Devil's Food Bat Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

It may seem like it's all pie, all the time in my kitchen, but that's not the case. Sometimes there's cake!

My birthday was earlier this month, and this clearly called for cake. I wanted to use my Christmas gift, the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book. Yes, you read that right: whole grain cake. This book has an entire chapter devoted to whole grain cakes (and other chapters for cookies, and pies, and oh my!), and I was dying to find out how delicious they could be. Don't worry, this cake is not health food!

What you need:

3/4 cup unsalted butter

1 cup packed light or dark brown sugar

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp backing soda

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup plain low-fat or whole-milk yogurt

3/4 cup water

What you do:

Preheat the oven to 350. Grease and flour your pans (2 9-inch rounds, 3 8-inch rounds, or one 9x13).

Cream together the butter, sugars and salt in a large mixing bowl till fluffy and light, at least 5 minutes. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flours, cocoa and baking soda. Make sure there are no lumps.

Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time, beating well (at least a full minute) after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Add half the flour mixture and mix until evenly combined. Add the yogurt and water, and mix again. Add the remaining flour, mix, and stop to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl once more, to make sure the batter is evenly moistened. Pour the batter into the prepared pans.

Bake the cakes for 30-35 minutes if making a layer cake, or 35-40 minutes if making sheet cake. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes before removing from the pan. Place on a rack to cool completely before frosting.

For the frosting!

I used the frosting from the carrot cake recipe in the same cook book. To make it, let 1 8-oz package of cream cheese and 6 tbs of butter get to room temperature, then cream them together with 1 tsp of vanilla until light and fluffy. Then add (gradually!) 4 cups of confectioner's sugar. To get the intense blue color seen in the picture, add an entire bottle of blue food coloring. Noel (my partner in cake crime!) was not the biggest fan of this frosting, but I thought it was great. More cakes with different frosting are in the future!

The usual response when I mentioned that this cake is whole wheat: "Sweet, I can have another piece!" I can not recommend the KAF cookbooks enough for baking; they are reliable, and prioritize making delicious baked goods above all other considerations. I can't wait to try more whole wheat cakes!

Flourless Chocolate Cake

I first made this cake because I didn't have any flour. But now I make it all the time because it's the easiest cake ever and it tastes really fancy. I probably shouldn't tell anyone that because they will be less impressed with my skills and will just make it themselves. But who cares! This cake is quite rich, be warned! But it's soooo good!

This cake is great because you can modify its flavor. I've made it with Kahlua and instant coffee, and with cayenne and cinnamon. You could make it with mint or orange (or orange liqueur) or any alcohol or fruit flavor you want, really! You can add more cocoa (or unsweetened chocolate) to make it richer or change the amount of sugar to your liking. I'd recommend starting with it as is and then playing with it.

Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
4 oz. semi sweet baking chocolate or 1/2 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted
3/4 cup white sugar
3 eggs, beaten
1 Tbsp vanilla
powdered sugar and/or cocoa for dusting

Optional Ingredients (don't use all of them together! just choose a flavor family and go with it)
1 Tbsp instant coffee and 2 Tbsp Kahlua
2 tsp cinnamon and 1 pinch (less than 1/8 tsp) cayenne pepper
1 tsp mint extract
1-2 Tbsp liqueur of your choice (suggestions: Contreau, Amaretto, Rum, Brandy, Bourbon... whatever your vice is, really!)

Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 325 and grease and flour a 8 inch round pan. Don't use a 9 inch pan. This cake is already thin!
2. Over very low heat or a double boiler, melt the butter or chocolate. Use a pan/pot large enough for everything in the recipe so you don't have more dishes to wash! Once melted, remove from heat.
3. Add the remaining ingredients. Taste the batter to make sure you like the flavors. They will likely cook out a little, but cayenne won't! I've put too much cayenne in because I couldn't taste it in the batter and then the cake was too spicy!
4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes. Allow to cool for 10 minutes in the pan before removing it to a wire rack to cool completely.
5. Dust with cocoa powder or powdered sugar if you'd like! This also goes quite well with unsweetened or very lightly sweetened whipped cream and fresh berries!

