Zebra Cake with Raspberry Puree & Chocolate Ganache

Zebra Cake

3/4 cup butter at room temperature
1 2/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
2 2/3 cup all purpose or cake flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sour cream
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 tbsp cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350º. In a large bowl, beat butter until smooth, then beat in sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, scraping the bowl in between. In a medium bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients and set aside. Stir the vanilla into the milk in a bowl, set aside. Mix 1/3 of dry ingredients into the butter mixture, then 1/3 of the vanilla milk, and repeat until all are combined. Pour half the batter into another bowl and add the cocoa powder.
Spoon 1 tablespoon of chocolate batter into the greased cake pan, followed by 1 tablespoon vanilla batter in the center. Rotate the pan after each addition to keep it evenly distributed.
Bake ...20, 35? minutes, remove from pan when partly cooled.

Chocolate Ganache
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate

Melt in a double boiler over medium-high heat, stirring until smooth. Pour over cooled cake before adding raspberry layer.

Raspberry Topping
1 pack of raspberries
1/2 cup sugar
brandy or honey bourbon

Stir all together in a sauce pot over medium-high to high heat. Stir occasionally to prevent sticking. When it looks like jam, let it cool before piling into the center of the ganached cake and carefully spread it out to the edges.

Plum & Strawberry Cobbler Cake

Yeah....It's been stupidly long since I updated. Life happens. Well, I made a hybrid of two of my favorite recipes from last summer, and here we go. It's great with coffee or tea. The cake is very dense, the cobbler is buttery and the plums are tart and light. I think it's a pretty nice balance.

Plum & Strawberry Cobbler Cake

For the Cake:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

1 cup unsalted butter @ room temperature

1 cup + 1 tbsp sugar

2 large eggs

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Line the bottom of a springform pan with parchment paper and grease thoroughly with butter.

Whisk dry ingredients , set aside. Cream sugar & butter, Beat in the eggs one at a time, then half of flour, then the milk and vanilla, then the remaining flour. Pour into buttered pan. Set aside.

For the Fruit layer:

6-8 plums , sliced

¾ cup chopped strawberries

½ cup blueberries

1/3 cup sugar

1 ½ tbsp cornstarch

¾ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and spices. Add the cut fruit and stir well. Pour onto the cake batter. Set aside.

For the Cobbler layer:

¾ cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

¾ tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp salt

¾ tsp cinnamon

6 tbsp butter, sliced and frozen

2 tbsp cold milk

½ tsp vanilla

In the bowl from the fruit, still all fruity, whisk the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until the size of peas, then barely stir in the milk & vanilla. Drop in crumbles on the fruit layer.

Place in the center of the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown and doesn’t wiggle when moved.

Let cool completely before removing from springform pan. Keep refrigerated.

Strawberry Vanilla Cake

I have been making a ton of birthday cakes lately, but I haven't been getting good photos of many of them. This cake is leftover batter from a batch of cupcakes for my friend Jin's going away party - she's moving to Korea in a couple of days, for a couple of years. This recipe makes roughly 30 cupcakes (maybe more) or 24 cupcakes plus a single round cake pan (my habit's to use a 7" wedding cake pan so it's a tall deep tiny layer cake).

Leave out the strawberries and this is just a really good (like, REALLY good) vanilla cake which is sturdy enough for layers or for cupcakes with fillings. It's my standard vanilla cake now, adding extra egg yolks & a little food coloring for yellow cake. I bet it'll make great chocolate cake, too. I'll get back to you on that.


Vanilla Cake w/ Strawberries

Strawberry Compote
2 pints fresh strawberries, cut in large chunks
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 cup water

Simmer strawberries & sugar in a small sauce pot over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally. Dissolve the cornstarch in water and whisk into strawberry pot once the berries are half dissolved. Keep on the stove stirring often until thickened to desired state. Let cool.

