Pumpkin Cake with Vanilla Brown Butter Icing and Red Anjou Pears

Yesterday I was once again in the cake baking mood (surprise!). I rummaged through the cupboards looking for inspiration and found a can of pumpkin puree. Yum! I haven’t made a pumpkin cake at home before so I thought I’d give that a go. The usual search on the internet for the perfect recipe that made sense commenced, and I spent about 2 hours before finally choosing one. I didn’t want it to be a heavy cake, I wanted it to be light and fluffy and moist and dreamy. Once I had chosen my recipe, I realized that I didn’t have any butter. Of course! So I had to take a little trip to the grocery store.

Let me just tell you that driving in even the slightest bit of snow, even with snow tires on, results in fish-tailing all over the damn road when starting from a stop sign. It’s kind of hilarious, I don’t even go fast. I can see how rear-wheel drive would be fun in the summer but in the winter I hate it. I risk my life for a few pounds of butter to fuel my baking addiction.

So back on track, at the grocery store I see the most perfect pears and realize I have to buy them. They were red anjous and so perfectly ripe that I could smell them from my basket during my grocery-store-trot. I also saw mascarpone cheese and realized I obviously had to get that too (didn’t end up using it haha). So far so good. Except wait, I came here for butter. So off to the dairy aisle I go. Oh look! There is only one brand of unsalted at the moment, and it’s the most expensive one. I ponder it for a moment and decide that I’m not going to risk death and drive to another store to save a dollar or two. There were these two girls staring at me while I pondered. I grit my teeth and throw two pounds in the basket and quickly prance away with my heavy basket like a weirdo. Here’s a picture from google of some red anjou pears! Aren’t they beautiful?

Back at home, I decide to brown one pound of the butter for the icing. Throw in a vanilla bean? Why not! The house smells amazing as the pumpkin cake is baking and the brown butter is brewing. Delicious. My dad asks if the only reason I came home was to kill him.

The icing I used on this cake was a german buttercream. You probably know what it is, but didn’t know it had a real name like me. Those buttercreams that start with a cooked custard base are german buttercreams! And they are delicious. Now that I think about it, they are basically mousseline buttercreams. Pastry cream+butter=yum! I love winter, because when I’m baking and am in need of a blast freezer I have a huge one right outside the door. Need to cool down  some brown butter? Put it in a dish in the snow! Need to cool down pastry cream? Wrap it up in saran wrap and put it in the snow! Just make sure no nosey dogs are trying to eat your products. Foster really likes butter and pastry cream.

Almost forgot about the pears! So while things were chillin’ out in the snow I diced up two of the pears and..semi-poached-semi-steamed them in a bit of white wine. I had no idea what the hell I was doing all I knew was I wanted them in wine. I let them hang out in the pot for about half an hour until they were tender but still had a bit of crunch to them to add texture to the finished cake. Yum.

I’ve noticed lately that I am liking the looks of not icing the sides of cakes. Maybe it’s just laziness though..haha. I like how it looks more rustic and easy going yet pretty at the same time. Can a cake be easy going? Well they can now.

I waited until this morning to take pictures of the cake so that they wouldn’t look like complete crap. I may or may not have had cake and coffee for breakfast. What. Don’t look at me like you’ve never done it. The cake by itself is so awesome, you could eat it with just a dusting of icing sugar on top. So moist, so flavourful, so awesome. When I tasted the buttercream after first making it I wasn’t sure I made the right choice of browning the butter. Don’t get me wrong it tasted amazing, but it felt too rich, too heavy. But then I doctored it up a little bit and when paired with the cake it’s actually quite awesome and not heavy at all. I’m not sure if letting it sit over night did anything but I like to think that it allowed the flavours to mellow out a little bit. I also really love the texture that the pears give to every bite.

Pumpkin Cake

(adapted from allrecipes.com)

2 cups of sugar
1 1/4 cups of grapeseed oil (or canola or vegetable)
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
2 cups of pumpkin puree
2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg

Preaheat oven to 350F. Grease and line the bottoms of two 8″ round pans with parchment.

In a mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the sugar with the oil, eggs and vanilla on high until light and fluffy. Add the pumpkin and whisk til combined. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Switch to the paddle attachment and add the dry ingredients and mix just until everything is combined. Finish with a spatula if you need to but don’t overwork the batter.