Carmelitas

I have no idea where this recipe came from. My mom made these when I was growing up and I made them for Christmas and birthdays for people all the time. They are amazing. So indulgent. Chocolate. Caramel. Butter. These are actually really easy to make but are very impressive and people will ooh and aah the whole time they are eating. I promise.

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup quick cooking oats
¾ cup brown sugar
¾ cup melted butter
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 cup chocolate chips
½ cup chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)
¾ cup butterscotch or caramel topping
3 Tbsp flour

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350. You need a 9x13 inch pan, but don't grease it.
2. Mix the flour, oats, sugar, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl.
3. Stir in melted butter and mix completely.
4. Cut dough in half and pat half into the 9x13 pan. This will be a very thin layer that just barely covers the pan.
5. Bake for 10 minutes.
6. Remove pan from oven.
7. Microwave the caramel for about 20 seconds or just until it starts to bubble. Mix in the 3 Tbsp of flour.
8. Sprinkle the chocolate chips and nuts (if using) onto the pan. Pour caramel on top. Crumble the rest of the dough over the caramel.
9. Bake for 20 minutes.
10. When you remove from the oven, run a knife around the edge of the pan to loosen any caramel that has baked onto the pan.
11. Allow to cool and cut into bars.

Decadent Raspberry Brownies (aka the best thing I have ever made)

based off of this recipe (generally I don't like/trust recipes from companies touting their brands but ohmygosh this is so good)



It was my boss's birthday and I had a vague recollection that he liked "fruity things." I wanted to make some sort of fruity brownies. I did a bunch of searches and finally decided that this was what I really wanted to make. It's a dense brownie, covered in a thin layer of raspberry preserves, covered in a layer of ganache. I also added some fresh raspberries to the top of the ganache.

I almost had some serious problems. First I used a pan that was too big because I am dumb and the batter was way too thin and I had to transfer it (aluminum foil and all) to a smaller pan. Then, when I was making the ganache, I accidentally bought bittersweet chocolate instead of semi sweet and so I added some sugar but it basically ruined the ganache completely and I had to start all over. My roommate was watching while I was struggling and said "See, this is how the rest of us feel when we try to bake things!" But they came out perfect anyway.

And I do mean perfect. I have never gotten so many emphatic compliments about something I've made before. I say with little humility that I am pretty good at this baking thing by now and I'm used to compliments. I actually made these two days in a row (for my boss one day, and then the next day for an engagement party I went to) and people I didn't know were seeking me out to compliment me and some of my friends are STILL talking about these brownies, a week later!

They are not difficult to make if you don't make my dumb mistakes, but they do take quite a bit of time because you have to let the brownies cool before adding anything else, and you have to let the ganache cool before cutting them. If you can, I think it's best to make these the night before. Also, even if the ganache is totally cooled, cutting these is a little sticky so you'll have to wipe your knife in between cuts.

Ingredients
4 (1 ounce) squares Bakers UNSWEETENED baking chocolate
3/4 cup butter
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 cup seedless raspberry jam
6 (1 ounce) squares Baker's SEMI SWEET sweet baking chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream
fresh raspberries for garnish (I used 24 cut in half, but you'll need extras for the ones you cut poorly/accidentally drop in your mouth)

