cake

sour cream chocolate cake cookies

06/28/2011 By bridget 11 Comments

Chocolate cake without frosting is just sad; likewise, chocolate cake cookies without frosting are clearly missing something important. Cream cheese frosting is important. Sprinkles are important.

The cookies were soft and tender, as cake should be. Despite a full container of sour cream, they weren’t overly rich, and their chocolate flavor was more than subtle, less than overpowering. (I like overpowering.) They might seem plain and homely on their own, but that’s nothing that a dollop of frosting can’t fix.

Spike chose these for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the full recipe posted. I chilled the dough for about an hour before baking to reduce spreading. I also left out the raisins and spices so that the cookies would mimic a classic chocolate cake.

Two years ago: Perfect Party Cake (compared to 2 other white cake recipes)
Three years ago: Apple Cheddar Scones

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, cookies, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

date nut loaf

06/21/2011 By bridget 4 Comments

When I was a kid, I didn’t have many independent food preferences; I just absorbed my family’s dislikes as my own. My mom didn’t like coconut, so I didn’t like coconut – never mind that I can’t remember ever trying it. I remember one particularly foolish phase in which my brother didn’t like tomatoes, so I didn’t like tomatoes. Tomatoes! One of the best foods ever!

It seems I’ve developed my own opinions, because my older sister and brother both love dates. They think they’re like candy. I think they’re sickly sweet unless stuffed with tangy goat cheese and wrapped in salty bacon.

Maybe sweet candy-like dried fruit chopped up into cake would be good? After all, aren’t chocolate chips just chopped up candy? Dates, however, are not chocolate chips. Chocolate chips are delicious pockets of rich bitter and sweetness. Dates are tooth-achingly sweet, even in cake. On the other hand, at least there was cake to eat. Never in my life have I – or anyone in my family – disliked cake.

Mary chose this “loaf” (pound cake? quick bread?) for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. I increased the salt slightly and substituted almonds for some of the walnuts.

One year ago: Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cake
Two years ago: Coconut Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise
Three years ago: Mixed Berry Cobbler

Filed Under: cake, dessert, fruit, tuesdays with dorie

brown sugar blueberry plain cake

06/07/2011 By bridget 8 Comments

Dave and I have fun during the winter teasing his family in Ohio about how while they’re bundling up and shoveling snow, we’re sitting outside drinking margaritas. They curse us, and then I try to temper this obnoxiousness by claiming that we’ll pay the price in the summer.

But I’m not sure we will. We have a good system for dealing with the heat. It involves a kiddie pool full of water to dip our feet in, frequent breaks to come inside and cool off (the perfect time to prep dinner), and, of course, margaritas.

I suspect that summer in the desert will be particularly awesome, and not just because of the heat that we love. There are also tomatoes, corn on the cob, and blueberries so cheap the stores are almost giving them away. Mostly I’ve been eating them straight, as the best snack you could ever ask for, but I’m never against adding my favorite fruits into dessert either. But as soon as the cake is baked, I’m heading back outside with my margarita.

Cindy chose this cake for Tuesdays with Dorie, and she has the recipe posted. I doubled the salt and used a 9×9-inch pan instead of 7×11-inch. I originally had some ideas of things I might tweak for next time, but to be honest, as good as this cake was, I’ve had other blueberry cakes that I like more.

One year ago: Raisin Swirl Bread
Two years ago: Parisian Strawberry Tartlets
Three years ago: La Palette’s Strawberry Tart

Filed Under: cake, dessert, fruit, summer, tuesdays with dorie

strawberry cream cake

05/22/2011 By bridget 21 Comments

Strawberries, cream cheese, and cake – is there any better combination? Strawberry shortcake is the iconic strawberries and cream dessert, and for good reason, but for me, this cake is a step above. Mostly because of the cream cheese, but I’m also partial to soft and tender cake over a craggy biscuit. And you can’t beat the wow factor of a beautiful layer cake with the innards exposed. Cake innards are my favorite.

Of course there’s a price to pay for alternating layers of sunny cake, swirled cream, and ruby strawberries, and that is in fussiness. And who doesn’t love fussiness? Not I.

