Sweet Yet Sour

Easy Cheesy Crackers

Monday, July 18th, 2011 | Cooking | No Comments

Last week, while contemplating what to bring to a play group get together for snack, I remembered that this month’s Have the Cake challenge is crackers.  Why not kill two birds with one stone?

I searched the internet for a recipe for cheddar cheese crackers and happened upon one that was on several different websites/blogs.  It sounded magnificently easy and tasty.

Fortunately for me, I already had my camera in the kitchen because that morning I had mistakenly let Henry try eating yogurt out of a bowl with a spoon.  As you can see, very little made it actually into his mouth, but I think he’s learning about the whole “spoon” thing…

Henry and the strawberry yogurt

Cheddar Cheese Crackers

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp white ground pepper (optional)

4 Tblsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

8 ounces grated cheddar cheese

3-4 tsp water

Pulse the flour, salt and pepper, then add butter and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse meal.  Add grated cheese a little at a time until the mixture again resembles coarse meal.

Cracker dough in the food processor

Pulse in 3 to 4 tablespoons of water, one tablespoon at a time, and only enough so that the dough forms a ball and rides the blade.

Remove, wrap in plastic, and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or up to 24 hours.  Roll the dough out to 1/8th-inch thickness directly onto a baking sheet.  I used biscuit cutters to cut out mine, but the recipe recommends using a knife or pizza cutter to cut all of the dough into 1 inch squares.

Cutting out the crackers

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until the crackers are golden brown.

Finished crackers

I doubled the recipe thinking that it wouldn’t make very many from one batch, but as it turns out maybe 60 crackers was a bit much…

These were great crackers, right out of the oven.  But they became pretty moist and “biscuity” the next day.  The lack of our usual dry Colorado weather has something to do with that I think, as we are currently in our “monsoon weeks” with a thunderstorm occurring every afternoon.  They might store better next time, but I think if I make these again I might take the time to bake them the day that I serve them.

Third Cake’s a Charm

Thursday, July 14th, 2011 | Cooking, Wedding Cake Try-outs | 6 Comments

As much as I love my sourdough chocolate cake recipe,  it’s the only recipe for cake that I have for my sourdough.  A few months ago I searched “sourdough cake” on the internet and disappointingly found that my own blog posts made up two of the top ten hits and none of the rest of the hits were anything of interest.

So, I decided that I would use my baking knowledge and attempt to make up my own sourdough cake recipe.  Raspberries were on sale at the grocery store and I decided to use my new batch of almond extract for a Raspberry Almond Sourdough Cake.

I fiddled around with the recipe for chocolate cake, adding butter instead of oil, reducing the amount of sugar and adding fresh raspberries and almond extract to the batter.  The cake seemed to bake up fine and I made a batch of Ganache and whipped up some whipping cream for filling and frosting.  Topped off with some more fresh raspberries the cake looked beautiful:

Cake attempt #1

I was all set to cut into my cake and find a wonderful array of fresh raspberries and golden colored cake.

Cake # 1 - interior

Aw dang! Do not adjust your computer monitor – that yellow-greenish tinge is the actual color of the cake.  I couldn’t serve a green cake at a wedding!  So, back to the pastry board…

For my second attempt at Raspberry Almond Sourdough Cake I thought if I added fresh raspberries and raspberry puree, the cake might turn a lovely pink.  I pureed raspberries, strained out the seeds and then added the puree to the sourdough batter.  I got a little nervous when I began to stir and the batter started to look a little, well, gray…  But, I poured the batter into the pans and put them into the oven hoping it would all turn out okay.

Nope.

Navy cake

I’m thinking if I can’t serve a yellow-green cake at a wedding, a navy/gray cake with red spots isn’t going to go over very well either…  The cake actually tasted fine, but I didn’t want to waste time or cream frosting it, so for the first time in my life, I threw my cake away.

I took leave of the cake making process for a few weeks until my bride-to-be friend was due to come to our house for lunch.  For this attempt I decided to add fresh raspberries, but also add some food coloring to the batter.  After three drops of red and one drop of blue in the batter the cake was a light pink – which is so much better than navy!  So I baked the cake layers, put ganache and whipping cream in between the layers, added more ganache on top and then frosted the whole thing with whipping cream.  Since this was for the actual bride, I spent a long time trying to get the decoration just right.  I was still delicately placing almonds on the top at 10:30 p.m.

