A Tale of Two Cakes: Chocolate and White

This is a tale of two cakes.  Chocolate and White.  My sister Chelsea was in town for a weekend so we decided to celebrate our September birthdays (my brother Richard age 22 and my nephew Dutch age 1) that Sunday.  I come from a family of chocoholics, so naturally I assumed everyone wanted chocolate cake.  I planned on doubling my  recipe and doing two cakes with one batter, but I decided to play the professional baker and ask what they wanted for their birthday cakes.  True to form my brother requested Chocolate cake with Chocolate Ganache filling.  Then my sister Sabrina (Dutch's Mom) throws a wrench in my easy peasy chocolate plan and said that we always have chocolate and requested a white cake.  It's easier to clean up after.  Though this may be good Mommy logic, white cake is easier to clean up after than chocolate, I was stuck with making two very different cakes at the same time.  This was not going to be as easy as I planned.

Here is my mass of ingredients for everything.  Not only does it make a nice beginning photo for my blog, I also have everything I need in one central location so I am not going around the kitchen looking for ingredients.  The table top mass also lets me see instantly what I am almost out of or missing before I start my baking project.

The first thing I did was make frosting.  I decided to go with two buttercream cakes instead of fondant because they are easier and take less time to manufacture.  I decided to frost and finish the white cake first, then I can just add cocoa powder to the remaining buttercream and use the rest of it for decorating the chocolate cake.

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 cup butter, room temperature or softened
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 Tbs heavy whipping cream
• 2 Tbs Meringue Powder (optional)
• 8 cups powdered sugar
• Beat together butter, shortening, vanilla, and heavy cream.  Beat in meringue powder and powdered sugar one cup at a time until combined.  Add more cream or powdered sugar until you get the right consistency you want.

I take a new frosting picture every time.  Do I ever get tired of frosting or frosting pictures?  No.  Not yet anyway.

Since Richard's Chocolate Ganache filling needed some refrigeration time I did that next.

Chocolate Ganache

• 1 cup heavy whipping cream
• 8 oz (two bars or 1 cup) of semi-sweet baking chocolate
• Chop up chocolate.  Heat cream to near boiling in a saucepan.  Add chocolate to a separate bowl.  Pour hot cream over the chocolate chunks and stir until melted.  Refrigerate until cool.  Whip together.

What you do not see is me eating the chocolate ganache with reckless abandon.  I love this stuff.  On to the cakes.

White Cake

• 5 Tbs butter (half a stick+)
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 and 3/4 cup cake flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup milk (I always bake with whole milk.  It taste better.)
• 3 egg whites
• 2 Tbs sugar
• Beat butter and 3/4 cup sugar together.  Add vanilla and almond extract.  Mix flour, baking powder, and salt together in a separate bowl.  Alternate adding milk and dry ingredients to butter-sugar mixture.  In a separate bowl whip egg whites with 2 Tbs sugar until stiff peaks form.  Beat in 1/4 of the egg whites into the mix.  Fold in the rest of the egg whites.  We want a nice and fluffy cake batter.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25 - 30 minutes.  Makes one 8" - 9" cake pan.

To make them as different as possible I went with a round cake for Dutch and a square cake for Richard.

Chocolate Cake

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 oz unsweetened baking chocolate, chopped, melted and cooled.
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs water
• 1/4 cup + 2 Tbs buttermilk
• Melt chocolate and wait for it to cool.  Beat together sugar and shortening.  Add egg and vanilla.   Pour cooled chocolate in slowly.  If it is too warm it seizes up in the batter and you end up with chocolate chunk cake (which isn't such a bad thing, but not pretty).  Mix together dry ingredients.  Alternate adding dry ingredients with buttermilk-water mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 min.  Makes one 8" - 9" cake pan.

Since I used 3 egg whites for the white cake I decided to use the left over 3 egg yolks for the filling.

Vanilla Custard 

• 3 egg yolks
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 Tbs butter - room temperature or softened.
• 1/2 tsp vanilla
• In a medium saucepan whisk together egg yolks and sugar.  In a separate sauce pan heat milk to almost boiling.  Slowly whisk in hot milk to egg yolks so not to curdle the eggs.  Heat custard over low heat, stirring constantly until thickened.  Remove from heat and whisk in butter and vanilla.  Refrigerate until thick and cool.

A white cake.

A white cake with a Whale.

Little kid cakes are easy.  It is the adult cakes that I have a hard time designing.  I did not think Richard would appreciate a Captain Ahab cake to go with the whale.  Add what is left of the chocolate ganache filling to the chocolate cake.

I added cocoa powder to the remaining white and blue frosting and I had enough chocolate frosting to cover cake #2.

I decided to go with a basket weave pattern around the edge and random scroll along the border.  That's good enough for a mature, sophisticated 22 year old, right?

My two cakes - chillin'.

Upon delivery to my parent's house.

Happy first birthday baby Dutch.

Dutch with his first birthday cake.

Happy Birthday Richard.

Richard with his 22nd birthday cake.

Happy birthday boys.  I love my boys.

Chocolate and White cake were equally eaten.

Enjoy.

Pink Birthday Cake

My niece Gracie turned three years old last month.  I made her a special pink cake because she is such a girly girl.  

