Oreo Cake

Two weekends ago we had friends over for dinner, a dinner which I actually made everything myself. This hasn't happened very much since George came along. Earlier in the week I had hoped we'd get to be outside for dinner on the patio, however the weather had other plans. It was usually cool and rainy, not your typical Memphis spring weather, well at least the cool part. The friends came and played with George, who was pretty well-behaved. I made a chicken dish that had a lot of cheese in it (recipe here). However, you know that dessert is my favorite thing to make and so for dessert I made a very delicious cake with an ungodly amount of Oreo cookies in it. It's a single layer chocolate cake, split into two layers after baking (no Oreos in the batter) with 'frosting' made entirely of heavy cream and crushed Oreos. For real. It was crazy good. I know Oreos are processed junk food and all but the remind me of being a kid and taking just the right amount of time to dunk one in milk before it broke off into mush. Oreo Cake recipe via Serious Eats.

Baking with Julia: Lemon Loaf Cake

I skipped the other selection this month but hope to make it soon because it sounded really good. The second selection for this month is Lemon Loaf Cake, hosted by Truc of Treats and Michelle of The Beauty of Life.

Now I'm made a lot of lemon cakes so I'm extra picky. That being said I appreciated the different way this cake was put together but I wasn't a huge fan of the cake myself. It was good, but not my favorite lemon cake. My favorite lemon cake is still this one from Ina Garten. I still enjoyed baking it but I can't say it'll be added to my regular rotation. 

February Birthday Cakes

We have a lot of February birthdays, my mom, a dear friend of mine, my brother, Doug's mom, my aunt, etc. Two weeks ago my knitting group had a birthday gathering for one of our own (aforementioned dear friend). For that event I made this Double Chocolate Layer Cake from Smitten Kitchen. I did raspberry filling, but not the one the recipe called for, I did cheater raspberry filling with Bonne Maman raspberry jam. I loved this cake and it got good reviews. Unfortunately I don't have a of it, but it was a really nice, moist cake.

Over the weekend we hosted my mom, her boyfriend, my brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew for Saturday night dinner. I made chicken stew and buttermilk biscuits (chicken stew from here, biscuits from Dorie), my brother's favorite goat cheese tart (recipe here), and this Double Chocolate Sour Cream Cake from The Kitchn.

 This was another cake winner, I loved the sour cream addition in the frosting and the cake, it was so good and moist. My decorating skills are not very good but I managed to spell out 'Happy Birthday'.

So there you go, if you're in need of a birthday cake recipe these two recipes are great.

TWD Revisited: Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake

So TWD is over, we baked it all. Well I was pretty lax about participating the two months (but for good reason). But the good news is we're still going to be baking TWD will start baking our way through Baking with Julia beginning February 7th. In the meantime I'm still baking, although I've had some issues that normally I would not have but for some reason my baking attention span has been lessened causing some kitchen misshaps. First was when I made the Low and Lush Chocolate Cheesecake (page 243 of the Dorie book). I made an ENTIRE CHEESECAKE and left out the sugar. Oh the humanity. Next I made the Peanuttiest Blondies (page 119 ) and managed to underbake them so the outside was perfect looking but the inside was gooey and not totally baked. Sigh. 

Finally, I did manage to bake the Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake (page 286) without screwing it up. For some reason I thought I missed baking it when it was originally made during TWD, but then I looked in my archives and I did bake it in June 2010. Anyway, it was still very good. This time I used an actual loaf pan and raspberry jam instead of cherry.

I look forward to baking through the new book, I think it's going to be a little challenging, there are a lot more recipes with more techniques I'm not familiar with, but it should be a fun learning opportunity.

Middle-of-the-week chocolate cake

Some times Wednesdays just call for chocolate cake. I was itching to bake something last night, but nothing too involved since it was a weeknight. When I was home at lunch I thumbed through my growing collection of cookbooks and found this recipe for a simple chocolate loaf cake from At Home with Magnolia. I like this cookbook but most of the desserts in it require hours of letting it 'set' before eating. Luckily, this loaf cake did not, it was more of a throw together, bake, let cool for half-an-hour and then devour. I used natural cocoa powder and made the adjustment suggested by Deb at Smitten Kitchen. The loaf cake turned out perfectly and didn't 'rise and fall'.

Doug and I had our still-slightly-warm slices with vanilla Haagen-Dazs, very good.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Blueberry-Brown Sugar Plain Cake

Winner!

I used dark brown sugar instead of light, added a few more blueberries and baked it in a smaller pan. The blueberries sank to the bottom, creating a layer of juicy, sweet berries, topped with a moist, faintly cinnamon-y cake. When I first saw this recipe I wrinkled my nose a little, but then I made it and it was fantastic. Thanks to Cindy of Everyday Insanity for this week's pick.

3-0

Holy crap. I'm thirty. I didn't complete my 30 by 30 list and I got a little sad about still not being a mom by 30. But I am happy to be this age and I'm looking forward to the next decade of my life.

