Daphne's 1st birthday cake

I made this cake for my friend Sylvia's daughter's 1st birthday party.  It's lemon curd with cream cheese icing.  I like this cake because it's nice for summer and everyone really loves the zing of the lemon curd.  The cake itself is a pretty simple orange juice cake that is very moist and tastes great with any kind of icing.  In this case it really lets the lemon curd shine.  And who doesn't love cream cheese icing?  That also goes really well with lemon curd.  They have a complementary tang.

This cake needed to feed 25 people and I'm not super keen on double stacked sheet cakes so I used
2- 12" rounds and 2- 9" rounds.  I tripled the cake recipe, made one batch of lemon curd, and doubled the icing recipe.  I had the perfect amounts of everything- I like to have a little bit of everything left over in case I need to touch something up or just to save in the freezer.

I layered lemon curd in between the 2- 12"s and the 2- 9"s but between the 12" cake and the 9" cake I just spread a nice layer of cream cheese icing.  One thing that I did to make serving the cake easier is I put a tinfoil covered cardboard cake round in between the 9" and 12" cake layers.  This way the top cake can be cut and served, they can remove the cardboard round and then cut the bottom cake.  I put lemon curd on the very top, piped dots around the edges with the cream cheese icing, and wrote on top of the cake with melted butter and semisweet chocolate chips.  Lastly, I threw on some sliced strawberries for color.

Lemon Curd Cake
Recipe from The Night Kitchen Bakery

• Lemon curd
• Yellow cake
• Cream cheese icing

Phil's birthday cake

It's Phil's birthday!!  Happy birthday to one of the greatest dads I know.  For this special occasion I made one of the Keitel-Sosnov family's favorite cakes, the chocolate mocha cake.  It's a simple classic chocolate cake with a coffee kick and one of the greatest chocolate icings ever.

Chocolate Mocha Cake with Mocha Icing
Recipe from the Chestnut Hill Spice Shop

Ingredients:

(cake)

• 3 1/2 cups ap flour
• 1 1/2 cups cocoa
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tsp b powder
• 4 tsp b soda

• 2 cups milk + 2 Tbsp lemon juice
• 4 eggs
• 4 cups sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup canola oil
• 2 cups hot coffee

(icing)

• 1 stick butter
• 1 stick margarine
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 Tbsp coffee
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 c powdered sugar
• splash of milk

Method:

(cake)
Preheat oven to 350 and grease and parchment 2- 9" cake pans plus at least one 12 cup muffin pan.  Sift together dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.  In the stand mixer mix oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients alternating with the buttermilk in a few additions.  Add hot coffee all at once and mix til combined.  Pour batter 3/4 full into the cake pans and muffin tins, don't over-fill.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until cakes bounce back to the touch and a knife comes out clean.  Try to let the cakes cool completely before removing them from the pan.  Loosen the sides with a knife because this cake tends to stick- hence the parchment paper.

(icing) 
Once the cakes have cooled beat the butter and the margarine in the stand mixer until light and creamy. Add vanilla, cinnamon, coffee, and then one at a time add the sugar and cocoa.  Beat to combine in between additions.  Last add the milk just to loosen up the texture.

I drew a fish on top of my cake with some melted semisweet chocolate chips mixed with butter in my piping bag.  Phil caught us a lot of delicious blue fish when we were at the shore last week and cooked us an amazing meal of baked blue fish with garlic and fingerling potatoes.  Thanks for the fish Phil, I hope you liked your cake!!

Muffin Thursday: peach muffs

Fresh Jersey peaches plus oats and brown sugar.  But not a whole lot of brown sugar.  Which makes this muffin not so bad for you.  Portable breakfast.  Like oatmeal you can hold in your hand.  I actually threw these together the other night after dinner while my friend's birthday cake was in the oven.  My peaches were about a day away from being too ripe so I recycled them into a muffin.

Peach Oat Muffins
Adapted from Alida's Kitchen

Ingredients:
(dry)

• 1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup rolled oats

(wet)

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 2 peaches cut up and mashed

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray (or line with paper liners).  In a medium bowl, combine all dry ingredients.  In a large bowl, combine all wet ingredients.  Fold wet into dry. Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Big yellow cake

I actually went out and bought tumeric for this big yellow cake.  This recipe was so simple I had to try it even though I had no clue who would actually eat it.  It's vegan and it has a really earthy taste from the turmeric.  My cake came out a little less sweet than it should have because I used unsweetened coconut, so I suggest sticking with the sweetened.