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 13x9-inch baking pan with aluminum foil, leaving some on the ends so you can eventually pull the brownies out with the foil. Spray the foil with cooking spray (use the kind that has flour in it if you have it!) 
2. Heat the unsweetened chocolate and butter over medium low heat and stir constantly until butter and chocolate are completely melted. Remove from heat.
3. Stir sugar into chocolate mixture and mix well. Mix in eggs and vanilla, then flour. Stir in flour until everything is totally mixed in. 
4. Pour evenly into the pan, it will be fairly thin, don't worry!
5. Bake 30 to 35 minutes (use the toothpick test!) and be careful to not overbake. It's much better to underbake than to overbake!
6. Allow the brownies to cool completely in the pan, at least an hour, more if you have time. Now would be a good time to slice some raspberries if you are into that.
7. Once the brownies are cool, evenly spread the jam on the brownies. Resist the urge to use more jam, even though it seems like a good idea! Reviews of the recipe say if you use too much jam, then the ganache will slide off!
8. Heat the semi sweet chocolate and cream over a double boiler and stir until the chocolate is completely melted. I don't think you need to add any flavorings to the ganache (I usually do), just let the intense chocolate flavor stand on its own!anache evenly o
9. Spread ganache evenly over the jam.
10. While the ganache is still liquid, press half raspberries into it in whatever pattern you'd like. I did 6 x 8 raspberries, so a total of 48 halves.
11. Allow the ganache to set at room temperature, at least 3 hours but overnight is better. I'd recommend against putting them in the fridge until set unless you are in a time crunch. Doing this causes condensation on the ganache, but it's not a big deal.
12. Carefully remove brownies from the pan by pulling out the aluminum foil and place on a cutting board. Wet a very sharp and thin knife and cut into bars (I cut mine so each had 2 half raspberries) and wipe off chocolate/wet the knife between cuts so it doesn't gunk up.

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes with Coffee Ganache

based off of this recipe who got the idea from this recipe



I am like the birthday cake fairy or something. Anyway, I asked my friend's boyfriend if I should make her a chocolate cake, a rum cake, an espresso cake or a stout cake for her birthday. And he said, and I quote, "How about a chocolate stout cake! Combine two of her true loves (I think I come in third)." So chocolate stout it is! The Bon Appetit recipe seems to be the base recipe for all of the chocolate stout cake recipes on the internet... But I like the Smitten Kitchen version... mostly because it used a better frosting, but also because she HALVED the recipe (and I still ended up with 28 cupcakes).

This cake is super rich and has a really intense flavor. It doesn't taste like stout, but it sort of has the essence of stout. Basically, it's awesome. I am always worried when I try new recipes for people's birthdays since it's kind of important that it tastes good, but this was definitely a winner. I think the coffee ganache goes really well with the cake. Like I said, the cake has such a strong flavor, and I don't think you'd want to have too much frosting to take away from that. Although, I kind of want to make an Irish Cream frosting/ganache in the future...!

Ingredients
Cake
1 cup stout (like Guinness)
1 cup unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream (the recipe called for 2/3 cup but I am bad at measuring!)
2 tsp vanilla


Ganache
1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp instant coffee
splash Kahula
splash vanilla

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line cupcake tray (or trays if you have more than one!) with paper or butter and grease the tray if you don't have cupcake liners.
2. In a medium saucepan, simmer the stout and butter together over medium heat, whisking slowly until butter is totally melted.
3. Whisk the cocoa into the butter/stout. This is going to taste really bitter, so if you are like me and taste everything, don't be surprised/disappointed. I mean, obviously... it's bitter beer and cocoa, what I did I expect it to taste like?
4. Turn the heat off on the burner and allow the mixture to cool a little while you're doing the next steps.
5. Mix flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
6. Beat eggs, sour cream and vanilla in a large bowl. You can do this by hand, but if you are using a mixer, do this at a low speed and keep it on low for everything.
7. Mix stout mixture into egg mixture and beat until just combined. You don't want to mix out all of the carbonation (or nitrogen-ation or whatever it would be if you're using Guiness).
8. Add flour mixture and beat until not quite combined.
9. Fold batter together with a rubber spatula until completely combined.
10. Pour into prepared cupcake pan, fill each cupcake about 2/3 full of batter. Bake for ~25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
11. Cool completely before frosting.
12. To make the ganache, melt the chocolate chips, cream, instant coffee, vanilla and Kahula over a double boiler and stir until smooth and shiny. Allow to rest for a few minutes before dipping the cupcakes into the ganache. This made juuuust enough to frost 28 cupcakes (and I made the cupcakes kind of larger than they should have been, so if you have more than this many cupcakes, you might want to add a little more chocolate/cream).

