Back to Basics...

Tomorrow will be an awesome Dr. Who (season 6) marathon. So, of course, I have to bake something. Who could pass up a gathering of fine, geeky folks to feed? So I asked the very cute boy who is hosting the gathering what sort of baked goods he liked, and the reply was yellow cake. Simple enough.

And did I mention that it's Friday night? Cause it is. And though I am enjoying my Friday night by staying in and being all domestic (baking, cleaning, adventure!), it is still Friday night. So I'm finishing off a good portion of a bottle of rum while I'm at it!

So yellow cake:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
3 tsp baking powder
A dash of salt
1 stick of butter (my last stick! oh no!)
1 cup milk (Silk PureCoconut milk for me!)
2 eggs
A splash of vanilla.

Mixed all together by my lovely (I'm still infatuated with the new shiny toy) Kitchenaid stand mixer. Add a dash of secret ingredient, and in the pan. Bake at 350 for about 30 minutes and cake! Hooray!

Sadly, as I had to use up my last stick of butter for the cake... it is getting frosting from a can. And my bottle of rum is empty! Why is the rum always gone?

Reese's Cake

So I've moved to a new house, with a new kitchen, and a stove that works way better than the one at my last place. And I received a housewarming gift that will benefit the stomachs, if not the waistlines, of all who come in contact with my baking: my very own Kitchenaid stand mixer!

In the moving madness I failed to write about a delicious Devil's Food cake, with a chocolate/almond frosting. However, I'm on another baking adventure tonight, and ready to blog about it. It's a peanut butter chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting!

So I started with the basic cake:

2 1/4 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 stick butter
3/4 cup milk (I'm actually using Silk PureCoconut milk these days. I love it!)
Splash in some vanilla
3 egg

Then I mixed in the secret ingredient. In a separate cup, I melted down 2 squares of unsweetened chocolate, a generous scoop of peanut butter, and the remnants of an opened bag of Reese's baking chips. When that was a gooey, delicious mess, I mixed it into the cake mix, poured it into my pan, and stuck it in the oven.

While the cake was baking, I made one of the best frostings that I have ever made from scratch. This stuff is seriously amazing. I melted one stick of butter, and about 1 cup of peanut butter (in the same container I used to melt the peanut butter chocolate mixture earlier, giving it just a hint of chocolate) and poured that into my bowl. I poured in some powdered sugar (2ish cups) I added a smidge more of the secret ingredient and a splash of the PureCoconut. I let my mixer have at it, and gave it a test once it looked good. It wasn't quite there, so I added a but more powdered sugar, and let the mixer have at it again. It was good to go after that. In fact, damn amazing. Oh man, we're lucky I haven't eaten it all.

But since it is late, and this tyrtle has to get up early for work, there is no time to frost the cake. It'll have to cool over night, and I'll frost it when I take it to dinner tomorrow. Hooray cake! Hooray mixer! Baking is the best, I swear.

It's Raining Figs!

Apparently one of my coworkers is drowning in figs. Her fig tree is having a particularly abundant year. So she is showering our office in figs. If you cook, bake, or express the slightest interest, you will end up with a bag of figs. So while everyone is busy flipping their lids about the hurricane, I'm baking!

Today's adventure is a fig cake. I've never made one before, so basically I'm just making a cake, with some figs in it.

So the basic cake recipe I worked off of:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

And as I am writing this, I have to kick myself, because I am realizing that I forgot to add the milk. There was supposed to be milk in this recipe. Crap. Oh well.

So then:

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup chopped fresh figs
Some allspice, cinnamon, and nutmeg
And, of course, some secret ingredient!

Fancy, right? Anyway, I threw it all in a bundt pan, and threw the bundt pan in the oven until it was done.

AHHHHHH! I'm watching Iron Chef America as I write this, and it is a battle of FIGS!!!!

Sorry for the ADD moment there.

Ok so for the glaze, I just combined some orange blossom honey and powdered sugar over heat, and poured it over the cake after it cooled off a bit.

The cake is delicious, though rather crumbly. I think it would have come out better if I had remembered the milk. Oh well.

Spice Cake

I'm heading to a pillow-fort building/Nerf gun war/fire-spinning party tonight, and I felt like I should bake a cake! So I started with this recipe for a spice cake:

2 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup butter, soft
1 1/4 cup milk
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

I gave the batter a taste and it wasn't quite what I wanted, so I add a bunch more cinnamon and nutmeg. And I decided to throw in some vanilla pudding mix for a fudgier cake.

Then I remembered that I had some cardamon from my crazy herbalist friend Berry, that would be delicious. So I ran around looking for it all over the house (until I found it in wit my baking stuff). Then I went on a similar, but less successful hunt for my mortar and pestle (which must still be in Connecticut). So I ground it up with a bowl and the handle of a spoon. Not quite what I was going form, but it did the trick, and added it in. Also I totally didn't measure... just poured out some seeds and ground them.

Batter into budnt pan into oven. Baked til done, and then thrown into the freezer for quicker cooling (must get to parties on time)! After about five minutes in the freezer, I pulled it out, and flipped it out of the baking pan into the container it was leaving in, and threw it back in the freezer.

While it was cooling, I decided to make some sort of honey glaze for the cake. So I put some thistle honey in a pan with powdered sugar and melted it together. I added some nutmeg, cardamon, about a teaspoon of vanilla, and a splash of milk to the mix. The taste was fabulous... one of the best things I've come up with in a while.

I pulled out the cake, glazed it, and now I'm ready to party :)

Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake

So I woke up early before work 2 Fridays ago, and it was going to be someone's last day at the store, so I figured it was time to bake. Apple cinnamon coffee cake just sort of happened.

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla
2 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup milk
2 cups applesauce
Lots of cinnamon
A dash of nutmeg

So I threw that all in a bundt pan with some secret ingredient goodness, and set about making my morning coffee. When it came out, I tossed it in the freezer to cool off some so I could add some glaze.

I threw together some milk, powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and granola. After a few minutes I glazed the cake with it, and headed off to work. The coworkers loved it, and it was even still warm in the middle!