Vanilla Cake
1 cup (2 sticks) butter at room temperature
2 cups sugar
4 eggs + 2 egg yolks
3 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1-2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350º. Line cupcake pans with paper & spray with nonstick spray or generously grease two 9" round cake pans.
In a small mixing bowl, whisk the vanilla, milk, and sour cream. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt. Also set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter with a hand mixer for several minutes until fluffy. Add sugar, cream 7 minutes until. Add eggs one at a time, beating and scraping down the bowl after each. Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture, 1/3 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the strawberry compote and barely stir in.
Pour by heaping tablespooonfuls into cupcake cups - only up to 2/3 full - or pour evenly and smooth out in 2 round cake pans. Bake around 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Let cool completely before icing with this:


Amanda's Best Vanilla Icing

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, slightly softened
3 1/2 to 4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 1/2 tablespoons vanilla
4 tablespoons heavy cream

Cream the butter with a hand mixer on medium-high until fluffy in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add half the powdered sugar. Beat to death with the mixer, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and heavy cream. Beat to death some more, add the remaining powdered sugar, and refrigerate for 30 minutes or so before piping onto cupcakes. For layer cake it's ok to use at room temperature for the assembly, but refrigerate before decorating. I strongly recommend using fresh strawberries (sliced) on top and between layers!

Buttermilk cake with Brandied Cranberries and Caramel

I made this cake for a dinner party last week and it was a total FAIL, I used too much buttermilk and it looked a lot like cobbler when it came out of the pan. I took it to the party anyway and it was devoured, the cake plate was scraped dry of any trace of caramel or brandied cranberry sauce. It was obvious I was going to have to remake it and make it more solid. (I remade it twice more; #2 had too much flour and this is #3.)

This is the one that I made for Thanksgiving this year, alongside a pumpkin tart. Thanksgiving at my house was 14 (15?) people, including some of my favorite bar friends and my best friends and some people who feel like family. We finished cooking a few hours later than expected but it was worth it to have new friends helping prepare the food while they drank and mingled, while I played queen of the kitchen and enjoyed the lively conversations just outside my tiny kitchen.

This is what it looked like when everything was done:

Buttermilk Bundt with Brandied Cranberries & Caramel

2 cups + 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 batch brandied cranberries (see below)

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Sift the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Scrape down the bowl again and beat in the buttermilk at a low speed until just combined. Add flour 1/3 at a time, beating until just combined.

Pour into a well-greased (I recommend spray) bundt pan and bake in the middle of the oven for 35-40 minutes. Let cool about 15 minutes before trying to remove the cake from the pan. Let the cake cool completely before adding this:

Brandied Cranberries
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup brandy
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
12-oz bag of fresh cranberries
2 tbsp corn starch

Whisk together everything but the cranberries in a sauce pot, then add the cranberries and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, for about ten minutes. Scoop some of the juice into a small bowl and stir in the corn starch until fully dissolved, then whisk the mix back into the pot. The sauce will thicken as it cools.

Caramel

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Bring the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla to a boil in a sauce pot over medium heat, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Boil 12-14 minutes (yes that long), whisking frequently to prevent sticking. Add the vanilla. Pour the caramel over the cake while the caramel is still warm, but let cool before serving.

The Wedding Cakes!

CONGRATULATIONS, MOM!!

My mom got married this weekend, and these are the cakes I made for the joyous occasion. I know some of you will be relieved that my cake-fest is over, but I have bad news for you: It's not. I have started selling batches of cupcakes, and am working on getting myself some business cards....so there will still be a lot of cake recipe testing to come. You'll just have to bear with me. Meanwhile, I have a new stepdad, and that's pretty cool.

These cakes were my wedding present, and they are all cakes which have made appearances on this blog before because I worked on the recipes all summer in preparation. From top left: Carrot cake, Black Chocolate Cake, and Banana Cake with Nutella icing.


(who knew blueberries were so vivid green on the inside? I'd never noticed before!)

The chocolate cake was the most popular, and was the first to be polished off. The kids present didn't know what to make of a chocolate cake with blueberries & raspberries inside and on top, but there were a ton of tiny little Hershey's bars present so they were ok.

Chocolate Ganache
2/3 cup heavy (whipping) cream
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp light corn syrup

Do not make ganache until you are ready to use it, like when you have assembled the cake and the base icing is smooth, or when your donuts are already fried and cooled, etc.

Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a small sauce pot. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate and corn syrup, let sit for a few minutes until chocolate is melting, then whisk until smooth. Pour over cake immediately. Smooth with an icing knife or whatever you can manage.


