Week 19: Chocolate-covered cherry cake

I buy a jar of cherry pie filling every November when we are up in Door County (they're known for their cherries).  I always dream of baking a cherry pie, but I never get around to it.  And twice now, I've ditched the pie plans to make a chocolate-covered cherry cake.  I despise chocolate-covered cherries, but I love this cake. 

The icing has a lovely chocolateyness to it.  Choclacality?  It tastes like chocolate because it's made from chocolate.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. A very simple cake recipe.

2. Despite the simplicity, I managed to foul it up a bit.  The jar of pie filling I buy in Door County is 32 ounces, but the recipe calls for 21.  Last year I just eyeballed it.  This year I decided to get fancy and spoon it into my pyrex measuring cup, which has handy ounce markins on it.  I told Chuck that I thought the Door County folks lied about the pie filling because it took more than 2/3 of it to get to 21 ounces.  Then he asked me if the recipe called for fluid ounces or actual weight.  Sigh.  The extra pie filling appears to have had little impact on the recipe, though.

3. I like to toss dried cherries over top the icing.

A New Chocolate Covered Cherry Cake by the Cake Mix Doctor


Cake:
Vegetable oil spray for misting the pan
1 package (18.25 ounces) chocolate mix with pudding
3 large eggs
2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 cup (6 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips
1 can (21 ounces) cherry pie filling
1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly mist a 13x9" baking pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust it with flour.  Shake out excess flour and set the pan aside.

2. Place the cake mix, eggs, and almond extract in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on medium speed until the ingredients are incorporated, 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber sptatula. Add the chocolate chips and beat on low speed for 30 seconds, scraping the sides down again if needed.  Add the cherry pie filling and beat on medium speed ntil just blended, 20-30 seconds.  The batter will be thick.  Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.

3. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 30 to 35 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack, and let the cake cool slightly while you prepare the icing.



Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/3 cup whole milk
1 package (6 ounces, or 1 cup) semisweet chocolate chips

Place the sugar, butter, and milk in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture comes to a boil. Boil, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the chocolate chips. When the chips have melted and the glaze is smooth, pour it over the warm cake so that it covers the entire surface. The glaze will be thin but will firm up. Cool the cake for 20 minutes more before cutting it into squares and serving.



NOTE: Store this cake, covered in aluminum foil, at room temperature for up to 5 days or in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. Or freeze the cake, wrapped in foil, for up to 6 months. Thaw the cake overnight on the counter before serving.

Week 18: Sprinkle habit

Chuck and I travelled up to Door County last weekend to celebrate our 5-year anniversary.  We stayed in the same suite at the same B&B we've been going to every year since our honeymoon.  If you're heading up to northern WI, I highly recommend checking out the Chanticleer Guest House.

So why am I talking about all of this on my baking blog?  Our travels meant that I didn't bake anything this week (insert gasp here).

To make up for not baking last week, I decided to bring out the big guns and make a double batch of sugar cookies with buttercream frosting this coming weekend.  And that means one thing...SPRINKLES!!!!  I decided to take stock of my sprinkle collection tonight to make sure I had enough to get me through the weekend.  Here's what I found:

Chuck suggested I build a tower of sprinkles.  So I did.

I wasn't very happy with the stacked arrangement, so I decided to organize them by holiday.  Halloween - over to the left.  Christmas - you head to the right.  Easter - I've never used you, so you're heading to the back.  Hey there, chocolate jimmies & white nonpareils - you work with every season, so front & center with you.

And now it's time for my shocking confession: I am a sprinkle-holic.  There.  I said it.  I openly admit that I have and will purchase every new holiday-themed sprinkle I happen across.  It does not matter that I have dozens of different types of sprinkles in my cupboard.  Seriously...dozens.  Check out all these bottles that have 6 varieties in one bottle. SIX!

After reviewing the photographic evidence and shuffling the non-Christmas sprinkles back to the cupboard, I turned to Chuck and said, "I really thought I had more sprinkles than this.  This isn't so bad."