But it was well worth it – the cake was pretty:

Cake 3, decorated

The cake also looked fine once we cut it and tasted great:

Slice of Cake # 3

The only problem with this beautiful cake is that the whipping cream frosting deteriorates pretty rapidly and there were parts of cake showing through the whipping cream the next day.  I’m thinking I may have to either find a way to improve the whipping cream, or switch to butter cream frosting, which holds up better.  More attempts at the perfect cake will be necessary, yum!

Kid Pictures

Sunday, June 26th, 2011 | Anna, Henry | 5 Comments

Until I had kids I never realized how hard it was to take a good picture of them.  Maybe it’s just my kids, but when I try to take pictures of them, especially the two of them together, they are either doing something like this:

The Zombie face and her brother

Or if I can get them to look at the camera, one of them looks grumpy and the other one turns out not to have a clean face…

Both kids looking!

Even when Anna wants me to take a picture, like the other day when she so proudly displayed the picture she had drawn (this was actually her first real face-like drawing), all I get is the picture and part of her face:

Anna and her picture

Instead, I need to rely on capturing them in action on the sly and hope that someday maybe I’ll get the perfect picture by accident.  The other day for example, I caught them both in the pantry in their pajamas:

Partners in crime

And yes, that is a lollipop (which by the way is NOT considered a breakfast food in our house) in Anna’s hand.  I guess I should be glad Henry hasn’t figured out how to get the lid off the vegetable oil or we would have a whole other situation.

I failed to take a picture of Henry last week after he discovered that he could get into one our cabinets, hoist himself over my flour bin and stick his hands into the whole wheat flour bag.  Picture in your head a small boy covered with flour, flour all over the kitchen, and me desperately trying to clean him before he touched our furniture with his floury hands.

I did catch him feeding Cash his turkey at lunch:

Henry feeding Cash

I’m thinking Cash, despite an initial hesitation about the kids, could be warming to them and their willingness to feed him their food!

Henry adores his daddy and loves to do everything that Mike does. A few weeks ago Mike grabbed the iPad and I set Henry up with his version of the iPad and they sat quite happily on the couch together for quite a while:

The boys - hanging out

And when we discovered that Mike and Henry had similar shirts, I just had to force them to wear them for a picture.  Of course I didn’t get a good one of them facing the camera, but this one was cute:

Dad and lad - drinking juice

I sneaked up to Anna’s room a few days ago to snap a picture of her quietly “reading” her books in her room.

Anna before

Anna was so sweet that day, flipping through her books in her nice clean room…

You’ll note that I have captioned the above picture as the “before” picture.  For the past few weeks/months Anna has been attempting to give up nap.  I spend a lot of time and energy convincing her that she should nap, but rarely does this work.

Instead, Anna tends to stay in her room for about 5 minutes and then come out and announce that she would rather have an early bedtime.  This would be fine with me if it weren’t my only chance to get a break from both kids (Henry takes a nap in the afternoon around the same time) and also, if she doesn’t nap, Anna is just a little grumpy (read “REALLY grumpy”) without a nap.

It’s an ongoing battle and the day that I took the above picture I tried getting Anna to stay in her room for “quiet time” if she wasn’t going to nap.  She came in and out of her room about five times and then finally quieted down and I assumed she was reading or something…  I went upstairs to check and discovered this:

Anna's room "after"

Absolute chaos and destruction in her room, and the little girl totally crashed on the floor!  The best part of this, aside from the fact that Anna was wearing her rain boot on her left foot and her winter Elmo boot on the right foot, is that I was able to take lots of pictures.  I left the room, went downstairs to get the camera, went back upstairs and took multiple pictures, got Mike to come up and check out the mess and then took some more pictures.  Anna didn’t wake up until I tried picking her up and putting her in her bed – amazing!

Mommy Time

Monday, June 20th, 2011 | Mom Stuff | 2 Comments

I know I owe you guys a blog post about the kids (including the latest pictures) and posts about the cakes I have been making (which have been amusing if not entirely successful), but today I have other things on my mind…

It’s Monday, it’s raining, and last night after the storm began we discovered that we have a leak in our roof.  At 3 a.m. we got up, searched around fruitlessly for the source, and gave up.  For the next few hours we listened to it drip and groused about how much it will cost to fix and who to call in the morning.  Even with that start, I’m having a great day.  Why, you ask?  Because I am now getting a pedicure and then I’m off to have lunch with Mike.  I do love our babysitter!

