Baking Challenge Week 34 - Carving - Cardamom Tea Cupcakes with Caramel Filling

Cardamom is my favorite spice, I know I've said that before.  So it's no surprise that when I was out of town and happened to wander into a Middle Eastern grocery to check for hard-to-get-here spices, I passed through the tea aisle and grabbed this off the shelf as soon as I saw it.  (Didn't hurt that it was $9 for 500g of loose tea.  That's a steal!)

I wanted to do a simple carved cupcake for this challenge, because, as I've said before, it's hard to feel motivated to do cakes when they'll spoil before my husband and I can eat them all.  Cupcakes are much easier to give away if staleness threatens!

Also, I've never carved cake before and didn't want to get in over my head.

I found an Earl Grey cupcake recipe and simply substituted my cardamom tea.  The cupcakes themselves came out beautifully, and were very easy to carve.

 I just pretended I was hulling some extremely large strawberries.

And of course, I ate the pieces I carved out.  The cake is positively scrumptious--I'm going to try this recipe with other teas in the future, I'm sure.

I had plans to make a caramel frosting I'd run across while looking for the cupcake recipe, and I tried it....and it's not frosting.  I won't link the recipe, but I followed it exactly, both proportions and procedure, and it's just not frosting.  It's a glaze, at best.  It would not thicken.

So instead of piping a nice dollop of frosting into my hulled cupcakes, I spooned the glaze in, and am waiting for it to harden enough to risk eating a cupcake without oozing everywhere.  Fingers crossed!

Baking Challenge Week 30 (Late!) - Sweet Breads - Lemon Walnut Bread

I'm no stranger to sweet breads--I adore cinnamon rolls, for starters, and make them as often as I can find an excuse.  Muffins of all descriptions, fruit loaves, sticky buns, I love them so.

But as usual, when faced with a theme I'm very familiar with, I said to myself, "Find a new recipe."

I leafed through my go-to baking books and found Lemon Walnut Tea Bread, looked at the ingredient list, added a lemon to my grocery list (can you believe I had walnuts lying around, begging for a purpose?) and, later in the day, started baking.

Notice how I said I didn't actually read the recipe?  Because I didn't.

Despite being in the "Buns and Tea Breads" section of the cookbook, despite being loaf-shaped from baking in a loaf tin, it's a sponge cake.  After all the struggle I went through with my failed petit fours I don't think I'm going to forget learning to make sponge cake.

My cookbook tricked me!

Lemon Walnut "Bread"
(adapted from Complete Baking)

• 4 oz (1 stick) butter, softened
• 3.5 oz sugar
• 2 eggs, at room temperature, separated
• grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
• 7.5 oz all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 fl oz (1/2 cup) milk
• 2 oz chopped walnuts
• 1/8 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 9x5 loaf pan.

In a medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add the egg yolks and mix well, then add the lemon rind and juice.

In a small bowl, sift together the flour and the baking powder.

Blend the flour mixture into the butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk (ie, flour, milk, flour, milk, flour.)  Fold in the walnuts.

In yet another bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until stiff peaks form.  Using a spatula (not the mixer!) fold the egg whites into the batter until the mixture is just uniformly blended.

Spread evenly in the prepared pan and bake 45-50 minutes, until a tester inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.  Let cool 5 minutes in the pan before turning out to cool completely on a wire rack.

Baking Challenge Week 25 (Late!) - Coffee Cake - Cardamom-Pecan Coffee Cake

It's hard to bake when you don't have a working oven.

I went to put something in the oven, and I saw a spark and heard an awful hissing/buzzing noise.  Then there was an incredibly tiny fire in the back of my oven, which actually put itself out, it was so small.

I thought I had just gotten lazy and let my oven get too dirty, and something had built up on the bottom and caught on fire.

As I discovered the next day when I went to clean it, that is not, in fact, what the problem was.  The spark had come from the lower heating element when it snapped clean through.

My landlady is a lovely woman, who promptly ordered a replacement, which didn't get here until our resident handyman was on vacation....of course.  Hence, the delay.

