Your Daily Sweets (2005-2012)

[Emily_R]

Had a serious chocolate cake craving yesterday, along with a lengthy writing project that was going to require a sugar rush. And hence, Hershey's perfectly chocolate bundt cake and frosting (made with Penzey's cocoa) -- a ridiculously simple recipe, which is a nice bonus. Serious yum. In fact, I had a slice for breakfast today. Next time I'm thinking I'll add kahlua to the frosting, and orange zest to the cake...

[Darienne]

EmilyR, your cake looks inviting and delicious.

This afternoon I made David Lebovitz's Chocolate Idiot Cake...the name appealed to me. Well, it is supposed to be idiot-proof. They figured without me. I was very careful. Read the recipe out loud to myself. Then put the oven on to the wrong temperature. I don't know why.

Had to bake the cake an extra half hour for that stupid mistake, but the cake still turned out beautifully. So rich and delicious. My GourdPatch group tomorrow will enjoy it. Give 'em chocolate to keep 'em happy and this cake has 10 oz of bittersweet chocolate in it. What's not to be happy about?

[Genkinaonna]

EmilyR- I use the Hersheys recipe with Penzey's cocoa all the time! Kinda ironic that the recipe is vastly improved by NOT using the ingredient that it was developed for Love the way that icing oozes down the cake, it definitely looks like it could handle any chocolate craving thrown at it!

Darienne-I'm thinking I'm going to have to make that Idiot Cake sometime soon...tonight, though, it was "New Bittersweet Brownies" from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. They pretty much melted in your mouth, really chocolate-y and not too sweet, just how I like them. For a 8" pan they used 8 oz of 70% chocolate, although I fudged (haha no pun intended) it and used half 85% and half 64% because that's what I happened to have on hand. The topping is vanilla whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Good stuff...

Jakey-I bet those Twix were waaay better than the store-bought ones!

Curls-Can't beat the classics, yellow cake with chocolate frosting...adding pistachio paste definitely couldn't hurt anything either! I bet that'd be good with some orange segments snuck in the middle too...chocolate, pistachio and orange is one of my favorite combos.

[Darienne]

Darienne-I'm thinking I'm going to have to make that Idiot Cake sometime soon...tonight, though, it was "New Bittersweet Brownies" from Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich. They pretty much melted in your mouth, really chocolate-y and not too sweet, just how I like them. For a 8" pan they used 8 oz of 70% chocolate, although I fudged (haha no pun intended) it and used half 85% and half 64% because that's what I happened to have on hand. The topping is vanilla whipped cream and shaved chocolate. Good stuff...

The idiot cake contains 4 ingredients: butter, eggs, sugar and chocolate...10 oz of either bittersweet or semi-sweet. I use only bittersweet...semi is just too sweet for my tastes...and in this case 5 oz 70% and 5 oz 54%, mu usual combo. It is very chocolatey and very rich. And would probably have worked out without a hitch is I had dialed the correct temperature on the oven. It still worked fine.

[Kim Shook]

Don't know what happened - I thought that I posted a comment last night! Anyway, what I said was that I didn't have anything to contribute, but that I was COMPELLED to make a few comments:

Mette - your cake is beautiful and what an original design. And I love the concentration of the young artist - especially the urgent curve of that left hand !

Panaderia Canadiense - I literally gasped out loud when I scrolled down to that luscious looking apple-ginger cake. Wow!

dhardy - those gooey beauties could cause impure thoughts!

curls - OK, I have to know which Sherry Yard book that cake and frosting are from, because I am ordering it immediately. The texture of the cake looks utterly perfect and that soft, glossy frosting is what I'm always looking for! Please let us know!

Genkinaonna - what a delicious looking brownie and what a LOVELY presentation.

Don't know when I'll find the time to do any baking anytime soon - life has gotten a little complicated! But I'm enjoying it vicariously here!

Edited June 6, 2011 by Kim Shook (log)

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Kim, if you'd like the recipe for the ginger-apple cake, just let me know. It's absurdly fast and easy.

For me, the most recent bakings were Apple Pie (I was putting up filling and guess what?! Leftovers! So I kinda had to... At least, that's what I tell myself... )

And the old standby favourite, Banana-Chocolate Chunk loaf. This one is according to my Jamaican Aunt Dorothy's recipe.

[curls]

Kim, the cake and frosting recipe are from "Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills: Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever" by Sherry Yard and Wolfgang Puck. Recipes for both start on page seven and you can see them using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. The texture on the cake was great (best non-box yellow cake recipe I have found so far).

[oli]

Kim, the cake and frosting recipe are from "Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills: Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever" by Sherry Yard and Wolfgang Puck. Recipes for both start on page seven and you can see them using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. The texture on the cake was great (best non-box yellow cake recipe I have found so far).

I am curious, since this is the best non-box cake recipe you have found so far, have you tried the "FINALLY!!!!!! That perfect homemade yellow cake" at Chef Talk? If so how do the two compare?

[curls]

Kim, the cake and frosting recipe are from "Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills: Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever" by Sherry Yard and Wolfgang Puck. Recipes for both start on page seven and you can see them using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. The texture on the cake was great (best non-box yellow cake recipe I have found so far).

I am curious, since this is the best non-box cake recipe you have found so far, have you tried the "FINALLY!!!!!! That perfect homemade yellow cake" at Chef Talk? If so how do the two compare?

Oli, I have been planning to bake the perfect homemade yellow cake from Chef Talk but have not baked it yet. Will definitely compare the two when I do. I have baked yellow cakes from the Cake Bible, Whimsical Bakehouse, Shirley Corriher, and Alton Brown. While they all have their merits, my current favorite is Sherry Yard's yellow cake.

