Showing posts with label Cake. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cake. Show all posts
February 14, 2012
A Chocolatey Peanut Butter Valentine
February 14--that wonderful day overly commercialized, over hyped and dreaded by men everywhere. One of my favorite parts of Valentine's Day is seeing all those guys in the grocery store, Target, etc, etc buying flowers, chocolates, searching for the card expressing an appropriate level of affection. They all just look so out of their element. It's great. I also love watching and listening to the elementary school kids picking out the box of Valentine's cards to give to their classmates. Those were the days, weren't they? Finding a box that had a really great card for the guy/gal you had a crush on but with appropriately banal comments for everyone else, making your little "mail box", having the class party where everyone delivers their cards to everyone else. I don't think I understood how great it was as a kid.
February 10, 2012
Cinnamon Sugar Cake
February is a wonderful month, full of wonderful things like purple, amethysts, winter, overly commercialized holidays....and my birthday! Impending doom (i.e. boards) or no, I had to make a cake for my birthday earlier this week. What's a birthday without cake? I am on an upswing in terms of my love of my birthday. I liked it when I was quite young, then my birthday spirit took a nose dive throughout jr. high & high school. During college, birthdays started to make a very slow comeback....coincident with my renewed interest in baking. I made a cinnamon sugar cake with brown sugar cinnamon buttercream frosting from a recipe on The Pastry Affair, with a few substitutions.
No, one is never too old for birthday candles.
February 5, 2012
Magic Microwave Nutella Cake
This February marks an interesting time in my educational career. In two weeks, I will be done with classroom-based learning for the foreseeable future. While I am excited to begin third year in a few months, this will be the end of an era of my life. It will be the end of my comfort zone entirely as I have been in a classroom since I was 3 or 4 years old; indeed, I have done very little else. We got our third year schedules this past week. The student lounge when this occurred was a scene straight from the past. Everyone was eager to see what they got and compare with others, just like getting schedules in jr. high & high school. For the most part, I am pleased with my schedule. Happily I have the rotation I am least excited about and causes me the greatest anxiety first; I will be glad to get it out of the way. This is a difficult time in the course of medical education, mostly because it requires a great deal of self-discipline in the face of anxiety and undue stress given the increasing emphasis of board scores on residency applications. While I can feel the anxiety about the boards and beginning third year
mounting with each passing day, I am determined to focus on one day at a
time and try not to let the pressure to study all the time eat away at other areas of my life like eating real food and getting off my butt for a little while each day. On the whole, though, I am eager to get through these last hoops of classroom education and get into the wards. I am approaching third year with a somewhat open mind about what I ultimately want to go into, but it will be interesting to see how my specialty preference changes throughout the year.
July 1, 2011
Oh Summer, I'm so glad you have arrived
It’s been nearly two weeks since summer started and I’m very pleased that Summer has decided to bring proper, warm, summery weather (unlike the disappointing weather we had last summer). I still cannot reasonably go anywhere for the day without a sweater, but at least during the early afternoon I am free of the blasted things! Due to things out of my control, my first week of summer was, well, lackluster, but it was nice to actually get to sleep for a change. This past week has been much more productive, if not terribly thrilling, and I am checking things off my seemingly overwhelming to-do list.
Summer always seems to make me acutely aware of how much gas I use. I think it’s because I tend to drive between cities much more often during the summer. We recently acquired a new Ford Fiesta (it’s black and small and cute!) and I am certainly grateful for its fantastic MPG. On a small tank ($30 to fill your tank full!) it can go some pretty incredible distances. The tank is not more than 9 gallons. When you fill it up and look at the car’s estimated miles to empty it comes out around 400, and I have to say that it’s pretty accurate. Last weekend on 3/4 of a tank of gas I drove around 300 miles: San Diego to LA, a little bit within Santa Monica & West LA, LA to Irvine, Irvine to Anaheim, Anaheim to Irvine, and Irvine to San Diego. I’m pretty impressed, anyway. I should post a picture of the car up on here, but alas, I didn’t bother to take a picture when it was clean and shiny and, let’s be honest, I’m probably not going to wash it for awhile. I will have to post a picture some other time.
Speaking of photos, aren’t we cute?
