Unbelievable Chocolate Cake and the Best Frosting

I am always on the lookout for an amazing cake and frosting recipe. Sadly, I am almost always disappointed...until now. One of my favorite recipe blogs is My Kitchen Cafe, and she posted the unbelievable chocolate cake and best ever frosting recipe. I knew I had to try it! Oh, and it is oh so moist, and the frosting is oh so yummy! You have to try this out, it is a little bit of work, but I don't think you will go back to box cakes after this!

Unbelievable Chocolate Cake
from my kitchen cafe 

*Makes two 8-inch or 9-inch cake layers and I’ve had great success making it in a 9X13-inch pan (I suspect cupcakes would work out great, also). Also, it makes a little too much batter, so don't use it all or it may spill over!

1 ¼ cups unsweetened cocoa powder
2 ½ cups all purpose flour
2 ½ cups sugar
2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
2 large eggs plus 1 large egg yolk
1 ¼ cups warm water
1 ¼ cups buttermilk
½ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, making sure the baking rack is in the middle of the oven. Prepare your cake pans by cutting out a piece of parchment or wax paper to line the bottom of the pan. Grease the pans, place the parchment or wax paper in the bottom of the pan and lightly grease again. Dust the pans with flour (or cocoa powder if you don’t want the white dusting on the finished cakes). Set the pans aside.
Using a fine mesh strainer, sift together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Add the eggs, yolk, warm water, buttermilk, oil and vanilla. Mix on low speed (with a handheld mixer or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer) until smooth, about 3 minutes.
Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Bake the cakes for about 32-35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle comes out clean or with moist crumbs. Do not overbake! Remove the pans from the oven and set the pans on a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. Gently run a thin knife around the edges of the pans and unmold the cakes, removing the parchment paper liners from the bottom of the cakes. Let them cool completely, top sides ups, on a wire rack.
Trim the tops of the cake layers with a long serrated knife to make them level. Frost as desired (I highly recommend this life-changing frosting).

The Best Frosting
from my kitchen cafe

*Makes about 4 cups frosting (plenty for two 9-inch cake layers)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups milk (I used 1% with stellar results)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

24 tablespoons (3 sticks) butter, cut into 24 pieces and softened at room temperature
In a medium bowl, combine the sugar, flour, cornstarch and salt. Slowly whisk in the milk until the mixture is smooth. Place a fine-mesh strainer over a medium saucepan and pour the milk mixture through the strainer into the saucepan. Cook the mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until the mixture boils and is thick enough that it starts to become difficult to easily whisk. This could take anywhere between 5-10 minutes, depending on your stove, heat, etc. It should bubble quite a bit at the end (be careful of the splatters) and thicken considerably.
Transfer the mixture to a clean bowl and cool to room temperature – this is extremely important! If it is even slightly warm, the frosting won’t beat up properly. I refrigerated my initial mixture overnight. If you do this, make sure to pull it out in time to let it warm back up to room temperature. If you try to proceed with the rest of the recipe and the mixture is too cold, the butter won’t absorb into the frosting like it should.
Once the frosting is completely cooled to room temperature (it should have no hint of warmth at all!), beat the mixture with the vanilla on low speed until it is well combined, about 30 seconds (a stand mixer will work best for this). Add the butter, one piece at a time, and beat the frosting until all the butter has been incorporated fully, about 2 minutes. Increase the speed to medium-high and let the mixer work it’s magic. Beat the frosting for five minutes, until it is light and fluffy. Let the frosting sit at room temperature until it is a bit more stiff, about 1 hour. I suspect if you chill it for an hour or so, it would be stiff enough to actually pipe with instead of frosting with a rubber spatula.
Chocolate Version: Add 1/4 cup cocoa powder to the sugar, flour, cornstarch, salt mixture in the first step. Once the frosting has been mixed for five minutes and is light and fluffy, mix in 3 ounces of semisweet chocolate that has been melted and completely cooled to room temperature.

Garden Week: Chocolate Zuchini Cake

This is probably the best way to use up zucchini. It makes the most moist delicious cake you can imagine. My suggestions are to cook it in a but pan, and then dust it with powder sugar. If you make this, people will beg for the recipe, I promise.Oh, and you can think of it as healthy cake, because it has zucchini in it! Right?

*as soon as I make this again, I will get a picture up*

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 eggs
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
3 cups grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9x13 inch baking pan (I used a bundt pan). In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add the eggs and oil, mix well.  Add zucchini and mix until evenly distributed. Pour into the prepared pan. Bake for 50 to 60 minutes in the preheated oven, until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool cake completely before frosting with your favorite frosting or just dust with some powdered sugar.

Themed Food: St. Patrick's Day

We love to celebrate holidays at our house ("we" meaning me and I con the kids into it). St. Patrick's Day holds many food traditions for us, so I thought I would share some of them.

One thing I do is dye just about everything green. A few things I have dyed: milk, eggs, pancakes, waffles, mac and cheese, sugar cookies and homemade bread. Other ideas I have are to dye white sauced pasta or soup, or vanilla pudding. I have also heard people making green jello!

This year I bought green colored sandwich bread at a local bakery. This bakery will dye bread any color you want, even rainbow! So for breakfast we did our egg in a hole with the green bread, then for lunch we had peanut butter and jelly on the green bread too (with a side of green milk).

For dinner we always have Rueben sandwiches. This day we paired it with green beans and green apples. I love Reuben’s, and this recipe is the only one I have ever used (why mess with perfection?)

