Alex's Mocha Melted Ice-Cream Cake with Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting

Alex and I are both business analysts on the same product team and although we almost never work together on projects, we're still very much a team. When I'm stuck on an issue, he is always there to help me work through whatever it is.

When Alex told me his birthday was coming up, I couldn't wait to make him something special. He said he didn't want anything too fussy, but something basic. I also managed to pry out of him that he wanted something made of cake, preferably chocolate, and maybe something with some coffee flavor.

I knew there would be a slew of recipes to choose from but this one really intrigued me. I really wanted to make a cake using melted ice cream! I decided to add a few mini chocolate chips to the batter, just for some extra chocolatey goodness. Happy Birthday Alex!


Incredible Melted Ice-Cream Cake
by Anne Byrn

1 package (18.25 ounces) plain white cake mix (one without pudding in the mix!)
2 cups melted ice cream, your choice of flavor (I used Häagen-Dazs coffee)
1 tablespoon instant coffee or espresso powder
3 large eggs
2/3 cup mini chocolate chips
Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting (see below)

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly mist a 12-cup Bundt pan with vegetable oil spray, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside. ( Or just use Pam wit Flour - I love this stuff!)

2. Place the cake mix, melted ice cream, instant coffee, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with the rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping the sides down again if needed. The batter should look thick and well blended. Add chocolate chips and mix just until it's best combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.

3. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger and just starts to pull away from the sides of the pan, 38 to 42 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool for 20 minutes. Run a long, sharp knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto a small rack, then invert it again onto a second rack so that the cake is right side up to complete cooling, 30 minutes more.

4. Meanwhile prepare the Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting.

5. Slide the cake onto a serving platter and pour the warm frosting over the cake (you will have a little extra). Let it stand for at least 10 minutes before serving.

Marshmallow Frosting
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
6 large marshmallows or 3/4 cup marshmallow fluff
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter
1/4 cup whole milk or whipping cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Sift the sugar and cocoa powder together into a large mixing bowl.

2. Set aside. Place the marshmallows, butter, and milk/cream in a medium-size heavy saucepan over low heat. Stir until the marshmallows are melted, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat. Pour the confectioners' sugar and cocoa mixture over the marshmallow mixture. Add the vanilla and stir until the frosting is smooth and satiny.

3. Use at once to frost the top of the cake of your choice.
4. For the garnish, I used marshmallow fluff to "glue" on chocolate covered coffee beans


Yield: Cake: approximately 16 servings Frosting: 1 1/2 cups
Would I Make This Again? For certain! This is a good recipe when you don't feel like baking a big fussy cake. This cake had a very interesting texture. Alex said it sort of tasted "cold and creamy". I want to make this again but with a different flavored ice cream, like Cherry Garcia. For a cake-mix based recipe, this was an impressive cake. 4 out of 5 stars.
As for the frosting, it's a definate keeper. It tasted really chocolately and created this Magic Shell like coating on the outside of the cake. Everyone at worked really liked it too. Yummmmmers! 5 out of 5 stars

Baked French Toast Bread Pudding

One of my all time favorite company-worthy breakfast entrees that I like to make is Baked French Toast. It's essentially regular French toast but the bread is soaked in the egg and milk the night before and stored in the fridge until morning. It's then baked for about thirty minutes until it's a bit crispy on the edges of the bread. It's creaminess and buttery texture is always a sure fire hit.

The recipe I've always used is found here at Allrecipes.com. It includes a caramel sauce that I usually avoid because it always seems way too sweet for breakfast. Each time I make it, I can't help but think that the recipe was really more like a dessert than a breakfast, so when Stacie told me she wanted bread pudding a light bulb went off in my head. Could I use the Baked French Toast recipe to make a bread pudding? The answer is a big YES!