Granted, I love my kids, and I like spending time with them, but I also need to get away from them every once in a while.  Sometimes when I feel guilty about needing a break from the kids, I remind myself that I am doing most of the childcare by myself.  And that’s hard – no matter how easy some mothers make it look.  For centuries, and even in most societies today, women did/do not raise their children in such an isolated manner.  Other women were, and in other countries still are, surrounded by relatives and friends who are available to help out and to socialize with.

I find it sort of sad that the price that we have paid in America for our independence and wealth has been at the cost of many of us mothers raising our children without friends or family to help.

I’m reading Ayelet Waldman’s “Bad Mother” right now (I’m not done yet – complete review later!)  Years ago, as you may remember, Waldman, whose husband is writer Michael Chabon, wrote an article essentially saying that she saw that many other mothers had replaced their love for their husband with their love for their children while their husbands stood by neglected and un-loved.  In contrast, Waldman wrote that she loved her husband, and her children, but that she was not in-love with her children – she saved that kind of love solely for her husband.

In response Waldman was raked over the coals in the press and confronted by angry women, notably on the Oprah show, and called a “Bad Mother”.

I happen to agree with her – I love and adore my children, but I am in-love with my husband, plan on spending all of my life with him, and plan on kicking the kids out when they’re 18.

The book is a collection of Waldman’s essays about her own motherhood and about how our society views mothers.  Waldman’s main point is that all of us mothers think that we are bad mothers, no one thinks that we are good mothers, but we make ourselves feel better by criticizing other mothers and chastising them for their behavior.   Especially the mothers that we see in the news – the Casey Anthony murder trial comes to mind!

As awful as it is, I have to admit I do this; when I see another mother yelling at her kids or a news story about a mother who hurts her children, I feel better about my own foibles as a mother.  If I yelled at Anna that day – at least I didn’t drown her in the bathtub like Jessica Yates.

It also makes me notice more the fact that bad fathers certainly don’t get as much press as bad mothers do – when was the last time that the trial of a father who murdered or abused his own children gained national attention? And when any father does any little thing – like bring their kids a new toy – they are lauded as being “great” fathers.   Even I still say “my husband is babysitting” when I leave him with the kids, instead of realizing that he’s just doing his job as their father.

I’ve made a pledge to myself to get better about taking time for me.  I’m going to go out by myself or with friends more regularly, exercise, and just generally give myself a break if I think I need it.  I am on duty 24/7 with the kids, most days by myself with them for 12 hours with little break and with no help.  Even the best mothers in the world would need a break after day after day of that.

And now back to my aloe scrub and pedicure…. Hooray!

A Birthday Cake Fit for Me

Monday, May 16th, 2011 | Cooking, Wedding Cake Try-outs | 3 Comments

A few weeks after Henry was born I determined that when I nursed him a few hours after eating chocolate, he would become fussy and irritable.  He had the same reaction to dairy products, and so for a few months I went without chocolate and had very little dairy.

Which meant that last year for my birthday, I did not have a chocolate cake for my birthday; I don’t think I even made a cake last year – I was so bummed about not having chocolate.  Going without chocolate nearly killed me.  Seriously, I am a borderline addict.  I can go without it, but if it’s around, I crave it and sometimes can’t stop myself from eating a lot. Thankfully, although Henry is not done nursing yet, he is far less sensitive to what I eat these days and I can eat whatever I want and not have to worry about the baby’s tummy too.

So what does a chocolate addict do when she makes her own birthday cake?  Why she makes a chocolate cake with ganache and whipping cream of course!

My birthday was a weekday and also coincided with Mike’s monthly home-brewers club meeting in the evening.  For lunch on that day, I ordered pizza and my parents, my sister, nephew and Mike all came to our house for a brief lunch followed by Key Lime Pie from Whole Foods.  (My sister, as you may recall has a wheat allergy, so she can eat things like Key Lime Pie and just not eat the crust and I ordered a gluten-free pizza for her lunch.)

After lunch I was left alone with the kids again and so while they napped I started the sourdough cake batter fermenting.  Later on in the afternoon I made the chocolate cake and then after the kids went down for bedtime, I pondered what do with frosting the cake.

