Cake Slice Bakers - January 2013: The Classic

There was another tie for this month’s Cake Slice Bakers cake. We seem to be having a lot of those lately, but I kind of like them. Usually the cake I really want to bake is one of the options in the tie, so I get my way and eat cake that I know I will like. Selfish, yes, but I don’t care. I would much rather bake a cake that I will eat instead of bake a cake that I know I won’t eat.

The tie was between The Classic and Banana Cake with Coffee Walnut Buttercream. I know I have said before that I do not like fruits and most vegetables. I’ve been told I used to eat them all the time when I was a baby, but I don’t remember a single day in my life when I enjoyed eating a fruit or vegetable. Bananas are one of the ones that I know for sure I do not like. I have tried it multiple times alone and in smoothies. Bananas are not my thing at all, so you can tell right away which cake I decided to bake.

I made this cake for my birthday on January. I’m now 19… and I feel old. I know you’re laughing because 19 isn’t old, but I feel old. I recently found out the Polar Express came out when I was in the 5^th grade, now I’m a freshman in college, tell me that’s not old!

This cake really, truly is The Classic. It’s a yellow cake with fudgy chocolate frosting, and what’s more classic than those two flavor combinations, riddle me that! I really wanted to post it on the 7^th because I was that excited about this cake, but I abided by the rules and waited two full weeks to tell you all about this fabulous cake.

The yellow cake flavor is spot on. It’s springy, yet dense and moist at the same time. Not to mention the color is an oh so lovely and classic yellow. And the chocolate frosting? My, my, what a delight that was. There are only three ingredients in this frosting: brown sugar, heavy cream, and semi-sweet chocolate. Those three ingredients produce the best chocolate frosting I have yet to taste. I do have to warn you that using chopped chocolate will probably be much easier to melt than chocolate chips. My chips didn’t melt all the way and I spend an hour picking out chocolate chunks. I also halved the recipe below to make just one two-layer cake.

The Classic

From Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson

Makes one three-layer cake

Ingredients

Cake

1 1/3 cup (5 1/3 oz.) sifted cake flour

¾ cup + 2 tbsp. (4 oz.) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups (14 oz.) sugar

½ cup canola oil

1 tbsp. pure vanilla extract

4 egg yolks, room temperature

3 eggs, room temperature

½ cup buttermilk, room temperature

½ cup heavy whipping cream, cold

Fudge Frosting

1 lb. semi-sweet chocolate, chips or chopped

2 cups heavy whipping cream

½ cup (3 ¼ oz.) dark brown sugar

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Place a medium bowl (not plastic) in the refrigerator to chill. Line the bottom of two 8-inch round cake pans with parchment paper. Grease each pan and set aside.  

To make the cake: sift together the flours, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Whisk together the mixture to ensure all ingredients are blended together.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl and the paddle attachment. Turn the mixer’s speed to low and drizzle in the oil and vanilla. Mix until combined; the mixture may look a little curdled. Blend in the egg yolks and whole eggs one at a time, adding the next as soon as the previous one has disappeared. With the mixer still on low speed, gently add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the buttermilk in two parts, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Make sure to scrape the sides of the bowl every once in a while to make sure all ingredients are being blended together.

Take the chilled bowl out of the refrigerator and pour the heavy cream into it. Whisk the heavy cream to soft peaks with a hand held whisk (just do it, it’s a nice arm workout). Gently fold the cream into the cake batter. Divide the batter equally between each prepared pan (approximately 1 lb. 6 oz. of batter will go into each pan). Gently tap the pans on the counter to release any air bubbles.

Bake until the cakes the tops spring back when lightly touched, about 35-40 minutes. I would check the cakes around the 30 minute mark though, just in case. Cool the cakes in their pans on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Flip the cakes out of their pans, leaving the parchment paper on until you assemble the cake. Let the cakes continue to cool on the rack, top side up, until they reach room temperature.

