Vegan Mexican Chocolate Cake, Times Two

Recently baked this cake for a Cinco de Mayo party.

Here's the recipe (courtesy of Recipezaar!)

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose white flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper (or ground mexican chili powder)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup cold water

1/4 cup canola oil

1 tablespoon basalmic vinegar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Chocolate Glaze:

1 cup confectioners' sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

Up to 6 tablespoons water

About 10 or so fresh strawberries

Baking Instructions:

1. Heat oven to 350*F.

2. Lightly coat an 8" round cake pan with vegetable cooking spray.

3. Combine all cake ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir until smooth.

4. Pour into a pan and bake 25 to 30 minutes (until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean).

5. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes.

6. Remove from pan and cool completely.

7. When the cake has cooled mix together the confectioner's sugar and cocoa, adding water 1 tablespoon at a time until glaze-like

8. Dip each strawberry into the glaze and set aside.

9. Pour the remaining glaze over the cake and arrange the strawberries on top.

10. Set aside to dry- about 30 minutes.

My guests requested a bottle of hot pepper sauce as a condiment, for those who like a little extra spicy kick! ENJOY!

Update: We made this cake again for another party that needed more vegetarian/vegan options. Since it was kind of a soupy mess last time (a DELICIOUS soupy mess), we made some adjustments and created this:

We used less water for the ganache (more like 4 tbsp) and waited to add the strawberries until almost immediately before serving. The strawberry juices ran down the side of the cake and made the ganache watery!!! Still 5 NOMS!

Spaghetti and Meatballs by Hello! Cupcake

Yes, it is a cake, but it tastes nothing like spaghetti and meatballs! The cake itself is a basic white cake, the recipe cut in half and hazelnut extract in place of the almond flavoring, with ground hazelnuts and nutella swirled throughout. Topped with a hazelnut-flavored buttercream for the noodles, and Ferrero-Rocher chocolates (both the classic flavor and the Rondnoir flavors) rolled in Dillman Farm's Raspberry Jam for the sauce (give me a spoon, I'll eat the entire jar). I shaved some white chocolate on the "sauce" for a parmesan cheese look. And here she is!

On top of old Smokey......

....all covered with white chocolate that looks like cheese.....

...you won't lose any meatballs when somebody sneezes!.....

Overall, the taste was great. The raspberry jam really complemented the hazelnut flavors and the richness of the chocolates and buttercream icing. The dense, but still light and fluffy, texture of the cake helped even out all of the complicated things that were going on on top! I give it 5 NOMS!

Valentine's Chocolates by Hello! Cupcake

I made these mini cupcakes after finding Hello! Cupcake at a local store. I was infatuated with the book, and thought that this looked like the easiest project to begin honing my decorating skills. It was difficult to find some of the items the book recommended for decorating, but after raiding my local gourmet store, I found some items that worked well for this project.

Recipe adapted from Hello, Cupcake!

It's really cupcakes!

Devil's Food Cake Recipe

2 cups organic all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup hot, strong coffee

1 cup fat-free organic milk OR 1 cup reduced fat coconut milk

2 large organic eggs

1 teaspoon organic vanilla

**If adding coconut milk and you want it to taste a little more coconutty, add 1-2 tsp coconut extract.

Using coconut milk makes the cake even more moist than it already is, and doesn't produce a real noticeable coconut flavor, for those of you who do not care for coconut.

Baking Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, sift together dry indredients. Add oil, coffee and milk and mix at medium speed for 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and beat 2 more minutes. Expect batter to be thin.

Pour into a 9" x 13" greased and floured pan or 2- 9" round pans. Bake 9 x 13 pan for about 45 minutes or 9" pans for about 30 minutes. Cool in pans for about 15 minutes and then cool completely on racks.