Divide between your two pans and bake for about 30-35 minute or until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean and the cake springs back when gently pressed in the centre. Let cool in the pans for about 10 minutes and then invert them onto a cooling wrack to finish cooling.

Brown Butter German Buttercream

(adapted from BraveTart!) **Double the recipe if you want to mask the outside of the entire cake.

8oz whole milk
6 oz sugar
3/4 ounce of cornstarch
1 egg
1 egg yolk
16 ounces of unsalted butter
1 vanilla bean
pinch of salt

In a pot melt the butter and add one vanilla bean, split and seeded and continue to cook until it turns a nutty brown. Keep an eye on it because it can go from brown to black pretty fast. You can strain the butter into a bowl if you want but straining isn’t required. Set aside until solid again and room temp.

In a pot heat the milk with one tablespoon of the sugar until almost boiling. In a bowl, whisk together the rest of the sugar and cornstarch. Whisk in the egg and yolk until smooth. Once the milk is just about boiling, pour into the egg mixture and whisk til combined. Return to the pot and continue to whisk over medium heat until the mixture boils and thickens and then continue to cook for about half a minute more. Pour this mixture into a bowl and cover the top directly with plastic wrap and cool in the fridge until cold.

Once the mixture is cool, whip until creamy and then add the butter. Whip until light and fluffy. Add the salt. Yum!

I also threw in about 5 ounces of cream cheese, a tiny bit of orange zest and a tiny bit of icing sugar to get it back to the consistency I wanted.

If you want to make this without brown butter, steep the vanilla bean in with the milk instead and continue with the recipe as normal with just plain soft butter.

White Wine Anjou Pears

3-4 red anjou pears
1/2 cup of tasty white wine
1/2 vanilla bean if you want

Cut the pears into a small dice, keeping in mind that the pears go in between layers of cake. Throw into a pot and add the white wine (and optional vanilla bean), put over medium-low heat with a lid until the pears are soft but still have a slight bite to them. When mine were done there was about a tbsp of pear/white wine syrup in the bottom of the pot. So good.

Assembling the cake!

Cut each cake layer into two so there are 4 layers. Layer them with buttercream and then 1/3 of the pears, make sure you press them flat into the buttercream. Continue layering. Eat!

Chocolate Cake and I

Guess what I maaaaaaaaaaade!!!

Cake!

Chocolate cake, with chocolate peanut butter frosting. I was going to make a peanut butter mousse for the filling but realized I didn’t have most of the ingredients I needed, boourns. Next time!

While these cakes were baking, they had the absolute best smell. Maybe from a combination of the whole wheat flour and new cocoa. I almost died. Literally. I could smell that the small ones were done so walked in to the kitchen to get them out of the oven and slipped on the tile and practically smashed my head open, derp.

At least I was right that they were done. You can’t really tell by these pictures, but the cake itself was such a deep dark black. These little guys were just sittin’ there, on the cooling rack, looking all seductive-like. Staring at me with their soft interiors and gently whispering my name. I obviously had to eat one. It was divine.

Cute and shiny. Super moist, too. The fully assembled cake, I must say, was amazing. The subtle hint of peanut butter in that satiny smooth frosting was ridiculously good. I’m pretty sure someone had 3 pieces after dinner tonight.

That one speck of cake in the icing there is really bothering me. DAMN YOU CRUMB! Oh well. It’s not like this is a fancy shmancy cake. If I took the time to make this fancy shmancy though, oh dear mother of pearl would it be a classy cake.

Here’s the recipe!

Chocolate Buttermilk Cake

3 cups of all-purpose flour (I used 1 cup of all purpose, and 2 cups of whole wheat)
2 1/2 cups of sugar
1 cup of cocoa
1 tbsp +1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups of buttermilk
1 1/3 cups of canola/vegetable oil
1 cup of hot coffee (it’s okay to add the coffee hot, it doesn’t need to be cooled if you freshly brewed it)
1 tbsp vanilla
3 eggs

Chocolate Peanut Butter Frosting

1 cup of soft butter
2 cups of icing sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup of smooth peanut butter

chopped peanuts (optional)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Butter and line two 8″ cake pans with parchment paper.
In the bowl of an electric mixer with the whisk attachment, combine the flour with the sugar, salt, cocoa and baking soda.
In a separate bowl mix together the buttermilk, oil, coffee, vanilla, and eggs. With the mixer on medium-low, add the liquid ingredients until fully incorporated. Make sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl. It will be a very liquidy mixture. Like a really super thick hot chocolate. Pour into the prepared pans, and bake for about 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let the cakes cool in their pans for about 20 minutes, then turn out onto a cooling rack to finish cooling.