I had to tweak the recipe a bit. I sweetened the egg mixture, added more cinnamon, and used Challah bread instead of French. I also introduced raisins that I soaked first in a cup of warm water so they would plump up a bit. I wasn't sure how to cook it though. I was worried that the top and sides would cook too fast and leave the center raw so I cooked it very slowly in a water bath - over an hour.

All in all, it came out really well. I made my husband, son, and me individual portions. Considering how rich this is, it was the perfect serving size. The outcome was great! The texture was perfect - soft and moist on the inside and crispy and sweet on the top. My husband really enjoyed this and he's not even a fan of bread pudding!

I'll post the recipe after I've made it a few more times. I ended up cooking it for about an hour, due my experimentation with the cooking. For now, here's the recipe for the fabulous Baked French Toast, courtesy of Allrecipes.com.

Stacie, I really hope this is what you had in mind. Happy Birthday!

Baked French Toast
1 (1 pound) loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch slices
8 eggs
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups half-and-half cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cup unsalted butter
1 1/3 cups brown sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup

1. Butter a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange the slices of bread in the bottom. In a large bowl, beat together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread slices, cover, and refrigerate overnight.
2. The next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a small saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture.
3. Bake in preheated oven, uncovered, for 40 minutes.

Yield: I made this in a 9x9x3 baking dish and fed about 8. If I had made it in a longer, shallower dish, I probably could have feed 12.

Would I Make This Again? Yes, definitely! This one is a keeper! 5 out of 5 stars,

My Mother in Law's Delightfully Simple Sour Cream Coffee Cake

So a few months ago I was asked to bake a little something for meeting we were having at work. Since the meeting was going to be at nine in the morning, I knew coffee cake would be the perfect choice.

At first I considered making my mother-in-law's tried and true Coffee Cake recipe but being me, I decided I would try something new and quickly set to work searching for something different. I went to every recipe website I could think of, read a few cookbooks, and eventually settled on a recipe that had over a hundred rave reviews. It was humble but looked to be a sure fire hit.

After the cake was in the oven, for fun, I took a peek at my mother-in-law's recipe to see how it would compare to the one I had settled upon. It compared alright! It was the same exact recipe! Go figure!


Although both recipes called for all purpose flour, I tempted the gods and used cake flour instead. I wanted the cake to have a delicate, light mouth-feel and changing the flour did the trick. The texture was exactly the way I wanted it.

Marilyn's Sour Cream Coffee Cake

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup white sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 cups + 4 tablespoons cake flour (If you prefer a denser, more pound cake like texture use 2 cups all purpose flour)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
dash of salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Nut Topping:
1/2 cup chopped nuts such as pecans or walnuts
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (If you can find Vietnamese Cinnamon, I highly recommend it.)
1/4 cup melted butter tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour (or use Pam with Flour - this stuff has completely changed my life! I *love* it!) a bundt or angel food cake pan.

Cream butter and sugar until pale yellow and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and beat until mixed. Sift dry ingredients together. Mix half the dry mixture into the wet on medium speed and half of the sour cream. Scrape down bowl and repeat.

In a small bowl, combine all the nut topping ingredients together and mix until crumbly.

Add half the cake batter into the pan . Cover with half of the nut topping. Spoon the other half of the remaining cake batter into the pan and top with remaining nut topping. Bake for 40-50 minutes, until knife comes out clean. Let it rest in the pan until cool. Remove from pan and serve as is or with powdered sugar sprinkled on top.

Yield: About 10-12 servings. Would I Make This Again? Definitely. It's simple, easy to prepare, and tastes really good. I have yet to find someone who doesn't like it. Plus, it gives me the warm-fuzzies knowing I made one of my mom-in-laws favorite recipes. 4.5 stars out of 5

Craig's Banana Chocolate Strudel

I kept things simple for Craig and I really think that the simplest recipes make the best food. Craig wanted something chocolate and really loves bananas. Last year I made him black bottom banana cream pie so I needed to think outside of the pie tin this year.