Hopefully, you haven’t run screaming for your lives because of my creepy looking toes in that picture because we haven’t gotten to the fun part yet! Just before the end of school, some classmates and I had a BBQ in honor of summer, the end of the school year and an early birthday celebration. What’s a birthday celebration, even an early one, without a cake?! I made a carrot cake because the birthday girl said she likes carrot cake. I also used my awesome neon colors food coloring to make the frosting pink since she loves pink.
But first, a side note on carrots. Ever wonder what the exactly is the difference between baby carrots and regular carrots? Are baby carrots just that, young carrots? The answer is yes and no. A “true” baby carrot is a carrot grown and cultivated before the root reaches its mature size, hence it is a “baby” carrot. However, more commonly, in the US at least, is the manufactured or fake baby carrot. It all started when a California farmer, Mike Yurosek, got tired for having to throw away as much as 400 metric tons (that’s 1000 kg or 400 tonnes for our friends across the pond) per day due to imperfections. Back in the 1980s, he developed a method using a green bean cutter and a potato peeler to convert that part of his crop which was perfectly edible, though not so aesthetically pleasing, into the ubiquitous baby carrot of today. In 1999, peeled baby carrot sales surpassed that of whole carrots and 94% of US consumers bought baby carrots. (Source) Neat, right? Thank you, Mike Yurosek, from all of carrot kind. You’ve given each and every little carrot the chance to make it into a delicious carrot cake or onto a veggie platter.
I don’t think that carrot cake is a particularly popular cake. I used to have it for my birthdays as a little girl and then I lost touch with it for quite some years. I am happy to have it back in my life, because, when done well, it is quite a delicious cake.
To start out with, you’ll need to grate some carrots. There are a couple options to do this. You can grate the carrots by hand using a cheese grater. I’ve done this before. It certainly works, but it takes some time and effort. Watch out for your fingers as you grate the very end of the carrot. The grater can actually hurt a bit. The less industrious among us can go for option number 2, which is to toss the carrots into a food processor or one of those little mini choppers like I did. You’ll need 2 cups. I used baby carrots and I have no idea how many I used. Something less than 1 lb.
Once you’ve got your carrots prepared, in a large bowl blend together 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup oil and 4 eggs.
Next combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before mixing them into the wet ingredients…or just toss them in. I was in a separate bowl sort of mood when I made this, but it’s not crucial.
See that little tongue sticking out in the bottom right of the picture? Yes, those are my puppy slippers brought to you courtesy of my bff. Next add in your 2 cups of grated carrots and stir it all together. Pour this mixture into a greased and lightly floured pan and pop it in the oven. How long it needs to bake will depend on what type of pan you used. For example, I used a very deep 9” round pan and it took almost an hour to bake all the way through. If you use a sheet pan, and thus are making a thinner cake, it’ll be closer to 25 minutes. Just keep an eye on it and pull it out when it’s not sticky or jiggly anymore.
There it is! My Frankenstein of a carrot cake! Thank goodness for yummy frosting and sprinkles!
While you are waiting for the cake to cool, go ahead and whip up some cream cheese frosting, the classic companion for carrot cake. If you want to be awesome (I mean super super awesome) you could add chopped pecans to the frosting! Alas, I did not because most people I know don’t like nuts in anything! Such a tragedy!!!
Note: Neon food coloring is always appropriate.
When you’re ready to frost the cake and you’ve made a cake like this, there is a very important step—flip the cake upside down. This gives you a nice flat surface to frost. I could have split this cake in half and made two layers, but i decided to just have a really fat single layer cake instead. First put on a thin layer of frosting all around. This layer is like a primer or a crumb layer. You can cover it up with another layer of frosting once you’ve made all the crumbs that you’re going to make.