Left alone and without anyone to ask, “Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” – I decided to go all out and make a ganache and whipping cream cake.  I cut each chocolate cake layer into two and in between each one I layered ganache and then whipping cream.

Building birthday cake

Once the cake was built, I put whipping cream on the sides and then piled a whole bunch of ganache on top.  I attempted to have it gracefully “slop” over the sides, and it looked pretty good.

Finished birthday cake

But it tasted even better! The whipping cream gracefully cuts the bitterness of the dark chocolate in the ganache and the cake was even better the next day when everything had sort of mushed together.

Piece of cake

I didn’t save a piece of this in the freezer for the wedding cake try-outs, although it could be a contender.  It was incredibly decadent, and I just wasn’t sure if this has a place at a casual summer wedding…  Thoughts?

Lemon Cake – Fit for a Wedding?

Thursday, April 28th, 2011 | Wedding Cake Try-outs | 6 Comments

Although it’s probably not fit for a future king and queen, my next attempt at a wedding cake was certainly delicious and decadent.  We’ll just have to see if it’s fit for our much less formal wedding next summer.

Having as yet only made cakes involving chocolate in the wedding cake try-outs, I felt the need to try something with no chocolate for my next entry in the contest.  So, I returned to Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours” book and settled on her cake which she titles, “The Perfect Party Cake”.  It’s a lemon cake with raspberry jam filling, lemon meringue butter cream frosting and coconut. It sounded lovely and looked like it might be a pain in the ass – which it sort of turned out to be – but it was worth it.

I won’t include the recipe here, but the lemon cake is not just your average lemon cake.  It involves cake flour, lemon zest and Dorie’s recipe asks for four egg whites.  The cake itself wasn’t that hard to make, but the lemon meringue butter cream frosting also requires four egg whites.  I’m sure it’s just me, but I hate wasting eggs like that; I’m unlikely to do much with the extra egg yolks; so instead of using the four egg whites in the cake, I simply used two whole eggs and said a little prayer about not making any high altitude adjustments.

The lemon meringue butter cream frosting is certainly the most complicated portion of the cake; it involves slowly heating the egg whites and some sugar while whisking constantly, allowing it cool briefly and then adding lemon juice and 3 (!) sticks of unsalted butter and whipping it into a nice thick frosting.  For the raspberry filling I used a raspberry jam that I warmed up in a pan briefly to make it easier to spread and then put it through a sieve to get out all of the seeds.

After the cake was made, I sliced the layers (I still don’t have a cake slicing kit – but my birthday is coming up…) and started assembling.  First a cake layer, then raspberry jam, and then the frosting.

Building cake layers

After completing the assembly, I frosted the whole thing with the remaining lemon meringue butter cream frosting and then, per Dorie’s instructions, finished it off with coconut all over the cake.

It was very pretty, but doesn’t look much different on the outside from the Redemption Cake.

Finished cake

(By the way, I have now made the Redemption Cake again, just so that this time I had some slices of it to put away in the freezer for my bride-to-be friend.  The first cake disappeared a little too quickly.)

But on the inside, it was a whole other story.

Cake insides

The cake was lovely and light, and contrasted well with the frosting and raspberry filling.  The lemon flavor was not overwhelming, and could actually have been a little more lemony for my taste, but I also don’t want to overpower people – there’s a fine line.

I do like the coconut on the exterior, but I wasn’t sure when I tasted it that it was entirely necessary; there so much else going on with the lemon, frosting and raspberry it seemed a little superfluous.  But, the first thing that I did with this cake was cut a huge piece that I saved in Tupperware in the freezer.  The reviews of the engaged couple were great and apparently the groom-to-be loves both lemon and coconut, so if this is one of the cakes, I’ll be keeping the coconut.

So, what do you guys think?

Simple Chocolate Souffle

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 | Cooking | 2 Comments

For my simple and yet impressive chocolate souffle I turned to one of my favorite dessert books, Melanie Barnard’s “Short and Sweet: Sophisticated Desserts In No Time At All”.  Barnard’s recipe for “Buried Treasure Cocoa Souffles” is easy to make, quite yummy, and takes about 30 minutes start to finish.