Thin Mints

based mostly off of this recipe



I want to make all of the Girl Scout Cookies from scratch. Well, not really all of them, just the good ones--Thin Mints, Samoas, Tagalongs and Do-Si-Dos. This was my first in the project!

I looked over a few recipes. I wanted a crunchy cookie, which wasn't hard (I think this cookie recipe would work if you want to make home-made oreos, just omit the mint!) but I wasn't sure about the chocolate coating. A lot of the recipes I looked at had comments saying the chocolate never hardened, so I didn't add much cream which made the coating quite thick. But really, the best part of thin mints is the outside, so no one complained!

These cookies got a lot of compliments and I'm totally going to make them again!

Ingredients:
Cookie
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder, sifted to remove clumps
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1 tsp mint extract
1 tsp vanilla extract

Coating
2 cups chocolate chips
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 tsp mint extract

Directions:
1. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Beat egg in fully.
3. Beat in mint and vanilla.
4. Whisk flour, cocoa and salt together in a medium bowl.
5. Beat flour into creamed mixture. The batter will be dry, but make sure it is fully mixed in.
6. From here, you can go 2 ways... What I did was to roll the dough into a log about 2-3 inches in diameter(fair warning, it looks totally disgusting and I had to ask my roommates not to watch me because I was self conscious about the disgusting-ness) and wrap it in wax paper. Then put it in the freezer for about 30 minutes. Slice into 1/4 inch rounds. OR you can roll the dough out with a rolling pin to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with a round cookie cutter. The first way is easier but the second way makes rounder cookies. Your choice!
7. Place cookies on parchment paper on a baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes at 350. The cookies don't change color, so you really have to be careful to not overbake them. If you poke a cookie, it should feel solid but not squishy.
8. Allow the cookies to completely cool on a wire rack before frosting.

9. To make the frosting, melt chocolate chips, cream and mint extract over a double boiler, stirring constantly, until smooth and shiny.
10. Using tongs (not your fingers!! it's hot!!), dip the cookies in the chocolate, covering them fully on both sides.
11. Place cookies on wax paper and don't touch them until they are totally hardened.

Beet Velvet Cupcakes (let's not call them Red Velvet, OK?)

A friend told me that red velvet cakes were red because during WW2, there wasn't enough chocolate to go around so people started putting beets into their cakes to make them dark. Buuuuuut, other people have told me red velvet cakes are red because of the vinegar's reaction with the buttermilk. Either way, almost all red velvet recipes call for a whole bottle of liquid red food coloring. I wanted to make red velvet cupcakes without red food coloring, so I decided to try the beet route.



Not really red, eh? I did a lot of things wrong!

I found a recipe that sounded promising. (The owner of that website asks that her recipes not reproduced online, but that we just link to her blog. So I am obliging!) I decided to double the recipe because it seemed small.

I went out and bought beets from the farmer's market. Candy cane beets! They sound so sweet and delicious! But then I get home and after boiling and removing their red skin, I realize they are red and white striped. Like candy canes. I didn't take a picture, but this is pretty much what they look like:

So much white under the deceptively red skin! Oops. I decided to use them anyway because I had no backup plan.

I bought 2 bunches of beets, which in total were 8 fairly large beets. After boiling them, I realized I had no real way to "puree" them--no food processor or masher! We do have a muddling rod for making mojitos though! So I smashed them in a glass measuring cup with that. It totaled just over 1.5 cups which was perfect since I was doubling the recipe. I did a pretty good job smashing them together. Only one person told me he got a bit of beet stuck in his teeth while eating a cupcake!

