Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Posted on December 6, 2008 by Veronica

It’s been a while since I posted a recipe, or any blog for that matter, and since my December schedule (aka 72 hours/wk all month) starts tomorrow, I figured I’d better post one before I have even less time than I already do.

So Den graduated composite class at WATC Wednesday and I decided to send him to school with a cake to celebrate. This also happened to coincide with a ridiculous sale Dillons was having on raspberries–$1 per pint–so I decided I would have to incorporate them into the cake and came up with this dark chocolate-raspberry confection.

To make it, just use the raspberry buttercream on a devil’s food cake or dark chocolate cake (I included my favorite if you don’t have one of your own), press sliced almonds into the sides and accent with fresh raspberries (dipped in ganache if you want) and ganache drizzle. The frosting is light and fluffy and perfectly compliments the chocolate cake. It is my favorite cake of any I have ever made but I know individual tastes vary.

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Printable recipe
Printable recipe with picture

Cake:
1 dark chocolate fudge cake mix
2 tablespoons dutch process cocoa powder (Hershey’s Special Dark works)
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
½ cup oil
½ cup sour cream
1 cup water
3 eggs

Frosting:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
2 lbs powdered sugar
¼ cup seedless raspberry preserves
1 tablespoon raspberry extract

Ganache:
½ cup heavy cream
4 oz semi-sweet chocolate

Garnish:
Sliced almonds
Fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour (or use miracle pan release) two 8 or 9-inch round cake pans with 2″ high sides.

Beat cake ingredients on low until moistened, then on medium speed for two minutes, scraping sides of bowl. Pour into the prepared pans, filling 1/2-2/3 full. Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool in tins for 5 minutes, then remove onto cooling rack to cool completely.

While the cakes are cooling, make the frosting. Cream the butter and cream cheese, then beat in the remaining ingredients. Once the cakes are completely cool to the touch, trim the dome off the tops if necessary, then place the first layer top-side up on a cake plate and spread 1/3 of the frosting over it. Place the second top-side down on top and then spread the remaining frosting over the top and sides. Scoop sliced almonds into your palm and press into the sides of the cake, repeating until covered.

Prepare the ganache: combine the cream and chocolate in a small microwave-safe bowl. Microwave for one minute at 50% power, then stir until it is shiny and smooth (this may take a while but you should not need to heat it any further unless your microwave operates at less than 1000 watts). Alternatively, you can place the cream and chocolate in a double boiler over medium heat and stir until melted, shiny & smooth. While it is still liquid, dip the raspberries half way, if you wish, and set them on wax paper to set. Allow the ganache to cool to room temperature, I think it only took a few minutes b/c it won’t be very hot to begin with, then drizzle over cake with a pastry bag or a spoon or fork. Place raspberries on top and around the bottom edge. Serve at room temperature.

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7-Layer Salad

Posted on October 5, 2008 by Veronica

When attending a potluck dinner, I try to bring a dish that does not need to be heated as there are usually so many others that do I’m afraid mine won’t fit into the oven. For the 31st annual Davis Family Pig Roast, I decided to bring a salad but needed one that didn’t requre squirting dressing on top since that would hold up the (very long) food line.

I settled on a recipe titled 7 Layer Salad but I of course turned it into my own creation with all sorts of plant life uncalled for in the original version. And it did not suffer for it. So feel free to play around and adjust this one to your tastes. And don’t freak out about the Miracle Whip like I did when I read the recipe. It actually tastes really good. But if you can’t stand the idea of Miracle Whip on salad, you could probably squirt some ranch on top to no ill effect. Except you’d lose the sweetness and that is always a downer in my book.

Update 11-24-09: I’ve now made this salad several times and the recipe below includes revisions I’ve made over time. It always goes over very well at potlucks. I’m bringing it to Thanksgiving (second year in a row) in a couple days.

7 Layer Salad
Adapted slightly from Recipe Zaar

Dressing
2 cups Miracle Whip
1/4-1/3 cup milk
2 teaspoons sugar

Whisk dressing ingredients together, starting with 1/4 cup milk and adding more if dressing is not as thin as you like. I like putting my salad in a 9×13 dish rather than a bowl so that you can get all the way to the bottom each time you scoop out the salad. If you decide to do this too, it makes it easier to spread the dressing if you add more milk. You don’t necessarily have to add any milk if you don’t have far to spread it, such as in a trifle dish.

Salad
Layer the ingredients, in this order, in your dish. Use a clear dish for a pretty presentation

1 head lettuce, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
1 small onion, chopped
1 cup frozen peas, uncooked
Dressing
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup crumbled bacon

Directions

Cover the dish with plastic and refrigerate overnight before serving.