Frankenstein lives! I had some extra frosting and decided to play around with piping it. There were a couple problems with this 1) I have no artistic ability whatsoever 2) I hadn’t added enough powdered sugar to the frosting because I didn’t want it to be too sweet; it barely even clung on to the cake 3) cream cheese frosting doesn’t like warm apartments and 4) I have no artistic ability whatsoever. Fortunately for me, sprinkles and natural lighting can perform miracles:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carrot Cake
This recipe is from The Pioneer Woman
Ingredients
2. Mix sugar, oil & eggs in large bowl. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder & cinnamon.
3. Add the dry mixture to the large bowl and combine. Next add in the carrots and mix well.
4. Pour into a greased and floured pan (any kind you want - bundt pan, springform, round pans, sheet, 13x9, etc, etc). Bake at 350 F for 25-50 minutes depending on pan or until a tooth pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
5. Cool completely
Cream Cheese Frosting
Summer always seems to make me acutely aware of how much gas I use. I think it’s because I tend to drive between cities much more often during the summer. We recently acquired a new Ford Fiesta (it’s black and small and cute!) and I am certainly grateful for its fantastic MPG. On a small tank ($30 to fill your tank full!) it can go some pretty incredible distances. The tank is not more than 9 gallons. When you fill it up and look at the car’s estimated miles to empty it comes out around 400, and I have to say that it’s pretty accurate. Last weekend on 3/4 of a tank of gas I drove around 300 miles: San Diego to LA, a little bit within Santa Monica & West LA, LA to Irvine, Irvine to Anaheim, Anaheim to Irvine, and Irvine to San Diego. I’m pretty impressed, anyway. I should post a picture of the car up on here, but alas, I didn’t bother to take a picture when it was clean and shiny and, let’s be honest, I’m probably not going to wash it for awhile. I will have to post a picture some other time.
Speaking of photos, aren’t we cute?
Hopefully, you haven’t run screaming for your lives because of my creepy looking toes in that picture because we haven’t gotten to the fun part yet! Just before the end of school, some classmates and I had a BBQ in honor of summer, the end of the school year and an early birthday celebration. What’s a birthday celebration, even an early one, without a cake?! I made a carrot cake because the birthday girl said she likes carrot cake. I also used my awesome neon colors food coloring to make the frosting pink since she loves pink.
But first, a side note on carrots. Ever wonder what the exactly is the difference between baby carrots and regular carrots? Are baby carrots just that, young carrots? The answer is yes and no. A “true” baby carrot is a carrot grown and cultivated before the root reaches its mature size, hence it is a “baby” carrot. However, more commonly, in the US at least, is the manufactured or fake baby carrot. It all started when a California farmer, Mike Yurosek, got tired for having to throw away as much as 400 metric tons (that’s 1000 kg or 400 tonnes for our friends across the pond) per day due to imperfections. Back in the 1980s, he developed a method using a green bean cutter and a potato peeler to convert that part of his crop which was perfectly edible, though not so aesthetically pleasing, into the ubiquitous baby carrot of today. In 1999, peeled baby carrot sales surpassed that of whole carrots and 94% of US consumers bought baby carrots. (Source) Neat, right? Thank you, Mike Yurosek, from all of carrot kind. You’ve given each and every little carrot the chance to make it into a delicious carrot cake or onto a veggie platter.
I don’t think that carrot cake is a particularly popular cake. I used to have it for my birthdays as a little girl and then I lost touch with it for quite some years. I am happy to have it back in my life, because, when done well, it is quite a delicious cake.
To start out with, you’ll need to grate some carrots. There are a couple options to do this. You can grate the carrots by hand using a cheese grater. I’ve done this before. It certainly works, but it takes some time and effort. Watch out for your fingers as you grate the very end of the carrot. The grater can actually hurt a bit. The less industrious among us can go for option number 2, which is to toss the carrots into a food processor or one of those little mini choppers like I did. You’ll need 2 cups. I used baby carrots and I have no idea how many I used. Something less than 1 lb.
Once you’ve got your carrots prepared, in a large bowl blend together 2 cups of sugar, 1 cup oil and 4 eggs.
Next combine the dry ingredients in a separate bowl before mixing them into the wet ingredients…or just toss them in. I was in a separate bowl sort of mood when I made this, but it’s not crucial.
See that little tongue sticking out in the bottom right of the picture? Yes, those are my puppy slippers brought to you courtesy of my bff. Next add in your 2 cups of grated carrots and stir it all together. Pour this mixture into a greased and lightly floured pan and pop it in the oven. How long it needs to bake will depend on what type of pan you used. For example, I used a very deep 9” round pan and it took almost an hour to bake all the way through. If you use a sheet pan, and thus are making a thinner cake, it’ll be closer to 25 minutes. Just keep an eye on it and pull it out when it’s not sticky or jiggly anymore.
