Angelic Birthday Cake

This recipe comes with three parts - the sweet, summer strawberry jam, the lightly salty old fashioned frosting, and, of course, the angel food cake. Most at home bakers will shudder at the suggestion of tackling an angel food cake. I, however, was completely in ignorant bliss when I began my journey. 
This weekend was the MassDash - a relay across Massachusetts where competitors raise money for Dana-Farber cancer research. It's a fantastic journey that combines of sleep deprivation, physical maximums and little bit of insanity. It attracts the best sort of people. Like my sister and her four college friends, home on friday night to load up on carbs and salads. It also happened to be a birthday! So my sister contacted us, saying prepare your ovens and house for an invasion. She suggested a light summery cake, and the first thing that came to mind was a light fluffy angel food cake, with vanilla buttercream frosting and a sweet-tart burst of jam in the middle. 
This was truly a recipe of trial and error. My initial vision was a normal looking cake, however I was soon to find at that the whipped egg whites in angel food need the bundt pan shape to climb. I also learned that it's pretty darn important to crack your own whites. It's possible to buy pre-separated whites from a store, but when I tried that, the cake was pretty unhappy with me (as I'm sure the crowd I served it to would have been). So, while it's rumored that those whites may work, I recommend just cracking ten bad boys at home.

Angel Food Cake 
(adapted from Betty Crocker Cookbook) 

Oven Temp: 375 F
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Bake and Cool Time: 35 minutes and 2 hours
Ready-In: 3 1/2 hours

1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cake flour
10 egg whites (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 cup sugar
1 tbls vanilla
pinch of salt

Only 6 ingredients? Not so intimidating so far, right? You're halfway there!

Move your oven rack to the lowest position and preheat that oven to 375 F.
Mix together the powdered sugar and the cake flour. Set aside.

In a large bowl (this is the bowl everything will come together in) beat those egg whites and cream of tartar until foamy. This is a great time to pull out that electric mixer and sit back while technology does the work. Slowly beat in granulated sugar - 1/4 cup at a time. On the fourth and final addition, also stir in the vanilla and add a dash of salt. Beat until stiff and glossy.

 If you pull out the beaters, the mixture should stay in that mountain formation without moving. You really want to make sure that you don't underbeat them.
Carefully fold in the flour/sugar mixture 1/4 cup at a time. Push the batter into an ungreased 10x4 inch tube pan. Gentle cut through the batter with a knife to pop and large bubbles.

Bake for 30-35 minutes until the cracks on top don't look like the are moist anymore and the top springs back when gently prodded.

 Remove from oven and immediately flip over for cooling. You want the cake to start loosening it's hold on the pan, hence the flipping upside down. Let sit, upside down, for about 2 hours, until it feels pretty darn cool.

Slide a knife around the edge when ready to release. It may take a little poking and prodding to release, but it will come. Drizzle with glaze, or frost, as you see fit.
I sliced mine in half and dabbled on a layer of homemade strawberry jam (super easy to make!).

And then coated in the greatest old fashioned buttercream frosting.

 

As the birthday girl was turning 22 and is a fan of T-Swift, I added on some poignant lyrics and 23 candles to call it a night.

Crepe Cake

Layers of crepes, excellent custard, topped with ganache

Last weekend home with the sis! Ever since Smitten Kitchen's cookbook came out, she and I have been planning on making this amazing crepe cake together. It's quite a recipe to tackle - first there's the staggering pressure of making crepes, coupled with hazelnut custard, candied hazelnuts and chocolate ganache. This recipe was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. My sister and I both tend to be control freaks in the kitchen. I love to bake with friends, but usually for me that means having them sit in the kitchen and watch me while I bustle around, occasionally allowing them to stir something. Luckily, this recipe seems as though it was designed with two people in mind. There are certainly tricky parts where it helps to have an extra set of hands. 


Cook Time: 30 minute
Prep Time: 2 hours, 30 minutes
Cool Time: 1 hour
Ready-In: 4+ hours (Yep...labor intensive and time consuming)
This is really a recipe for those looking for a cooking adventure! Go in with a good attitude.

Ingredients:
So, you'll be needing a solid crepe recipe - enough to make about 20 crepes. You will want chocolate ganache and a creamy custard for filling.

Here's the crepe recipe that we used:
9 tbls browned butter
2 cups milk
1/3 cup cream
6 large eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
butter for the frying pan

For the custardy filling:
1 1/3 chopped hazelnuts
1 cup confectioner's sugar
2 tsps hazelnut liqueur (like Frangelico)
3 1/3 cup whole milk
7 tbls sugar
5 large egg yolks
 5 tbls cornstarch

Chocolate Ganache Drape
6 ounces semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tbls Frangelico

Begin by making your crepes. They need to chill for at least an hour (although you can make yourself busy in this time preparing the other things) or up to two days.
You want to have browned butter -to do so, melt the butter in a small sauce pan over medium heat. The butter will begin to foam up and bubble and eventually turn to gold, then brown. Stir frequently. As soon as it begins to brown, remove from heat - it will go from brown to burnt alarmingly fast.