Not that I missed baking much in that heat wave, so I suppose that was the best time of year to have the oven break!

Time to catch up, though.  Here's my coffee cake, based on the yabluchnyk I made for the Russian week of the cooking challenge.  I liked it enough to play with some variations...

Cardamom-Pecan Coffee Cake

Cake

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 1/3 cup milk

Streusel

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tbsp flour
• 2 tsp ground cardamom
• 2 tbsp cold butter
• 1/3 cup chopped pecans 

Preheat the oven to 375 F, and lightly grease an 8x8" baking pan.

Sift together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder. Cut in the butter until the mixture is crumbly.  In a separate bowl, stir together the egg and milk, then add to the flour mixture and combine thoroughly.

In another bowl, combine all the streusel ingredients except the butter and pecans.  Cut in the butter until crumbly, then stir in the pecans.

Press half the cake dough into the prepared pan.  Sprinkled half the struesel mixture on top, then repeat with the rest of both.  (As the dough is quite sticky, getting even layers is challenging, so don't worry too much if the top is a bit rough.)

Bake 25 minutes, or until the struesel is crisp and brown, and a cake tester stuck in the middle comes out clean.

Baking Challenge Week 18 - Drink to Dessert - Grasshopper Ice Cream Cake

A wonderful confluence of events led to this cake.

First, it's my husband's birthday next week.  For all that I love to bake, I don't usually do much for either of us in the way of birthday cakes--we go out with my parents for a combined birthday-bash dinner, since mine is in a few weeks as well.

Second, he's actually away right now, I've had the place to myself for over a week, and he doesn't get back until Monday.  While I'd rather have him here, this does mean that I have time and privacy to whip up a surprise for him.  (I made him promise on the phone yesterday to avoid my blog until he gets back, so I could post for this challenge but not spoil the surprise.  He also gave me permission to have a piece early for tasting and picture purposes.  Can't serve him a bad cake, right?  That would ruin his birthday!)

Third, the challenge itself had me scratching my head for a little while, but I had wanted to do an ice cream cake for his birthday anyway, and starting with the knowledge that mint chocolate chip is one of his favorite flavors, it naturally led to pairing with chocolate cake for a Grasshopper-inspired dessert.

I didn't make my own ice cream--I could have, in theory, but I haven't made a real ice cream yet, just sorbets and frozen yogurt.  Using store-bought in this case made more sense, one less thing to go wrong!  I used most, but not all, of a half-gallon carton to make the ice cream layers.

Recipes first; assembly, with pictures, after.

Chocolate Cake
(from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook, 1980)

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/4 cups milk
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 3 eggs
• 1 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease and flour 2 9-inch round cake pans.

In a large bowl, measure all ingredients.  With a mixer at low speed, beat until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl often.  Increase speed to high and beat 5 minutes, scraping down the sides occasionally.

Divide the batter evenly between the pans, and bake 30-35 minutes, until cake springs back when touched lightly.  Cool in pans on wire racks 10 minutes; turn out of pans to cool completely.

Frosting for Ice Cream Cake/Cupcakes
(from Ai Bake Cake)

• 1 cup cold milk
• 1 4-serving-size package instant pudding mix, any flavor (chocolate in this case)
• 1 16-oz. tub whipped topping, thawed

Pour the cold milk into a large bowl, and then whisk in the pudding mix. Keep whisking until it thickens. Putting it in the refrigerator for a little bit also helps to thicken it up, about 15-20 minutes. Stir until smooth, and then gently fold in whipped topping until incorporated.

Assembly Time!

First, line the same pans you're going to use for the cake with a double layer of plastic wrap, making sure it extends all around.  Getting plastic wrap to stick to a metal pan is impossible--I had to lightly grease the pan to get the wrap to stay in place.

Spread the softened ice cream evenly in the pans.  I tried to make a very thin layer, but it was difficult to get it much thinner than 1/2 an inch or so.  You could certainly make it thicker if you wanted to, especially if you're doing a single layer cake instead of a double.  Fold the extra plastic wrap over the top to prevent freezer burn, and freeze until solid (which will depend on your freezer, I did mine the day before baking the cakes to be sure.)  When they're ready, remove them from the pans and leave them wrapped up in the freezer while you bake the cakes.