There it is! My Frankenstein of a carrot cake! Thank goodness for yummy frosting and sprinkles!
While you are waiting for the cake to cool, go ahead and whip up some cream cheese frosting, the classic companion for carrot cake. If you want to be awesome (I mean super super awesome) you could add chopped pecans to the frosting! Alas, I did not because most people I know don’t like nuts in anything! Such a tragedy!!!
Note: Neon food coloring is always appropriate.
When you’re ready to frost the cake and you’ve made a cake like this, there is a very important step—flip the cake upside down. This gives you a nice flat surface to frost. I could have split this cake in half and made two layers, but i decided to just have a really fat single layer cake instead. First put on a thin layer of frosting all around. This layer is like a primer or a crumb layer. You can cover it up with another layer of frosting once you’ve made all the crumbs that you’re going to make.
Frankenstein lives! I had some extra frosting and decided to play around with piping it. There were a couple problems with this 1) I have no artistic ability whatsoever 2) I hadn’t added enough powdered sugar to the frosting because I didn’t want it to be too sweet; it barely even clung on to the cake 3) cream cheese frosting doesn’t like warm apartments and 4) I have no artistic ability whatsoever. Fortunately for me, sprinkles and natural lighting can perform miracles:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Carrot Cake
This recipe is from The Pioneer Woman
Ingredients
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 cup vegetable oil
- 4 whole eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 cups grater carrots
2. Mix sugar, oil & eggs in large bowl. In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder & cinnamon.
3. Add the dry mixture to the large bowl and combine. Next add in the carrots and mix well.
4. Pour into a greased and floured pan (any kind you want - bundt pan, springform, round pans, sheet, 13x9, etc, etc). Bake at 350 F for 25-50 minutes depending on pan or until a tooth pick inserted near the center comes out clean.
5. Cool completely
Cream Cheese Frosting
- 1/2 cup butter
- 8 oz (1 package) cream cheese
- 1 lb. powdered sugar
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup pecans, chopped finely (optional….but highly recommended if you can get away with it!!)
June 5, 2011
A Summer Cake
Summer is almost here. It is so tantalizingly close I can taste it! …or maybe that’s just all the strawberries popping up everywhere.
Yes, that is a snowman on that bowl. I’m just a tad bit early for Christmas in July…
Either way, it is time to start breaking out those summer recipes. You know, the ones that are good for summer BBQ potlucks and 4th of July parties? I came across this recipe for a strawberry summer cake last month and fortunately had the perfect excuse to make it last weekend, a very special someone’s 75th birthday! I love this special someone with all my heart as this person put a significant amount of time and effort into looking after me as I was growing up. I now take great delight in being a chauffeur to this person when I can, continuing to listen to her awesome stories, and going out for coffee on weekend mornings. The photos for this recipe were graciously taken by a boy I happen to be particularly fond of. That is why they look so much better than my usual pictures. Being at my mom’s house with huge windows and a kitchen that is not also a living room, study, and bedroom also helps.
To start out, cream the butter and sugar together.
Shall I tell you a secret? This is one of my favorite parts of baking. I love how fluffy the butter and sugar mixture gets. Care to hear another? I have no idea how I would get by without a mixer of some sort.
Next mix in the egg, milk and vanilla. If you happen to have some extra hands in the kitchen, have one measure out the dry ingredients in a separate, small bowl and a second clean and cut the strawberries.
(Please try not let this remind you too much of a porcelain throne.)
A word of advice, don’t cut your strawberries like this. Just take off the tops and slice them in half, even if they are big strawberries. The thin slices didn’t give me enough strawberry-ness in the end. The snowman bowl, however, is highly recommended.
Gradually add in the dry mixture and mix until just smooth.
Don’t forget to periodically scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure you’re not getting all the dry ingredients in. I love spatulas, by the way. They are magical beings.
Next pour the batter into a greased baking apparatus. I used a regular pie plate. I could have used a bit more space. A deep dish pie plate or a springform cake pan would be great. I was at my mom’s, though, so I settled for a regular pie plate.