In the meantime, make the frosting! Combine the butter, icing sugar, and cocoa in a food processor or blender. While that’s running, add in the liquid ingredients until smooth. Then add the peanut butter and blend til smooth. You can use a regular mixer for this but you’ll end up with a more fluffy frosting, not a satiny smooth one. And that’s fne too!

Once the cake has cooled, split the layers into two, or leave them for just a two layer cake. I had to split my one layer since I only baked one layer (confession: I only have one of each of all of my baking pans boooo). Then divide the frosting up equally depending on how many layers you have. You can ice the sides if you want, but you don’t have to.

Sprinkle on some chopped peanuts, or coat the sides of the cake for a more elegant look with a smooth flat top. Pretty!

Cranberry Orange Angel Food Cake

You know, the funny thing about having a lot of cream in your fridge is that you usually end up using egg yolks to go with it. Best friends they are, cream and egg yolks. However, then this leaves you with a supply of egg whites  in the fridge. And you’ve got to use them! It’s too sad to just let them sit there and sit there. You feel guilty. This is what happened to me today. I feel guilty about lonely things sitting in the fridge. I wonder how they feel about their lives, waiting and waiting until they finally get chosen as the star of the day.

There was something else in the fridge I noticed. Cranberry sauce. I really, really love cranberry sauce. Really really really love it. Hell, I just love cranberries in general. The way they explode in your mouth when you bite them is so fun (must… resist… urge… to make joke). I also like oranges. The way they smell and taste. Yum yum. So essentially I realized I had some sad lonely egg whites, cranberry sauce, and oranges. Now what in the world can I make with those three ingredients? A cranberry orange egg white omelet? Oh god that would be disgusting. Add some flour, sugar and vanilla though and BLABOW you got yourself a tasty angel food cake.  A soft, delicate, orangey cranberry-ey cloud of happiness in your mouth. I dare you to make one and not eat it with vanilla ice cream.

Here’s what you need to make one of these suckers.

Cranberry Orange Angel Food Cake

(adapted from food.com)

1 cup of cake flour
1 1/2 cups of sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups of egg whites (about 12)
1 tsp  vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp orange zest
1 cup of cranberries (I used cranberry sauce, but because of the extra liquid this makes the cake a little bit less light than a normal angel food cake, just so you know. Use whatever you have on hand!)

Preheat your oven to 375F.
In a small bowl mix together the flour and 3/4 cup of the sugar. Set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer with the whisk attachment, whip the egg whites with the salt and vanilla on medium-high speed until foamy. Slowly pour in the sugar while still whipping until it’s looking thick and shiny and has stiff peaks. Using a spatula, gradually fold in the flour/sugar until just incorporated. Then add the orange zest and cranberry and fold until also just incorporated. Spoon this mixture into an un-greased angel food tube pan and bake for about 35-40 minutes.

Once it comes out of the oven, invert it on something until cooled. I used a shot glass. How classy!

Creme Brulee

I noticed there was a big ol’ container of 38% cream in the fridge left from Christmas, and I decided that like a productive human being I should probably use that before it goes bad. What better dessert to make with heavy cream than creme brulee? I know I know, I’m so smart. Also, I have a terrible weakness to a really good creme brulee. The creaminess and delicious vanilla flavour…other flavours are good too though. Ginger, strawberry, maple blueberry OH GOD I have an addiction! Thank god I don’t make it that often. This stuff is terrible for you. Just absolutely terrible. But it will make you happy. I promise.

Behold the giant creme brulee! In my cute little retro-green square ramekins. So cute. I love. I’ll be honest, in the past when I’ve made creme brulee at home it hasn’t been up to my standards. Even using recipes that I know work out awesomely when I make them at work. It drives me crazy, so today I randomly decided to be adventurous and take the path of a new recipe. I got this one from epicurious, hurray.

It turned out really really well! I am very happy with the results. My mom was, too. She never, hardly ever, eats dessert let alone an entire item of dessert. Initially I just torched up one creme brulee for us to share but my mom made me prepare one just for herself.  That means I must have done something right! Yeaaahh yeahhh, uh uh, get it get it I MADE IT GOOD. That was supposed to be some sort of weird song thing I don’t really know what happened. I got a little out of control.

