Chocolate Bourbon Cake

When Sam & I decided to host another dinner get together this last Friday, I wanted to follow up my last cake with one that involved waaay less frosting and more class.  One that was attractive with less work, but sexy with the hint of some robust flavor.  Then, I saw what Elise Bauer referred to as

"Chocolate. Bourbon. Cake. I think the moment my father spied this recipe in the New York Times he was a goner. ("You had me at chocolate.") Nothing was going to stop him from making this cake. When he found out I possessed a 10-cup bundt pan, that was it, he was half-way to the store getting chocolate and instant espresso for the recipe." 

As you can see, we foodies take our recipes very seriously.  Elise's father went on a shopping rampage with the suggestion of the recipe, and I too, went on a similar cooking rampage.  Not nearly as humorous, but certainly as delicious.

The below cake is the moistest of dark chocolate cakes I've ever made.  It's rich without being decadent and quite literally "melts" in your mouth.  Although one of my food fans said the cake was a little too "boozy," I think the best way to articulate the bourbon's mix with dark chocolate is that some bites are richly chocolatey and others remind you of a nice shot of bourbon.  With these two lingering tastes, this cake is clearly delicious!

Chocolate Bourbon Cake
This recipe, like many of mine, comes from Master Foodblogress Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and can be found here.  As the recipe's legend has it, her father saw the below recipe in the New York Times food section and could hardly contain himself with the idea of baking up a dark, moist, chocolatey cake infused with the magic of Bourbon.  Well, upon reading this recipe, I too was similarly impressed.  Follow the recipe to a "T" as it is very difficult to alter.  The one area in which moderation is possible is the "instant coffee" or "espresso" option.  I used a 1/4 cup of coffee and skipped the steeping instant coffee alternative.  I'd suggest doing the same as no one likes instant coffee...not even when it's snuck into the deep recesses of a cake batter.

Ingredients
* 2 sticks butter, slightly softened
* 2 cups all purpose flour; or, for my version: 1 cup wheat flour, 1/2 cup cake flour, and 1/2 cup bread flour (I was feeling daring and the result was delicious!)
* 6.5 ounces dark chocolate, the nice variety, melted
* 1/4 cup brewed coffee
* 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
* 1 cup bourbon whiskey, I used Jim Beam as I had it leftover from the Bourbon ham recipe
* 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
* 2 cups granulated sugar
* 3 large eggs
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract + 1 teaspoon almond extract
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/4 cup confectioner's sugar for dusting

Special Equipment Needed:
* 1 10 cup capacity bundt pan
* 1 sifter

1.) Preheat oven to 325F and grease and flour a large bundt pan.  Set aside.

2.) Begin by preparing the coffee, bourbon, + cocoa mixture.  Pour coffee, Bourbon, & Cocoa into a 2 cup glass measuring cup.  Add salt and stir.  Set aside and allow to "cool" if necessary.

3.) Chop up 6.5 ounces of dark chocolate and add to a microwave safe bowl.  Sprinkle with water and heat on high for 30 seconds.  Stir after 30 seconds and continue these two steps until chocolate is fully melted.

4.) Beat softened butter until fluffy (about 2 minutes in the Kitchenaid Mixer) and add sugars.  Mix to integrate and scrape down sides of bowl to fully incorporate ingredients.  Add eggs one at a time, allowing for each one to be fully integrated.  Mix in baking soda, vanilla extract, and melted chocolate.  Scrape down sides and proceed to step 5.

5.) Now, add the bourbon and flour mixtures.  Begin by adding 1/3 of the bourbon mixture and mixing to fully integrate.  Add 1/2 of the flour mixture to fully integrate.  Add half of what's left of your bourbon mixture.  Then, add the last of the flour mixture, mix to integrate.  Finally, add the remaining bourbon mixture.  This process may seem tedious, but it's the best way to properly integrate both the wet and dry components of this cake.

