German Chocolate Cake

A few years ago, when we were newly married and had just moved in to our first home together hubby baked me a birthday cake. Looking back, it was my first homemade birthday cake in quite a few years. He literally stayed up all night to make it for me, it was a German chocolate cake. Not a German recipe for chocolate cake, the cake was apparently named after a brand of chocolate. The cake he made was delicious and shared with my family on the night of my birthday.  German chocolate cake has a specific frosting – a pecan and coconut frosting made with evaporated milk and egg yolks.

The recipe I used today is from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. I’m yet to find a recipe I don’t like in either of the two Baked cookbooks (New Frontiers in Baking and Baked Explorations). Could be because I keep choosing to make the chocolate recipes? I made one substitution today - I used regular pain flour instead of cake flour as my local supermarket didn’t have it in stock. I read somewhere you should subtract two tablespoons of plain flour for each cup used when making this substitution. Of course, I read this after I’d made the cake. The crumb is so soft, almost too soft. I wonder if this is due to the flour, I’ll have to pick up some cake flour and try it again. Sweetapolita did an interesting post on types of flour recently.

I still have the original recipe hubby used, written on the back of two envelopes. Me, sentimental?

Click here for German chocolate cake recipe
Click here for the Baked: New Frontiers in Baking cookbook

Published in: on January 22, 2012 at 11:37 pm  Comments (2)  
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Chocolate Cake with Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting

My fascination with layer cakes continues, this time it’s a chocolate cake. I made this cake for no other reason than just to make a cake. With all the sewing and crochet projects I have going on, sometimes it’s nice to start something and finish it a few hours later.

This is the second time I’ve made Swiss meringue buttercream frosting and I’m happy to report all went well. After I added half the butter (the amount of butter in this recipe is crazy, try not to think about it for too long) to the egg white and sugar mixture, I popped the whole bowl in the fridge for a few minutes. I was worried the mixture was too soupy and I’d read cooling the mixture would help this. It worked like a charm! I added the rest of the butter and let the KitchenAid mix away. It was only afterwards that I realised I was supposed to change the whisk attachment to the paddle. It looks like no harm done though; the frosting was fluffy and dense and easy to spread. I couldn’t decide whether to colour the icing but after reading about people having trouble mixing Wilton gel food colouring and Swiss meringue buttercream, I decided against it. I quite like the dark cake against the white frosting. I think the next cake I make will be pink, a pink layer cake. Perhaps gluten free. Wish me luck with that one!

Rich and Dark Chocolate Cake recipe by Sweetapolita here
Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting recipe by Whisk Kid here (I used nine egg whites and had enough for the whole cake)
Rug from Urban Outfitters (yes they ship to Australia!)
And just for laughs: I can’t think of chocolate cake without thinking of  Bill Cosby
Cake plate from Freedom

Published in: on October 30, 2011 at 7:21 pm  Comments (2)  
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Burnt Sugar Bundt Cake with Caramel Rum Frosting

Cakes with long names sound impressive, however bundt cakes remind me of school fetes and bake sales. There is something old-fashioned about them. To me, they say homemade cake. According to Wikipedia, bundt cakes took off in the ’60s. I bought a 24cm bundt pan to make this recipe – actually it’s a “fluted pan”since bundt appears to be a registered trademark. The burnt sugar bundt cake looks like a grown up, sophisticated version of what I usually expect bundt cakes to be.

I attempted this cake twice today. The first time around, I didn’t burn my sugar for long enough. I can’t remember being disappointed I didn’t burn something before! The cake and the frosting both require a burnt sugar solution which is made of sugar, cream, coconut milk and lemon juice. Half of the mixture goes into the cake batter and half into the frosting. The first batch of burnt sugar I made was golden and brown, but for a dense-coloured and extra flavourful cake, the burnt sugar needs to be quite dark and rich in colour. Stir the sugar in a pan over medium heat until it’s the colour of molasses, and then keep stirring and heating it some more. Remove the saucepan from the heat and slowly add the cream while you keep stirring. Adding the cream too quickly will result in lumps of hard sugar. You can dissolve the lumps over heat on the stove but it seems best to avoid them if you can. Below are samples from the burnt sugar mixtures I made, the one on the right wasn’t heated long enough to make a dark-coloured cake.

The frosting came together easily in my food processor. I added a little extra icing sugar to thicken it, and omitted 1 tablespoon of rum. Next time I’ll use vanilla extract instead - I don’t care for the rum flavour. The sugar shards were easy to make with some melted sugar and water over high heat but mine were quite sticky to handle when arranging them on the cake.

