Sweet and Salty Cake

Happy Birthday to the huz! This post is actually pretty late. I blame the rainy Vancouver winter and its sensational ability to drain the energy out of me. But it’s been sunny lately and dare I say, the worst of the dreary weather is over (please please!)?

Enjoy!

Sweet and Salty Cake

Adapted from the Highway to Heaven cupcake.  

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

3 cups flour

2 ¾ cup sugar

1 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder

1 Tablespoon + 1 ½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cup buttermilk

1 ½ cups strong brewed coffee, warm

3 eggs, beaten and at room temperature

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1 1/3 cup canola oil

Directions

1.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of 3, 8-inch pans with parchment and grease and flour the sides.

2.   In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Sift in cocoa powder and mix with the paddle attachment until combined.

3.   Add buttermilk, coffee, eggs, vanilla, and oil. Beat until completely mixed.

4.   Divide into pans and bake for 30 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While baking, make the coffee syrup:

Coffee Syrup 

Ingredients

½ cup strong brewed coffee

½ cup sugar

Directions

1.   Combine coffee and sugar in a pot and bring to a boil for 2 minutes.

2.   After taking the cakes out of the oven, drizzle with coffee syrup. Let cakes cool completely.

Caramel Sauce (can make ahead of time)

Ingredients

1 cup sugar

½ cup water

¾ teaspoon salt

A wedge of lemon

½ cup heavy cream, warmed

¾ teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1.   In a pot over high heat, combine sugar, water, and salt. Squeeze a wedge of lemon. Cook until very dark (almost burning) by occasionally swirling the pan.

2.   When you get to the desired colour, take off the heat and carefully add the cream (be careful of the steam!) and stir.

3.   Strain to get rid of clumps and stir in vanilla. Cool before using. Store in the fridge and heat in the microwave a little to loosen.

Ganache (can make ahead of time)

Ingredients

6 oz chopped dark chocolate

¼ cup + 3 Tablespoons butter, cubed

1/8 teaspoon salt

2 Tablespoon light corn syrup

Directions

1.   In a double boiler over medium low heat, combine all ingredients until the chocolate melts. Stir to combine.

2.   Let cool before using. Store in the fridge and microwave a little to make pliable.

Assembly

1.   Place first layer of cake on serving plate. Spread ganache on top. Drizzle with caramel.

2.   Top with next cake layer and repeat. Top with final layer and add remaining ganache and caramel.

3.   For added effect, pierce the top with ripple chips and drizzle with caramel. If not eating immediately, wrap the sides with acetate to prevent drying out.

Verdict: This cake was a show stopper! I loved the chips with the sweet cake – sweet and salty. And the huz definitely liked it. I served with a drizzle of extra caramel.

Recycling and Revamping

Holidays – done.

….

That was me taking a breather. It was nice though, I slept until noon every day like most people. Right? No?? Oh.

So what to do when you want to bake for your friends’ birthdays but are kinda lazy but obviously don’t want them to know that you’re lazy and instead think that you’re a super considerate and amazing baker and/or friend? The answer is to recycle and repackage old tried and true recipes as a revamp.

Here’s a fun way to package a cake.  Basically take any cake recipe and bake it as a sheet cake. Cut out rounds and layer it in jars with your favorite frosting. To add texture, crumble crunchy bits in between the layers, like cookies, or chocolate bars, or nuts.

Here’s my take on Jar Cakes:

Chocolate Cake and Chocolate Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting from my previous post. 

·    Because I wanted enough for 5 jars, I cut the cake recipe in half and baked in 9 x 13 inch pan for about 22 minutes. I also cut the buttercream recipe in half.

·    After the cake is cool, cut out rounds that fit into your jars. I used a biscuit cutter.

·    Alternate cake, frosting, and crunchy bits in layers. It’s best to use a pastry bag to pipe the frosting.

BOOM! Revamped!! Friends are impressed.

Here’s my take on revamping the trusty old butter cookie to make Spiral Cookies:

The butter cookie recipe is from this previous post.

·    I cut the recipe in half

·    Roll out to 2-3mm thickness rectangle

·    Spread a thin layer of your favorite jam and roll tightly. Don’t worry if the jam oozes out – just spread it on the outside of the roll.

·    Roll in sprinkles. Wrap in plastic wrap and tighten even further.

·    Refrigerate to harden before slicing and baking at 350 degrees F for 10 minutes or until slightly golden.

BAM! Revamped! Friends are super excited.

Before baking.

After baking.