I'm sure I don't need to do a step-by-step for the cake, right?  Good, because I didn't take any pictures of that part.  But I did remember to get one of my homemade cake strips.  This is the first time I've tried using them, and they made a huge difference in the final cake--no hard crusty edges, and no domed top.  Super pleased with that.

Once the cake is done and fully cooled (I cannot stress that enough!), lay out a new piece of plastic wrap, place one of your cake layers on it, and split the layer in half.  (Instructional videos abound, if it's new to you.)  Set the top aside for a moment...

Retrieve and partially unwrap one of your ice cream layers.  By partially, I mean get one side free of plastic while holding it in your opposite hand.  Invert the ice cream onto the cake (hopefully getting it centered the first time!) and peel off the plastic wrap.

Replace the top layer.  Looks a bit like a giant Oreo now, doesn't it?

Wrap securely and stash in the freezer.  Repeat with the other cake and ice cream layers.  Freeze until nice and cold before moving onto the frosting...

...which I didn't take any pictures of making, or doing.  I wanted to, but since it's important to keep the cake cold for the frosting to stick and the ice cream not to melt through the sides, I really didn't have time to stop and grab the camera.  Also, I'm still not the best at frosting cakes neatly anyway.  We're very much in the tasty-is-better-than-pretty camp here at Avrienne's House of Baking.  That's why I seem to do poorly on the cutesy challenges.

 When it is all frosted, back into the freezer.  Whenever the frosting is fully frozen, you can wrap loosely with plastic wrap or foil for protection.

More experienced cake bakers may have noticed that I neglected at any point to even my sides, which you can clearly see here by the valley of frosting in the middle.  I don't have straight-sided pans, and don't really care. But if you do, it's probably best to trim the cake layers before adding the ice cream.  This will mean your ice cream might hang out the sides a little during assembly, but I imagine it's easy enough to trim that off too, with the cake as a guide.

To me, it's just a reason to eat more of that delicious frosting.  Enjoy!

Baking Challenge Week 17 - Layered - Almost Petit Fours

I say "almost" because, as you can see, there's no fondant.  Did I make fondant and dip a few?  Absolutely.  And they were awful.

Most petit fours recipes I've seen involve pouring the fondant (which is apparently a huge PITA) or dipping each side of the mini morsels of goodness in turn (which leads to a terminal case of fondant hand, a lesser-known cousin of deep-fry club hand.)  When I saw a video of a baker sticking the cake on a skewer and dipping the whole thing, I thought, this is the most brilliant thing ever!

Not so.  That one in the front, if you look really close, has a hole where the skewer went right through.  And trying to get the fondant to coat evenly?  Not possible no matter what method you use, as far as I can tell.  My fondant set up perfectly, so I can't have done it that wrong, but it has got to be one of the most tempermental things I've ever worked with.  Seeing as how I've never made souffle.

After doing these few (less than a quarter of the cake I had to work with) I decided to try one, since they were already setting up.  I spit it out.  I had no idea fondant was so nasty!  I like sugary things, don't get me wrong, but this nearly had me crying, it was so sweet.  Part of that reaction may be that the fondant was too thick--a thin layer, had I been able to achieve it, wouldn't have been so overpowering.  And I completely see the appeal of biting through a hard, candy-like casing to get at moist delicious cake within.  But next time I want to have cakey goodness, I'll skip the petit fours and just make a split layer cake!

Fondant failure aside, though, I still got the layered part right, and delicious, too.  Lemon sponge cake, soaked with Barenjager-spiked syrup, spread with blackberry jam, topped with cream cheese frosting.  I know buttercream is standard, but I had half a package of cream cheese left from the peppermint roses, and I hate food going to waste!  We had no problem eating the un-fondant-ed cakes as is.

Lemon Sponge Cake
(adapted from The Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook)

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 eggs, separated, at room temperature
• 1/3 cup + 1/2 cup sugar (each used in different steps)
• 1 tsp lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 375 F.  Line a jelly-roll pan with parchment paper, leaving some extra on the short ends to lift out the finished cake.