(sorry the photo's not more glamorous, we'd all had some really delicious white sangria by this point and I couldn't be bothered to mess with manual settings. ha!)

I added 2 layers of caramel cream to the banana cake, at the request of the groom. He approved of the result wholeheartedly. Good thing, too, cause I messed up the first batch of caramel cream so badly it was basically a weak dulce de leche. If I hadn't been so caked out, and if I hadn't had to travel with it, I would've held onto it to make tres leches cake or something. I'll just have to do it again on purpose sometime.

Caramel Cream
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water
3 3/4 cups whole milk
6 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla

Measure out the cornstarch into a small bowl. Add 1 cup of the milk to it and whisk until smooth. Measure out the rest of the milk into another bowl. You will not have time to measure things once you have started.

Using a wooden spoon or heat-safe rubber spatula, stir the sugar and water in a small sauce pot over medium-high heat. Stir constantly until it looks like caramel. It will go through phases and will look like sand, gravel, rock candy, etc, and eventually will be liquid and dark brown. Let it get a tiny bit darker than you think it needs, because it will be paler when the milk is added. Do not, at any point, stop stirring. I mean it!
When it's nice and dark amber, remove from heat and add the whole milk (not the starch milk!) in a slow small stream while whisking constantly. Return to heat and add the starch milk while still whisking, a little faster now. When it thickens to a state just below, say, molasses, and has cooled a bit, add the butter and whisk until incorporated. Let cool almost completely before spreading it.

If using this caramel cream between layers of cakes, you will have a ton of leftover caramel, so you might want to bake a batch of brownies and swirl the caramel on top, or some cupcakes and inject it in them or something. Don't waste it!
Also, the cake will need to be refrigerated to let the caramel set before serving it.

Carrot Cake

I have still been practicing for mom's wedding cakes, I just haven't been blogging about it. I have switched to cupcakes, though, to test (and hone) my icing skills and tweak the recipes til they're just right. I mean, you only get to make your mom's wedding cake once...one assumes. (Kidding, mom!) The wedding is THIS weekend, and I am very very excited!

Anyway, this carrot cupcake was from the batch I made for my friend Angelo's birthday, and if you scroll down you'll see a different version of this recipe, which is less rich, with no brown sugar and no dates or walnuts inside, so don't worry about that one. If you're really into texture in your carrot cake, go nuts (ha!) with more walnuts, pecans, coconut and maybe some raisins. Just be sure to chop stuff up a bit, k? K.

Carrot Cake

2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
4 large eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar (I always use dark, for everything.)
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground clove
3 cups grated carrots
1/2 cup finely chopped dates

Preheat the oven to 350º. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat the sugars and eggs with a hand mixer on medium speed until frothy, about 20 seconds. Add the oil in a steady stream and beat another 20 seconds. (The steady stream part is easier if you have a standing mixer, but I find pouring it in slowly with one hand and holding the hand mixer with the other works just fine.) Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture. Stir in the carrots and dates, then pour into pans and bake in the center of the oven. Cupcakes should be about 25 minutes, 9" round cakes should take about 35 minutes. As with all cakes, bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.




Cream Cheese Icing

2 8-oz bars of cream cheese
1 cup (2 sticks) of unsalted butter, softened but still cool
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups confectioners' sugar
2 tbsp whole milk

Beat the cream cheese and butter with a hand mixer until smooth. Beat in the vanilla and milk, then the sugar one cup at a time. You may not need all 3 cups, and you may need more, so be prepared.

Banana Cake with Nutella Buttercream

After a while you get sick of making banana bread all the time. Since I'm baking a lot of cakes this summer to get practice for my mom's wedding cake in a few months, I decided to turn my overripe fruit into cake for a change. Just another step in my self-imposed cakemaking bootcamp.

It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to play with the butter-to-Nutella ratio in the icing, let me know if you do.

Banana Cake
2 1/2 cup flour
5 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
4 ripe bananas, slightly mashed
3/4 cup butter, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 350º.

Beat bananas with a hand mixer (because it's more fun than using a fork). In a separate bowl, beat sugar, eggs, baking powder, and butter at medium speed about four minutes until fluffy. Add banana mush, beat 30 seconds. Sift flour over the mixture and beat in at low speed for 30 seconds. Pour into two 8" round greased cake pans and bake in the center of the oven for about 40 minutes or until a toothpick in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before assembling.

