The Bread is in the Baking

I just want to start this out by recognizing the food blog I got this recipe from: Smitten Kitchen. If you've never checked out this blog, go look at it.

Right now.

Okay, now to the cake. This is a really wonderful rich chocolate cake. The wine makes the cake light and fluffy while also giving it a bit more depth. I love it. I made it for one of my close friends for her birthday and I just doubled the recipe so I can make a layer cake for a joint birthday party some other friends of mine are having tonight. It's also the perfect 21st birthday cake, cause it's got alcohol in it, but it's still really luxurious, so it's not one of those cakes that slaps you across the face, screaming "ALCOHOL" at you. Make sense?

Chocolate Wine Cake

Cake
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3/4 cup (179 grams) firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/4 cup (50 grams) white granulated sugar
1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
3/4 cup (177 ml) red wine, any kind you like (being a college student, the three buck chuck from Trader Joe's worked just fine)
1 teaspoon (5 ml) vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tablespoon (133 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (41 grams) Dutch cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Line the bottom of a 9-inch round cake pan with parchment, and either butter and lightly flour the parchment and exposed sides of the pan, or spray the interior with a nonstick spray. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven. Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together, right over your wet ingredients. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula. Spread batter in prepared pan. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top of the cake should be shiny and smooth, like a puddle of chocolate. Cool in pan on a rack for about 10 minutes, then flip out of pan and cool the rest of the way on a cooling rack. This cake keeps well at room temperature or in the fridge. It looks pretty dusted with powdered sugar.

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When I got back to Portland from visiting Seattle I stopped by Trader Joe’s before heading home to pick up some groceries. Figuring my housemates had eaten most of the eggs we had in our fridge I bought another dozen eggs.
Only to come home and discover that there were still 8 eggs in the fridge. They hadn’t eaten a single egg while I was gone.
So what’s a girl to do?
Go online and find a cake recipe that uses 6 eggs.

I changed a couple of things when I made this cake:

The original recipe calls for orange zest, but I didn't have any oranges in my house when I made this, so no zest! I also used olive oil instead of vegetable oil and nonfat Greek yogurt instead of whole milk Greek yogurt. I spread some strawberry rhubarb freezer jam I'd made earlier in between the layers of the cake. The original recipe calls for a butter cream frosting, but I'm not the hugest frosting fan and I didn't have any powder sugar on hand. The cake may have looked prettier with it, but without frosting it is light and fresh tasting.
All in all the cake still came out wonderfully.

French Yogurt Cake
3 cups all-purpose flour
4 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 cup skim milk Greek yogurt
6 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
½ tsp. almond extract
1 cup olive oil
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 8" round cake pans with butter.
Whisk the dry ingredients together.
Mix the sugar, yogurt, eggs, vanilla and almond extracts. Whisk vigorously until well blended. While whisking, add the dry ingredients, then switch to a larger rubber spatula and fold in the oil.
Divide the batter between the two pans. Bake for approximately 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. (The top will be golden and the cake will come away a bit from the sides of the pan.)
Transfer the cakes to a cooling rack and let them cool completely until ready to assemble. After the cakes have cooled slowly cut them each in half and spread the jam of your choice between each layer. Enjoy!

The picture is a little creepy, I apologize. I'll change it to something less menacing the next time I make the cake.

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So I got off work yesterday and checked my phone to see if I had any missed calls, and I did! From my extended family in town inviting me over for dinner! I called back and said that I would love to come for dinner (and it was a good thing I did, because dinner was delicious). But you can't go over to someone's house last minute for dinner empty handed, so I went on the trusty FoodGawker and found a really quick and easy recipe for coconut cake!
Seriously, this is one of the easiest recipes ever. It takes about 15 minutes to mix all the ingredients together (and I did this all by hand, so imagine doing this with a mixer!) and then you pop it in the oven for 45 minutes and voila! It's also light, airy and not too sweet.
The only thing I changed in this recipe is that it asks for cornstarch (which is a thickener) and I didn't have any, so I added more flour (the recipe asked for 1 tbs of cornstarch so I added 2 tbs of flour) instead and it worked fine.

Coconut Cake
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 cup and 2 tbs flour
1 1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cup shredded coconut
125 g melted butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup milk
powdered sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit because this is not going to take long!
Mix flour, baking powder and coconut and mix. In a separate bowl, beat eggs and sugar until pale creamy and then add the milk and cooled butter to the mixture and stir together.  Mix the dry and wet ingredients together, adding the liquid ingredients slowly. Then Grease an 8 inch angel food cake pan with butter or vegetable oi and then sprinkle it with flour and remove the excess flour.

