TWD: Lots of Ways Banana Cake

I made this one a week early. Surprised? I know...especially since even though I did it so early, I'm only now making the post about it. Halfway through Tuesday, and my TWD is just now going up. It's appalling. I know.

But let's talk cake!

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities. Be sure to check out her site for this yummy, moist recipe.

TWD: Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes (minus the rum)

I turned these Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cakes into Vanilla-Drenched Vanilla Cakes because who doesn't like vanilla? Plus, I don't really mess around with alcohol. I find things are good without it, so why bother?

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie was chosen by Wendy of Pink Stripes. Check out her site for the recipe.

Twofer TWD: Milk Chocolate Mini Bundts and Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia

Lucky lucky you! You get two Tuesdays with Dorie for one! Yipee!

So let's start with last week: Last week's TWD was Milk Chocolate Mini Bundts chosen by Kristin of I'm Right About Everything. (Great blog title, huh?)

And this week: This week's TWD was Rick Katz's Brownies for Julia chosen by Tanya of Chocolatechic.

TWD: Cocoa Buttermilk Cupcakes

It is okay if I let the T in TWD stand for Thursdays with Dorie?

TWD: All-in-one Holiday Bundt Balls

This week for Tuesdays with Dorie, I made the All-in-one Holiday Bundt Cake, chosen by Britin of the Nitty Britty.

I know. This does not look like a bundt. You're right, but believe it or not, it did start off that way.

Sophia's Chocolate Cake with Caramel Buttercream

Let me tell you about my job.

Goodness Gracious Cake Balls of Fire

I wanted to make cake balls one time before I left Los Angeles. I did not want to leave without Jacob's coworkers experiencing the joy and wonder of the cake ball.

I absolutely love these things. I especially love them straight out of the fridge. Delicious! The only thing is that they are kind of a pain to make. But after all that trouble, the first bite makes it all worth it.

Carrots Anyone?

On Monday night, I made a little carrot salad made out of shredded carrots, and Jacob decided he would like a carrot cake. So I thought, why not. I hadn't made one in a while, and I needed to make something for Jacob's work for Wednesday, so on Tuesday, I set to work.

I started looking for recipes, and I was greatly helped by my mom. We happened to talk that day, and she sent me a recipe she had found in a book and tried to good reviews. So I decided to use it, and it turned out well. This recipe uses only carrots, which I prefer. I'm not sure what I think about carrot cakes that include pineapple and coconut.

So it was time to make the cake. So I went to my garden and to pick some carrots.


Just kidding. I live in an apartment that I just moved to two months ago. It would be physically impossible for me to have a garden. This is what my garden really looks like.

Yup, those carrots are tiny. Once I decided to make carrot cake, I wanted to try my hand at making little carrot toppers.

I made them out of leftover fondant from making this cake. So dyed some orange and green, made little indentions to make it look authentic, and rolled it around in some cocoa to simulate dirt. I think they turned out quite cute.

And now for the carrot cake petit fours, for lack of a better name. I'm open to suggestions for a better name.

To make these, I made the carrot cake recipe found at the end of the post in my jelly roll pan. I poured about half of the batter in it, to make a really thin cake. Then, with a cookie cutter, I made little rounds.

It's a carrot cake, so I had to use cream cheese icing. This one is slightly lemon flavored for a fresh taste. I'll include the recipe at the end of the post.

Just a dollop of cream cheese between the layers and one on top. Finish with a carrot and voila!

And I made a lot of carrots. I ended up making about 60 little cakes and the little carrots to go on top. But the effect was worth it.

And here's the recipes. These will make 60 cakes, about an inch in diameter.

Carrot Cake
adapted from Kitchen Keepsakes and More Kitchen Keepsakes

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup oil
4 eggs
3 cups grated carrots
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix dry ingredients. Add oil and vanilla and mix well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in grated carrots.

Pour about half of the batter into a jelly roll pan lined with parchment.

Bake for 18-20 minutes.

Repeat for other half of batter.

Lemon Cream Cheese Icing
adapted from The Repressed Pastry Chef

2 8oz boxes of cream cheese, softened
4 tbl. butter, cold
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups confectioner's sugar
grated zest of 1 lemon

Beat sugar and butter in large bowl until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and combine very well. Add the cream cheese and combine very well. Add the lemon zest and combine thoroughly until light and fluffy.

