Vanilla Celebration Cake

So can you guess where I'm headed this Fall? PITT.

I made this cake immediately after we returned home from visiting the PITT admissions office. It was such a thrilling and exiting day! We talked to an admissions counselor and I got to learn a lot about the school. And that night, I put in my enrollment deposit. Did you know the deadline to basically pick what college you're going to is May 1st? Yeah, well this decision was made round-abouts April 21nd? Yeah, cutting it pretty close.... But ultimately I feel like PITT is the best choice for me!

My ephiphany came one afternoon (April 16th?) while I was driving around Oakland in dowtown Pittsburgh (where PITT's campus is) with my friend Vinnie. As we were driving I would point out places and streets and name things for him. I'd show him some places I love going to or wish I could go to. Eventually he stopped me and said, "Sherry. Why aren't you going to PITT?" I have an obvious love for Pittsburgh. I can't explain it. The culture, the theater, the arts, the food, the people. It's home. It's not that I'm afraid to leave and be on my own, it's that I'm already where I need to be. Trust me, I'm more than ready to be on my own!

I love the atmosphere of downtown Pittsburgh and I can't wait to be immersed in it everyday=) Sure my parents only live 15 minutes away, but being in town is a completely different world. And, staying close to home will allow me to keep in touch with my cousins, aunts and uncles, and sister, who are all major parts of my life.

Now you may be wondering what I plan to study while I attend PITT. Well, I'll save that for another post;) Now let's talk about cake!

I don't often make celebration cakes. They are big and my family is small. And this cake was BIG. And I probably ate half of it. No lie. It was SOOO good. As you may have noticed, the layers are HUGE. Yeah, that was a surprise to me as well. I put the batter in 2 9-inch round pans, and seriously these things puffed up like crazyyyyy. Now, they may look a little brown on top, but the inside is perfect! I was worried when I saw the tops, but one bite immediately set aside my fears. That said, a longer baking time was needed. The frosting recipe I choice was my go-to vanilla frosting recipe from Martha Stewart. Absolutely perfect. In fact, the frosting just barely covered the sides of the cake and I was worried with how thick the cake was if the frosting would be balanced enough. And guess what? It was perfect!

The cake is a tight crumb and oh so moist. It's going to be my go-to vanilla cake recipe from now on. It is incredibly easy to work with and yeilds amazing results! Use this recipe if your making a vanilla cake for a celebration because you'll certainly please everyone!

Vanilla Cake

from Smitten Kitchen

Yield: Two 9-inch round, 2-inch tall cake layers, and, in theory, 22 to 24 cupcakes, two 8-inch squares or a 9×13 single-layer cake

4 cups plus 2 tablespoons cake flour (not self-rising)

2 teaspoons  baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon table salt

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups buttermilk, well-shaken

Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans and line with circles of parchment paper, then butter parchment. (Alternately, you can use a cooking spray, either with just butter or butter and flour to speed this process up.)

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. In a large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium speed until pale and fluffy, then beat in vanilla. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well and scraping down the bowl after each addition. At low speed, beat in buttermilk until just combined (mixture will look curdled). Add flour mixture in three batches, mixing until each addition is just Incorporated.

Spread batter evenly in cake pan, then rap pan on counter several times to eliminate air bubbles. (I like to drop mine a few times from two inches up, making a great big noisy fuss.) Bake until golden and a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan on a rack 10 minutes, then run a knife around edge of pan. Invert onto rack and discard parchment, then cool completely, about 1 hour.

 

Fluffy Vanilla Frosting1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 pound (4 cups) confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions
1) With an electric mixer, beat butter on medium-high speed until pale and creamy, about 2 minutes.

2 )Reduce speed to medium. Add the confectioners' sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as needed; after every two additions, raise speed to high and beat 10 seconds to aerate frosting, then return to medium-high. This process should take about 5 minutes. Frosting will be very pale and fluffy.

3) Add vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth. If not using immediately, frosting can be refrigerated up to 10 days in an airtight container. Before using, bring to room temperature, and beat on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.



Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Sour Cream/Cottage Cheese Coffeecake

Yes it is necessary to put sour cream/cottage cheese in the lengthy title because that is the whole reason I made this! I had a bunch of fun baking substitutes in my fridge that I wanted to use up before the went bad. Things like buttermilk, sour cream, and cottage cheese. How fun would it be to substitute theese in a recipe and see how it turns out?

I would love to start tweaking recipes and even creating my own. As a young blogger, I have always followed recipes to a tee and hardly ever stray from the beaten path. But as I'm growing in my skills I want to start getting creative! This was a small small start, but hey it's something!

It was a great texture, and it didn't even contain the signature streusel that coffee cakes usually do. I loved the chocolate chips throughout; they definitely made this cake. Of course I can never leave well enough alone, so I made myself a cinnamon confectioners sugar glaze, but you honestly don't even need it.

Nom Nom!

Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Sour Cream/Cottage Cheese Coffeecake
inspired by The Food Librarian

Cake
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, separated
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon table salt

Filling and Topping
2 cups or 12 ounces semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter a 9-x-13-inch baking pan. If not nonstick coated, cover the bottom with a rectangle of parchment paper. Set pan aside.
In a large bowl, cream butter and 1 1/2 cups sugar. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt together into a separate bowl. Alternately mix in sour cream and cottage cheese and then dry ingredients into butter mixture until both are used up and the batter is smooth and very thick. In a medium bowl, beat eggs whites until stiff, then fold into batter.
In a small dish, whisk together sugar and cinnamon for filling and topping.
Spread half the cake batter in the bottom of prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of cinnamon-sugar mixture and 1 cup of chocolate chips. Dollop remaining cake batter over filling in spoonfuls. Use a rubber or offset spatula to gently spread it over the filling and smooth the top. Sprinkle batter with remaining cinnamon-sugar and remaining chocolate chips. With the palm of your hand, ever-so-gently press the chocolate chips a bit into the batter. No need to submerge them, you just want to make sure they adhere bit.
Bake for 40 to 50 minutes, rotating halfway through, until a tester inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.

Coffee and Walnut Cake

So I made another recipe from this really obcure baking book I received for Christmas. Obscure like, it has no author listed anywhere. My friend found it at Half Priced Books, and it's a little strange at times. Baking times and temperatures aren't always important, and neither is any kind of order. But that's only for some recipes=)

Anyways, I had been dying to try another recipe out of the book to see if it could actually produce some good stuff. I choose another coffee item. What can I say? I love coffee even though I don't drink it. Well that's actually a lie. I could drink any variation of iced coffee everyday for the rest of my life! Where was I going with this? Oh yeah, the cake. I happened to have some walnuts around and a perfect storm of flavors had my mind and taste buds intrigued.

I made this awhile ago, but I remember liking it a lot! I remember the frosting being pretty sugary, but then again I did go fristing heavy=) Overall this worked as a nice snack cake. I do not think I would serve it to use for a celebration cake, but tea time or a brunch would be a good option.

Coffee &Walnut Cake
from What's Cooking, Baking
serves 8

3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 eggs, beaten
3 tbsp strong black coffee (I always use Nescafe packets and dissolve them into water)
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour (I used regular flour with extra baking soda)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup walnut pieces
walnut halves to decorate with

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour the bottoms of two 8-inch round layer cake pans.

Cream together the butter and brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Gradually add the eggs, beating well after each addition. Beat in the coffee.

Sift the flour and baking powder into the mixture, then fold in lightly and evenly with a metal spoon. Fold in the walnut pieces.

Divide batter between the prepared cake pans and smooth level. Bake in preheated oven for 20-25 mins, or until golden brown and springy to the touch. Turn out onto a wire rack to cool.

Frosting
1/2 cup butter
1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp strong black coffee (same method as before)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Beat together the butter, powdered sugar, coffee and vanilla, mixing until smooth and creamy.

Use about half of the frosting to sandwich the cakes together, then spread the remaining frosting on top and swirl with a metal spatula. Decorate with walnut halves.