Reuben Sandwich
Dressing:
1 c mayonnaise
¼ c ketchup
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp parsley
1 tsp grated onion (or onion power)
1 tbsp horseradish
Sandwich
6 slices rye or marble rye
Butter
1 ¼ pounds corned beef
12 oz well drained sauerkraut
6 slices swiss cheese

Preheat oven to 375. Make dressing by mixing all ingredients together, and then set aside. Assemble Reuben by toasting the bread and buttering it, and then layer the dressing, cheese, meat and sauerkraut. Place assembled Reuben on a baking sheet and put it in the over for 5-7 minutes.

 This year I also made a special St. Patrick’s Day dessert: and Irish cream chocolate trifle! This was fun to make, but next time I will be sure to have an actual trifle dish to put it in. I also did not buy liquid coffee creamer, I bought powdered, and so I had to make it liquid in order to use it in the recipe. To do this I added 1 cup of boiling water to 1 cup of the powdered creamer and whisked until smooth. From here you can add up to a cup of cold water, depending on how strong you want the flavor.
*Side note: coffee creamer is just flavoring, it is not coffee, nor does it taste like coffee; it is more like flavored milk.

Irish Cream Chocolate Trifle

1 package (18-1/4 ounces) devil's food cake mix
1 cup refrigerated Irish creme nondairy creamer
3-1/2 cups cold milk
2 packages (3.9 ounces each) instant chocolate pudding mix
3 cups whipped topping (I dyed it green)
12 spearmint candies, crushed (I did not use these because I didn't have any. If you want the mint flavor, jusy add some mint extract to the cool whip)

Prepare and bake cake according to package directions, using a
greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking pan. Cool on a wire rack for 1 hour.
With a meat fork or wooden skewer, poke holes in cake about 2 in.
apart. Slowly pour creamer over cake; refrigerate for 1 hour. In a large bowl, whisk the milk and pudding mixes for 2 minutes. Let stand for 2 minutes or until soft-set.
Cut cake into 1-1/2-in. cubes; place a third of the cubes in a 3-qt.
glass bowl. Top with a third of the pudding, whipped topping and
candies; repeat layers twice. Store in the refrigerator. Yield:
14-16 servings.

Themed Food: New Moon

If food wasn't already fun enough, themed food is even more fun!

Some girls and I in my neighborhood had a New Moon movie party on Friday. Part of the party was a themed dessert potluck.

I brought Vampire Bites and Vampire teeth

Vampire Bites (Cake Balls from Bakerella )

1 box red velvet cake mix (cook as directed on box for 13 X 9 cake) (you can use any kind of cake mix)
1 can cream cheese frosting (16 oz.) (you can also make your own!)
1 package chocolate bark (you can use any kind of melting chocolate, I have even used chocolate chips!)
wax paper
1. After cake is cooked and cooled completely, crumble into large bowl.
2. Mix thoroughly with 1 can cream cheese frosting. (It may be easier to use fingers to mix together, but be warned it will get messy.)
3. Roll mixture into quarter size balls and lay on cookie sheet. (Should make 45-50. You can get even more if you use a mini ice cream scooper, but I like to hand roll them.)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Melt chocolate in microwave per directions on package.
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on wax paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate and then tap off extra.)
I also only melt a few pieces of chocolate bark at a time because it starts to cool and thicken. It’s easier to work with when it’s hot. To top them off I used red sugar crystals, but you can be creative and add anything you want like different colored chocolate, little candies, frosting, mini-chocolate chips, coconut, chopped nuts...)


Vampire Teeth (Chocolate Covered Apples Slices)

As many red apples as you think you will use
Melting chocolate (the darker the better in my opinion)
Wax paper

Slice apples into slices (about about 8 per apple). Melt chocolate in microwave. What usually works for me is melting it 30 seconds at a time, and stirring in between. Dip apple slices flesh side down into the chocolate so that only the peel is showing after dipped. Set dipped slices on wax paper and decorate (I used the red sugar crystals again, but really you can be creative). The great thing about this is the apples don't brown (or maybe they do) because they are covered in the chocolate! Either eat right away, or store in the fridge. Eat within 24 hours of making!

Some other ideas: Make red velvet cupcakes, top with white or black frosting, and use a fork to hold up a quote from New Moon. Buy chocolate covered peppermint park (or make it your self) and label it "vampire teeth." Buy some Jones Soda in a red flavor and put a label on the bottle that reads "Bella's Blood"

What New Moon or Twilight themed food have you come up with?

Recipe of the Day: Eclair Cake

My husband loves chocolate eclairs. I made this cake for his birthday and he loved it! It is really simple and quick. I actually cut my recipe in half and made it in a 9x9 and it worked great!
This isn't the best picture, but it will have to do!

I found this recipe on one of my favorite recipe blogs: The Foodees





Eclair Cake

4 large eggs
1/2 cup butter
1 cup water
1 cup flour
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
4 cups milk
3 (3-ounce) packages instant vanilla pudding mix
16 ounces container whipped topping
Chocolate icing (recipe follows)

Preheat oven to 400°F and grease a 9x13 pan. Whisk eggs in a small bowl and set aside. In saucepan, melt butter in water. Add flour and cook, stirring constantly, until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat and beat in eggs all at one time, continue beating until smooth. Spread in prepared pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, then cool completely.
Combine cream cheese and milk, beating until smooth. Add pudding, one package at a time. Spoon over cooled shell. Spread with whipped topping and drizzle with chocolate icing. Chill at least one hour before serving.

Chocolate Icing

3 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon, plus 1 teaspoon butter, melted
About 2 tablespoons water

In small bowl combine cocoa and powdered sugar, mixing well. Add butter and water and beat until smooth, adding a small amount of water, if needed, until the consistency is right.