Cake # 57 Mocha Deserts

This week’s blog is coming to you a day late because last night, directly after finishing the cake and buying new glasses (thank the lord Jesus for vision insurance) Ted and I went to Toby’s Dinner Theater in Columbia to see the King and I. These were the tickets Ted gave me for our anniversary. The food was good, the show was equally good, and we had the added entertainment of watch the staff try to quietly scramble around the actors to get to a patron directly across from us who had fainted in their chair. Not to worry, the patron was okay and the show went on (a must in theater from what I am told)!

This week’s cake called for two of the best ingredients that can ever go into a cake … chocolate cake, and melted chocolate topping. A devastatingly easy cake to make, these Mocha Desserts called for flour, baking powder, unsweetened cocoa, butter, eggs, light brown sugar, little bars of semi-sweet chocolate, and homemade coffee extract. It seems weird to me that no store anywhere in the Harford county are carries coffee extract, but after driving around the county on numerous occasions over the past few weeks, I can attest to the fact that this said extract apparently is a figment of my recipe book’s imagination. Luckily, the extract is so easy to make, that buying seems silly anyway. Basically you just reduce down extra-super strength-bold-strong coffee by boiling it until it is thick goo. The topping called for a cup of light cream, more coffee extract, and melted semisweet chocolate, all gently melted down in a saucepan.

Here are my cakes:

Here is the book's picture

Until next week's delicious creation!!

Cake # 56 Edgewood RED and WHITE Checkerboard Cake

A later post is better than no post at all and in addition to posting on a Monday, I also spent this weekend creating a cake and cupcakes for the EHS bake- off. My cake ended up winning third place! Monday and Tuesday of this week are in-service days for Harford County, and at last year's in-service we had a Chili cook-off and this year we decided to have round two of the Chili cook-off and add a bake-off. Ted competed in the Chili cook-off and made his own special Tiwana Chili with Tequelia, Lime juice, beer, bacon, beef, cumin, onion powder, peppers, red pepper, black pepper, salt, and onions. We all ate a practice round of Ted's chili for the Ravens game on Sunday - and for all the Baltimore fans out there - as Forrest Gump would say: "That's all I have to say about that."

My cake proved to be more disastrous (insert shock here) because I had attempted to do a marbled red and white fondant over the checkerboard three layer cake. I have made some really nice fondant cakes before, but never over a cake this high. Problem one: in attempting to make the bottom not ripple, I cracked the top of the cake. Problem two: Once fondant is cracked it's whacked. So, instead I opted for a traditional homemade butter-cream icing and had to ditch the fantastic marbled swirled fondant icing I had dyed. Note to self- take a class on fondant icing so it looks pretty for large cakes too! The cake was a checkerboard pattern (thanks to Ted's mom I was able to make it because I do not have the proper tools to make a checkerboard cake) of red velvet and a white cake- our EHS colors. The cake consisted of the standards: flour, sugar, baking soda, eggs, vanilla extract, and vegetable oil. It also had some twists to the cake as I choose to create a southern style recipe: cocoa powder, salt, buttermilk, and vinegar. Obviously, being red velvet cake, I added 2 table spoons of red food dye. The white cake consisted of butter, sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, egg whites, milk, and vanilla extract.

Here is my cake:

Because I had left over cake batter, and I never like to make things easy for myself, I also decided to make cupcakes as well. The cupcakes were white cake or red velvet cake with butter-cream icing, chocolate graham cracker "chalkboards" with white icing, a sugared school related candy, and a piece of chalk- made out of a cut - in - half white good - n- plenty. They were actually a lot of fun to decorate - though they did not receive any placing in the contest like my cake did.

Here were my cupcakes:  

Next week I will go back to the cakes in my cake-book. So for now, you only get the pictures of my cakes and my word that they tasted as good as they looked. But, hey, third place out of top five isn't too shabby!

Cake # 55 Individual Golden Raisin Syrup Sponge Cakes

January 14th 2012 and six years of marriage to the one and only Theodore Childs. As tradition on our anniversaries we go to The Melting Pot for dinner. So I knew whatever cake I was going to make had to be light and healthy because the gluttony we were about to put our bodies through was (as my students like to say) epic.