Week 17: Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes

I wanted to make something seasonally appropriate this week, so turned to Martha Stewart's Cupcakes in search of a pumpkin recipe.  Despite the ridiculous marzipan pumpkins she added, this recipe sounded perfect to me.  I'm actually disgusted by the texture and flavor of marzipan, so I skipped the toppers.  And, you know, I really didn't want to spend my entire weekend creating little pumpkins to top my cupcakes.

Here's Martha's version:

And here's my version:

Do you suppose any of my co-workers will ask where the marzipan pumpkins are?  Now that I think about it...I sort of hope they do.  I have plenty of answers to that question.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. The cupcake batter was thicker than I was expecting.  I was very happy to have my trusty old-fashioned ice cream scoop on hand for dropping batter into each cupcake liner.

2. To save your kitchen from looking like you dropped a bag of flour on the counter, cover your mixer with a kitchen towel after each addition of flour.

3. To prevent the buttermilk from splashing out of the mixing bowl, use a spatula to lightly stir it in before turning your mixer back on.

4. I wish I had thought of 2 and 3 before my first addition of flour and first addition of buttermilk.

5. I continue to have great love for my Martha Stewart's Cupcakes cookbook.  I've now tried three recipes from this book, and have yet to be disappointed.

Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Patch cupcakes


4 cups cake flour (not self-rising), sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2-1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
1-1/2 cups canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1. Preheat oven to 350. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.  Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices.

2. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until each is incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.  Reduce speed to low.  Add flour mixture in three batches, alternative with two additions of buttermilk, and beating until just combined.  Add pumpkin puree; beat until just combined.

3. Fill cupcake liners three-quarters full.  Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until golden brown, 15-18 minutes.  Transfer tins to wire racks to cool 10 minutes; turn out cupcakes onto racks and let cool completely.  Cupcakes can be stored in fridge up to 3 days in airtight containers.

4. To finish, use an offset spatula to spread frosting on cupcakes.

Martha Stewart's Cream-Cheese Frosting
Makes 4 Cups

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
12 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) powdered sugar, sifted
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions:

With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat butter and cream cheese until fluffy, 2-3 minutes.  Reduce speed to low.  Add sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, and then vanilla, and mix until smooth and combined, scraping down sides of bowl as needed.

Week 16: Old-fashioned fudge cake

My friend Jenny Vellon made this one day for our group of friends back in grad school, and we begged her to make it for every gathering after that.  Jenny is a generous and thoughtful gal, so she obliged.  She also told us it was very easy to make, but none of us believed her.

Jenny gave me the recipe for Christmas one year, and I quickly added it to my book of hand-written recipes.  And yet, I continued to worry that it'd come out terribly wrong if I attempted to make it.  It wasn't until a few months into my baking obsession that I pulled out the recipe and decided to try it out.  And boy am I glad I did - it tasted exactly as I remembered it, and it brought back great memories of fun times shared with grad school friends.

If you've always been intimidated by baking a cake from scratch, I'd say this cake is reason enough to break down and give it a go.  It's deliciously moist and, yes, surprisingly easy to make.  And how could you not want to eat this??

Honestly, look at all that chocolatey goodness!

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. A great beginner's cake - as long as you can measure ingredients and mix them with a whisk or spoon...you can handle this one.

2. After my many disastrous attempts and making chocolate peanut butter no-bake cookies & discovering that I had never allowed the mixture to come to a complete boil (see Week 7 post), I was a bit reluctant to trust that my frosting was at a boil.  Sadly, I pushed it too far & it broke.  How, you  might wonder, do you break frosting?  If you cook this frosting too long, the butter will start to separate out from the milk and cocoa & you'll have the milk and cocoa together & melted butter swimming around them.  Here's a sign that it's about to happen - you'll see dark specks & then dark streaks in the frosting as you're stirring.  And if you ignore those signs, well it'll separate.  Lucky for me, I happen to have far more baking ingredients on hand than anyone should, so I just dumped the mess in the trash can & started over.  Second attempt came out perfectly.

