Tagged: cake
On Saturday’s Events
I suppose dinner parties can’t be fun if something unexpected doesn’t occur. In the end, there were only four of us, and it couldn’t have possibly been better otherwise. What I really love, is to be with the people I feel truly comfortable with (to the point of eating the cake with bare hands, straight from the stand). Highly improbable of happening, with seven people around. But that’s just plain me. I give honours to my best guests ever, Hemout and Miguel Maria. These are my V.I.P.’s!
Since the amount of people reduced so drastically, some of the dishes were left apart. I didn’t plate the smoked salmon. The best choice ever, because the turkey meatloaf was just to the count and everyone seemed to have preference in a hot dish, opposed to the “tapa” styled dinner. The chocolate cake was definitely a killer, and really made us sit back on our chairs! It was great…
Thank You.
Pink Velveteen Dream
I really had a Willy Wonka moment here. I named this cake Pink Velveteen, and it’s my first creation with unusual cake colours! It started out as a Red Velvet Cake, but unfortunately I didn’t have enough food colouring, so pink was the closest I got to it. The frosting was my idea, and didn’t belong to the recipe. It’s a french meringue.
I actually think that this colour makes an interesting cake. It wouldn’t be something I’d buy in a store for sure…
Red Velvet Cake is simple to make, and you can fill and frost according to your taste. I wanted to give it a “psychadelic” feel, so I opted for the meringue (which gives that cloudy, silky look). This cake is so cool, and it’s almost pure invention!
Belo Sol da Alvorninha
Beautiful morning in Alvorninha, with the exception of some serious windy moments, forcing trees to dance under the warm, and gold sun.
Every morning I go check out our Tangerine trees, just to make sure there’s nothing there to bring home. The usual is bringing a whole basket-full of Tangerines…unfortunately they go rotten very easily. Just so that doesn’t happen again, I thought of a better idea (and the most obvious): Tangerine Juice! During my Tangerine picking, I left my Marble Cake in the oven. It was supposed to be a Zebra Cake…but I’m afraid I didn’t get hold of the trick yet! The recipe is actually for a Marble Cake, but I don’t know if that’s what made the difference…
Nevertheless, the smell of a nice fresh cake, and cool Tangerine juice just makes the day shine in a different way.
Apple Cake with Dark Chocolate Ginger-ish Sauce
Herbal tea on a Saturday morning music, and yesterday’s cakes…
I haven’t made an Apple Cake for quite a while. I love it with a cup of hot Green Tea, and a little sauce on the side. As I’ve mentioned in my last post, my days have been spent mostly in the search for the perfect chocolate fudge (and studying driver’s license theory…). Didn’t want to put chocolate in the cake, as it would make it dense and not as smooth and fresh.
It may sound surprising, but this is the first cake recipe that I made alone (that is, without my Grandma Lena’s help). It belongs to a friend of hers, and it’s my favorite apple cake of all times. I actually think that most fruit cakes are vaguely similar, with the exception of the “upside-down’s”. Even so, it took me quite a while to make the click in this recipe. If you don’t let it cook, the texture will turn out real soggy…like a block of Edam cheese.
I only made half a recipe, but I’m writing it down in the original format. The measurement units used for these two recipes are different, so should you find it confusing, look here for help in the conversion.
My Life is a Bollywood Movie: The Chocolate Walnut Cake Adventure
Okay, classmate dinner tonight and I guess I always end up making dessert. I’m always the last one to arrive, but I suspect it makes a better entreé for dessert. Almost everyone’s got a thing for chocolate, and I didn’t want to complicate it, so I decided to make a Chocolate and Walnut Cake. The result was fabulous, but what an adventure I had just making it! I think it’s the first time I made this cake correctly, because it has never grown so much in the oven as this time! I mean, it grew so much that the batter started to fall out of the pan! Can you imagine me with a spoon, scooping all the excess batter (and eventually eating it all)? It took over an hour or so to cook, my baking tray was full of cake, and the pan had pieces that are really going to give me a hard time to wash out!
I’m going to include the recipe for this here. The cake is just a simple chocolate batter. It’s the one I rely on most, I LOVE this cake. Beware the choice of your baking pan though, or some accidents might happen (like batter dripping out of the sides). The best is to get two 9-inch springform pans and divide the batter. The frosting is quite simple too, and very delicious. I crushed some walnuts and mixed it in. I didn’t fill the cake, because I was already late and it was still hot (but you can do that)!
In the end, it’s basically that chocolate cake, a wonderful chocolate cake. The recipe is adapted from Marion Cunningham’s Fannie Farmer Cookbook. I always end up looking there for reference and it has never let me down.
Huntington Chocolate Cake (Fannie Farmer Cookbook)
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup shortening or 1/2 pound butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
4 eggs
Method:
Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Butter and lightly flour two 9-inch round cake pans. Melt the chocolate and the shortening or butter together in a bowl or pot over simmering water; stir in the vanilla. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a large bowl. Add the chocolate mixture, the milk, and the eggs and beat until smooth. Spread in the pan and bake for about 30-35 minutes. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto racks.