Okay, in the above picture the creme brulee looks a little bit runny but I promise you that it isn’t at all. It’s rich, and creamy, and thick, and dreamy. It will be your best friend. Your very best friend that takes you shopping and tells you that you look awesome in something that really makes you look terrible. That’s the kind of friend that creme brulee is. Not a very good one. It’s just so irresistible but you know that the relationship isn’t good for you. Sigh.

Well, here’s the recipe dudes.

Vanilla Bean Creme Brulee

(makes 6 ramekins of the 3/4 cup size, or use whatever dishes you want, I don’t care, go crazy)

2 cups of heavy cream
1/2 cup of sugar
1 vanilla bean split and seeded (or  1/2 a bean if they’re really plump like mine were, again THANKS CAM!)
5 beautiful little golden egg yolks

Preheat your oven to 325F, and prepare a 9×13″ dish with the ramekins arranged inside and hot water coming up just a little over halfway to the ramekins.

In a heavy bottomed sauce pan combine the cream with sugar and the vanilla beans and pod. Heat over low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Continue heating over medium until hot and you feel the vanilla has steeped long enough.  In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks just a little bit until smooth. While whisking, slowly pour in the hot cream mixture. Then transfer this back to the pan and gently stir for just a minute or two.  Strain this mixture into a big ol’ measuring cup and then divide amongst the ramekins. They shouldn’t be  filled to the top, that will make your life difficult what with the water and sloshing around and whatnot.

Keep them in their happy little water bath for about 30-35 minutes until just the centre jiggles a bit when you tap on the side of the ramekin. You’re looking for more of a gelatin-like jiggle rather than a liquid jiggle. Remove them from the oven and oh so carefully remove them from their happy water bath. Be careful not to knock one over and onto the floor and the dog like I did today (he was a happy puppy!). Cool those little babies for about 30 minutes then transfer them to the fridge to chill for at least 3 hours or overnight.

To caramelize the top, sprinkle a thin even layer over the top and use a blowtorch to melt and caramelize the sugar. Or if you don’t have a blowtorch you can use the broiler method which I have never tried so I don’t really know how that works. I would assume just sugar all the tops, then pop them under broiler in a pan keeping a close eye on them and taking them out once they turn deliciously golden brown. Done!

New Years Eve Already (and a bunch of pictures!)

How? How did it get here so fast? I just had to adjust my wording as to avoid a “THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID” moment (teehee!).

Well I guess in a few hours we’ll all see if we’re still alive or if the Mayans were right. In the meantime, I’ll be eating a bunch of oliebollen and practicing Nutmeg, my little ukulele.

Why, what’s that you ask? What are oliebollen? Oliebollen are like little dutch doughnuts that my mom has always made on New Year’s eve and so that’s what I do now, too! Traditionally they have apples and/or raisins in them, but I don’t like raisins so I just put apple and scraped a vanilla bean (thanks Cam!)  in. So good. (scroll all the way to the bottom for the recipe!)

I can’t remember a year where we haven’t made them. It’s a fun tradition and one that I will carry on into my own family one day. Sweet baby jesus are they ever good!

I think these are the best ones that I’ve ever made. Look at that fluffiness! They don’t feel greasy or heavy at all, and they aren’t overly sweet. There’s only 3 tablespoons of sugar in the dough and the other sweetness comes from the apples and the sugar that they get rolled in, but if you’re crazy for some reason then you don’t have to roll them in sugar. But I will tell you that you’re crazy. ‘Cause if you’re deep frying doughnuts, you might as well go all the way. Nomnom.

Oh yeah I also made those maple bacon doughnuts again on Boxing day. Weee!

And a strawberry tart as well as a vanilla buttermilk custard cake for Christmas dessert! I’ll type out the recipes and whatnot in a later post so this one isn’t a million words long.

Aaaaaaaaand a bunch of other little things, like cookies and gevulde speculaas. Oh wait I have a picture of that one!

Gevulde speculaas is essentially almond filled speculaas and has a nice spicy taste to it.  If you’ve ever had those dutch windmill cookies, those are the same spices. Omnomnom.

Well here’s the recipe for the Oliebollen!

