and white chocolate for this recipe from the King Arthur Flour site. I didn't have a ton of any of these particular ingredients so I halved the batch (just as well -- we have a lot of other baked stuff in the house already).