Cake Travel Tip

No matter how many cake carriers I have, every year there always seems to be a few odd shaped treats that doesn't fit into anything I own.  This makes transporting and keeping them fresh very difficult.  Most recently, I made this monster cake:

If I had thought it through (which I obviously never do) I would have realized not to put the eyeballs in until I reached my destination.  But I didn't.  And they were in there so securely, I didn't want to mess with them.  As a result, this monster didn't fit into any of the several cake carriers I own (it was too tall!).  Plus, the ink on the eyeballs refused to dry, so I couldn't put plastic wrap around the whole thing.  Instead, I had to hold it on my lap for the car ride to dinner, while defending the cake against my pup in the backseat who thought it smelled like the perfect appetizer.  

The people at King Arthur Flour are so smart!  I got a gift certificate to their online store for Christmas (yesss!), so I was perusing their site and saw this post on their blog:

Marshmallows on sticks to hold the plastic wrap from touching the cake.  Such a simple, smart solution.  I'll be sure to remember this one for my odd-ball cakes in the future.

Gingerbread Cake Bites with Lemon Frosting

Around this time of year about 5 or 6 years ago, a neighbor brought over a platter of homemade petit fours for the holidays.  It had a few different flavors of cake cut into adorable little squares, each topped with a different type of frosting. I can't remember anything that was on that platter besides one: gingerbread cake with lemon frosting.  I only ate one of the tiny one inch cake bites, but it was so good I still remember it to this day.  

When I got word of Hodgson Mill's holiday recipe contest, "Have a Grain Holiday!" I felt short on good ideas.  I tried out a few different recipes using both their Bread Flour and their Whole Wheat flour but I wasn't thrilled with anything.  Finally, I thought about those gingerbread cake bites and I started trying to make my own version of the bite sized dessert.  I don't know how these would compare to those little bites from a few years ago, but these are pretty delicious.  The gingerbread cake is spicy and moist, and the tangy lemon frosting serves is a nice complement.  Plus, since it uses Hodgson Mill's Whole Wheat Graham flour, it is nutritious, too.  With this type of flour, "the entire natural bran and germ are stone ground, preserving all of the grain's natural nutrients and great taste, with no artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives." 

Gingerbread Cake Bites with Lemon Frosting, serving size: 40-50 bite sized squares.
Preparation time: approximately 2 hours

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat flour

½ cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

1 teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ teaspoon grated nutmeg

¼ teaspoon cloves

a pinch of ground pepper

¾ stick of unsalted butter (6 Tablespoons), room temperature

2/3 cup brown sugar packed

¼ cup molasses

¼ light corn syrup

1 egg, beaten

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

½ cup boiling water

2 Tablespoons milk

For the Gingerbread Cake:

Spray a 9 x 13 pan with nonstick spray and line with parchment paper and preheat the oven to 325 F.

Mix the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, soda, salt, spices and pepper together and set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter.  Gradually add the brown sugar and cream thoroughly. Beat in molasses and corn syrup.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg until foamy.  Then, add it to the butter mixture. Stir in the vanilla.

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture and mix just until combined, being careful not to overbeat. 

Slowly, pour in the boiling water and the milk.  Mixture will be very runny.  Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and spread with a spatula.

Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean.  Allow to cool all the way, and then chill in the refrigerator.

For the Lemon Frosting:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

zest from ½ a large lemon

juice from ½ a large lemon

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 cups powdered sugar

Lemon peel for garnish, optional

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter until light and fluffy.  Add the zest and vanilla.  Slowly add the powdered sugar.  Add the lemon juice and beat on medium-high for 5 minutes.  When the cake is chilled and  slightly firm to the touch, spread the frosting on the cake with an offset spatula.  Using a pizza cutter, cute the cake into small squares.  If desired, top each square with a small strip of lemon zest to garnish.  

Club: BAKED - Caramel Apple Monster Cake

On Sunday we celebrated Halloween with the family.  I saw this Monster cake and really wanted to make it, so when I saw we were baking the Caramel Apple Cake with Club Baked, I thought how perfect!  I'd turn the Caramel Apple Cake into this furry little monster.  

I don't have 3 round cake pans, so I made 2 nine-inch cakes, and split each into two - creating a four layer cake.  Also, I cheated with the frosting.  I saw mixed reviews of the frosting recipe on the Club Baked P&Q page, so, being short on time (I made lots of cake balls and puff pastry intestines, too... pictures to come soon), I decided to make a shortcut and just whipped up a batch of my favorite buttercream frosting - adding 1/3 cup of store bought caramel topping for ice cream.  