Because this is a Cooks Illustrated recipe, there are a handful of tricks that make it work. The cream cheese stabilizes and thickens the whipped cream, not to mention it tastes so darn good. Half of the strawberries are halved for maximum visual impact, and the remainder is macerated to remove liquid. The extracted juice, full of strawberry flavor and not to be wasted, is cooked down to a syrup that won’t make your cake soggy.

Three parts that must be separately prepared and then alternately layered to make a tall, striped, impressive dessert. A dessert which, when sliced, will collapse into a jumble of fruit, cream, and cake that shows a remarkable resemblance to strawberry shortcake. But it was worth the trouble of all that layering, because fussing is fun, right?

One year ago: Cream Cheese Spritz
Two years ago: Strawberry Lemon Sorbet
Three years ago: Ricotta Spinach Tofu Ravioli

Printer Friendly Recipe
Strawberry Cream Cake (from Cook’s Illustrated)

12 servings

I hate splitting cakes. I baked my cake batter in three separate cake pans instead of one pan which would later need to be split.

I made a half recipe in 6-inch pans. 6-inch round pans are slightly smaller than half of a 9-inch pan, so my layers are taller than the original recipe will result in.

Cake:
1¼ cups (5 ounces) cake flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon table salt
1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
5 large eggs (2 whole and 3 separated), room temperature
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly
2 tablespoons water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Strawberry Filling:
2 pounds fresh strawberries (medium or large, about 2 quarts), washed, dried, and stemmed
4–6 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons Kirsch
Pinch table salt

Whipped Cream:
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
½ cup (3½ ounces) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
⅛ teaspoon table salt
2 cups heavy cream

1. FOR THE CAKE: Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a round 9 by 2-inch cake pan or 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and all but 3 tablespoons sugar in a mixing bowl. Whisk in 2 whole eggs and 3 yolks (reserving whites), butter, water, and vanilla; whisk until smooth.

2. In a clean bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the remaining 3 egg whites at medium-low speed until frothy, 1 to 2 minutes. With the machine running, gradually add the remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, increase the speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form, 60 to 90 seconds. Stir one-third of the whites into the batter to lighten; add the remaining whites and gently fold into the batter until no white streaks remain. Pour the batter into a prepared pan and bake until a toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool in the pan 10 minutes, then invert the cake onto a greased wire rack; peel off and discard the parchment. Invert the cake again; cool completely, about 2 hours.

3. FOR THE STRAWBERRY FILLING: Halve 24 of the best-looking berries and reserve. Quarter the remaining berries; toss with 4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (depending on the sweetness of the berries) in a medium bowl and let sit 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Strain the juices from the berries and reserve (you should have about ½ cup). In the workbowl of a food processor fitted with the metal blade, give the macerated berries five 1-second pulses (you should have about 1½ cups). In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, simmer the reserved juices and Kirsch until the mixture is syrupy and reduced to about 3 tablespoons, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour the reduced syrup over the macerated berries, add a pinch of salt, and toss to combine. Set aside until the cake is cooled.

4. FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM: When the cake has cooled, place the cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Reduce the speed to low and add heavy cream in a slow, steady stream; when it’s almost fully combined, increase the speed to medium-high and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks, 2 to 2½ minutes more, scraping the bowl as needed (you should have about 4½ cups).

5. TO ASSEMBLE THE CAKE: Using a large serrated knife, slice the cake into three even layers. Place the bottom layer on a cardboard round or cake plate and arrange a ring of 20 strawberry halves, cut sides down and stem ends facing out, around the perimeter of the cake layer. Pour one half of the pureed berry mixture (about ¾ cup) in the center, then spread to cover any exposed cake. Gently spread about one-third of the whipped cream (about 1½ cups) over the berry layer, leaving a ½-inch border from the edge. Place the middle cake layer on top and press down gently (the whipped cream layer should become flush with cake edge). Repeat with 20 additional strawberry halves, the remaining berry mixture, and half of the remaining whipped cream; gently press the last cake layer on top. Spread the remaining whipped cream over the top; decorate with the remaining cut strawberries. Serve, or chill for up to 4 hours.