Official taste-tester hubby seemed pleasantly surprised by the caramel flavour of the cake, he remarked it wasn’t sickly sweet like some caramel-flavoured desserts. Find the recipe here on Amy Atlas’s blog. It comes from Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented.

Happy Father’s Day Dad!

Published in: on September 4, 2011 at 12:48 pm  Comments (5)  
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Hawaiian Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

The week of hubby’s birthday continued today with another cake and another celebration. I used Sweetapolita’s cake recipe and also her cream cheese frosting recipe. The only change I made to the cake was I used gluten-free flour. Honestly, no one would have had any idea it was gluten-free if I’d not mentioned it. Carrot cake seems to handle gluten-free flour well in taste and texture - I’ve made gluten-free carrot cupcakes once before with a different recipe. I baked the cake in two round pans, then sliced each cake in half horizontally. I assembled the cake with three layers and we taste-tested the remaining layer, just to be sure it was edible of course.  The Hawaiian in the title refers to the pineapple in the cake. Having just come back from a week in Hawaii (when can we go again?) it seems as though if you stick pineapple on anything, bam, it’s Hawaiian! With this cold Sydney weather I’ll take a slice of Hawaii any chance I get.

And yes, I’m in to layer cakes at the moment. I’m learning more about baking and decorating with each cake I make and really liking the look of layers of frosting sandwiched between soft, sweet cake.

Happy birthday hubby! Also to cousin Ros who shares your birthday, and to cousin Joel who turned 10 on the 4th of July.

Published in: on July 11, 2011 at 12:09 am  Leave a Comment  
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Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

Happy 40th birthday hubby! I hope all of your birthday wishes come true, just like your wish for yellow cake with chocolate frosting.

Published in: on July 6, 2011 at 10:58 pm  Comments (3)  
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Rainbow Cake

I did it! And with no major disasters, upsets, re-dos or tears. Thank goodness. I’ve been looking for an excuse to attempt a rainbow cake for a while. My nanna’s 78th birthday was the perfect occasion – mainly because she loves anything and everything I make. I used Whisk Kid‘s recipe and instructions; go to her blog to watch her make the cake on the Martha Stewart show. I baked the cakes yesterday afternoon and made the first batch of icing last night. Then, I stacked the layers and did a crumb coating of icing and let the cake sit overnight.  Most recipes suggest only gel colouring will do for this cake; however, I used liquid food colour and the results look vivid enough to me. I have ordered a full set of gel colours from Little Betsy Baker’s stocktake, sale so I will use them for my next rainbow cake. The only container big enough to hold the cake and stand was my cupcake courier, with the trays removed.

This morning, I made the second batch of icing and finished the cake. (The recipe specifies the quantities for each batch). The icing is Swiss meringue buttercream. This is the first time I’ve made it. It is a combination of sugar, egg whites, butter and vanilla. The recipe wasn’t too tricky and the first batch was perfect. There was enough to spread generous amounts between each cake layer and for the crumb coating. Batch number two was smaller and enough to cover the cake. This batch was a little problematic and I was afraid it wasn’t going to turn out properly, as the mixture took a while to come together in the mixer. Eventually, though, the icing turned out fine as the trusty Kitchenaid did her stuff. I would not have been able to make the icing without it. The second batch of icing has more of a yellow colour than the first. I’m not sure why yet. I’ll definitely make this type of icing again. I need to invest in some decorating tools and a larger cake plate but I managed with what I had.

And yes, Nanna loved it.

Click here for the recipe, instructions and video from Whisk Kid

Click here to see another awesome rainbow cake from Sweetapolita

Published in: on June 26, 2011 at 9:57 pm  Comments (7)  
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Muddy Chocolate Orange Cake

In less than ten days I’ll be a real grown up 30 years old. And every birthday needs a cake, well at least one. I might try for multiple cakes this years since it’s the big three-oh, and heck, why not? I got it into my head that I might want a jaffa-flavoured mudcake for one of my celebrations. It seems a little odd to bake your own birthday cake(s) so I won’t be doing that. But I can bake non-birthday jaffa-flavoured cakes right? And that I did.

I took Donna Hay’s muddy chocolate cake recipe and added the juice and rind of one orange. I might add a little more of each next time, for some extra jaffa flavour. The cake was a hit and I may or may not have had four pieces over the past three days.

More jaffa goodness here.
And here.
More here.

Published in: on May 14, 2011 at 8:44 pm  Comments (1)  
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