Fully Loaded Buffalo Chili & Sweet Corn Muffins

Posted on October 4, 2008 by Veronica

I made up a batch of chili along with the some sweet corn muffins and thought I’d share my recipes b/c both were fairly easy and were very tasty. Enjoy!

Fully Loaded Buffalo Chili
Makes 4-5 BIG servings

1 lb. ground buffalo (or beef)
2 tsp. chili powder
1 clove minced garlic
2 cans chili-ready beans
2 cans black beans
4 cans chili-ready diced tomatoes (if you only have plain then add some more chili powder to your taste)
2 cups chopped celery
1 cup chopped green pepper
1 cup chopped yellow pepper
1 cup chopped red pepper
2 cups chopped onion
1 can sweet yellow whole kernel corn

Brown the meat in a skillet along with the chili powder over medium heat. Put everything into a stock pot, including the meat, and simmer over low heat for two hours. Or get it hot fast and cook it over medium heat for about 30 minutes so you can eat it with less waiting time. But I like to slow cook it for the flavor development. Serve with Sweet Corn Muffins (below).

Sweet Corn Muffins
Makes 12 muffins

Head’s up! This isn’t your typical dry cornbread. It is extremely moist and extremely easy so if you are lazy and like things on the sweet side like me, you’ll love ’em!

2 boxes Jiffy corn muffin mix
1 (14.5-oz) can creamed corn

Mix the two ingredients and bake according to package directions. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

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Posted in Lighter Fare, Mexican, Soups & Stews and tagged Buffalo Chili sweet corn muffins. Bookmark the permalink.

Chocolate Ridiculous Cake

Posted on September 29, 2008 by Veronica

Dennis and I were invited to a dinner party at Jean & Romauldo’s house (from Church) on Saturday and I brought this cake for dessert. I call it Chocolate Ridiculous Cake b/c I have a feeling I’m going to be making a lot of ridiculous cakes in my lifetime and I needed a qualifier, chocolate in this case, to specify which kind of ridiculousness I produced. This one’s ridiculousness is two-fold: the amount of time it took me to make it and the sensory overload you experience when you take a bite.

I used Marina’s recipe (thanks, girl!) for Deep Dark Chocolate Cake, torted the layers with butterscotch buttercream, iced the whole thing with velvet milk chocolate buttercream, pressed toffee bits into the sides, and accented it with dark chocolate and butterscotch buttercream & dark chocolate dipped toasted pecans and Heath bar quarters.

I do have to admit that it could have been better (at least to my cake connoisseur tastes–I heard nothing but compliments but I’m a perfectionist). The cake has such a powerful chocolate flavor that the mild chocolate of the buttercream sort of lost the competition in identifying itself on my palate. It was excellent, but I think it would have been better if I would have used a traditional (chocolatier) recipe for chocolate frosting.

My frosting takes a ridiculous (there’s that word again) amount of time to make, especially when compared with the ease of mixing together a traditional powdered sugar and butter frosting. I prefer the velvety texture of classic buttercreams made with a sort of candy base. You boil sugar and corn syrup, then beat egg yolks into the hot mixture until cooled, then beat in butter and flavorings (such as melted and cooled chocolate). It is a lot of work but if I have the time, I try to do use this method b/c it’s worth it. In this case however, I think it would have been worth it to save myself the time!

Chocolate Ridiculous Cake

Deep Dark Chocolate Cake
Neoclassic Buttercream
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1 bag Heath bits
1 Heath Candy Bar, chopped into 4 pieces
Toasted Pecans (12-20)
1 large bar of dark chocolate
1 tsp. butter

Melt the bag of chocolate chips in a double boiler over a low simmer. Once mostly melted, remove from heat and continue to stir until smooth. Allow to cool COMPLETELY. Set aside 3/4 cup of the prepared buttercream and beat the cooled chocolate into the remaining buttercream.

Melt the butterscotch chips in the same manner and beat the melted chips into the remaining 3/4 cup buttercream once it is cooled.

Combine the dark chocolate and the butter in the double boiler and melt together. Spread the chocolate over the bottom half of each pecan and set on waxed paper. Spread it over half of each of the Heath bar pieces at a diagonal and put them on the waxed paper. Put the chocolate coated pieces in the fridge and set the remaining chocolate aside.

Lay 1 layer of cake on a plate and spread 3/4 of the butterscotch buttercream over it. Top it with the second layer and frost the whole thing with chocolate buttercream. Take handfuls of Heath bits and press them into the sides of the cake.

Fit a pastry bag with a small round tip (I used Wilton tip 3) and fill with the dark chocolate. Pipe it in zigzags around the edge of the cake. With a smaller round tip (I used Wilton 1), pipe the remaining buttercream in a zigzag pattern on top of the dark chocolate.

Press the Heath bar quarters into the middle of the cake with the corners facing each other, leaving room to stand some pecans in the middle of the formation. Press three pecans in the middle.

