Tag Archives: birthday

by

Orange Cake with Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
39

These days I can’t let a birthday pass without baking something festive. Something homemade and tailored to the birthday girl/boy’s specific taste. If there is ever a time to bust out a layer cake and sprinkles, it’s on a birthday.

I thought about Sean’s birthday cake for months–chocolate is always a given, and the orange was added because the dude loves the zesty-ness of oranges juxtaposed against deep, dark chocolate. I made this cake for my guy because it’s his favorite. Because he is the best guy who makes me laugh every single day, and he doesn’t even get annoyed by my constant stream-of-consciousness singing…seriously, I’m pretty sure it’s like living in a really bad musical about the minutiae of life…and in my book that’s more than enough to deserve a birthday cake.

The cake is easy to put together, with a nice crumb and perfect tenderness. Lots of orange zest makes it bright and flavorful. The chocolate frosting has sour cream that brings a bit of tang to cut the dark richness–it spreads across the cake like a dream and takes on a fudgey quality once it’s set. A heavy dose of sprinkles make it the perfect party cake. Candles and tall glasses of milk are optional, but highly recommended.

Orange Cake

Adapted from How Sweet It Is

2 3/4 cups cake flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup orange zest (I used 6 oranges)

3 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup orange juice

1/2 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350*F. Line two 8inch round cake pans with parchment circles, grease the pans and the parchment, set aside.

In a bowl sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup whisk together the vanilla, orange juice, and sour cream. Set aside.

In the bowl of a mixer, rub the orange zest into the sugar until fragrant. Add the melted butter and beat until combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping the bowl after each addition.  Add half of the dry ingredients, mix gently to combine, followed by the orange-sour cream mixture to combine, followed by the remaining dry ingredients, mix until just combined. Divide the batter evenly between the two prepared pans and bake in the center of the oven for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool in pans on a cooling rack about 10 minutes before turning out and cooling completely.

Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting

Adapted slightly from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes

I subbed the corn syrup for golden syrup and added extra sour cream where the recipe called from half and half. 

12 ounces semisweet or bittersweet chocolate, chopped or in chips

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

2 Tablespoons golden syrup

pinch of salt

3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature

Melt the chocolate, butter, golden syrup, and salt over a double boiler until smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in the sour cream. Continue to whisk until spreadable, but still soft–use to frost the cake immediately. The frosting will set up to a fudge-like consistency at room temperature.

by

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting

Tags: , , , , , , ,
26
If you follow me on Instagram, you may have already heard that this weekend was my birthday. This year I turned 28…which marks 10 years, ONE DECADE, since high school.

Oh, man, has so much changed!

In the past 10 years I went to and gradated from college, met Sean and MARRIED him, learned how to bake, became a blogger, became a dog-mom, became an aunt, held a few very different jobs, lived in various dorms/apartments/houses/seedy-abodes, moved to Michigan from Nevada, and, throughout, I was mistaken, right, prideful, and humbled. There was excitement and fear, loss and new life, goodbyes and a lot of celebrations. 18-year-old me and 28-year-old me are different in so many ways! Life is both what I wanted it to be and different too, and I am super thankful for that. I mostly just feel gratitude that I’m a bit older and wiser, that I’m no longer 18, so insecure, and weirded out by life.

With all these years under my belt, I’ve learned that homemade cakes/cupcakes are what most people secretly want for their birthdays. Sometimes though, when your the only baker in your gang of peeps, you have to make your own birthday treats. It’s all good though, since as the designated baker of your gang, you’re probably used to it. The advantage is that you can make ANY treat you’d like for your birthday. The disadvantage…there are so many choices, it can get a little overwhelming. That’s what happened to me this year, I was overwhelmed by all of my options! So, when this sort of thing happens, I usually revert to a classic. Nothing says classic birthday like moist, vanilla-scented yellow cake, chocolate frosting, and a flurry of sprinkles.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Chocolate Frosting and Sprinkles

This recipe bakes exactly 12 cupcakes. I almost never have a need for more than a dozen cupcakes, so this recipe was perfect! The frosting is super easy to whip up and makes just enough to ice all of the cupcakes. The sprinkles are just a mix of things I had on hand…you can use whatever you want or do without. 

Cupcakes

adapted from Joy the Baker

1 cup all-purpose flour

scant 3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

pinch of salt

3 Tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 egg

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350*F

In the bowl of a mixer, or a large bowl with a hand held mixer, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and butter. Beat ingredients together on low until a sandy consistency is achieved. Mix in half of the buttermilk until just incorporated.

Whisk together remaining buttermilk with egg and vanilla to combine well. Add to the flour mixture and beat just to combine, scraping the bowl as needed. Do not overmix.