Pour the dough into pan and level the top. Bake 40-45 minutes, checking the cake with a toothpick or small knife. Cool cake 5 minutes in the form, then turn over onto a wire rack.
Sprinkle it with powdered sugar and serve.


Total Time: About an hour

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I came home from work today and I was craving something sweet, but being low on money I could only use supplies I had in my kitchen and the only oil I have in my kitchen right now is olive oil. I'd seen some cake recipes floating around the interwebs with olive oil in them instead of vegetable oil or butter and was interested in giving one of them a whirl.
This one was the only one that fit my parameters exactly and it came out really great (so great, I'm pretty sure I've eaten half of the cake by myself...). This cake is dense and silky with wonderful flavor and the glaze really helps bring out more of the flavor.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake
3/4 cup olive oil (don't feel the need to use really fancy olive oil, I got mine from Trader Joes)
1 large lemon
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 egg yolks
4 egg whites
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 inch springform, or 9 x 5 inch loaf pan with olive oil and line with parchment paper. Grease the parchment paper and then dust with flour.

Grate the lemon zest from the lemon and mix together with the flour in a medium bowl. Juice the lemon.

Quickly beat together the egg yolks and 1/2 cup sugar for about 3 minutes and then slowly beat in the olive oil and 1 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice. Add the flour mixture and fold in gently with a wooden spoon or spatula.

  Using a mixer, beat 4 egg whites high speed with the whisk attachment until foamy. Continue to beat on high, slowly adding 1/4 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Fold the egg whites into the cake batter until just combined. Pour into the prepared baking pan and sprinkle with the remaining sugar.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 45 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Prepare the glaze by whisking together the powdered sugar 1 tablespoon of the fresh lemon juice. Add more lemon juice if necessary to get the desired consistency and pour over the cooled cake. 

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Yesterday I was lazing around in my bedroom and my mom peaked her head in.
"We're having company tonight, what should we make? I was thinking ratatouille and then some meat."
"Salmon?"
"We always do salmon..."
"yeah, but salmon is good."
"Okay, so Salmon, ratatouille and polenta?"
"Yum."
"We need a dessert, can you make it? It just needs to be chocolate."
"Sure thing."
So I went online and searched my favorite food blogs and found a chocolate pistachio cake.
Now, I don't like pistachios. I did at one point, but I think I ate too many in one sitting and got sick, so I don't like them anymore. Even if they are kind of fun to crack open. But what my family does really like are walnuts. And walnuts and chocolate go really well together. So I substituted walnuts for the pistachios and the cake came out beautifully!
This cake is not a light cake, if you want it to be lighter I would try substituting some of the regular flour with cake flour (but don't take my word on it, I haven't tried).

Chocolate Walnut Swirl Cake with chocolate ganache

Chocolate part of the cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chocolate chips (plus a little extra)

Walnut part

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup butter (room temp.)
1 and 1/8 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup plain yogurt (greek is fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup chopped walnuts

Ganache:
120 g (3 oz) semisweet dark chocolate
125 ml (1/2 C) whipping cream
(this ganache is a bit bitter, if you want it to be sweeter I'd ad 1 tsp of sugar)

Preheat your oven to 360 F. Grease a 10-inch cake or loaf pan, preferably nonstick with a removable bottom.

Prepare the chocolate batter.
In a food processor, mix together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and the vanilla extract and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and the cocoa mixture. Add the flour mixture into the food processor and mix again until just combined. Pour the batter into the cake pan, and reserve in the refrigerator.

Rinse the bowl of the food processor, and prepare the walnut batter:
Mix together the sugar, butter. Add in the eggs, one at a time, mixing between each. Add in the yogurts and mix again. In a medium bowl, combine the flour with the baking powder and baking soda, and the chopped walnuts. Add into the food processor and mix again until just combined.

Take the cake pan out of the fridge, and sprinkle the chocolate chips evenly over the surface of the chocolate batter. Gently pour the pistachio batter on top, and smooth out the surface with a spatula. Put into the oven to bake for about an hour or until a cake tester comes out clean. Let rest for five minutes on the counter, then turn out on a rack to cool completely.

Prepare the ganache:

Melt the dark chocolate with the whipping cream in a double boiler (or in a bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water), stirring with a spoon regularly until completely melted and velvety. Let the ganache rest in the fridge until it has thickened a bit, about 30 minutes to an hour, and frost the cake using a small spatula.

Let the cake cool completely before frosting.

Total Time: About 2 hours

The beautiful picture was taken by my dad! Thanks!

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