First let me take a moment to express my deepest, most sincere thanks to everyone for sending me their heartfelt comments and emails. They have meant a great deal to me and I cannot thank you all enough for taking the time to send them. I honestly had no idea that my little blog could mean so much to so many people. So here’s to leaving the past behind me and focusing on what’s to come. So far life has been pretty good!
Showing posts with label boxed mix. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boxed mix. Show all posts
October 7, 2010
Sam & Tyler's Cherries Jubilee Cake
First let me take a moment to express my deepest, most sincere thanks to everyone for sending me their heartfelt comments and emails. They have meant a great deal to me and I cannot thank you all enough for taking the time to send them. I honestly had no idea that my little blog could mean so much to so many people. So here’s to leaving the past behind me and focusing on what’s to come. So far life has been pretty good!August 18, 2009
Brownie Cookie Stargazer Pie
When I was planning my trip to Oregon back in early June, one of the things I was most anticipating was star gazing. I knew it would be a long shot to see anything while on the Oregon Coast, but I had a hunch that the city of Bend, surrounded by acres of U.S. Forest Service land, would be plenty dark enough to see the stars by the truckload. I just couldn't wait to lay outside in the balmy night air and gaze up at them.April 19, 2009
Jake's Oreo Cake with Chocolate Pan Frosting
My son's thirteenth birthday was back in January but I completely forgot to post about his cake! Jake went totally bonkers over it and said it was the best birthday cake I have ever made for him. Sometimes it's the simple recipes that make the biggest impression.
February 5, 2009
Blue Ribbon Dulche de Leche Glazed Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Buttercream
Boy last Friday was fun. What a rush! You would think with a week long binge of cake making madness, I'd run way from my kitchen crying at the sight of my mixer. I'll admit, I wasn't super excited about making cupcakes for Groundhogs Day, but it was worth all the "omg-those-are-the-cutest-things-ever!" comments!
Because I was a bit tired from all the craziness of the week before, I decided to cut a few corners and base my cupcakes on a box mix. As shameful as that may be, I don't think there's anyone that could tell that these came from a box. They were so incredibly moist! I heard from a few of my coworkers that this cupcake was one of the best they've ever had.
The cupcake by itself was wonderful (I finally caved and had one), but when it was combined with the dulche de leche and the cream cheese buttercream, it evolved into something truly phenomenal.
So what makes these a "Blue Ribbon" cupcake? Well, that distinction comes from the little blue ribbon that appears on every container of Hellman's and Best Foods mayonnaise. I know the idea of using mayonnaise in a cake sounds a little revolting, but if you think about, it makes perfect sense. Mayonnaise is essentially eggs and oil (fat) which in some form or another is in just about every cake I've made. Please, though, I beg of you, if you decided to make this cupcake do not use Miracle Whip or any other salad dressing type of mayonnaise since those products are full of non-baking friendly ingredients like modified food starch, mustard flour, paprika, and dried garlic. If you're unsure, check the label.
The dulche de leche layer is completely optional. I decided to use because I had a bit left over after making the Nacho Cheese Dispenser cake and couldn't bear to throw it away. It's important not to spread too much of it on top of the cupcakes, it's just there to add a subtle flavor and shouldn't overwhelm the little cake.
When it came to the frosting, I wanted to add the tang of cream cheese to the mix but wanted to do something a little different. Personally, I'm not a fan of cream cheese frosting. Most recipes that I've had just taste like a slightly less thick, blob of cream cheese with a little sugar mixed in. I started tweaking the recipe just by creaming the cream cheese, shortening (for a little structural support), and butter together for several minutes, allowing plenty of time for the ingredients to mix together thoroughly and get proper aerated. This left me with the best of both frosting worlds -- a slightly thicker buttercream than I would normally make but that finishes with a tangy cream cheese flavor.
As for the little groundhogs, they are more time consuming to make than anything. Believe it or not, they are just Tootsie Rolls and chocolate chips. It takes a little practice to do it but after a few tries, I think you'll find it easy to make. You can find more details about how to make them here.
Blue Ribbon Dulche de Leche Glazed Cinnamon Chocolate Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Buttercream
Yield: Approximately 28-30 cupcakes
To make these cupcakes you'll need one recipe of each of the following:
Blue Ribbon Chocolate Cupcakes
1 box of chocolate cake mix with pudding (the one I used for this recipe was Betty Crocker's) Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, try to break up any big clumps before adding it to the batter
1 cup of Hellman's or Best Foods mayonnaise
3 eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup of milk at room temperature
1 teaspoon of almond extract
Preheat oven to 350F. Place cupcake liners in a muffin pan and set aside.