Many thanks to Jenny for giving me the a-ok to share this recipe with my pals.

Jenny's Old-Fashioned Fudge Cake

2 C flour
1 1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 C oil
1 C buttermilk
3 eggs, beaten
3 tsp vanilla
3/4 C hot water

Frosting:
4 tbls unsweetened cocoa powder
6 tbls milk
1 stick butter
3/4 lb powdered sugar
1 tbls vanilla
 
Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9x13 pan.

1. Sift together flour, sugar, soda, salt & cocoa. Add oil, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and hot water. Mix well. (Seriously, that's all there is to it.)

2. Pour into 9x13 pan and bake for 30 minutes.

3. Start making your frosting about 10-15 minutes before cake is done baking.  For frosting, make a paste of cocoa and milk in a saucepan. Add butter and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Remove from heat and add powdered sugar and vanilla,  Beat well.  Pour over still hot cake in baking pan.

4. Serve warm; especially wonderful with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream.

Week 15: Rum Cake

I spent the weekend debating whether I felt like making & eating old-fashioned fudge cake or rum cake.  As you can see from the title, rum cake won.  Sorry, old-fashioned fudge cake & fudge cake lovers.  There's always next weekend.

I've used this recipe for years & love it.  The cake is always moist & extremely rummy.  Is that a word?  If not, it should be.

I made use of my new bundt pan that I previously tried out with my margarita cake.  But something didn't go quite right this time.  Here's how the margarita cake looked:

And here's how the rum cake looked (it pulled away from the sides of the pan & didn't come out with the same scalloped edges):

Also, (borrowing a joke from Chuck) the rum cake came out of the oven with a few pieces missing...

The glaze also came out a little funny this time around - runnier than I'm used to.  It seemed like more of it ended up on the cake plate than on the cake.

Regardless, I love this cake.  And Chuck's bandmates seemed to like it too.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. I suspect there are two reasons the cake is misshapen: 1) I used 1/2 the amount of pudding mix it called for (because that's all I happened to have in the cupboard) and 2) the recipe is designed for a 12-cup pan & I used a 10-cup pan.

2. I might have to make this a few more times in the coming weeks to perfect this glaze.  You know, for the benefit of the people to whom I serve it.

3. I had intended to place whole pecans in the pan before pouring in the cake batter, but completely forgot.  So I might have to make this recipe again very soon.  You know, for the benefit of people who like pecans.

4. Make sure you remove your saucepan from the heat before adding rum.  Otherwise, you'll have a sputtering mess.

5. If you pour in all the rum into the glaze at once, you'll be surrounding by a cloud of rum.  That's not necessarily a bad thing...just be prepared.


Bacardi Rum Cake

1 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

1 (18 1/2 oz.) pkg. yellow cake mix
1 (3 3/4 oz.) pkg. instant vanilla pudding
4 eggs
1/2 c. cold water
1/2 c. Wesson oil
1/2 c. Bacardi dark rum (80 proof)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour 10 inch tube pan or 12 cup Bundt cake pan. Sprinkle nuts over bottom of pan. Mix all ingredients together and pour over nuts. Bake 1 hour. Cool. Invert on serving plate. Prick top. Drizzle smooth glaze evenly over top and sides. Allow cake to absorb glaze. Repeat until all glaze is used.

GLAZE:

1/4 lb. butter
1/4 c. water
1 c. granulated sugar
1/2 c. Bacardi dark rum

Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in rum.

Week 14: Triple-layer chocolate peanut butter cake, take 2

Back in week 6 I took on my first from-scratch cake.  Brett declared it his favorite cake, and requested it for his birthday.  Being the great mom that I am, I immediately agreed.  Not because I desperately wanted to eat this cake again...no, it was for Brett.  Brett also requested that both Batman & Spiderman be represented on his cake.  Hmm...okay, then.

Final result:

Brett regularly ponders what would happen if Batman & Spiderman got into a fight.  He has decided that Spiderman would win (because he's fast).  So I carefully positioned Spiderman so it'd look like he was kicking Batman off the cake.  Because, again, I'm a great mom.

