Aunt Julie's Birthday Cake

My cousin Heidi planned a fabulous Surprise Birthday Party for her mom. I asked Heidi if I could make the cake, and she said "yes!".  So, when I asked her what her mom's favorite cake was she said "she didn't really have a favorite but that she liked chocolate".  I knew just what to do.

I made the Devil's Food Chocolate Cake from The Cake Book by Tish Bolye.  To go with it, I made the Chocolate Pudding Filling and the Fudgy Chocolate Frosting from her Brooklyn Blackout Cake recipe.  This is by far the most wonderful chocolate cake ever!  Yummy!

After the cake was cooled in the refrigerator, for about an hour, I cut the top of the cake layer to make it flat.  Then I piped a ring of the fudgy frosting around the layer to place the filling in.

Next I filled in the ring with the chocolate pudding filling.  I made the pudding the night before so it would be nice and firm for the filling.  You don't have to do this for all fillings, but I had made this one before and I knew if it was too warm it would be runny.  Still tasty, but not as pretty of a presentation once the cake was sliced.

I placed the second layer on top of the first to make the bottom tier of the cake.

Once I had it assembled I covered the tiers with the fudgy frosting.  I used a chocolate fondant from Rose's Cake Bible, to cover the top tier and a marshmallow fondant to cover the bottom tier. I spent the afternoon making some fondant roses for the sides of the cake.  I thought of a new idea on how to make these, but I'm still experimenting with them.  I will share more with you, as I figure it out.

Happy Birthday Aunt Julie!! We love you!!  Rach

Old Fashioned Lemon Poppy Seed Cake- Recipe!!

Ok, ok, I did not make this recently, but I did make it and since I'm participating in a 21 day fast with my church, I'm not making cake for just a little while longer.   So, I thought I'd share some oldies and goodies with you!

I have a love of things old.  Hence my old house, my old antique stove- among the many!  So, I found this wonderful cookbook by the Brass Sisters, Heirloom Baking.  It is composed of recipes from days past.  The recipes have been collected from scraps of papers, journals, family cookbooks, and their own recipes that have been passed down from generation to generation.

Here is my flour, no they don't give the measurements for weighed amounts, but to insure a successful cake, I do measure each dry ingredient.  :)

My ingredients ready for mixing!

The batter looks yummy!  I am scraping the sides down after using my mixer.

All ready for the oven.

My finished cake.  I made a lemon sugar glaze for the top.  The crumb was perfect and the lemon taste was just the right amount.

Anyone want a slice?  mmmmmmm....

The cake was quite scrumptious, although a little on the sweet side.

Thank you to all the cooks that have come before me!

Lemon Poppy Seed Cake

from Heirloom Baking with the Brass Sisters

For Cake

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1/4 cup poppy seeds

3 tablespoon lemon juice

2 teaspoons grated lemon zest

For Lemon Glaze

1 cup confectioners' sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

pinch of salt

1.  Set the oven rack in the middle position.  Preheat the oven to 350degrees.  Coat an 8-cup Bundt pan or an 8-cup tube pan with vegetable spray or butter and dust with flour.

2.  To make the cake:  Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.

3.  Cream butter and sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  With mixer running, add eggs, on at a time, and sour cream.  Add poppy seeds.  Fold in sifted dry ingredients in thrids.  Add lemon juice and lemon zest and mix well.

4.  Pour batter into pan.  bake 50 to 60 minutes, or until cake pulls away from sides of pan and tester inserted into cake comes out clean.  Cake may crack on top.  Place pan on a rack and cool about 20 minutes.  Run a butter knife around the edges.  Turn out cake onto a rack and allow to cool completely.

5.  To make the lemon glaze:  Mix together confectioners' sugar, lemon juice, and salt in a small bowl.  Slip a sheet of wax paper under rack to catch drips.  Use a teaspoon or fork to drizzle glaze over the top of cake.  After the glaze has set, store loosely covered with wax paper at room temperature.  Cake can be frozen and reheated.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week!

Blessings, Rachel

Angel Food Cake with Strawberries and Chantilly Cream

This old fashioned Angel food cake was baked in my old fashioned kitchen.  I covered this yummy Angel Food Cake with Chantilly Cream and layers of fresh strawberries.  I made this cake for my Father in Law's birthday.  I love my in law's they are so dear to me!  :)  I didn't have the proper pan so...

I had to borrow their pan.  This pan I'm sure has been around at least 10 maybe 30 years??  The descriptions in my cookbook- Baking At Home with The Culinary Institute of America, says you should have an Angel Food Pan that has legs.  The cake cools upside down, in the pan, I had to double check that, but it's true!  This pan has legs and a removable center, even better!

For just about every cake I make I use my Kitchen Aid mixer.  My Step Mom gave it to me this past year, it to is an oldie but a goodie!  It is at least 10 yrs old.  I love it!!

The next step is to measure out the ingredients.  I carefully weigh the dry goods.  Unfortunately the Baking At Home does not have the weights listed, but that's ok, I can figure it out.

Here are all my organic and natural ingredients!

I just found this King Arthur's Unbleached Cake Flour.  This is my first time using it.  I'm very happy about it!!  Yay!  Cake flour is heavliy processed, so thank you King Arthur!!

My egg whites and cream of tarter getting mixed up.  The cream of tarter makes little lumps in the eggs, but it turns into silky whites.

Here soft peaks of silky egg whites are formed.

I add the sugar a spoonful at a time.

I sprinkle on the flour and fold it into the egg whites.

The mix has been put in the pan and is ready for cooking!  I have to run to the store for strawberries. So,

I leave the timer with my trusty husband, and he will take the cake out of the oven when it dings!

My cake is cooked and cooled. It did not rise all the way, due to an oven temperature situation, but it seems to be ok.  I whip up some Chantilly Cream and start piping it on the cake.

