Melt in Your Mouth Chocolate Cake

I had not been home for 24 hours after my 3 weeks away when we decided it would be a great idea to start up my baking crusade again.  On the menu, Chocolate Cake.  Since there is only two of us, a WHOLE cake was not an option (not to mention, healthy eating week starts this week).  I have a small approx 6 inch casserole dish I thought would be the perfect size for two. 

I found this recipe on Food Network and tweaked it a little because some of the flavors were a little powerful. 

Ingredients (I cut everything in half)

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans (3/4 + 2 tbs flour)
• 2 cups sugar (1 cup sugar)
• 3/4 cups good cocoa powder (1/4 + 2 tbs Hershey's Cocoa Powder)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda  (1 tsp baking soda)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder (1/2 tsp baking powder)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt  (1/2 tsp kosher salt)
• 1 cup buttermilk, shaken (1/2 cup buttermilk, make sure to shake)
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil (1/4 cup veg oil)
• 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature (1 egg)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (1/2 tsp + spillover vanilla)
• 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee (1/3 cup of coffee)
• Chocolate Buttercream, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 8-inch x 2-inch round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then Pam and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry.

Forget to take your egg to warm up to room temp?  Put your egg in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes.

With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Your batter will look like soup, have no fear.  Its normal.  I was really worried, but it has all the ingredients it needs to rise. 

Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Since I was using a dish thicker than a traditional cake pan, I started checking around 25 minutes to ensure even cooking.  It only took about 35 minutes at 350 degrees. 

Chocolate Frosting: (I halved everything)

• 6 ounces good semisweet chocolate (recommended: Callebaut) (4.5 ounces of semisweet Ghirardelli chips)
• 1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature (1 stick of butter)
• 1 extra-large egg yolk, at room temperature (1/2 egg yolk, use a knife and cut the yolk in the shell)
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (1/2 tsp vanilla)
• 1 1/4 cups sifted confectioners' sugar (1/2 + 1/8 confect sugar)
• 1 tablespoon instant coffee powder (1/4 tbs instant coffee powder)

Chop the chocolate and place it in a heat-proof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until just melted and set aside until cooled to room temperature.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter on medium-high speed until light yellow and fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Add the egg yolk and vanilla and continue beating for 3 minutes. Turn the mixer to low, gradually add the confectioners' sugar, then beat at medium speed, scraping down the bowl as necessary, until smooth and creamy. Dissolve the coffee powder in 2 teaspoons of the hottest tap water. On low speed, add the chocolate and coffee to the butter mixture and mix until blended.

Don't whip! Spread immediately on the cooled cake.
My recommendation is to use less coffee (unless you like the flavor) so it does not over power the chocolate flavor.

And serve with a side of vanilla ice cream.  This was so far a BIG success!  It was moist and so flavorful.  I topped it with almonds for an added crunch.  Definitely a winner and will make this again.

Baking Bread

Sometimes making sweets is just bad news for your teeth (and your waist).  With 2 different weeks of cupcakes I thought it was time to branch out a little.  For our July 4th feast, I used Tyler Florence's white bread recipe to make homemade bread with my birthday present:

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 1 package (1 tablespoon) rapid-rising dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons sugar or honey
• 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 2 egg whites, divided and slightly beaten

Directions

In a small saucepan, heat the milk with butter over low heat just until the butter melts. Remove from heat and add to the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a dough hook. Proof the yeast by adding it to the warm milk and butter. Your yeast will come with directions on how to proof it.  You need to make sure the temperature of the milk doesnt go above 110 degrees or else you will kill the buggers.  Add the sugar and stir gently to dissolve. Let stand 3 minutes until foam appears. This indicates the yeast is active. I used honey first and did not get results like I did with sugar.  The sugar sucked the yeast right up.

Turn mixer on low and gradually add the flour. When the dough starts to come together, increase the speed to medium and add the salt and 1 egg white. Stop the machine periodically to scrape the dough off the hook. Mix until the dough is no longer sticky, about 10 minutes.  It did not take 10 minutes, closer to 7 I would say.

Turn the dough onto the work surface and knead for a minute or so by hand. Knead by folding the dough over itself and pushing out with the heel of your hands, not down. Rotate the dough and repeat. The dough is properly kneaded when you can pull it and it stretches without breaking.

Kneading is fun, but make sure you do it EXACTLY how he says. 

Form the dough into a round and place in an oiled bowl, turn to coat the entire ball with oil.

Cover with plastic wrap or a damp towel and let rise over a gas pilot light on the stovetop or in another warm place (microwave) until doubled in size, about 45 minutes. Test the dough by pressing 2 fingers into it. If indents remain, the dough is adequately risen.

Once the dough is doubled and domed, turn it out onto the counter. The act of turning out the dough naturally deflates the gas, so there is no need to aggressively punch it down. Handle the dough gently, overworking the gluten at this point will produce a dense loaf that is difficult to shape.   I You Tubed this because I did not know what turning out the dough meant.  Clearly I read too much into it, you literally fold it out of the bowl. 