Place the cake mix, cocoa, and cinnamon mix together with a whisk to combine the ingredients.
Add the mayonnaise, eggs, milk, and almond extract and mix on low speed for one minute. Scrape down the bowl and increase the speed to medium and mix for two minutes. Fill the cupcake liners a little more than half way and bake in the center of the oven for 16-18 minutes and the center springs back when lightly pressed. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and let cool completely.
Dulce de Leche
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
pinch of salt
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 425F. Pour condensed milk into pie plate and stir in a generous pinch of salt. Cover pie plate with foil and crimp foil tightly around rim. Put in a roasting pan, then add enough boiling-hot water to reach halfway up side of pie plate, making sure that foil is above water. Bake, refilling pan to halfway with water about every 40 minutes, until milk is thick and a deep golden caramel color, about 2 hours. Remove pie plate from water bath and transfer toffee to a bowl, then chill toffee, uncovered, until it is cold, about 1 hour.
Cream Cheese Buttercream
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 8oz brick of full-fat cream cheese (I prefer Philadelphia Brand)
1/2 cup shortening pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste (if you can't find this, add an additional teaspoon of vanilla extract)
1 pound + 1 cup of powdered/confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar, 10x) sifted
2-3 tablespoons very cold milk
Cream the butter, shortening, and salt until light yellow and creamy -- about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and the bean paste and mix for another minute. Be sure to stop and scrape the bowl about half way through. Add the sugar a cup or so at at time. When you first add the sugar, turn the mixer on the lowest speed. This will help to avoid most of the sugar being mixed right out of the bowl or you swallowing a cloud of powdered sugar. :-) When the sugar is absorbed, increase the speed to medium for a minute and repeat until you've gone through the entire pound of sugar. The frosting should be somewhat dry looking at this point. If it's not, add more sugar. You want it thick. Once it's thick, add the milk one tablespoon at a time. Keep adding until the frosting is thick, but more creamy and less dry looking.
1 box of chocolate cake mix with pudding (the one I used for this recipe was Betty Crocker's) Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder, try to break up any big clumps before adding it to the batter
1 cup of Hellman's or Best Foods mayonnaise
3 eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup of milk at room temperature
1 teaspoon of almond extract
Preheat oven to 350F. Place cupcake liners in a muffin pan and set aside.
Place the cake mix, cocoa, and cinnamon mix together with a whisk to combine the ingredients.
Add the mayonnaise, eggs, milk, and almond extract and mix on low speed for one minute. Scrape down the bowl and increase the speed to medium and mix for two minutes. Fill the cupcake liners a little more than half way and bake in the center of the oven for 16-18 minutes and the center springs back when lightly pressed. Remove the cupcakes from the pan and let cool completely.
Dulce de Leche
1 can of sweetened condensed milk
pinch of salt
Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 425F. Pour condensed milk into pie plate and stir in a generous pinch of salt. Cover pie plate with foil and crimp foil tightly around rim. Put in a roasting pan, then add enough boiling-hot water to reach halfway up side of pie plate, making sure that foil is above water. Bake, refilling pan to halfway with water about every 40 minutes, until milk is thick and a deep golden caramel color, about 2 hours. Remove pie plate from water bath and transfer toffee to a bowl, then chill toffee, uncovered, until it is cold, about 1 hour.
Cream Cheese Buttercream
1 stick of unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 8oz brick of full-fat cream cheese (I prefer Philadelphia Brand)
1/2 cup shortening pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste (if you can't find this, add an additional teaspoon of vanilla extract)
1 pound + 1 cup of powdered/confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar, 10x) sifted
2-3 tablespoons very cold milk
Cream the butter, shortening, and salt until light yellow and creamy -- about 3 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and the bean paste and mix for another minute. Be sure to stop and scrape the bowl about half way through. Add the sugar a cup or so at at time. When you first add the sugar, turn the mixer on the lowest speed. This will help to avoid most of the sugar being mixed right out of the bowl or you swallowing a cloud of powdered sugar. :-) When the sugar is absorbed, increase the speed to medium for a minute and repeat until you've gone through the entire pound of sugar. The frosting should be somewhat dry looking at this point. If it's not, add more sugar. You want it thick. Once it's thick, add the milk one tablespoon at a time. Keep adding until the frosting is thick, but more creamy and less dry looking.