While the cake is cooling, make the buttercream.



Nutella Buttercream Icing
1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter at room temperature
1 cup Nutella
pinch of salt
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp milk (or more as needed)

In a medium bowl, cream butter and nutella until smooth. Add salt and sift the powdered sugar over the butter mixture, beat in until smooth. Add the milk and beat at high speed until fluffy. Add more milk or powdered sugar if needed to achieve the thickness you want.

Black Forest Cake

This is all that remained of the cake after Blaine's birthday, and it was all I could do to smuggle it out of the bar to get a photo. He asks for black forest cake every year, but last year I made it with canned cherry pie filling, and this year I used fresh cherries and even bought myself a new toy for removing the pits.
If you want a darker icing, you can get fancy and melt a square or two of semisweet baking chocolate and add it to the butter *after* the chocolate has cooled to room temperature. Use a double boiler or microwave according to the package to melt it, otherwise you'll burn it! Chocolate burns easily and tastes like tree bark when it does. I have tested this theory dozens of times.

This is the same cake recipe as the chocolate mint cake a few months back, only I left out an ingredient (the milk!) on the original post. Sorry! This version of it is complete, and has the added bonus of delicious drunken cherry syrup to make it nice and moist. It got rave reviews at the bar party. :)




Drunk Cherry Syrup
4 cups fresh dark cherries, pitted and sliced in half
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp + 2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup kirschwasser or cherry vodka

In a medium bowl, coat the cherries with sugar and a sprinkle of water. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for an hour or two until there is juice in the bottom of the bowl. Set in the fridge overnight to continue juicing. The next day, while the cake is in the oven, pour the juice into a small sauce pot over medium heat. Add the water and cornstarch and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly until clear and thickened. Set on a wire rack to cool. When cooled, pour about 2/3 of the glaze into a bowl and whisk in the kirschwasser. Use this, the boozed up portion, to pour into the cake layers later. The un-spiked portion of the glaze can be poured on top of the cherries on the top of the cake.

Black Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter
2 1-oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling strong coffee

In a sauce pot on medium heat, melt the baking chocolate and butter, stirring often. If it starts to bubble, turn down the heat or it'll burn. Set aside and let cool.
Heat oven to 350º and grease two 9" round cake pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, buttery chocolate, and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula, add the boiling coffee and stir it in. Pour into cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before removing from the pans and letting cool completely on wire racks.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter at room temperature
1 1/2 to 2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3 to 6 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

In a medium or large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy. In another bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of the confectioners' sugar, the cocoa powder, and salt, then add to the butter along with the vanilla, and 2 tsp of the milk. Mix until combined. Add more confectioners' sugar, milk, or cocoa as needed to get the consistency/chocoholic level desired.

To Assemble:
Place a glob of icing on the cake plate, lay one layer of cake on it. Pour half of the drunk cherry glaze into the first layer, then cover with icing, then a layer of cherries. Place the second layer of cake on top of the cherries, pour the drunk cherry glaze, then icing, then cherries, then glaze.

Curd-Filled Lemon Cupcakes

While in London on a business trip a couple of weekends ago, I had a lemon cupcake with my afternoon tea and was thrilled to discover a surprise. Not only was this a delicious lemony cupcake with lemony buttercream, but it also had a lemon curd filling. It went beautifully with my extra-super-bergamot-flavored Earl Grey, and I promised myself I'd attempt to recreate them when I got back to my kitchen. So I did.

One of my friends, who has had many, many of my baked goods over the past few years, said these are the best cupcakes I've ever made. I think he's right, though I may top these with my birthday cupcakes next week....aren't you excited?

Make the lemon curd first, so you'll have it handy when you're ready to put some of it into the cake and into the icing. Instead of carving plugs out of the cupcakes and filling them, you can use a pastry bag to squeeze the curd into them. I think carving's more fun. You MUST use fresh squeezed-it-yourself lemon juice, the bottled concentrate stuff is horrible and will make horrible cupcakes.