Cream Puff Cake

It's Valentine's Day! And this year I have a very special valentine=) Since Valentine's Day fell on a school day, we celebrated over the weekend. Homemade fancy buffalo chicken dip with homemade garlicky pita chips were for dinner. These chips are now a beloved staple in our house, but it almost seems like too basic a recipe to post about. We had also planned to enjoy a wonderful white chocolate fondue, but we pigged out on the dip too much. Next week though=).


For the actual day, we packed lunch for each other and traded at school. He got the left over dip and chips, and I got two slices of banana bread with nutella slathered in between. (This was my idea but I give him credit for putting it together so wonderfully!)

This cake a great idea for a Valentine's dessert. It has a sophisticated appeal, but it couldn't be easier, or made with cheaper ingredients. Let me tell you: Eggs, butter, milk, vanilla pudding, whipped cream, chocolate... I even took the high road and melted my own chocolate rather than use Hershey's syrup (Yuckkkk.)


I made this cake with my valentine too! It was his idea to make it, and boy was I surprised! I have always wanted to make cream puffs, so it was great to have an excuse to finally do so. We had some ingredient issues when we picked up the wrong kind of pudding for the filling, but he graciously offered to run out and get it. Even in the freezing weather.


A lot of people loathe this holiday, but this is my first truly meaningful Valentine's Day. It's the first time I have someone to share it with. But the thing I realized was that it's not the day that made us love each other, but we continually love each other this day just is a reminder. But I don't think we considered this day an epic moment in our relationship. It was good as always, but we didn't center ourselves around the holiday itself. I don't know, these are just random thoughts=)

Cream Puff Cake
via Allrecipes

1 cup water
1/2 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 eggs

1 8 oz pkg cream cheese
4 cups milk
3 pkgs of instant french vanilla pudding

whipped cream
melted chocolate

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
In a large heavy saucepan, heat butter and water to boiling over medium-high heat. Add flour and reduce heat to low. Cook and stir until it forms a ball and pulls away from the pan. Remove from heat and transfer to a large bowl. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg.
Spread in bottom and up the sides of an ungreased 9x13 inch pan. Bake at 400 degrees F for 35 minutes. Cool completely.

To make the filling: In a large bowl, combine cream cheese and milk and beat until smooth. Add pudding mix and beat until thickened. Spread over cooled shell.

Top with whipped cream, and drizzle chocolate over the top.

Gingerbread Cakepops

Resolutions

1.) Bake more with and for friends and family: This has two parts to it, but they are quite similar. A lot of the baking I did this past year was for myself. Which, don't get me wrong, was great, but so much of my baking isn't seen or heard about by people I know. My mom, dad, and sister are all well aware, but I want it to go further. I was lucky enough to get to bake a few times this year with friends, but these times were few and far between. And moreover, (yes I just used the word moreover) I would like to share the fruits of my labors with friends and family! I usually never scale back recipes so I stick my family with the duty of eating all my creations. Sometimes it's a good thing, sometimes it can be difficult.

2.) Start making regular dinners for the family: Towards the end of the year, regular family dinners had broken down within my family. It wasn't really a choice we made, but it just happened. With all of our busy schedules, it was hard to coordinate who would be home to eat it or when. So, this year I'm going to make sure we at least have three structured dinners a week. I want a reasonable and obtainable goal, so I think three will be good. Of course more can be made, but this is a minimum.

3.) Comment more on other people's blogs: I used to be very good about this. Then, when my own blogging became sparse, I stopped commenting. I still read SO MANY blogs daily, but I rarely comment. That's definitely not in the spirit of blogging. If I have enough time to read the post, why can't I just write a quick comment? I'm hoping to fix this ASAP.

4) Clean Daily: This is unrelated to blogging and can mean a number of things. I don't mean to do this in an OCD kind of way, but I like having a clean house or space. I usually end up throwing my clothes all over my room and piles build up. Eventually, I will get to it and clean it, but I want to stop letting the piles turn into piles. Also, keeping our kitchen tidy since that's the center of our house pretty much. Small or big, cleaning is therapeutic and a good thing to do.

Now I could try and think of more resolutions, and I eventually will probably end up doing so, but I don't want to overwhelm myself. I think all of these things will take up my time. This year is going to be big for me anyways as I will be mulling over my college options.