Melanie Barnard’s Buried Treasure Cocoa Souffles

6 chocolate truffles or chocolate kisses

2 large egg yolks

4 large egg whites, at room temperature

8 Tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 Tablespoon coffee liqueur (I used Kahlua)

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

2. Butter six 6-ounce (3/4 cup) souffle dishes and coat each with some sugar, tapping out the excess.  (Note: Don’t go overboard on the sugar here; it’s only supposed to help the souffle “crawl” up the sides of the dishes.  Too much and the souffles will be overly sugary – I learned this the hard way.) Place a chocolate truffle or kiss in the center of each dish.

Souffle dish with chocolate kiss

3. In a bowl, beat or whisk the 2 egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of sugar until it becomes thick and is a pale yellow.  Whisk in the cocoa, liqueur and vanilla.

4. In another mixing bowl, beat the 4 egg whites to soft peaks with an electric mixer.  Slowly add in the remaining 6 tablespoons of sugar and beat until the mixture has formed stiff peaks.

5. Fold the cocoa mixture into the egg whites.

Folding in the cocoa mixture

6. Divide the mixture between the souffle dishes and place the dishes on a baking sheet.

Bake the souffles until well puffed, about 15-17 minutes and serve immediately.

I like to serve mine with a little whipping cream on top – it provides a nice cooling element to the molten hot chocolate in the souffle.

Finished Chocolate Souffle with Whipping Cream

I made this during the kids’ nap on a weekend when my husband was in and out running errands.  When the souffles were done I told him to have one on his way out and then I went upstairs to grab some laundry and check on the baby.  With my 30-minute souffle I garnered this reaction from my beloved on his way out the door:

"Darn Good Soufflet (sp?)"

This souffle is lovely warm, with the melted chocolate kiss or truffle in the bottom being so nice.  But I’ve discovered that when it’s cold, it tastes like a brownie and that ain’t bad either.  Next time you want to impress some guests with a easy souffle, try this one!

Easy Cheddar Cheese Souffle

Sunday, April 24th, 2011 | Cooking | 2 Comments

Have The Cake’s theme this April is souffle.  I wanted to participate because I have two great souffle recipes, one for a cheddar cheese souffle and one for a chocolate souffle and both are really simple.

Souffle can be intimidating and I think the French mean for it to be that way; they do love to make their cuisine very difficult.  If there is a way to make chicken soup take 12 hours and involve 10 ingredients that require a trip to a farm in Provence – the French will do it.  I think it has something to do with French national pride.

But I’m here to tell you that souffle can be easy.  First up, cheddar cheese souffle.  This recipe comes from my mother and her September 1979 Family Circle.  In that issue, an article entitled “The 6-minute Souffle” appeared, which included recipes for Cheddar cheese, Roquefort, Ham, and Banana souffles, all quick and easy.  Since this article was published when I was four, I grew up thinking that souffle was always easy and was quite surprised to discover that most people thought souffle was “supposed” to be hard.  Mais mon souffle n’est pas dificile!

In the battle for an easy cheese souffle, here is your weapon:

Blender!

Get your blender and your souffle dish (or 6 small dishes) and we’re off!

Cheddar Cheese Souffle

5 eggs

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup grated Parmesan

1/2 tsp prepared mustard

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground black pepper

1/2 lb cheddar cheese, cut into about 1″ chunks

11 oz. cream cheese, cut into about 1″ chunks

1. Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and butter a large souffle dish or 6 small souffle dishes.

2. Add to the blender the eggs, cream, Parmesan, mustard, salt and pepper.  Blend until mixed well and smooth.

3. With the blender running, add the cheddar through the hole in the lid, one chunk at a time until all are chopped up and the mixture is thick.  Add the cream cheese in the same manner. (Note – the mixture will be very thick at this time; it may be necessary to stop the blender and stir the mixture around with a spatula to fully incorporate the cheeses.)

4. Once all of the cheddar and cream cheese is fully incorporated, run the blender for 5 more seconds, just to get a little air in the mixture.

5.  Pour the mixture into the buttered souffle dish(es).

Cheese Souffle - post blender

6. Bake the souffle for 40-50 minutes depending upon your preference.  The original recipe says that either you can bake the souffle for 40 minutes and use the “liquid center as a sauce to spoon over the rest of the souffle”, or you can just do what I do and bake it for 50 minutes to get a nice firm souffle all the way through.

