Nora's baking too!

My sister Nora sent me this recipe and a picture of the cake that she made for her friend's birthday.  Nora likes very complex desserts, like when she made the tye-dye cake or this cake which has cookie dough baked in the middle!  The recipe calls for cupcakes but Nora just made it as a cake instead.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cake
Adapted from All Recipes

Ingredients:

(for the cookie center)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup miniature semisweet chocolate chips

(for the cake)

• 1 (18.25 ounce) box chocolate cake mix
• 1 1/3 cups water
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 3 eggs

Method:

Make the cookie batter

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and sea salt; set aside. Beat the butter, white sugar, and brown sugar with an electric mixer in a large bowl until smooth. Add 1 egg and the vanilla extract and beat until smooth. Mix in the flour mixture until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips; mixing just enough to evenly combine. Form the dough into tablespoon-sized balls; place onto a baking sheet, and freeze until solid, about 2 hours.

Make the cake batter
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 9-inch cake pans, set aside.
Beat 3 eggs in a large bowl with an electric mixer to break up. Add the cake mix, water, and canola oil; continue beating for 2 minutes on medium speed. Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Place some frozen cookie dough balls on the top center of each cake.  Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the cake portion of the cake (not the cookie dough ball) comes out clean, about 30-35minutes (check cake box for cooking time). Cool in the pans for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely on a wire rack.

Assembly

Using your favorite fudgey choclate icing (home-made or store bought) frost the top of one cake layer and then place the second cake layer on top, then frost the top of the second layer and the sides.  Decorate with peanut butter chips, like Nora did, and write your happy b-day message on top.

Summer Garden

My uncle Bruce sent me a picture this morning. That's my grandparent's old collie-german shepherd mix Shannah, my cousin Audrey, me, my sister Nora, and cousin Arthur up at my grandparent's farm in Tioga PA. They had a pretty impressive veggie garden every summer. Lots of squash and wax beans if I remember correctly. They had really rocky soil so a lot of our time was spend de-rocking the garden and then covering the weeds in black plastic to keep them down.

I have a nice garden space at my Dad's house that is just waiting to be planted, not that I have the time to do it right now- I'm having enough trouble keeping up with the laundry as it is. After school is done I'll get in there and get my hands dirty.

Today's baking plan includes that cinnamon Povitica Bread, possibly some whole wheat brownies that Martha Stewart emailed me today, and in between a little studying.

Thanks for the memories Brucey!!

Photo credit: Uncle Bruce

Strawberry Shortcake

What a nice Easter! I spent the weekend welcoming my cousin Arthur to Philadelphia and then hanging out with him and my sister. Saturday we had a nice lunch with his parents (my Aunt Barb and Uncle Bruce) at Top Of The Hill Market and bought some Easter candy at Zipf's. Good thing he came to visit because he was a great help in the kitchen; baking this cake and rolling out balls of Jaques Torres' chocolate chip cookies. I need him next Xmas when we turn my mom's house into a gingerbread cookie decorating factory again. But back to the cake...

In honor of my Nona I made strawberry shortcake for Easter dinner at my Aunt Pat and Uncle Tommy's house. Nona used to make her cake from a box- but when we were little kids we didn't care. It was delicious anyway. I came across this recipe while stumbling around Taste Spotting one day. The recipe comes from Thyme, it's called Mammie Moo's Strawberry Shortcake.

What an easy recipe!! I pretty much followed it to a T except I didn't realize that they don't sell creme fraiche at Pathmark so I just made regular whipped cream instead of the one in the original recipe. I also just used two 9 inch cake pans and covered the bottoms with tin foil and Pam since I didn't have a spring form. But I knew I'd have to cover the bottom because this cake will stick if you just try to grease and flour the pan. Parchment circles will work as well. Then I cut each cake in two and made a four-layer cake with whipped cream in between each layer and strawberries in the middle and on top. Again, really easy and very tasty.

For the cake:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. salt
5 eggs, separated
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
5 Tbs. boiling water
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Grated zest of 2 lemons

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 350, in a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

2. In a large bowl whip together the egg yolks and sugar with a hand mixer on high speed until thick; the mixture will still be grainy. Reduce the speed to medium-low and add the boiling water. Turn off the mixer and scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Increase the speed to high and whip again until thick. Stir in the vanilla extract and lemon zest. Reduce the speed to low and stir in the flour mixture.

3. In a separate bowl, whip the egg whites on medium-low speed until frothy. Increase the speed to medium-high and whip until thick and smooth; the mixture should not look dry. Fold half of the whites into the batter with a spatula, then fold in the remaining whites.

4. Gently spread the batter in the prepared pans. (You can use a 9 in spring-form pan, I used two 9 inch cake pans- don't forget to line the bottoms) Bake until a knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the inside edge of the pan and invert the cake. Transfer the cake to a wire rack and let cool completely. Using a serrated knife, cut the cake horizontally into 3 layers if you used the spring-form or cut each layer in 2 to make 4 layers if you used the two 9 inch cake pans. (Snippet's Notes: If you used the spring form wrap dental floss around the cake, cross the floss, and gently pull it through the body of the cake to get 3 even layers.)

For the strawberry layer:

2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and thinly
sliced, plus more for garnish
1 tsp. fresh lemon juice
2 Tbs. granulated sugar

Method:

Place the 2 cups strawberries in a bowl. Stir in the lemon juice and 2 Tbs. of the granulated sugar.

For the whipped cream:

2 cups heavy cream
4 Tbs. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Method:

Whip cream, sugar, and vanilla with a hand mixer on high until cream is thick and fluffy- don't make butter out of it.

Hurry up, it's almost gone!!

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma TASTE Magazine, "Layers of Delight," by Emily Luchetti (Spring 2002).

Nora's Oatmeal

Nora is making her signature oatmeal:

1/2 C Regular cut oats
1/4 C Water
1/2 C Skim Milk
1 Tbsp Flax seed meal
1 Tbsp Peanut butter
1/2 Apple- cubed
Handful Raisins
1 Tsp Brown sugar
Dash Cinnamon

Note: Nora likes her oatmeal extra mushy so you can back off on the liquid if you like it more solid. We were thinking you could add a handful of chocolate chips and some nuts if you are feeling particularly sinful. All you have to do is heat the water, milk, oats, and flax seed until almost done then stir in the other ingredients. Stir your mixture or it will stick to the bottom and you'll be pissed off.

Nora and Phil decided- last night as we were hanging out with Maya and cousin Arthur- that peanut butter and banana oatmeal is the best thing ever. Unfortunately my bananas are black for baking and this creeped Nora out. So we tried the apples instead and it's a bangin substitute- although no match for the bananas.