Filed Under: alcohol, cake, fruit, spring

chocolate chip bundt cake

05/10/2011 By bridget 17 Comments

Dave opens doors for me and buys me little surprises, but Sunday he really went all out when he offered to clean up the kitchen while I baked a cake. Then he indulged me when I brought the baked cake to him and exclaimed, “Smell this! Just like a chocolate chip cookie, right?!” over and over. And then, even though his favorite desserts are fruity and custardy and pretty much the opposite of chocolate chip bundt cake, the next day, we had this conversation over gmail chat:

David: i’m eating chocolate chip cake
me: it’s good, isn’t it?!
David: it’s good!
me: tell me some more about how awesome my cake is.
David: very moist
and delicious
me: thank you
just chocolately enough, right?
David: and the outside was powdery
me: it has a bit smaller ratio of chocolate to dough than choc chip cookies, but the few bites i’ve had have seemed good
David: and perfect balance of chocolateness
me: you’re so sweet.

Dave might have preferred Dorie Greenspan’s original fruit and nut version, posted on Peggy’s site, but the dough is so similar to chocolate chip cookie dough that I couldn’t resist adding 8 ounces of chocolate instead. I’m fairly certain I made the right choice. (I also increased the salt to 1 teaspoon.)

One year ago: Quick Classic Berry Tart
Two years ago: Tartest Lemon Tart
Three years ago: Florida Pie

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

strawberry cheesecake

05/04/2011 By bridget 18 Comments

When I want strawberry cheesecake, I want cheesecake that’s strawberry-flavored, not plain cheesecake topped with strawberries. And not a plain cheesecake with a swirl of strawberries. Although I’m certainly not against adding a strawberry topping and strawberry swirl to strawberry-flavored cheesecake.

I confess that the strawberry swirl wasn’t intentional. But when I had leftover strawberry puree, I didn’t know what else to do with it. I didn’t want to risk marring the cheesecake’s creamy texture by doubling the puree. So on my first try, I poured half of the cheesecake batter over the crust, then spooned on the puree, then finished with the rest of the cheesecake batter. I liked the hit of fresh strawberry flavor in each bite, but the leftover cheesecake’s crust got soft, almost soggy, after a day in the fridge, which I blamed on the watery strawberry puree.

So I thought I’d try putting the extra puree on top of the cheesecake instead of in the middle. Generally when you plan to swirl things together, you want them to be about the same viscosity, but that would require cornstarch and cooking to thicken the strawberry puree, and I didn’t want to mess with all that.

The swirl on top worked wonderfully, even without thickening the puree. Of course I still topped the cheesecake with sliced strawberries, but with the bright flavor from the swirl, it was hardly necessary. Now this, with even pink strawberry flavor throughout, beautiful fresh puree, and if you can’t get enough strawberries, sliced fresh strawberries on top – this is worthy of being called strawberry cheesecake.

One year ago: Slaw Tartare
Two years ago: Comparison of 3 brownie recipe (and a box mix)
Three years ago: Red Beans and Rice

Printer Friendly Recipe
Strawberry Cheesecake (adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Tall and Creamy Cheesecake from Baking: From my Home to Yours)

Makes 16 servings

For the crust:
1¾ cups graham crackers
3 tablespoons sugar
pinch of salt
½ stick (4 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted

For the cheesecake:
4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature
1⅓ cups (9.67 ounces) sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
4 large eggs, at room temperature
2 tablespoons cream
1 cup (8 ounces – both in weight and liquid measurements) strawberry puree, divided

1. For the crust: Spray the bottom of a springform pan with nonstick spray. Either grind the graham crackers with a food processor or place them in a ziptop bag and crush with a rolling pin. Add the sugar, salt, and butter to the crumbs and stir until evenly mixed. Press the crumbs into an even layer covering the bottom of the prepared pan. Put the pan in the freezer for 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake the crust for 10 minutes, or until fragrant. Let cool on a wire rack, then wrap the bottom of the pan in foil. Reduce the oven temperature to 325 degrees. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

3. For the cheesecake: With a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer), beat the cream cheese at medium-low speed until smooth. Add the sugar and salt; continue mixing for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is light and creamy. Add the vanilla, then the eggs one a time, mixing just until each one is incorporated. Mix in the cream and ½ cup of the strawberry puree.

4. Pour the batter onto the cooled crust. Spoon the remaining strawberry puree over the batter and use a butter knife to gently swirl it. Place the wrapped springform pan into roasting pan; pour the hot water into the roasting pan.