I also carefully positioned the Batmobile to cover up a frosting tragedy...the glaze was a little too warm when I poured it over the cake, and the cream cheese frosting started to melt off one section.  The brilliance of my decorating prevented anyone from knowing.

Brett was very impressed with his final cake, as were my in-laws.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. The first time I made this, I cooked the glaze in the microwave.  While it tasted just fine, it was a little too thick for pouring and spreading.  This time, I cooked it over a make-shift double-boiler (a glass mixing bowl placed over a pan of simmering water).  It had much better spreading consistency, and also prettier drips down the side of the cake.

2. The first time I made this, I refrigerated the cake for 30 minutes in between adding the frosting and pouring on the glaze.  I wanted to see what would happen if I skipped that this time.  Answer: the frosting melted.  Next time, I'll stick with refrigerating in between the two steps.

Check out my post from week 6 for the recipes.

Week 13: Chocolate Buttermilk Halloween cupcakes

I have a...slight problem with sprinkles.  I tend to purchase far more than a normal person can make use of in a lifetime.  Anytime a holiday rolls around, I find new sprinkles and drop them in my cart.  Chuck's job is to remind me that I already have enough sprinkles (just like I remind him that we already have enough canned tomatoes).  Sadly, Chuck isn't always with me at the store.  All of this is a long way of explaining this:

And these are just my Halloween-themed sprinkles.  I haven't been brave enough to pull all of my sprinkles out at the same time, but I'm fairly certain I have at least twice this many Christmas-themed sprinkles.

So I figured I'd bake up some Halloween-themed treats and see what I could do about using some of my sprinkle stash.  I frosted the cupakes & then handed them off to Brett for sprinkling.  Here's what I learned: Brett preferred using one type of sprinkle on every cupcake.  After he covered 6 cupcakes with purple sugar, Chuck gently encouraged him to shift between some others.  And we ended up with a nice collection of cupcakes:

My favorite cupcake of the bunch is the one on the right corner of this pic - yeah, the one upon which Brett dumped the black sugar.  This shot was after I shook a good chunk of sugar onto other cupcakes.

Lessons learned and recipe thoughts:

1. Quick & simple recipe that makes a nice, moist cupcake.

2. I use powdered buttermilk (mixed with water) in place of fresh - you can store it far longer, and it's easier than running to the store to buy buttermilk when I'm baking.

3. Everything is better with sprinkles.

Chocolate Buttermilk Cupcakes (from The Cake Mix Doctor Returns)

Makes: 22-24 cupcakes (2 1/2 inches in diameter)
Prep: 15 minutes
Bake: 20-25 minutes
Cool: 20 minutes

24 paper liners for cupcakes pans

1 package (18.25 oz) chocolate cake mix, plain or with pudding
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2 tbls unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350.  Line 24 cupcakes caups with paper liners and set the pans aside.

2. Place all cake ingredients in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer on low speed until the ingredients are incorporated, 30 seconds.  Stop the machine and scrape down the side of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Increase teh mixer speed to medium and beat for 1 1/2 - 2 minutes longer, scraping down the side of the bow. again if needed.  The batter should look well blended.

3. Spoon or scoop a heaping 1/4 cup of cupcake batter into each lined cupcake cup, filling it two thirds of the way full.  (You will get 22-24 cupcakes; remove the empty liners, if any.)

4. Place the pans in teh oven and bake the cupcakes until the tops spring back when lightly pressed with a finger, 20-25 minutes.  Remove the pans from the oven and place them on wire racks to cool for 5 minutes.  Run a dinner knife around the edge of the cupcake cups, lift the cupcakes up from teh bottom of the pans using the end of the knife, and pick them out of the pans carefully with your fingertips.  Place the cupcakes on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes longer before frosting.

5. Prepare frosting of your choice (I used a basic buttercream and tinted it orange with gel paste food coloring).

6. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of frosting on top of each cupcake and swirl it with a short metal spatula or spoon to spread it out, taking care of cover the top completely.  Serve.