6.) Scrape down sides of bowl to make sure your batter is fully mixed up.  Your batter will be a creamy almost pudding-like consistency and this is good! Scrape batter into prepared bundt pan and smooth on top.  Pop into oven and cook for 45 minutes or longer.  Cooking times vary on this recipe.  I checked my cake at 40 minutes and it was almost done, whereas Elise calls for an hour and fifteen minutes.  The best rule of thumb here is to check at around 40 and see what your oven's cooking temperament is.

7.) Remove from oven when a knife comes out clean.  Allow to sit for five minutes, and then, carefully, loosen the cake from the pan.  I like to scrape along the perimeter with a knife and then tap the bundt pan all around the outside with the handle. This scraping and taping procedure seems to loosen a cake nicely and decrease risk of sticking.

8.) Place a plate over the top of your bundt pan and with the help of oven mits, luck, focus, and charm, quickly flip the pan & plate upside down.  Set plate on a level surface and slowly lift up the bundt pan.  If you do this last step too quickly, you risk the cake sticking and tearing.  So, as you're lifting up the bundt pan, check to feel if the cake pulls at all.  If it does, set the pan back down on the plate and proceed to tape all around the bundt to loosen the cake some more.  It will eventually, but you must be patient!

9.) Once cake is fully loosened, allow to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar right before serving.  I use a sifter for an even snow-fall effect.  Enjoy!

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Fondant & Sam's Chocolate Chocolate Cake

I'm beginning to become a bit of a cake lady.  I've always been the first to offer to bake a cake for a friend's birthday and have, for years.  But, the last couple of cakes I've made have been more ambitious than anything I've made before now--they've involved homemade fondant, hand cut shapes, colors, designs, and so much more.  (See the Coconut Cake recipe for Lydia's birthday to see what I mean!).

This weekend I made the ultimate black & white hipster cake for my friend Sam's birthday--a dark, dark chocolate cake covered with black chocolate fondant and a top layer of vanilla cake with vanilla bean icing and vanilla fondant.  I served the cake at a fabulous birthday party for my friend Sam last night, and by and large, rumor had that it was clearly delicious!

Chocolate Cake
This cake comes from Elise Bauer's friend Suzanne over at Simply Recipes and can be found here.  This cake is fantastic: an intense amount of chocolate mixed with an intense amount of chocolate makes for a moist, decadent cake. 

Ingredients
* 3 cups cake flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
* 2 2/3 cups sugar
* 1 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa
* 1 cup + 2 tablespoons water
* 1 cup + 2 tablespoons canola oil
* 5 large, or 4 extra large eggs
* 3/4 cup water, additional
* 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 1/2 teaspoon almond extract

Frosting
*1 pound (16 oz) powdered sugar
* 1 cup dark cocoa
* a flavoring liquid--almond extract, vanilla extract, rum, or water
* 1 1/4 cup - 1 1/2 cup butter

1.)Preheat oven to 350F.  Begin by mixing the dry ingredients in a separate bowl--flour, salt, baking soda, cocoa, baking powder.  Use a whisk or sifter.

2.) In a separate container, preferably your Kitchenaid mixer, mix 1 cup and 2 tablespoons water and 1 cup and 2 tablespoons canola oil.  Mix on low-medium for one minute.

3.) Add eggs, 3/4 cup water, sugar, vanilla and almond extract.   Mix for 3-4 minutes with your Kitchenaid Mixer (a couple of minutes longer with your hand and whisk).

4.) Grease 4 regular size cake pans (either 8 in. or 10 in.).  Pour cake batter evenly into each pan and bake for 25-35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Allow to cool.

Prepare Frosting
1.) First, whisk cocoa and powdered sugar, or pulse several times in a food processor.

2.) Drizzle in--until the consistency of firm butter--several tablespoons of flavoring liquid (I used an amalgam of almond extract and vanilla, but you can use rum, or even water).

