Cooking from Scratch
We’ve had madeleine pans (or perhaps more correctly, plaques) for years, but we’ve only made madeleines once or twice. Why? Who knows? Perhaps because they seem too fussy, filling all those little shell-shaped divots on the pan. Regardless the reason, we knew we’d have to correct the lack of having some little tea cakes to munch on, soon. And, as it turns out, we were able to correct most of the fuss of filling the pans, too.
Continue reading “Traditional Madeleines and More”
Well, yesterday we wrote up everything for making the various parts of this “plain and simple” chocolate cake, and today, we’ll show you how to finish it all up by assembling it into a masterpiece. Separating the instructions for the cake into two parts is only for our convenience. You really need to assemble the cake the same day that you make it; otherwise, it’ll get stale. And stale cake is not good cake. If you haven’t been following day-by-day, that’s okay; you’ll find navigation buttons at the bottom of this post.
So, let’s hop right in and get scratchin’.
Continue reading “Chocolate Cake … plain and simple!!!!”
Now, if you’ve ever looked through the cookbook Bake It Like You Mean It, by Gesine Bullock-Prado, or have even seen the cover, you probably said to yourself, “Oh, my goodness! That is just plain AMAZING!” And, perhaps, something along the lines of “I could make cake from now to doomsday and never have one turn out like that!” If you haven’t seen her glorious creations, look here. We’ll wait until you pick your jaw up off the floor.
Continue reading “Chocolate Cake … plain and simple????”
To continue yesterday’s post, the frosting that was recommended for the Devil’s Food White-Out Cake is a basic Italian Meringue frosting, which is a type of frosting that everyone who bakes cakes, even just once in a while, should have in their repertoires. If you’ve never had this type of frosting, trust us. Have we ever led you astray?
Continue reading “Italian Meringue Frosting”
Here’s a problem that most people don’t have: what to do with leftover cake? Even we normally don’t have that problem — after all, we tend to eat all the cake we make, but, when we do, we know exactly what to do. Make Gur Cake! What’s Gur Cake? Read on.
Many people make buttercream frosting, which we generally refer to as lard frosting. They take room-temperature butter, blend it with a lot of powdered sugar, add food coloring, perhaps a bit of flavoring, and call it frosting. It’s a travesty. It tastes like butter and powdered sugar, or, more often, shortening and sugar. Ugh. Fortunately, we know a way to make a light, fluffy buttercream frosting. It takes a bit more effort, but it is so worth it.
Continue reading “Fluffy (Swiss Meringue) Buttercream Frosting”
For those who like Guinness, this sounds like the perfect combination, doesn’t it? After all, Guinness has those chocolatey undertones, and the bitterness of the Guinness should help accentuate the chocolate in the cake. And, once you see the recipe, you’ll realize that this won’t be one of those dry, crumbly cakes. It’ll be moist and flavorful.
Continue reading “Chocolate Guinness Cake”