Probably the coolest cake I've ever made

My sister graduated from law school and turned 30 in the same week.  If anything deserves a crazy awesome cake, it's that.  While she requested a cake for her party, she had no idea what was coming.  I'm pretty sure she expected a pretty and standard one or two tiered cake, but she got this.  Three "textbooks" topped with a graduation hat, all made out of lemon pound cake, filled with lemon curd (at her request) covered in modeling chocolate.  I hope she loved it, she definitely deserved it.

My brother's wedding and new skills with a glue gun

Long story short:  My brother got engaged and I offered to make him a huge and beautiful wedding cake... and he turned me down!  Of all the cakes I make, and the people who pay for them, my brother refused a free wedding cake. :)  He did however, say he would like a brownie tower.  He said that he wanted something on top to be able to cut during the "cut the cake" picture time, but that he did not want it to resemble a cake, but to look like a brownie.  My (now) sister-in-law and I looked around online and found this beautiful idea which I'd love to give credit for, but the website has been taken down.  

So after a cupcake tree ordered online: http://www.save-on-crafts.com/cupcakes3.html, $29, about 18 hours in Michael's (not really) picking out a the right printed paper and ribbon, a million brownies and some handi-work with a glue gun, we had a beautiful brownie tower.  

I had fun, and this was the EASIEST "wedding cake" I have ever done.  Thank you Josiah and Corie for being low maintenance.  :)

First Wedding Cake: Lots of Mishaps but Ultimately "I Do"

Cinco de Goodbye-o; and a beautiful cake

Thanks to Erin Han for the beautiful picture!

My husband recently planned a birthday party for me and chose and evite.come template to use, and as I was looking over his shoulder, I thought this one template, for a Cinco de Mayo party was beautiful... so low and behold, I got invited to a going away party for some good friends a few weeks later, and the hosts of that party chose to use this Evite template:  http://new.evite.com/#create:featured=yes&position=1&template=folklorico&eventType=cinco_de_mayo

I volunteered to bring a "Goodbye Cake" for the family who is moving, and after some thought about the flavor and design, decided I REALLY wanted to match it to the evite, so I did, and I think it turned out beautifully! 

Now this is in true Patience form, because the cake needed to be egg free due to their son's allergies AND as I'm trying to move away from fondant for decorations (because it just doesn't taste good), I knew it was going to require a lot of new moves with white modeling chocolate, which I have only used once befoer.  But did I hesitate before comitting to this feat?  Of course not, I just jumped in and made it work. 

That's kind of how I've done this hobby all the way along, and while it's resulted in some REALLY long days/ nights and projects, I think I've pulled it off pretty well. 

I used my new favorite egg replacement option (below)  and made a two tiered cake of (top tier) Banana cake filled with vanilla bean swiss meringue buttercream (how without using eggs you ask?)  This was my first ever totally unique from scratch/ made up recipe, so I've been protecting the recipe- but now that I'm posting all my recipes, who cares?  And I hope it benefits some other baker who needs to bake for a kid with allergies and wants to use a really great tasting version of Swiss Meringue Buttercream.  So the recipe is listed along with the rest of the cake below.  This tier was frosted in a poured Semisweet Chocolate Ganache. 

Tier two:  Egg free red velvet filled with cream cheese frosting and frosted in Vanilla Bean "Swiss Meringue Buttercream". 

Only brief mishap:  When I opened my refridgerator to get my ground flax seed to make the egg replacer, I found that I stored it in the same ziploc as almond meal.  Their son is really allergic to nuts as well as eggs, but of course, in the past, I've pretty much only used Almond Meal and Flax Meal to make low-carb dessert replacements.  I got lucky and had flax seeds which I was able to quickly grind up.

Didn't it turn out great!?


Recipes will be added soon!!

Egg Replacer:

Banana Cake:

Vanilla Bean Egg Free Swiss Meringue Buttercream:

Chocolate Ganache:

Eggless Red Velvet:

Cream Cheese Frosting:


White Modeling Chocolate (courtesty of "What's New Cupcake?"  One of my favorite new cookbooks):