I was a very zealous greaser that morning. I used butter and everything! None of that spray-on non-stick stuff. (I am very eager to try Baker’s Joy someday, though, which is supposed to be the equivalent to greasing and flouring in a spray!)
Use the spatula to spread the cake in the pan and then start adding those strawberries on top! You can layer them on as closely packed as you like, but try to keep it to a single layer.
Once all the strawberries you want are layered on, sprinkle around two tablespoons of sugar over the top before you pop it in the oven.
Don’t worry if it looks like this after 50 minutes. Just keep it in there for 10-15 more minutes and that still-moist center will start to behave.
Just before you are ready to serve it, dust the top with some powdered sugar. I had a lot of fun doing this! I just put some powdered sugar in a mesh strainer and tapped the side to make it snow. If you have a flour sifter, that would also work. Serve it up with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or both! Whipped cream alone is the best, though it’s possible I am biased as I am not a huge fan of vanilla ice cream.
Strawberry Summer Cake
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature + extra for greasing baking apparatus
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (if you have the time and energy, I might sift the flour as I thought the cake turned out a little bit on the flour-y side)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb strawberries, hulled and halved
Savor and look forward to a summer that hopefully has less disappointing weather than last year!
As a side note, the photographer of the above photos has requested that I share with you what we made last night.
It’s like a dream, right? let’s just bring that into a bit more focus…
There we go. Delectable, delicious ice cream sandwiches with cookies (not those silly chocolate wafer things they sell in stores…)! Watch out, Diddy Riese.
Yes, that is a snowman on that bowl. I’m just a tad bit early for Christmas in July…
Either way, it is time to start breaking out those summer recipes. You know, the ones that are good for summer BBQ potlucks and 4th of July parties? I came across this recipe for a strawberry summer cake last month and fortunately had the perfect excuse to make it last weekend, a very special someone’s 75th birthday! I love this special someone with all my heart as this person put a significant amount of time and effort into looking after me as I was growing up. I now take great delight in being a chauffeur to this person when I can, continuing to listen to her awesome stories, and going out for coffee on weekend mornings. The photos for this recipe were graciously taken by a boy I happen to be particularly fond of. That is why they look so much better than my usual pictures. Being at my mom’s house with huge windows and a kitchen that is not also a living room, study, and bedroom also helps.
To start out, cream the butter and sugar together.
Shall I tell you a secret? This is one of my favorite parts of baking. I love how fluffy the butter and sugar mixture gets. Care to hear another? I have no idea how I would get by without a mixer of some sort.
Next mix in the egg, milk and vanilla. If you happen to have some extra hands in the kitchen, have one measure out the dry ingredients in a separate, small bowl and a second clean and cut the strawberries.
(Please try not let this remind you too much of a porcelain throne.)
A word of advice, don’t cut your strawberries like this. Just take off the tops and slice them in half, even if they are big strawberries. The thin slices didn’t give me enough strawberry-ness in the end. The snowman bowl, however, is highly recommended.
Gradually add in the dry mixture and mix until just smooth.
Don’t forget to periodically scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure you’re not getting all the dry ingredients in. I love spatulas, by the way. They are magical beings.
Next pour the batter into a greased baking apparatus. I used a regular pie plate. I could have used a bit more space. A deep dish pie plate or a springform cake pan would be great. I was at my mom’s, though, so I settled for a regular pie plate.
I was a very zealous greaser that morning. I used butter and everything! None of that spray-on non-stick stuff. (I am very eager to try Baker’s Joy someday, though, which is supposed to be the equivalent to greasing and flouring in a spray!)
Use the spatula to spread the cake in the pan and then start adding those strawberries on top! You can layer them on as closely packed as you like, but try to keep it to a single layer.
Once all the strawberries you want are layered on, sprinkle around two tablespoons of sugar over the top before you pop it in the oven.
Don’t worry if it looks like this after 50 minutes. Just keep it in there for 10-15 more minutes and that still-moist center will start to behave.
Just before you are ready to serve it, dust the top with some powdered sugar. I had a lot of fun doing this! I just put some powdered sugar in a mesh strainer and tapped the side to make it snow. If you have a flour sifter, that would also work. Serve it up with some whipped cream or vanilla ice cream or both! Whipped cream alone is the best, though it’s possible I am biased as I am not a huge fan of vanilla ice cream.