With whatever remaining buttercream that you have (you’ll probably have more chocolate than butterscotch), pipe a generous dot onto the back of each pecan and apply to the sides of the cake. I put them in the middle but you can put them anywhere you want.

Finally, fit a pastry bag with a large star tip (Wilton 21 ) and fill with chocolate buttercream. Create a border around the bottom edge by piping stars all around. Ta-da! You’ve created a masterpiece that will feed 24 people (the number at the Turner’s dinner party) since only a small sliver is needed to satisfy.

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Whole Wheat Pizza Crust

Posted on September 10, 2008 by Veronica

I have long been of the opinion that if pizza is on the menu, it’s best to order it from Pizza Hut and not mess with a good (well, perfect) thing. Why waste time making my own crust and chopping vegetables when I can just sit my butt down in a chair and wait for someone else to make it? Or, better yet, just stay at home and wait for it to be delivered?

That is until I decided to give a recipe for whole wheat pizza crust a try. Now I find myself making pizza at home more often than dialing for a delivery. It may not be the best recipe out there, but it’s the only one I’ve tried because for me, it was love at first bite. (And the added nutrition form the whole wheat is a bonus too!)

The cool thing about pizza is that you can put pretty much anything between the crust and the cheese and it’s going to taste fabulous. And no matter how much you healthify it–whether it be with a whole wheat crust or tons of veggies–it still tastes like junk food. And if you can stick to one piece (yes, it is possible), then it can be on your diet plan AND it lasts longer that way. It takes Den and me 3 days to eat a large pizza.

Today I used what I had on hand–marinara for the sauce, red onion, mushrooms, green peppers, some leftover hamburger, about a cup of chopped basil and oregano from my backyard and a generous sprinkling of mozzarella. And as always, it was delish!!!

Whole Wheat Pizza Crust
Adapted from a Hodgson Mill recipe

1 package active dry yeast (I use rapid rise/instant*)

1 cup warm water (115 degrees if you’re measuring…I don’t)

1 ½ cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp. granulated sugar

½ tsp. salt

2 tbsp. olive oil

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

Put water in a large bowl and sprinkle the yeast over it. Allow to rest for 5 minutes. Stir in whole wheat flour, sugar, salt, olive oil and 1 cup of the all-purpose flour. Knead in remaining flour by hand and continue to knead for about 5 minutes (the dough will be smooth and elastic).

Coat the bowl with oil, place dough in the bowl and turn to coat thoroughly. Cover the bowl with a towel and set it in a warm place and allow to rise for 15 minutes. Preheat oven to 500 degrees while you’re waiting.

Spray a large pizza pan (or two small) with no-stick cooking spray. Stretch pizza crust (I press it from the center outward) to fit pan and flute outer edges of dough to hold fillings. Brush on some olive oil, then put on your sauce & toppings. Bake until cheese is melted, about ten minutes. Slice it up and serve it hot!

*If you use rapid rise/rapid acting/instant yeast, skip the dissolving step and just mix it in with everything else. I usually mix it with the dry ingredients, then stir in all the liquid before kneading in the remaining flour. Easy peasy!

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Posted in Italian, Pizza and tagged crust, dough, Pizza, whole wheat. Bookmark the permalink.

Cream Cheese Wedding Frosting & Some Cake Tips

Posted on August 16, 2008 by Veronica

These are some of my trade “secrets,” including my recipe for cream cheese wedding cake frosting. I hope you find some of them useful!

1. A box mix cake covered in delicious homemade frosting is quicker and easier, and can be just as delicious (or more so) than from-scratch cake. Replace the water and oil with milk and melted butter to give it a richer, more homemade taste.

2. Make your own frosting. It is worth the effort and doesn’t take much time. The flavor is incomparable to canned frosting and even if you use it on an un-enhanced box mix cake, it will still taste from scratch rather than generic. If you’re looking for a good recipe, I have many favorites in my Cake & Frosting Index.

3. For cakes that never stick to the pan, no matter how big it is: grease the bottom of your pan, cover it (bottom only) with parchment paper, then grease and flour the whole thing. I use this mostly for bigger pans, but for 12″ and under, Miracle Pan Release works perfectly without the extra steps.

4. Cool your cake completely before frosting. Otherwise the frosting will melt off and your efforts will have been for naught. Another tip on cooling: after baking, allow your cake to sit in the pan for five minutes and then turn it out onto a cooling rack so that the heat releases easier and it cools faster. Otherwise the cake continues to bake in the pan after it’s out of the oven and dries it out more. Leaving it in the pan 5 minutes allows it to set a little and reduces the risk of the cake breaking since it’s hot from the oven.

