Tea's Blacker than Midnight Cake

 

 

 

I had a request to make a cake last weekend. At first when I received the description in a text I nearly died... a WHAT??  I had no idea what she was talking about. I had never made anything of the sort and I was worried. (Don't worry. I explained to her that I was clueless as to what she was talking about. She still wanted me to make it... ) Her description went as follows: a dark midnight cake with chocolate cream filling, egg white frosting and a chocolate drizzle.  Now I need to explain, the reason she wanted this cake for her mom's birthday was because this was her mom's favorite cake that she baked herself every year.  Pressure much? First, I don't know what this cake is... Second... SHE DOES!
 So, I did what most people in my shoes would do. I googled it! BIG PROBLEM!  I found a bunch of different cakes, but none of them seemed to fit her description.  So.... I did what I had to do. I created my own version of this cake. And it turned out beautiful!  I made an extra one for my family just so we could see what all the hype is about.  They think that perhaps it's their new favorite cake.

First I made my yummy extra dark chocolate cake.  (This recipe works well for 2 10" pans or 3 9" pans)...


3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups cocoa
4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
4 eggs
2 cups strong black coffee, cooled
2 cups buttermilk
1 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix ingredients in order given... Grease and flour ( I use my homemade pan release) either (3) 9" pans or (2) 10" pans.  You may have a little extra for cupcakes too, as my pans are all deep. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until center is set and outside of cake is pulling away from pan.  Cool for approximately 5-10 minutes. Run a knife around the outside and turn out onto cooling racks. Cool Completely...

Stabilized Chocolate Crème filling:
(You could use chocolate pudding in place of this cream for the filling)

1 envelope gelatin
1/4 cup cold water
combine these two ingredients in a saucepan and let stand for five minutes. Turn to low and dissolve, then remove from heat and cool. 
Whip until slightly thick:
3 cups heavy whipping cream
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Add gelatin on low. Whip on HIGH to firm peaks. Add 1/8-1/4 cup cocoa and beat.


Egg White Frosting:

1 cup white sugar
1/3 cup water
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
2 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla extract

In a saucepan, stir together the sugar, water and cream of tartar.  Cook over medium-high heat until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is bubbly. In a medium mixing bowl, whip the egg whites and vanilla to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar mixture while whipping constantly until stiff peaks form, about 7 to 10 minutes.


Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy whipping cream

Heat the heavy cream in a saucepan until it starts to bubble. Pour over chocolate in a glass bowl. Stir until all chocolate is melted and cream and chocolate are combined. Let cool slightly.


So... once the cakes are cooled, you're going to want to stack them, filling them with the chocolate cream. Frost with the egg white frosting. Now for the fun part... Make sure the chocolate is cooled. Pour it over the top of the cake and let it drizzle down the sides. If it's not drizzling too well and is set up, you can heat it up in 20 second intervals in the microwave just to make it a bit more workable.... Just do what works best for you.

Let set for a couple hours so chocolate sets up. Cut with a serrated knife. One of the BEST cakes ever!

I am so happy to be back!

Happy Cooking

Teauna

We interrupt the action in this kitchen for a ....fire.

As many of you may know, I spend a bunch of time in the kitchen! I've been making bunches of cakes, cookies and cupcakes. That keeps me away from my blog often. However. .. I had many plans to post a yummy recipe last week when. .. a wildfire started nearby in the mountains and made it our direction threatening our home and our friends' & neighbors' homes and livelihoods as well, as there are many cattle on the range being threatened. After being evacuated 3 times, getting bit by a mean spider on the BUMCHEEK and having a crazy week-long allergic reaction, being completely displaced, continuing to keep baking for people AND attending the week festivities at the local county fair...it's fair to say I'm completely beat!!! Luckily our home is still standing...jusy really stinky! And now I can offer two new flavors of cake to my menu..."smoked" & "fried".
Now my kids are starting school tomorrow and I'll once again be all alone (with my puppy kids, of course) for the day... and I'll be doing my best to make up for everything I wasn't able to get done last week.  Oh my....let the fun begin!!

How to Bake a Cake

How to Bake A Cake....I know. It seems so simple right? Well it is! But there are so very many steps in baking correctly baking a cake. Of course, if you're just cutting it out of the pan and serving it, there are steps that maybe aren't so important.  But... PEOPLE!!.... If you're baking a cake to decorate, it is so important that you do things the right way. Now, let me be clear... I get that my way is not the ONLY right way. But what I do works for me so I stick with it. I would expect that if you need to change things up so they work better for you, you would do so. I have just come up with this little routine that works for me. So here it goes....

