The Cake

 

Okay, first I want to make sure you’re not intimidated by the length of this recipe. It’s not at all difficult and you can make it all the day before you mean to serve it. In fact, you have to make it the day before, the cake sits in the fridge for at least 10 hours so all the components can cozy up, tell campfire stories, have pedicures and generally get to know each other better.

This really is a lovely cake. Lovely. And rustic looking. (Read: imperfections rule!) The sponge cake is brushed with a rum flavored syrup and then filled with coconut custard before being cloaked in a luscious whipped cream frosting and sprinkled with toasted coconut. De-li-cious!

P.S. The cake part of this recipe is just a really great sponge cake. Easy to make and well behaved, with a light, fluffy crumb. It would be a great addition to your cake repertoire :)

 

 

Coconut Custard Cake

Adapted from Country Living

For the custard: 3 tablespoons flour

1/2 cup milk

5 egg yolks

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sugar

1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped, pod reserved

1 cup sweetened coconut OR 1 teaspoon coconut extract (I followed the recipe and used the coconut, but I wasn’t super-thrilled by the texture. In future, I plan to omit it and use the coconut extract.)

 

In a small bowl, whisk the flour and 1/2 cup milk until smooth. Set aside.

In a medium sized heatproof bowl, whisk the egg yolks together. Set aside.

In a small saucepan, combine the 1 cup milk, sugar, vanilla seeds and pod.

Cook over medium low heat, stirring, until the sugar is dissolved.

Whisk in the flour mixture and cook until thickened – about 3 minutes.

Slowly add 1/2 the milk mixture to the eggs, whisking constantly.

Return the mixture to the pan and cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until mixture begins to bubble and thicken – about 3 minutes.

Strain through a mesh sieve and stir in either the coconut or the coconut extract.

Place a piece of saran wrap directly on top of the custard (to prevent a skin from forming) and chill in the fridge.

 

For the cake: 1 1/2 cups cake flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

5 eggs, separated

1/2 cup cold water

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9” Springform pan with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

In your mixer, beat together the egg yolks and water for 1 minute.

Gradually add the sugar.

Add the extract and increase the mixer to high. Beat the eggs until thick and pale, about 4 minutes.

In a medium bowl, use your hand mixer to beat the egg whites on high until soft peaks form, about 2 minutes.

Add the flour mixture to the egg yolk mixture and fold to combine.

Fold in the egg white mixture.

Pour batter into the pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 45 minutes.

Set the pan on a wire rack to cool.

 

For the syrup: 1/2 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 teaspoon rum or coconut extract

 

Bring the sugar, water and extract to a boil in a small saucepan over high heat.

Boil for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Remove from heat.

 

To assemble the cake: Cut the cake into three even layers. (Ha! Good luck with that! I can’t do it to save my life! But it’s okay because this cake is RUSTIC! Plus all the layers meld together and uneven layers are all but invisible.)

Set the bottom layer on your cake plate.

Generously brush the cake with the syrup. Generously.

Add 1/2 of the chilled custard to the cake and spread it out evenly.

Add the middle layer of cake.

Generously brush the cake with the syrup.

Add the rest of the chilled custard to the cake and spread it out evenly.

Add the top layer of cake.

Very generously brush the cake with the syrup.

Wrap the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 10 hours and up to 24 hours.

Remove cake from fridge and top with whipped cream frosting and sprinkle with toasted coconut. Recipe follows.

 

For the frosting: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 teaspoon almond extract

2 tablespoons sugar

 

Add the cream and extract to the bowl of your mixer.

Whisk on low for 2-3 minutes.

Sprinkle in the sugar and turn the speed up to high for about 4 minutes, or until you reach soft peaks.

 

For the toasted coconut:

1 1/2 cups sweetened coconut

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Spread the coconut on a baking sheet and bake for 7 minutes.

Stir the coconut and bake for another 7 minutes or until golden brown and toasty!