Fresh strawberries cleaned and dried with the greens removed.

I am layering strawberries, whipped cream, strawberries, etc...

Done!

I used a silver platter to place the cake on.  One of my Christmas gifts from my Mother in Law, a heirloom to pass down to our girls.  Happy Birthday Kent!  Love, Rachel

Peppermint Twins

On Wednesday, the day before Christmas Eve, I had three cakes to make.  Two of them were the Peppermint Chocolate Cake that I had made recently.  Here are the Peppermint Twins!  The third cake was a Lemon Mousse with Raspberries (from Tish Boyle).

Here is a side view of my Peppermint Twins.  As you can see the "baby" sized candy canes go perfectly on the side of the cake.  This cake is 3 layers of devils food chocolate, and has the crushed peppermint candy buttercream filling, all from the Cooks recipe that I posted about before.  I did change up the outer frosting.  I made a cream cheese peppermint frosting.  It was so delicious!  I found it on the Southern Living website and I'll post it below for all of you.  Once frosted, I pressed crumbled peppermints all around the cake.

I piped the white chocolate buttercream frosting around the cake and then I added the candy canes.  My sweet little 5 year old suggested the hearts on the top.  She has great ideas!

I filled the heart with dots of white chocolate peppermint frosting.  Yum.

Peppermint Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 1  (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
• 1  cup  butter or margarine, softened
• 1  (2-pound) package powdered sugar
• 2  teaspoons  peppermint extract*

Preparation

Beat cream cheese and butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating at low speed until smooth. Add extract, beating until blended.

*2 teaspoons vanilla extract may be substituted.

For Quick Peppermint Frosting, stir together 3 (16-ounce) containers ready-to-spread cream cheese frosting and 2 teaspoons peppermint extract.

Southern Living, DECEMBER 1998

Here is the link to this recipe:
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=522648

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas and may you all have a very blessed New Year!
Rachel

Snowmen Cupcakes

Fondant Showmen on Billy's Vanilla Cupcakes.  Aren't they cute?  I just fell for them.  I wanted to keep them all but off they went to school.  Courtney took them to her daughter's Christmas party.  I was told some were devoured right away, and some got to sit on their children's desks.

I got my inspiration from Elisa Strauss.  She has some very cute snowmen in her book Confetti Cakes. Mine are nowhere are fancy as hers but I had so much fun doing them, and I love they way they came out.

I made these guys in three different colors- blue, pink, and light green.  The green is looking yellow, but I promise it really was green!

Here is Mr. Snowman with a green scarf.

This blue scarf snowman has a bit of cornstarch on his scarf.  I think he looks a little frosty that way.

Profile view of Mr. Snowman.

If you want to see Elisa's snowman, take a look here.  She is an amazing artist.

http://confetticakes.blogspot.com/2009/10/snowman-cupcakes.html

Have a great weekend!  Many blessings, Rachel

Chocolate Candy Cane Cake

I found this recipe in Cooks Illustrated, Holiday Baking.  It sounded so yummy I just had to try it.  We had a brunch with some of the MOPS Mentor Moms from church, and I thought it would be the perfect thing!

This cake starts off with a deep dark devils food chocolate cake recipe.  Then it's layered in a peppermint buttercream, topped with a white chocolate buttercream and crumbled peppermints.  As I was making the frosting, I was wondering "Is this too much?" but later at the brunch when I took a bite, I was not disappointed!

I decided to try a square cake just for fun.  I love a square cake, it's so easy to slice up.  I also think it adds a touch of elegance.

I place the peppermint candies around the cake and piped the remaining white chocolate buttercream around.  It was a little tricky to pipe the icing on the crushed peppermint, it did not want to stick to it.  I decided to leave the crumbled peppermints on the platter like a bed of pink sugar, or pink snow- it looked so pretty to me.

A close up of the crushed peppermints.  Oh heaven.  Peppermint Mocha?  Peppermint Chocolate Ice cream? Peppermint chocolate candies?  Peppermint chocolate cookies? You have met your match-in a cake! I will be making it again soon.

Have you tried any of Cook's recipes?  I just love how they tell a little story of how they came up with the "perfect" recipe and all they did to try different ways to make it.  Very fun!

Happy Baking!  Blessings, Rachel

A Christmas Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Covered Strawberries

What a lovely cake, even if I do say so myself!  :)  Melena asked for a Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Covered Strawberries for her upcoming Christmas party.  With my favorite book- yes you know the one - "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle, in hand I got to work.  For this project I knew I had to use the Deeply Dark Devil's Food Cake recipe, and then I layered it with Chocolate Whipped Cream (ohhh sweet bliss!!).  I made two and a half recipes of the cake and doubled the whipped cream recipe, then I topped it with her fabulous Fudgy Chocolate Frosting, this I tripled because I wanted to make sure I had plenty of frosting for the decorative piping.

Here is the cake unadorned, but fully frosted.

A close up looking down at the cake.  I was experimenting with shell piping, star piping, loops along the top and rosettes along the bottom.  The bottom tier has three 9inch layers of cake, and two of whipped cream.  The top tier has two 6inch layers of cake, and one of whipped cream.

Side view of the cake from my kitchen table.

Here are some of my chocolate covered strawberries.  Thank you to my CA MOPS because there I became an expert at making chocolate covered strawberries at our annual fundraisers!  :)

Strawberries, yummy.

I assembled the cake at Melena's house, just before her party started.  The cake pedestal is hers.  Perfect for this cake and I do have a little pedestal envy- that is one beautiful pedestal.  I carefully placed each strawberry around the cake, and it was perfectly lovely.

Merry Christmas Melena!

I love your comments and I want to say hello to my new followers!!  :)  Blessings, Rachel