New Year’s Eve Oliebollen

2 1/2 tsp active dry yeast
3 tbsp white sugar
3 eggs (put them in a bowl of hot tap water to warm them up)
1 1/2 cups lukewarm 2% milk
1 vanilla bean and a splash of vanilla extract
1 tsp salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
3 apples, peeled and diced
oil for frying
icing sugar for rolling or dipping

Dissolve the yeast and the sugar in 1/2 cup of the lukewarm milk and let it sit for about 10 minutes until it’s foamy and happy. In a big bowl with a wooden spoon, or in a stand mixer with dough hook attached, mix together the warmed eggs, the rest of the milk, the vanilla, vanilla bean and the salt. Mix in 1 cup of flour (don’t worry if it’s a bit lumpy). Once the yeast is happy, add it into the bowl and mix. Slowly add the rest of the 3 cups of flour, then add in your apples (raisins too if you want, I suppose. Dried cranberries would be good too. Or currants!).  Make sure everything is evenly mixed and then cover the bowl and let it rise in a warm place for 1 and a half hours until it’s huge. Once it has risen, give the bowl a good tap on the counter to deflate it a bit, then start warming up your oil to 370 degrees F. I used a mixture of canola oil and sunflower oil. Once the oil is the correct temperature, try your best to drop the sticky dough into the oil using two tablespoons. Most of the oliebollen will flip themselves over when they are ready, I love watching that happen! Continue to fry the other side until they’re lightly browned. They shouldn’t get too brown. Remove them with a slotted spoon or a spider and place onto a cooling rack with paper towel underneath. Once they are cooled enough you can roll them in sugar and eat them!

Word of caution: being too eager to eat freshly sugar-rolled oliebollen will result in the accidental inhalation of icing sugar, I’m not even kidding. I do that every year on my first one and cough for a good minute or two, haha.

Enjoy!!

Cuppa Cuppa Cuppa Cake

I’m a sucker for easy old-fashioned recipes, lemme tell ya. The kinds that you’d find at a pot luck years ago, and still to this day. Meatballs in a grape jelly and chili sauce? Awesome. Watergate salad? Holy eff yes. Cuppa cake? UGH, SO GOOD.

Do you know what the cuppa cake is? It’s in Steel Magnolias, and variations on it are called a dump cake (haha dump), and it’s awesome. It’s so easy. And so oddly tasty although really sweet. Now, I have never actually made this cake until tonight, but I’m sad that I lived the last 22 years of my life without it, but also glad because I’d probably be at least 2 thousand pounds heavier.

The finished texture is slightly addicting. It gets really crispy and kind of chewy on the top (the best part), but the inside stays really moist and I might even go so far as to say slightly gummy (probably because I added a bit more than 1 cup of the cocktail+juice). Not in a bad way though. A lot of fruit in a cake will do that, all that moisture hanging around in there affects the batter around it.  Here’s a picture of a mass of it scooped out onto a plate after I took it out of my trusty toaster oven.  (love you toaster oven!)

Here’s the recipe!

Cuppa Cake

1 cup of self-rising flour (or 1 cup of all-purpose with 1 1/4 tsp baking powder and 1/4 tsp salt added)
1 cup of sugar
1 cup of fruit cocktail with juice

Preheat your oven to 350°F, butter an 8″ pan (I used a small 6″ square casserole dish since I don’t have any real baking pans at the moment and it was all I could find, and I like the thickness of the cake more than if it were in an 8″ pan I think). Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, eat some batter, pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 30-40 minutes or until it’s golden brown and not squishy when you poke it gently with your finger. Serve it warm with some vanilla ice cream, or unsweetened whipped cream. So tasty!

Look how perfectly smooth I got that ball of ice cream. Awwwww yeah, you know how satisfying that is.

The melty cold of the ice cream is necessary with every bite, since the cake by itself seems almost too sweet. You could definitely use brown sugar and pineapple (squee!) , and maybe not use an entire cup of sugar if you wanted it less sweet. I probably wouldn’t use splenda either since that stuff is disgustingly sweet, but I reccomend making it per the recipe the first time you make it so that you can judge accordingly to your tastes! It’s not like this is an expensive thing to make. I’m poor as heck and I only had to spend $1.47 on a 14oz can of fruit cocktail (with extra cherries!). You could use any canned fruit you want! Or fresh fruit! But you’d need to add some sort of juice to replace the liquid of canned fruit.

Come on people, this is easy. And tasty. Sometimes you just gotta go back to the basics.