Amelia’s Fairy Cakes

 

My little girl loves tea parties. (Who doesn’t?) And many of the tea party books that she has depict tiny cakes as part of the spread. Not cupcakes and not always petit fours. (Thank Heaven for that!) Just little cakes. And this is good news for me because my little Amelia doesn’t like frosting and let’s face it, frosting cupcakes is where all the work is! I love it when your child wants something easy. (Because that is definitely a rarity in this house!) And these are perfectly easy, and a really perfect white cake recipe in general. The cake is delicately scented with lemon and has a beautiful tight, soft, crumb. It’s almost like a bakery cake or a cake mix, except that you get to control the flavor and there aren’t any strange, unpronounceable ingredients.

For these cakes, I got to use a really fabulous product from King Arthur Flour. It’s Tart Montmorency Cherry Concentrate and it is outrageously wonderful! I got hooked on dried Montmorency cherries when we lived closer to a Costco and I could get a big ole bag of them for a song. (They are SO much more expensive here in Maine!) But with this one bottle of concentrate, I can add that tart, snappy flavor to anything I want! I did a few test runs of some of my old standbys and decided that I prefer to drizzle it on after the baked good in question has come out of the oven. When I tried baking it right into the recipe it lost some of it’s bright flavor and it sunk to the bottom of the baking pan (where it sometimes burned, sad.). Jay gives me a really hard time if I use anything but maple seeeerup on my pancakes, but I gladly took one for the team and poured some of this onto a big stack. Heavenly! It is very tart, so a little goes a long way.

 

I think it’s very economical as well. A 16 ounce bottle sells for $16.95. (And that’s made with the juice from over 1000 pressed cherries! Cool, huh?) I’ve used it in these cakes, scones, pancakes, and drizzled over lemon ice cream (oh.my.gosh!!!) and I’ve only used about 2 and a half ounces! And guess what, my lovely bloggy friends? King Arthur Flour has graciously offered a bottle of Montmorency Cherry Concentrate for one of you lucky readers! Wheeee! And all you need to do to enter is leave a comment on this post! Easy Peasy!

 

Amelia’s Fairy Cakes

 

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Perfect Party Cake

 

zest of 1 lemon

 

1 1/2 cups sugar

 

1 stick butter, at room temperature

 

4 egg whites, at room temperature

 

2 1/4 cups cake flour

 

1 tablespoon baking powder

 

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 1/4 cups buttermilk, at room temperature

 

1/4 cup Tart Cherry Concentrate

 

1 1/2 cups white chocolate chips

 

1 teaspoon shortening

 

Royal icing or pressed sugar flowers to decorate

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two 12 cup muffin tins with pretty liners. (Alternatively, you can prepare two 9” cake pans, one 9x13 baking dish or one baking sheet (jellyroll pan), you’ll just need to  adjust the baking time.)

 

In the bowl of your mixer, combine the sugar and the lemon zest. With your fingers, massage the zest into the sugar. (This releases the oils in the zest and really pulverizes it, the air will smell absolutely luscious!)

 

Attach the beater to your mixer and beat in the butter until the mixture is very light and fluffy.

 

Add the egg whites and beat until well combined.

 

Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.

 

Add 1/3 of the dry mixture to the batter and beat.

 

Pour in about 1/3 of the buttermilk and beat.

 

Repeat this process until all the ingredients are incorporated. Scrape down the bowl VERY WELL and beat until all the ingredients are well incorporated.

 

Pour into prepared pans and bake until the cakes spring back when you gently touch them with your finger; about 20 minutes for cupcakes, 35 minutes for 9” cakes and the sheet cake, or 45 minutes for a 9x13” dish.

 

Remove cakes to a cooking rack. While the cakes are cooling, drizzle about a teaspoon of cherry concentrate

on the top of each cake.

When the cakes have thoroughly cooled, melt the white chocolate chips in the microwave using 30 second bursts of power to avoid burning the chocolate.

 

Stir in the shortening.

 

Spoon a tablespoon of the chocolate over the cake, swirling it around until it settles and press a flower into the center of the cake.

 

Let chocolate harden, about 30 minutes.

