Pretty Cakes

Time for another update, so I'm going to share some pretty cakes I've had the pleasure to enjoy recently.

This is the cake from the wedding I went to. It was a lovely yellow layer cake with custard filling.

So pretty on the inside, too :)

Caramel Macchiato cupcakes JoDee and I made.

We made these Tres Leches style with sponge cake and layers of soaked in cream and coffee/bailey's (or non-alcoholic bailey's irish creme flavored cream for those who didn't want the alcohol kind). Then a vanilla buttercream frosting and caramel sauce drizzled ontop. I liked them a lot. 

My birthday is in 3 days, starting to get excited! :)

Christmas Baking: Day 1

It's 5 days before Christmas, and my family and I have started our holiday baking. The first thing I baked was a recipe from my grandma called Absolutely Heavenly Amaretto Cake. She liked it so much that she hand-wrote the whole thing from its original source-- maybe a cookbook of hers, maybe a magazine-- and my mom saved it so that we could make it in her memory.

Absolutely Heavenly Amaretto Cake

Serves 10-12

Cake Ingredients:

1 cup butter

2 1/2 cups sugar

6 large eggs

3 cups sifted cake flour

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 ozs sour cream

2 teaspoons almond extract

1 teaspoon lemon extract

1 teaspoon orange extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup amaretto

Glaze: 

1/4 cup plus 2 teaspoons apricot preserves

3/4 cup orange marmalade

1/4 cup amaretto

Cake Instructions: 

1. Beat butter at medium speed in an electric mixer about 2 minutes or until soft and creamy.

2. Gradually add sugar, beating at medium speed 5-7 minutes.
3. Add eggs one at a time, beating just until yellow disappears.
4. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in another bowl; add to butter mixture alternately with sour cream, making sure you begin and end with flour mixture. Mix at low speed just until blended after each addition.
5. Stir in extracts and 1/2 cup amaretto with a spatula.
6. Pour batter into a greased and floured bundt pan and bake at 325 for 1 hour 15 minutes, at which time a toothpick inserted should come out clean.
7. Cool in pan 10-15 minutes. 

8. Remove from pan and let cool completely.

Glaze Instructions: 

1. Combine apricot preserves, orange marmalade and 1/4 cup amaretto in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until melted, stirring frequently.
2. Drizzle over cooled cake.

What a lovely cake: the tang of the orange and apricot complements the light, sweet amaretto taste perfectly. A delightful treat for dessert or even breakfast.

Stay tuned for amaretto cookies :)

Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Strawberry Coulis

Another fantastic cake from Deb at Smitten Kitchen... cream cheese pound cake with strawberry coulis. This cake was everything I hoped and knew it would be, and it was perfect for my tea party I had with three of my closest lady friends and my sister. The coulis, which is a sort of fresh strawberry sauce, was the perfect addition of tang and sweetness to the rich, creamy pound cake... I love frosting, but this coulis was more magical than layers and layers of the most amazing frosting. All in all a very delightful cake!

Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Strawberry Coulis

 Serves at least 10 (depending on the size of the slices)

Ingredients:

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

1 package (8 ozs) Philadelphia brand cream cheese, room temperature

3 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt

Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 325. Butter and flour a 12 cup bundt pan; set aside.
2. Place the butter and cream cheese in a large bowl or kitchen aid mixer and beat on medium speed until smooth-- about 5-7 minutes.
3. Add the sugar, increase speed to high and beat at least 5 minutes to make it airy and light.
4. Add each egg in one at a time, beating after each addition. 

5. Add the vanilla, flour and salt. Mix until just thoroughly combined.
6. Pour the prepared batter into the bundt pan and smooth the top over with a spatula.
7. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, at which point the cake should be golden brown at the top and a toothpick inserted into the cake will come out clean.
8. Let cake cool in pan for 20 minutes, then remove from pan and serve (or refrigerate if you're eating it later.)

Strawberry Coulis

Ingredients:
2 cups quartered, hulled fresh strawberries
1/4 cup water
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

Instructions:
1. Put all ingredients in a blender.
2. Puree until very smooth, then strain (with a medium size bowl underneath) through a fine mesh strainer to remove the seeds.
3. Cover and refrigerate until cold. 

