Cake # 39 Gooey Orange Chocolate Chip Cake

What a fantastic day to make a warm gooey cake. With all of this rain we have been getting lately, a cake that is served warm, with melted chocolate on top is not a bad way to begin your day. And, to top it all off, I got to bake this cake with my friend, Marcy. We started off the day having lunch at Chili's had a margarita and then came home to commence the baking. Did you know that Chili's gives you a free bag of chips when you leave? It is awesome! Speaking of awesome, after we made the cake Ted and myself went to his family reunion where some distant relation of a distant relation had named their child "Awesome". And that's all I have to say about that (as Forrest would say). Anyway, this was an incredibly easy cake to make, but grating the orange rind was time consuming and left Marcy grossed out feeling the sponginess of a orange without its rind. The rest of the cake called for butter, flour, sugar, eggs, vanilla, chocolate chips, and orange juice. Marcy said the cake tasted like a creamsicle with chocolate sauce, Ted said "hhmrrm hmrmm." The only real thing I would change is that I would not have followed directions and mixed the chocolate chips in the batter instead of putting them on top- that way they would have infused better into the whole cake. Nonetheless, I was told the cake was again "awesome".

Take a look at the book's cake:

And my cake:

By the way- later Ted and I went and got our first tattoos. So today was certainly memorable! Can you figure out whose is whose?

Until next time.

Cake # 38 Lemon Surprise Cake

I have to do what???? And put the mixture where???? These were the first thoughts that popped into my head as I read this week’s recipe. The Lemon Surprise Cakes that I am making this week asked me to first whip egg whites into a frothy mixture, fold into the cake batter, pour into ramekins, and then place the individual ramekins into a roasting pan with water in the bottom.  This is not exactly standard operating procedure for the cake of the week blog and it definitely had me quite nervous for the outcome of this week’s creation. Luckily, despite a minor mishap involving Ted overfilling the roasting pan and flooding two of the ramekins (which required some quick baster-work on my part to drop the water level), everything has turned out okay. More importantly, I got the opportunity to go out and buy some really rad purple ramekins, which is always a good thing!

The Lemon Surprise Cakes called for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, lemon rind, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and milk, as well as the aforementioned ramekins and roasting pan.

Here is our picture:

  

And here is the real picture from the book:

Feel free to stop by and try one of the cakes, as my husband will not be home…. AAAAGGGGAAAIINN!!! He is going out with boys as opposed to staying in with his lovely wife, and will consequently miss out on the yummy lemon cakes. Oh well! Check in next week to see what’s up in my kitchen.

Cake # 37 Strawberry Sponge Layer Cake

MASCARPONE! That is what I thought when I was buying the ingredients to make this cake. Since I am not a huge cake fan, but I am a huge cheese fan, I was super excited for this cake. Was being the key word. Turns out Mascarpone is disgusting! It is an Italian sweet cream cheese, except it isn't sweet at all and certainly did not taste like any other type of cheese I have had. But, add some strawberries and powdered sugar and mix it all together - the bitter aftertaste is somewhat hidden. Ted, Shakespeare, and Evie on the other hand liked the taste of the cheese- so clearly there must be something wrong with me.

Hating things seem to be my biggest problem right now. I hate all of the cracks, holes, scratches, dents, and chips that invade every item in every corner of my house.


I hate that I feel like my life will never progress- that there is no forward movement in being a teacher both monetarily and in position.


Most of all I hate that I am cleaning out my daughter's clothes again, and getting rid all of the 12-18month clothing, shoes, socks, hats, hair bands, and moving on to the 24month-2T clothing. I mean she is only 18 months this Monday! When did she stop becoming a baby?


Here is another hate- I hate reading blogs in which all they do is wine- so enough already.


So instead, while Ted and Evie are eating the strawberry sponge cake after lunch today (and Shakespeare if Ted is generous)

Here is my cake:

Here is the book's:

I will be cleaning out Evalyn's clothes and be thinking of all of the wonderful things that are to come- what she will be when she grows up, the first time she can read a book on her own, the first time she eats a crab, and what this little angel is going to look like and become.


Until next week.

Cake # 36 Jelly Cupcakes

If I had to choose one word that best describes a baked good that I detest (which is quite difficult considering my love of anything sweet), that word would have to be Jelly. Jelly Roll, Jelly Donut, Jelly Turnover: It all sounds gross to me. In the world of Laura Childs, Jelly deserves only to be sandwiched between two pieces of bread with a thick smattering of chunky peanut butter.  So when I read this week’s cake-a-week recipe, I was horrified to see that I would be making Jelly Cupcakes. My dear readers, I can assure you that I have not been this distressed since the Milli Vanilli debacle of ’92 and I had no intention of enjoying this week’s creation.

But then I tried one of my Jelly Cupcakes and it turns out that they are quite good – not earth shattering good like Wockenfuss jelly beans or dark chocolate peanut chews, but you know tasty. It does help my jelly-loathing conscience that the cupcakes are not jelly filled, but instead topped with just a small dab of strawberry jelly, but nonetheless, I liked a jelly baked-good. Between this, the earthquake, the hurricane, and the Orioles slight winning streak, we may all need to start listening for Gabriel’s trumpet because I do believe that the apocalypse just might be occurring.

This week’s recipe called for flour, baking powder, cornstarch, vanilla, eggs, sugar, butter, and jelly, and then asked for a light dusting of powdered sugar when the cupcakes were complete. 

Here is my creation:

 And the book's picture:

Check in next week to see what awesome cake is in the works. Have a safe labor day!