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!

Chocolate & Vanilla Spiral Cookies

Every December I put together a pile of favorite cookie recipes and make 6 or 7 kinds, arrange them into assortments and mail them off to friends and family who don't live nearby. This year I took a road trip with my boyfriend and delivered them by hand, for the most part. These didn't make it into this year's round because I couldn't find the recipe anywhere, that is, my copy of it got wet on my kitchen counter and there was really no telling how much of the first 5 ingredients it called for. Fortunately, when I made the xmas cookie extravaganza a couple of years ago, one of my friends fell in love with these cookies and I gave her a copy of the recipe, which she just happened to locate last week. Many thanks, Shannon, for scanning it for me! Reunited and it feels so goood......Eh, I'll save it for karaoke night. I'm just happy to have these babies back in the recipe box.

The best thing about these, if you ask me, is that they require refrigeration. Usually that annoys me about cookie doughs, but in this case the dough has to be rolled into a log anyway, so it's like making your own slice-and-bake dough way better than the premade grocery store garbage and if you forget about the dough for a few weeks, SURPRISE, instant cookie dough! Do yourself a favor and make a double batch, and leave one log of dough in the fridge or freezer for a later date. Oh, and sometimes I press the dough-log's sides in so the cookies are square. It's just one more way I entertain myself for almost no money. (They only stay square if the dough is still very cold when they go into the oven.)

Another note, please please don't try to make these without parchment paper.

Chocolate & Vanilla Spiral Cookies

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter @ room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 tablespoon light brown sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3 1-oz squares baking chocolate (or 9 tbsp cocoa powder)

If you are using baking chocolate, start with melting it in a small saucepan or double boiler and set it aside to cool.

In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula, add the egg & vanilla. Beat at medium speed until just combined, then mix in the dry ingredients.

Separate the dough into two bowls. Stir the melted chocolate or cocoa powder to one bowl, leaving the other alone.

Roll out the vanilla dough between two sheets of parchment paper to a 12'x16" rectangle roughly 1/4" thick. It doesnt have to be precise. Repeat with the chocolate dough, on separate paper. Throw them both in the freezer for ten minutes, then remove the paper from one side of each. Carefully lay the exposed side of the chocolate face down on the exposed side of the vanilla, then peel off the top layer of parchment. Working from a short side, roll the dough from one edge to the other to create the spiral, using the parchment paper underneath to help you as much as possible. Wrap the parchment around the finished dough log and put in the fridge or freezer until nice and cold and solid.

Preheat the oven to 375º. Slice the cookie dough 1/4" thick and place 2" apart on cookie sheets. Bake 12-18 minutes or until the vanilla parts are golden at the edges. These cookies will be very soft for a few days, then they're about the texture of storebought cookies - that is, if you are shipping them, wait a few days or they will crumble in the mail.

double vanilla cupcakes with strawberries

Earlier today I made a variation of my favorite chocolate cake recipe, substituting Nutella for the cocoa powder (I was out of the latter and am always up for an experiment!). It was a disaster. The cupcakes didn't rise, but kinda blobbed, and all present agreed it was an epic cupcake fail. What a shame, too, because chocolate nutella cupcakes with coconut flakes inside would be really good. I'll have to work something out in the future.

So, still craving cupcakes, I made these, which are the opposite. Simple as simple can be, a vanilla cupcake with vanilla buttercream and a strawberry is so fresh and light you want to eat 3 at a time. Or so I'm told.

Vanilla Cupcakes

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

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. Spoon into 24 cupcake cups and bake for 20-25 minutes.

Vanilla Buttercream

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 to 1 1/2 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsp milk

In a medium bowl, beat the butter until creamy, then beat in the confectioner's sugar. Add the vanilla and milk, beating until combined. Add more confectioner's sugar as needed to thicken to your desired consistency.

Vanilla Pudding with Orange

When you get sick of cookies, there's a whole other world of desserts to choose from. Sometimes I forget that, but I have the good fortune of having friends around to remind me that I should make all sorts of other things for them to eat. This vanilla pudding was suggested by my friend Jen while in town for the weekend, and I had just bought a ton of particularly delicious oranges, so I figured, what the heck?

You can skip the orange juice & zest and leave the pudding at its more simple but equally delightful vanilla state, or replace the orange with lemon or lime or raspberries or [insert name of 20 more fruits here]. It's a nice base to work with. The citrus changes its texture a little, on the custardy side.

Vanilla Pudding with Orange
2 cups milk
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons orange juice
1 tsp orange zest

Make room in the fridge.
Heat the milk in a sauce pan over medium heat until bubbles form at the edges.
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, cornstarch and salt. Pour the dry mixture into the hot milk, a little at a time, stirring to dissolve. Add the zest and continue to cook and stir until mixture thickens enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Do not boil. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla, butter, and orange juice. Pour into serving dishes. Chill before serving. Sprinkle with ground clove for garnish if desired.