First we crumb-coated.  Then we (I say WE because the husband did all of the fur piping! I should really say "HE!")  used a grass tip (flat tip with several small holes in it) to pipe the orange fur in concentric rings.  His mouth is black licorice, and his teeth are made of Candy Quik that I piped into triangles on parchment, and then let harden before transferring to the monster.  

His eye balls are devil's food cake pops dipped in vanilla candy quik.  The orange bit is a Candy Melt wafer with black food coloring gel painted on with a paint brush, and a dab of Candy Quik for the little while shine.  We painted the veins on with red food coloring gel and a paintbrush.  It was time consuming, but fun!

As for the cake, everyone who tried it loved it.  My nephew had two bowls full!  What wasn't eaten at family dinner was thoroughly enjoyed at work the next day.  

Thanks for Melissa of Lulu the Baker for selecting this recipe and hosting this week!  What a great pick for this time of year, such a nice Fall spicey cake. Be sure to visit Club Baked and check out how the other Club Baked bakers did with this Caramel Apple Cake.

Club: BAKED - Boston Cream Pie Cake... Donut?

I honestly don't think I've ever tasted a traditional Boston Cream Pie but I've had (and thoroughly enjoyed) my share of its donut counterpart.  When Boston Cream Pie came up on our schedule for Club Baked - I knew I'd be baking along that week.  But I'm late!  I made the cake by September 1st, our date for this recipe.  But didn't get to make icing and pastry cream until yesterday


I put a tiny spin on this recipe.  Since my only real experience with Boston Cream Pie is with donuts... I made a giant Boston Cream Pie Cake in the shape of a donut!  It was the first time I got to use my Giant donut pan.  Instead of making a chocolate pastry cream and a vanilla pastry cream, I made only vanilla and put just one layer of cream in the cake.  I thought I had all the ingredients on hand after a shopping trip, only to realize I had no heavy cream for the chocolate glaze, so I improvised and made an alternate version.

Half of the donut cake, hollowed out slightly to make room for pastry cream

This recipe made enough for one giant donut (equivalent to 2 8-inch round cakes) and one 4 inch cake

Quite a large chocolate glazed Boston Cream donut. :) And the biggest donut hole ever!

Quick and Simple Satiny Chocolate Glaze, adapted from AllRecipes

• 3/4 cup 60% semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients in the top of a double boiler and stir until completely smooth.  

While still warm, spread on top of cake and let drip down the sides.

Overall, this recipe was pretty good.  Anything I didn't love about it was probably my fault.  For example, We thought it was a tiny bit on the dry side, but I think that would have been better if I had more layers of pastry cream like the original recipe said.  Plus, my pastry cream was very thick.  Like thicker than pudding thick.  But I think perhaps I overcooked it.  

Be sure to check out the other Club Baked bakers' version of the Boston Cream Pie cake!

Sunday Night Cake

Every once in a while, I find myself in a comfort baking rut.  It's not that I haven't wanted to bake lately, but that I keep turning to tried and true favorites.  Does that ever happen to you?  When you find you aren't in the mood to experiment with new recipes, and would rather go with one you know will come out just the way you want.  


Luckily, that is one of the main reason I join online baking clubs.  Someone in the club chooses the recipe, and we all bake along.  It really gets me to go outside my comfort zone and try something new.  While I love the cookbook Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, the "Sunday Night Cake" is probably not one I'd have picked on my own, especially not when I'm in an un-adventerous baking mood.  I already have a favorite plain vanilla cake recipe, so this is not one that would have stood out to me as a "need to bake asap!" recipe.  But, Julie of A Little Bit of Everything chose this recipe as our bake-along for August 15th... and I'm SO glad she did!  It was such a hit.  Whenever I make something "plain" I always worry that it'll just sit there at Sunday dinner and not get eaten.  But everyone loved this cake.  The cake itself was on the dense side, and the small 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon really shined through.  The frosting was very unique - I love the idea of a chocolate pudding frosting!  


The one change I made to the recipe was to cut the 8 inch square cake in half and add a vanilla buttercream layer.  I thought the sweetness of the vanilla layer played very well with the richness of the chocolate pudding frosting.  All the flavors worked together very nicely.  This is a definite will-make-again!

Be sure to visit Julie at A Little Bit of Everything for the recipe (it is a keeper!!).  And then visit Club Baked to see how everyone else's Sunday Night Cake came out!

Club: BAKED - NY Style Crumb Cake

I got hooked on BAKED: New Frontiers in Baking when I made my first recipe from the book in November 2008.  Their Brownies quickly became my favorite, and that's saying quite a bit as I've made about one and a half gajillion different brownie recipes.  So when several members of Sweet Melissa Sundays mentioned they were started a Club: BAKED baking group based around the book Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, I jumped at the opportunity.  I know I'm going to love the recipes we make from the book and I'll find many new favorites.