Strawberry Summer Cake
Recipe from Smitten Kitchen
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature + extra for greasing baking apparatus
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (if you have the time and energy, I might sift the flour as I thought the cake turned out a little bit on the flour-y side)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb strawberries, hulled and halved
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 10-inch pie pan or 9-inch deep-dish pie pan or a 9-/10- in. springform pan.
- Clean, hull and halve your strawberries. Try not to eat too many.
- In a small bowl, combine flour, baking powder & salt. Set aside.
- In a larger bowl, cream together butter and 1 cup sugar until pale and fluffy (about 3 minutes with an electric mixer).
- Mix in egg, milk and vanilla until just combined.
- Gradually add dry ingredients. Mix until just smooth.
- Pour into prepared baking apparatus. Use spatula to spread the batter into a fairly even layer.
- Arrange strawberries, cut side down, on top of the batter. Make a good thick layer (confluent, anyone?) without layering them on top of each other too much. Sprinkle the remaining 2 tablespoons of sugar over the top.
- Bake for 10 minutes at 350 F. Reduce temperature to 325 F and bake roughly 50-60 minutes until golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out free of cake batter (ooey, gooey strawberries are a-ok).
- Let it cool in a pan on a rack. Cut into wedges. Serve with yummy goodness, otherwise known as whipped cream and/or ice cream, as your preference or supplies dictate.
Savor and look forward to a summer that hopefully has less disappointing weather than last year!
As a side note, the photographer of the above photos has requested that I share with you what we made last night.
It’s like a dream, right? let’s just bring that into a bit more focus…
There we go. Delectable, delicious ice cream sandwiches with cookies (not those silly chocolate wafer things they sell in stores…)! Watch out, Diddy Riese.
February 8, 2011
Nutella Cake
It’s that time of year again. Yes, it’s February and time for my birthday! I love February. It’s such an overlooked month. If it weren’t for Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day (the movie) and the leap year phenomenon I think February would barely make it onto people’s radars. I like February, though, and not least because my birthday happens to fall in it. I think February is a relatively relaxing month. After the buildup and stress (for some people) of the holiday season and the New Year’s Resolution fad of January, February comes and returns life to normalcy. Usually by the time February rolls around, I’ve finally become somewhat comfortable writing the correct year when recording the date; it’s still winter (yay!) but spring is coming (also yay!), and, if you’re life is still dictated by an academic calendar, February marks a rough half-way point. What’s not to love? This morning it was properly overcast but the sun ended up coming out rendering my sweater and comfy boots rather warm. It’s better than being under multiple feet of snow, but I miss the cool, crisp, gray winter days and mornings of the Central Valley.
As today is my birthday and yesterday there was an elephant-sized anatomy exam, I felt a cake was in order. A proper cake, not just cup cakes. Cup cakes are good for anytime, but cakes require an occasion. After much deliberation, I decided to forego the traditional chocolate or funfetti cake and try something new. Pumpkin was suggested, but I’m on a bit of a Nutella kick so I decide to make Nigella Lawson’s Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache. This is a delightfully dense (alliteration oo-er) flourless cake. I was excited to try it since I’ve never even made a flourless chocolate cake before! It turned out well (peer-reviewed and everything!) despite a couple slight snafus in the preparation process.
Once you’ve gathered everything you need for the cake then it’s time to get crackin’! Literally you need to get cracking as you need to separate six eggs. Note that it says separated eggs not just egg whites. I read the first few lines of the recipe and only saw egg whites and threw all my yolks away. I then had to crack six more eggs and save the yolks. In a small bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff. If you don’t have the patience or wrist technique to do that by hand, I fully encourage using an electric mixer to speed up the project immensely. I mixed the egg whites until they peaked, that is, when you lift out the whisk/mixer there are little peaks that stick up. I stopped when they just barely started to peak but you could probably mix/whip them longer.
