Daring Baker's Challenge: August - Tubular and Coiled Treats

This month's challenge was Tubular and Coiled Treats.

What?!?!

Sounds cool, right? So, of course, I wanted until September 1st to try it. But even though the month was over, it really sounded fun. So I still wanted to give it a shot.

And it WAS fun! The kiddo loved it. Especially the cinnamon-sugar part. It was a lot like a cinnamon roll or a pretzel. Easy, fun, yummy... I admit, I almost forgot to take a picture because we were enjoying eating them. So I only got half of the last one, while little miss eats...

Recipe:

Chimney Cake:
adapted from Pearls of Baking

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups Flour
2 tsp. Instant Dry Yeast
2 Tbsp. Sugar
2 Egg Yolks
42 g. Melted Butter
125 ml Warm Milk
Oil for greasing molds
3 Paper Towel cartons (from center)

Topping:
Pecans/Walnuts
1/2 cup Sugar
2 tsp. Cinnamon

Directions:
1. Make the chimney cake molds by cutting paper towel cartons (from the center of the roll) in half. Cover each with foil and then grease with oil/cooking spray.
2. Dissolve yeast in milk and set aside for 20 minutes. Then combine all ingredients for dough and knead about 10 minutes. Place in bowl and let rise about an hour, or until double in size.
3. Divide dough into 6 pieces and roll into ribbons/snakes, about 2 feet long. Wrap the ribbon/snake around the mold, from the bottom and working upwards, creating a spiral. Repeat with all the pieces.

4. Combine topping ingredients in a shallow dish and roll cakes to cover. Place vertically on a baking tray, let stand 10 minutes, and then bake in a pre-heated oven at 350 for 15 minutes, or until done.

5. Remove from oven and slide off molds. Enjoy!

Daring Baker's Challenge: July - Surprise Inside Cakes

The theme of this month was to make a cake with a surprise inside. I didn't have an event to make something super showy but I did have a zebra patterned bundt on my Pinterest recipes to try, so went with that. The final product was pretty cool--it really does look like a zebra pattern! And it was yummy, too!

Recipe:

Zebra Bundt Cake:
adapted from Bakers Royale

Ingredients:
Cake - 
3 cups Cake Flour
2 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
2 1/2 cups Sugar, divided
1/2 cup Cocoa Powder
6 Tbsp. Water
1 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 tsp. Vanilla
5 Large eggs
1/2 cup Whole Milk

Glaze -
6 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2/3 cup heavy cream

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 and prepare a bundt pan. Sift together baking powder, salt, and flour and set aside.
2. In another separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup of sugar, cocoa powder, and water, whisking until the mixture is smooth. Set aside.
3. Mix melted butter and remaining sugar. Add vanilla, then eggs, one at a time. Beat until light and fluffy.

4. Add flour in three additions, alternating with the milk (2 additions) and mixing until just blended. Add 2 cups of the final batter to the chocolate mixture and stir until blended.

5. Use an ice cream scoop and start with vanilla, adding to a slightly tilted pan. The scoops (do 2) should be added to the bottom of the tilted pan, not fully covering the bottom of the pan. Alternate between chocolate and vanilla, such that you add in the same spot and the batter slowly pushes out into the remaining parts of the pan.

6. Bake the cake 50-60 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes because inverting and cooling completely. 

7. To make glaze, heat the cream over low heat, adding chocolate and stirring until melted. Cool for 10 minutes and drizzle over cake.

2014 Baking Challenge Update

Well, I am officially a terrible food blogger. I've actually already accomplished several of the dishes I intended to try in my personal 2014 baking challenge... and I haven't blogged about (or photographed) any of them. In summary:

 Chocolate Chess Pie



Tried this. Terribly disappointed. Have another recipe I plan to try. I probably didn't document it because it was hideous. And just okay. I did cut the recipe to a smaller size, which may have effected it. Either way, it wasn't pretty enough to document.

2. German Dark Rye Bread



Another failure. Didn't turn out at all. With that said, I had bought all this rye flour and was determined to be successful. I did find a recipe I liked, in the end. It wasn't amazing, dried out quicker than I would have liked (that could be the desert air), but it was pretty tasty. The successful recipe was from An Edible Mosaic.

6.  Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Skillet Cookie



This wasn't beautiful. I didn't have the same sized skillet, so I used two smaller ones and they spilled over a bit (I had them on a pan, so no harm to the oven!). I can't remember why I didn't take pictures, except maybe that I was too busy eating. Because this was sooooo repeatable. It was scrumptious. It was terrible--I didn't want to stop eating. Yummy. Extra good with ice cream.

So, really, I'm 3/7 on my challenge already! Go me! Now I just need to be better about the pictures!

Daring Baker's Challenge: June - Cinnamon Rolls

The Daring Baker's Challenge for June was to make CINNAMON ROLLS! I love cinnamon rolls, and make them every Christmas morning, per tradition, using the same recipe. So I wanted to take this opportunity to try something different.

I searched a few options. In the end, I opted for a chocolate cinnamon roll. I mean, YUM, right?! I found the recipe on Bakingdom and it was pretty good. I almost liked it better a day later, even.

Recipe:

Chocolate Cinnamon Rolls:
adapted from Bakingdom

Ingredients:
Filling - 
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. Cocoa powder
1 Tbsp. butter, melted
3 Tbsp. mini chocolate chips

Dough -
2 1/2 cups flour
3 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder
2 Tbsp Sugar
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
6 Tbsp. butter

Icing -
2 Tbsp. Cream Cheese OR Butter, softened
2 Tbsp. Buttermilk
1 cup Powdered Sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425. Combine all of the dry filling ingredients (except chocolate chips). Add melted butter until like coarse sand and set aside.
2. Combine flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add buttermilk and 2 Tbsp. butter and mix until just combined. Knead until smooth and a little sticky.
3. Flatten into a 8"x12" rectangle and cover with 2 Tbsp. butter, spreading with fingers. Pour filling over and spread evenly, leaving a 1/2 inch border and pressing filling into dough. Sprinkle chocolate chips evenly over top and press in slightly.