Ahhh, how I ♥ cake.

Cupcake Lounge Review

 

Hi! I did this a really really long time ago. Sam and I went to the cupcake lounge and got tons of cupcakes, tried them all, and put together our thoughts on them!

The Cupcake Lounge is exactly what it sounds like. A cupcake bakery, in the heart of the byward market in Ottawa. I lived literally 2 blocks from it and wished I worked there every day since it was so close…but I think I would get bored of making cupcakes every single day incredibly quickly.

Anyways, on to the cupcakes. We tried 8 of the flavours they had that day. Strawberry, Vanilla, Maple, Chocolate, Coconut, Red Velvet, Carrot, and Chocolate Hazelnut.

 

Overall we weren’t too impressed with the cupcakes. They were decent, but they were expensive, and most of them too dense for our liking or just a little bit too dry. We just prefer a lighter cake with less grainy/sugary icings. I think the favourite out of all of them was the strawberry, just because it was pink. The icing on the vanilla one was good too though. I wanted the red velvet one to be the best but for me it was the most disappointing, I guess just because I’m really in love with the ones that I make. You can guarantee that we felt mighty sick after tasting all those cupcakes. It took us a good 3 days to get rid of them.

 

 

On another note, Good News Everyone! I’m moving back home so I will be able to bake and update way more often. And way better things than just awesome cakes and cupcakes. Doughnuts! and the like! It’s gonna be so good.

Worst Blogger Ever Award + A Wedding Cake

Goes to me!

Last post, July 20th?? Really Tara? Come on.  I guess things have been kinda crazy though, I’ve only had time to bake a few things between then and now. I moved, kind of moved again, and am actually moving AGAIN right before Christmas. But I did make some things and take some pictures. Also all I have right now to bake things with is a toaster oven. But it bakes cakes really really well! Cookies are another story…Anyways..

A WEDDING CAKE! I made another wedding cake! Just a little mini one. I made it for one of the girls I work with, and it was so much fun to make. She told me that I could do whatever I wanted, as long as there was caramel in it somewhere. And then she got a matching flower to what she had in her hair, and some black ribbon, so I incorporated those too. The result? CUTE! I really love making little cakes. They will definitely be in my bakery.

I fixed the crooked ribbon before I gave it to her I swear. This is the only picture I have of it! Not a very good quality picture, but I don’t have a camera anymore since mine decided to just die. Sometimes it works, sometimes. Once every 120 times I try to turn it on (that’s a tested fact, ladies and gents). I really like the look of the rough textured exterior. I was inspired by some cakes I saw on  My Sweet and Saucy (oh man I love all their cakes!). The top layer was a brown sugar cake with a caramel buttercream filling. The bottom layer was a dark chocolate cake with a raspberry buttercream filling. The outside was a vanilla bean buttercream. I wish I had had some more time to make it a bit more fancy inside, but apparently it was pretty good the way it was.

I stole this next picture off of her facebook.

Looks pretty good to me!

I also made this cake because I was craving a chocolate cake one night.

It’s a chocolate mayonnaise cake! I’d never made one before but holy crap it was so good. It was so moist and chocolatey. Definitely what I was craving. Here’s the recipe!

Dark Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1- 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1-2/3 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup mayonnaise (hellmans full fat is awesome for this)
1-1/3 cup water (or coffee)

Preheat oven to 350F. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl and set aside. In the bowl of your stand mixer using the paddle attachement mix the eggs, sugar, and vanilla until light (about 3-5 minutes) . Add the mayonnaise and beat for about 2 minutes. On low speed, alternately add the dry ingredients and the water (or coffee). Divide the batter between 2 8″ cake pans (greased and lined with parchment) and bake for about 30-35 minutes, or until a skewer in the centre comes out clean. Let the cakes rest in the pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack to finish cooling. Do what you want with them!

The icing recipe I used (I think I doubled it):

1 cup of soft butter
1  1/3 cups cocoa
2 cups icing sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/4 cup hot coffee
1/4 cup cream

Mix all ingredients together in a stand mixer until light and fluffy. You can add more icing sugar or more liquid to get the consistency you want. For a fudge-like frosting, make it in the food processor! So delicious.

Now go and make yourself some cake! But don’t eat it all yourself, that’s bad news bears.

I Made Cake

I have a soft spot for yellow cakes. Really good yellow cakes with a chocolate frosting of sorts. Have we talked about this before? I think we have.