Vegan Turmeric Cake
Adapted from May I Have Hat Recipe?

Ingredients:

• 3 cups self rising flour (**see note for recipe)
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 1 ½ cups unsweetened shredded coconut
• Pinch of salt

• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• 1 ¾ cups SWEETENED almond, coconut or soy milk (here we used Silk Pure Almond)

Method:

Preheat your oven to 350 and grease and flour a 10" spring form pan.  (The original recipe uses an 11x7" pan).  In a small bowl mix the dry ingredients, in a larger bowl mix the soy milk and the oil, add the dry to the wet and stir just til combined.  Pour into the pan and smooth down with your spatula.  Bake for about 30-35 minutes or until done in the middle.  Lastly, after the cake cooled I sifted a little powdered sugar on top.  

**Note:

• 3 cups ap flour
• 4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt

Twisted sister pastries take two

I made these dinishy pastry things once before, it's one of the best doughs I've ever worked with.  This time I decided to change the filling because the plain cinnamon vanilla butter filling that I did the first time was a little boring.  I had to drown them in danish glaze to make them interesting.  I also subbed some whole wheat flour this time because I ran out of white.  I thought that was going to be the kiss of death and the dough would come out weird, but I think this second try was a winner.

For the fillings I did a raspberry jam one and a chocolate one, both had brown sugar, butter, and almonds too.  And then I made a very thin danish glaze with skim milk and powdered sugar and drizzled it over the top.  Rather than hardening on top like a drizzle it acted more like a glaze that soaked in and made the pastry moist and sweet.

Twisted Sister Pastry with Chocolate and Raspberry Fillings
Adapted from Ask Chef Dennis

Ingredients:

(dough)

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 1/4 cup honey
• 3/4 cup plus 2 Tablespoons lukewarm water
• 3/4 Tbsp. granulated yeast
• 3/4 Tbsp. kosher salt
• 1 cup ap flour
• 2 1/2 cups whole wheat flour

(raspberry filling)

• 3 Tbsp. raspberry jam
• 1/2 stick melted butter
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• handful of pulverized raw almonds

(chocolate filling)

• 1/2 stick melted butter

• 2 Tbsp. cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup pulverized semisweet chocolate chips
• 4 Tbsp. brown sugar
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Method:

(dough)

Melt the butter and set aside to cool slightly.
Lightly beat the eggs in a small bowl.
Add honey and melted butter to beaten eggs. Gently and briefly mix together then set aside.
Combine lukewarm water, yeast and salt together in your stand mixer and mix a little. Add eggs, butter, honey mixture. Mix together briefly.
Add ap flour and mix to combine. Add whole wheat flour and mix until dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. The dough will be damp and sticky. This is a no knead dough so just get all the flour mixed in and you’re done.
Place dough in a warm spot, covered but not closed (you want air flow) for three hours. The dough will rise and be full of air pockets. Perfect!

**Once the dough has risen you can assemble your twisted sisters, I suggest looking at the original recipe for pictures on how to twist the dough etc.  It's not hard but you really need to look at the pictures to get the idea.  

(raspberry filling)

Melt the butter, pulverize some almonds in the cuisinart, and mix with the brown sugar and raspberry jam.  

Spread a fre tablespoons of the filling on the dough before you roll them up to make the pastry.  

(chocolate filling)

Melt the butter and set aside.  

Pulverize the almonds and chocolate chips in the cuisinart, then mix in the other ingredients.  

For this filling, leave the butter separate and brush it directly onto the dough, then sprinkle the nut and chocolate mixture over top before you roll up the pastry.  

After you have assembled your pastries bake them in a 350 degree oven for about 20 minutes or until they get a little brown on top and are hard on the outside.  With the pastries still warm I spooned a mixture of powdered sugar and skim milk on top.  I used about 1/2 cup of powdered sugar and added skim milk a little at a time until the glaze was as thin as I wanted.

