Recipes Discovered

Heaven and Hell Cake Recipe

I saw a picture of this cake awhile ago and found it very intriguing. Apparently, it’s a signature dessert at a restaurant in Texas, but really it’s just devil’s food cake and angel food cake layered with a peanut butter mousse and covered in chocolate ganache. It’s a little time consuming to make, since the cakes bake separately at different temperatures, but it’s not overly difficult. My devil’s food cake collapsed a bit in the center, but with all the peanut butter mousse, it doesn’t really matter. Two things about the ganache though. One, make it as soon as the cakes come out of the oven because it takes awhile to cool down and thicken up. Two, I only used half the ganache and still thought it was a bit overwhelming, so I would definitely halve it next time. As for the final result – the cake looks very cool. It has a lot of contrast that make it visually impressive. The peanut butter mousse tastes incredible and would make a good filling for any cake. The delicacy of the angel food cake was lost a bit in the cake, but I don’t really think it’s supposed to stand out. Overall, it’s a very good and very rich cake – cut into very small slices and enjoy!

Cream Cheese Chocolate Bundt Cake

I know this isn’t the best picture, but this cake is really good. The recipe calls for a cake mix, but I love this chocolate cake so much, I will use any excuse to make it. This time, I put it in a bundt pan and then made a filling of sweetened cream cheese and pecans. The result is a rich, moist chocolate cake with a gooey, delicious ring of filling inside. There is no need for icing, but a dusting of powdered sugar wouldn’t hurt anything. The only problem I had with the cake is getting it out of the pan. Even though I sprayed the pan, the cake stuff stuck, so I suggest heavily greasing the pan. But even if the cake falls apart (as mine did), it still tastes great!

Tipsy Turtle Cake

Since I couldn’t find a recipe that I liked for a chocolate caramel cake, I decided to combine several recipes together and came up with this Tipsy Turtle Cake. The cake layer is the Chocolate Guinness Cake that I made a few weeks ago. A caramel chocolate filling is baked right into the cake by baking half of the cake batter, pouring the filling over the cake, and then topping that with the remaining cake batter. To top the whole thing off, a sweet caramel frosting with pecans. Together, it makes a very rich, delicious cake. However, I would probably make some changes the next time I make this. The cakes are pretty delicate, so to remove them from the pans and try to make a layer cake is a bit tricky. I would probably make this into a 9×13 sheet cake next time to avoid the cakes breaking apart. The frosting is incredibly difficult to work with as well because it hardens almost immediately. Making the cake into a sheet cake would also solve this problem because you could just pour the frosting over the cake all at once, but the filling is sweet enough, I don’t think the cake necessarily needs the frosting. I think I would just sprinkle additional pecans on top of the cake batter before baking it the second time and skip the frosting all together. However you make it, the cake is sweet and gooey – a definitely keeper even if it’s not the prettiest cake.

Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake Recipe

I picked up the Washington Post yesterday and on the front page (of the Food Section) was a picture of a beautiful cake. I swear the cake was taunting me – not just because it happened to be 10 layers, but because it just looked so perfect and was 10 layers. I have a hard time getting 4 layers to come out looking half decent. This cake is unusual though. Instead of making 3 or 4 cakes and cutting them into layers, this recipe actually calls for making 10 separately baked cake layers. It’s done that way so each layer has a crust and it doesn’t dry out. The cake originated from a place called Smith Island, a little island off of Maryland with a population of about 360 people. The ingredients and number of layers vary from baker to baker, but the cake should stand no more than 3 inches high when completed. I decided to tackle this cake recipe. >> Read more

Hummingbird Cake Recipe

While browsing through some old magazines that my aunt gave me, I came across a recipe for this Hummingbird Cake. A cross between carrot cake and banana cake, it incorporates bananas, pineapple, and pecans into the batter. I’m not sure where the name came from, but according to Internet folklore, it’s because of its intensely sweet taste, much like hummingbird nectar. The recipe originally came from Southern Living magazine back in the 70′s, and is still a very popular in the south. The cake is really easy to make, and requires no mixer. Just combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients, and then fold them together. For the frosting, I mixed in toasted pecans with cream cheese frosting, which gave it a unique, caramely taste. Just how sweet is the cake? I am still waiting for Seth to bring me a piece home, but I’m anxious to find out!

Update: Yum! Hummingbird cake taste like a super moist banana cake. If you like banana bread or banana cake, you must try this recipe. It’s delicious!