Lesson #173: Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Hello Fall! We are in full swing in Ohio with falling leaves and colder temperatures! The season has definitely influenced my baking because I've been making a ton of Fall-flavored desserts.

This is a tender buttermilk coffee cake that is perfect anytime of day. The cake has a swirl of cinnamon & sugar throughout and is topped with a walnut crumb topping and chopped apples.  I enjoyed a piece with a cup of hot tea!

LESSON LEARNED: Use whatever apples you have on hand. I used a mixture of sweet and tart apples - this cake turned out great!

Recipe for Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake

Lesson #116: Mini Molten Lava Cakes

About a year and a half ago, my husband and I went on a week long cruise to the Caribbean. While I wasn't too impressed with the food on the ship, I did enjoy the molten chocolate cakes served with dinner. One night last week I had an intense craving for chocolate, so I looked around in our pantry and discovered we had all the ingredients to make these cakes.

At first I wasn't sure that this recipe would work out. I had to scale back the quantity from the recipe I had and I wanted to try to flip the cake out of the dish onto a plate without breaking. Well, it turns out that you need a little finesse and patience to succeed. The first time I baked one of these cakes, I couldn't wait the five minutes of cooling before removing the cake from the dish, so it totally broke open and I had chocolate "lava" everywhere! :)

Fortunately, the next day, when I baked up another cake I waited and it turned out perfectly. It still tasted just as good as the night before, so don't worry if they break open!

PS - I broke open these cakes on purpose so I could show you the chocolate lava!

LESSON LEARNED: You can mix up the batter for these cakes and refrigerate them for a few days before baking. Just add a few minutes onto the baking time!

Recipe for Mini Molten Lava Cakes

Lesson #115: Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

My husband and I are moving at the end of the week, so over the past few weeks I've been trying to use up the odds and ends in my freezer and refrigerator. I realized that I had some leftover cake in the freezer from making these parfaits, so it was the perfect excuse to try this ice cream recipe.

Pieces of yellow butter cake are tossed with a honey butterscotch sauce and then folded into a vanilla ice cream. It definitely brought me back to the days of eating birthday cake with a scoop of ice cream - except it's all in one DELICIOUS bite!

 LESSON LEARNED: Be aware that adding the butterscotch sauce will alter the texture of this ice cream. As you add more sauce, the texture becomes slightly icy, so it's not as perfectly smooth and creamy as some ice cream recipes I post. It still tastes yummy though!

Recipe for Gooey Butter Cake Ice Cream

Lesson #109: Triple Chocolate Layer Cake

After my last attempt at making a layer cake, I decided to try again. I would not be defeated by a simple layer cake! This time, I decided to make a tripe chocolate layer cake: dark chocolate cake, milk chocolate filling, and white chocolate buttercream. Could you tell that I was craving chocolate that day?

Since my husband and I didn't need a whole cake, I decided to half the cake recipe but use the full filling and frosting recipes. I ended up with two 6 inch cakes instead of two 9 inch cakes and A TON of frosting and filling. Just FYI, this is still too much cake for two people! I froze slices of cake until I can give it away to friends and family in Toledo.

I think it was a huge improvement from last time! Hurray!

LESSON LEARNED: The filling needs ample time to set up in the refrigerator. I didn't wait long enough and some of the filling spilled out of the cake. It still tasted good though!

Recipe for Triple Chocolate Layer Cake

Lesson #103: Lemon-Glazed Citrus-Yogurt Pound Cake

This pound cake reminds me of a similar lemon pound cake at Starbucks. It's tart, yet sweet, and has a refreshing lemon taste. It would be the perfect accompaniment to a glass of tea or coffee.

What really impressed me with this cake is that it held up very well over time. After a few days, it was still incredibly moist and even tasted more lemony. This is probably due to a lemon simple syrup which is brushed over the cake and a lemon powdered sugar glaze over top. The cake is light and fluffy (not dense and heavy as pound cakes tend to be) because of cake flour in the batter. You also add grapefruit juice to boost the citrus flavor and yogurt to help the cake remain moist. Overall, the recipe is definitely a winner in my book!

