Recipes Discovered

Devil’s Food White-Out Cake Recipe

Generally when I make cakes, I freely interchange 8 and 9 inch cake pans. This cake is a little different however, because it needs the height to have the appropriate finished look. I converted the measurements from the original recipe, calling for 8-inch cake pans, to slightly larger amounts to be make 9-inch cake pans.

The cake is a fairly simple recipe, combining cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate, and semi-sweet chocolate to make a very moist and rich chocolate cake. The frosting is sweet, marshmallow-like, and a little more involved. It’s similar to the 7-minute frosting used on the coconut cake, but instead of cooking it over a double-boiler, a hot syrup is used to cook the egg whites. To assemble, each cake is cut in half. Three of the halves are alternated with the frosting to make black and white layers, and the fourth half is crumbled and pressed into the sides and top of the cake. It looks quite impressive when it’s finished. Although I haven’t actually had a slice, I did sample some of the cake that I crumbled, and it was outstanding. Hopefully the whole cake lives up to those expectations.

Overnight Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

Our nephew’s were in town visiting Seth and I last weekend, and they are typically 13 year old boys - all they wanted for breakfast for cinnamon rolls. I suppose I’m a good aunt though (or maybe just looking for an excuse to have cinnamon rolls) because I pulled out Alton Brown’s recipe for overnight cinnamon rolls and went to work. I started by making the brioche, a very rich and sweet bread dough. Once it raised, I rolled it out fairly thick, brushed it with butter, and sprinkled it with a lot of brown sugar and cinnamon. The dough is then rolled up, sliced, placed in a baking dish, and allowed to set in the refrigerator overnight. I liked the idea of having everything done the night before (I’m not a morning person by any means), but the rolls do need to raise for 30 minutes in the morning and then bake for 30 minutes. Once they were baked to golden brown, I mixed up cream cheese, sugar, and milk to make a creamy icing. I inverted the rolls onto a serving plate, drizzled the icing over them, and gave them to the boys. I’m glad I grabbed one first though, because they cleaned the plate off in about 5 minutes. I can’t really blame them - they were really good cinnamon rolls. I suppose we’ll have to have the boys over again so I have another excuse to make cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Blueberry Buckle Recipe

Blueberry Buckle is fantastic cake made with fresh blueberries and a crumb topping. The name supposedly refers to the cake engulfing the blueberries and then buckling on top to make a dimpled appearance. Although my cake has a dimply top, the blueberries weren’t engulfed by the cake, but they did make a rather yummy blueberry goo on top. To me though, the cake was a tad dry, so I will definitely fold the blueberries into the cake batter next time to spread them out more and to give the cake some moisture. The cake also burnt on the bottom, and I’m not quite sure if that was because of my cake pan or the oven temperature. The cake does bake quite awhile (at least 45 minutes), so I will probably lower the baking temperature to 350 next time. And there will be a next time - this cake, even with it’s problems, is delicious. It may not be Blueberry Delight, but it definitely ranks up there.

Once summer comes around, all Seth wants to eat is peach pie and strawberry shortcake. I still haven’t figured out how to make a perfect peach pie, but I can make strawberry shortcake. Or at least I thought I could, until last night when he told me it tasted funny. Did I use a different recipe? Did I change something? Probably. So tonight we set out to set the record straight and to find the recipe for the best shortcake. Paula Deen’s recipe uses a little more butter than Dorie Greenspan’s. My mom uses an egg in her recipe. Alton Brown uses butter and shortening. There is also the debate of milk or cream. I made each of the recipes, plus a chocolate shortcake (I had to try it), and divided them up using cream in half and milk in half. Seth did a blind taste test, having no idea what the differences were between the shortcakes, and I was really surprised by his comments. >> Read more

Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake Recipe

I was searching for a pound cake recipe and most of the ones I came across were for a cream cheese pound cake. The reviews said the cream cheese gave the pound cake a rich taste and also kept the cake moist. I’ve never made a pound cake, but rich and moist both seem important to cake, so I went with the cream cheese pound cake recipe. I added vanilla extract and lemon zest for flavor, and topped the cake with a lemon glaze. The cake looked beautiful, and tasted quite good as well - very rich and moist. Definitely a keeper.