Edited June 6, 2011 by curls (log)

[Kim Shook]

Panaderia Canadiense - thank you, I'd LOVE to have the recipe!

curl - thank you for the information! I'll be trying that soon!

[oli]

Kim, the cake and frosting recipe are from "Desserts by the Yard: From Brooklyn to Beverly Hills: Recipes from the Sweetest Life Ever" by Sherry Yard and Wolfgang Puck. Recipes for both start on page seven and you can see them using Amazon's "Look Inside" feature. The texture on the cake was great (best non-box yellow cake recipe I have found so far).

I am curious, since this is the best non-box cake recipe you have found so far, have you tried the "FINALLY!!!!!! That perfect homemade yellow cake" at Chef Talk? If so how do the two compare?

Oli, I have been planning to bake the perfect homemade yellow cake from Chef Talk but have not baked it yet. Will definitely compare the two when I do. I have baked yellow cakes from the Cake Bible, Whimsical Bakehouse, Shirley Corriher, and Alton Brown. While they all have their merits, my current favorite is Sherry Yard's yellow cake.

I will be standing by at the ready for your report.

Thanks, this way I won't bother making one or the other when I have someone who did the leg work.

[Emily_R]

So a few weeks ago I got a HUGE bag of leaf lard from my local butcher. Rendered about 1/4 of it in the crockpot, and thought -- this is one of the most disgusting things I've ever looked at. I sure hope this makes a pie crust that's worth it. And I must say I was skeptical, as smelling the rendered and cooled lard, it still smelled porky to me.

But ok. Made a batch of my favorite pie crust, using 3/4 lard and 1/4 butter. Last night rolled it out and made one of Ann_T's rhubarb pies. If you haven't tried this recipe (which I think is in recipegullet), you must. Its incredible. My only change is that I swap the lemon juice for orange zest and a little orange juice, since I love the taste of orange with rhubarb. The pie has two eggs in it, which makes it custardy and amazing.

End result? Without a doubt the best pie crust I've ever made. No hint of porkiness, just crazy deliciousness! I think the only pie crust that I've ever just wanted to eat straight up, with no filling. And as usual, Ann_T's recipe is heaven!

[Kouign Aman]

Key lime pie. I replaced one egg yolk with equal volume of egg white, and successfully avoided the sulfury-eggy taste that sometimes happens.

It was wonderful.

[Kim Shook]

I made cupcakes for a dinner party Friday:

Just Devil’s food cake, but I was really happy with my icing. It was a white chocolate buttercream. I started with my recipe for Fudgy Chocolate Buttercream frosting. It is a combination of two recipes – one that is too goopy and wet (but tastes great) and one that is too dry. I used white chocolate instead of the dark and a can of vanilla frosting for the buttercream to make it easy . It was so light and fluffy and easy to pipe. It lasted a long time, too. We ate the last of them at a Father’s day party on Sunday.

[Darienne]

Double McAuley birthday, June 22nd & 25th.

Double Chocolate Bombe: chocolate cake with cocoa. Two interior mousses: milk chocolate with Chambord & 60% chocolate with brandy. Mirror glaze glaze with 70% chocolate topped with little white chocolate covered cereal bits. Once a year.

Now if only I could have had Kim Shook or Dystopiadreamgirl make it for me so that it could be beautiful on the outside too.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Death By Chocolate Zucchini Cake.

I'm also decorating a birthday cake; photos later!

[judiu]

Double McAuley birthday, June 22nd & 25th.

Double Chocolate Bombe: chocolate cake with cocoa. Two interior mousses: milk chocolate with Chambord & 60% chocolate with brandy. Mirror glaze glaze with 70% chocolate topped with little white chocolate covered cereal bits. Once a year.

Now if only I could have had Kim Shook or Dystopiadreamgirl make it for me so that it could be beautiful on the outside too.

Darienne, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I behold one magnificent bombe! WOW!

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Darienne, that's a beautiful bombe, and don't let anybody tell you different! I'm envious, actually - mine never turn out that well.

Here's the birtheday cake I was decorating earlier. Handmade sweet almond fondant decorations over cream cheese icing on a heavy carrot spice cake. I'll find out how Cristina liked it tomorrow; I've got my fingers crossed.

[Darienne]

Did you actually make the lovely flowers? Beautiful cake.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

I did indeed make those flowers. I love fondant - it's like playing with plasticine and then being able to eat your creations!

[deensiebat]

My friend's wedding was this weekend, so I finally busted out the cupcakes I've been baking and stashing in the freezer over the past few weeks:

Chocolate, butter cake, and lemon-strawberry. They tasted great, and the buttercream survived the June temperatures (which, too be fair, aren't really that hot in Portland). I re-beat the buttercream before I left the house, but by the time we loaded up the car, got to the venue, and unwrapped 120 frozen cupcakes it wasn't quite so smooth anymore. Oops. But rustic has its charms, I suppose. And it was still delicious.

[Lior]

they look lovely to me! What a nice thing to do!

[merstar]

I made Cook's Illustrated's Dark Chocolate Cupcakes with a little extra liquid added. Frosted with a dark chocolate ganache. Delicious.

http://cakeonthebrain.blogspot.com/2009/07/best-chocolate-cupcakes-ever-chocolate.html

Edited July 7, 2011 by merstar (log)

[Lior]

The cupcakes with the "Johnny ups" are lovely. I also think no sprinkles! But, yes, the kids...

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Assorted cupcakes of the cake flavours offered in the bakery. I will never do this again - along with all of the salt-bread orders, it nearly killed me.