Final cake for Wilton class #2:
It's all about the basketweave baby!
A lot of bakers mentioned they had a hard time finding the toffee bits but my local Walmart has them year round...I picked up a package when I was there yesterday (don't even think about stopping into Walmart on the weekend!) and baked up a batch today. I think I might use the rest of the toffee bits in some blondies....hmmm. These dangerous bars will be wrapped up and taken to Bunco at a friend's house Thursday night. (Haven't played Bunco yet but there will be food and drink there so it can't be all bad, right?)
The only substitution I made was replacing the light brown sugar in the shortbread base with dark brown as that was all I had in the pantry.
Have a look over here to see what the rest of the bakers made....
Another day...another bundt cake! Seriously though, a bundt cake is the perfect choice for a meeting at a school, with a bunch of moms (and 1 dad), on a rainy school night, right at dinner time, you get my drift. Easy to whip up, one pan, no layers to deal with...throw a glaze over the top and it's good to go. All the moms and teachers enjoyed this Blood Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake I found over at Smitten Kitchen. She used regular oranges but I had picked up a few blood oranges at the farmers' market and needed to use them and what better way than a cake?
I recently made a few bundt cakes and have decided to name them for the occasion..you know...how Keri Russell named her pies in Waitress? It's just too boring to say "Chocolate Bundt Cake" or "Orange Bundt Cake" so from now on mine will be named.
My husband has been receiving physical therapy for a back injury and wanted to say Thanks! to his physical therapist. This is what she got: Double Chocolate Bundt Cake with Ganache Glaze found here. Very easy to put together. This cake contains both buttermilk and coffee and calls from Dutch-process cocoa. I didn't have Dutch-process on hand so used Hersheys...it turned out fine. The ganache though, was heavenly...
Perfectly soft and chocolatey and drippy...I sprinkled little Vahlrona balls on the top. I hope she liked it!
This week's TWD was chosen by Stephanie over at Confessions of a City Eater. Wow. Wow again. This cake was so very yummy....and the frosting was too. I had never made this type of frosting and it came together pretty easy. I followed the directions exactly, I was afraid I was gonna screw it up. My only change was to use liquid pasteurized egg whites from TJ's. The result was soft and fluffy and fun to frost the cake with...
I halved the recipe and made it in two 6" pans. That worked perfectly...I was able to slice both layers into 4 and still have a pretty tall cake. The fourth layer I crumbled half for the top of the cake (left the sides snow-white) and ate the other half! I did use milk chocolate chips in my batter and was wondering if I could have used hot coffee in place of the boiling water...you know, a la Ina! I'm sure it would taste fine but I had already poured the water into the batter when the thought came to me!
I enjoyed peeking at all the other bakers' renditions...some had crumbs on the sides with the top white...some had crumbs around the top edge...some had shapes on the top with the crumbs...the possibilities are endless...I like that they are all different!
But this is pretty too...
I didn't cut into mine and haven't tried it all together (frosting and cake) as I am waiting for my husband to return from a trip to the Oregon Coast...this will be our belated Valentine's dessert!
These are sitting on wax paper...not my tile countertop...you just can't see the paper!!
just because I forgot to add the eggs....until the end. Here's what happened: I was mixing the butter and sugar together and as I looked down at my recipe for snickerdoodles...I realized I was actually looking at the recipe for Giada's Lemon Ricotta Cookies that I plan on making later in the week. The actual recipe I wanted was underneath. So I put the snickerdoodle recipe on top and scanned down to where I thought I should be after creaming the butter and sugar...adding the dry ingredients. Completely skipped the add the 2 eggs part. Needless to say...my dough wasn't sticking together! Duh :) I quickly beat 2 eggs together and added them to the dough...mixed them in and called it good. I rolled the dough into balls and then froze them on a cookie sheet for 5-10 minutes so that when I threw them into the ziploc bag with the sugar cinnamon mixture, they held their shape...I also wanted them to be a little puffier when baked. It worked! Yummy cookies for the kids' lunches this week...oh and I made 1 1 /2 batches so that the hubs and I could sneak some in after the kids were in bed at night...
No TWD for me this week...not into floating islands. I've made them before in a cooking class I took about 8 years ago. They were called oeufs a la neige...which translated, I believe, means "eggs in snow". They were fun to make and we learned the technique for making them egg (oval) sized using 2 large spoons and sliding them off one onto the other. They turned out nice but I just don't see me eating them again...I have been baking though and will share with you later.
Vanilla Marshmallows
Coconut Marshmallows
And..Peppermint Bark Brownies
