Bake-A-Long #11 - Yellow Butter Cupcakes with Chocolate Egg White Buttercream

This week was free choice week for the Heavenly Cake Bakers group. That means we could bake whatever Heavenly Cake recipe we wanted that had already been baked but we missed out on. I chose the yellow butter cupcakes with chocolate egg white buttercream. I actually baked these guys a few weeks ago to bring to "Game Night" at a friends house. They were a hit.

I used Greek style yogurt in the batter. I love this stuff. It is the creamiest, richest yogurt out there. I buy the full fat version, but it is available in reduced fat as well. If you haven't tried it, do it. I use the plain, unsweetened kind and add honey or preserves to sweeten it when I want to eat it plain, and use it to cook with as well. I actually read in Cook's Illustrated the other day that to use it as a replacement for regular yogurt in recipes, use 2/3 of the Greek yogurt and 1/3 part milk to account for the additional fat and lower water content in the Greek versus traditional yogurt. They said that in their tests, when a 1:1 substitution was used, their cakes came out drier. I will try this next time, but I did not have a problem with dryness in this cupcake recipe. The texture was great. Plenty moist.

I didn't take any pictures of the buttercream making process. I was too busy fretting over it. This was only the second or third time that I have made a real buttercream. I get nervous every time because I actually threw away my first buttercream attempt a few years ago because I didn't think it would ever come together. I then learned that if I would have just kept on mixing, it probably would have been fine. So, that's my advice for making buttercream: keep mixing. It may look like a curdled mess, but most likely it will come together. That's what this chocolate buttercream did as well, it looked horrible and then magically it emulsifies into a beautiful tasty frosting. Everyone loved the flavor as well.

These cupcakes + chocolate buttercream will be made again. I made 12 regular sized and 6-8 minis (I cannot remember exactly how many I yielded). The minis went fast. As soon as someone ate one, they wanted another. I think this is my favorite yellow cake recipe so far.

Bake-A-Long #10 - True Orange Genoise (Attempt)

OK. I'll start out by telling you that this cake was a flop. The curd and ganache turned out great, but I think I win the award for shortest genoise (more about that later).

For the curd, I used the poor neglected Florida sour orange. You can find these trees growing wild in various places around the state. They are pretty much good trees turned sour. The fruit made a wonderful curd and my mother-in-law also makes an awesome sour orange pie with them (think key lime pie but with sour oranges).

Now for the cake. The batter started out fine. My eggs whipped up nicely. I mixed them for the minimum 5 minutes but they appeared quadrupled in volume. The batter really started to fall when I put in the butter/egg mixture. I knew once I put it in the pan something wasn't right. But, I thought maybe I'd get lucky and it would rise more in the oven.

No such luck.

Well, I wasn't going to attempt to cut a 1/2 inch cake in half. So, I had this grand idea of slicing it down the middle to make it look like an orange slice once finished. Ha.

Unfrosted it looked more like a grilled cheese.

I syruped it up, frosted and "decorated" with curd. Not my most beautiful cake ever.

Despite the fact that this was the densest, chewiest cake I have ever made, it still was not bad. If I do attempt to make it again, I might stay away from the genoise and make a butter cake instead.

Bake-A-Long #8: Chocolate Streusel Coffee Cake

We are currently renovating one of the outdated bathrooms in our 1913 built house. We are very fortunate to have the help of Matt's family, primarily his uncle, cousin, dad, and brother. Since I'm not very good with tools, my "job" has been to make breakfast and lunch for the crew. I most definitely have the better end of this little deal.

Bathroom pre gutting.

Partially gutted bathroom.

Look at the great job they are doing!

Given the crazy cold weather here this week (we live in central Florida and we supposably had snow early Saturday morning), coffee + this chocolate streusel coffee cake sounded like a perfect Sunday morning breakfast for everyone.

Overall, this cake was simple to mix up and bake (even with frozen feet).

The chocolate filling, which consisted of cocoa powder, brown sugar, and cinnamon, was sprinkled in the middle of the batter and then the top layer of batter was poured in. I didn't read all the way through beforehand and sprinkled the filling all the way to the edges of the pan, whereas I was supposed to keep in the center .

The recipe called for a 6 cup bundt pan and cupcakes but I used a 6 cup loaf pan.

I decided to throw some bittersweet chocolate chips on the top before baking.

The directions say the cake is done when the edges start to pull away from the sides. My cake, however, rose over the edges of the pan so I had trouble deciding when it was done baking (As I was previewing this post, I realized my error. I didn't make any cupcakes, and therefore had too much batter in the pan. I'm gonna blame my lack of following the directions this morning on the cold). I put a toothpick in after 43 minutes and it came out slightly wet but not doughy, so I took it out.

After a few minutes of cooling, the cake sunk slightly in the middle, which told me that it wasn't completely done, but I went ahead and cut into it while it was still warm.

The first few pieces were perfect: moist, melt in your mouth texture. But, as we got to the center of the loaf, the cake was slightly doughy. This however, did not stop anyone from eating it. Between 4 of us, the cake was 3/4 of the way eaten in one sitting. This is one I will for sure make again, but maybe I need to invest in a 6 cup bundt pan.

The Heavenly Cake Bake-Through: Barcelona Brownies

Those of you that have seen my kitchen bookcase know that I own many of Rose Levy Beranbaum's "Bibles". Well, I have just purchased her latest book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes, and have signed up for a bake along at Marie's Heavenly Cake Place.

Twice a month, I will be baking and blogging about a recipe from this book. These posts will be about sharing baking experiences, not sharing recipes. For those family or friends that would like the recipe, you can borrow my book. My first edition is the Barcelona Brownies.

Overall, this was an uncomplicated recipe that took less than an hour to make. Instead of using the suggested financier molds, I baked mine in cupcake form. I yielded 12 cupcakes. I had to add about 5 more minutes to the suggested bake time as well. Also, instead of filling the brownies with the optional ganache, I topped them with it while it was still slightly warm. Since the brownies did not rise over the liners, the liners provided a nice wall to hold in the ganache before it set up all the way.

The brownies turned out rich, chocolaty, and very moist. The texture was very appealing, being fudgy and cakey at the same time. The ganache, being bittersweet chocolate and cream, was of course, delicious too. This is definitely a recipe to be repeated. Due to the portability and attractive appearance, this would be a great dessert to bring to a party. I am picturing some gold glitter dust sprinkled on top next time.