Shannon's Lady Baltimore Cake

If you've read the left hand column of my blog, you'd know that I credit the very existence of Dozen Flours to my friend Shannon (aka Shanno). She moved on to greener pastures many moons ago and I've really missed working with her. No matter how rotten a day Shannon was having, she was positive and smiling and just a joy to be around. And she would always give me the most sincere comments about my Birthday Fairy treats. I only had the good fortune to bake for her on her birthday once before she left. Several months ago at a friend's party, Shannon and I ran into each other again and that's when she suggested starting a blog so that she could at least see what she was missing out on.

Even though Shannon didn't work with me, I still fully intended to bake her something on birthday. A week or so before her birthday this year, our mutual friend, Erika had mentioned to me that Shannon had been eyeing something called a Lady Baltimore Cake. I'd never heard of such a thing! I was intrigued! So I did my usual Internet research and found several promising recipes (here's a bit of history about the cake). Unfortunately, when her birthday arrived my oven was on the fritz! Oh the humanity! I was so sad!

As luck would have it, our paths were to cross again over the weekend and my oven was in full working order. Although her birthday was a several months ago, I figured it was better late than never. A more appropriate cake could not have been made for such a wonderful person. Thanks Shannon for being such a great friend!

I followed the recipe that I found on Epicurious but I did alter it a bit -- here's my version of the recipe:

For the cake layers

• 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla (clear keeps the cake very white)
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (clear keeps the cake very white)
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon double-acting baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup full-fat milk
• 7 large egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar

Filling and Frosting

• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup water
• 8 large egg whites
• 2 teaspoons clear vanilla
• 1/2 cup finely chopped dried figs (plus 3 whole dried figs for garnish)
• 1 cup pecans, toasted lightly and chopped fine
• 1/2 cup raisins, chopped
• 1/2 cup dried or candied cherries

Cake

1. Grease and flour 3 or 4 9-inch round cake pans.

2. In a large bowl with an electric mixer, cream the butter with the sugar until the mixture is light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla and the almond extract.

3. In a different bowl, stir together the flour, the baking powder, and the salt. Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in batches alternately with the milk, until well combined.

4. In another large bowl beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar and a pinch of salt until they just hold stiff peaks, stir one third of them into the batter, and fold in the remaining whites gently but thoroughly.

5. Divide the batter among the prepared pans, smoothing the tops, and bake the cake layers, in batches if necessary, in the middle of a preheated 325°F. oven for 25 to 35 minutes, or until a tester comes out clean. Let the cake layers cool in the pans on racks for 5 minutes, turn them out onto the racks, and let them cool completely. The cake layers may be made 1 week in advance and kept wrapped well in plastic wrap and frozen. Let the layers thaw before proceeding with the recipe.

Frosting:
1. In a small saucepan combine the sugar and the water, bring the mixture to a boil, stirring until the sugar is dissolved, and boil the syrup until it registers 248°F. on a candy thermometer. Pour sugar mixture into a tempered glass measuring cup. (I suggest this because the pot is very, very hot and heavy!. Transfering the sugar to a glass mesauring cups is lighter, cooler, and easier to pour from.)

2. While the syrup is boiling, in a large bowl with an electric mixer beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they hold soft peaks and with the mixer running add the hot syrup in a stream. (DO NOT DUMP THE HOT SUGAR MIXURE DIRECTLY INTO YOUR EGG WHITES! This will cause your egg whites to deflate. However, if this happens all is not lost! Keep mixing the egg whites and they will come back eventually.

3. Beat in the vanilla and beat the icing until it is cool - about 10-15 minutes. Transfer 2-3 cups of the icing to a bowl, reserving the remaining icing, and fold in the figs, pecans, cherries, and raisins.

4. Arrange 1 of the cake layers, flat side up, on a serving plate, spread it with half the dried-fruit icing, and top the filling with another cake layer, flat side down. Spread the top layer with the remaining dried-fruit icing and top the filling with the remaining cake layer. Spread the top and side of the cake with the reserved plain icing .To garnish, either leave the top of the cake plain, sprinkle with pecans, or to do what I did, take a dried fig and flatten it. Using a very sharp paring knife, cut a "W" out of the top. This will become your tulip! Use log pieces of pecans for the stems. For the ribbon I used big dried cherries that I cut into a strip, and two that I flattened and cut a "V" out of.

5. Refrigerate the cake until you're ready to eat it. The frosting is very light and sticky at room temperature. When it's refrigerated it gets firm and sets a bit better and makes it much easier to transport.