I followed the recipe pretty much exactly except: I used 1 stick of butter and 1/2 cup of vegetable oil instead of 1 cup; and I didn't have yogurt, so I added a little more milk. I think the yogurt was probably important in developing the red color, since most recipes call for either buttermilk or yogurt. Also, I used some pretty good quality chocolate which made the batter dark. I was still hoping for red, so I added 1/2 bottle of liquid red food coloring.

For frosting, I winged it... 2 sticks of butter, some vanilla and enough powdered sugar to make it taste good. I added some flour and potato starch to make it thicker without making it sweeter and a pinch of cream of tartar to make it fluffy.

I was a little worried, but these taste really good! But they do taste beet-y, while the recipe said they would not. One person pointed out that if I used store bought beets instead of farmer's market beets the beet flavor would probably have been milder. I kind of liked the beet flavor, myself. Some people did, some didn't. You have to be prepared for it though, otherwise it would be a confusing flavor! With the exception of the one person who got a beet chunk, the texture of these was great! Definitely "velvet"!

--On a side note, I used some silicone heart shaped cupcake liners (it was for Valentine's Day aferall!) that my roommate bought for me. I love the idea of reusable liners, especially since I bake so much. But the cupcakes didn't come out super smoothly, just like in regular paper liners. I didn't grease the liners, maybe that is where I went wrong, but they didn't have any instructions! And cleaning them is a bitch because of the ribbed sides, so I have to soak them forever and then scrape the cake out. Just mentioning it!

Chocolate Buttercream

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love the Cake Love book! It was my roommate's birthday last weekend and she wanted a very chocolate cake. I made the chocolate cake from the bake off which is really the easiest cake in the world to make and everyone always loves it. I make the CakeLove Chocolate Buttercream with just a few variations. This is easily my favorite buttercream from the book. I think the yolk-based buttercreams are much better than the egg-white-based buttercreams...

For some reason, the farmer's market is still selling local strawberries in the dead of winter (a whopping 70 degrees today!!) and so I thought strawberries would go well with the chocolate-chocolate cake. I put thin slices in between the layers (along with frosting) and then decorated the top with strawberry halves. I think the strawberry went really well with the frosting and I am tempted to put some pureed strawberries IN the frosting itself next time!

This frosting isn't very dark chocolate, which I was a little worried about. But it went well with the dark cake. There cocoa didn't fully homogenize in and I am not sure if this is because I made a mistake with the yolk mixture (see below) or if it's supposed to be like that (it doesn't look like it based on the picture in the cookbook). But I loved it. There were little pieces of chocolate in the frosting. The recipe suggests adding cocoa nibs to the frosting (optional), but I didn't have any and I think the weird chocolate blobs more than made up for it!



Ingredients:
Yolk Mixture
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup white sugar
2 Tbsp potato starch
5 Tbsp cocoa powder (the recipe called for 3 Tbsp which just didn't seem like enough... I also used some really high quality cocoa and I'm not sure if that impacted the flavor or not)

Milk Mixture
2 cups whole milk (I didn't have whole milk, so I used 1 cup skim and 1 cup half and half)
1 1/2 cups white sugar

Flavorings and Butter
4 sticks butter, chilled and cut into Tbsps
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

Directions:
1. Put the yolk mixture ingredients in a medium bowl. I whisked them together because I can't read. You aren't supposed to, I don't know if doing this changed anything!
2. Bring the milk mixture to a boil over medium high heat in a medium saucepan.
3. As soon as it starts to boil, pour it slowly into the yolk mixture, whisking until it is fully incorporated.
4. Pour back into the saucepan and heat over medium heat whisking constantly (but slowly) to keep from cooking on the bottom. Cook about 4 minutes, or until you see large bubbles form.
5. Once you see the large bubbles, reduce the heat to low and whisk strongly for 1 minute.
6. Pour this into a mixer with the whisk attachment and beat on high for 4-5 minutes, or until it is room temperature.
7. Reduce speed to medium low and add butter 1 Tbsp at a time and then add vanilla. Whip on medium or until smooth, about 3 minutes.