November 10, 2008
Yummy (Non-Alcoholic) Tiramisu
When I was growing up, my mom worked as a waitress in several family owned Italian restaurants. From the age of about ten, I'd tag along with her on the weekends and work in the kitchen washing dishes, busing tables or doing any odd job that needed to be done. In the early afternoons I used to watch the cooks make tray after tray of Tiramisu, but never understood its appeal. This was in large part due to the fact that it was drenched in alcohol, something to this day I've never been much of a fan.
October 26, 2008
"Any Nut" Milk Chocolate Cake with Thick Chocolate Glaze
Yesterday I was invited to a housewarming for my friend Apoorva and her husband. They had just moved into their brand new and extremely charming town house; I couldn't wait to get a peek inside. To honor the occasion I bought her a glass cake plate with a matching lid and offered to make her any cake she wanted. She, of course, requested something chocolate.
The great thing about this cake, besides how easy it is to prepare, is that you can either use any nut-based chocolate bar you'd like or just use plain milk chocolate. I decided to use a combination of Ghirardelli Hazelnut milk chocolate and believe it or not, milk chocolate from Ikea. It's really rather good and melts very evenly.
This cake does have a lot of chocolate, it's true. For the cake there was a total of 10oz of chocolate. It was actually two 3.5 ounce milk chocolate hazelnut bars, plus one additional 3.5oz milk chocolate bar. I modeled this recipe after the popular Hershey Bar Cake (If you do a search in Google for "Hershey Bar Cake", you'll see several) There are several versions but in most of the recipes that I read, it includes anywhere from 1/2 cup to 1 1/2 cups of chocolate syrup, in addition to 6 to 12 oz of milk chocolate! So I substituted 3 oz of melted milk chocolate for those two ingredients, even though they don't really add up to 3 oz. It still came out okay in the end!
The frosting is melted milk chocolate with a little shortening to help with pour-ability. You can cut back on the amount of chocolate here if you want to, its really your preference. I ended up with extra chocolate frosting pooled in the center of the cake but that was due to the fact that the cake was still piping hot when I frosted it. You could start out with 3oz, frost the cake and if it's not enough, go back and frost it with a little more. The layering of chocolate would look kinda cool, actually (maybe a little white chocolate, dark chocolate, etc?)
This cake could even be made with chocolate candy from Halloween. I realize that's a long shot, but it could happen!
"Any Nut" Milk Chocolate Cake
Yield: About 12-16 pieces
Cake
1 box of yellow cake mix, WITH pudding in the mix
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
7 oz of your favorite milk chocolate bar with chopped nuts of your choice (or no nuts, up to you!)
3 oz of your favorite plain milk chocolate
1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips (optional)
Chocolate Glaze
7 oz of milk chocolate (I choose no nuts but if you want nuts go for it)
2 tablespoons of solid vegetable shortening
Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a Bundt pan with butter and flour or just spray with Pam with Flour (my fav). Set aside.
Combine cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a bowl and mix for 1-2 minutes until well combined, being sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl as needed. Set aside.
In a medium sized glass or microwave proof bowl, break up the chocolate into small squares. Melt in the microwave for 1 minute on 50% power. Stir to mix (it won't be all the way melted yet) and continue microwaving at 30 second intervals on 50% power until the chocolate is smooth and melty. You can also use a double boiler for this step if you wanted to.
Remove about a cup of batter and slowly add it to the melted chocolate to temper it. Then add the chocolate/cake batter mixture to the rest of the cake batter and mix on medium high for about a minute. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes until a long wooden skewer comes out of the center of the cake clean. Be careful not to over bake! The edges of the cake will be browned but the center will spring back when you touch it, but might look slightly under done when compared to edges. That's okay! This cake will continue to bake for a while after it comes out of the oven.
Take the cake out of the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool. Note:When I made this cake, the cake cooled about all of 10 minutes and everything turned out fine. However, I think it's probably best to let the cake cool completely (about 40 minutes).
To prepare the frosting, melt the chocolate and shortening in a bowl until smooth and pour over the cake. Decorate with chocolate chips, coconut, chocolate shavings, sprinkles, or just leave plain.
Yield: About 12-16 pieces
Cake
1 box of yellow cake mix, WITH pudding in the mix
1 1/3 cup water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
7 oz of your favorite milk chocolate bar with chopped nuts of your choice (or no nuts, up to you!)