The first recipe up in our schedule is NY Style Crumb Cake.  This is a great way to start off this group!  I'm a native New Yorker and have tasted quite a few crumb cakes.  And big buttery cinnamon-sugary crumb topping is one of my favorite things in the world.  Rather than make the full batch, since I'm baking up other things for Fourth of July in the very near future, I decided to half the recipe and make it in a cupcake tin.  This method yielded 12 individual Crumb Cakes.  Besides halving, and substituting (1/2 Cup granulated sugar + 1 Tablespoon molasses) for the Dark Brown Sugar, I made the recipe exactly as it appears in the book.  I haven't tried one yet, so I can't report on their taste!  But from the looks of them, I think they're a winner!  I'll come back here with an update once they've been sampled.  :)

I'm excited to be baking in this new group!  Make sure to visit our site to see the other bakers' versions of this classic dessert.  Visit Karen's Cookies Cakes and More for the recipe.  Thanks for hosting, Karen (and picking such an awesome recipe to start off with)!

Sesame Street Cupcake and Dessert Tower

This weekend, our niece Ella turned two years old!  In honor of her second birthday and her Sesame Street theme celebration, we made her a Sesame Street Cupcake and Dessert Tower.  Nothing but the best for our niece's birthday party!  We used our Round Cupcake and Dessert Tower, and on it there were vanilla cookie monster cupcakes, red velvet elmo cupcakes, cake pops, and cookie pops with her name on them.  All the preparation was worth it when she stood next to her dessert tower (which was almost as big as she was) and made that adorable two-year old smile.  :)

CARS Lightning McQueen Cake

On Friday, we celebrated our cousin's son's 3rd birthday.  The birthday boy is loving anything and everything CARS right now, so we made him a Lightning McQueen CARS cake.  I'm very pleased with the results!  It is a 10 inch Two-layer Vanilla cake on the bottom and a two layer 6 inch round Chocolate cake on top.  

 

In other news, I was hired as a full-time elementary school Art teacher! 

(Did you know they made an Art Teacher Barbie?? I so did not know that!)

Friday was my first official day, and I spent all weekend getting things ready for the classroom.  I'm so excited to begin this new adventure!  I know it will be a challenge at first, but I'm looking forward to the journey.  Any teachers out there?

SMS: Speakeasy? Or Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting & Ganache

The Speakeasy cake, the recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays this week, was chosen by Jeannette of The Whimsical Cupcake.  According to the Sweet Melissa Cookbook, Melissa "snuck a lot of booze into this cake!"  I knew I was making this cake for a family dinner where we have a pregnant family member so I decided to un-booze this Speakeasy... so I guess it really shouldn't be called a Speakeasy at all, huh?  Whatever you want to call this cake, it turned out absolutely amazing.  Probably one of my favorite cake recipes I've prepared to date.  It's very unique, not your every day cake - and I mean that in a very good way.

Cinnamon Coffee Crumb Cake (and a Giveaway!)

Lately, my mornings have either consisted of going to school to fill in as a substitute teacher, or sitting on the couch with coffee and checking the employment page of the local school district to check for openings.  Sometimes my mornings include putting resumes in envelopes with care and rushing to the post office, wishing them well when I send them off to their destination.  On those mornings, this Cinnamon Coffee Crumb Cake makes the perfect breakfast to go along with my morning coffee and job hunting.  


This is quite possibly the best Crumb Cake I've ever tasted.  It is a glorious combination of a Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake with a thick, buttery Crumb Cake topping.  The cinnamon swirl in the middle makes the cake very moist (an almost under-baked texture in parts) and the high ratio of crumbs to cake balances out that super moistness perfectly.  

Cinnamon Swirl Coffee Cake with Crumb Topping:
For the Cake (adapted from Epicurious):
1-1/2 Cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup vanilla greek yogurt
1 tsp baking soda
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1-1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, room temp
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
a pinch of fine sea salt