5. Bake the cheesecake for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Turn off the oven’s heat and prop the oven door open with a wooden spoon; let the cheesecake set in the water bath for another hour. Remove the cheesecake from the hot water and let it come to room temperature on a cooling rack. When the cake is cool, cover the top lightly and chill the cake for at least 4 hours.

I’m donating my Bourbon Pound Cake to Bloggers Bake for Hope. This and over fifty other treats are available to be shipped directly to you. Bidding is open until midnight (EST) Friday, so hurry and bid to win this pound cake! All proceeds go to Massachusetts Komen for the Cure.

Filed Under: cake, cheese, dessert, fruit, spring

marbled loaf cake

05/02/2011 By bridget 28 Comments

Although I’ve been running regularly since high school, I’m starting to realize that I’m not particularly good at it. I don’t mean that I’m falling over or anything; I’m not that bad! I’m just kind of slow. And I know if I try hard enough, I’ll get faster. But I think I’m slow for how much I run and long I’ve been doing it.

I’m trying to come to terms with this. After all, I’m still running. And I ran my longest distance this weekend, and I’m proud of that. And I don’t much care that running 6.2 miles only burns 400-500 calories; I deserved cake. At least 400-500 calories worth, if not more.

Or cake batter, at least, and you know that’s what I really wanted anyway. As cake batter goes, this pretty much hit the spot. Plus it was fun to get so much variety – first vanilla before I divided the batter and added flavorings, then chocolate, then coffee. Then I mixed a bit of coffee and chocolate together. I think it’s safe to say that I crossed that 500 calorie mark, and in a lot less time than it took me to burn it off.

I’m glad I filled up on batter, because the few nibbles I had of the cake were on the dry side. It’s possible I overbaked it, or maybe my substitution of almond milk + half-and-half for the whole milk I was out of wasn’t quite right. I’ll be interested to see what everyone else thought of this cake, and I’ll start with Carol, who chose it for Tuesdays with Dorie and has the recipe posted.

One year ago: Burnt Sugar Ice Cream
Two years ago: Tiramisu Cake
Three years ago: Peanut Butter Torte

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, dessert, tuesdays with dorie

honey nut brownies

03/22/2011 By bridget 18 Comments

I was going to focus on how weird these brownies are, but instead I’m going to talk about how weird Dave is.

He doesn’t like brownies. He isn’t really into desserts in general, but brownies in particular just don’t do it for him. They’re too chocolately, he says. So I suspected that he would like these, and I was right. Better than the average brownie, he says.

While I think he’s nuts, I do see what these brownies have going for them. They don’t taste like chocolate, but I do think the bitterness from the chocolate is crucial to balance the sweetness of the honey.

Maybe they shouldn’t be called brownies. The flavor is mostly honey, and the texture is fluffy moist cake, not dense chewy brownie. Or maybe it’s just a brownie for brownie-haters.

Suzy chose this for Tuesdays with Dorie and has the recipe posted. I followed the recipe exactly (including the rather generous, for a Dorie recipe, amount of salt) because I was so curious about the outcome. Dave recommends adding bits of candied ginger to the batter, and I agree that the bite of ginger would offer another contrast to the sweet floral honey.

One year ago: Dulce de Leche Duos
Two years ago: Blueberry Crumb Cake

Filed Under: cake, chocolate, dessert, nuts, tuesdays with dorie

cream cheese pound cake

03/04/2011 By bridget 13 Comments

I don’t need a new pound cake recipe, but my other pound cake recipe doesn’t have cream cheese in it. Besides, my coworkers are apparently nuts about pound cake. They look so unassuming (pound cakes, not my coworkers) – no frosting, no decorations, often not even a glaze – that I wouldn’t expect it, but both times I’ve brought one to work, it’s disappeared in minutes. (Unlike the delicious bran muffins that I brought in the first week of January, thinking they were the perfect compromise between the post-holiday temperance and a treat, that sat around unloved all day.)

This pound cake isn’t dramatically different from the other pound cakes I’ve made, particularly in flavor and, most importantly, in how crazy good the batter is. It is denser than my favorite recipe. That’s fine for a Bundt pan, but I think for a cake baked in a loaf pan, you’d want a higher dome.