 

Enjoy with the darling little girl of your choice :)

 

P.S. Don’t forget to leave a comment on this post for your chance at a free bottle of Montmorency Cherry Concentrate! You’ll be glad you did!

 

P.P.S. This giveaway will close on Wednesday, April 6th at midnight. Good luck!

Full of Chocolatey Goodness!

I was going to tell you about this giveaway last week, when I debuted my new blog makeover. But I couldn’t decide which recipe to show you. I fought and argued with myself all week, trying to pick my favorite chocolatey recipe. But I’ve been on a chocolate kick lately and I couldn’t decide on which one, so prepare yourself to be inundated with chocolate goodies!

You’ve probably heard celebrity chefs and cookbook authors say that you should always buy the best ingredients you can afford and that is the secret to great cooking/baking, right? They’re not kidding. And I have one ingredient for you that will change every single recipe you use it in from ‘mmm, that’s good’ to something more like, ‘HOLY MOSES! That is AMAZING! You MADE this????’ That’s not hyperbole, its the truth. And I think you can handle the truth.

You know that can of cocoa powder you have in your cupboard? Stand up, go to the cupboard, grab that tin and throw it in the garbage. Really. Now. Go. I promise you’ll thank me later. Now, go to King Arthur Flour and purchase this, Bensdorp Cocoa Powder. It’s absolutely amazing. My sister-in-law’s mother-in-law (you follow? good.) gave me a pound of this stuff last year and it’s changed my life, people!!! And really, it only costs three dollars more per pound than that tin you just tossed, the one that you can get in every grocery store in America. The one that starts with an ‘H’. And ends with an ‘ershey’. You don’t want that stuff in your house. You want this. . . . .

 

I mean, look at it!!! It’s almost red. It is noticeably richer. When you open the package it smells deep and chocolatey and almost earthy. If you were to smell the box of the stuff you already threw away (but you can’t because you trusted me when I told you to hock it, right???), it smells sugary sweet. Like candy, almost. This Bensdorp cocoa smells like ooey gooey brownies. Or devils’ food chocolate cake. Really, it’s the difference between a chocolate bar of, well, one that rhymes with Schmerchey, and a bar of Valrhona, or Ghirardelli or Scharffen Berger. They all make cocoa powders too, but I think this one is the best. (P.S. Please don’t tell my hubby that I’ve tried all those or how much they cost. He’ll blow a gasket. Thanks.)

Now, one of you will get the chance to try some for yourself! King Arthur Flour has generously offered a bag of their Bensdorp cocoa powder to one of my readers!

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post!

I’ll pick a winner on Friday and that person’s life will never be the same! You’ll shudder when you see that box of drab, flavorless stuff sitting there on the baking aisle, telling shoppers that it will make their chocolatey dreams come true. It’s a liar! Or at least, deluded.

But, that is not all. Oh, no! That is not all! (Name that children's book.) King Arthur Flour is also offering a box of their unbleached cake flour for our giveaway! I’d show you a side by side comparison of that too, but I don’t want to buy a box of the bleached stuff just for a photo op. (I only had a tin of the Schmerchey stuff because it was down in my basement pantry from when we moved in and I had forgotten that it even existed.) But when I tried out the King Arthur’s cake flour I got to see it next to a dab that I had left of some other brand I’d gotten at the grocery. I was sort of expecting the unbleached to be a lot darker. It wasn’t. The bleached stuff was stark white, and the KA cake flour was nice and creamy colored. And it made a wonderful cake! As light and fluffy as you could wish for! I am DEFINITELY making the switch to this stuff. I noticed that my grocery store is carrying it now, how convenient!

So, this is the recipe I finally decided on. For Day One anyway! When I got the box of cake flour from King Arthur I was sort of in a quandary. I had been wanting to make a spice cake, but then there was this really great looking chocolate cake recipe on the back of the box. So, I decided to just combine them, since the quantities were so similar to my spice cake recipe. Oh. My. Gosh. It made SUCH a wonderful cake!!! And my house smelled absolutely incredible while it was baking. I made a simple ganache scented with cardamom to drizzle over it, which I did while the cake was still warm, so it soaked into the cake a bit and made it absolutely scrumptious!