Directions:
Lightly grease an 8x8 or 9x9 square cake pan and line with parchment.  Preheat to 350.  
In a small bowl, mix together 1/3 cup granulated sugar with the brown sugar and cinnamon.  Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour with the baking powder and salt.  In a separate bowl, combine the yogurt and the baking soda and stir.  Set both bowls aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until light and fluffy.  While mixer is on low, pour in the granulated sugar and continue to beat.  Add the eggs one at a time beating well after each addition, scraping down the sides of the bowl if necessary. Beat in the vanilla.
Stir in the flour mixture in 3 parts alternately with the yogurt mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Stir until well combined.
Pour half of the batter into the prepared pan.  Sprinkle half of the cinnamon-brown sugar mixture on top.  Then, pour the rest of the batter on top of the cinnamon sugar mixture.  Top off with the remainder of the cinnamon sugar mixture.  With a knife, gently swirl the cinnamon sugar mixture into the batter (not all of it will get swirled in and that is ok).
Over the cake batter, squeeze handfuls of the Crumb Topping Mixture (see recipe below) together to crumble into small clumps.  Drop evenly over the cake batter, covering completely (the crumb layer will be thick!)
Bake in preheated oven for 45-55 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean with only moist crumbs on it.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.  


For the New York Style Crumb Topping (adapted from Epicurious):
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
around 1-1/2 to 2 tsp ground cinnamon (depending on how cinnamony you want it)
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and allowed to cool slighlty
1 - 1/4 cup all purpose flour


Whisk both sugars, cinnamon and salt together in a medium bowl.  Add the warm melted butter and stir to blend.  Add flour and toss with a fork until moist clumps of crumb topping form.

Yes, each slice of this deserves to be served on its own pedestal.  

And... now it's time for a Giveaway!  Recently, the kind people at Thomas Nelson publishing company offered me a copy of their new book: Dining with Joy.  This book has been a fun and very welcome distraction during my job searching days.  It is a quick, easy read about a woman named Joy who was thrust into the role of TV Cooking show host, following her father's death.  Readers follow Joy's ups and downs in the Television business and foodie world, as well as in her personal life.  


Joy was pretty lucky in that she was named JOY.  I mean, "Dining with Joy" - that's a pretty darn cute name for a cooking show whose host's name is Joy.  
To enter this contest, simply leave a comment below telling me what you would call your own TV cooking show if you had one.  I'd probably have to be on HBO and call my show "The Angry Baker" because I tend to get frustrated (and even curse a bit) while I'm baking.  If anyone has ever made a super silly mistake while preparing (and subsequently destroying) a recipe - one of my trademarks - then you'll understand :)
Want an extra entry?  Mention this contest on Facebook and include a link to this Post in your mention.  Leave a separate comment below telling me you've done so.
Want ANOTHER extra entry?  Mention this contest on Twitter and include a link to this post in your mention.  Leave a separate comment below telling me you've done so. 
Contest will end Jan. 27th at midnight and I'll announce the winner on Fri. the 28th.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you all have a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!  

Here are some Turkey Cake Pops (from Bakerella's Cake Pops book) I made for our Thanksgiving dinner.  What are you making this year?

First Birthday Cupcake Tower

Lately, there has been a lot of Cupcaking going on around here.  Just last weekend was my nephew's First Birthday Party!  For the celebration we made the little man a Cupcake Tower to match the theme for his party ("Lil Rebel").  The colors were Gray, White, and Blue.  I was so excited to get to use our Cupcake Tower again!  For more info on the cupcake tower, visit my store here: www.TheSmartBaker.com

This is what we came up with!

We made chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, both with buttercream frosting - but to make the vanilla look a little more fun, we turned it into Confetti cupcakes by mixing a small spoonful of blue sprinkles into the batter just before going in the oven.  It added a nice little touch!  The top tier is a 6 inch round cake decorated in fondant. 

I can't wait to keep using my Cricut Cake and my Cupcake Tower!  We took off the bottom tier of the Five Tier Round Cupcake Tower, and put on the optional fourth tier bases - and it became the perfect size for this party!  I must say, I am quite proud of our work on this one. 

My Wedding Cake!

I wanted to share photos of my wedding "cake" with you all!  If you are reading this blog, you're likely as obsessed with desserts as I am, so I know you'll appreciate these. :)  And no, I did not wind up making my own cupcakes - as many people warned me not too!  I think it was a very wise decision.  The cupcake tower structure that the cupcakes are sitting on are our latest product on www.TheSmartBaker.com.  It worked wonderfully at the wedding!  We used it in our candy buffet, too for our hand-dipped chocolate covered items.  Yum!  Take a peek!!