In a large bowl cream together an entire 13 oz. jar of Nutella (intense!) and 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter. When this is done, grind up some pecans/hazlenuts/almonds whatever you have on hand. I used a little wanna-be food processor to do this and ended up with nuts that were not quite finely ground. Add in the nuts, egg yolks, and water. Next melt 4 oz. of chocolate and fold that into the mixture. I totally missed this part and ended up folding in chocolate after I had folded in part of the egg whites. Oops! Then gently fold in the egg whites a bit at a time.
When this is all done, pour it into a (well-)greased spring-form pan. Try to make the batter as level as possible in the pan. Major disturbances could show up in your finished product. Did I mention I was so excited I got to use my spring-form pan for a second time?! Note to self, must make more cakes as spring-form pan is feeling neglected. If you have parchment paper, you could line the pan. I don’t have any (I know, how could I be relatively into baking and not have parchment paper?) and I didn’t have any trouble. Pop it into the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Be sure to savor that wonderful, distinctive Nutella aroma that will fill your kitchen/apartment.
Let the cake cool completely. I repeat, let the cake cool completely before you do anything to it. I get very eager and impatient, but in this case it’s really best to wait for it to be cool. When it’s cool you should have no trouble removing the side of the pan. In fact, I left my cake cool all night before topping it with the ganache. The cake had completely separated from the edge of the pan so it was a cinch to remove the sides.
Now for the ganache. I used dark chocolate in the cake, but I accidentally buy enough for the ganache. I ended up using semi-sweet chocolate chips for the ganache and I think it was a nice complement. Measure out 4 oz and chop it if necessary. I don’t have a food scale so I estimated 4 oz of chocolate chips by laying them in a singe layer roughly the dimensions of a 4 oz block of baking chocolate. At 7 am this morning when i was doing this I thought I was a genius! Toss the chocolate in a saucepan over medium-low heat with some water and cream (I used half and half because that’s what I had around). Melt the chocolate and then stir/whisk for a good 20 minutes until it reaches the consistency you want. While you continue to heat and stir, the ganache will thicken. I’ve never made ganache before so I guessed when it was thick enough. I also had to go to class which may or may not have been the major factor in my deciding it was thick enough.
When sufficiently thickened, remove from heat and let it cool off. Then pour this on top of the cake and spread it out to get a nice shiny layer on your cake. Then, voila! Enjoy with friends!
Happy February!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache
recipe adapted from here
Ingredients
Cake:
6 large eggs, separated - keep both the yolks and egg whites
pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 13-ounce container Nutellla
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup finely ground pecans
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 70% Cacao)
Ganache:
1/2 cup half and half
1 tablespoon water
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
optional: hazlenuts to decorate the top of the cake (see original recipe)
Directions:
Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff.
3. In another large bowl, cream the butter and Nutella together. Then add the water, egg yolks, and ground pecans.
4. Fold in melted chocolate.
5. Add a blob of beaten egg whites to the chocolate batter and mix gently until well-combined. Fold in the remaining whites, one-third at a time, very gently but thoroughly.
6. Pour into springform and bake for 40 minutes. Test for doneness by inserting toothpick in the center, which should come out mostly clean; lightly pressing finger into top to check for a slight bouncing-back; and observing edges beginning to separate from pan. Let cool completely in pan.
Ganache:
1. Chop chocolate, and add to sauce pan with half and half and water over medium-low heat. Once chocolate is melted and components are combined, whisk until mixture reaches desired thickness, then cool.
2. Remove rim of cake pan and pour cooled ganache over, spreading lightly to create a smooth, shiny surface.
As today is my birthday and yesterday there was an elephant-sized anatomy exam, I felt a cake was in order. A proper cake, not just cup cakes. Cup cakes are good for anytime, but cakes require an occasion. After much deliberation, I decided to forego the traditional chocolate or funfetti cake and try something new. Pumpkin was suggested, but I’m on a bit of a Nutella kick so I decide to make Nigella Lawson’s Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache. This is a delightfully dense (alliteration oo-er) flourless cake. I was excited to try it since I’ve never even made a flourless chocolate cake before! It turned out well (peer-reviewed and everything!) despite a couple slight snafus in the preparation process.