This is a great example of browned butter. Yummy yummy.

 Alright. Done. Let the butter cool until it is lukewarm before proceeding.
Get to ready to whisk your arms off - this recipe wants well-blended ingredients.
In a large bowl combine crepe milk, eggs, flour, sugar and 6 (ONLY 6) tablespoons of the browned butter. You'll need the other three later on. Whisk until perfectly smooth. I even went through the trouble of straining out flour clumps. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, up to two days.

In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350. Spread out your hazelnuts on a baking sheet and toast them for 10-12 minutes. You want them to have a little color, but not be burnt. Let those guys cool then start the pastry cream. In a food processor grind together one cup of hazelnuts, confectioner's sugar, and hazelnut liqueur. First it will become powdery (duh), then it will start to clump together as you release the hazelnut oil. You want your mixture to be finely clumpy.

In a saucepan combine this nutty paste with the whole milk and sugar on medium-high heat. Bring it to a simmer, stirring gently.

 In a medium bowl (this is the part where it's handy to have a sous chef) beat together the egg yolks with the cornstarch to make this crazy yellow glunk.

When the milk is ready, gently pour small spoonfuls of the hot milk into the egg yolk, whisking constantly so nothing cooks itself prematurely. Continuing adding milk until the yolks are quite warm. Now, pour the egg yolk mixture into the hot milk mixture (reverse direction of what you were just doing). Return the milk to the stove, whisking constantly as  you bring to to a boil. Boil for two minutes, then remove from heat. You'll notice that it thickens into a light pudding consistency. Stir in the other three tablespoons of browned butter from the crepes. Transfer to a clean bowl  and put in the fridge to help cool fast. You need it to be completely cooled before you finish the cake - quicken this step by placing in a half bowl of ice water. It will take several hours. Pat a piece of plastic wrap over the top so no film forms.

IN THE OTHER MEANTIME....you  can start making crepes when they've sat long enough! It's gonna take a while unless you have multiple chefs on it (I just fried for about 30 minutes to make sure our crepes were consistent). Use a 9-inch frying pan. My strategy (although you should certainly adapt your own) was to keep the burner on medium heat. I re-buttered every two crepes. Usually your first one or two won't be that swell, but you'll find your stride and be turning out beautiful crepes in no time.
Anyways...medium heat, well-buttered pan. Pour 1/4 cup batter into one half of the pan, rotating the pan quickly to coat it evenly. Cook on one side until golden-brown (about 2 minutes), then flip to the other for 20 seconds. In order to flip, I'd slide a spatula under, making sure it wasn't going to stick anywhere, then grabbed a well-cooked edge, pulling up gently to slide my fingers under (you want to do this quickly so you don't feel the heat), then flipped it over. Don't worry too much about where it lands, or if it's folded, as it's super easy to rearrange it once it's down. Once done, place on a plate with a layer of paper towels - I put a new paper towel layer on every 4 crepes.

With the crepes all done and the creme chilling in the fridge, you may have time to take a break and re-coop a little! I took the time to clean the dishes and cuddle my favorite hedgehog.
Once the creme custard is cool, you can begin the final stage (almost)! Set aside the nicest looking crepe for the top. Choose a nice thick and whole crepe for the bottom layer.

Alternate one crepe with 1/4 cup custard until you run out of custard.  Place the top crepe on top.

Now! Make the ganache! Easy peasy, we've done this a thousand times.
Chop chocolate finely and place in a heat-proof bowl.

Heat cream and liqueur in a small saucepan and pour over the chocolate. Let sit for a few minutes, then stir until all the chunks are gone - if needed you can microwave for about 20 seconds at a time until smooth.

 
Pour smoothly over the top of the cake and spread out gluttonously.
 

Let chill in the fridge until ready to be eaten.

 

Red Velvet Mini-Cakes with Sugared Pansies and White Chocolate Ganache

Gosh, I can't even tell you how hectic this week has been, or how hectic next week will be. I'm producing a student production at my high school and opening night is this Thursday. To say I've been busy would be an incredible understatement, but gosh, it is the best kind of busy. It's all the little things that are my guilty pleasure - organizing mundane things, keeping track of minute details, talking to businesses like I'm some kind of important person who deserves their time and money... All the things that attract me to the business world. I've been enjoying it. I like the stress. But honestly, when Saturday rolled around and it was time for me to resume my normal, low-key life, gosh was I the happiest little munchkin. I sat down thinking of something new to bake, and my mind raced with ideas! Baking has always been my stress relief and I suppose THIS was my body's way of telling me it was about time. 