The souffle will have a lovely brown top:

Finished Cheddar Cheese Souffle

This souffle is heaven with a soft cheesy center and a crispy edge.  It is a great vegetarian and gluten-free main course (hence why it is often served at the book club meetings at mine and my sister’s houses), and isn’t too bad the next day as leftovers.  I have an aunt who likes to eat the leftovers with salsa…

Now see wasn’t that easy?  No slaving over a pan, separating eggs and beating egg whites to stiff peaks.  If anyone wants the recipe for the Ham Souffle for their Easter leftovers let me know.

Next up – easy chocolate souffle for dessert!

3 And Then Some…

Thursday, April 21st, 2011 | Anna | 5 Comments

Anna turned 3 on April 5th, but I have had neither the time nor the energy to post anything about my beloved little girl until now. As I write this she is asleep in bed (with crying bouts every 20 minutes) with bronchitis and has not been feeling well the entire month of April.  A few days before her birthday she got a cold, which lasted for a few days, and then seemed to go away.  Until a few days later when it returned with a cough, and now she has both a nasty cough and a fever.  Fortunately, we went to the doctor today and I’ll be picking up some antibiotics later for her with fingers crossed that Anna feels better soon.

Even with these on and off illnesses, I think Anna had a pretty good birthday.   The celebrations definitely make-up for last year’s stunted celebration – due in part to the birth of her brother and to our lovely flea infestation.  Last year we didn’t do much at all and this year there were plenty of goings on to make a 3 year-old happy.

Anna got to spend some time on her birthday with her cousin playing and having lunch and the day after we went to her favorite place for dinner (where they have “family night” on Wednesdays) and she got a butterfly costume made by a balloon artist (picture giant pink and purple balloon wings).  Then on the Sunday following her birthday all of Anna’s friends (except poor sick Piper) met her at our Rec Center for playing in the tumbling room, snacks, cake and presents.

I think everyone had a good time at the tumbling party, but especially Henry.  There was a bar to hang from:

Henry hanging

And there were balls to play in:

Henry in play balls

With the price of the tumbling party a store-bought cake was included, so of course I ordered a “Princess” cake.  Here is the birthday girl blowing out all the candles on top of her heavily frosted sugary nightmare of a cake:

Anna and her cake

The kids ran around like spinning tops for a while after they ate and then I’m pretty sure they all crashed from the sugar high after they went home.  Sorry parents!

And to top it all off, after nap that same day we had family over for more presents, food and cake.  It was exhausting, but well worth it!

At 3 Anna is both fun and frustrating at the same time.  She loves to dance, run and play and is wonderful to talk to; one of her favorite phrases is “I’m thinking about…” This is generally followed by something like, “going the park, zoo, grocery store”, etc. She likes to make plans and loves to inform me of what we are going to do next through out the day.  Although her temperament is generally improved over age 2, she is still prone to complete meltdowns at the drop of a hat over silly things like the color of the plate I give her for dinner.  Mike and I like to say that she is 3 going on 12.

Anna seems also to be trying out phrases in order to figure out exactly what they mean.  She often says, “Now I’ll never…” which is completed with something silly like, “play with play dough again”, etc.  Anna is also working on the meaning of “I’ve never had this ____ before”, even though it’s something she has had before like honey or marshmallows.    She has also started giving out compliments, although in a strange high pitched voice; Anna will say, “Oh, what a pretty pants Mama.”  It’s nice, but a little disconcerting because her voice sounds fake, like she’s really just giving the compliment to get something in return.

My favorite Anna story of late is one that we heard from our babysitter.  We were informed one night after we came home from a date that the babysitter had been asked, “Kelly, do you have boobs?  Because I see those lumps in your shirt.”  And then when told that yes, her babysitter did have the aforementioned appendages, Anna said, “Are you going to feed Henry with those?”  Hilarious!  Anna and I had a lovely talk the next day about how only Mama’s boobs feed Henry, even if all grown up girls have them.

For her birthday Anna got a pink and purple bike with Disney princesses on it from her parents, along with a princess helmet and bike bell.  It’s a two wheeler with training wheels and she does okay with it, but seems to have trouble keeping her feet on the pedals while riding it.  When we took her with us to a bike shop to check out new bike options for Mike, she did just fine on the little bikes there, so we may need to see if it’s something strange with the design of the princess bike that is slowing her down.  Once she gets comfortable on it, I’m sure that there will be no stopping her!