Once you’ve gathered everything you need for the cake then it’s time to get crackin’! Literally you need to get cracking as you need to separate six eggs. Note that it says separated eggs not just egg whites. I read the first few lines of the recipe and only saw egg whites and threw all my yolks away. I then had to crack six more eggs and save the yolks. In a small bowl, whip the egg whites until stiff. If you don’t have the patience or wrist technique to do that by hand, I fully encourage using an electric mixer to speed up the project immensely. I mixed the egg whites until they peaked, that is, when you lift out the whisk/mixer there are little peaks that stick up. I stopped when they just barely started to peak but you could probably mix/whip them longer.
In a large bowl cream together an entire 13 oz. jar of Nutella (intense!) and 1/2 cup (1 stick) of butter. When this is done, grind up some pecans/hazlenuts/almonds whatever you have on hand. I used a little wanna-be food processor to do this and ended up with nuts that were not quite finely ground. Add in the nuts, egg yolks, and water. Next melt 4 oz. of chocolate and fold that into the mixture. I totally missed this part and ended up folding in chocolate after I had folded in part of the egg whites. Oops! Then gently fold in the egg whites a bit at a time.
When this is all done, pour it into a (well-)greased spring-form pan. Try to make the batter as level as possible in the pan. Major disturbances could show up in your finished product. Did I mention I was so excited I got to use my spring-form pan for a second time?! Note to self, must make more cakes as spring-form pan is feeling neglected. If you have parchment paper, you could line the pan. I don’t have any (I know, how could I be relatively into baking and not have parchment paper?) and I didn’t have any trouble. Pop it into the oven and bake for 40 minutes. Be sure to savor that wonderful, distinctive Nutella aroma that will fill your kitchen/apartment.
Let the cake cool completely. I repeat, let the cake cool completely before you do anything to it. I get very eager and impatient, but in this case it’s really best to wait for it to be cool. When it’s cool you should have no trouble removing the side of the pan. In fact, I left my cake cool all night before topping it with the ganache. The cake had completely separated from the edge of the pan so it was a cinch to remove the sides.
Now for the ganache. I used dark chocolate in the cake, but I accidentally buy enough for the ganache. I ended up using semi-sweet chocolate chips for the ganache and I think it was a nice complement. Measure out 4 oz and chop it if necessary. I don’t have a food scale so I estimated 4 oz of chocolate chips by laying them in a singe layer roughly the dimensions of a 4 oz block of baking chocolate. At 7 am this morning when i was doing this I thought I was a genius! Toss the chocolate in a saucepan over medium-low heat with some water and cream (I used half and half because that’s what I had around). Melt the chocolate and then stir/whisk for a good 20 minutes until it reaches the consistency you want. While you continue to heat and stir, the ganache will thicken. I’ve never made ganache before so I guessed when it was thick enough. I also had to go to class which may or may not have been the major factor in my deciding it was thick enough.
When sufficiently thickened, remove from heat and let it cool off. Then pour this on top of the cake and spread it out to get a nice shiny layer on your cake. Then, voila! Enjoy with friends!
Happy February!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nutella Cake with Chocolate Ganache
recipe adapted from here
Ingredients
Cake:
6 large eggs, separated - keep both the yolks and egg whites
pinch salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 13-ounce container Nutellla
1 tablespoon water
1/2 cup finely ground pecans
4 oz bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled (I used 70% Cacao)
Ganache:
1/2 cup half and half
1 tablespoon water
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate
optional: hazlenuts to decorate the top of the cake (see original recipe)
Directions:
Cake:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 9-inch springform pan.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites and salt until stiff.
3. In another large bowl, cream the butter and Nutella together. Then add the water, egg yolks, and ground pecans.
4. Fold in melted chocolate.
5. Add a blob of beaten egg whites to the chocolate batter and mix gently until well-combined. Fold in the remaining whites, one-third at a time, very gently but thoroughly.
6. Pour into springform and bake for 40 minutes. Test for doneness by inserting toothpick in the center, which should come out mostly clean; lightly pressing finger into top to check for a slight bouncing-back; and observing edges beginning to separate from pan. Let cool completely in pan.
Ganache:
1. Chop chocolate, and add to sauce pan with half and half and water over medium-low heat. Once chocolate is melted and components are combined, whisk until mixture reaches desired thickness, then cool.
2. Remove rim of cake pan and pour cooled ganache over, spreading lightly to create a smooth, shiny surface.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)