LESSON LEARNED: Adding grapefruit juice, in addition to lemon zest, to the batter boosts the lemon flavor without tasting like grapefruit.

Recipe for Lemon-Glazed Citrus-Yogurt Pound Cake

Lesson #100: Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake

Happy Valentine's Day! Or more importantly to my blog, it's my 100th post! Yay! I can't believe that I've posted a HUNDRED recipes since the end of August. To be completely honest, I kinda stressed over what I was going to bake for this occasion. I browsed baking books, TV shows, and other blogs for a few days to find some inspiration. I finally settled on a chocolate covered strawberry cake. Little did I know what an adventure it turned out to be.

First, take a look at the finished product. Looks yummy, right?

Trust me, it tasted as yummy as it looked. However, this is not what I envisioned when I began the cake(s).

I looked through baking books written by some notable pastry chefs. I quickly fell in love with a four layer white chocolate cake with layers of strawberry butter cream frosting encased in a dark chocolate glaze. The recipe was pretty time consuming (the directions spanned over 6 pages!), but I was ready for the challenge. I began by gathering all my ingredients and getting out my baking scale. I was completely determined to make this cake and I set aside an entire day for baking.

I carefully measured all my ingredients to a tee (including egg whites! who measures egg whites in grams? that's right, pastry chefs do!) and set my cakes in the oven to bake. After the recommended amount of time passed, I checked my cakes and they looked done. Honestly, they did! This wasn't my first time baking a cake :) I let the cakes cool in the pan for 10 minutes, went to carefully remove them, and the inside was completely uncooked. I set the cakes on a wire rack and the insides fell right through the racks.

Hmmm, I quickly determined that I made a mistake. I must have under baked the cakes. Never a quitter, I decided to try again. First, I had to run to the store because I ran out of white chocolate! OK, so I gathered my ingredients, measured using the scale, and set the cakes in the oven for the second time. I decided that I wasn't going to make the same mistake again and keep checking the cakes to make sure they were done. This time, after 15 extra minutes in the oven, I successfully made the cakes. YES! Now, I only had 4 more pages of detailed instructions :)

I trudged through the directions step-by-step and successfully made the strawberry butter cream and dark chocolate glaze. Now, it was time to assemble. I cut the two cakes in half to create 4 skinny cakes and started to layer the strawberry butter cream. I quickly noticed that I didn't have enough, so I decided to see if I could stretch the frosting that I did have. I ended up with a somewhat lop sided cake, but I decided to continue. Next, I poured the dark chocolate glaze over the cake in a thin layer. So far, so good. I then let the frosting sit for a while to thicken and then applied more glaze along the sides of the cake. Here's where the problems began again!

The glaze was so heavy that it started to seep down the sides of the cake pulling the cake with it. Opps! I had come so far (over 6 pages of directions, two baking attempts, and an extra trip to the store!), I decided to cut the cake and see what happened. Well, it started to fall over. I immediately started laughing uncontrollably and grabbed my camera. Take a look at the mess!

See, the piece on the left is kinda standing, but the second piece flipped off the plate. Notice the chocolate glaze everywhere! My husband (who came running down the stairs when he heard me laughing) and I ate a few bites of cake and tossed the rest. It tasted pretty good, but definitely not worth the work!

Unwilling to be defeated by a cake recipe, I waited a few days before trying again. I decided to change my strategy and recipes. I made the dessert "parfait style" by layering chunks of yellow cake with chocolate and strawberry butter cream garnished with shaved chocolate and fresh strawberries. I used my super-simple one bowl yellow cake recipe and a pretty simple butter cream recipe. No six page recipes here!

Whew, finally my chocolate covered strawberry cake idea came to fruition. I'm now on to my next adventures in baking!

LESSON LEARNED: I need to work on my layer cake skills and sometimes simpler recipes are better.

Recipe for Chocolate Covered Strawberry Cake (the one that worked!)

Lesson #79: Citrus Sponge Cake

One of the reasons why I love winter is because of the beautiful citrus fruits that are in season. It's my favorite time of year to enjoy oranges, grapefruits, and lemons. This sponge cake is ABSOLUTELY fabulous! The texture of the cake is light and fluffy. When you eat a piece of this cake it's DELIGHTFULLY buttery and tangy from the use of lemon juice/zest. 

