Bite Size Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding isn’t a pudding at all, but a very moist cake made with figs.  When the cake is removed from the oven it’s doused with a warm toffee sauce.  For me, it has all of the elements of the perfect dessert – a delicious cake without the distraction of frosting, my favorite flavor of caramel, and something you don’t see everyday.

I opted to make it bite size since I was serving it at a party where I’d made several other desserts.  If this is the only dessert you’re making I’d recommend making it in a square pan so you can serve a big slice warm out of the oven with a dollop of whipped cream.

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German Apple Cake

 
As my grandmother once put it, “Judy (my mother) was never the baker.” However there are three things my mother used to bake, and she did those three very very well, German apple cake being one. This may be *Carola’s recipe, but my mother has been making this cake twenty years. When I drove up to visit my parents at their new home  in Boston I was excited to see this cake waiting for me. It brought me back to my childhood and made me feel right at home, even through this was my first visit to their new digs. I guess home is really where the food is for me.

This cake is super SUPER easy to make, not overly sweet at all and you can use apples that may not be super fresh. The apples I’ve been using have been sitting in my fridge since I picked them back in September, which may be a little insane but nobody eating the cake has been complaining. I swear these Mutso apples last forever in your fridge. I’d recommend a green apple for this recipe.  You can easily whip this up in under 10 minutes, and then pop it in the oven for an hour. It’s a terrific light breakfast or teatime cake.

*This recipe comes from Carola, a German babysitter who used to take care of my brother and me as wee tots. We’re German too so I consider this a family recipe.

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Gingerbread Cake

This is my first attempt at making gingerbread and I couldn’t be happier.  I’d always been biased against gingerbread thinking it would taste like the very adorable, but often dry and hard gingerbread cookies you see at Christmastime.  Last Christmas I got a silicone cake pan that makes 6 small gingerbread cakes so I decided to give it a shot.  My criteria for choosing a recipe was that I already had all of the ingredients in the house which is how I stumbled on this one from the King Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion.

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Pumpkin Roll – Mini Post #6

Recently one of my best friends got a promotion at work.  I wanted to make him something as a congratulations and I knew it had to be a pumpkin roll.  He is a fiend for pumpkin desserts and I’d been promising him one for years.  I didn’t make it sooner because I didn’t own a jelly roll pan so I finally broke down and bought one.  This recipe isn’t difficult except for the the rolling – as you can see my cake cracked, but the slices still look beautiful and it tastes really delicious.

I wish I knew why my roll cracked.  I followed all of these tips, except I used parchment paper instead of a dish towel to roll it up.  I plan on trying the cake again for Thanksgiving, so I’ll try a towel then and see if I have better luck.  Read the rest of this entry »

Beet Pound Cake

For a long time I’ve had this idea that I could make a bright pink red velvet style cake without a bottle of food coloring if I used beets.  I’m not sure where this desire to make a cake with no artificial colors comes from – I’m not someone who is particularly concerned with my food being all-natural.  My favorite beverage is grape soda and I think Cool Ranch Doritos are the perfect food.  But for some reason the fact red velvet cake is so red because you add tons of red food coloring to the batter makes it seem less special.

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Neapolitan Layer Cake

The primary dessert for my sisters wedding was cupcakes, but when she found this cute cake topper she asked if I could make a small cake too.  I love making cakes, but decorating them isn’t really my strong suit.  Around the time I was trying to decide what type of cake to make her I discovered the blog Sweetopolita which is filled with gorgeous cakes.  When I saw this Neapolitan cake I thought it would be perfect since the pretty layers inside would offset some of the plainness outside.

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Tiramisu Cake

I made this cake WAY back in March in when I was starting to get a little stressed out by the blog.  When we started blogging I had no idea how much work updating it frequently would be.  I also started to put a lot of pressure on myself to only put up posts if I felt like I had a well-lit photo and a compelling story.  The problem is sometimes the story is “I saw this recipe and it looked good so I made it and it was really good so now I’m sharing it with you here.”  And sometimes the pictures aren’t great because I cooked something at night when it’s dark and brought it to work early the next morning before any light makes it into my kitchen.

But since I stopped posting I’ve really missed sharing the food that I’ve made so I’ve decided I’m going to start putting things up on the blog again even if the picture isn’t great or the story is less than thrilling because the best thing about making food is sharing it.  I love sharing the sweets I make with my friends and coworkers and I love being able to share these things virtually with my friends and family that don’t live so close.

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Triple Layer Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake

Several weeks before Pat’s birthday I started asking him what sort of cake he wanted.  The first thing he said was, “Something simple.”  I was disappointed – for my favorite person’s birthday I didn’t want to make a simple cake.  Luckily a few days later Pat had a new idea: a layered chocolate chip cookie cake.

I was excited that I was going to bring this cake from Pat’s imagination to life, but I have to admit I was skeptical about how good it would taste.  It seemed a bit much.  Giant cookies, layered with frosting, and covered with even more frosting? Yikes!  That’s going to be rich.

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Coconut Layer Cake

There was a time when my friend Anna and I were eating Lindt White Chocolate Toasted Coconut candy bars all the time.  Normally I’m not wild about white chocolate, but this candy bar is SO good.  The toasty coconut offsets the sweetness and the higher quality white chocolate doesn’t have the chemically aftertaste that cheaper candy bars can have.  When Anna came over for dinner recently I decided to make a cake inspired by the candy bar, and it might be the best cake I ever made.  The cake part was moist and flavorful and the frosting was fluffy with the distinctive taste of white chocolate.

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Cornmeal Cake with Caramel Cream

On Saturday my friend Yan came over to bake.  We decided it would be fun to make a layer cake.  Naturally I turned to my favorite cake cookbook Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes.  Every recipe I’ve made from this cookbook has been awesome.  I sent Yan the list of recipes that appealed to me, and he chose the Santa Fe Cornmeal Cake with Cajeta Cream.  I was really excited since I’ve been wanting to make the cake since I bought the cookbook.

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