Now, for these little pops, I could say a lot. But I'm going to try to be brief. I've never made cake pops, but I've obvi seen them around. I read up a little bit on instructions, but most used cake box mixes and canned frosting, so they weren't very helpful. I guesstimated as heck of a lot. I think I might have put too much frosting because it tasted very sweet to me. However, my mom thought it was just right.

I decided to dip them in plain white chocolate. This wasn't too bad, but eventually coating the balls was difficult. I luckily has skewers in my house to help me, but towards the end, my cake balls would slide down them=/ Overall, I'm not too sure I would make these again. It was a lot of time consuming work and I wasn't that wowed with the results. I would much rather just have a slice of cake. Plus, I have like 40 balls left over that are not coated because I had to stop because the process took forever!!

Gingerbread Cake
found at Lisa's Kitchen

2/3 cup of unsalted butter
3/4 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of honey
3/4 cup of molasses
2 teaspoons of fresh ginger, finely grated
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
1 cup of yogurt
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon of baking soda, dissolved in 2 tablespoons of warm water
2 1/3 cups + 2 tablespoons of unbleached white flour

Grease a 12 X 9 inch pan and then line with parchment paper.

In a medium sauce pan, melt the butter combined with the brown sugar, honey, molasses, ginger and cinnamon over medium heat, stirring often. In a small bowl, beat the eggs with a wire whisk and then add the yogurt and baking soda and water. Whisk a few times and set aside.

When the butter is melted, remove the pot from the heat and stir in the yogurt and egg mixture.

Put the flour in a large bowl and add the liquid ingredients to the flour. Beat together until everything is well combined. Transfer to the prepared pan and bake in a 325 degree oven for roughly 45 minutes, or until the gingerbread rises and firms up. Nigella says to not overcook, as the gingerbread is especially nice when sticky and she also notes that it continues to bake a bit when removed from the oven. I tested it with a cake tester at the 45 minute point and it seemed just right.

Cake Pop Assembly:

After cake is cooled, crumble it to pieces in a large bowl. Dump in some frosting of your choice, but start small. You want the cake to come together but not be goopy.


Next, roll into 1 inch balls. Freeze the balls for 10 minutes to they are easier to work with when you go to dip them in the chocolate.


Melt some chocolate in a bowl in the microwave. Place the balls on skewers and dip them into the chocolate. Quickly, while the chocolate is still wet, roll the ball into sprinkles. Then, allow they pops to dry by placing the skewers into tall cups.

Tres Leches Cake

I made this cake for a recipe project for my Honors Spanish V class. We had to choose a traditional Spanish or Mexican dessert to bring in for the class. We needed to print out a copy in English, then translate it into Spanish. I have included both recipes in this post so you can see my amazing translating skills. I got a 100% on the project!

I must note that there are only 5 people in my Spanish class. We have a really open environment and we are all very close. In fact, right now we are working on creating our own Spanish soap opera. It's extremely hilarious. Maybe when the final script is done I will share that with you as well. Anyways, we each brought in a dessert, and not to toot my own horn, but mine was by far the best. Aesthetically and taste wise.


There was marzipan, which was kind of odd since you don't really just eat marzipan straight. Needless to say no one really ate it. There were apple dumplings, but it was cold, the mixture was watery, the tortilla was tough, and the skin was still on the apple. There was this odd 3 ingredient dessert scrambled egg things... no one knew what it was or touched it. And there would have been at least one other edible treat besides mine, if the girl hadn't burnt it. It was like orange french toast. She microwaved it, which helped greatly, but it was still charred=/


My cake, however, was loved. (This is a really conceded post. Yes, I am aware.) I knew I wanted to make it from the second our teacher told us our assignment. I had made it in cupcake form awhile back and loved it. I knew I had to make the full fledged cake. I basically carried it around with me all day at school and served up pieces to people. It would have been completely gone by the end of the day if I hadn't suddenly realized that I needed to save my mom a piece! I had just enough left for a fairly good sized piece. She had it and has declared it the BEST thing I have ever made. She constantly begs me to make it again. And you know what, it was so easy that I could!



