Crustless Cranberry Walnut Pie

I bought three days of cranberries the other day, (hey, they were on sale for 99 cents apiece, what was I supposed to do?) so I knew I needed to get a hold of some great cranberry-involving recipes as soon as possible. This recipe was really, really good. The cranberries were just tart enough to counteract the sweetness of the cake/pie. It's called a pie, but it's basically a thin cake to me. My brother happened to be home this weekend, so this dessert was gone within 12 hours! 

I had some cranberries left over, so I froze them in the bag to use in future recipes. Does anyone know what a raw cranberry tastes like? I thought about trying to eat one, but I couldn't get up the nerve! Homework and classwork has pretty much been taking over my life for the past week- two tests, two oral presentations, a portfolio due, and a paper- BUT I got it all done, and I have all As in my classes going into finals, which start this Wednesday. I can't wait for winter break! I'll have so much more time for baking and planning products for my Etsy store. I already know I'm going to sell vintage kitchen items, recipe cards, and dinner menus, but beyond that, I have no clue.

Thanksgiving Bundt Cake

It's the day before Thanksgiving, and I am in the middle of baking five desserts. Yes, five. I kind of went crazy and bought way too many cranberries and sweet potatoes in the spirit of the season. I am making a sweet potato pie for Grandmama's, a red wine chocolate cake (not very Thanksgiving-y I know, but Jeremy's mom really likes red wine) for Jeremy's, a cranberry pie for Nana's, random lemon cranberry muffins and sweet potato cupcakes, and a Thanksgiving bundt cake (above) for my mom's best friend. Although I will have full posts on all desserts I'm making, here are the links to what I am baking for Thanksgiving! What is your go-to Thanksgiving dessert?


Sweet Potato Pie
Sweet Potato Cupcakes with Cream Cheese and Brown Butter Frosting
Thanksgiving Bundt Cake (All I did was change the colors: I didn't dye the chocolate cake black, I dyed the yellow cake yellow and orange, and I dyed the icing yellow and orange)
Nantucket Cranberry Pie
Red Wine Chocolate Cake

Chocolate Wasted Cake

My boyfriend's 21st birthday was this past weekend, and this cake seemed totally appropriate. It's chocolate on top of chocolate on top of even MORE chocolate! It's insane. I had to choose between this cake and an Oreo cake, but I really just wanted to go crazy and throw tons of chocolate on a cake. Seriously, that's what you do. And what could be better? Also, chocolate has phytochemicals, which are good for you. Trust me, I'm a Nutrition major ;)

Sadly, my first wonderful cake fell. I waited too long after adding the baking soda to the wet ingredients (about 12 minutes; I was hastily buttering the pans and cutting out parchment rounds) and the baking soda reacted before I had a chance to put it in the oven. I had to resort to box mix for the cake layers, but feel free to try the original cake layer recipe. It has had many good reviews on the original website. All cake batter photographs are from the original cake recipe, not the box mix version. (I used Betty Crocker Super Moise Triple Chocolate Fudge mix).

Three Layer Chocolate Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made this cake this past Monday for a party at my grandparent's house! I was supposed to go by a grocery store and get a chocolate cake with white icing, but I decided to make one myself instead! I had a hard time deciding between cream cream frosting and buttercream icing, but I had several packs of cream cheese that I needed to use up, so I went with the cream cheese frosting. Icing recipes are extremely versatile: you can change the amount of powdered sugar (depending on how sweet you want it) and vary the types of flavorings you put in it (vanilla extract, orange extract, etc).  

As I was tapping out the excess flour in my pans, I noticed a perfectly shaped heart!

Don't worry, the batter is supposed to be runny. I actually forgot the hot coffee until the last minute, but luckily there was some leftover coffee in the coffee pot that I heated up and mixed in.

I had the most nerve-wracking time trying to figure out the placement of the cakes in the oven. I have a gas range and an electric oven that will switch to convection, but I had no idea which to use. I know convection is better, but I couldn't figure out whether to turn the temperature down or change the time or the recipe or anything. I finally got so confused that I just put them in the oven (2 on top, 1 on bottom) and left it. About halfway through the cooking time, I put it on convection and reversed the position of the cakes. They turned out all right even though I was constantly messing with them, thank goodness!

I miscalculated just how much frosting I needed to ice this cake at first, and I ended up doubling the recipe. But doubling icing isn't a big deal, you just mix it all back in together to get the color uniform when you're done.

I cut the dome off of the top of the cakes to make them look more professional, and I put a crumb coat on all three of my layers to avoid getting unsightly crumbs in my frosting. Just put a very, very thin coat of frosting on the cakes, and chill for about 30 minutes. Then take them out and frost as usual!

When I begin to put the cake together, I noticed that the cake was leaning slightly, and I put 3 bamboo skewers in it to keep the layers from slipping off. I cut the skewers slightly below frosting level so they wouldn't be seen in the finished product. Be careful when cutting the skewers; I pinched my finger all three times with the scissors! It was totally worth it though. I'm not sure exactly how much icing I used in between the layers, but there is plenty of icing to go around, so don't worry about running out. If you were feeling particularly fancy, you could put chocolate mousse, jam, curd, ganache, or stiffly whipped cream between the layers. I would have, but sadly I was short on time. Get creative!

Oh, and this cardboard cake circle was a life saver in moving the cake from refrigerator to table to cake plate and back again. I got mine at Wal-Mart and they are Wilton brand. I used the 10 inch one. I found a piping bag and several tips and dyed the icing a slightly deeper shade of blue for the decorations. I used a star tip and a basketweave tip. Next time, I'll go slower and let the icing chill for a longer period of time.