Heaven & Hell Brownies

Yeah, this year Nick decided he's staying the same age. And in honor of his decision, I suggested that I make him brownies again, just like last year. The only difference is that this year I used pecans instead of macadamia nuts but that doesn't matter, right?

I'm not a huge fan of chocolate. In fact, I actually despise chocolate ice cream, but I like these brownies. In fact, I dare say they are the best brownie I've ever made. I saved one for my husband (it was in our vows so I have to!) and as he says these brownies are both from heaven because they taste so amazing and hell because they are so fattening, so that's what I call them. Our son even liked them and he usually shies away from anything that has nuts.
I used Ina Garten's Outrageous Brownie recipe which is from her book, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. However, I substituted three cups of chopped pecans for the walnuts (chopped macadamia nuts are a great substitution too). And, instead of just using 12oz of semisweet chocolate chips, I decided to utilize some of my collection of rouge chips from previous recipes. This was pure genius! I used 4 oz of Toll House chips, 2 oz of mini-chocolate chips, also from Toll House, 4 oz of Callebaut chunks, and the kicker, 2 oz of big, fat Guittard chips. These chips didn't really melt and created little pockets of rich, chunky chocolate flavor. This variety of shapes, favors, and sizes of chocolate chips really makes these brownies special....just like Nick! Happy Birthday!

Heaven and Hell Brownies

1 pound unsalted butter at room temperature
1 pound high-quality semisweet chocolate chips
12 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (I recommend the following quantities/types of chocolate chips: 4 oz of Toll House regular sized chips, 2 oz of Toll House mini-chocolate chips, 4 oz of Callebaut chunks, 2 oz of big, fat Guittard chips
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate
6 extra-large eggs
3 tablespoons instant coffee powder
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour, divided (1 cup for batter and 1/4 cup in the chips and nuts)
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
3 cups chopped pecans, macadamias, cashews, or walnuts - this is totally optional. The brownies will still come out great without the added nuts. Just decrease the cooking time to about 25 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 13 by 18 by 1 1/2-inch sheet pan. (I use Pam with Flour) Melt together the butter, 1 pound chocolate chips, and unsweetened chocolate on top of a double boiler. Cool slightly.
Stir together the eggs, instant coffee, vanilla and sugar. Stir in the warm chocolate mixture and cool to room temperature.

Stir together 1 cup of the flour, baking powder and salt. Add to cooled chocolate mixture. Toss the nuts and 12 ounces of chocolate chips with 1/4 cup flour to coat. (FYI - this helps the nuts and chips to be suspended in the batter and not sink to the bottom during cooking.) Then add to the chocolate batter. Pour into prepared pan.

Bake for about 30 minutes, or until tester just comes out clean. Halfway through the baking, rap the pan against the oven shelf to allow air to escape from between the pan and the brownie dough. Also rotate the pan halfway to ensure even baking. Do not over-bake! Cool thoroughly before cutting into squares. Store in an air tight container.

Ultimate Shortbread Cookie Recipe

This week I was asked to create a special cookie for a very unique birthday. The company I work for is re-branding the products they provide. To celebrate the official "birth" of the new name and brand, and I was asked to created 70 cookies with the new 360 logo. The cookies were to be shared with everyone at work after the formal introduction of the new 360 name. Today was the big day and everyone loved them.

For those who asked here is the recipe I used for the shortbread:

• 1 cups of sugar
• 1 cups of butter (at room temperature)
• 1 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1 eggs
• 3 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt

Cream the butter and sugar. Add vanilla and eggs. In a separate bowl, mix dry ingredients together. With the mixer on low/medium speed, slowly add dry ingredients to the wet, being sure to scrape down the bowl frequently. Chill for 3 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Roll dough on well floured surface to 1/4" thickness (I highly recommend using rolling pin bands to help keep the height of the dough consistant). If dough starts to stick to your rolling pin or won't roll out well, chill again. Cut out desired shapes (I used a 4" cookie cutter) and place onto a cookie sheet. Bake for 9-12 min. Cookies should not be brown when you remove them from the oven.

This recipe yields approximately 1 1/2 to 2 dozen 4" cookies. 4 batches yielded a little more than 6 dozen 4" cookies.