Curd-Filled Lemon Cupcakes

For the Curd:
grated zest of two lemons
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter at room temperature
2 large eggs
pinch of salt

Bring about 1" of water to not-quite-simmering in a sauce pot. In a metal bowl, mix the lemon zest, sugar, and butter, blending with a hand mixer until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the lemon juice and salt, then place the bowl over the [almost] simmering water with the heat on low. Stir continuously with a wooden spoon until the curd has thickened enough to coat the back of the spoon, about ten minutes, then remove from heat.
Set aside 1/3 cup of curd to go in the icing, and 1/2 cup to go into the cake batter. The rest is for filling.

For the Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup buttermilk*
1/2 cup lemon curd
2 eggs at room temperature

*or, 3/4 cup milk with a tbsp of lemon juice in it, let it sit and curdle for 5 minutes or so before use.

Preheat oven to 350º.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add the sugar, beating until fluffy, then add lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. Mix in 1/3 of the flour, then half of the milk, then another 1/3 of flour, then the sour cream, then the rest of the milk, and then the last of the flour. Pour into paper-lined muffin tins, each one should be around 2/3 full.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges, and let cool completely before filling and icing them.

For the Icing
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup lemon curd
1 tsp lemon juice
2 to 4 tbsp milk
1 to 1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter in a small bowl with a hand mixer. Add the lemon curd, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat until combined. Add 1 cup of confectioners' sugar, mixing to combine, and add milk and/or confectioners' sugar until it is the texture you like.

When the cupcakes are cool and the icing and curd are ready, cut a circle out of the center of hte top of the cupcakes (think half a wine cork) and remove the cake. Drop about 1 tbsp of lemon curd into the cupcakes and replace the cake-plug. Cover with icing to hide the seam, and place shaved lemon peel on top for garnish.

I recommend freezing a few of these, because you will want them again very soon after the first round, and not want to go to the trouble again so soon.

Brown Sugar Cake with Butterscotch Icing

I really wanted to bake a cake the other day, and didn't have any carrots for carrot cake, nor was I in the mood to bake that same chocolate cake again (though I do love it enough to only ever make it, my friends will tire of it, and that would be a shame). I took a yellow cake recipe from a cookbook I trust and adjusted some things and am quite satisfied with the result. Yves, my darling roommate, was hanging around this morning while I was taking photos of the cake and couldn't resist taking a bite, which turned into a slice. All she said was "Oh WOW." Good enough for me!

Butterscotch is a really gross color, if you ask me. I'm glad it doesn't look that way in the photo, because let me tell you how scary the icing looked when it was about halfway made. Pinky peachy brown, yucko. Fortunately the powdered sugar eased the eyesore a bit. Besides, butterscotch tastes so good, who cares what color it is? Probably only me. But I do look at colors analytically as part of my job, so I'm allowed. There are worse eccentricities.

Brown Sugar Cake with Butterscotch Icing
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
1 large egg + 2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350º. Line two 9" cake pans with parchment paper and spray with nonstick spray. Set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a medium bowl, cream the butter, sour cream, eggs, and vanilla with a hand mixer. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat in until smooth and shiny, then scrape down the bowl and stir by hand for a few seconds to get rid of any remaining bubbles or flour.
Pour the batter into the two cake pans and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool completely before icing and assembling the layers.

Butterscotch Icing
1 bag butterscotch chips
1 cup butter (2 sticks) at room temperature
4 tbsp sour cream
3 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tbsp whole milk
pinch of salt

In a sauce pot over low heat, melt the butterscotch chips. Remove from heat and mix in the butter, milk, sour cream, salt, and confectioners' sugar with a hand mixer. Add more milk or sugar as needed to get the texture you prefer.

Assemble and decorate the cake as desired. Top with chopped walnuts if you know what's good for you.

Chocolate Peppermint Cake

Ok, so this isn't the prettiest cake I've ever made, but the peppermint buttercream really needs to be refrigerated for an hour before trying to ice the cake, and the cake must be completely cool before you ice it. Otherwise your buttercream will do what mine did - sank right in. A last-minute addition of a whole batch of a completely different icing saved the day. Learn from my mistake! Chill! Or you'll have to take an extra hour to redo the icing, and it will not be fun, not at all.