Tips on Baking Vegan and a blueberry recipe

Vegan Blueberry Muffins

If anyone tells you they like baking vegan, look at their feet because chances are they're standing on a soap box.  :)  No but really, here's the thing.  Eggs make things stick together.  Milk makes things moist, and butter makes things.... taste really crazy good.  That being said, I grew up in a family with a ton of food allergies where in order to have ice cream for dessert, we had to have regular ice cream; soy dream ice cream for the brother allergic to dairy; and rice dream ice cream for the sister allergic to dairy AND soy......and eggs, wheat, nuts and legumes, shellfish, food coloring (don't worry only blue #6 and red #5 so as long as we read every label of every peice of candy, she was okay), and if that weren't enough, CHICKEN (for crying out loud).  My mom had a cookbook called, "My kid is allergic to everything" and it was barely an exaggeration.   Everything I tried to bake for my sister came out super dry, and had this odd texture of playdough rather than a nice crumbly or fluffy cake.  So, I have a lot of understanding for people who have to cook around food allergies, aversions or personal decisions.  Times have changed, a lot more dairy and egg alternatives are available now than 20 years ago, and I've learned a lot, but baking vegan is still a challenge. This attempt came out of wanting to bake something for work that my boss, who is a vegan, COULD eat and that my non-vegan co-workers would still want to eat.  I did a bunch of research and tried a few new tricks.  Here are some of the life-savers I discovered:

First of all, all I did was tweak this recipe to take out all animal products.  For those vegans who need "vegan sugar" and things like that, I don't care quite enough to understand why normal sugar isn't already vegan.  So for those vegans, this won't work.   Otherwise, I replaced all of the animal products, in this case; milk, butter and eggs, and then added ingredients to make sure the recipe would come out moist and with a fluffy texture.

-coconut milk; amazing and thick.  We used a lot of rice milk growing up but the consistancy is more like water than milk, so it's really not a good milk replacement.  Coconut milk holds moisture well, is super thick and because its full of fat, it tastes really good.  Make sure to get unsweetened coconut milk, or else the sugar measurements will be completely off.
-coconut oil (sense a theme?);
-ground flax seed and water; super weird but amazing egg replacer.  One tablespoon flax meal mixed with five tablespoons water heated over a pan until the mixture becomes jelly-like is the equivalent of one egg.
- Fleishman's Unsalted "Butter" (I think it's actuallly called vegetable spread).  This is actually one I learned as a child when my mom needed an entirely dairy free butter/ margarine solution.  Especially back then there were not a ton of options, but this is still a great butter replacement- and it doesn't taste half bad.

Beyond replacing ingredients cup for cup, I added extra coconut milk and oil in order to make sure the muffins would keep their moisture.  I added a LOT of extra coconut milk, probably a cup more than the recipe called for.  And they came out incredibly moist and delicious.

For those who want the original recipe, non vegan-ized, here it is:  http://allrecipes.com/recipe/to-die-for-blueberry-muffins/

Below is the recipe after all of my changes.


"To Die For"  Vegan Blueberry Muffins

Yields 10 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/3 cup coconut oil
• 1 T ground flax seed
• 5 T water
• 1 and 1/3 C coconut milk
• 1 cup fresh blueberries (I used frozen, and they came out great)
• crumb topping:
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup Fleishman's Unsalted Vegetable Spread, cubed
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.
2. Combine 1 1/2 cups flour, 3/4 cup sugar, salt and baking powder. Melt coconut oil in a microwave safe bowl, add coconut milk.  In a small saucepan combine flax meal and 5 tablespoons water over low heat mixing constantly until mixture becomes "jelly like".  Add flax mixture to the coconut oil and milk and mix until fully incorperated. Mix this with flour mixture. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups right to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.
3. To Make Crumb Topping: Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 1/4 cup dairy-free vegetable spread, and 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.
4. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until done.

Note:  You do not want to overbake these muffins or they will turn out dry.  Watch carefully.  

Reconnecting with Old Friends, and Lemon

Beautiful Photo by Keziah Brackett

Fall Back into Toasted Coconut

My dear friend Charles ordered a cake from me...... without telling me it was for HIS birthday.  After only a tiny bit of sleuthing, I figured out his secret and was super excited to make his cake.  My struggle when I make party cakes for guys is that I usually would rather not cover them in flowers and bows, and have to get more creative.  So for Charles' birthday cake, I decided to run with the fall theme and free hand draw a picture of a fall tree with a blue sky backdrop, and buttercream leaves falling off of the tree into a pile of "leaves" of toasted coconut.  I covered the whole side of the cake in toasted coconut.  Overall I love how the tree turned out, but I forgot to leave room for "Happy Birthday Charles" so I wish that wasn't so crowded onto the cake.