Monkeying Around with Fondant and Cake

So just days after my first party cake, I had another cake to make. This time, it was for a 1 year old boy's birthday. And the request was a chocolate cake. Other than that, I received no other instruction. I was free to do what I wanted.

I liked this assignment.

I immediately thought I wanted to try fondant since I hadn't had the opportunity to make it or use it yet.Then I had to come up with what to decorate on the fondant, and for some reason, I got stuck on the idea of a monkey.

So I looked up cartoon monkeys, and found this adorable picture here.
And I knew I had to do a monkey.

I decided to not cover the whole cake in fondant, but to do just the monkey decoration, big on the top.

The order was a quarter sheet, so I did a double batch of the following chocolate cake recipe that I found here. I'll put it at the end of the post.

And I filled it with a chocolate mousse, which I also doubled, and found here. Recipe's at the end.



And then I covered it with a chocolate ganache that I made up. It wasn't the best because I didn't get it very smooth, but it tasted alright, and once the monkey face was on it, you didn't really care.

So, you might be asking, where's the monkey? There it is!

I thought this was pretty close to what it looked like. What do you think?

I also made a "smash cake" for the one-year old, which you can see in the upper left hand corner. I tried to take pictures of it, too, but I was rushed and they came out blurry.

The client came earlier than he had anticipated getting there, so I didn't have much time to take pictures or try to fix flaws. I noticed later than there was some cornstarch that needed to be wiped off on the edge. I rolled the fondant a little thick, I think. But I was unsure how thin it could be and still transfer easily to the cake.

If you are wanting to try to make your own fondant, I suggest the tutorial found here. It helped me a lot.

And now for the recipes.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake
by Ina Garten

butter, for greasing pans
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup good cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 extra large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter 2 (8 inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, butter again and flour both pans.

Sift and combine flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in large bowl. In a medium bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs and vanilla. With a mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely. (In the quarter sheet pan, I believe it took about 40-50 for the double batch.)

Chocolate Mousse
1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin
1 tablespoon cold water
2 tablespoons boiling water
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa
1 cup (1/2 pt.) cold whipping cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Sprinkle gelatin over cold water in small cup; let stand 1 minute to soften. Add boiling water; stir until gelatin is completely dissolved. Cool slightly.

2. Stir together sugar and cocoa in medium bowl; add whipping cream and vanilla. Beat on medium speed of mixer, scraping bottom of bowl occasionally, until mixture is stiff. Pour in gelatin mixture; beat until well blended. Store in the refrigerator to set.

My First Real Party Cake

So I've mentioned on a previous post that I got a job to make a birthday cake for a three-year old's birthday party. Well, I did it. And I'm finally getting around to posting about it.

So the parameters for the cake was this:
plain chiffon cake
whipped cream frosting
fresh fruit
princess themed

Having never done something like this before, I had to do a lot of research and experimenting. But I found some great recipes and experience to boot.

For the cake, I used Rose Levy Beranbaum's Orange Chiffon Cake recipe. I some how found a pdf version of the recipe, but I cannot seem to open one again. But you can go here to watch videos of her making it. I'll also include the recipe at the bottom of the post.

For the frosting, I just whipped up some slightly sweetened whipped cream to stiff peaks and tried my best to make it as smooth as possible.



I learned that putting fresh fruit in the cake is a breeze: I layered some in between the layers with some pastry cream. However, decorating with fresh fruit should only be done right before serving. It looked okay when I did it, but after driving and some wait time, the strawberries were juicing so bad...I was disappointed.

And for the other decorations, I used chocolate and outlined some Disney Princesses. These were quite the hit with the little girls, for they were fighting over which princess they got.

So without further ado, here's the cake.

I was a little rushed for time, so I didn't get to take as many pictures as I would have liked, but here are some of the sides and a different angle.I made little flowers out of blueberries, and I read somewhere in my researching that whipped cream does not hold decorations well, except for maybe sprinkles, so I used sprinkles. I wished afterwords that I hadn't, but it looked okay, I suppose.
These are the strawberries that caused me so much grief on the ride over.And another angle.

The princess decorations were the things I was most proud of, so here are some close ups of them.
Princess Jasmine. The air bubbles happened when the chocolate cooled before I had time to fill it in. It was really important that I worked quickly and with warm chocolate.

Ariel's hair looks red in this picture, but really, it turned out a little more purply. It was really hard getting a red. I just started with white candy melts for all of these and then colored them accordingly with gel food colors. The most difficult part was getting the right color before the candy seized up on me....I didn't always win.