5. If your cake feels dry to the touch (this happens especially around the edges), use a spray bottle to douse the affected area with water. I use a bottle designated for water only b/c you don’t want to get residue from a bottle that previously housed cleaner on something you’re going to eat. This trick works wonderfully and doesn’t affect the taste at all. Don’t be afraid to put too much water—just squirt until it feels moist and then keep it covered or wrapped until you’re ready to frost it. The cake will absorb the moisture uniformly so that it’s moist and delicate throughout. You can also add liqueur to the spray bottle to add a subtle flavor to the cake. I used chocolate liqueur on a red velvet wedding cake and have also used Kahlua on a chocolate cake and both worked very well.

6. Here’s another water bottle trick that is invaluable to me. To make your frosting super-smooth on your cake, use your water bottle to douse the entire cake after you’ve smoothed it out as much as you can. Your spatula will glide over it easily to give a flawless finish and whatever water remains on the surface will evaporate and no one will be the wiser. Oh, and you can’t do this without an offset spatula or some sort of long, straight edged tool.

7. Here’s another secret that you have to either go to the cake store for or buy online. You know that flavor that’s in the white frosting of every wedding cake you’ve ever had? Have you ever tried to duplicate it? You can’t find it in any Betty Crocker frosting and you will probably never be able to make it at home without crème bouquet.

It is a divine flavor emulsion that gives that sweet wedding cake taste to your frosting. You can add it to plain vanilla frosting, but I also add it to my cream cheese frosting for a subtle, wonderful effect. So there was the wedding cake taste underlying the rich, tangy cream cheese flavor. Yum!

My Secret Cream Cheese Wedding Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1 (8-oz) package cream cheese, room temperature
1-2 pounds powdered sugar (less for a creamier frosting, more for thicker)
2 tsp. clear vanilla extract (you can use regular if you don’t mind the color turning a tad darker)
2 tsp. crème bouquet*

Beat the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the remaining ingredients and beat on medium/high. Use immediately or store at room temp until cake is frosted. Refrigerate or freeze if you won’t be using it within a few days. Use the water bottle trick to get it smooth on your cake.

*Crème bouquet is a flavoring, essential to achieving the “wedding cake” flavor. To find out more about crème bouquet, click here.

8. If you’re fed up with cakes that dome in the middle, use Bake-Even cake strips. You wet them with cold water, pin them around the cake pan, and your cake rises evenly and fairly flat. This dramatically reduces the amount you have to cut off the top in order to make it flat for layering and frosting, so less is wasted and you get more cake per serving. That’s always good. :)

9. And if you do make cakes enough, you should probably invest in a cake leveler. Unless you’re uniquely gifted, it’s nearly impossible to cut the cake top off in a straight line. Wilton sells two different sizes of cake levelers (I prefer the large and use it for all my cakes) that makes this a breeze. You just adjust it to the height you want and saw across the cake (keeping the cutter straight up and down) and you’ll have a perfectly flat cake that will stack gorgeously.

10. If you won’t be frosting the cake as soon as it’s cool, wrap it well with plastic wrap or seal it in Ziploc bag and press the air out (without squashing the cake). If it dries out in the slightest, just give it a spray with water or liqueur to restore moisture. You can also freeze your cake (after wrapping it well) and when ready to assemble, take it out of the freezer and frost it while frozen! It actually makes the job easier since the hard cakes are easier to handle and cold cake firms up the frosting as it is applied, which helps when icing a cake.

I hope these tips help you a little with your own cake baking. Please share your own tips in the comments!

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World’s Greatest Salmon

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Veronica

Oh wow. My system is still having aftershocks since trying a recipe that my friend, Rossie, posted on her myspace blog last week. Although salmon is my favorite fish, I don’t love it. I eat it b/c it’s good for you and it’s not terrible. But prepared this way? Oh. My. Gorsh. I could have eaten an entire salmon prepared this way. Try it. You won’t regret it. And if you hate fish, this recipe just may make a convert out of you.

World’s Greatest Salmon

1 unit pure maple syrup or honey (I used the former but Rossie used honey and said it was wonderful)
1 unit soy sauce
2-4 cloves fresh minced garlic

Marinate the salmon in this mixture for at least one hour before baking (I did two). Bake at 350 with the sauce dumped over it for 15-20 minutes (check to make sure it flakes easily–that means it’s done). Serve with a spoonful of sauce (or three) drizzled over it. (It might be fun to thicken some with cornstarch and serve on the side.) If you’re going to grill it, let it marinate at least four hours and put it on the grill with the skin side down. Then dig in and proceed to lapse into a salmon-induced state of euphoria.

Veronica’s Notes: I had (4) four-oz. pieces of salmon and I used 1/2 cup of syrup and soy sauce each (and 2 ginormous cloves of garlic) and that made a little too much so judge how much sauce you will need based on how much you’re cooking. The amount I made would have been appropriate for at least two more pieces. It’s better to have too much than not enough.