I used mini muffin pans and liners, and they took about 8-9 minutes to bake through. Just keep an eye on them and when the cupcakes start to look firm and set up, test with a toothpick for doneness! These also cooled quickly, and I used a nice buttercream frosting that I dyed darker with brown food coloring to get a more "chocolatey" look without a hugely intense chocolate taste. Then decorate with various Valentine's Day shaped/colored candies, or whatever season it is, to achieve your look! The "chocolates" were made by dipping jumbo marshmallows that were cut into circles and cut into roundish rectangles into milk chocolate. I stuck them in the freezer to set up, placed on top the cupcake, drizzled with white chocolate, and there you have it! Simple. I tried to make one look like a "turtle" by adding some hazelnuts to the top and painting on additional chocolate.

All in all, I am happy with the result, and the perfect serving size for delicious cake!

Nom.

Jordan almond dusted with cocoa powder, conversation

hearts arranged on dark chocolate frosting

rimmed with pink nonpareils.

O-o-reo!

Made this cake this weekend for a friend's birthday. The two chocolate layers are a homemade devil's food chocolate cake, and the cookies and cream layer is a white sour cream based cake with crushed Oreo cookies in the batter. The frosting is real whipped cream, flavored with cocoa powder, powdered sugar, and vanilla. Top that with some crushed and whole Oreos, and, my friends, you have decadence! Everyone had a slice, and the poor cake someone bought at Kroger's just sat there, with a little tear in its eye because no one wanted to eat any of him after they had this cake.

The Barbie Doll Cake: Reimagined

I made this cake last June for T's birthday. He was working with some colleagues in a research group about Second Life, and I made this for him to share with the group!

It was supposed to be a whimsical Second Life character, and I think I kind of succeeded in doing that! I just remembered the cakes my grandma used to make me when I was little. She'd take one of those Dollar Store faux-Barbie dolls with the hollow legs and stick it down inside a rounded cake. I can't remember why this was necessary, but she always cut the feet of the doll. Maybe her pans were a certain height, but man, did it stink to get your birthday cake, with promises of a new doll to play with afterwards, only to find out she has no feet.

When I made this cake, our financial situation was similar to the times when I was a kid. T and I had just purchased our first house, and used all our savings (and then some) for a downpayment. We had something like $14, and I used it all to purchase the doll, and decorations, for the cake. It was a good day, though, just because I got to share something I made with friends.

Oh, the recipe! I tried to imitate a Ho-Ho cake, with a super rich dark chocolate cake and a fatty white filling. Good overall, but not something one would eat regularly.

Rainbows!

I made this cake back in March (with T's help) to take to a special dinner. It's rather unassuming on the outside.........

but the inside is a different story!

Taste the rainbow!

The frosting is just a simple whipped cream with powdered sugar and vanilla to give it a bit of flavor. Some coconut sprinkled on top to give it a bit more aesthetic appeal, as well as a bit more texture and decoration! As for the inside, going top to bottom:

1. Raspberry puree from frozen organic raspberries, put through a fine strainer to remove seeds
2. Blood orange zest, with a little blood orange juice
3. Meyer lemon juice, and zest
4. I thought I had limes at home, but was mistaken! A sprinkling of green apple jello saved the day here.
5. About 1/2 cup of frozen organic blueberries, same method as #1
6. Same as #1 and 6, only blackberries were used!

Some of the colors weren't as vibrant as we would have liked, so a very minimal amount of food coloring was used just to make the colors more distinguishable. Just a couple drops at most!

We didn't taste any of the batter before baking, and just kind of hoped it would turn out, and did it ever! Each layer's flavor was crisp and distinguishable, and didn't compete with the other layers. It was a nice, fruity and creamy cake! I can't wait to make it again with fresh fruit from the farmer's market, or some of the wild blackberries I discovered growing across the street from my house.

My first fondant project!!!

Homemade marshmallow fondant, recipe courtesy of Peggy, over a pineapple cake. Peggy's Buttercream helped the fondant to stick to the sides marvelously!! Lots of work, but much less work than I thought it would be. More info to come soon.

Fondant went on easier than I could have ever hoped!

