Chocolate Chocolate Cake

“All I want is chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and vanilla ice cream!!!”

yada yada yada. This is what I’ve been hearing from my mother since her birthday on October 17th.

And unfortunately, I have not had time to make one! This is due to the fact that I have had a regatta every single weekend in October. I haven’t had a second to breath (or blog)!

Luckily, things are now calming down as the fall season is coming to a close. Unfortunately, that means winter season is beginning…but that’s getting ahead of myself! Today, I had time to make my mom a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. The best part is, is that this cake is stupid easy to make. You literally throw all the ingredients in a bowl, bake it, and boom it’s done. This cake is extremely moist; it soaks in all of the frosting and ice cream. It’s the perfect cake for birthdays or dinner parties because it tastes complicated, but it’s so simple!

Cake recipe from Hershey’s Chocolate Cookbook

Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup cocoa
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup veggie oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup boiling water

Directions!

Preheat oven to 350 F. Grase and flour two 9 inch round baking pans.

Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in LARGE bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil, and vanilla. Beat on medium speed of mixer for about 2 minutes. Stir in the boiling water. The batter will be really thin, but don’t worry! It’s supposed to be like that. Pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans.

Bake 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick/knife inserted into the centers comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in pans, then flip onto wire racks. COOL COMPLETELY BEFORE FROSTING.

Chocolate buttercream frosting- from Magnolia’s Bakery (and found on Baking Up Chaos blog- link below!)

Ingredients:

•  1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
•  2 tablespoons milk
• 9 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted and cooled to room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, more or less. Depends on how thick/sweet you want your frosting

Directions-

First, melt the chocolate by assembling a double boiler. Heat on low until chocolate is smooth and creamy; about 8 minutes. Keep an eye on it so the chocolate doesn’t burn! In a large bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the milk, beat until well incorporated. Add the chocolate (MAKE SURE IT IS ROOM TEMPERATURE. Otherwise it will melt the butter and you will have chocolate buttercream soup!), mix until chocolate is evenly distributed. Add vanilla extract and beat. Then, add the confectioners sugar- GRADUALLY. I used about 2 cups, but it honestly varies with desired consistency. Once all of the sugar is mixed in, assemble the cake and add vanilla ice cream and you have yourself dinner for the next three days!

Here’s the link to “Baking Up Chaos”

http://bakingupchaos.blogspot.com/2008/11/magnolia-bakerys-chocolate-buttercream.html

Enjoy!

Classic Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I just ate my weight in carrot cake.

Oh my gosh.

My stomach is about to burst. But it’s all worth it. This carrot cake is so amazing; it’s just a traditional fall cake everyone should learn how to make. There’s something about the secret sweetness of carrots, crunchiness of toasted pecans, and the creamy tartness of cream cheese that just makes it a flawless trio. The trick with carrot cake is finding the right one. Now I don’t know if I just haven’t had carrot cake for a long time or what but this carrot cake SPEAKS TO ME. It says “eat me, the calories are all worth it. eat me. eat me. eat me.” then I do and I feel bad so then I just eat my feelings in more carrot cake.

You see this vicious cycle.

But you still have to make this cake.

It is from Paula Deen’s Southern Kitchen, which ensures it’s as traditional you can get. And- it’s EASY. It doesn’t take long to put together, bake, and assemble at ALL. It’s the perfect dish to kick off fall.

Ingredients-

• Butter, for pans
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
• 3 cups grated carrots
• 1 1/2 cups chopped pecans, optional

Frosting:

• 2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 stick salted butter, room temperature
• 12 oz powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) round pans; Line bottom of the pans with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add eggs and vegetable oil. Using a hand mixer, blend until combined. Add carrots and pecans, if using.
Pour into pans. Bake for approximately 40 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Remove from pans, place on waxed paper and allow to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting:
Add all ingredients  into a medium bowl and beat until fluffy using a hand mixer. Spread frosting on top of each cake layer. Stack the cakes on a serving plate and serve.