Spoiler! Today's recipe will produce this.

I wanted to do something cute, a little spin-off of an old classic. As a cupcake fanatic, I decided they would be my base. I wanted to use the cupcake tins to make flat-topped cupcakes without wrappers so they looked  like miniature cakes and treat them like mini-cakes rather than just frost the top like cupcakes. Using red velvet seemed like a good choice, because red velvet is notorious for being denser than most cakes, which seemed like a good base for something without a cupcake wrapper.


Oven Temp: 350 F
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Bake Time: 20 minutes
Decorating Time: 15 miuntes
Ready-In: 1 hour

1 1/4 cup sifted cake flour  

pinch of salt

2 tbls cocoa powder

1/4 cup butter, at room temp

3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg at room temp

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 milk with 1 tsp lemon juice)

1 tablespoons liquid red food coloring

1/2 tsp white distilled vinegar

1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 F and place rack in center of oven. Carefully butter each cupcake pocket in a cupcake tin. Flour the butter pockets and set aside.

 In a mixing bowl sift together the flour, salt, and cocoa powder. Set aside.

 

Beat the butter until smooth and soft. Add the sugar and mix until fluffy. Add the egg beating well after each addition, then mix in the vanilla and beat until combined.

I always find it rather cumbersome to go out and buy buttermilk, so I usually just make it myself by mixing a teaspoon of lemon juice into 1/2 of milk. 

It has to sit for 5 minutes before use. When ready, whisk the red food dye into the buttermilk. 

Slowly, alternately, add the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture.

In a separate cup or bowl, combine the vinegar and baking soda. Allow the mixture to bubble to its heart's content and then quickly fold gently into batter.

Working quickly, divide the batter evenly between the twelve muffin cups. As this is a dense recipe, make sure to smooth the tops off.  

 Bake in the preheated oven for approximately 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Let the cakes cool completely. This will give them enough time to shrink down so they should be easy to pop out. Before you proceed to frosting/decorating them, they need to me completely cooled so the frosting will stick better.

As the cakes were baking, I prepared my sugared pansies. These are very pretty and very easy to do. Gently wash your flowers (cut as close as possible to the bud) by dipping them in cool water and blotting them dry. 

Gently drying

Next, whisk an egg white until gently bubbly, with no clumps. Delicately paint the flowers with a q-tip or a small paintbrush. Coat in superfine sugar. Place on wax paper to dry.

 

While the cakes are cooling, begin making the frosting. I wanted to pair them with a white chocolate ganache, because I wanted the smooth look of a fondant on a cake. The traditional choice, of course, would be a cream cheese frosting.

Here's a helpful ganache how-to that I found the first time I made ganache.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBZ3z4n7Fhc

Ganache is really easy. It's just equal parts cream and chocolate.
Start by warming the cream until it's just boiling. Pour over the chocolate chips. Allow to sit for several minutes. Slowly begin stirring to incorporate the chocolate into the cream. It will take several minutes for them to mix together. You know it's mixed when the chocolate is entirely melted and small air bubbles are visible. You don't want to over mix though!
If the cream isn't warm enough for everything to melt, either microwave briefly, or make a double boiler. Allow to sit overnight. 

Allow to cool for a few minutes to thicken up. I found that when melted, the white chocolate was semi-transparent, but I didn't want to pour it over the cakes until it started to looking pretty white. If you pour when it's too warm, it will just glide off. I chose my least appealing cake to be my experimental one.  

As the ganache is cooling, decorate with anything you want to have held in place. 

 

Lots of little things to go here and there, but the finished project is quite pretty!

 

Luxurious Low(er)-Fat Cheese Cake

 Cheesecake. A romantic, tantalizing dessert. I remember the time I ate at Cheesecake Factory. I died of happiness. Unfortunately I had a State Cross Country meet the next morning so they had to revive me. But it was amazing. Surprisingly I didn't eat any cheesecake, so I can't praise their work. But if it was half as good as the rest of the food, man oh man....

Well, I've never made cheesecake. I love cheesecake but I know, even as someone who never counts calories, that this dish can destroy a diet. It just so happened that one of the best recipes I found (from foodnetwork) was low fat. I was intrigued. I couldn't believe you could get anywhere close to that dream taste while subbing the ingredients....

Well. Turns out you can! Ta-Da!

Bake Temp: 325

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Bake Time: 50 minutes

Cool/Sit Time: 3 hours

Ready-In: 4 hours

  

For Crust

12 whole sheets graham crackers
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
3 tablespoons water
2 tablespoon melted unsalted butter

For Filling

3 ounces semisweet chocolate
24 ounces 1 percent cottage cheese
8 ounces 1/3 less fat cream cheese, at room temperature
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 egg
2 egg whites
2 tsps vaniller

Begin with your crust. To make a nice cheese cake you're going to want a very special kind of pan. It's got this fancy old spring release thing on the side, so the wall comes off and your cheesecake will just appear when ready.