First... before I even begin to mix up my cake, I prepare my pans. So let's talk about pans... It's a quality thing for me when it comes to pans.  The nice heavy cake pans are WORTH their weight in GOLD! So, my suggestion is for you to go to Michaels or Hobby Lobby (or other awesome craft stores in your area that offer 40% off coupons) and use your 40% off coupon and get some nice pans. I like to buy the sets because there will be a time and place to use every single one of them. They also have all of those really fun character pans if that's what you would rather use. Anyhow... so what I'm telling you is that quality pans may cost a bit more, but they're highly worth it. Your finished product will be enough thanks for you, I promise!

So now... prepare your pans! I make my own pan release "cream". Believe me... I love Baker's Secret but with the quantity of cakes I'm baking, it gets extremely expensive. So I researched until I came up with an alternative. And it's simple!

Pan Release Cream

1/3 c flour
1/3 c oil
1/3 c Crisco

Mix it up. Make sure there aren't any lumps... Put in an airtight container. I put it in a pint size jar and seal it. Just keep it in a room temperature place. It should keep for up to 6 months. I wouldn't know as I use it quickly. Brush on your pans with a pastry brush. If you don't have one... use a paper towel, or your fingers!


Now mix up your cake.  With this little tutorial, we're not too worried about "stacking" cakes, so just mix up a cake. Whether you want to use a mix, a from scratch recipe... just mix 'er up! For these pictures, I'm just mixing up an Awesome Chocolate Cake and baking it in (2) 10" round baking pans and (2) 6" round baking pans. This is a cake I am making for someone's birthday. I like to use a heavier cake recipe when I plan on stacking cakes.  They just hold up better.

Before taking your cake out of the oven, check for doneness (is that a word?) with a toothpick. Simply stick a toothpick into the center of the cake.  If the toothpick comes out clean... then it's done.  You'll also notice that the cake will start pulling away from the edges of the pan.

After removing your cake from the oven, let it cool for 5 minutes or so on a cooling rack.  Then place the cooling rack over the pan and turn over, turning the cake out onto the cooling rack.

Let cool completely.  If you want to speed up the process, you can put it in the freezer for a couple hours. 

Baking a cake the correct way is as simple as that!  And see how beautifully the cakes come out of the pans?

Makes a girl like me really happy!  You almost don't even have to wash these babies! 

Next tutorial will be on how to properly fill, frost, and stack cakes!  Stay tuned!

Happy Baking!

Teauna

I.AM.ALIVE.... I think....

Hello!  Can anybody hear me? Is anybody out there? It's been months since I've been here to visit with you all. MONTHs, I tell ya! SIX MONTHS!  And I'm so sorry.  Life truly caught me in a crazy and horrific turmoil this past 6 months. Lots of things I'm not going to bore you with. Now I MUST overcome this craziness and get back to blogging. Awe.... blogging.  I remember how happy blogging used to make me. Believe me.... I haven't quit baking or cooking.  I do it A LOT on a daily basis. I have been doing so so many cakes.
I'm reallllllly wanting to do some cake classes on here.  Would anyone be interested? If I make little videos and snip-its while I'm making some cakes and give you some hints and tips of making your own fun cakes at home? Would ya, would ya? I want you to know, I am self taught.  I took the first Wilton Cake Decorating class.  The teacher was adorable, but I felt it was a waste of my time. From there, I kinda just went crazy with trial and error. I have been teaching several one-on-one fondant classes in my kitchen and they have been fun. I am doing another one this week and was thinking I might as well get out the video camera and teach a few more of you while I'm at it! What do you think?
Maybe some basic fondant skills? Then some gum paste flowers?

 

 Coloring fondant and decorating a fun cake? And some fondant flowers?

 

 Some royal icing recipes and how-tos?

Some basic frosting... This is one of my favorite looks... the rustic cream cheese frosting...

 Some royal icing flowers? And perhaps how to ice one layer cakes? Borders?

 Making designs with buttercream instead of fondant?

I would love to journal some of these different techniques and ideas here and am hoping I'll find some of you interested! And then after each class, perhaps we should have a fun space where you can all post pics!? Like a link party?! Let's do it!  I hope to see you soon! I will take the millions of pictures off my camera and show you some more of my work I've been doing lately on another post soon!  Any other things you'd like to see? Suggestions? Feel free to send them my way!

Lots of love sent from me to you!

Happy Cooking!

Tea

Bread Making 101: Part 1: Understanding the Science...