I like to give birthday cakes as birthday presents. I generally ask my friends a week or so before their birthdays what they'd like, and I make whatever they ask for. I've made a 3-tier neon-flecked cake, mango cheesecake, twin pies of chocolate mousse and key lime (served as two slivers, like TwoFace made cream pies), and last year I made two black forest cakes in the same week for two different birthdays. I think the best part of this setup is that I get fairly frequent challenges, and I put my best into them because, hey, they're my birthday gifts!

In the case of this particular cake, my friend Allie (ain't she cute?) said three words. Chocolate, peppermint, pattie. This is what I came up with. Unfortunately for you, it went over so well that it was eaten before I could get my camera and show you how soft and dark and rich the cake is inside. Please take my word for it, or better yet, prove it by baking this cake for yourself, it's intensely good. The recipe is derived from the back of the Hershey's Cocoa Powder container, but I traded out some of the cocoa for some dark chocolate and used butter instead of vegetable oil, changing the amount to account for the extra moisture in butter, and used strong coffee instead of water. I mean, come on Hershey's! Water? Really? Sheesh.
The peppermint icing recipe is borrowed from a Daring Bakers post, and it is heavenly.

Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter
2 1-oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling strong coffee

In a sauce pot on medium heat, melt the baking chocolate and butter, stirring often. If it starts to bubble, turn down the heat or it'll burn. Set aside and let cool.
Heat oven to 350º and grease two 9" round cake pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, buttery chocolate, and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula, add the boiling coffee and stir it in. Pour into cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before removing from the pans and letting cool completely on wire racks.

Peppermint Buttercream Icing
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
14 tbsps unsalted butter, at room temperature cut into chunks (1 3/4 sticks)
8 drops of peppermint oil or 3 teaspoons of peppermint extract. Very different strengths!

Combine the sugar, and water in a small saucepan and warm over medium heat without stirring, until the syrup reaches 250 degrees F on a candy or instant-read thermometer then remove from heat.

While the syrup is heating, begin whisking the egg and egg yolk at high speed in the bowl of your mixer using the whisk attachment until pale and foamy.

When the sugar syrup reaches the correct temperature, reduce the mixer speed to low and begin slowly (very slowly) pouring the syrup down the side of the bowl being very careful not to splatter the syrup into the path of the whisk attachment. Some of the syrup will spin onto the sides of the bowl but don’t worry about this and don’t try to stir it into the mixture as it will harden!

Raise the speed to medium-high and continue beating until the eggs are thick and satiny and the mixture is cool to the touch (about 5 minutes or so).

With the mixer on medium speed, begin adding in a few chunks of butter at a time. When all the butter has been incorporated, raise the mixer speed to high and beat until the butter cream is thick and shiny. Finish with about 8 drops of the peppermint oil.

Refrigerate the butter cream until it’s firm but still spreadable. Put it back on the mixer and whisk until fluffy.

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Now, here's where MY cake went wrong. The icing was absorbed by the cake because I didn't wait for the involved parties to be the right temperatures, so here's the chocolate icing I made to cover up the bad job. It was delicious and worked like a charm. I may do the double-icing thing on purpose next time, cause it was really good with both.

Chocolate Icing
1/2 cup butter
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla extract
2 tbsp milk
1/4 cup cocoa powder
dash of salt
1 tsp peppermint extract (optional but recommended)

Melt butter or bring it to room temperature. Add powdered sugar, salt, vanilla, chocolate and milk. Whip with a whisk or an electric mixer until smooth. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes before icing your cake.

Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Icing

The things I do on whims! I am freqently surprised at the amount of time I'll spend on something I have a slight hankering for, or whenever find a weak excuse to make something I haven't made before, or to try to use my sugary wiles to cheer up a friend who's having a crappy week.
I bring this up because a friend of mine is currently having a rough week. A big box full of warm clothes and Christmas presents has gone missing in the mail, or maybe stolen from outside his apartment by a nasty neighbor or shady passerby. He has a cold. He has a lot of work to do. He mentioned offhand recently that he loves peanut butter and chocolate together. So, of course, I made him this cake to cheer him up, and now I will go back to crossing my fingers that his box of precious new goodies turns up tomorrow, and this can be a celebratory cake.

It takes about 30 minutes to get the cakes in the oven and make the icing, and another 20 or so to decorate it. You get two or more hours in between while the cakes bake and cool.