 Look how nice and fancy that is! I'd really recommend one if you want to make a respectable cheesecake.

So. For the crust. Begin by heating your oven to 325. Gosh, that's low, you might say. Well, the lower the better. Longer bake time means a more moist filling. Anyways,  blend your graham crackers until they resemble nothing less than a powdery fairy dust.

Then mash in the other three crust ingredients. Butter the sides of your pan. Push the crumble into the bottom evenly.

 Place in the fridge to harden and cool. In the meantime make the filling. The crust needs at least 15 minutes to sit, so keep that in the back of your mind.
This is real simple. I promise. Take out your biggest blender (the magic bullet ain't gonna cut it here). Blend the bejeezus out of the cottage cheese. You want the smoothest, silkiest puree you can get.  Now blend in the cream cheese, sugar, cocoa powder and flour. Prepare your egg white. Dump in and blend until smoooooooooooth.

When the crust is ready, having chilled for at least 15 minutes, pour filling into crust evenly.

 

Microwave the semi-sweet chocolate until melted. Gently pour over the top of the cake. I made a straight line, then ran a toothpick through it to make my design.

 Fill a casserole dish 1/2 way with water, put on lower shelf. This will serve to keep your cake nice and moisturized through the baking.
 

 Bake at 325 for 45-55 minutes. Be VERY mindful not to over bake. It will continue baking once it has been removed from the oven, so you want the center to still be jiggly. After 45-55 minutes, with a center still jiggly, turn off oven but LEAVE THE CAKE INSIDE! YEAH. For one hour. NOW you can remove it. Run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen everything up. Let sit for 2 hours, then put in fridge until desired munching time.

 Decorate as you please, I recommend strawberries and raspberries!

Be careful of munching papa's.

Petit Fours

I'll be honest, I had no clue what to make today. I'd been thinking about it all week. Usually I have classmates giving recommendations, but this week is break, so anything I make today won't be spreadable to my classmates. With Sunday fast approaching, I did what I always do in this circumstance - I prayed to the Great Baking Master. As I drifted off into a restless sleep, images of Petit Fours danced through my head.

And thus, I woke up with the idea to make an easy (or as easy as they come) petit four recipe. When I presented the vision to my father, who has a decent hand on French, he asked  what petit four means . I googled it and apparently means "tiny oven". Why? Because they were originally made as ovens cooled down and bakers did not want to lose any money, so they would bake things like petit fours. Additionally, a traditional petit four has four layers. 
Enough with the history lesson. Anyways. Many people figure these adorable desserts are too time consuming - but they don't have to be! Most people start with a traditional pound cake, but if you begin with a sheet cake, life is much easier. 
So, here's my adaptation of traditional mini ovens.

For the sheet cake:
3/4 cups butter, softened 
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs, room temp
1 teaspoons vanilla extract  
1 teaspoons instant coffee granules dissolved in 1/4 cup hot water 
1/2 cup buttermilk 
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 
1/4 teaspoon baking powder 

For the icing:
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tsps corn syrup
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 ounces chocolate (if you want chocolate icing...) 


Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Grease and flour a 10 inch Bundt pan. Mix together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. 

Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the dissolved coffee and buttermilk.

Pour batter into prepared pan. 
Bake in the preheated oven for 60 to 70 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 

It took me a minute to realize it reminds me of Mars. Let's take a closer look.

Yup, that's Mars.

 Let cool in pan for 20 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

Now it's time for jam! You can use whatever filling you want, but I found this great jar of homemade blackberry jam in my fridge. My brother made it over the summer with his girlfriend. And boy, is it delicious. Plus, what doesn't go good with chocolate? Spread a layer evenly over the surface of the sheet cake.

Once it is all cooled, cut the cake into 3/4 to 1 inch squares. 

Match squares up together,  making two or three layered cakes. If they are two layered, put the jam sides facing each other. If it's three, put two jam sides together, and the third facing into the sandwich, so no jam faces are exposed.

Cake Pops!

And now time to coat! I decided to use up some extra candy melts that I had from making cake pops on Valentine's day. Yum! I just stirred in two tablespoons of canola oil for every cup of candy melts, to make it less viscous. Pinch the top and bottom and dip each of the four sides into melt. Put in a wiring cooling rack over a making sheet for dripping and paint on the top layer. 

Valentine Candy Melts

 Once I ran out, I made a half batch of frosting. Just mix together all the ingredients until it is all smooth. And just as before, gently dip in each side. To make them extra cute, I used some left over fondant and curled together tiny roses.

So much more simple than the traditional recipes, but quick and easy and very cute.