 

Chocolate Spice Cake

Adapted from King Arthur

2 cups King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour Blend

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground clove

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom

3/4 cup cocoa powder (use the good stuff, not that Schmershey stuff)

1 3/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup milk

1/2 cup water

4 eggs

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 round 9” pans with baking spray and set aside.

Place a strainer over you mixer’s bowl and sift in the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices, cocoa and sugar.

Add the butter and mix at low speed for a minute. While the mixer is running, add the oil and continue mixing until the mixture looks like sand.

Combine the vanilla, milk and water and add all at once. Mix for a minute at low speed, then scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl well and mix another 30 seconds until all the dry ingredients are well incorporated.

Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well at medium-high speed between additions. The batter will be thin.

Pour into prepared pans and bake 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean.

Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

While the cakes are cooling make the ganache.

P.S. We had a lot of treats around when I baked these, so I only served one layer. After the second layer was COMPLETELY cooled I wrapped it well with cling wrap and stashed it in the freezer.

 

Ganache Glaze

4 ounces dark chocolate (I used Ghirardelli 60% cacao chips)

1/2 cup heavy cream

2 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons water

a scant 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (optional)

 

Put the chips in a heat-proof bowl and set aside.

In a small saucepan, bring the cream, sugar, water and cardamom to a full boil.

Pour over the chocolate. Let it sit for 30 seconds, then gently stir the chocolate together. It should take 3-4 minutes before you get a gorgeous, shiny glaze.

Pour the glaze over your still warm cake and spread it around to coat the sides.

Makes enough glaze for one 9'” cake. 

 

So, to enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post!

I’ll pick a winner on Friday, so get your entry in by 11:59pm Thursday!

Good luck!

Fairy Feast

Fairy Feast Menu

Candied Sunflower Seeds*

Banana Chips*

Yogurt Covered Raisins*

Cotton Candy*

Minty Kisses*

Strawberry Marshmallows*

Fresh Raspberries*

Marshmallow Wands*

Cake Pops

Rice Crispie Star Wands

Chocolate Covered Strawberries

Ants on a Log

Buttermilk-Herb Dip with Baby Carrots

Raspberry-Vanilla Yogurt Parfaits

Fruity Frappe

 

*Store-bought treats

I’ve been drooling over all the gorgeous party dessert tables I’ve been seeing all over Blogland. I was really hoping to create something gloriously similar, but I ended up with too much food and too small a table! Oh well, it still tasted great! I bought a lot of little things for the Fairies to nibble on and most of the rest of the party food I made in advance. Hallelulijah! I hate all the pressure of making party food the day of the party! Especially since this one was a morning party!

I really loved the chocolate bowls (the kids did too!) but they would have been better in an air-conditioned room or served in the cooler months. They held up okay for the party, but when it was over they sort of went to pieces! Ooops! I used the same method as I did for the chocolate nests I did for Easter. But I formed these over the backs of some disposable bowls, and I brushed on an extra layer of melted chocolate once they had set up. Worked like a charm, until the heat index rose!

I came across the star wands on How Does She? by way of Kelloggs Rice Crispies. These were perfect for Amelia’s party! I had planned on making shortbread star cookie wands, but my nephew (who was attending the party) was recently diagnosed as lactose intolerant, so I needed to figure out different party foods. These have the added bonus of being ‘make ahead’. You can make them up and freeze them for up to 6 months! Sweet! One less party food to worry about the day of the bash! I added food coloring to the marshmallow mixture before I stirred in the cereal. By the way, I still stand by these treats, but I do suggest you don’t try to make and serve them on a boiling hot day. It was 83 degrees here in Maine (the weather website said it felt like 105 and it wasn’t kidding!) and by the time it was time for the fairies to feast the stars were plopping off their wands and onto the table. Bummer.

I loved the frappe drink we served. I portioned out some mixed berry sherbet into the cups the day before and popped them in the freezer. Then when it was time to eat I brought them out and poured Sprite over them. Easy Peasy!