I stumbled upon the recipe for Banana Chocolate Strudel on Epicurious. The only change that I made was to use semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of bittersweet chunks. I thought it would be well, too bitter and chips melt just as well as finely chopped chocolate. This dessert was very easy to prepare and is reminiscent of baklava. It also travels well. I just wrapped each strudel in tin foil and it arrived to work intact.

Banana Chocolate Strudel

4 (17- by 12-inch) phyllo sheets, covered with 2 overlapping pieces plastic wrap and then a damp kitchen towel
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2 firm-ripe bananas
2 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), finely chopped
1 large egg, beaten with 1 teaspoon water
Confectioners sugar for dusting
Accompaniment: lightly sweetened whipped cream

Preheat oven to 425°F.
Arrange 1 phyllo sheet on a work surface with a short side of phyllo nearest you, keeping remaining sheets covered, and brush with some butter. Top phyllo with 3 more sheets of phyllo, brushing each with butter. Arrange bananas one above the other, horizontally, on lower third of phyllo, leaving a 1-inch border on both sides (trim bananas if too long). Sprinkle chocolate over bananas, then fold sides of phyllo toward middle (over ends of bananas). Fold bottom edge of phyllo over bananas and roll up bananas in phyllo.

Transfer strudel, seam side down, to a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or to a buttered baking sheet, then brush strudel with beaten egg. Cut 4 (1/2-inch-long) steam vents diagonally along top of strudel with a sharp knife. Bake in middle of oven until golden, about 12 to 15 minutes. Cool slightly on a rack, then dust with confectioners sugar.

Yield: About 5 per strudel (one-half package of phyllo was enough to make 5 strudels)
Would I Make This Again? Yes..the possibilities are endless. This would be great for a dinner party! 4 stars out of 5

Bake Sale Caramel Chocolate Pretzels

I made these for a fund raiser to help raise money for the Breast Cancer 3 Day Walk over the weekend. Homemade caramel with Belgium milk chocolate and white chocolate... Yummmm!

If you ever need a unique idea for a bake sale, these might be the perfect thing to make. I kept it simple and only created one variety. But if you wanted to get fancy, you could make some with crushed nuts (cashews are perfect), M&Ms, or even S'Mores with crushed graham crackers, chocolate, and mini marshmallows. I did something similar with caramel apples late last year and these were a lot faster and easier to make. The only caveat is that the caramel and chocolate got a bit soft in the heat. These might be better suited for a winter fund raiser.

Kara's Lotta Leches Cake

I'll post more later, but for now here's the recipe for those who asked for it. Happy Birthday Kara!

Three-Milk Cake (Pastel de Tres Leches)
Adapted from a recipe from The Taste of Mexico by Patricia Quintana.

1 1/2cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
4 eggs, separated
1 1/2cups sugar
1/2 cup milk full-fat

Three-Milk Topping
2 cups milk
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk

Whipped Cream Topping
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/4 sugar (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 13-by-9-by-2-inch baking pan. Sift flour with baking powder. In large bowl, beat egg whites until fluffy. Add sugar gradually, beating to form stiff peaks. Add yolks, one at a time.

Alternate folding in flour mixture and milk until it is mixed well but be careful not to over beat. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until edges are golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from oven; let cool on a rack.



While the cake is cooling, in a large bowl, combine the three milks together and whisk to incorporate. Let them sit on the counter until the cake is cool (about 20 minutes). Poke several holes in the cake in with a folk. Whisk milk mixture again and slowly pour it over cake. Put it in the refrigerator and let sit until all mixture is absorbed, 20 to 30 minutes.

Prepare the whipped cream topping by chilling the cream, bowl and beaters thoroughly (about 3 minutes in the freezer). Beat cream with electric mixer until it begins to thicken. Gradually add sugar and vanilla and beat until stiff peaks form. Cover top of cake with whipped cream, cover with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator until ready to serve. Top with fresh strawberries if desired.