Princess Belle. She was my favorite princess when I was a girl. I could watch that movie over and over again.
Cinderella. The most annoying thing about making these figures was the Disney music that popped into my head inevitably every stinkin' time I worked on them. I don't know how many times I sung "Cinderelly, cinderelly..." And I don't even know many of those words. And neither does Jacob. (Yeah, he was singing, too.)

Vanilla Chiffon Cake
adapted from All-American Orange Chiffon Cake

(I used weight measurements, but I'll include the volume measurements, too.)

225 grams (2 1/4 cups) sifted cake flour (I actually used all-purpose and it worked out fine.)
300 grams (1 1/2 cups) superfine sugar (I used regular sugar)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup oil
7 large eggs separated plus 3 extra whites
grated lemon zest of 1 lemon
3/4 cup water (I used whey from making yogurt)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/4 teaspoonss cream of tartar

I used a quarter sheet pan and greased and parchment papered the bottom only.

In a large mixer bowl combine the flour, all but 2 tablespoons of the sugar, baking powder and salt and beat for 1 minute to mix them well. (I did this by hand.) Make a well in the center and add the oil, egg yolks, water, lemon zest and extract and beat 1 minute or until smooth. (Again, I did this by hand.)

In another large mixer bowl, preferably with the whisk beater, beat the egg whites unitl frothy. Add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form, when the beater is raised. Beat in the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form when the beater is raised slowly. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter with a large balloon wire whisk, slotted skimmer or large rubber spatula until just blended. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for40-55 minutes (I don't remember the exact time...sorry.) or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out cleam and the cake springs back when lightly pressed in the center.

TWD: Classic Banana Bundt Cake

So I finally get to break in my bundt cake pan. I asked for one for Christmas, but I haven't had the opportunity to use it yet. Now, thanks to Tuesdays with Dorie and The Food Librarian (that's where you can see the recipe), I can. Woo! Oh and guess what? I'm officially a part of the group. So I was determined to make the recipe this week and post today. So I'm gonna do it.




I had a little trouble with the cake sticking to the pan, but maybe it's because it way my first time using it.


The flavor was a lot like banana bread but, as Jacob said, smoother. I guess that's because it's a cake and not a quick bread.



I decided to keep it unfrosted and just eat it in nice thick, moist slices.


That way I could pretend it wasn't cake and eat it whenever I wanted, like right after I woke up!


I highly recommend this cake if you want the deliciousness of banana bread but want to jazz up the presentation a little. You could also try this with a lemon or brown butter icing or even a dusting of confectioner's sugar. Or just enjoy it plain like I did.

Curds and Whey

So I've been into making yogurt lately because it's soo easy, and based on the milk prices here, it's actually more economical. I know...crazy! And with making it myself, I can determine the consistency, so I go with the nice thick, Greek-style yogurt. Jacob loves that too.




You can make it a little smoother with some stirring or the addition of some whey, but I'll get to the whey in a minute. Here's the recipe for making yogurt. I don't remember what website I got it off of, but there are plenty out there. Here's the one I make from memory.

Plain Yogurt

1 quart milk (any percentage)
3 tablespoons already prepared yogurt (you can use store-bought or homemade)

1. Pour the milk into a large saucepan and scald. This means to heat up but not boil. Do not boil. I tell when to turn the heat off by looking at the surface of the milk. By then it will have formed a thin skin, and when it's ready it will have reached the "alien stage" as I like to call it. The "alien stage" is when you can see ripples under the skin moving, like something is trying to get out of the milk. After it is doing that steadily, turn off the heat.
2. Let the milk cool down some. This is an important step. If you skip this, you'll kill the yogurt starter and just have some warm milk. I usually let it cool for about 45 minutes to an hour. It needs to just be warm to the touch.
3. Spoon out the skin. You need to take this off, or else you'll be eating it in your yogurt. Mmmm, plasticky yogurt pieces.
4. Stir in the tablespoons of yogurt.
5. Place the mixture, covered, in a warm spot. I like to use the oven with the oven light on. It's warm enough, controlled enough, and enough out of my way. Let it sit in that environment for at least 4 hours. I shoot for 4-5 hours.
6. Refrigerate the yogurt (yes, it's yogurt now) until cool. Then strain if desired. I do suggest a little straining, because it does have a lot of whey produced.
7. Eat and enjoy. Flavor however you want!