BREAD MAKING 101:

PART 1: UNDERSTANDING THE SCIENCE.....

 

Note: The pic on this post is not of the recipe in this post. I am having issues with my computer, so I used a different BREAD pic!  I'll resolve it ASAP , I promise!


Hello to all and a very Happy New 2013 to each and every one of you!  Lately I asked a question on my facebook page, "what do you want to see on my blog?" Every comment had something to do with BREAD! I decided to break all the information down into several different blog posts.  When people talk about making bread, the one word I hear alot of is ' intimidation'.  I want to be able to explain the whole process in terms that make sense.  To everyone. 
Part 1 is all about understanding the science of breadmaking.  Of yeast and the way it works, and of fermentation.  Fermentation is what happens when yeast comes in contact with flour and water.  I know, I know... when I hear the word 'fermentation', I cringe slightly.  However this is how they make wine and beer. There are people that like those things, so I suppose fermentation isn't all that bad, right?  And of course, fermentation is a MUST in the process of bread making, so I really like the word now.:)  So, pretty much, fermentation occurs when yeast eats all the sugar goodness from starches, like flour, and produce all those carbon dioxide gas bubbles.  I'm not sure where wine and beer-making go from there, but those little bubbles are our friends in bread making.  They are the 'leavener' and they give the bread its texture.
You see, it's a simple science really.  Surely nothing to be intimidated by! Once you understand how yeast works, you will feel more and more comfortable trying new bread recipes and eventually you will begin to reach for those 'no-way' kind of recipes.  Mark my words!  Soon the Sky will be your bread-making limit..:)
As a little curly-haired girl standing on the kitchen chair to the side of my mom making bread, I was absolutely flabbergasted at how you could mix those little brown specks of yeast with warm water and it wouldn't take long before they'd become all fluffy and bubbly.  My favorite part was when my mom would let me add just a pinch of sugar to "feed" the yeast.  Oh, how it would grow. You see, yeast is a LIVING, single-cell plant.  So it needs to grow in order to do its job. No better way to make something grow than feed it, right? Well, yeast eats sugars to grow.  So... let's think about it for a minute. Flour is a carbohydrate.  Carbohydrates are full of starch molecules.  Starch molecules are made up of oodles and bunches of sugar molecules.  In other words, CARBS=SUGARS! When you combine the yeast and water, the yeast becomes activated.  Then you add the flour. At this point, somehow all the flour enzymes break down the carbohydrates into sugar.  The yeast then eats these sugars, which allows it to produce the little carbon dioxide gas bubbles and alcohol.  At this point, you'll begin to notice that your gassy bubbly mixture becomes, well... stringy?... Once you add and knead more flour into the mixture, those 'stringy' strands become your elasticity in your bread, also known as gluten strands, or protein.
No worries... during the baking process, the carbon dioxide gases and alcohol from the fermentation process bake out.
Now.. because I know you want to try out your new "Bread 101 knowledge" and experiment, let's do it!
Let's start out with something simple.  Something that you can observe the whole fermentation process at work. 4 staple ingredients make up this great loaf of bread!  This recipe rocks! It is oh so very versatile and it doesn't require any more 'bread knowledge' than you have acquired in this post.

No-Knead bread
recipe from my mom :)

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1 3/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water (warm)

Mix your warm water with yeast. Then add all other ingredients in large bowl until well combined.  Cover with foil and let sit for 12-18 hrs.
After it has sat and you're getting ready to bake it, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  Place a greased cast iron pot with lid in the oven for 30 minutes to warm it.  Flour your work surface and dump the dough out onto it. Form a ball, tossing the ball to cover it entirely with flour.  Cover and let rest for 30 minutes or so.  Take your hot pan out of the oven and place the ball of dough (you really can't ruin it) into the hot pan.  It will sizzle:)  Cover with lid. Put in preheated oven and bake for 30 minutes.  Then remove lid.  Bake 15 minutes longer.  Remove loaf from pan and cool on wire rack. EAT and enjoy!


Now, once you're comfortable with this recipe, go ahead and try some additions.  Right before rolling it into the flour to form the ball before baking, add additional ingredients to make flavored loaves.  I love adding shredded cheddar cheese and some garlic salt.  For a quick and easy appetizer, add chopped pepperoni, chopped sundried tomatoes (or just chopped tomatoes) and shredded cheese, then serve with warmed pizza sauce.  There are so many options! Let your imagination soar!:)

I hope you've enjoyed Bread Making 101. And I also truly hope that I made sense and that you will enjoy your bread-making experience!

Happy Cooking!
Teauna