4. Roll up dough along long edge, pinching seam closed. Cut into 8 pieces and place in cake pan, gently pressing down on each and brushing with the remaining 2 Tbsp. of butter. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

5. Meanwhile, cream butter/cream cheese and sugar. Add buttermilk and whisk smooth. Drizzle over warm cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

A Minnie Mouse Birthday

My daughter requested a Minnie Mouse party for her 4th, complete with PINK cupcakes! Well, I'm a chocolate girl, myself, and I don't think any birthday is complete without chocolate cake. So I made her both--pink cupcakes, pink frosting, chocolate cupcakes, chocolate frosting--and mixed and matched.

 For the pink cake and pink frosting, I used a raspberry cake and raspberry buttercream recipe. Both were okay--again, I'm a chocolate girl.

 For the chocolate, I used my default, go-to, straight-from-mom recipe I've been making and eating for years. It is always amazing, even when you screw it up. I eat the batter by the spatula-full, and the frosting won't last long in a container on my counter. Usually I'm good and sick by the end of the process.

 The finished result was darling! I spent several days molding pink candy bows in a mold I bought on Etsy (using pink white-chocolate candies), and paired them with semi-sweet baking discs for Minnie Mouse ears.

And for the recipes:

Recipes:

Raspberry Cake
adapted from Sugar and Cloth

Ingredients:
1 cups Sugar
1 cup Butter
3 cups Cake Flour
2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 eggs, room temperature
3 egg yolks, room temperature
1 1/2 cups whole milk
2 tsp. Vanilla
1/2 cup raspberry jam
Pink food coloring

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Sift together cake flour and baking soda and set aside. Combine milk and vanilla and set aside.
2. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, then add raspberry jam. Add dry ingredients and milk in alternating batches (at least 3), beginning and ending with the dry. Add food coloring and fold batter a few times to be sure everything is incorporated.
3. Pour into prepared pans (recipe makes 3 cakes) and bake 17-22 minutes.

Raspberry Butter Cream

Ingredients:
2 lbs. Powdered Sugar
1 lb. butter, room temperature
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 tsp. vanilla
Pink food coloring

Directions:
1. Cream butter until fluffy, and then add sugar, two cups at a time.
2. Add vanilla and food coloring. Whip until good consistency and apply to cooled cake.

Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
4 oz. Unsweetened Chocolate
1/2 cup Butter, softened
2 1/4 cup Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
1 cup Sour Cream
2 tsp. Baking Soda
2 1/4 cups Flour
1 cup Boiling Water

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Melt chocolate.
2. Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time. Add melted chocolate.
3. Stir in sour cream and then add dry ingredients. Add boiling water; you must work quickly once water is added.
4. Pour into prepared cake pans and bake for 35 minutes. Cool before frosting.

Chocolate Frosting

Ingredients:
4.5 oz. Unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 cup Butter, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 lb. Powdered Sugar

Directions:
1. Melt butter and chocolate together. Meanwhile, combine milk and sugar in a food processor.
2. Add chocolate and mix until combined. Frosting will thicken as it cools.

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake

A friend of mine gave me this recipe after I oogled over her picture on Facebook. And it's yummy! AND, it uses stuff I regularly keep around the house, so it was easy and fast to make! It looks pretty gooey and rich in the picture, but it has a great texture and taste--I recommend it!

Recipe:

Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cake

Ingredients:
1 cup Quick Oats
1 3/4 cup Boiling Water
1 cup Granulated Sugar
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Butter
2 Large Eggs
1 3/4 cups Flour
1 Tbsp. Cocoa Powder
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1 tsp. Cinnamon
2 cups Chocolate Chips
3/4 cups Chopped Walnuts

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Place oats in large bowl and pour boiling water over. Slice butter over the top and let stand 10 minutes. Prepare a 9x13" pan.
2. Add sugar and brown sugar, stirring until butter is melted. Stir in eggs, baking soda, cocoa, cinnamon, and flour. mix until combined.
3. Fold in half of the chocolate chips and pour into a pan. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips and nuts.
4. Bake for about 40 minutes, or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.

The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I have found. I used to use a different one, but moving to high altitude wreaked havoc on my cookies, and it took a while to find a new, BETTER recipe. The secret isn't so secret anymore... cornstarch! Perfect, fluffy cookies. With that said, the batch made on this post weren't the best I made (appearance-wise, they always taste great), and they still look pretty darn good!

Anyway, this recipe is like fool-proof. I will admit that I decreased the amount of chocolate chips, and that IS saying something (I'm always for more chocolate). It was just a little too much! They were rattling around in the bowl with nothing to stick to!

Recipe:

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:
3/4 cup Unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup Brown Sugar
1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
1 Large Egg
2 tsp. Vanilla
2 cups Flour
2 tsp. Cornstarch
1 tsp. Baking Soda
1/2 tsp. Salt
3/4 cup Chocolate Chips

Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350. Line pan with parchment paper.
2. Cream butter with sugars and add vanilla. Once creamy, add egg and mix.
3. Add dry ingredients (flour last) and mix until combined.
4. Add chocolate chips and place in tablespoon-fulls on pan (makes about 24 cookies).
5. Bake for 8-10 minutes.