Tahini almond cookies

I found this recipe on foodgawker.  I've never baked with tahini before so I thought I would give this a try.  My mom wanted me to incorporate some chocolate in there somewhere so I dipped them half in melted chocolate.  Some of the cookies I broke in half and rolled them in powdered sugar.  Both of those ideas came from a cookie that my grandma used to make at Xmas.  She made an almond crescent dough, formed them in the crescent shape and rolled them in powdered sugar, and some of them she made into longer shapes and dipped half in melted chocolate.  This cookie had a similar light shortbread-like consistency that took both of those decorating options well.  I was also thinking that they would be nice if you made them into little round cookies with an almond pressed into the center of each cookie.

Tahini and Almond Cookies
Adapted from David Liebovitz

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (140 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (140 g) whole wheat flour
• 2 1/2 ounces (70 g) ground almonds (see note)
• 5 1/2 ounces (150 g) cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 3/4 cup (150 g) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons water
• 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons (200 g) raw tahini paste

Method:

Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC) degrees. Line two baking sheets with tin foil.

In a large bowl, mix together the all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, ground almonds, sugar, and salt.

Using a pastry cutter, cut in the cold butter until the butter is incorporated into the flour mixture and looks like pea-sized balls.

Add water, vanilla, and tahini and fold with a spatula until a smooth dough begins to form.  You may have to switch to using your hands if the dough needs a little extra kneading to fully come together.  (If the dough feels very dry, dampen your hands and knead the dough slightly.)

Pull off a piece of dough the size of a large walnut and either roll them in balls and flatten on your baking sheet to make a circular cookie, or roll and squeeze into a longer cookie if you want to dip them in chocolate later.  (You can do half and half).  Or you can press an almond into the center of them if you want to forgo the decorating later.  

Bake for about 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown.

Once cool you can roll them in powdered sugar, or melt chocolate chips in a double boiler and dip one end in chocolate, then leave them on the baking sheet to set the chocolate up.

**Notes:

For the almond flour I ground up 3/4 cup whole raw almonds in my 4-cup cuisinart.

Bran muffins on the weekend

How does a Maida Heatter bran muffin with fresh Jersey blueberries sound?  I went to Long Beach Island this past week with my friend Maya and her family.  We had a great time even though there was no sun for my whole visit!!  My friends Phil and Alisha went out fishing one night and cought bluefish that we cooked for dinner.  That was definitely the highlight of the vacation.  Fresh bluefish with garlic roasted in the oven.  On the way home I stopped at a farm stand on 206 that had the best watermelon I've had all year.  I also got tomatoes, peaches, green beans, and blueberries.  The first pint of blueberries got eaten pretty much right away, but the second one I reserved for baking.  And that's how this muffin came about...

Maida Heatter's Bran Muffins with Blueberries
Adapted from Maida Heatter via Star Chefs

Ingredients:

• 2 ounces ( 1/2 stick) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1/4 cup dark or light molasses or honey

• 2 eggs (large grade)
• 1 cup low-fat buttermilk

• 1 1/2 cups bran cereal (do not use flakes, Maida recommends Kellogg's All-Bran)
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup blueberries
• 1 cup pumpkin seeds

• 1/2 cup unsifted whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup unsifted all purpose white flour
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Method:

If your oven can not fit both muffin tins side by side on the middle rack, adjust the 2 racks to divide the oven into 3rds.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Butter 18 2 3/4 inch muffin forms. Note: Buttering the tins will create a very nice crust for the muffins, if using paper cups the crust may be diminished but the muffins will keep longer.
Melt butter over low heat. In a large mixing bowl combine the melted butter, sugar and molasses or honey and stir to mix.
In a separate bowl beat the eggs and milk to mix.
Slowly add the egg mixture to the butter mixture stirring with a wire whisk to blend. Mix in the bran and raisins and let stand for a few minutes. Or cover and refrigerate overnight. Stir in pupmkin seeds and blueberries.
Sift together flours, salt, and baking soda and add to bran mixture. Stir quickly with rubber spatula just enough to moisten dry ingredients.
With a large spoon, fill prepared cups with batter about 2/3rds full.
Bake for 15 minutes rotating muffin pans once to insure even cooking. Muffins will be done when they spring back from touch. Note: If muffin mixture has been refrigerated, cooking time will be 4 minutes longer. Take muffins from oven and remove from baking tins immediately and cool on rack.