And it was epic! The Big Feast four course fondue meal was out of this world. Starting with a Wisconsin three cheese blend with apples, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli,  pumpernickel, white, and wheat bread dippers. Next we moved on to salads where I got the House salad (which has eggs and an amazing peppercorn ranch dressing) and Ted got the Caesar salad that has a  slightly louder anchovy taste than most I have eaten. Course three, and possibly Ted's favorite course, the meat. Because the theme of the month at Melting Pot is All American the meats were pretty amazing, Old Bay Shrimp, New York Strip Steak, Buffalo Chicken, and some kind of pork and some kind of ravioli. Since I do not like pork or ravioli, I couldn't tell you how they were prepared... Ted ate all of them himself. While the steak was amazing, my favorite part of course three is the potatoes and The Melting Pot's heavenly goddess dressing, a mixture of chives and sour cream and cream cheese and who knows what else. Finally on to my favorite part of the night, the chocolate. We opted for the Big Night Out special which was a play on PB & J- chocolate, peanut butter, and a puree of strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries - definitely not my favorite chocolate that I have had there, but it is melted chocolate, you can't really go wrong. However, for the first time, Ted and I couldn't finish all of the dessert- we actually left half a cheese cake and some strawberries -- and I thought being pregnant I would be able to stuff my face like no other! The night ended with Ted giving me his present- a dinner and a show (The King and I) at Toby's and a box of chocolate covered strawberries that The Melting Pot gave us for free for our anniversary. It was a wonderful night of eating and laughing and spending time remembering all of the things we have been through together and all of the things we wish for our future. But we still cannot decide on a name for the new child!

Evalyn was being watched by my sister while we were eating, and I think both had a great time -- she did not want to leave! She had a princess cake to eat!

The cake itself we did not actually get time to eat until this morning and that was because we were too afraid to spoil our stomachs for our dinner, so the family had it for breakfast this morning. It was a perfect size cake for breakfast- an upside down muffin drenched in syrup and raisins. The cake was put together with butter, dark corn syrup, whole wheat flour, regular flour, vanilla, baking powder, allspice, sugar, eggs, and raisins. It tasted like a spongy raisin cookie with syrup on it- pretty tasty.


Here is the book's picture:

And here is my cake:

Until next week!

Cake #54 Coffee Fudge Cupcakes

In an effort to make Laura’s weekend a little easier, I decided to offer to make this week’s cake, a little earlier than usual though. As I will be away on Saturday in Atlantic City, a gift from Laura, she will be at home on cake baking day, alone with Evie. I don’t want to imply that Evie is not always a big help in the kitchen when it comes to getting stuff done, but  Evie is not always a big help in the kitchen when it comes to getting stuff done. She is the cutest of distractions that has a habit of grabbing “eggies” from the refrigerator and dropping them on the ground for fun and attempting to steal cooking utensils from the “baby-proof” drawers (ha) and run around the house with them. I have no doubt that the two will have a great Saturday together, but baking the cake of the week just seemed to be a silly addition to a hectic day. Furthermore, I love my wife and just wanted to help.

This week’s cakes are called Coffee Fudge Cupcakes, and they were actually a blast to make. As coffee extract is not an ingredient found on regular store shelves, I got to make my own. I started by brewing a small, but overly strong pot of coffee, and then boiled and simmered the result for thirty minutes to reduce it down to a coffee flavored extract. This ingredient was the key for the whole recipe. The rest of the cupcake was standard, calling for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, and milk. The frosting was supposed to be home-made, but being myself, I naturally screwed it up, making quite properly the flavoring for the icing (butter, coffee extract, milk, brown sugar) by boiling the ingredients on the stove to make a smooth mixture, but then screwed up by attempting to beat this mixture into powdered sugar, instead of beating the sugar slowly into the mixture. Instead of a frosting, I was left with a crumbly coffee flavored mess. Luckily, Laura came in and pointed out that the crumbles could still make a great topping. She quickly got some store-bought butter cream icing from the cabinet, piped it onto the cupcakes, and then sprinkled the powder on top. As a finishing touch, a dark chocolate covered coffee bean was added on top!

Mine and Laura's cake:

The book's cake:

Check in next week to see what creative pastry is in the oven. Saturday will be our sixth anniversary, so whatever we do will be together! 

Cake #53 Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake

Today is the last day of 2011, and as I sat down to bake my cake for today, I was struck by a quite marvelous thought; as I watch the last hours of the year pass by, this will be the first complete year Evie has ever seen. 2010 was nice for her, but she missed January and February due to her March birth, so this will be the first “New Year” that is so special for her. It was a year of many firsts: first steps, first friends, first birthday, first younger sibling, first real words, first Christmas (that she was old enough to understand), and even first watched full-movie (Toy Story – watched this morning actually).  