Either way, pound cake! And more importantly, pound cake batter! I also stirred some white chocolate into the batter. It was hardly noticeable in the cake, but I did get to write “White Chocolate Cream Cheese Pound Cake” on the post-it next to the cake at work. Everyone knows that more adjectives means more enticing, so maybe that’s why it got grabbed up so quickly. Or maybe it’s just because pound cake, despite its plain looks, is soft and sweet and buttery and rich.

One year ago: How to adapt any bread recipe to be whole wheat
Two years ago: Orange Berry Muffins (and an experiment on spraying muffin tins)
Three years ago: Challah (although now I like this recipe better)

Printer Friendly Recipe
Cream Cheese Pound Cake (tweaked a bit from Smitten Kitchen, who adapted it from Staff Meals from Chanterelle)

I was tempted to substitute cake flour for the all-purpose flour, because I’ve found that it makes pound cakes lighter, but in the end, I stuck to the recipe.

Serves (at least) 10

24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups (21 ounces) granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
3 cups (14.4 ounces) all-purpose flour
1 cup chopped white chocolate (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. Butter and flour a 10-inch tube pan or 12-cup Bundt pan.

2. Place the butter, cream cheese, and salt in a large bowl and beat with a mixer on medium speed until smooth. With the mixer running, gradually add the sugar, increase the speed to high, and beat until light and airy, at least 5 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula as needed. Add the extracts, then the flour all at once. Beat on low speed just until incorporated. Stir in the chocolate, if using.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading it evenly. Bake until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 60-75 minutes.

4. Place the pan on a wire rack and cool for 20 minutes, then remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely. Serve at room temperature.

Filed Under: cake, cheese, dessert

strawberry buttercream

02/24/2011 By bridget 11 Comments

One of my favorite parts of birthdays as a kid was flipping through my mom’s stack of Wilton yearbooks to pick out my cake. I remember cakes shaped like treasure chests, dice (every guest got their own die), telephones, dollar bills, a whole scene with penguins and an igloo and a pond (that was my brother’s cake, two years in a row), so many others.

My mom, of course, used the Wilton buttercream recipe, a simple mixture of powdered sugar and solid fat (butter or shortening), with a bit of vanilla for flavor, milk to loosen it up, and meringue powder to help it set. This is what I knew as frosting as a kid; I loved it then and still do.

To some, it’s too sweet and it’s certainly grainy, and those people often prefer swiss meringue buttercreams, in which butter is mixed into a meringue built from egg whites and sugar. My first experiences with these weren’t great; I felt like I was eating lightly sweetened butter. Dorie Greenspan’s recipe, a lemon version, changed my mind, because it actually tasted like something.

Now I love both types of frosting (is there any horribly fattening food I don’t enjoy, I wonder?), although I always add at least a couple drops of lemon juice into my meringue buttercreams to brighten their taste. But this strawberry version might just take the cake. It’s light and smooth, like all meringue buttercreams, but it has plenty of flavor from all those strawberries. I don’t think anyone will be shaping this frosting into penguins anytime soon, but it might top my next birthday cake anyway.

One year ago: Bacon-Wrapped Goat Cheese and Almond-Stuffed Dates
Two years ago: Beer-Battered Fish
Three years ago: Cream Cheese Brownies

Printer Friendly Recipe
Strawberry Buttercream (adapted from Martha Stewart via Annie’s Eats)

The original recipe calls for fresh strawberries, but I prefer to use frozen strawberries when their texture isn’t important, because they’re available year-round and always picked at the peak of their ripeness.

1 cup strawberry puree (from 8 ounces frozen defrosted strawberries)
4 large egg whites
1¼ cups (8.75 ounces) sugar
Pinch salt
24 tablespoons (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1. Combine the egg whites and sugar in a heatproof mixer bowl set over a pot of simmering water. Whisk until the sugar dissolves and the mixture registers 160 degrees on a candy thermometer.

2. Remove the bowl from heat and attach it to a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form and the mixture has cooled to room temperature, about 8 minutes. (The bowl should be cool to the touch.)

3. Reduce the speed to medium and add the butter, 2 tablespoons at a time, whisking well after each addition. With the mixer on low, whisk in the strawberry puree, mixing just until incorporated. Use immediately, or cover and refrigerate for up to 3 days. (Bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth before using.)

This frosting topped Sky High’s Pink Lady Cake.

Filed Under: cake, dessert, fruit, gluten free, spring