**Notes:

So in addition to the blueberries I added pumpkin seeds (because I had some in the fridge to use up) instead of walnuts.  I also used bran flakes even though she prefers to use actual bran cereal.  I opted for the molasses rather than the honey- I really like that dark richness from the molasses.  Lastly, I used buttermilk as my milk.  

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.

More fun with cherries: a coffee cake

I have been obsessed with blueberry cakes recently.  I keep downloading all of these recipes for thick fluffy blueberry coffee cakes.  Is it because it's blueberry season or am I just in a cake phase?  It's probably because the pictures of these cakes are amaaaaazing!!!  So basically I got stuck on this one recipe for days because the photos were so gorgeous.  I switched out the blueberries for cherries because I still had some left over from my very dense cherry brownies.  I also changes from lemon zest to orange zest because I didn't have any lemons.

Cherry Buttermilk Coffee Cake
Adapted from Cooking Bride

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest (zest from 1 large orange)
• 3/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 cups pitted and quartered cherries
• 1/2 cup buttermilk

Method:

Preheat oven to 350 and grease and flour a 9x9 pan.  Cream the butter, zest, and all but one tablespoon of sugar in your stand mixer.  Add the egg and vanilla to the mixer and beat just til combined.  In another bowl mix the flour (minus 1/4 cup reserved for later), b powder, and salt, set aside.  Toss the pitted and quartered cherries in the reserved 1/4 cup of flour, set aside.  Measure out the buttermilk and then add 1/2 the flour mixture to the mixer, alternating with 1/2 the buttermilk, mixing slightly in between, until all flour and milk has been added.  Add the cherries and beat on low til just combined.  Pour batter into prepared pan, sprinkle reserved 1 tablespoon of sugar on top, and bake for 45-55 minutes or until top is getting browned and a toothpick tester comes out pretty clean from the center.  

Maida Heatter brownies with cherries

Whole Foods was selling cherries yesterday for $1.99 per pound.  So I had to buy two pounds just because it was such a good deal- like how I can't not buy butter when it's on sale even though my freezer if full of butter.  Now how did I think to put the cherries in brownies you might ask?  Well the other day I made the Baked brownies from the Baked Cookbook, and they turned out ok but nowhere near as great as Oprah would have you believe.  I think I over-mixed them a little which added too much air to the batter and resulted in a cakey rather than dense brownie.  I was discussing this problem with my mom and she suggested trying a Maida Heatter Recipe from her Book of Great Chocolate Desserts.  She has one brownie that is so dense it has to sit in the fridge before you can even cut it because the center is so wet right after baking.  All I did was add a couple of handfuls of pitted and quartered cherries.

Maida Heatter's Palm Beach Brownies with Cherries
Adapted from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts

Ingredients:

• 4 squares unsweetened bakers chocolate
• 1 stick butter
• 2 eggs plus 1 yolk
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/4 tbsp instant coffee
• 1 1/2 plus 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 plus 1/3 cup ap flour
• 1 cup pitted and quartered cherries

Method:

Preheat oven to 425 and line a 9x9 pan with parchment paper.  In a small saucepan over medium-low heat melt the butter.  Turn off the heat and add the unsweetened chocolate and mix until combined, set aside to cool.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs, vanilla, salt, instant coffee, and sugar.  Add the chocolate mixture to the bowl and fold in just til combined.  Now add the flour and mix until nearly combined, then add the cherries and combine until flour is almost completely mixed in.  It is important not to over-mix at this point so that you get a dense brownie rather than a fluffy cakey one.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.  Don't bother testing the brownies with a toothpick because they will be crusty on top and gooey in the middle.  Take them out of the oven at 35 minutes and let them cool on the counter, then put them in the fridge to set up.  Maida recommends leaving them in the fridge overnight to set but I only waited a few hours before trying them.  Sooooo much better than Oprah's!!  **UPDATE**  They are even better after they sit in the fridge overnight!

*Note:  I halved the original recipe here and baked it in a 9x9 pan because I wanted to make a small batch, the original recipe calls for a 9x13 pan.