To form a loaf, pat the dough into a rectangle, fold the long sides to the middle then fold under the ends. Pinch the seams closed and place in a greased 9 by 5-inch loaf pan, seam side down.

 

Make sure the dough touches all sides of the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise a second time for 20 minutes or until the top of the dough is nearly level with the top of the loaf pan. I put mine in the oven set on warm.

 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F, place a large pan on the bottom rack of the oven. Bring 3 cups water to a boil on the stove. Pour the hot water into the preheated pan to create a steam bath for the bread. This will make a crisp crust.
Slash dough down the middle of the loaf with a sharp knife to allow the steam to escape during baking. Brush the top with remaining beaten egg white. Bake the bread for 30 to 40 minutes until crust is golden and internal temperature reads 195 degrees F when checked with an instant read thermometer. I was happy with around 27 minutes.  The bottom of the loaf should sound hollow when tapped. Immediately remove the bread from the pan and cool completely on a rack.We ate ours warm....you cant pass up melted butter on warm bread

 

This was absolutely amazing!  There were no flaws.  Well ok one....I wanted to eat more when I was done.  I cant believe how EASY this was to make.  One thing I learned about making bread: READ THE DIRECTIONS FIRST.  As you can see, there are a lot of steps that can mess you up if you miss. 

I cant wait to try more types of bread. Move over cupcakes, there is a new contender in town!

What type of bread is your favorite?

Celebration Cupcakes

Happy 4th of July friends!  I hope you are enjoying it. 

Source

This weeks recipe is inspired by one of my favorite treats growing up, the Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream bar.  This was and still is one of my all time favorites when I opt for a bar.  A few weeks ago we were visited by an old childhood friend, the ice cream man.  Since we were feeling frisky, we decided to indulge ourselves with these sugary treats.  (Yes we could have easily bought these from the store, but its not the same as from the ice cream man)

While I was eating devouring my ice cream, I started thinking about how delicious it would be to have those flavors in a cupcake.  I could tell the one key flavor, strawberry powdered milk. 

I searched online to see what types of recipes are out there using the powdery mix, but nothing to my liking.  So I improvised.

Strawberry Cupcakes (Nesquik Style)

This recipe makes 12 or 13 cupcakes, depending on how your fill your pans. 

1 cup white sugar

3 tbs Nesquik powder (strawberry flavor)

1/2 cup of butter, softened

2 eggs room temp

1 1/4 cup + 2 tbs sifted cake flour

1 1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup whole milk, room temp

1/2 tbs vanilla

In a large bowl, cream your butter, sugar, Nesquik until it is light and fluffy.  Then add your eggs one at a time, making sure they are evenly incorporated after each add.  

In another bowl (because I like to keep things separate sometimes, but you dont have to), combine flour and baking powder.  Stir your batter and milk with egg mix alternately.  Then add your vanilla.  

This time I used our meat thermometer to track the temps in the oven.  I didnt want to have dried out cupcakes.  Heat your oven to 350 and bake for 25-30 mins, but start checking around 23 mins. 

My oven was playing a few games with me when I made these.  I had the temp set at 325 since the last time 350 dried out my cupcakes.  The thermometer said the temp inside was around 370.  So I turned it down to 300.  After 22 minutes my cupcakes were a runny mess and I had to crank it back to 350 (which this time ended up being accurate).  Of course this cooked it much faster and made the edges a little crispy.

While these were baking, I decided to take a new frosting route and rely more on cream cheese than powdered sugar.  I thought the cream cheese would act as the ice cream flavor in the bar. 

Cream Cheese frosting:
1/4 cup of butter at room temp
1 8 ounce box of cream cheese at room temp
2 1/2 cups of powdered sugar

Cream the butter and cheese.  Then add sugar.  This called for 3-4 cups of sugar, but I am not a huge fan of powdered sugar flavoring, plus I liked the consistency with 2 1/2.

I mixed and mixed and mixed.  Of course with all this mixing, it was melting the frosting a little (friction=heat=runny cheese).  To thicken it up, I tossed it in the freezer for the length of a shower (hey, baking is dirty work).  Then I mixed a little more to incorporate more air and warm it up a little. 

The verdict:
3 of 5 stars.  I was happy with the shape of the frosting (although I would like it to be a lllliiiittttllllee fluffier).  The cake sort of crumbled which was strange.  The flavor had hints of the strawberry, but I feel like if salt or something acidic were added, the flavors would have been more dominant.  Like I said before, having to change the temp of the oven crisped up the edges, but the middle was moist.  The flavor of the frosting was pretty dominant, but I love cream cheese so it did not bother me. 

Did it taste like the Good Humor Strawberry shortcake bar? Not 100%, but with tweaks we will get there!  And hey, the next day it was even better tasting. 

In even better news.......look what I got for my early birthday present:

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!