For the cake pops I used my favorite cupcake/cake recipe. Which I am going to post in it’s purest form, I keep thinking it’s already on my blog and it isn’t! (Different variations are.) Head over to Bakerella to see how she makes perfect cake pops. I don’t make perfect cake pops, I just plop them on their heads and cover them with sprinkles!

Vanilla Cake/Cupcakes

From Gesine at Confections of a Closet Master Baker

2 sticks butter, room temperature

2 cups of sugar

5 eggs, room temperature

3 cups flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Spray two 8” round pans with Baker’s Joy, alternatively, fill two 12 cup muffin tins with liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In your blender, beat the butter for a minute to make sure it’s completely softened.

Add the sugar and beat until it’s light and fluffy. Very light, very fluffy. Be sure to scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure ALL the butter and sugar is light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Add a third of the flour mixture and beat well.

Add a third of the buttermilk and beat well.

Repeat with the remaining flour and buttermilk. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl well to make sure all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour in the vanilla and beat the batter well.

Portion out into pans and bake for 20-25 minutes. (For cupcakes, check them after 15 minutes)

The (cup)cakes should be golden and should spring back from a light touch.

Cool on wire racks completely before frosting.

    

I’m pleased to report that the fairies loved their feast! What sweet-toothed child wouldn’t?

For our Fairy fun headquarters, click here!

Reese’s Birthday

We had a pirate party for Reese today. He’s five years old, I cannot believe it!

I had so much fun putting together his pirate party! I just don’t have it in me to go totally all out for a kids party, but we had some cool things! When the kids arrived we marched them upstairs and had them ‘fish’ through this vent we have (essentially a hole in the floor) for a bandana, eye patch, tattoo and mustache. (The birthday boy got a Captain’s hat too.) Then we came down and tried to get their pictures in front of the flag. Being as we had 7 kids between ages 8-2, well, that didn’t go over real well.

I just have to show you this again. I’m just so please with how it turned out :) P.S. It really is centered in the middle of the fabric, it’s just scrunched over to the left in this picture.

I made the flag from a 2 yard long piece of black twill. I went online and found a picture of a skull and crossbones and just blew it up on my printer. Then I traced it onto freezer paper, cut out the stencil and ironed it onto the fabric. Then I used regular acrylic craft paint and filled in the stencil. (I did two coats because I wanted it really bright.) The freezer paper just pulled right off afterward and left me with a perfect skull and crossbones! I’ve seen people all over Blogland do cool projects with freezer paper and was a little skittish about trying it, but MAN! It was a piece of cake! It probably took me about 2 hours start to finish, including the time it took to hem it and make it into a curtain. (It’s destined for the window in Reese’s room.)

After the kids were all pirated up, we played a really clever version of ‘Pin the Tail on the Donkey’. I found the directions online somewhere, I’ve already forgotten where, sorry! Anyhow, you draw a treasure map. . .

Disclaimer: I did not draw this. I can draw stick figures. . . poorly. It’s awesome having an artist in residence!! Thank you, Jay!

On the back of the picture you affix a large X. Then you make little Xs for the kids with their names on them.

You can blindfold them or not, doesn’t matter. They put their Xs on the map and then you take it off the wall and hold it up to a window or a light. The X on the back shows through and the kid with the closest X wins! Isn’t that super clever? I wish I HAD thought of that on my own :) This game was a HUGE hit with the kiddos!

 

Then we played a version of Musical Chairs. We just slapped some construction paper squares on a board as a plank and put down a blue towel as the ocean. Then when the music started they had to Walk the Plank and run around and walk the plank again until the music stopped. The kid in the ‘water’ was out and we went again and again. Once they got the hang of it they had a great time!

 

This is the kids hunting in Tick-Tock Croc. I especially liked this game. It was quiet!!! I made a little croc out of felt and left an opening in his tummy. Then we put a kitchen timer in it and hid it in the living room. (So it’s like the croc in Peter Pan, get it?) The kids had to come in and listen for the tick-tock and find the croc! They really liked this game, more than I expected. And I liked the brief hiatus from all the noise!