The coulis can be made a day ahead and refrigerated until you're ready to serve the cake.

From smitten kitchen: bittersweet chocolate and pear cake

This is one of my favorite cakes. I've made it twice now, and a good friend of mine told me after trying this cake that while he likes almost no cakes, he loved this one. It was a welcome challenge to my baking skills, as it's a bit complicated at times, but well worth the effort. Smitten kitchen features some amazing cakes, I can't wait to make even more of them.

Bittersweet Chocolate and Pear Cake

Serves 9 or 10.

Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 eggs, at room-temperature
1 stick unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
3 pears, peeled, in a small dice
3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks (or just bittersweet chocolate broken up into smallish pieces amounting to about 3/4 cup)

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-inch springform pan and dust with flour. Set aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder and salt together; set aside.
Break the eggs into a kitchen aid mixer (or in a bowl) and whip the eggs on high speed until pale and very thick. (In a professional Kitchen Aid, it takes at least five minutes; on a home machine, it will take nine minutes to get sufficient volume)
While the eggs are whipping, brown the butter. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan and cook until the butter browns and smells nutty (about 6 to 8 minutes).
Scrape the solids off the bottom of the pan in the last couple minutes to ensure even browning. Remove from the flame but keep in a warm spot.
Add the sugar to the eggs and whip a few minutes more.
After a few minutes, turn the mixture down to stir, and add the flour mixture and brown butter alternatingly (one third of the flour mixture, then half of the butter, a third of the flour, the remaining butter, and the rest of flour).
Whisk until just barely combined — no more than a minute from when the flour is first added — and then use a spatula to gently fold the batter just until the ingredients are combined, so the batter won't lose volume.
Pour into prepared pan. Sprinkle the pear and chocolate chunks over the top, and bake until the cake is golden brown and springs back to the touch, about 40 to 50 minutes or a tester comes out clean.

 To be honest, the first time I made this cake I slipped up a bit on the instructions-- I mixed the batter too much, I mixed the pear and chocolate into the batter rather than simply sprinkling it over the top and letting it nestle in on its own while baking (because it does), but it did not come out ruined. It was just a little denser than intended. This second time I followed the instructions perfectly, and I have to say I like it even better. Fresh out of the oven, the melty chocolate and warm pear tastes amazing... but it's also very good after being chilled, which gives the flavors even more time to mingle a bit.

Black Forest Brownies

I was thinking about brownies the other day, and what kinds of things I could add to them to make them even more amazing. Then I started thinking about the dark chocolate, cream and cherry deliciousness of black forest cake. So then it clicked--- black forest brownies :). I took a simple brownie base (courtesy of Melanie from My Kitchen Cafe) and added pieces of oreo cookies and some maraschino cherries, plus a little bit of peppermint extract for a little extra flavor. The end result: crunchy, sweet, creamy fudgy wonder-brownies. Here's the recipe :)

Black Forest Brownies

Makes one 9X13 pan (~16 brownies depending on size)

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp peppermint extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
~6 broken up oreo cookies, plus 3 more for later
1 small jar maraschino cherries (~25 cherries)

Directions:
1. Cover your 9X13 pan with foil and spray it with cooking spray. Set aside.
2. Break up 6 oreo cookies in a bowl. Set aside.
3. Slice the cherries in half and blot them with a paper towel, and put them in a bowl. Set aside.
4. Preheat oven to 350.
5. Mix flour, cocoa and salt in a medium sized bowl. Set aside.
6. Melt butter in a medium sized sauce pan.
7. When melted, pour it into a large bowl and mix in the sugar, eggs and peppermint extract.
8. Add flour, cocoa and salt mixture to buttery mixture, whisk together, then mix in cookie pieces and cherries. Pour and spread into pan with a spatula.
9. Break up 3 more cookies and sprinkle evenly over the top.
10. Put in oven and bake for 32-35 minutes, until brownies are set in the middle but not overbaked.
11. Let cool completely, slice into squares and serve.