3 oz of your favorite plain milk chocolate
1/2 cup of milk chocolate chips (optional)
Chocolate Glaze
7 oz of milk chocolate (I choose no nuts but if you want nuts go for it)
2 tablespoons of solid vegetable shortening
Preheat the oven to 350F. Prepare a Bundt pan with butter and flour or just spray with Pam with Flour (my fav). Set aside.
Combine cake mix, water, oil, and eggs in a bowl and mix for 1-2 minutes until well combined, being sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl as needed. Set aside.
In a medium sized glass or microwave proof bowl, break up the chocolate into small squares. Melt in the microwave for 1 minute on 50% power. Stir to mix (it won't be all the way melted yet) and continue microwaving at 30 second intervals on 50% power until the chocolate is smooth and melty. You can also use a double boiler for this step if you wanted to.
Remove about a cup of batter and slowly add it to the melted chocolate to temper it. Then add the chocolate/cake batter mixture to the rest of the cake batter and mix on medium high for about a minute. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes until a long wooden skewer comes out of the center of the cake clean. Be careful not to over bake! The edges of the cake will be browned but the center will spring back when you touch it, but might look slightly under done when compared to edges. That's okay! This cake will continue to bake for a while after it comes out of the oven.
Take the cake out of the oven and let rest for 5 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool. Note:When I made this cake, the cake cooled about all of 10 minutes and everything turned out fine. However, I think it's probably best to let the cake cool completely (about 40 minutes).
To prepare the frosting, melt the chocolate and shortening in a bowl until smooth and pour over the cake. Decorate with chocolate chips, coconut, chocolate shavings, sprinkles, or just leave plain.
Would I Make This Again? Yes! Everyone loved it and raved about how moist it was. I want to make it again with a different type of chocolate bar. Maybe Theo's 3400 Phinney Chocolate in Fig, Fennel & Almond Dark Chocolate, Coconut Curry, or Chai Spice, yum!
September 9, 2008
Dark Chocolate Fudge Milky Way Cake
Michelle loves chocolate and I mean loves it. She's also one of my first fans, always eager to try whatever confection I had decided to share. I didn't want to let her down, but I was having a real problem trying to decide what to make.
July 8, 2008
Strawberry Banana Brownie Cake
Scott is my next door neighbor and has been for the last five and a half years. I can't recall a time when I have see him without a big smile on his face. He's just a happy go lucky guy! Usually when I do see him, he's outside in the street playing games with his kids, which always warms my heart. You just don't see that very often anymore! Scott's a great neighbor, a loving husband, and super devoted dad; so when I found out it was his 40th birthday, I couldn't wait to make him something as fabulous as he is.
May 31, 2008
Cream Sherry Bundt Cake
This baseball season has been a wacky one. We've had more cold, wet, and downright miserable game days than I can count. And through it all, the steadfast family and friends of the players sat huddled under blankets and umbrellas, clapping and cheering for every kid on the team. I cannot count myself among this incredible group of fans, I have only attended games when the weather was decent. Selfish? Probably. But considering all the games and practices I've attended over the years and my sincere hatred of being cold, I felt it was okay. Besides, I always tried to have a hearty home cooked meal ready and waiting when the games were over. That counts, right?
April 12, 2007
Almond Joy Brownies
Traci's birthday falls on a Friday the 13th this year, but the only thing scary about it is the amount of calories I managed to fit into her dessert! She said she would like something that resembled an Almond Joy candy bar and it didn't matter what it was. She just wanted it to have coconut, chocolate and almonds as part of its ingredients.
January 30, 2007
Darn Good Chocolate Cake
Today was Shawn's 30th birthday so I wanted to do something extra special for him. When I asked him what he wanted he just said something chocolaty and cake-like. It didn't take me long to pick one of my favorite, tried and trusted recipes. I almost feel as though I'm cheating because there is cake mix involved, but it has never let me down. The Cake Doctor deserves all the credit for this basic recipe, however I've "Julia-ized" it just a bit to make it more chocolaty:
January 27, 2007
How to Make a Pizza Cake
Tonight is my son's 11th birthday party and because I am the Birthday Fairy, last weekend I offered to make him any dessert he wanted. He originally asked for a cat cake, but the idea of cutting and eating a cake shaped like his favorite animal quickly caused him to change his mind. A few years ago I made him a kitty litter cake (I will never look at Tootsie Rolls quite the same way ever again!) and he asked me to make it again, but I refused. It didn't take long for him to run out of ideas. "Just make something cool," he said.