My actual birthday was last Thursday and was pretty lackluster since it fell during a weird work day and on a Thursday. However, last weekend totally made up for it. Friday night I had a party with my some close friends at our house. The weather was perfect and we had piles of Gus's fried chicken, Muddy's cupcakes and other fixings thanks to kind friends. My friend Lynsey made lots of things including the triangle bunting and she and our friend Kenan made the tissue paper flowers since my attempt was a fantastic fail.

 

On Sunday my family came over for an early dinner and cake. Because I'm homemade cake kind of gal I made my own birthday cake and it was delicious if I do say so myself. I used this recipe from Smitten Kitchen and it turned out beautifully (although it rose more than I would have liked it to). Do keep an eye on the frosting though, I left mine in the fridge a little too long and had to heat it up in order to make it spreadable again.

The best part of Sunday was my much-loved grandmother, Nannie, who has had some scary health-issues this year, came. I was so glad to see her.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Rewind - Swedish Visiting Cake

Okay despite the fact I have sweets coming out of my ears, I still made this cake. I made it back in April when it was first chosen but I took it somewhere else for others to eat and didn't get to taste it myself. Since I had almost everything I needed to make it in my pantry/fridge I choose it to rewind. My only alterations were to use orange zest instead of lemon and to up the almond extract from 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon. This cake is one of my favorite TWD recipes. It's so simple to make, takes almost no time and has such a good flavor. Perfect!

A bridal shower for a knitta

Last week the MKM hosted a bridal shower for fellow knitter, Emily, who will be walking down the aisle very soon. Kenan opened up her lovely home to us for the event and everyone brought something for us to devour.I made this Sweet Almond Cake with Lemon Curd and vanilla buttercream frosting from the Sweet Melissa Baking book. The book calls for a lemon-mascarpone frosting, which I made the night before the shower and refrigerated (the book said it was okay). Unfortunately, the next afternoon when I was ready to cover the cake the frosting had turned into a clumpy, un-spreadable mess. I whined a little before admitting defeat and throwing together a buttercream frosting, which came out perfectly. The cake was really delicious, it had 14 egg whites and coarsely ground almonds in the batter too.After the rounds were baked each layer was given a thin coat of lemon curd before being topped with the frosting. I might be a baker but I'm not a decorator, so to spruce it up a little I added some spray roses and a little ribbon (removed before consumption of course). The 10 minute drive from my house to Kenan's was a little harrowing. I was almost there when the cake took a slide off the it's plate and had to be repaired a little when we made it to Kenan's. I think the next time I transport a cake I need an extra person to come with me.As an extra expression of our love we knit flowers and leaves for a corsage which Emily graciously wore, even though it was a little large. Happy Wedding Emily and Eric!

Lemon Poppyseed Cake & Almond Macaroons

Here are two items I made a few weeks ago and forgot to post about. The first is a simple, one layer lemon-poppyseed cake with a recipe via Epicurious (click here for recipe). It's quick, sweet and spring-y.The second thing are these Almond Macaroons from Martha Stewart's Cookie book, recipe also found here. They aren't the sandwich cookie macarons and they aren't the coconut macaroons. They're just a little cookie made with almond paste, egg whites, confectioner's sugar and vanilla, a lot of almond flavor in little airy cookie. Word to the wise keep an eye on these, the first batch I put in the oven were a little overcooked.I'm going to be on a baking-vacation for the next few days, I'm headed out this morning to Colorado with my friend Kenan. We'll be visiting Colorado Springs, Denver, Estes Park and maybe Boulder and going to as many bakeries and yarn stores as we can. As always I'm excited to visit a state I've never been to and see mountains! However, I am not excited to fly. Flying with a friend makes it a little easier, at least I have someone's hand to hold!

Here, have some cake

Last week Doug drove out to the Agricenter and picked up some strawberries from Jones Orchard for me. I had it in mind to make a strawberry cake with them, but searching in my cookbooks and online led me to mostly recipes that used boxed cake mix and strawberry gelatin, buh? Nothing against cake mix but um, that was not really what I was going for. I Google-ed some more and finally found this recipe for a strawberry shortcake/cake hybrid from The Pioneer Woman. I made it exactly as the recipe is written and it turned out so nicely. I used a springform pan since my normal cake pan wasn't tall enough and it was perfect. The strawberries were incredibly ripe and sweet and the cream cheese frosting was a nice accompaniment to the juicy strawberries and vanilla flavor of the cake.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Mocha-Walnut Marbled Bundt Cake

This week's selection was chosen by Erin of When in Doubt...Leave it at 350. I was excited to use my (still) new-ish bundt pan. I put this tasty cake together and sent it with Doug to his group potluck at work. It went over well but they sent some home so i got to have a piece. I really like it, I was no 100% sold on the walnuts but they were so finely ground I didn't notice an overpowering nut flavor. The mocha swirl part was great, I used a 70% bittersweet chocolate and had a really nice dark chocolate flavor. Thumbs up on this one!