In one bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt.  In another bowl with a mixer at high speed, beat the egg whites into soft peaks; gradually sprinkle in the 1/3 cup sugar while continuing to beat to stiff peaks.

In a large bowl with a mixer at high speed, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored; while continuing to beat, gradually sprinkle in the 1/2 cup sugar, then add the lemon extract.  Lower the speed and add the flour mixture, beating until just combined.  Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Spread batter evenly in prepared pan.  (And having never made a egg-white stiffened cake before, they really do mean "evenly" when they say it--I'm used to cake batters settling themselves in the oven, and this one won't.  Make it pretty now or your cake will be uneven forevermore!)

Bake 15 minutes, or until top springs back when lightly touched with a finger.

Immediately lift the cake out of the pan with the paper lining, and cool on a wire rack.

If you intend to make petit-fours with it, there are plenty of resources out there to tell you about splitting the cake and such....I'm not going to bother, because as far as I'm concerned, they're not worth the trouble.  The cake itself, however, definitely is!

Barenjager Syrup

During some consulting of other syrups for cake-drenching, I came across alcohol : sugar : water ratios all the way from 1:10:10 to 1:1:1.  I settled on 1:4:4--ie, 1/4 cup of liquor stirred into a cooled simple syrup made from 1 cup each of sugar and water.  I feel like the ratio was good--not too strong, not too bland--but the quantity was waaaaay more than I needed for a single batch of cake.  Be advised!

Classic Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp milk

Beat together the cream cheese and butter until smooth and thoroughly combined.  Add the powdered sugar one cup at a time, beating each addition until fully incorporated before adding the next one.  Add the vanilla and milk with the last cup of sugar.  Use immediately, or store in the refrigerator.

Cooking Challenge Week 13 - Russian - Yabluchnyk (Ukrainian Apple Cake)

I had thought of making borscht for this challenge--I made it for the first time last fall, and fell in love with it--but with the spring being unseasonably warm right now, soup didn't really appeal to me.  Then I thought about making blinis, but I couldn't decide what to fill them with, and there never seemed to be time for learning a whole new way of making pancakes.

In desperation, I actually had to google for recipes.  Can you believe I don't have any cookbooks on Russian cuisine?  Serious oversight!

I found this apple cake recipe that looked fantastic, especially seeing that one of the reviewers described the cake part as reminding her of a sugar donut.  Sold!

I made it with only one change, which was to cut the brown sugar in the struesel by half.  All of the pictures for the recipe made the struesel look very soupy, and in past struesel applications, I seem to recall the flour/sugar ratio being closer to 1:2 than 1:4.  My struesel came out of the oven crisp and lovely!

Too bad it didn't stay that way!  I don't want to discourage anyone from trying this, but I do feel it worth mentioning that the cake went stale pretty quickly, and the struesel got soggy from the moisture from the apples.  It's not a disaster (I am still eating it two days later!) but plan to eat it quickly, and if you're making it for company (as I did) definitely make it the same day, not ahead of time.

Baking Challenge Week 12 - Piping - Purple Buttercream of Doom!

I have mixed feelings about this cake.

On the one hand, the last time I made any kind of stab at cake decorating with piped frosting, I was probably eight or nine.  And you could tell, looking at my cake.

So I'm no professional.

But the fact that my cake still looks like an eight-year-old did it now....

My husband said first, "What's wrong with it?"  When I explained how amateurish I felt it looked, he said, "Well, you're allowed to be bad at things when you're learning."

So, in essence, I'm being too hard on myself.  I should be proud of what I learned, instead of disappointed that I didn't do better.

But I still think it's ugly.

It's spice cake from scratch (that turned out kind of dry, so I'm passing on sharing the recipe until I know if it's the recipe's fault, or mine) and plain buttercream, which is so common I can't be bothered to type it out.

Doesn't help that I'm a little mad at the cake for being what it is.  But we'll eat it anyway.  It's still cake!