Anna is still my little chocolate fiend; here she is “helping” me make fudge the other day.  Now that’s the kind of help I need!

Anna and fudge makings

Now that we seem to be well on our way to diaper-less land with her (hooray!), Anna will be spending the summer taking swimming classes, etc. and will start pre-school two days a week in September.  She’s really growing up – but she’s still my baby girl!

Redemption Cake

Friday, April 1st, 2011 | Wedding Cake Try-outs | 7 Comments

After the Caramel Peanut Topped Disappointment, I decided to put down Dorie Greenspan’s book for a while.  (It’s not you Dorie, it’s me!)  I decided that perhaps what I needed to do was work with a cake that I know and work on my cake skills.

I was craving the combination of chocolate and coconut for some reason so I resolved to make a chocolate cake with whipped cream frosting and coconut.  (Although in homage to “When Harry Met Sally”, and their wedding cake, I briefly considered making a coconut cake with chocolate sauce on the side.)

I need to work on my cake layer cutting skills; I have yet to master cutting a cake layer exactly in half – it’s always wonky.  And I don’t work much with whipped cream frosting – I’m much more of a ganache or buttercream kind of a girl.

So I began with my go-to chocolate cake recipe, my mom’s sourdough chocolate cake recipe.  Nellie, my sourdough start, has been recently enlivened by a new trick; I took her out of her ceramic container and let the start sit on the counter for about 24 hours in a bowl.  After the start fermented for that time, I used it, fed it with some more milk and flour and then put it back into the refrigerator.  Apparently this helps the yeast get all warm and happy; they do seem to have enjoyed their vacation away from the cold.

Anyway, the sourdough cake recipe is pretty easy (if you have the start):

Sourdough Chocolate Cake

1/2 cup of sourdough start

1 cup of tepid water

1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour

1/4 cup dry milk powder

1 cup of sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

3 oz bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips

1/2 cup of vegetable oil

2 eggs

Sourdough start note: Prolonged contact with metal and plastic has been known to badly affect sourdough start.  If you are working with sourdough start, preferably keep it in a ceramic container and use only wooden spoons for stirring the start.  It’s fine if it only has brief contact with metal bowls and spoons, and once it’s mixed with other ingredients, it’s fine.  Hence, for this recipe I use a plastic bowl and a wooden spoon for mixing.

Mix together the start, water, flour and dry milk powder and set aside in a warm place for 2-3 hours.

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter two 9″ cake pans.  Dust with flour, tossing the excess, and then line the bottom with parchment paper.

When the sourdough start mixture has fermented to the point where it is showing small air bubbles, add the sugar, salt, vanilla, cinnamon and baking soda.  Meanwhile, melt the chocolate with the oil (I generally throw them together in a microwave proof bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute) and set aside to cool briefly.  Add to the cake batter when it has slightly cooled:

Sourdough cake batter - adding chocolate

Beat in the eggs when the batter has cooled enough that it will not cook the eggs.  Divide evenly between the two pans and bake in the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

While I mixed the batter together, Henry “helped” me by going through one of the cabinets and tossing everything on the floor.

Henry "helping"

The cabinet holds all of our Tupperware and the kids’ cups and utensils, so it’s generally a great place to put him if I need to get a little work done. That is, until I need to spend a few minutes cleaning up everything from the floor, but it’s a small price to pay.

After the cake was done baking I set it on racks for 10 minutes to cool before removing them from their pans.  When the cake had entirely cooled I made a whipped cream frosting by whipping 1 cup of heavy cream, a little bit of coconut extract and about 6 tablespoons of sugar until it formed heavy stiff peaks. (I ended up having to make a second batch, since there wasn’t enough – oops!)

Then I very carefully cut each cake layer in half, frosted in between them, then frosted the whole cake.  After that I gently pressed sweetened flake coconut around the whole outside of the cake.

Finished cake

I didn’t do too badly on the cake layer cutting, but I need to work on it; what this picture does not show is that the other side is still a little wonky.  But that’s okay, because this cake was so good I’m willing to make it several more times so I can work on my skills and eat this cake.  The cake itself was light and airy, the whipped cream frosting was not heavy and the coconut added a nice touch.

Yum!

Now that’s a “Redemption Cake” and for me, definitely a contender to be one of the wedding cakes…