To make the frosting: put the chocolate into a medium heat-resistant bowl. Combine the cream and brown sugar in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally. When the cream begins to simmer, remove from the heat quickly and pour the liquid over the chocolate. Swirl the bowl to confirm that all the chocolate is coated in hot cream. Place a lid or plastic wrap over the bowl and let the mixture sit for 5 minutes. Remove the lid or plastic wrap and slowly begin to whisk the mixture, starting with small circles in the middle and working your way outward until you have smooth, glossy frosting. Stir the frosting every 5-10 minutes until it reached spreading consistency, about an hour. If the frosting stiffens up, put it in a warm place to soften up.

To assemble the cake: cut each cake layer in equal halves to create four layers. Lay one of the two cake bottoms (cut side up) on a flat plate. Using an offset spatula, frost the top with ½ cup of frosting, spreading it out to the edge of the cake. Next, align the one of the top two layers (cup side up) on top of the frosted cake and spread another ½ cup of frosting over the top of the cake. Stack the last layer (cut side down) on top of the frosted second layer. Apply a thing layer of frosting around the cake to cream a “crumb coat.” Place the cake in the fridge until the frosting is firm, about 10 minutes. Take the cake out and frost the cake with the remaining frosting.

This cake will keep up to three days when stored in an airtight container.  

Peanut Butter and Jelly Shortbread

I’ve been back at my apartment for almost a week now, and let me tell you, it has been bor-ing! Seriously. My roommates didn’t get back until Saturday and I’ve been here since Wednesday afternoon. And since I don’t really know anyone because I’m basically antisocial/shut-in I haven’t gone much anywhere except to get groceries and pick up text books. So because there is no way I’m going to put myself out there, I fill my time with baking.

I went through a few of my cookbooks I brought with me to college to get some ideas on something quick and easy to bake. Then I happened upon these peanut butter and jelly bars in Martha Stewart’s cookie book and I had a hankering for peanut butter and jelly bars.

I looked at a few different recipes other than Martha’s and then I found Peabody’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Shortbread recipe in my “To Bake” list. They looked so good I just had to make them.

These shortbread wedges are really nice. The peanut butter flavor comes in in a subtle way, but it’s very nice. The wedges are crunchy and kind of chewy thanks to the baked jelly on the top. I really liked these with some milk. The pointed edge of the wedge makes it easy to dunk in the glass. The milk makes the shortbread kind of soggy and crumbly, but that’s fine with me.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Shortbread

From Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

Makes one 9-inch round

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

¼ cup (64 g) creamy peanut butter

½ cup (96 g) sugar

¼ tsp. salt

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 ¼ cup (150 g) unbleached all-purpose flour 

1/3 cup (100 g) grape jelly (or jelly of your choice)

Directions

Grease the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with cooking spray.

Beat the butter and peanut butter together until smooth. Gently pour in the sugar and salt. Cream the mixture until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Beat in the vanilla extract. Gently add the flour and mix until completely incorporated. The dough should be soft.

Shape 1/3 of the dough into a thick disk. Place in plastic wrap and freeze until hard, about one hour. Press the remaining dough evenly along the bottom of the greased pan. Spread the jelly on top of the dough, leaving a small border around the edge. Set the pan in the fridge until the dough in the freezer has hardened.

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Take the pan out of the fridge and take the dough out of the freezer. Grate the frozen dough over the jelly (chopping or breaking it up works too). Place the pan in the oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until the shortbread has become a golden brown. Cut into wedges and enjoy.   

Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Candy Cane Buttercream Filling

It seems I still have holiday baking on the mind. I wrote out a whole bunch of recipes I wanted to bake while I was home, many of which were holiday inspired. I even bought candy canes in order to make these peppermint buttercream filled fudge sandwich cookies and I’m only posting about them now (even though I did make them before the new year started). I also have a box of gingerbread pudding mix I intended to use somehow, but that didn’t really work out since I’m not sure you can still get the pudding mix now. Maybe I’ll wait ‘til next Christmas. Oh well.