Enjoy! Here’s the link for the original recipe below VVV

Read more at: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/paula-deen/grandma-hiers-carrot-cake-recipe/index.html?oc=linkback

Inside-Out German Chocolate Cake

Happy birthday to me. Kinda. My birthday isn’t until July 30th but I’ll be away then so we usually celebrate it beforehand with our greatest family friends. We went to an Italian restaurant in town where I had mozzarella on mozzarella on mozzarella. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve had cheese? It’s been a very, very long time. It’s also been a very, very long time since I’ve made and/or had cake. Like, a good cake. We have cake sometimes at rowing for various peoples’ birthdays and they’re awesome (there was this one ice cream cake recently aghh omnomnom) buuuut they aren’t exactly homemade in MY kitchen. So. I made my own birthday cake. Yes. I make my own birthday cake. Yes. I realize it’s weird. No, I don’t care. Because baking is therapeutic and lovely and when you’re making a cake with chocolate, coconut, and pecans, the opportunity to snack is constant. Which is always awesome. This Inside-Out German Chocolate Cake from Gourmet Magazine’s (yes, Gourmet!) March 2000 issue takes a long time, but each bite you get three textures: 1. the moist chocolate cake 2. the crunchy praline-like filling and 3. the smooth, frosting-like glaze. I literally could not stop eating it. It’s addictive.

Makes: 12 servings ish, 1 3-layer cake

active time: 1.5 hrs

total time (if you do it all in one day): 4.25 hrs

Ingredients!

For the cake-

• 1 1/2 cups white sugar
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 plus 1 tbs unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder (I used half Dutch and half Hershey’s unsweetened and it worked fine)
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 3/4 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 6 tbs unsalted butter, melted
• 1 large egg
• 1 large egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 cup boiling-hot water

For Filling-

• 7 oz sweetened flaked coconut
• 1 cup coarsely chopped pecans
• 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 tbs vanilla

For Glaze-

• 2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 10 oz semisweet chocolate (I used nestle chocolate chips)
• 3 tbs light corn syrup

Gettin’ it goin’

The Cake:

Preheat oven to 350 F and oil cake pans. Line bottoms of pans with rounds of parchment or wax paper. Sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl. Whisk together whole milk, butter, whole egg, egg yolk, and vanilla in another large bowl until just combined. This part of my mixture kind of got lumpy because the cold milk clumped up the melted butter, but it still turned out great so don’t worry if that happens to you too. Beat egg mixture into the flour mixture until combined. Add water and beat again until combined. The batter will be thin, don’t worry. Divide the batter among the cake pans (the layers will also be thin, so each cake pan doesn’t get too much batter) and bake in upper and lower thirds of the oven, rotating them 180 degrees and switching positions half-way through. The cakes are done when a toothpick/knife/whatever comes out clean, about 20-25 minutes. Cool layers in pans on racks for 15 minutes, run a thin knife around the edges if needed, and flip ’em onto racks. Carefully remove parchment paper and cool completely.

   

   

The Filling:

Reduce the oven temp to 325 F. Spread the c0c0nut on a baking sheet and the pecans on another. Bake pecans in upper third of the oven. and the coconut in the lower third. Stir occasionally, until all nice and toasted (pecans will be golden brown ish and will release a nutty odor, coconut will be golden brown.) ***THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT AND I MAKE IT CLEAR IN ALL OF MY POSTS. Toasting coconut is awesome but when you go to stir it, BE CAUTIOUS. Coconut oil is released from the shredded coconut and the vapor is in the oven. When you open the oven, guess where the vapor goes? Your eyes. It hurts a lot. So when you go to stir the coconut, open the oven, wait like 10-15 seconds, then stir. Anyways, it should take about 12-18 minutes in total. Remove the pans from the oven.

        

Increase the oven temp to 425  F. Pour condensed milk until at least a 9 inch deep-dish pie plate (I used an 8x11ish rectangular pan and that worked) and cover tightly with foil. Bake the milk in a water bath in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes. Refill baking pan with water (just pour more in) to reach halfway up the plate/pan and bake milk until thick and golden brown, about 45 minutes more. Remove pie plate from water bath. Stir in coconut, pecans, and vanilla and keep the mixture warm, covered with foil.

Make the Glaze while the milk is baking if you choose:

Melt butter in a 3-quart saucepan. Remove pan from heat and add chocolate and corn syrup, whisking until chocolate is melted. Transfer 1 cup of glaze to a bowl, reserving remaining glaze at room temp in pan. Chill the glaze in a bowl, stirring occasionally, until thickened and spreadable, about 1 hour.