I’ve been really feeling the need to make a cake, and so I did. My fav of favs. Yellow cake. It’s gotta have a chocolate frosting man, I’m tellin’ ya. And welp, this cake didn’t turn out super fantastic (still good though) like my last one did but it sure as hell cured that cake craving. Caaaaaaaake. It haunts my dreams. Well I guess it doesn’t haunt them, my dreams about cake are always pleasant. I actually do dream about cake probably way more than normal people do. Can you remember the last time you dreamed about cake? Probably never eh? Or not that you can remember anyways. Maybe it’s more normal that I dream about cake considering I will one day be making lovely beauties for all of you to eat when I have my own bakery. I like thinking of all the combinations of cake, fillings and frostings! My bakery, it will be mine, oh yes, it will be mine**.  Am I rambling? Hmm. Well. The recipe called for buttermilk. I didn’t have buttermilk, and no lemon juice or even vinegar so I just used regular milk which definitely ruined this cake (exaggeration to the MAX). WHERE’S MAH BUTTERMILK TANG?! That’s my favourite part. It still turned out really moist though. For now anyways, who knows what it’ll be like tomorrow.

Well blah blah blah there’s my cake. I made it. It tastes good. I effed up the frosting, though it still tastes good. The cake recipe is much better left as cupcakes in my opinion, and made properly with buttermilk, and throwing in a vanilla bean doesn’t hurt either.

Recipe!

2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk, at room temp
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1 cup sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cut into cute little cubes. Semi-cold and also semi-room temp.

Preaheat your oven to 350. Line your tray with cupcake liners. Mix all the dry ingredients together, including the sugar in the bowl of your stand mixer with the paddle attachement. Throw the butter cubes in and mix until it’s all evenly dispersed and looks like a slightly yellow shimmery dust (no big lumps of butter, guys). Mix together all the wet ingredients, then add them to the dry. Beat on medium speed for about a minute until light and fluffy. Divide into cupcakes and bake for about 20-ish minutes.

**20 points and a slice of cake to whoever catches that reference. I swear the cat didn’t lick the cake. He only drank my milk. He’s such a jerk.

Best Brownies in the World? Yes. Yes They Are. DEAL WITH IT.

Over these last few days I really wanted to bake something. Something delicious. Something way better than the stuff I make at work (don’t get me wrong, I like what we make, but sometimes I like other recipes better. Everyone has their preferences!). So when I got home after getting my tattoo done I was excited to bake something (and my tattoo is pretty rad if you ask me, pictures later) So I made brownies! Brownies the way I believe they should be. Dense and fudgey and full of delicious chocolate flavour. OOOOooooooooooooo!!! Yum.

Here’s a really bad  picture of them

Man oh man can you see that deliciousness? They’ve got that thin crispy top layer that I love so much! Arrgghhh! I want to eat them all but I only ate two. And I cut them small, I swear. Like 1×2 inches, I SWEAR!  Here’s my little trick to you. No one around to help you eat a huge tray of brownies? Put your brownies in the freezer pre-cut! Yes, the freezer. They last so long that way and eating them frozen is amazing! Of course you could wait for them to thaw to eat but come on, frozen brownie bites? It’s what I do around these parts of town. If you open my freezer, you would be attacked by freezer bags full of brownie bites and the like. It’s neat.

Recipe? Recipe. For you, my home dawgs.

Brownies!

2/3 cup of butter
1 1/2 cups of sugar
4 tbsp water
12 oz chocolate (I have a huge 20kg box of callebaut somethin’ or other so I am forced to use that. but hey, it tastes effin’ awesome)
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat your oven to a lovely 325 degrees farenheit. In a saucepan, melt the butter with the sugar and water and bring to a boil. Add the chocolate and stir to melt. Remove from the heat and add the eggs, one at a time. Looks good doesn’t it? All smooth and shiny and chocolatey, mm mm! Then add in your vanilla, and your dry ingredients, stirring just until incorporated.  At this point you can add another 12 oz of unmelted chocolate, nuts, anything you like! Bake these bad boys in a 9×13 greased and floured pan for about 35-40 minutes. DELICIOUS!

Now, I scribbled this recipe down in a hurry and can’t remember where I found it from. So if anyone recognizes it and knows where it’s from please let me know so I can give props! Big ups! You know, credit. I’m no recipe stealer!