So these here are fudge cookies with candy cane buttercream filling. Did I tell you I purposefully bought candy canes for this recipe? Well I did, and I’m not sorry either.

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to make sandwich cookies. If you recall, these were my first sandwich cookies I ever made and they were freaking fantastic! I’m a little ashamed to admit that I stuffed my face with more than my fair share… but they were so good. I’m getting a little sidetracked. I want to talk about these fudgy cuties.

The dough was so dark and thick I just wanted to eat it by itself, but I held back, I wanted to make sure I got an even amount of cookies so I could sandwich them all together.

The frosting that goes between these cookies is pure peppermint perfection (some alliteration for you). It was kind of fun to mash the candy canes to make the dust, but it wasn’t fun to clean up. Note to self: make sure to double bag it with hitting things with a meat pounder.

These are definitely best when paired with a glass of milk because it softens the cookie a little bit and makes it kind of fudgier.

Chocolate Fudge Cookies with Candy Cane Buttercream Filling

Slightly adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Makes 21 sandwich cookies

Ingredients

Fudge Cookies

1 cup + 1 tbsp. unbleached all-purpose flour

¼ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

8 oz. semi sweet chocolate, chopped

2 eggs, room temperature

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

5 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup dark brown sugar

¼ cup sugar

Candy Cane Buttercream Filling

(Please note I made half this batch and still had about 1/3 remaining, but I tend to be a little reserved when filling cookies)

12 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

2 ½ - 3 cups powdered sugar

3 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1-2 tbsp. milk

½ cup candy cane dust*

*To make candy cane dust: place about 8-10 candy canes into a plastic bag and crush with a mallet or rolling pin—something hard and heavy. Place a sifter over a bowl and sift the candy cane bits through. Keep the larger bits for garnish if desired.

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

To make cookies: whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl. Melt the 8 oz. of chocolate in a medium heat-proof bowl placed over simmering water. Stir occasionally until chocolate has completely melted. Take the bowl off the heat and set aside to cool. In a small bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg mixture. In a steady stream, pour in the melted chocolate. Mix on medium speed until everything is completely blended together. You may need to scrape down the sides of the bowl a few times. Gradually add the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Take a medium-small cookie scoop and portion out the dough onto the prepared baking sheet. Space each dollop of cookie dough about two inches away from each other. Bake for about 8-10 minutes. The dough should still be a little soft when taken out of the oven. Allow cookies to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough.

To make the filling: beat the butter on medium speed with the paddle attachment on a stand mixer. Gently add the powdered sugar. Beat in the vanilla. Pour in the candy cane dust and beat until completely incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for another minute. Refrigerate the filling for about 5-10 minutes. Frost the bottoms of half the cookies with the filling. Place the remaining cookies, bottom side down, on top of the filling. Keep sandwich cookies refrigerated up to five days.  

Garlic Rolls

Has anyone ever noticed how the holidays never really end? It’s weird. It’s like the holiday calendar starts in October and doesn’t end until July. Let’s count off: Halloween, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, New Years, Groundhog’s Day and Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, USA’s Independence Day. It’s all so crazy, but I’m not complaining. Those months are filled with amazing and drool-inducing food.

I found these beautiful rolls on Baked Bree. Bree take beautiful pictures of her food and so many of her recipes look delicious. She does a lot of dinner and sides so I knew I would be able to find some kind of bread component for Christmas dinner.

The only thing I was intimidated by was the use of yeast. Before this recipe I have only worked with yeast maybe three times. I am a complete novice when it comes to working with this finicky creature. One thing always worries me when I use yeast and that is “what if it doesn’t rise!?”

These rose as beautifully as bread dough can rise. I was a little scared at first, since it ha hardly grown within the first hour, but then I looked away for just a second and BAM! I was looking at beautifully puffed up dough.