Divide the batter among 12 paper lined muffin tins. Bake for about 20 minutes, until lightly golden and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean. Cool completely on wire racks before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

adapted from Honey and Jam

5 ounces good quality dark chocolate

8 Tablespoons unsalted, room temperature butter

pinch of salt

3 cups powdered sugar, sifted

2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

4-8 Tablespoons half and half

Fashion a double boiler and melt chocolate. Set aside until cooled completely.

In the bowl of a mixer beat butter until creamy. Add melted, cooled chocolate and mix to combine. Add salt, sugar, cocoa, and vanilla. Beat to combine and add half and half 1 Tablespoon at a time until desired consistency is reached.

 

by

Recipe: Chocolate Cake w/ Whipped Ganache

Tags: , , , ,
30

Last week was my husband’s birthday. Sean turned 27, which makes us the same age now…as I am the older woman by 7 months.

Scandalous, I know.

There are many things about this dude that I love, for example:

He’s a major dork, for one…which is perfect, because I am prone to being a total weirdo myself.

He totes rids our home of all the spiders for me. This is key, since I become paralyzed with terror every time I come across one–from the tiniest little guy to the biggest ugliest ones. It’s irrational, I know. I just can not handle it though.

We hate all the same stuff. This is a totally negative and cynical way to look at things, but it’s true. And important. It just is.

He is a huge supporter of my blogging/baking/cooking endeavors. He manages all the technical stuff with this website AND manages business at his engineering job. Pro-fesh.

We both love to geek out about all sorts of things–nature, geology (I secretly/not so secretly now, love geology), music, the mountains, etc.

Speaking of geek-outs…we both LOVE food.

We love to splurge on quality over quantity. Trips and vacations, when we do travel, are centered around what we’re eating. I mean, we planned our honeymoon specifically to eat in a great food city–btw, Vancouver, BC is not only an amazing food city, but it is just so dang beautiful.

We share a lot of favorite foods–oysters (omg, omg), burgers of all sorts, korean food, mexican food, and oh-so-many more…but, the one that we both love…the one that he probably (somehow) loves more than me, is chocolate. That man (I have said it before), is a certifiable choco-saurus. So, every year (for the past 7 years), it’s always a chocolate cake for his birthday in some form or another. This year, it was pure and simple chocolate pound cake iced with whipped ganache. It really can’t get much more chocolate-y than that.

So, I guess my point is…after all that rambling…Sean is a great dude. My favorite in fact. We go together like birthdays and cake. I love him to bits and pieces and he can always count on me to make him the best chocolate birthday cake I can muster. Always and forevs.

Chocolate Birthday Cake w/ Whipped Ganache Frosting

cake adapted from Alice Medrich’s Bittersweet.

This cake recipe is actually a pound cake recipe that makes the perfect amount of batter for a 6-inch layer cake…which in my opinion, is a great size cake for smaller gathering (in this case, 2 people). The crumb is fantastic, tight and dense without being heavy. The whipped ganache is about as easy as it gets and is perfect for the choco-saurus’ in your life. Use any leftover ganache to roll into light and airy truffles. Another note about this cake, it is best served at room temperature, the frosting and cake will feel dry and hard if served cold–if you make it ahead and refrigerate, just let it sit out on the counter for 30-60 minutes. 

1 cup + 2 Tablespoons sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder (I used Valrhona)

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

6 Tablespoons room temperature, unsalted butter

2 large eggs + 1 egg white, cold

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare 2, 6-inch round cake pans by buttering and lining bottoms with parchment. Alternatively, butter and flour a 6 cup capacity tube pan.

In a large bowl or the bowl of a mixer, combine sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt, stir to combine.

Add the butter, egg, and white. Mix on medium-high for 2 minutes. Scrape bowl as needed. Combine milk, espresso, and vanilla. Add to the batter, mix for 2 minutes, scraping as needed. Scrape the batter into 2, 6-inch cake pans or into a tube pan.

Bake the cakes in the oven for about 25-35 minutes (it may take a little longer in the tube pan). Cool 10 minutes in the pan before unmolding to cool completely on cooling racks.

Once cooled completely, cut the cakes in half to make 4 layers.

Whipped Ganache Frosting

adapted from Martha Stewart.

1 lb. chocolate coarsely chopped, or chips (I used ghiradelli)

2 1/2 cups heavy cream

pinch of salt

Place chocolate and salt in a medium bow or bowl of a mixer, set aside.

In a saucepan, heat heavy cream just to a boil. Remove from heat and pour hot cream over the chocolate. Cover the bowl with a tea towel or plate and let sit for 5 minutes. Whisk ganache until smooth and allow to cool to room temperature.

Beat cooled ganache until fluffy. Use immediately.