I wanted to make sure the "360" lettering was an exact match for the font that Marketing had given me. To do this, I printed out a full-size version of the text in Word and then traced it on top of a large piece of heavy grade aluminium that I cut out of the bottom of a disposable brownie pan. Once I made the impression, I used a pen to retrace "360" into the aluminum over and over, until a clear negative image appeared on the bottom of the stamp. To mark the cookies, I tried a few approaches. First I stamped the cookies while they were raw. This didn't work because as they baked the stamp would just disappear. Next, I stamped them right after they came out of the oven. This worked pretty well but I had to work fast so that I wouldn't get burnt. Ouch! The last idea I came up with was to use create a stamp pad by saturating a new sponge with dark green concentrated food coloring. I'd pat the stamp against the stamp pad and then stamp the cookie. This worked great! Next time I'll use a lighter color so that it doesn't' bleed through the frosting.

For frosting, I made a batch of royal icing (I used the recipe that came with the Wilton Meringue Powder) and used lemon yellow, leaf green, and moss green to get the right color. Boy was that hard! It took a lot of "a little of this" and a "blob of that" to get the color to come together. Tip: Be sure to scrape down the bowl a lot during the coloring process. I found big pockets of frosting that was a little dry and wasn't mixing together into the batch. Nothing like a big pocket of white frosting to lighten my apple green frosting. Gr! Once I had the color down, I transferred the frosting into a air-tight container and covered it promptly. I then prepared a pastry bag with a #1 tip and filled it with about 1/4 cup of frosting.

I slowly outlined each cookie's 360 stamp and also created a circle of frosting around the edge. I let them dry for about an hour. I then took the left over frosting, added about 1 teaspoon of clear vanilla to it and about 1/3 cup of warm water. I poured the frosting into plastic bottles and along with a tiny paint brush, filled in the green color all over the cookie, except for inside the 360. I let them try over night. The next day I repeated the process with just white icing and filled in numbers. They dried in about 2 hours.

For packaging, I to put the cookies into CD envelopes that were lined with wax paper and sealed the back with a 360 logo sticker. This made handing out the cookies very easy.

Noella Got Married! Venetian & Italian Wedding Cookies

Last week, my dear friend Noella and her long time boyfriend, John went to Hawaii for vacation. Shortly after they arrived in Maui, John proposed, and forty-eight hours later at a courthouse in Kaua'i, they were pronounced husband and wife! I think it's the most romantic way to get married. She told me today, "I waited so long for him to propose I just couldn't wait to be married to him!" (Aww!)

In honor of their nuptials, her desk was decorated all "wedding-y" and it looked great! We didn't stop there! Of course I had to make her something super special. Since Noella is Italian, I knew she'd love either Venetian Cookies or Italian Wedding Cookies but I couldn't decide between the two. So I ended up making them both!

Congratulations Noella and John!

Travis's Black Forest Gateau

I didn't have to ask Travis what he wanted for his Birthday Fairy Treat. Shortly after I met him last year and explained our birthday customs at SerSol, he smiled broadly and said, "Oh I know want... I want a Black Cherry Cake!" You have to respect a man who knows what he wants! ;-)

About two weeks ago I started on my quest to find the best recipe. I found several! Everything from the standard super sweet cake mix and goopy cherry-compote variety to the authentic Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte*. Oh so fancy and right up my alley! I decided to go all out for Travis and make it totally from scratch and as authentic as possible.

The cake part was made 24 hours in advance so that it could get a little stale before it was assembled. This helped it to better absorb the cherry syrup that was drizzled directly onto the three cake layers. In addition to the syrup, the layers were lavished with generous dollops of fresh whipped cream and sour Morello cherries that had been simmered in Kirsch (cherry brandy), sugar, cinnamon, and lemon peel. Once the cake was assembled, I frosted the cake with more whipped cream, semisweet milk chocolate curls, and topped it off with a big "T" I fashioned out of maraschino cherries. This cake won't win any beauty contests but it's the most sincere one you'll find anywhere! Happy Birthday Travis! Thank you for everything you do for us at SerSol and for being your fabulous, perpetually happy self!


*For those interested in the recipe I used, you can find it here. (If you're wondering what the best type of cherry to use in Black Forest Gateau is, it's Morello. They are tart with just the right amount of sweetness. You can I find them jarred in their juice at Trader Joe's. Cherry pie compote will not due, sorry.) If you decide to use this recipe, I strongly encourage you to double the whipped cream as there wasn't nearly enough. Also, I ended up making this cake in my 10" pans instead of the 9" it called for. There was just too much batter and I didn't want to waste any.