Devil's Food Cake made with love for Mr. and Mrs. Paul (one of our best friend's parents), Jan. 27, 2010.
Katie brought the America's Test Kitchen cookbook over to the Brigade meeting, and boy were we excited. This book has page after page of mouth-watering recipes, as well as an entire section devoted to layer cakes! Mm mm mmy favorite!
We decided to try the devil's food cake and top it with butter cream frosting. We added almond extract to the frosting, and it proved to pack a flavorful pizzazz.
Mariel's about to take off for a couple of fencing competitions, so we tried to savor this bake session as we don't know when our next will be. (Good luck, Mariel!)
Now, a bit about the recipients of this cake ... Mr. and Mrs. Paul's daughter, Kelley, has been working in Germany for more than a year, and we miss her dearly. That's totally an understatement. We're counting the days until her return. Her parents have been empty nesters as her sister moved over to Germany to work, too, and her brother moved away for work also. Kelley has some of the nicest parents in the world. All nice people deserve a cake!
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chocolate. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Surprise Attack
German Chocolate made with love for Mariel's fencing club, Dec. ?
We decided it was about time to try a German Chocolate cake. We made the recipe off the Baker's chocolate wrapper.
We decided it was about time to try a German Chocolate cake. We made the recipe off the Baker's chocolate wrapper.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
LOL (Labor of Love)
Heavenly White Cake with Texas Chocolate Frosting made with love for Mariel's trainer, Josh, Nov. 3.
It's taken months to write about the process of baking this cake. It's now Jan. 20, and we're finally sprucing up this blog! Luckily, Mariel took brief notes about each cake on her iPhone, so we didn't have to think too long and hard about this one.
We called it the LOL as that's what we were doing for the majority of the baking process. Laughing. Out. Loud. So loud, in fact, the neighbors probably complained. (I'm not joking.)
Before Christmas, Mariel had just one silver baking bowl for her KitchenAid mixer. She told us we could hold one of her other mixing bowls under the beater and it would fit near perfectly. Yes, the extra bowl did fit under the beater, but no, it was not a good solution. The bowl nearly flew out of my hands as the beater pounded the sides of the bowl and batter went a-flyin'. Thus, the laughs began.
Then, after working a long day, Katie left. But, before she did, she read us the recipe (off a webpage, not from a cookbook) for the chocolate frosting. She said the recipe called for 5 cups of sugar. Wait. What? Five cups of granulated sugar? Without doing too much thinking, into the mixer went cup after cup of sugar and following many minutes of wondering why the texture of this frosting was so off, Mariel and I looked at each other and said, "Why is there granulated sugar in this frosting recipe?" At first we thought the frosting wasn't forming because of some weird reaction to combining cocoa powder with sugar. Maybe it just took a little longer for this frosting to come together? After many more minutes, the frosting never appeared and we took to the computer to double check this so-called "Texas Chocolate Frosting." The error bounced off the page--it wasn't granulated sugar, it was confectioners sugar ... duh. We felt ridiculous. Both of us heard Katie say "granulated sugar." Did she really say it or did we make a colossal mistake on our own accord? The world will never know.
After sighing a sigh at the loss of 5 cups of sugar, we tossed together the correct ingredients and a delicious chocolate frosting soon formed.
The white cake was heavenly indeed and we couldn't help but smile as we frosted the layers. We could hardly contain our laughter as we ate our first bites of our sample cake.
This is a recipe we'd make again, and hopefully we'll stop and think before adding 5 cups of anything but powdered sugar to a frosting recipe.
It's taken months to write about the process of baking this cake. It's now Jan. 20, and we're finally sprucing up this blog! Luckily, Mariel took brief notes about each cake on her iPhone, so we didn't have to think too long and hard about this one.
We called it the LOL as that's what we were doing for the majority of the baking process. Laughing. Out. Loud. So loud, in fact, the neighbors probably complained. (I'm not joking.)
Before Christmas, Mariel had just one silver baking bowl for her KitchenAid mixer. She told us we could hold one of her other mixing bowls under the beater and it would fit near perfectly. Yes, the extra bowl did fit under the beater, but no, it was not a good solution. The bowl nearly flew out of my hands as the beater pounded the sides of the bowl and batter went a-flyin'. Thus, the laughs began.