That blurry thing is the croc ;)

 

But I think the best game was the treasure hunt. I’d given Reese a couple of riddle clues earlier in the week and he just looked at me blankly like I was some kind of idiot. So I dropped the riddle idea (I’m not great at coming up with that kind of thing anyway) and took close ups of the places I intended to hide the loot. There were 7 kids playing and I took pictures of 10 spots, so three of the spots had little, hmmm, I don’t know, neiner neiner cards that said to keep on looking.

I printed all the pictures out onto cardstock and then burned the edges. (with my creme brulee torch, haha!) They actually ended up looking pretty cool and the clues were just the right toughness for the kids.

I went online and found a site with pirate lingo and borrowed heavily from that for these cards!

I had so much fun with their treasure boxes. I loved things like this when I was a kid, little treasure chests and jewels and things! These had pirate coins, chocolate coins, plastic jewels, a pirate pouch, a skull ring, extra moustaches and tattoos, and beads for the girls. I sprung for some really yummy chocolate coins from Honest Foods, but I probably could have gotten away with the cheaper more cost efficient ones. Most of this stuff came from Oriental Trading.

 

This is Reese’s cake. It’s chocolate on the inside and and my favorite frosting on the outside. I used some really wonderful cocoa powder from King Arthur’s Flour that my sister-in-law’s mother-in-law gave me (you follow? Good!) and it was to die for. The cake was almost black with chocolate! My kind of cake!!! I had grand plans of forming a pirate ship out of rice crispie treats and covering it in fondant for a cake topper. But when we went to my friend April’s son’s birthday (you follow? Good.) he had a cake with a real Lightning McQueen and Mater toys on it and all the kids thought it was SO COOL. “You get to keep the Lightning McQueen!!!!” So I decided to just slap on the pirate I had bought Reese as a gift so he could keep the pirate!!!!

Then I stumbled across a set of pirates at a local shop. $6 for 12. Sold. They look like cupcake toppers to me!

 

Super cool cupcake toppers!!!

 

The birthday boy was thrilled with his cake! And he got to keep the pirate!!!

 

So I’ll leave you with the cake and icing recipe. This icing is really wonderful. It’s got cream cheese in it and it really cuts the sweetness and gives it a nice tang. The cake is my go-to chocolate cake recipe. I’ve used it for years. I think it’s originally from Martha.

Chocolate Cake

1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder, plus more for pans

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 cups sugar

1 tablespoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

1 1/2 cups hot water

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8” round cake pans (or two 6” round pans and 24 cupcakes) with Baker’s Joy and parchment paper.

Sift cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into mixer bowl.

On low, stir in eggs, buttermilk, hot water, oil, and vanilla; beat until smooth, about 2 minutes, scraping bowl as necessary.

Pour into prepared pans and bake, rotating the pans once, 35-45 minutes. (Less for the cupcakes)

Remove cakes to a cooling rack and let cool in the pans for 15 minutes before unmolding.

When the cakes (and cupcakes) are completely cool, frost with icing.

 

Best Frosting Ever

1 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 bricks (16 oz) cream cheese, at room temperature

2 pounds confectioner’s sugar

1 TABLEspoon vanilla

food coloring of your choice

 

In your mixer, beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth.

With a mesh sieve, sift the powdered sugar into butter mixture and mix on low to incorporate.

Add vanilla and food coloring.

Enjoy!

(This makes plenty of frosting. Enough for my 6 inch cakes and cupcakes with a little leftover. Leftovers are yummy smeared on graham crackers. Just sayin’.)

Happy Birthday, Little Baby!

I love that scrunchy little face!

My little Jilly-Bean turned one year old last Saturday. *sniff sniff* She’s my last baby and I had a really hard time letting her turn one, but she went ahead and did it anyway! She has been such a joy in our lives. She’s beautiful, happy, mellow, playful, and just as sweet as can be! She’s had the typical run-ins with new teeth and separation anxiety, but we’ve come through it into the lovely state of toddlerhood. (Even thought she’s not quite toddling yet.)