I can’t wait to work with yeast again. There are some yeasted cinnamon roll cookies I have my eye one that I want to make before I go back to college. Hopefully I will get those done.

Oh by the way, I don’t tend to measure out dough that needs rolling out. So the directions say to roll it out about 16x10 inches, but I think my rectangle was a little longer and wider. So do whatever looks good to you.

Garlic Rolls

Ever so slightly adapted from Baked Bree

Makes about 16-18 rolls

Ingredients

Dough

1 package (2 ¼ tsp.) active dry yeast

½ cup warm water

1/3 cup sugar

3-4 cups bread flour, separated

6 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and cooled

2 tsp. salt

Garlic Butter

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature

1 clove garlic, finely minced

1 ½ - 2 tbsp. rosemary, chopped

Directions

Mix together the yeast and the warm water into the bowl of an electric mixer. Measure out the 1/3 cup sugar and remove 2 tbsp. Place the 2 tbsp. into the bowl with the yeast and water. Whisk ingredients together until the yeast has dissolved. Allow the mixture to sit in the bowl for 2 – 3 minutes.

Measure out 1 cup of flour and stir into the yeast mixture. Attach the paddle attachment to the stand mixer. Add in 2 more cups of flour, the rest of the sugar, melted butter, and salt. Mix on medium speed until the dough starts to come together. Slowly add a little bit of flour until the dough starts to pull apart from the sides of the bowl. For me this was at the 3 ½ cup mark.

Grease a large glass bowl with cooking spray. Pour the dough into the greased bowl and cover the top with plastic wrap. Set the bowl in a warm place and allow the dough to double in size, about 2 hours.

While the dough is rising make the garlic butter and prepare the pans. Beat together the butter, garlic, and rosemary. To prepare the pans line two 9 inch round pans with foil. Lightly grease the foil with cooking spray.

Once the dough has finished rising punch it down a little bit. Place the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a 16x10 inch rectangle.  Slather the garlic butter all over the surface of the rectangle. Use a pizza cutter to cut the dough into 1 inch wide strips (I used a ruler to get straight and even lines). Roll the strips up and up the flat side down into the prepared pans (about 8 per pan). Cover pans with a tea towel let the dough rise for another 45 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 375 F. Bake the rolls on the center rack for 15-20 minutes or until the tops are slightly golden. 

Hidden Kiss Cookies

It’s New Years Eve. Have you guys made resolutions for next year? Are any of them to be healthier? Stop eating sweets? Spend 5 hours on the treadmill everyday in an effort to shed those holiday pounds? You’re definitely not alone if you aid “yes.” I too have made a “be healthy” resolution: to stop stuffing my face when I’m procrastinating. The thing about having your own room in college has great advantages, but with those advantages comes disadvantages. I can’t tell you how many times I have at in my room eating my stash of granola bars and Goldfish trying to put off homework as much as possible. Well no more… hopefully.

Anyways, here is a recipe that will probably send you running for the hills. Hey, I got you running, that’s a good start for exercising, right? 

These here are Hidden Kiss Cookies. It’s basically a soft-as-ever butter cookie with a Hershey’s Kiss stuffed in the center. These really are the perfect treat. I took some to my friend’s reunion/ugly sweater party before Christmas and not a single cookie was left. Everyone said they were amazing and I felt sort of bad because I didn’t even bring all the cookies, assuming everyone would eat the other sweets everyone brought to the party.

If you aren’t one of those cookie haters that appear at the beginning of the year, please make these cookies. They are darling little things.

Hidden Kiss Cookies

Adapted from Once Upon a Cutting Board

Makes 2 dozen cookies

Ingredients

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

¾ cup powdered sugar

½ a large egg, room temperature (beat egg in a small bowl and measure out half)

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

24 unwrapped Hershey’s Kisses

2 tbsp. sugar

Directions

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter and POWDERED sugar (Yes, you read that right. This recipe uses powdered sugar, not regular granulated sugar). Beat on medium speed until creamy. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Beat until well combined.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Turn the mixer’s speed to low and add the flour mixture in two additions. Scrape down the sides of the bowl after each addition.