This is what I use to strain my yogurt. A sieve over a measuring cup with some cheesecloth. I spoon some of the yogurt in there, put it in the fridge and forget about it for a few hours or overnight...depending on how well I have forgotten about it. The cheesecloth will have your thicker yogurt, and the measuring cup will have caught all of the whey.


When you're done making yogurt, you'll have about this much whey as a by-product. People say you can just drink it. I tried it. It tastes like liquid yogurt. You also can use it in recipes whenever it calls for water. If you do that, you get a more flavorful whatever your making, and it's more nutritious as well, since the whey has a lot of protein and nutrients in it. I've been looking into making some recipes, and I'll post about them later.

But the best thing about making your own yogurt is that you get to flavor it however you want. I've tried honey, jam, lemon curd, and now...

Blueberry Curd! I didn't even know there was such thing as blueberry curd. But blueberries were on sale, and I found this recipe for red currant curd here and thought, why not try, so I did. Here's what I did.

Blueberry Curd
adapted from The Daily Spud

1 pint of blueberries
1/3 cup of water
mounded 1/4 cup of sugar (add more or less to your taste)
pinch of salt
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 egg yolks

1. Rinse the berries and put them in a saucepan with the water. Boil for 10-15 minutes until dark purple and pulpy. I squeezed the blueberries that did not pop with the back of my spoon to get an even mixture.
2. Run the mixture through a sieve to remove stems and casing that did not boil down.
3. Return to saucepan and mix in sugar over medium heat until dissolved. Taste and adjust sugar if needed. Add pinch of salt.
4. Whisk egg yolks and add a spoonful of the blueberry mixture to heat the eggs. Then add to the rest of the blueberry mixture, whisking until desired thickness is achieved.
5. Remove from heat and whisk in butter until melted.
6. Let stand or store to let it set up before using.

Now you may remember that I made some biscotti that landed me a gig making a birthday cake. Well, I was experimenting around with cake to find one that would work for the party. I first made a white cake, and it was sooooooo dry. So I did some searches for a more moist cake. Here's one of the cakes I found.

A lemon curd cake. It was pretty easy to make, but I wanted to see if I could make it into a layer cake. The cake was very dense, but I did manage to split it, and I put the blueberry curd I had made earlier in between the layers. Then I covered it all in a cream cheese frosting. The cake was really good. Really lemony, but really heavy and sweet. Definitely a grown-up cake and not a little kid's birthday cake. Darn.

Anyway, here's a cross section.

You may be wondering what that blue thing is at the top of the cake. It was one of my experiments for decorating the birthday cake.

Here's the top view of the cake.

So that blue was a little portion of Cinderella. The part is supposed to be a Disney Princess theme, so I was working on tracing those characters in chocolate to put on the cake. I think it turned out pretty well.

Here's a close-up of Cinderella.

She broke in some places putting her on the cake, so I'm going to reinforce the back with some more chocolate. I'm not exactly sure how many princesses I'll make. We'll just have to see what happens. And pray that I find a cake that's moist and kid-friendly. Pray hard!

Berries in the Fridge

Recently, I went to the store and blueberries and raspberries were on sale. So naturally, I had to buy them, even though I had no plans for them. And they sat in my refrigerator for a few days, while I was busy doing other things, and then I realized oh! I need to use those berries.

I was originally going to do a tart, but I didn't have enough eggs. So I had to find a recipe that fit my berries and my number of eggs. I finally did, but it required making two desserts instead of one. Oh darn! I was soooo disappointed. :)

For the raspberries, I made Berry Surprise Cake from Baking from My Home to Yours, page 273. I know...but I like the book, and I still didn't have internet at this time.

The cake was almost a sponge cake, and the filling was a mixture of cream cheese and whipped cream. Overall, the cake was very light, which was nice. The recipe called for a syrup to be spread on bottom layer of the cake, but if I did it again, I would omit this. It just made the bottom a little weird to me.

So with no further ado, Berry Surprise Cake!

Here's a bite.And here's the whole cake.

I tried to get a picture of the inside, but it didn't turn out great. But here is anyhow.

And then with the blueberries, I made Double-Crusted Blueberry Pie, on page 361.

The only thing was, I didn't realize until a few nights after that I only had 2 half pints, not 2 pints of blueberries. The recipe called for 2 1/2 pints of blueberries, so I thought I'd be just a little short, but how wrong I was. It still tastes okay, but it's much flatter than it was supposed to be and not all of the sugar got incorporated. Hee hee.