Somehow, when she was still a tiny baby, she acquired her own personal style. Or at least, her own personal color scheme! When I see pink and brown together I immediately think of Jilly-Bean. So, the color scheme for her birthday party was easy enough! I couldn’t think of anything (besides jelly beans) that reminded me of her enough to use for a theme, so we just went with those colors.

So, the thing about the jelly beans. . . . when Jillian was born, my dear friend, Claudia, brought the CUTEST thing to the hospital. She’d glued (with royal icing) jelly beans to a cake board in the shape of a baby’s face and spelled out Jillian’s name and birth date with more jelly beans. SO CUTE! And I don’t have a picture of it, I could just kick myself! Also, the wonderful woman brought me all the extra jelly beans to munch on. Just one more reason why I love Claudia so very much! Ever since then, Club Soda and Cotton Candy Jelly Bellies have been my favorite. So, when planning Jilly’s party I knew I had to order some Jelly Bellies! I popped online and started browsing their website. I picked out the kinds I wanted, Club Soda, Cotton Candy, and Rootbeer. (because it was brown and matched the theme.) Turns out that with shipping my total was going to be $36. They run a continuous special that if you order $50 they’ll ship it for free. That’s only $14 more than I was going to be spending and I would end up with twice as many beans. That sounds like a good deal, right? It must have been a good deal because I ran it past Jay and he gave me the go ahead! (And he dislikes spending money.) So I picked out three more flavors. All from Cold Stone Creamery, YUM! Apple Pie, Strawberry Blonde, and Birthday Cake Remix. They arrived in no time and of course we had to make sure they tasted just right!

What patient little hands!

I kept the decor very simple, since I'm completely capable of stressing myself out enough before a party without adding complex decorations to the mix! I like to cover the table with mailing paper (it’s fun for kids to color on while they’re waiting for cake!) and I made easy and inexpensive pom poms and hung them from the ceiling. (I did string a few pretty glass beads on the fishing line I used to make them a little more special.) I wrapped ribbon around small canning jars (4 oz. size) and affixed it with double stick tape, (since I’d like to use the jars for actual food again and I might be able to salvage the ribbon ;)  and distributed the jelly beans. (Turns out, the Cotton Candy was the most popular! I was really surprised, I would have guessed the Strawberry Blonde!)

Jillian’s cake was just delicious. An almond cake, made from the best cake recipe ever (I just swapped a really nice almond extract for some of the vanilla), brushed with raspberry puree, filled with almond pastry cream and coated with an absolutely DIVINE raspberry buttercream.  To be very honest, I’m not as pleased with the fondant I made for it as I’d like to be. I had to make the pastry cream three times before I got it right, which kept me up pretty late and depleted my drive for decorating the cake. Jay came through like a champ and helped me finish up with the fondant. He made that rose for the top of her cake and did some cool things on the top of some of the cupcakes! I just loved his curly-cues!

   

So, before I go snuggle up with Jillian and cry like a baby (seriously. Someone make her STOP GROWING UP!), I’ll leave you with the frosting. It’s simple enough, but just so unbelievably scrumptious. It was incredibly difficult not to just eat the whole batch with a spoon! Really. No, really.

Raspberry Buttercream

2 sticks butter, room temperature

1/2 cup SEEDLESS raspberry jam

LOTS of powdered sugar. At least 2 pounds. (Sorry about the inaccurate amount, I keep mine in a LARGE container and I just kept adding until I got the right consistency.) 

2-3 tablespoons cream

In a mixer, beat the butter for a minute until it’s all fluffy.

Add the jam and mix until incorporated.

Stop the mixer and sift (you know, through a mesh sieve)  a few cups of the powdered sugar into the bowl.

Mix in little bursts on the lowest setting, until the sugar starts to get incorporated. 

Add the cream.

Sift more powdered sugar into the bowl until you reach the consistency you desire.

Frost something. Frost something quite large, like a cake. Or lots of cupcakes. Or sugar cookies. Or graham crackers. Or white bread. Or a waffle. Or a stack of bills. Or a cardboard box. Or . . . .