When Charles orders cakes, he makes my life super easy by saying, "oh I don't know (as far as flavor), just make whatever you want."  I am both being sarcastic and not in saying it makes my life easy.  On the one hand, I get to decide and he has loved everything I've made for him, on the other hand, the pressure is all on me and sometimes it's easier if the person ordering the cake knows exactly what they want.  So after some thought, I decided to use my recently favorite chocolate cake recipe (below).  I've make this in a bundt, and in traditional cake pans and it is phenomenal.  It is so rich, it could almost be a brownie recipe and I love it.  I found it a while ago at my favorite baking blog, Lickthebowlgood.  CHECK THIS BLOG OUT!  It's great!  I filled the cake with Vanilla Bean/ Coconut Buttercream and frosted in Vanilla Bean Buttercream.  Whenever I use traditional buttercream, I I try to use as little sugar as possible while being able to hold the shape that buttercream needs to hold.  I think most buttercreams are far too sweet, so I try to reduce the sweetness and increase good flavors in buttercreams.  Keep in mind for my amounts that I made two 8 inch cakes, torted each and filled.  So I had four torted layers of cake, and three layers of filling,  You can make the same cake, but just stack the layers rather than torte them and save time, energy and frosting.  I love the height of 4 layer cakes, so I usually torte my layers.  

Chocolate Cake (Adapted from lickthebowlgood.blogspot.com)

Makes enough to fill a 10 inch bundt pan or 2 8x2in cake pans

• 1 cup cocoa powder, sifted, plus more for dusting pan
• 7 1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 1 cup boiling water
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt
• 20 Tbsp. (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
• 2 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
• 5 eggs, lightly beaten
• 4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups sour cream
• 1 1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Have all the ingredients at room temperature.

Preheat an oven to 325 degrees F. Grease  Bundt or Cake pans and dust with cocoa powder; tap out the excess.

In a bowl, combine the 1 cup cocoa powder and the chocolate. Add the boiling water and whisk until the chocolate melts and the mixture is smooth and blended. Set aside.

Over a sheet of parchment, sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, beat the butter on medium speed until smooth and creamy, 30 to 45 seconds. Reduce the speed to low, add the brown sugar and beat until blended. Increase the speed to medium and continue beating until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating until incorporated before adding more and stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla until incorporated, about 1 minute.

Reduce the speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the sour cream and beginning and ending with the flour, beating just until blended and no lumps of flour remain. Slowly pour in the chocolate-cocoa mixture and beat until no white streaks are visible, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan, spreading the batter so the sides are about 1 inch higher than the center. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with only a few moist crumbs attached to it, 60 to 65 minutes (40-45 for 8 in cake pans). Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let the cake cool upright in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert the pan onto the rack and lift off the pan. Let the cake cool completely, at least 1 hour.

Vanilla Bean Coconut Buttercream - one batch (For this cake, I made 3 batches to fill and then 2 without the coconut to frost)

1/2 C unsalted butter

1/2 C vegetable shortening

2 C confectioners sugar

1/2 of a fresh vanilla bean (check lessons learned for using vanilla bean paste instead)

1/4 C shredded coconut

1 t vanilla extract

dash of salt

splash of milk or cream, if needed

Mix shortening and butter until fluffy.  Add confectioners sugar and mix on low until incoorperated.  Add dash of salt and vanilla, mix until incoorperated.  Cut vanilla bean in half, save the other half of the bean.  Cut the vanilla bean open length wise and scrape out vanilla-goodness.  Add to frosting mixture with coconut and mix until incoorperated.  Scrape sides of mixer as needed.  If the frosting is too thin, add confectioners sugar a little at a time.  If too thick, add a little milk or cream to thin it out.  Be very careful adding liquids.  Especially if you decrease the confectioners sugar (traditional is 4 C rather than 2), this will thin out quickly.  

After frosting the outside of the cake, I toasted extra shredded coconut on a cookie sheet at 400 degrees (next time I would toast it at 350) and used it to cover the sides of the cake.  

Lessons learned:

- I discovered vanilla bean paste.  It's wonderful.  I used a mixture of vanilla bean paste and fresh vanilla beans, and I still prefer fresh because I think it holds the vanilla flavor better, but vanilla bean paste is a great option to save time.  Usually the paste can be found at specialty baking stores.  I don't have an exact idea of proportion, but I would say maybe about 2 t of paste per vanilla bean depending on the size of the bean.

- coconut toasts QUICKLY.  Mine nearly burned.  I will watch more carefully next time and toast it at 350 degrees rather than 400.