My cake topper!  Yep, thats my pup on it, too :)

Here is the tower for the candy buffet.  We had around 40 pounds of other candy, too - like sour watermelons, chocolate covered pretzels, yogurt pretzels, chocolate covered gummy bears, neon sour worms, mini gummy bears, jelly rings, sour belts, and peachy penguins.  Guests got to take home a box full of candy!  We got all of our candy from www.AJsCandyCastle.com

Chocolate cake with Raspberry & Ganache filling

There is a sense of accomplishment when a completed cake makes it to the table.  I prepare the batter while the fiancee usually greases and flours the pans.  I keep a watchful eye on it in the oven and prepare the frostings and fillings while leveling the layers and applying the frosting is done by the boy (or else there is generally some screaming and crying going on from my end).  So cakes are a task we complete together.  After it is all done, the garnish is put on top and it is ready to be served, we're both pretty proud to show off the finished product to the family.  The process is sometimes frustrating, usually messy and always fun.  So while cakes take a bit more time and effort than say, cookies or brownies, making a big fancy cake from start to finish every once and a while is a welcome request.  

Last weekend we made this one and it received great reviews from everyone who tasted it.  It was a birthday cake for a friend who likes chocolate and raspberry.  I made a two layer moist chocolate cake, put a generous amount of red raspberry preserves and some rich chocolate ganache in the middle, and frosted the whole thing with vanilla buttercream.  I'd say it was a success.  If you have a chocolate raspberry lover in your life, you might want to make this cake for them.

Chocolate cake with Raspberry & Ganache filling

Chocolate cake, adapted from Cookie Madness

ingredients:

1 cup boiling water
3/4 cup (75g) natural unsweetened cocoa
2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour

3 Tablespoons buttermilk powder (in place of actual buttermilk)
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
1 cup (240g) golden brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp
4 large eggs, room temp
3/4 cup (6 ¼ oz) water, room temp (also in place of actual buttermilk)**
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

directions:
Preheat to 350 F or 325 F if using black cake pans. Grease and flour (2) 9 inch round pans and line with parchment
Combine boiling water and cocoa in a bowl and whisk until smooth. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, sift together dry ingredients (flour, buttermilk powder**, baking soda, and salt). Set aside.  In a small bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla and set aside.
In large bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugars together.  Beat in eggs/vanilla mixture. 

Stir room temperature water** into cocoa mixture.  Add this cocoa mixture alternately with dry ingredients in 3 additions, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.
Divide evenly between the two prepared pans.  Lightly spin the pans on a hard surface to distribute the batter.
Bake 28-38 minutes (see note) or until a toothpick comes out barely clean. Cool and frost.

**If you happen to have buttermilk, which I never do, you can omit the buttermilk powder with the dry ingredients, and then use 3/4 (6 1/4 oz) of buttermilk instead of water called for at the end of the ingredients list.

Raspberry and Chocolate Ganache Fillings:

ingredients:

for raspberry layer:

10 ounce jar raspberry "spreadable fruit" (I used Smucker's Simply 100% Fruit Seedless Red Raspberry Spreadable Fruit, but you could you could just use preserves also)

for ganache layer:

9 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/8 cup heavy whipping cream

directions: 

Place your leveled bottom cake layer on a cake plate.  Spread the red raspberry preserves onto this bottom layer to taste.  I used about 3/4 of the jar.

Place chopped chocolate in medium bowl. Bring heavy cream just to a boil in heavy medium saucepan.  Pour hot cream over the chocolate and let stand 1 minute, then stir until ganache is melted and smooth. Transfer ganache to medium bowl. Cover and refrigerate until ganache is thick enough to spread, stirring occasionally, for about 1 1/2 hours.  It should thicken to about the consistency of a heavy pudding and should not be runny.

Using an offset spatula, spread the ganache over the preserves, careful not to mix the two together too much - you want two separate layers.  Use as much ganache as you want - we probably used about 2/3 of the ganache recipe in this middle layer.  We froze the rest for later, but you could find other places to use it on this cake if you wanted.  For example, for some added chocolate, you could spread the remaining ganache on the top of the top layer and place the whole cake in the freezer for about 30 minutes until the ganache is set enough to be able to put buttercream frosting over it.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

ingredients:

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

4 c sifted confectioner's sugar

2 tsp clear vanilla

pinch of sea salt

1/4 c milk, optional

Fresh raspberries and Raspberry preserves for garnish

directions:

Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer and turn on the mixer.

Add all confectioners sugar and keep speed on low.

When all sugar is incorporated in, add vanilla and salt. Let mix for 5 min. If frosting is too stuff, add the milk by the tablespoon until the desired consistency is achieved.

To garnish:

After frosting, pipe a thin line around the edge of the top of the cake.  This will act as your glue to put the fresh raspberries on.  For extra raspberriness, spread a thin layer of preserves across the top of the cake, inside the ring of raspberries.  This will be easier to do after the cake has been refrigerated for a bit and the frosting is set.

Keep the cake in a cake dome in the refrigerator.  Remove from the fridge about 2 hours before serving.

Raspberry Preserves and Chocolate Ganache

Adding the garnish