I baked the cake in a sheet pan so I could cut round pieces of cake using a cookie cutter. This cake is wonderful on it's own or with a dab of sweetened whipped cream. Enjoy!

LESSON LEARNED: Now's the season to enjoy citrus fruits!

Recipe for Citrus Sponge Cake

Lesson #51: Triple-Chocolate Mousse Cake

I LOVE the holidays! I especially love cooking and baking for other people. It really gives me a good excuse to make desserts that can be shared among many people. For Thanksgiving day, I made a triple-chocolate mousse cake!

The bottom layer is a gooey flour-less chocolate cake. The middle layer is a dark chocolate mousse and the top layer is a white chocolate mousse. The dessert is rich & chocolate-y, but is super light from the layers of whipped cream and melted chocolate. Each layer has a different flavor and texture, which makes this a FABULOUS indulgence.

One important thing to note is serving temperature. I unmolded the dessert right out of the fridge and it was pretty firm. However, I left it out in a dessert table which we finished Thanksgiving dinner and by the time I ate dessert, it was pretty messy. Check out the pictures below :) In any case, this layered cake was EXCELLENT and can be made ahead of time.

LESSON LEARNED: This dessert is best served right out of the refrigerator!

Recipe for Triple-Chocolate Mousse Cake

Lesson #36: Pumpkin Roll Cake

Have you ever walked by the roll cakes in the grocery store and wondered if you could make one? I have, so I decided to try! This post documents my first attempt. The cake wasn't as pretty as it could be, but it tasted FANTASTIC! Taste trumps presentation (for me at least) any day. Here's what I learned so far:

1) Making the cake was easy. The cake is very light in texture (it contains no butter!) because of whipped eggs whites which are folded into the batter.

2) When you flip the cake after you bake it, place a kitchen towel on a sheet pan, lay the towel & pan on top of the cake, and then flip it. You sprinkle powdered sugar on the hot cake before you flip, so I tried to flip it without an extra pan and powdered sugar went everywhere!

3) Be patient! The cake has to cool completely before you try to unroll the cake (you first roll the cake while it's warm). If you don't wait until the cake is cool, it will crack. That's what happened to me :(

Even though the cake was messy looking, this was an AWESOME cake! The cake was light, fluffy, and delightfully pumpkin-y. The cream filling is slightly sweet, has a hint of rum flavor, and contains toffee pieces which provide a bit of crunch.

LESSON LEARNED: Rolled cakes are a little tricky!

Recipe for Pumpkin Roll Cake

Lesson #22: Sticky Toffee Banana Cake

This cake sounded perfect to make the other day when it was cold and rainy. Now that it's sunny and warm for a few days, this cake still sounds good! You could easily substitute any flavor of cake and jazz it up with this quick toffee sauce.

This cake has TONS of banana flavor and reminds me of a lighter and fluffier version of banana bread. While the cake is baking, you make a quick toffee sauce (no candy thermometer needed) and pour some of the sauce on the cake during the last few minutes of baking. Then, when you are ready to serve the cake, it's topped off with even more toffee sauce. Enjoy!

LESSON LEARNED: A quick sauce can really transform a cake!

Recipe for Sticky Toffee Banana Cake

Lesson #18: Mini Spiced Pumpkins

These little cakes are absolutely ADORABLE! They look just like little pumpkins, right? I happened to have a mini Bundt pan from a few years ago...from a few failed attempts at making a homemade angel food cake...the texture never seemed the same as the box or store bought versions :(. I've decided this pan is re-purposed for these little cakes.

The cake itself is a moist spice cake, and when you bite into it, you taste cinnamon and nutmeg which reminds you of all the WONDERFUL Fall flavors. The cakes are frosted with a simple powdered sugar glaze (tinted orange, of course!) which forms a nice sugary layer on the outside. Finally, they are decorated with a piece of black licorice for a "pumpkin stem".

I shared them with my morning class this week and the students seemed to enjoy them!

LESSON LEARNED: It's fun to think creatively about how to re-purpose baking dishes!

Recipe for Mini Spiced Pumpkins