Baking Challenge Week 4 - Frosting/Filling - Chocolate Stout Cake with Cream Cheese Stout Frosting

Remember how I said my husband's been brewing for a little over a year now?

I made this with a bottle of his latest, a fantastic milk stout.  It was ready just before Christmas, and we're down to two bottles now--I will be so incredibly sad when the last one is gone.

This cake, though...oh, this cake.  It's worth not drinking the bottle of beer to make this cake.  It might just be the best chocolate cake recipe I've ever tried.  Rich without being dense or heavy, dark without being overly bitter, lightened with the creamy-sweet stout frosting...

I am a little bit in love with this cake.

I'd actually been planning to do this next week for the cooking challenge (beer/wine/liquor), but I didn't really have another good idea for the current baking challenge, at least not with what I have handy at the moment. So I bumped it up!  Our little liquor cabinet will have no trouble seeing me through next week, I already have several ideas for that.

Don't have your own homebrew to use?  The character of the stout you choose will make a difference.  My milk stout was on the sweeter side, with mostly chocolate notes and absolutely no coffee notes, which are common in a lot of other stouts.  Choose a coffee-type stout and you'll get a cake more mocha-esque than mine.  Just be sure you like the beer you choose--if it's bad in the bottle, don't waste your time baking with it!

Chocolate Stout Cake with Cream Cheese Stout Frosting
(Adapted from Best Recipes No. 34: Cooking with Beer)

Cake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, softened
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup stout, at room temperature

Preheat oven to 350 F.  Grease a 13" x 9" baking pan.

In one bowl, combine flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.  In another bowl, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and eggs and mix until well-blended.

Add the flour mixture in batches, alternating with the stout, beating each addition until fully incorporated.  Pour batter into prepared pan and spread evenly.  Bake 35-40 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out cleanly.  Cool completely on a wire rack.

Frosting

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
• 1 8-oz. package cream cheese, softened
• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 to 2 tbsp stout, at room temperature

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese together until creamy.  Gradually beat in powdered sugar until smooth.  Add 1 tbsp stout and beat until well-blended; if the frosting is too thick, add more stout to thin to spreadable consistency.  Spread frosting over the cake.  Store the frosted cake in the refrigerator.

Dump Cake

Yes, that's what it's called.

My mother has a few 70's-era brand cookbooks, and this gem comes to us from Duncan Hines.  I remember making it many times as a kid, but I never actually tried it--I can't abide pineapple.

So why am I making it, even though I won't eat it?  Tomorrow is my mother's birthday, and it's what she asked for.  She faithfully copied out the recipe for me and off I went.

If anyone has any brainstorms regarding potential pineapple replacements, let me know, okay?  I have no problems with cherries and pecans....

And this time, I took procedural pictures.  I missed one step, but hey, first time, right?


Dump Cake

• 1 20-oz can crushed pineapple, undrained
• 1 21-oz can cherry pie filling
• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 stick butter, cut into thin slices

Preheat your oven to 350 F and grease a 13" x 9" pan.  Spread the undrained pineapple evenly on the bottom.  Spoon the cherry pie filling evenly over the pineapple.  Pour the dry yellow cake mix evenly over the cherries.  Sprinkle the chopped pecans over the cake mix.  Lay the slices of butter evenly over the whole thing.  Bake 48-53 minutes, until the pecans are golden brown and the sides are bubbling cherry syrup.  Serve warm with oh, say, vanilla ice cream, or at room temperature on its own.

Now, again, with pictures!

The pineapple is the easy part, just dump it in (like the name!) and spread it out.

Don't dump the cherries in, or the pineapple will just get pushed to the side.  Spoon those out, and scrape as much syrup off the sides of the can as possible.  It's good stuff.

The cake mix is pretty easy too, I cut a corner off the bag and poured it out.  Don't worry too much about lumps, they'll sort themselves out under all that butter.

This is where I forgot a step.  See the pecans on top of the cake mix, there on the left?  Do that.  Then carve up the stick of butter.

You don't have to make a butter checkerboard...mine just worked out that way.  Into the oven!

And out of the oven!