3.) Add 1 1/4-1 1/2 cups butter (firm, but not too soft or hard) to powdered sugar + flavoring liquid mixture.  I used my Kitchenaid and its paddle to properly integrate the two ingredients.  Mix on low speed for several minutes, or until dark chocolate in color.  Scrape down sides of the bowl and taste.  The consistency should be smooth enough to spread, but also firm enough to hold the cake together.

4.) Ice cake--between the layers, the top, and all around the sides.

FONDANT
This recipe comes from a chef named Peggy Weaver whose food and cooking website--Peggy's Baking Corner--is certainly worth checking out for all of its useful tips on cake baking, fondant, and the like.  You can find this basic fondant recipe here.

Ingredients
* 16 oz. white mini marshmallows
* 2 to 5 tablespoons water
* 2 pounds powdered sugar
* 1/2 cup Crisco

OTHER INGREDIENTS
* 1 small bottle of McCormick's black food coloring (if you're preparing the black layer, then use the below recipe and the entire small bottle of black food icing.  It will be very black and you will be very pleased!).

1.) Begin by melting the marshmallows.  Peggy suggests you use the microwave, but the quantity of fondant this recipe yields is better suited for a large deep skillet on your stove top.  Using a big deep skillet, add all of the marshmallows, 2 tablespoons water, and the bottle of food dye if you're making the black layer of fondant (it's water based, so the food coloring will easy substitute as the water necessary for this recipe).  However, if you're not dying this layer of fondant, add 2 more tablespoons of water.

2.) Stir constantly until mixture is smooth.  Add 3/4 of the powdered sugar (just short of 2 lbs of powdered sugar) and mix in until fully integrated.

3.) Grease clean surface or counter and add the remaining 1/4 cup of powdered sugar.  Empty pan onto surface and thoroughly grease your hands.

4.) Begin kneading the fondant like dough.  Add the powdered sugar thoroughly and continue to knead until a stiff, but sticky dough forms.  If your dough tears too easily, add a tablespoon of water until the texture feels stiff and stretchy.  If the dough is too wet, add more powdered sugar, or a teaspoon of corn starch at a time.

5.) Wrap fondant in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.  Fondant will keep in the freezer for a couple months, but I prefer to use it within 24 hours. 

6.) When ready to roll out the fondant, thoroughly flour your surface with corn starch and the dough ball.  The fondant will be stiff and will need a lot of kneading until it begins to yield to your pressure.  Roll with a standard rolling pin to the desired layer of thickness (but not too thin).  Lay over iced cake and trim excess fondant off with a pizza cutter.

7.) Serve final cake to hungry hipsters and ENJOY!

Say hello to Sam and his fellow birthday friend:

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Coconut Cake with Coconut Buttercream Icing & Fondant

This blog post may be the very end of me.  Why? Well, let's just say I accomplished one of those rare culinary tasks this past weekend that I, myself, cannot seem to believe I actually did.  What did I do? Well, I started by baking a double batch (4 layers) of a coconut cake that called for real coconut and coconut milk.  Then, I made a double batch of homemade coconut/cream cheese/buttercream icing.  Then, once the cake cooled, I carved it into the shape of...a unicorn.  Covered it in my homemade icing and then covered it in a layer of fondant (which I also made myself).  Then, decorated it with buttercream icing and voila--a mind blowing unicorn!

Now, the cake looked pretty amazing. I watched episodes of Ace of Cakes whilst performing this activity and telling myself I could do it.  I don't know if you've ever taken 4 circular discs of cake and attempted to create any kind of animal out of it, but let's just say it was beyond intimidating.  In fact, I didn't even take pictures of the pre-icing cake stage because I didn't want people to see any flaws I may have had in the first step of the process.

So why did I make a unicorn cake? It's not every day of the week you slave for 10 hours over a specialty item in the kitchen.  This weekend, I had the best reason to create one--the one and only Lydia Dorsey was celebrating her 21st birthday! So, unicorn cake in hand, I drove for three hours with my magical friend in the back carriage of my SUV.  It was quite a fantastic journey and worth every hour of effort to bring her this baked good! Lydia loved the cake (as you will hopefully see from below photos) and it tasted amazing.  Coconut cake is not a highly marketable baked good, but in this company, it was a clearly delicious treat.