Unsturdy hands makes you glad I'm not your surgeon.

My first fondant creation, besides the creation of the fondant itself. Amidst a snowy field of powdered sugar.

Sand never tasted so good.....

Starfish Cake! There's nothing fishy about it. Disclaimer: No starfish were harmed during the creation of this cake, although I may have stepped on my cat's foot a couple of times as he kept raiding the baking pantry for the canola oil. Yes, friends, my cat, Reggie, loves to lick the canola oil bottle. That's normal, right?

I took my basic White Wedding Cake recipe (see below) and added some Meyer lemon juice and zest, securing the layers together with Dillman's Farm (local to me) Red Raspberry Jam. Covered with Peggy's Faux Fondant recipe, tinted a sandy brown. The starfish are molded from fondant and are enhanced with some food-safe peach colored shimmer dust.

I made this cake as a "thank you" to a friend who knitted me a shrug to wear during a wedding I was in over the summer. I can't wait to wear the shrug this coming fall (we were outside a lot and in a hot church for the wedding, so I wasn't really ever cold enough to wear it!)

And, as an FYI: I typically would steer away from using any kind of boxed cake mix product, but if you're willing to ingest all of the stabilizers and such in cake mix, I really recommend giving this cake a try! It's too good to pass by. I'm working on a version of this cake that will hopefully be just as good, minus the boxed mix.




White Wedding Cake Recipe (with Meyer lemon and raspberry!)

1 (18 ounce) box Pillsbury white cake mix

1 cup organic unbleached white flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2/3 cup Meyer lemon juice (if you like a more pronounced lemony flavor, increase to one cup)

2/3 cup water (adjust water and lemon amounts to equal a total of 1 1/3 cups liquid)

Zest from 1-2 of the lemons (again, depending on your lemon loving levels)

Splash of vegetable oil (for a more dense cake--can be omitted to save calories!)

1 teaspoon organic vanilla

1 cup light sour cream

4 large egg whites (You could use 3 whole eggs if you want to give it a more yellow color naturally.... or you could do your heart a favor and just use the whites!)

Directions:
1. Whisk all the dry ingredients together in a large mixer bowl to incorporate thoroughly.
2. Add liquid ingredients to mixer bowl, adding egg whites last.
3. Mix on medium speed for about 3 minutes, until the batter starts to rise slightly, and looks well incorporated. Don't forget to scrape the sides of your work bowl and get any extra bits of deliciousness from the bottom of the bowl.
4. Pour the batter into prepared pans (greased and floured)
5. Tap the pans lightly on the countertop to remove any bubbles. This makes the cake uniform and dense, and it won't crumble apart when you remove it from your baking pans.
6. This will make 2-8" layers of cake, and 6 cupcakes to snack on while decorating.

The key to this recipe is low and slow--preheat your oven to 325 degrees, and set the rack in the middle of the oven. The 8" pans will take about 30 minutes to bake. Of course, ovens vary, so stick a tester in the center of the pan. When it comes out clean, it's done!

My friend had a cake party after we left to try to get rid of the cake (not that it was "get rid of it" bad, but "get rid of it before I eat it all" good!)

Welcome to Sweet Tweets Bakery!

Sweet Tweets Bakery is more of a dream than a reality. I have never sold a cake or baked good, rather I bake out of compulsion and as a remedy for stress and then force my deliciousness onto others in my and my partner's PhD programs. Sometimes I create original ideas, sometime I imitate others (sometimes with surprising--other times horrendous--results), and sometimes I'll post things that are just too cool for school.

The gimmick here is that I will Tweet everything I bake (and sometimes cook) for the whole Twitterverse to see. Why? Because Twitter was cool with me before it was cool with Ashton Kutcher, that's why, and a certain level of cool must be maintained on Twitter or else it will just be a bunch of tools OMG-ing and LOL-ing their way into idiocy.

So I'll be bakin' sweets, eatin' sweets, and tweetin' sweets, all for you! And, well, me.