It is so exciting to think that Evie has another full year of activities just on the horizon, and we have another bundle of joy coming in just a short six months or so! And yet, still another 12 hours or so away from 2012, and the Childs’ family Dance Card is already filling up. We will be going down to Ted’s Mom’s house for New Year’s tonight, and we will be there again tomorrow to watch the Raven’s game and celebrate Ted’s birthday a day early. Next weekend Ted is going to Atlantic City with some friends from school, the following weekend Ted and I will celebrate our 6^th anniversary and then will go to the Capitals game with Katie, Ron, and Ted’s cousins Donny and Chris (what an awesome Christmas gift from Donny and Chris by the way!), and finally we will be planning both Evie’s second birthday in March, as well as getting her new room ready (which is her birthday present – all decorated in Little Mermaid).

And yet, with all that in the future, we still have the cakes. This week’s cake was a Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake, a delicious and yet difficult cake. The cake itself was easy, calling for flour, baking powder, butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, and rind of lemon. The caramel apple toping however, which went (as the title suggests), on the bottom of the pan presented a challenge, as butter, sugar, and water had to boiled in a pan to make a caramel-like substance to coat the apples on the bottom of the cake. The caramel never quite firmed the way I wanted and therefore (I felt) that the apple coating did not look as I wanted. I was however assured by Ted after he tried a piece that there was no negative impact on taste whatsoever! 

The Book's Cake:

 My Cake:

We’re off to New Years, as soon as we can get Evie away from her new art easel…. Happy 2012!

Cake #52 Christmas Mulled Sponge Loaf

'Twas the day before Christmas and all through the house, "The kitchen smells like port wine and cinnamon," said my spouse." Today's cake is in preparation for Christmas tomorrow. I am bringing the cake to my sister's house for after dinner -- hopefully all will enjoy! This cake was really fun to make because I got to make my own reduction of powdered sugar, port wine, and one piece of star anise. The decorations on top of the cake were 10 fresh cranberries, 10 fresh bay leaves, 1 egg white, and superfine sugar. The rest of the cake was also different from most of the other cakes I have made, containing the traditional flour, butter, baking powder, eggs, vanilla, and light brown sugar; it also was made with apple pie spice, a grated rind of an orange, and orange juice.

The cake tastes like licorice (probably from the star anise in the reduction), wine, and cinnamon- even though there isn't any cinnamon in the cake!  I love this cake even more so because Evalyn helped with sugaring the bay leaves and the cranberries . . . now it may not look as good as the professional cake picture (see below) but this one is so much more special because Evie got to make part of it (see mine).

Book's picture: 

My cake . . .with Evalyn's sugaring technique!

The fact that Evalyn was able to help me make part of this cake, and asks me "Mom you okay?" when I cough, or "Mommy you help?" when she needs me to fix something astounds me. How can this not-even-two-year-old girl already be such a young lady? She doesn't realize what tomorrow means, but she does know how to say "ho, ho,ho" and she has gotten some presents from Ted's side of the family (which she loved) so she is getting some practicing at opening them.

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas tomorrow morning, - but a not a Happy New Year yet . . . because I will have another cake to bake for that!

Cake # 51 Christmas Cupcakes

 What do you get with strep throat on a Friday? (awkward silent pause) Saturday night fever!

So, I never really was a joke teller -- but I do like to try. Anyway, strep throat took over my immune system this week as I was trying to prepare for our annual Christmas Party. By Saturday, I was doing my best to make the Joan Rivers-like rasp in my voice sound sexy-- it didn't work.

Anyway, this week I decided to pull out the fondant and the food coloring again and make some Christmas Cupcakes for a Christmas party that Ted and I had on Saturday. These cupcakes were essentially a spice cake made with flour, baking powder, cinnamon, butter, light brown sugar, eggs, almond extract, ground almonds, and a little bit of sherry to top it off for the holidays. They were extremely tasty, but i made too many of them, so for some I followed the recipe and created holly-ed fondant icing, and for others I just made a traditional butter cream.

Here is the book's picture:

 And here are my cupcakes in a festive Christmas Tree cupcake holder:

Next week I am making a Christmas Mulled Sponge Loaf -- which I believe is just a sponge cake drowned in some sort of red wine . . . I wonder being pregnant am I allowed to have a bite?

Sigh- Until then.