The cake turned out wonderful and was absolutely delicious! I can't wait to make another cake recipe and test out my re-found icing skills. But I have been re-reading Chez Panisse, a book about Alice Waters, the slow food movement, and her Berkeley restaurant, so I am probably going to do a French inspired dessert next week. Perhaps a tart? I guess we'll see!

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
• 3 cups light brown sugar, packed
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups sifted cake flour
• 1 1/3 cups sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups hot coffee

Frosting:

• 4 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 5 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans (I use shortening). Cut 3 circles of waxed paper or parchment paper to fit the bottoms of the pans, then press them in.
• In a mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or using a hand mixer), cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar and eggs and mix until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla, cocoa, baking soda and salt and mix. Add 1/2 of the flour, then 1/2 of the sour cream and mix. Repeat with the remaining flour and sour cream. Drizzle in the hot coffee and mix until smooth. The batter will be thin. 
• For the frosting: In a large bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Add your food coloring or gel if you choose to do so. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use to make sure that it doesn't get runny, which cream cheese frosting is prone to do if it gets warm.

Assembly:

• Line up the three cakes and carefully and evenly slice off the domes to ensure a more professional, bakery look. Then ice the cakes with a crumb coat, and chill for 30 minutes. Take out and fill between the layers with frosting, then insert cut bamboo skewers into the cake for support. Finish icing the cake, and decorate further if desired. Put cake in fridge until time to serve.

Blueberry Buckle Cake

Blueberries were on sale today, so I bought a pint! I originally wasn't going to bake anything with them, (just eat them!) but then I found my berry themed recipe book, so OF COURSE, I then had to make a blueberry themed dessert! This cake is perfect for people who don't like a lot of sugar; the berries give it a slightly tart flavor that counteracts the sweetness. If you don't have blueberries, you can easily replace them with a pint of other fruit, such as raspberries and blackberries.

This will hopefully be the last overly flashed photograph of the ingredients in this blog; I will be photographing everything I can outside from now on because the outside light is so much better. I have a bad habit of making my desserts at night in my past blog entries, but I'll be waking up early from now on!

 Be gentle when folding in the blueberries so that they don't burst.

 This streusel topping is SO DELICIOUS. I mean, it has to be because two of the main ingredients are brown sugar and butter.

This dessert would be delicious served with a generous helping of cinnamon whipped cream!

Recipe adapted from Luscious Berry Desserts 

INGREDIENTS

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon lemon zest
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup whole milk (I used 2% milk and it turned out fine)
• 1 pint blueberries
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice

TOPPING

• 1/3 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces

DIRECTIONS

• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and butter an 8-inch square baking pan.
• For the cake: mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
• Beat butter with an electric mixer on medium-high in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Gradually add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the zest, egg, and vanilla and beat until blended. Stir in the milk with a rubber spatula, then stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture with the rubber spatula. The batter will be very thick. Toss together the blueberries and lemon juice in a small bowl and gently fold into the batter. Transfer to the prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula. 
• For the topping: Whisk together the flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry blender or two knives until the largest pieces of butter are the size of small peas. Sprinkle over the batter.
• Bake the cake for 30 to 35 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 15 minutes.
• Cut the cake into 9 squares and serve warm!

Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Since my biscotti recipe yesterday was a complete fail, I needed to make another recipe today. I was looking through my cookbooks and chose this recipe because of my childhood memories of homemade birthday cakes that were very similar to this one. I'm also really excited to make a layer cake because my cake pans have been missing for over a year, and I finally found them hidden in a back corner a week ago. Also the focus on my camera seems to be messed up, so please bear with me while I get that figured out.

 

After I added all of the ingredients, the batter was very silky and smooth. I divided the batter among the cake pans and put them in the oven. I didn't turn the cakes halfway through because I went to open the oven door, and the cakes looked like they were in their iffy 'If you touch me or even breathe on me, I'm going to fall' stage. But they turned out well without that anyways.

This icing IS SO GOOD. For real. I ate about a ton of it while icing the cake. That's probably why there isn't a lot of filling in the middle of the cake along with the fact that I was afraid that I would run out of icing. HAH, I had SO MUCH ICING left over, it was ridiculous. 

Also, a tip I learned is that when you're icing a cake, place pieces of parchment paper under it so that the icing doesn't get on the cake dome or plate, although I managed to do both even with the paper!

Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart

Makes one 9 inch layer cake

• 2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature plus more for cake pans
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour plus more for cake pans
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 1/4 cups milk

Dark Chocolate Frosting

• 16 ounces semisweet chocolate morsels
• 6 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 6 tablespoons boiling water
• 3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• pinch of salt

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter two 9-by-2-inch round cake pans; line the bottoms with parchment paper. Butter parchment, and dust with flour, tapping out excess; set aside. Into a medium bowl, sift together flours, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour; beat until combined after each addition.
• Divide batter between the prepared pans, and smooth with an offset spatula. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until cakes are golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool 20 minutes. Invert cakes onto the rack; peel off the parchment. Reinvert cakes and let them cool completely, top sides up.
• Place chocolate in a double boiler or heatproof bowl over simmering water. Turn off the heat; stir occasionally until chocolate was melted completely, about 15 minutes. Set bowl on counter top, and let chocolate cool to room temperature, about 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine cocoa powder and boiling water in a small bowl; stir until cocoa is dissolved.
• In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, powdered sugar, and salt on medium-high until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add melted chocolate; beat on low speed until combined, scraping down the sides of bowl as needed. Beat in the cocoa mixture, then frost your cake!
• Use 3/4 cup of icing or more in the middle of the cake, then use the rest of the icing for the sides and top. Cake can be put in fridge, covered, for up to three days.