Coconut Cake
This recipe comes from Elise Bauer over at Simply Recipes and can be found here.  One of Elise's co-contributers, Garret from Vanilla Garlic, posted this recipe as a cupcake recipe in the fall, but I think it makes a much more impressive cake.  I've made multiple changes here from the original--first, the frosting recipe, although initally Garrett's has been reworked into a hybrid coconut cream cheese and coconut butter cream icing, and second, the cake recipe is not only doubled, but also calls for a cakier creation (cake flour instead of all purpose).  The resulting product is a dense, wedding-cake-like creation, and the icing adds so many layers of flavor it practically melts in your mouth.  That's right, a cake that MELTS in your mouth.

Coconut Cake
Ingredients
* 1 1/2 cups unsalted/salted butter, room temp.
* 2 1/2 cups sugar
* 6 eggs, room temp.
* 2 cups coconut milk, or 1 regular size can of coconut milk
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 4 1/2 cups cake flour
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 cup sweetened desiccated coconut

Coconut Cream Cheese Butter Cream Icing
Ingredients
* 2 sticks of butter, room temp. (or1 cup butter, room temp.)
* 1 8 oz package of Philly Cream Cheese, room temp.
* 1/2 cup sweetened desiccated coconut
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 2-3 cups powdered sugar (probably more on the three side, but you'll have to taste as you add for personal preference and texture)

Cake Baking Instructions:
1.) Preheat oven to 350 F.  Cream butter until light and fluffy, then add sugars a little at a time, and cream until light and fluffy a second time.  Don't forget to scrape down your mixing bowl during this process!
2.) Add the eggs, one at a time.  Allow for 30 seconds between each addition so that the eggs are properly mixed in (this will take 3 minutes).  Again, make sure to scrape down the sides of your mixing bowl as you are doing this step.
3.) Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, salt, baking powder, and mix to integrate.  Set aside.
4.) In another separate bowl, mix 1 can coconut milk with 2 teaspoons vanilla.  Mix to integrate.
5.) Now, add both the dry and wet ingredient mixtures to the butter/sugar/egg mixture in your master kitchen bowl (i.e., if using a kitchenaid mixer, the one you're electronically mixing).  Garret from Vanilla Garlic suggests adding 1/3 dry ingredients first, then 1/2 wet ingredients; then, keep adding until all ingredients are fully in the bowl.  I think this method works well, but the idea is that you NEVER add all of one ingredient at once, but that you vary your dry and wet ingredients during this process.  Remember what the Mighty Alton Brown says, "Remember kids, speed kills."  This is very true when baking a cake!
6.) Once you have mixed all of the ingredients, scrape down the sides of your bowl and mix one or two more times on low to make sure all of your ingredients are integrated.
7.) Pour into 4 circular cake pans--I used 9 in. diameter pans, but as any cook knows, you can use whatever pans you have in your kitchen.  Cakes are amazingly flexible during the batter-to-cooked cake stage.  You can pour very thin layers of cake and bake until done, or very thick layers of cake and bake until done.  I did 4 regular sized cakes, but you certainly can divvy up the batter according to preference.
8.) Bake for about 25 mins., but make sure to check at 15 minutes and 20 minutes (to prevent over cooking and burning).
9.) Allow to cool on a cooling rack and then proceed to the carving/icing instructions.

Carving Instructions
1.) Are the cakes cooled? Are you sure? Okay, move onto step two.

