Advances in Baking + Chocolate Cake!

I never liked chocolate cake..until I found this recipe! Now I always make chocolate cake. I actually also found a good vanilla cake recipe..two of them. One fluffy, and one dense one--used for different occasions! Anyway, this chocolate cake recipe is the BEST. It is moist and easy and yummy!

The advances in baking are because I finally make things without recipes now! Well, some things. I've made a few batches of double chocolate cookies, a batch of regular chocolate chip cookies, some sort of oatmeal trail mix cookies, and a mexican chocolate cake with mexican chocolate frosting, all without recipes!

Here is the chocolate cake recipe though...supposedly the most clicked on chocolate cake recipe on epicurious.com

Double Chocolate Layer Cake

from Gourmet

3 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, chopped into pieces

1 1/2 cups hot freshly brewed coffee

3 c. sugar

2 1/2 c. all purpose flour

1 1/2 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 t. baking soda

3/4 t. baking powder

1 1/4 t. salt

3 large eggs

3/4 c. veg oil

1 1/2 c. well-shaken buttermilk

3/4 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Line two 10x2 cake rounds with parchment paper and grease sides.

Finely chop chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth.

Into a large bowl sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes with a standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well. Divide batter between pans and bake in middle of oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 1 hour to 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove wax paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made 1 day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature. (I also freeze them wrapped for up to a week and they are still great!)

Enjoy!

Cakes I've Made

I am a terrible blogger. I have made tons of cool cakes in the past few months though! I am in Bogota right now, and tomorrow I am making a chocolate cake with milk chocolate frosting for my welcome/going away party (I am clearly not here for long). Hopefully I'll remember to take pictures and post them! For now, here are some of the cakes I've made...

Fourth of July cake! Idea taken from 17andbaking

vanilla cake with sweet icing and grapefruit curd filling
chocolate cake with nutella frosting. garnished with blueberries
ice cream cake! chocolate cake with homemade raspberry ice cream. vanilla whipped cream frosting. garnished by nicky!
chocolate cake with blackberry chocolate ganache. written on by me, garnished by nicky

a cake only decorated by me, for ciocolat

The cake I made for my birthday! 3 layer chocolate cake with chocolate ganache and fresh strawberries and raspberries in between the layers. edible flowers and fresh strawberries and raspberries on top. yum!

Cupcakes with Sinful Frosting

These are the cupcakes I was in the midst of making while writing the last post. The frosting was so amazingly good that I felt like I had to blog about them right away (and before I forgot)! The 'cake' part was pretty bad- super gummy and stiff. I may or may not have made the batter wrong (I followed the recipe exactly but there were chunks of butter in the batter--weird), but either way, I won't be making these again. I do need to find a good white cake recipe in the next two weeks though!

The frosting was absolutely AMAZING. Magnolia Bakery has always been my favorite (to the point where I would purposely route flights through JFK with long layovers so I could leave the airport to go get one), so I adapted their Vanilla Frosting recipe to get one that is even better.

Vanilla Frosting

adapted from Magnolia Bakery

makes enough for 12 cupcakes

3/4 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

3 cups confectioners' sugar

1/4 c. vanilla soy milk

1 t. vanilla

Combine butter, 2 cups confectioners' sugar, soy milk and vanilla in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Mix until creamy, about 2-3 minutes, scraping down sides as needed. Add the remaining confectioners' sugar 1/2 cup at a time until spreadable consistency is reached. Enjoy!

Home

Home. That word encompasses more than it seems to. Home means organic food. It means whole grains, making meals without excessive amounts of oil, an oven (!), normal altitude, and a whole lot more. It means I am currently making homemade funfetti cupcakes with an amazing vanilla frosting. Being home has been so much more than what I was expecting.

To say the least, I have been contently baking every day since I have been back in Davis. A short list of my favorites have been the whole wheat pita bread, bagels, pesto and pine nut bread, vegan chocolate chip cookies, and vegan pumpkin walnut bread. So many more things have gone into and come out of the oven that I can't even begin to list it all. I also FINALLY got a KitchenAid Stand Mixer (Professional!), after spending 20 minutes one night making Swiss Buttercream with my hand mixer.

One of the most exciting parts about being home has been my job. That is the last thing that I ever thought I would say, but I am very proud and glad to say that I got a job at a small bakery in Davis. I was hired to make cookies and scones, but have been "promoted" and have now learned to make the (award-winning) cakes, and am learning to make the limited amount of food that the bakery offers. The job could not be more perfect for me. It pushes me a bit over my baking boundaries and I have met some really great people. It makes me feel like my current dream of opening a bakery isn't too much of a reach, and like I really would be happy doing so. As I move up the line of cooks, I am curious to see how I feel about also making food-- If I were to open a bakery, would I want to make food also? Questions like these always go through my mind, as well as quickly recognizing all the things I would do differently if I owned the bakery.

As advice from a bakery friend, I am going to start trying to take good pictures of my finished products, both for this blog and for a baking portfolio. I will definitely be making all of my favorites again and will be sure to remember to take pictures and update Traveling Baker!

P.S. I have gotten most items on the wishlist (everything except the cookbook set) plus way, way more. My mother has realized that my sanity relies on my baking and is generously paying for many of my ingredients and supplies. Thanks mamacita!

Wishlist

So that I don't forget...

Pizza Stone

Candy Thermometer

Williams Sonoma "Baking and Cooking Cookbook Boxed Set"

Mini loaf pans

El Cocuy/New Creations

Workspace plus the two bagels. My first time trying!

Finished bagels with poppyseeds, cut in half with butter. YUM!
Banana blackberry bread. I filled the loaf pan a little too high and put a few too many blackberries so it baked for three hours instead of one and was still a little doughy inside! Won't be making this again...

And. I baked granola for El Cocuy.

Bread and Bagels

Well the bread turned out surprisingly well despite the yeast mishap and my lack of remembering to put it in the steam oven thing first. It looks horrible but tastes good, that's all that matters! It actually tastes like normal bread, which is nice (not full of sugar). Making the bagels also SUCKED because they never rose! I put them in like three different warm places in the room and the yeast just like never activated...I ended up with nine mini bagels though, that were kinda decent, and gave three to a homeless indigenous person, gave three others away and came home with three (great math there, Anna). I don't have pictures because my camera battery was dead, but they were ugly anyway. I might go bake granola on Wednesday so that I have food while I'm in the mountains for nine days. Hopefully I won't starve!