Reese's eat your heart out.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tbsps peanut butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt


Preheat the oven to 350º.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating until just combined. Blend in 1/3 of the flour mixture, then 1/3 of the yogurt, repeat until all ingredients are mixed.
Pour the batter into two greased 9" round cake pans and bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean. Let cool completely before decorating.

Peanut Butter Icing

3/4 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cup peanut butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cocoa powder
pinch of salt
2 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar,
3 to 4 tbsp milk

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, peanut butter, salt and vanilla until very smooth and light. Mix in the confectioners' sugar half at a time, and add milk one tablespoon at a time until the icing is wet enough to be smooth, then continue to beat for a few minutes to get it nice and whipped and fluffy.

Assembly
Smear a dab of icing on the center of your cake plate. Turn one of the cakes out of its pan carefully, and flip it over onto a flat clean surface. With a bread knife or a cake layer wire, trim the top of the cake so it is flat. Carefully pick the cake up again and place it cut-side down on the center of the cake plate, where the icing will hold it in place. Spread a layer of icing about 1/4" thick over the top of the cake. Turn the other cake out of its pan and place it right side up on the icing. Spread icing all over the top and sides. I would love to have had some chopped peanuts to decorate the sides of the cake, but peanuts don't live long in my apartment. We are nut fiends.

For the cake in the picture, I sprinkled cocoa powder on the middle of the cake and then used a star icing tip to cover the top and surround the edge with stars, then painted melted peanut butter around the edges. I had some chocolate icing left over from another cake and drizzled some of that on top, too.

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes with Ginger Cream Cheese Buttercream

In honor of my sister's birthday, I bring you a cupcake recipe I can't get enough of. I chose this one because of its cream cheese icing, which she can't get enough of.

This recipe also works really well as a layer cake, which you can see here. For the layer cake I used 9" round pans (lined with wax paper for smooth tops!) and cut a stencil out of wax paper for the topping. You can make a stencil of whatever you want if you're handy with scissors or an xacto knife. You can even print a simplified image and cut it out from the printer paper, you don't even have to draw.

I recommend starting the icing while the cakes are in the oven. I also recommend getting the cream cheese and butter out of the fridge when you start making the cake, so they're nice and soft and you can actually blend them when you're ready to start the icing. I've killed a hand mixer or two trying to cream some cream cheese that was still far too cold. This bad-boy survives through just about anything, though. One of the best Christmas presents I ever got. Don't worry, your hand mixer will be fine as long as you take the time to let the cream cheese soften - and don't microwave it, either.

On to the recipe!
Pumpkin Spice Cake:

2 cups unbleached all purpose flour or cake flour*
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon (or more!)
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves (or more!)
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 cup butter at room temperature**
1 1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup solid pack pumpkin, NOT pumpkin pie filling.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Line muffin pans with cupcake cups, or just spray with nonstick if you are so inclined.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. You can add extra cinnamon and clove up to double the amount listed, but more than that gets overpowering. I learned the hard way.
In a separate large bowl, cream the butter with a hand mixer until it's fluffy. Gradually add the brown sugar, then the eggs one at a time. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with milk, 1/3 of one then 1/3 of the other. Finally, beat in the pumpkin.
Pour into the cupcake cups (they should each be 2/3 full) and bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle of one comes out clean. Let cool completely before decorating.


Cream Cheese Ginger Buttercream Icing:
say that five times fast!

1 8-oz bar of cream cheese
6 tbsp butter, softened but still cool (see **)
1 tb sour cream
1/2 tsp ginger or more to taste***
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 cups confectioners' sugar

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, cream cheese, sour cream, ginger and vanilla with a hand mixer. Add the confectioners' sugar and mix until fully combined and smooth. Spread over cooled cupcakes in a circular motion, then dust the cupcakes with cinnamon and clove.


* I never bother with fancy flours, all purpose has its name for a reason.
** I find that microwaving a whole stick of butter for about 15 seconds gets it to the perfect temperature. For smaller amounts of butter, microwaves in 5 second intervals to see what works best with your microwave.
*** You can use freshly ground ginger, but the flavor will be much stronger, so put in a tiny bit at a time and taste test. Too much ginger and it'll get that nice tingly burn, which is not something most people look for in icing.