Ps. The great thing is that people who are sick of your baking will be blown away. They will be thoroughly tricked into thinking you made something new. But you didn’t. And it’s awesome. You’re welcome.

Bake and Trade 2014

I organized a Bake and Trade (aka cookie exchange) at the office again this year and I have to say, I took it up a notch. We had the Christmas music playing like last year, but we also voted for what we’d like to have for our first bite. The winner (the only savory treat – jalapeno cornbread muffins) got a box of really pretty cupcake wrappers. 

I also gave out the cutest party favors – mini holiday cookie cutters. Whenever I wondered if I was going overboard, I thought, what would my friend Gabbie do? Because Gabbie always goes the extra mile when throwing parties and basically everything in life. For example, for Halloween, she gives out Starbucks travel mugs to the parents!!! What parent wouldn’t love that??

So anyways, I asked myself, what would Gabbie do, and I’m pretty sure she’d do something even more extravagant, so I went ahead with my Bake and Trade party at work. And it was fun!

Thank you to everyone who participated! We had such a wonderful variety of treats!

And by popular demand, the recipe for Mock Skor Bars. Just some history on this treat: Every year we get super excited about this treat brought in by our colleague Allison. This year, it was brought in by Sophie and we are so happy she made it!

Mock Skor Bars

Recipe from here.

Ingredients

24 salted soda crackers

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place crackers evenly on pan.

2.  Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and stir until melted and combined. Mixing constantly, bring mixture to a boil for 2 minutes. Pour mixture over crackers.

3.  Bake in the oven for 5 minutes.

4.  Sprinkles chocolate chips evenly over caramel and return to oven just until the chocolate melts. Spread with an offset spatula.

5.  Place pan in fridge or freezer until firm. Break into pieces and devour.

Note: I’ve made this with Ritz crackers and it is phenomenal.

I made the Mars Bar Blondies that I made for my wedding. Check out the recipe here. 

Check out these cute cookie cutter party favors! Love!

Some Leftover Cakes and Bakes

Over the last few months, I’ve been baking but not necessarily sharing recipes because I wasn’t completely happy with the way the cakes turned out and I wasn’t going to go back to the kitchen and re-do it to perfect it. Or things go really busy with the wedding and I didn’t have the energy to do a post. Now that I have more time, I thought I’d share some of the pictures.

First off, a boozy cake that was just not boozy enough for father’s day. Next time, be heavy handed with the whisky!

Next, a Double Strawberry Cake whose drizzle glaze was too drizzly. Next time, don’t add so much liquid to the icing sugar! Plus, I never actually tasted the cake so I have no idea if it turned out.

Halloween Cake – there wasn’t anything wrong with this cake, just a simple vanilla cake with vanilla frosting. Pretty standard.

There was also chocolate bark with Oreos. And check out these ones that my friend made for Halloween!

Here are the caramel and chocolate covered pretzel rods that my sister and I made for the wedding. These were AMAZING! But those bags of pretzel rods have so many broken ones! Boo!

So, you know how at weddings, there’s a ton of desserts left over? Well turns out my guests were those people as they went crazy over the desserts. I guess that’s what happens when there’s a lot of selection? One of the desserts that they really liked, and that my sister and I had made, were the Mars Bar Blondies. Here’s the recipe:

Mars Bar Blondies

Adapted from Baked: New Frontier in Baking 

Ingredients

2 1/3 cup flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

2 Tablespoon milk powder*

1 teaspoon salt

¾ cup + 2 Tablespoon butter, softened

1 ¾ cup dark brown sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoon vanilla

4 Mars Bars chopped into small bite sized pieces

*You could probably get away without milk powder, but apparently it’s the magic ingredient in the baking world (Milk Bar uses it a lot!), so I threw it in. And fyi, people went crazy over these blondies.

Directions

1.   Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9x13 inch baking pan with parchment paper.

2.   Whisk flour, baking powder, milk powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

3.   Using a stand mixer, beat butter and sugar until smooth.

4.   Add eggs and beat after each addition. Add vanilla and beat.

5.   Add flour mixture in 2 batched, beating until almost combined.

6.   Add half of the chopped Mars Bars and mix until just combined, 10 seconds.

7.   Press the thick dough into the baking pan with an offset spatula.

8.   Insert the remaining Mars Bar pieces throughout the surface. Feel free to add sprinkles.

9.   Bake for 23 minutes or just until toothpick comes out clean. Do not over bake or they will dry out and you will be sad.

10. Cool for 20 minutes before cutting.