    

Assemble the Cake:

Put 1 cake layer on a rack set over a baking pan, to catch the excess glaze. Drop half of coconut filling by spoonfuls evenly over layer and gently spread with wet spatula/back of spoon. What I found was that the filling was actually workable so I spooned it onto the cake but I was able to flatten it out with my fingers. Top with another cake layer and spread with remaining filling in the same manner. Top with remaining cake layer and spread chilled glaze evenly over top and side of cake. I realized that the chilled glaze doesn’t cover the cake completely, so just try to get a very thin layer over all of it. But don’t worry if there are some small patches without the chilled glaze. BECAUSE. You now spread the reserved glaze over the top and sides of the cake. This is where you make sure the whole cake is covered. Chill the cake until firm, about 1 hour. Transfer cake to a plate. Make sure to bring to room temp before serving.

            

The order of which I did thing: I made the cake Tuesday night and froze them until Friday. I made the filling Thursday night and warmed it up Friday when I needed it. I made the glaze Friday and put it all together.

New Orleans Double-Chocolate Praline-Fudge Cake from Southern Living

Chocolate on chocolate on chocolate. What could be better? Plus the praline? It’s like the sweet-salty smooth-crunchy cake. I actually have a funny story about this cake. See, I was making for the second time for my grandmother’s birthday, so it was late Decemberish. It’s a three layer cake. So. I had just finished baking all the layers and transferred them to wire racks. My mom moved them over to the window sill to cool.

Bad idea. Window sills are not strong. So one of the layers ended up doing a bit of a flop on my deck. It’s a sad night when you have to demote a three layer cake to being a two layer cake. Good news is, my mom was making a vanilla cake the next weekend and the same thing happened to her ;). You would have expected us to learn our lesson. But no. Anyways, it made a fun couple of nights late night baking with mom. She taught me all I know about food and baking, so I always love being in the kitchen with her. Until we get in each other’s way. Then things can get a liiiiiitle tricky 😀 But that usually doesn’t happen.

Anyways, yes, the cake! One of the best cakes you’ll ever make! It takes a while to make it, but it is completely worth it. Without further ado:

Ingredients for cake:

• 1 cup butter or margarine
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp salt

Part 1: Assembly of the cake

Preheat over to 350 F. Grease the bottoms of 3 8″ round cake pans and line them with wax paper. Grease and flour the wax paper sides of pans. So basically it’s butter-wax paper-butter-flour.

Cook the butter/margarine, cocoa, and water in a heavy bottom metal pan over low heat, stirring constantly, until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat to cool. Beat the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla with a mixer until smooth. Add the butter mixture to the buttermilk mixture, beating until blended ***remember, the butter mixture should be cooled off before you add it to the buttermilk mixture. If not, the eggs will curdle. Scrambled eggs are bad in this case.*** Combine the sugar, flour, and salt, gradually add to the buttermilk mixture. Beat until thoroughly blended. Southern Living warns that the batter will be thin, and that’s okay. Just pour the batter evenly into the prepared pans. Bake for 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cakes comes out clean. Let sit in pans for a little bit before flipping them out, about 10 minutes. Then flip em, remove the wax paper, and cool completely on wire racks. Tip: don’t put them in the windowsill. The layers will be thin but that’s okay because there’s also the chocolate ganache that goes between the layers to fill em up a little bit. Speaking of which…

Ingredients for chocolate ganache:

• 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate morsels (aka chocolate chips)
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, cut into pieces.

Part 2: Making the ganache

Microwave the chocolate morsels and cream on medium for 2-3  minutes until they are melted. Check the chocolate chips as they heat in the microwave to make sure they don’t burn! Stir until all the morsels blend together and they are smooth. Gradually add in the butter, whisking until smooth. Cool, whisking often, for about 25 minutes so the ganache reaches spreading consistency. It should yield about 2 cups. This is where you start putting your cake together! Once the layers are cooled, put it together by laying one layer out on a plate, put some chocolate ganache on top, then comes the other layer, ganache, then the final layer, ganache. Don’t use too much for the filling because you still need to have enough ganache to frost the outside!

Ingredients for Praline Frosting:

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine
• 1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/3 cup whipping cream
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup chopped pecans, toasted**

Part 3: Making the praline.

**Note on how to toast pecans. Set the oven to 350. Chop pecans. Roast them for about 5 minutes, but keep an eye on them because they burn really easily really quickly. Take out of oven and let cool.

Bring the butter, light brown sugar, and whipping cream to a boil in a heavy bottom pan. Stir often as it boils for about 1 minute. Remove from heat and whisk in the powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Add the toasted pecans, stirring gently for 3-5 minutes or until the frosting becomes cool and thickens slightly. Pour the frosting over the cake immediately. Let the frosting harden a little before serving.