Tres Leches Cake

from The Pioneer Woman, via Brown Eyed Baker

Yield: 12 servings

Prep Time: 40 minutes | Bake Time: 30 minutes | Inactive Time: 30 minutes

For the Cake:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
5 eggs, separated
1 cup granulated sugar, divided
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup whole milk
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
1 can (14 ounces) sweetened condensed milk
¼ cup heavy cream

For the Frosting:
2 cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9×13-inch baking pan and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the egg yolk and ¾ cup granulated sugar on medium-high speed until the mixture is thick and pale yellow. Add the whole milk and vanilla extract and mix to combine. Pour the egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and, using a rubber spatula, gently fold together until thoroughly combined.

4. Clean out the bowl and the whisk. Add the egg whites to the bowl and whisk at high speed until soft peaks begin to form. With the mixer still running, pour in the remaining ¼ cup of granulated sugar and beat until the egg whites are stiff but not dry.

5. Working in three batches, gently fold the egg whites into the batter until just combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the surface with a spatula.

6. Bake for about 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Turn the cake onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

7. Transfer the cake to a rimmed serving plate. Mix together the evaporated milk, condensed milk and heavy cream in a small pitcher. When the cake is cool, pierce the surface of the cake all over with a fork. Slowly drizzle all but 1 cup of the milk mixture over the top of the cake, making sure to get around the edges of the cake. (You can discard the remaining 1 cup of milk mixture.) Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for about 30 minutes.

8. To frost the cake, whip 2 cups of the heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of granulated sugar until thick and stiff peaks form. Spread over the surface of the cake. Garnish with maraschino cherries, if desired.

En Español:

Cantidad: 12 trozos

Preparación tiempo: 40 minutos

Cocer al horno tiempo: 30 minutos

Descanso tiempo: 30 minutos

Para la torta:

1 taza de harina

1 ½ cucharaditas de polvo de hornear

¼ cucharadita de sal

5 huevos, separados

1 taza de azúcar, dividido

1 cucharadita de extracto de vainilla

1/3 taza de leche entero

1 lata de leche evaporada (12 onzas)

1 lata de endulzo leche condensada (14 onzas)

¼ taza de nata para montar

Para el glaseado:

2 tazas de nata para montar

3 cucharadas de azúcar

Direcciones:

1) Precaliente el horno a 350 grados de Fahrenheit. Engrase y harina de la 9 x 13 molde y lo reserve.

2) En un tazón grande, bata junto la harina, el polvo de hornear, y la sal; lo reserve.

3) En el tazón de una batidora eléctrico encajó con un batir accesorio, bata las yemas de los huevos y ¾ taza de azúcar a la medio-alta velocidad hasta la mezcla es gruesa y amarilla clara. Agregue la leche entero y extracto de vainilla y se mezcle combinar. Vierta las yemas encima de la harina mezcla y usando una espátula de goma, doble junto con cuidado hasta combinado a fondo.

4) Limpie el tazón y batir. Agregue las claras de huevos al tazón y bata a alta velocidad hasta picos suaves forma. Con la batidora funcionamiento, vierta en la restante ¼ taza de azúcar y bata hasta las claras de huevos son rígida pero no secas.

5) Funcionando en tres lotes, doble con cuidado las claras de huevos en la mezcla hasta apenas combinado. Vienta la mezcla en la molde preparada y alise la superficie con una espátula.

6) Hornee por 30 minutos, o hasta un palillo de diente en el centro vuelve limpiado. Invierta la torta sobre escurre plato para refrescar.

7) Traslade la torta a un plato para servir. Mezcle la leche evaporada, la endulzo leche condensada, y la nata para montar en un pequeño cántaro. Cuando la torta es fresca, perfore la superficie de la torta por toda con un tenedor. Despacio llovizne todo pero 1 taza de la leche mezcla encima de la superficie de la torta, asegúrate de que lo haces por aní los bordes de la torta. (Tú puedes desechas la restante 1 taza de la leche mezcla.) Permita la torta absorber la leche mezcla por más o menos 30 minutos.

8) Glasear la torta, bata 2 tazas de nata para montar con 3 cucharadas de azúcar hasta gruesa y rígida picas forman. Unte sobre la superficie de la torta. Guarnecía con cerezas, si deseado.