Orange Spongecake

• ⅔ cup sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• zest on one orange
• ⅓ cup orange juice
• 1 tsp orange extract
• ¾ cup cake flour
• 4 egg whites
• pink of salt
• Beat together egg yolks and sugar.  Add orange zest, orange extract, and orange juice. Mix that all together then add flour.  In a separate bowl whip egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form. Beat in 1/4 of the egg whites and fold in the rest.  We want the batter fluffy. Bake at 350 degrees for 15 - 20 min.  Makes enough batter for one 9” cake round.

Egg yolks and orange.  I guess I really didn't need the orange extract as well as orange zest and orange juice.

Whip together egg whites and a pinch of salt until stiff peaks form.  You know you have stiff peaks when you can turn the bowl upside down and they do not fall out.  (Note:  Do not try this at home on the off chance that they do fall out of the bowl.  On the carpet.  And nothing you try will get egg white stain out.  And you have to start over with more egg whites for the recipe.)

Beat one fourth the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture and gently fold in the rest.  Nice and fluffy.

I made two 6" cake rounds and a few heart shaped cupcakes.

Orange Cream Cheese Frosting

• 8 oz cream cheese (1 package), softened at room temperature
• 4 Tbs butter (1/2 a stick), softened at room temperature
• 6 cups of powdered sugar
• 1 tsp orange extract
• Zest of one orange
• Heavy Whipping Cream
• Beat together butter and cream cheese. Add orange zest and orange extract, beat that in. Add powdered sugar 1 cup at a time beating it in. Add heavy cream as desired to get the right consistency.

I baked them all at the same time.  350 degrees for 15 minutes.  My oven runs hot.

Orange extract is not orangey enough so the frosting needed the zest of one orange.  Zest is fun to say.  Zest, zest, zest.

Letting the cake and cupcakes cool before frosting so the frosting does not melt.

Frosting time.

I needed a pink cake.

To get the frosting lines evenly spaced I use toothpicks to mark how far apart I want them to be.

Cover the toothpicks holes with more frosting swirls and add pink bows.

No, the bows are not edible.  Just regular pink ribbon.

Added some frosting to decorate the cupcakes hearts.

As soon as I walked through the door I said, "Gracie, I have a birthday cake for you."

Her response, without looking up for the tablet game she was playing, "Is it pink?"

"Yes, Gracie, it's pink."

Well then, now she can inspect her cake.  Just had to make sure it was pink or she wasn't interested.

Such a girly girl.

Happy Birthday Gracie!  Blow out your three candles.

Lets eat the cake.

 Remember, do not eat the ribbons.

Enjoy.

The Love Life of Squash

Growing up my family always had a garden.  Except that one year, but other than that, we maintained a garden.  At one point in my growing up garden life (maybe more than once) I swore in my wrath that I would never have a garden.  I hate weeding.  I hate rock picking.  I hate plowing.  I hate planting.  I hate harvesting.  I hate shelling peas.  I hate getting dirty.  I hated having a garden.  I have a lot of hate.  This year I started a garden.  I planted one yellow crookneck squash.  As you can see, it is doing quite well.  It exploded out of its place and is currently taking over my Irises, which is strange because Irises have the reputation of taking over everything which is why I got them.  Never having a yellow crookneck squash before I learned a few things.  Other than their territorial nature, I learned how to have sex in the garden.  I was concerned that my plant was not reproducing so I did some research on this particular variety and I learned a few things.  There are two kinds of flowers.  A male flower and a female flower.  Together they make a baby squash.  With the help of bees of course which transfer the pollen from the male flower to the female flower.  Unfortunately for my plant I have not seen any bees so I have had to do the pollinating myself.  With my paint brush.

This is a male flower.

This is a female flower.

This is my baby squash.  My giant plant only has one child.  My paint brush and I made this baby possible.  Last night we finally ate the fruits of my labor.

I had to do something special for my only child.  I came up with squash and bacon risotto topped with cornmeal fried squash rounds with some Parmesan cheese.  

Deep Fried Squash

• Cut squash into 1/4" rounds and soak for 30+ minutes in 
• 1/2 cup Buttermilk and
• 3 Eggs
• After soaking, dredge squash in 
• 1/2 cup Cornmeal
• 1/2 cup Flour
• added salt, pepper, and seasoning to taste

Fry squash rounds in 2" deep of Canola/Vegetable oil heated to 365 degrees.  Fry squash rounds for 2 -3 minutes until golden brown.  Let them drain on paper towels.  Serve hot and crispy.

This is my squash rounds soaking in eggs and buttermilk and my squash cubes ready for risotto.

Dredge squash rounds in cornmeal - flour mixture.

Fry 'em up.

Squash and Bacon Risotto

• 1 ration of bacon - chopped, fried, and set aside
• 1 cup arborio rice
• 2 Tbs bacon grease
• 2 Tbs butter
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 2 cups cubed squash
• 2 cans of vegetable broth (14 ounces each.  It can be any flavor of broth.)

Start boiling cans of broth.  Saute onions in bacon fat and butter for about 3 min.  Every recipe should start with bacon fat and butter.  Add 1 cup of arborio rice and squash cubes and cook for another 2 minutes.  Gradually start adding boiling broth 1 ladle full at a time, cooking and stirring until the liquid is absorbed into the rice before adding the next ladle of broth.  Cook rice until all the broth is gone.  Turn off the stove and mix in bacon and parmesan.  

Serve risotto with fried squash and some more cheese.
A fitting end to my first attempt at gardening.  Maybe next year I will plant two yellow crookneck squash.

Enjoy.