2.) Set up two cakes next to each other and map out how big you want your unicorn to be.  You'll use the other two cakes to carve out details--a horn, a snout, an ear, etc.  You get the picture.
3.) Since I can't really articulate how one carves a unicorn...really, I don't think I can do it without weird made up words and confusing anecdotes, take a look at another food blogger's attempt to create what she called The Unicorn of Trial.  I followed her basic idea in cake carving and even used her fondant recipe.  This blogger at Cardamon and Lavender basically calls the carving process her "winging it skills."  I believe, yes, "winging it" is the terminology that you should use here.
4.) Somehow...create a unicorn, then, proceed to the next step to ice your cake.

Icing Instructions

1.) First, prepare the icing in your kitchenaid mixer: cream the butter and cream cheese together (about 3-5 minutes).
2.) Scrape down the sides, mix in two teaspoons of vanilla extract, and slowly add powdered sugar while mixing on low-to-medium speed.
3.) Fold in the coconut and spread frosting over cooled cakes (you should know by now that you can't ice a cake without cooling it properly first!).
4.) Voila! Once you've iced the cake, you suddenly see a real unicorn take shape. It's absolutely amazing.  Now, you can choose to roll out and add the fondant, or wait until the following day to do so (at this point, you will have been baking, carving, icing for 3-4 hours, so you'll probably need a break. Given how important the fondant detailing is, I'd suggest taking that break now!).
5.) However, if you've given your cake a 24 hour resting period, roll out and place fondant over cake.  It's best if you can do this in one layer, but given the size of the cake, there will probably be a seam where you've attached two very large fondant layers.  Carve off the excess fondant using a knife (I prefer a pizza cutter) and press into cake gently.  The coconut icing will adhere the fondant to the cake like delicious, sugary glue.
6.) Decorate with colored icings, sprinkles, and cut out fondant.  I'll post and detail the fondant recipe in tomorrow's entry.  It's shockingly simple and pretty easy to do!


And now, a photo montage of Lydia, her unicorn, and such: 

 

Lydia eating the horn.

 Lydia's Self-Portrait (the Unicorn that started this all!) FYI: Lydia's quite the talented painter/artist.

The magical unicorn on fire.

More fiery footage.

 The ravished unicorn, yum.

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Pineapple Upside Down Cake

There's something about American comfort food that I just can't put my finger on...maybe it's the gooeyness, the sweetness, the carbs, or the fact that everything's made with cheese or sugar.  Today, in one of my baking fits (yes, those moments of pure potential that hit right at about...7:00 in the morning), I got it into my head that I was going to make a cake for my friends Kris and Ellen Mecholosky's third wedding anniversary.  And I did.  The resulting cake was soft and flavorful on the inside with hints of almond and citrus, and the crust was gooey and crunchy where the caramelized brown sugar had browned in the oven.

This recipe is not your normal cake recipe.  The batter is thick and dense, not runny and stringy, and the flavor is unbelievably strong even in the uncooked batter stage.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake
As always, I need to thank Elise Bauer at Simply Recipes for posting this fabulous recipe.  I've adjusted the recipe somewhat here (the use of whole wheat flour over regular and cake) and the use of ground almonds and almond extract.  The result is a heartier cake with more notes of almonds.  For less of an earthy/nutty flavor, use vanilla extract over almond, and cake flour over ground almonds.

Pineapple Brown Sugar Topping
* 1 cup brown sugar, packed
* 1 20 oz can of pineapple slices, drained
* 1 stick butter (1/2 cup butter), melted

Cake
* 1 1/2 cups + 6 tablespoons whole wheat flour
* 6 tablespoons ground almonds
* 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 3/4 cup sugar
* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter at room temperature (I used salted, and it worked fine!)
* 4 large eggs
* 1 teaspoon almond extract
* 3/4 cup sour cream, lowfat or regular works fine