Scoop a little less than 1 tbsp. of dough into your hand. Roll the dough into a ball and flatten. Place a single Hershey’s Kiss in the center. Mold the cookie dough around the kiss. Roll the dough between your hands to form a sphere. Repeat with the remaining dough. If the dough is too soft to work with, refrigerate the un-scooped dough for about 10-15 minutes. Refrigerate cookie dough for 10-15 minutes. Keeping the dough chilled will ensure to dough wont fall away from the kiss while baking.

While you wait for the dough to chill, preheat the oven to 350 F.

Place about 2 tbsp. of granulated sugar into a shallow bowl. Gently roll each cookie in the sugar. Place cookie dough on prepared baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Bake 10-12 minutes. I like my cookies very soft so I baked mine around 9-10 minutes; the cookies were still a little soft when I took them out of the oven.

Cool cookies on the sheet for about 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely. 

Eggnog Biscotti

I hope you guys had a lovely Christmas. Did you guys get everything you wanted? Did you guys try and return anything yesterday? My dad did that once, forgetting it was the day after Christmas; he said it was the worst experience ever.

I myself had a really nice Christmas. I made pancakes for my family, opened some awesome presents (I got several cake pans that I can’t wait to use), made some bread rolls (which will be on here later), and ate way too much of some really amazing food. I’m not a leftovers person at all, but I’ve been munching on several pieces of leftover ham and bread rolls.

Speaking of leftovers, here is a really amazing recipe to use up that leftover eggnog in your fridge.

I’ve actually never had straight-up eggnog before, but I love the flavor. I ordered some eggnog from the dairy farm my family gets our milk from intending to actually try it, but once again I chickened out of drinking it. I didn’t want all that eggnog to go to waste, so I decided to find a recipe that used eggnog.

I searched, and searched, but none of the recipes looked all that great, and most the time my searches yielded homemade eggnog recipes, which didn’t help at all. Then I came across these eggnog biscotti cookies. I haven’t made biscotti in such a long time, and the glaze on top of the cookies looked delicious, so I went with it.

Oh my freaking god! These things are seriously the most amazing crunchy holiday cookies in the entire universe! I truly mean this. I think I may order another pint of eggnog just so I can make this biscotti recipe again. Even without the eggnog glaze, which you really shouldn’t leave out, this biscotti has the most amazing eggnog taste.

I hope you guys enjoy the rest of your holidays.

Eggnog Biscotti

Adapted from Oh She Glows

Makes about 21 biscotti sticks

Ingredients

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

¾ cup sugar

1 ½ tsp. ground nutmeg

½ tsp. ground cinnamon

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup canola oil

½ cup eggnog

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Set aside

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggnog, oil, and vanilla. Pour the eggnog mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Mix ingredients until they start to come together. Use your hands to mix the ingredients completely.

Divide the dough into two equal parts (I used a scale to do this). Form each half into a ball. Place on the prepared baking sheet and press to flatten. Use your hands to form each dough ball into a 10x5 inch rectangle (mine may have been a little longer and wider... I tend to not measure rectangles when baking).

Bake the logs for 25-30 minutes. Allow logs to cool on the pan for 5-10 minutes. Slice the logs at a 45 degree angle. Place the slices on their sides and return to the oven for 5 minutes. Flip the logs and bake for another 5 minutes. Allow biscotti sticks to cool completely before glazing.

To make the glaze: combine 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, 2 tbsp. eggnog, and ½ tsp. ground nutmeg. The glaze will be thick. Place the glaze into a ziplock bag and cut a very small tip out of the corner. Pipe the glaze over top of the biscotti.