Then, after working a long day, Katie left. But, before she did, she read us the recipe (off a webpage, not from a cookbook) for the chocolate frosting. She said the recipe called for 5 cups of sugar. Wait. What? Five cups of granulated sugar? Without doing too much thinking, into the mixer went cup after cup of sugar and following many minutes of wondering why the texture of this frosting was so off, Mariel and I looked at each other and said, "Why is there granulated sugar in this frosting recipe?" At first we thought the frosting wasn't forming because of some weird reaction to combining cocoa powder with sugar. Maybe it just took a little longer for this frosting to come together? After many more minutes, the frosting never appeared and we took to the computer to double check this so-called "Texas Chocolate Frosting." The error bounced off the page--it wasn't granulated sugar, it was confectioners sugar ... duh. We felt ridiculous. Both of us heard Katie say "granulated sugar." Did she really say it or did we make a colossal mistake on our own accord? The world will never know.
After sighing a sigh at the loss of 5 cups of sugar, we tossed together the correct ingredients and a delicious chocolate frosting soon formed.
The white cake was heavenly indeed and we couldn't help but smile as we frosted the layers. We could hardly contain our laughter as we ate our first bites of our sample cake.
This is a recipe we'd make again, and hopefully we'll stop and think before adding 5 cups of anything but powdered sugar to a frosting recipe.
Three's Company
Chocolate Peppermint Torte
Made with love for Mariel's Dad, Robert, Oct. x?
We weren't really sure which direction to take the Brigade, so at first we planned to make a different chocolate cake each week.
This particular week we added a peppermint twist to a triple-layer cake. In keeping with the "three" theme, Katie joined us in the kitchen for the first time.
We called the cake "Three's Company" to poke fun at Katie's inaugural baking venture. She greased the pans ... and that was the extent of her role in the Cake Brigade that day. We weren't sure if she wanted to embrace the role or tell us she'd rather laugh at us from the living room. Happily, she took the spatula and ran with it ... and now we're a merry bunch of bakers!
The peppermint filling had a consistency of whipped cream with a touch of peppermint extract and red food coloring for effect. The chocolate cake was delectable, and it aged well ... after a week's vacation Mariel still had a slice of the cake leftover in the frige and it was just as moist and delicious as the day it was baked!
Made with love for Mariel's Dad, Robert, Oct. x?
We weren't really sure which direction to take the Brigade, so at first we planned to make a different chocolate cake each week.
This particular week we added a peppermint twist to a triple-layer cake. In keeping with the "three" theme, Katie joined us in the kitchen for the first time.
We called the cake "Three's Company" to poke fun at Katie's inaugural baking venture. She greased the pans ... and that was the extent of her role in the Cake Brigade that day. We weren't sure if she wanted to embrace the role or tell us she'd rather laugh at us from the living room. Happily, she took the spatula and ran with it ... and now we're a merry bunch of bakers!
The peppermint filling had a consistency of whipped cream with a touch of peppermint extract and red food coloring for effect. The chocolate cake was delectable, and it aged well ... after a week's vacation Mariel still had a slice of the cake leftover in the frige and it was just as moist and delicious as the day it was baked!
The Grand Marshal
(Deep Dark Chocolate Cake)
Made with love to kick off the CB, Sept. 20!
The day before our first baking endeavor, Mariel was the grand marshal in the City of Beaverton parade. Like any local celebrity, we thought she'd be riding in style on an excessively decorated float or a cherry red convertible at the very least. When we (her adoring fans) arrived to wave as she glided by, we were a bit surprised to see her revving down the road on a Yamaha Rhino ... with not a scrap of crepe paper in sight! Local nuns rode in convertibles and nerdy Boy Scouts graced the floats, but the grand marshal was downgraded to a RHINO? We were pretty disappointed to say the least. In an attempt to make up for the lackluster accommodations, we made an over-the-top rich, delicious chocolate cake and deemed it the grand marshal ... the leader of the cakes!
Made with love to kick off the CB, Sept. 20!
The day before our first baking endeavor, Mariel was the grand marshal in the City of Beaverton parade. Like any local celebrity, we thought she'd be riding in style on an excessively decorated float or a cherry red convertible at the very least. When we (her adoring fans) arrived to wave as she glided by, we were a bit surprised to see her revving down the road on a Yamaha Rhino ... with not a scrap of crepe paper in sight! Local nuns rode in convertibles and nerdy Boy Scouts graced the floats, but the grand marshal was downgraded to a RHINO? We were pretty disappointed to say the least. In an attempt to make up for the lackluster accommodations, we made an over-the-top rich, delicious chocolate cake and deemed it the grand marshal ... the leader of the cakes!
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