1.) Preheat oven at 325F.  Begin by making the caramel/pineapple mixture: melt butter over medium heat in a saucepan and whisk in 1 cup packed brown sugar.  Stir to integrate and combine.  Pour into a non-stick cake pan and top with pineapple ring slices (almost an entire can should fit a 10 in (diameter) pan, and you may have 1-2 slices left over).
2.) Mix the dry ingredients: place flour, salt, baking powder, almond flour in a bowl and mix to integrate.  Set aside.
3.) Mix butter and sugar on low speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating/mixing after every addition.  Beat in almond extract.
4.) Add dry ingredients and sour cream one at a time.  First, add half of the dry ingredients, mix to integrate and add half of the sour cream.  Mix to integrate.  Repeat until all ingredients are combined.
5.) Pour over pineapple caramel mixture and spread to evenly dispurse.  This cake batter will be thicker and stiffer than most, so don't worry if it seems different from the regular thin, stringy cake batters of non-dense cakes.  You want the batter to look dense!
6.) Place in the center of your oven and cook for 1 hour and fifteen minutes.  Make sure to check the cake at 45 minutes; depending on oven types, atmospheres, and temperatures, it may take longer or shorter.  Enjoy!


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Vanilla Cupcakes

Tonight, I made the annual end-of-semester cupcake treat that I bake for my students.  Many of my peers often look at my funny when they realize that I, yes, "bake" for my students.  My logic is this one: by the time Thanksgiving break, or Spring break rolls around, many students are exhausted and need a little sugary boost to make it through their exams.  The answer? CUPCAKES!

For this particular batch, I used a basic vanilla cupcake recipe courtesy of Paula Deen.  Many foodies know Paula as that sweet-as-pie Southern lady who uses tons of butter and sugar to make the yummiest of American comfort foods.  I love Paula as a TV personality, but have often butted heads with her recipes.  Something always goes wrong when I make a Paula recipe! Case in point: disaster key lime pie incident of 2009.  Enough said.

Thus, one might imagine my hesitation when I found this recipe, and subsequent delight when I finally tasted it.  THESE CUPCAKES ARE DELICIOUS! They're very simple, but exactly what one would want in a batch of universally pleasing vanilla cupcakes.  Add that to a simple buttercream frosting and sprinkles, and you have a real crowd pleaser!

Vanilla Cupcakes, or Paula's "Old-Fashioned Cupcakes" Recipe
Recipe courtesy of Food Network and can be found here.

Paula's original recipe calls for a mixture of cake flour with regular all-purpose flour.  For those of you who don't have cake flour on hand, I am happy to report that regular all-purpose flour works just as well.  Granted, the cupcakes don't have that cakey-density that cake flour offers, but are still light, fluffy, and vanilly-delicious!

Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• Old Fashioned Frosting, recipe follows

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line cupcake pans with cupcake liners.  Set aside.

2.) Combine the following ingredients in a bowl: flours, sugar, baking powder, and salt.  Add 2 sticks of butter in one inch cubes and mix with hand mixer.

3.) Then, add the wet ingredients starting with the eggs.  Add eggs one at a time, then combine milk and vanilla extract with the batter.  Mix thoroughly.  My batch was particularly lumpy with butter, so if you have this same problem and just can't get the butter to even out, don't worry, the butter will melt and combine during the baking process!


4.) Scoop batter into cupcake liners until they are about 2/3 full.  Put in oven and cook for 17-20 minutes.  If you are using a gas stove, you'll want to watch the golden-color of the cupcakes.  If the tops of the cupcakes are just beginning to turn golden brown, pull them out, because they are done! However, if the tops are golden brown, there is a very good chance you have burned bottoms (this happened with my first batch, so I made sure to pull out the cupcakes when they were just beginning to finish baking/turn golden colored.  This change made for perfect gold brown bottoms, not burnt bottoms!). Ahh...that sounds funny!

5.) Finally, wait until the cupcakes are completely cooled to decorate.  I used a spray butter cream frosting from the store, but Paula suggests you use her "Old-Fashioned Frosting" which is essentially butter cream (milk, vanilla, butter, and confectioner's sugar).  You can find the Old-Fashioned frosting on the same website as the cupcake recipe listed above.  Add frosting and sprinkle with cupcakes.  Enjoy!