 

Just a couple of pictures for my mom! Isn’t Jilly-Bean just a little doll? I just love her Who-hair! (You know, like those ‘Whos down in Whoville’?)

Her Daddy picked out this dress while he was out birthday shopping with the kidlets. Isn’t it darling??? And look what he did. . . .

He bought a matching one for Amelia!!! How sweet is that????

She’s holding the little fairy princess that came with her new dollhouse. I think it was her favorite present, she just kept coming back to it over and over!

My First Daring Bakers Challenge!!!

The August 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Angela of A Spoonful of Sugar and Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella. They chose the spectacular Dobos Torte based on a recipe from Rick Rodgers' cookbook Kaffeehaus: Exquisite Desserts from the Classic Caffés of Vienna, Budapest, and Prague.

The Dobos Torta is a five-layer sponge cake, filled with a rich chocolate buttercream and topped with thin wedges of caramel. (You may come across recipes which have anywhere between six and 12 layers of cake; there are numerous family variations!) It was invented in 1885 by József C. Dobos, a Hungarian baker, and it rapidly became famous throughout Europe for both its extraordinary taste and its keeping properties. The recipe was a secret until Dobos retired in 1906 and gave the recipe to the Budapest Confectioners' and Gingerbread Makers' Chamber of Industry, providing that every member of the chamber can use it freely.

I really enjoyed my first Daring Baker's Challenge! I got all three kids down for a nap, pulled out everything that the instructions called for, prepped all the ingredients and had a ball! None of the components were particularly difficult to make, but I had myself all freaked out and nervous that I over-analyzed everything. That said, it turned out beautifully! And I only set the fire alarm off once, success!

All the required equipment! Aaaahhh!!!

All organized!

 

Beat the yolks and sugar until light and forms a ribbon.

Huh, a little overly stiff. Oops.

Folding the whites into the yolk mixture.

More folding.

 Sifting and folding.

 More folding.

Done! Might I mention here that folding is not my forte? I am too heavy handed and impatient.

Spreading the cake batter out into a circle.

Ta da!

I started out doing the 'pan dance', then I totally bailed and baked each layer separately, so much easier to keep an eye on things that way.

Beating the eggs for the buttercream.

Looks good!

Onto the double boiler.

Stir in the chocolate. Mmmmm, the chocolate! I used Guittard.

Remove to bowl to cool.

Shaping cooled cake layers. (This went a lot better than I thought it was going to.)

Cut layer for caramel topping.

Pretty, right? Looks like zebra stripes!

Oiled knife and spatula at the ready.

I was afraid I'd burned this layer when I first pulled it out. It is on the overdone side, but the bottom had these pretty stripes, so I used it for the caramel layer!

Heating sugar, lemon juice and water. (Blah. For future reference, do yourself a favor and leave out the lemon juice.)

Made a sugar syrup.

Uuuuuum, use a bigger pan here! Dumb mistake on my part.

No picture of the process here, I needed both hands as the caramel cooled really quickly. I think it helped that I pushed them apart as it was cooling and went around the outside to move the pooling toffee. I can't imagine what a pain it would have been if I'd let it harden!

Time to finish buttercream.

Beating in the butter. Mine was a tad too soft at this point, but my buttercream turned out fine anyway!

Dangerously delicious!

Yeah, I wasn't taking any chances. The recipe said divide into 6 portions, so I divided. 3.5 ounces of buttercream in each ramekin, Baby!

Stacking layers.

Wow, that was easy!

Saved a little time with pre-chopped, toasted hazelnuts. Also, I only had about 12 whole hazelnuts in the house.)

All said, this took me about 3 hours. But I was being super meticulous because I wasn't sure what to expect, so I could probably could have shaved at least an hour (if not more) off that. And I could have done it in stages, which is nice to know for the future. I've decided I didn't really care for the lemon juice in the caramel, it tasted a tad funky and judging from everyone's plates I wasn't the only one who thought so. I definitely will be making this the next time I need an impressive dessert! It was wonderful!

For the full recipe, please visit Lorraine of Not Quite Nigella, here.