Here's the whole pie.

All in all, they were fun to make a fun to eat. Good thing, cause I'm still eating them!

Catching up with my baking

So this past week, I have been on a baking binge. I've just been baking away. First, I got a book from the library, so I wanted to try it out for my small group on Sunday. That's where the Banana-Caramel Cake came in. Then, it was Jacob and my 2nd anniversary, so naturally I wanted to make a cake for that. That's where the Black Magic Cake with Double Chocolate Frosting came in. And then I had a women's retreat that required a no-fridge dessert, where the Black Magic Cupcakes with Buttercream Dream Frosting came in. It was busy, busy, busy for me...and my kitchen was dirty, dirty, dirty.




Banana-Caramel Cake (although I will be omitting the caramel because I didn't like it)
From Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 very ripe bananas, mashed
1/4 cup sour cream or creme fraiche
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 2/3 cups sugar
4 large eggs

Preheat the over to 350 F. Butter two 9-by-2 inch round cake pans; line bottome sith parchment. Butter parchment and dust with four, tapping out excess; set aside. Into a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a small bowl, stir together mashe bananas, sour cream, and vanilla; set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. With mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in two parts, beating until combined after each, 2 to 3 minutes. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the reserved banana mixture, being careful not to overmix.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake, rotating the pans halfway through, until cakes are golden drown and a cake tester inserted in the centers comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Transfer pans to a wire rack to cool 20 minutes. Invert cakes onto the rack; peel off the parchment. Reinvert cakes, and let them cool completely, top sides up.

Using a serrated knife, trim tops of layers to make level. (This is where the caramel, talked about below, would have come in, but I say, fill the layers with more of the mascarpone frosting.) Using a large offset spatual, spread Mascarpone Frosting (below) over entire cake, swirling to completely cover.


Mascarpone Frosting
From Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

1 pound mascarpone cheese
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

In the bowl of an electric mixter fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the mascarpone, cream, and confectioners' sugar until medium-soft peaks form, 1 to 2 minutes. Be careful not to overbeat. (I was a little skeptical about this since it seemed really liquidy, but it worked out great and was sooo simple.)

This cake was a mix between a cake and banana bread. I made it at the request of Brother Frank. He's quite the character, and I wanted to make him something special. The only thing I would change is the filling. It's filled with caramelized banana slices, and I just didn't like it. I spent forever with my mandolin slicer getting the slices even, only to have them fall apart in the frying pan when I was coating them with the caramel. And the caramel did not have a very good flavor. It tasted burnt, which, I guess it could have been, but I just did not enjoy the middle at all, and it kind of ruined the flavor of the whole cake for me. I think next time I'm just put some of the mascarpone frosting in the middle. That was delicious and light.

Black Magic Cake
From My Baking Addiction

Dark Chocolate Frosting
From Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

1 pound best-quality semisweet chocolate, finely chopped

6 tablespoons Dutch-process cocoa powder

6 tablespoons boiling water

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/2 cup confectioner's sugar

Pinch of salt

Place chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over simmer water. Turn off the heat; stir occasionally until chocolate has melted completely, about 15 minutes. Set bowl on countertop, and let chocolate cool to room temperature, 25 to 30 minutes. Meanwhile, combine cocoa powder and boiling water in a small bowl; stir until cocoa is dissolved.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, confectioners' sugar, and salt on medium-high speed until light and fluff, 3 to 4 minutes. Add melted choclate; beat on low speed until combined, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the sides of the bowl as need. Beat in the cocoa mixture.

This was my anniversary cake. I tried to decorate it with some piping, but the frosting was a little soft. This frosting is very rich and heavy-tasting. It calls for a lot of butter, which gives you that butter feel in your mouth that kind of turns me off because it feels like I'm gaining weight. So I'm not in love with the frosting, but I am in love with the cake.

Black Magic Cupcakes

Buttercream Dream Frosting from My Baking Addiction

I made these for the ladies retreat, and I tried this new frosting. I actually liked this frosting a lot. I was afraid to add too much milk since I had had so much trouble with soft frosting so far, so this actually ended up being a little stiff. But in the end, the stiffness made the frosting look a little more like roses, so I was pleased. Especially with me decorating it at 1 in the morning, I was glad they turned out so well.

So that takes care of what I've been baking. Some sucesses, some not so much. But they are all getting eaten just the same!