A Tale of Two Frostings

This banana cream layer cake is frosted with whipped cream. Whipped cream is one of the easiest and most versital dessert skills you can master. When I'm asked to bring a dessert someplace at the last minute it usually involves whipped cream because there's nothing to making it and it's a crowd pleaser. (Pick up some fresh strawberries at the store, wash, quarter, and sweeten them with a little sugar, whip some cream , and cut up store bought angel food cake or made short cakes for a quick dessert with no recipe needed.)


If you've never whipped cream here's what you need to know. Purchase Heavy Whipping Cream. You will need an electric mixer or standing mixer. Take your mixing bowl (preferably stainless steel, it will chill better) and your mixing beaters and put them in your freezer until they are good and cold. This will help the whipped cream hold it's shape. Pour cream in bowl and beat the heck out of that cream on high speed! Once the cream gets some volume and peaks begin to form, add some vanilla extract and granulated or powdered sugar to taste. Beat until cream has firm peaks and then chill in refrigerator until ready to serve. Do not over beat or you will get butter.

On this Devil's food layer cake I tried America's Test Kitchen's Milk Chocolate Frosting. This is my new go to chocolate frosting! Ready in minutes, so smooth, and with a rich milk chocolaty taste similar to a candy bar. A lot of kids don't like the taste of most semi sweet or dark chocolate frostings so this milk chocolate frosting is kid friendly! I made this particular cake for a client at work who was turning 63.

Milk Chocolate Frosting
Adapted from America's Test Kitchen

10 oz milk chocolate
1T light corn syrup (spray the tablespoon with non stick spray to prevent syrup from sticking)
pinch salt
1/2 c. heavy cream
1 stick unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 8 pieces
1/2 c powdered sugar

In a food processor pulse together milk chocolate, corn syrup and salt. Through tube attachment, pour 1/2 c. boiling heavy cream. Add 1/2 cup powdered sugar. While machine is running slowly add 1 stick butter through tube attachment until combined and smooth. Refrigerate at least an hour or overnight so frosting can thicken. Let frosting sit on the counter until it softens and easily spreads over the cake.

Week in Review

Here is a breakdown of everything i've created this week:

BBQ Smoked Pulled Pork

Smoked outside for hours and then finished up in the oven until meat is falling off the bone. I love the smell of the air when the meat is smoking on the grill. Tastes so good you have to shut your eyes while eating. Hickory wood chips created the ultimate smokey flavor. Here is the basic rub recipe from Test Kitchen. This was a joint effort with C. I rubbed it, he smoked it. Here's the basic rub recipe we used.

Basic BBQ Rub:
1/2 c. chili powder
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c salt
2T ground pepper
2t cayenne pepper


Chocolate Chewies
Fat free, and under 100 calories per cookie, intense chocolatey taste, very chewy texture. Had to use up the left over egg whites from the cheesecakes, these cookies fit the bill. Recipe Complements of Cara's Cravings. Visit the link to her site to see the full recipe.

Beer
Bottled some Belgian Witbier and brewed some German Oktoberfest. M invited C and I over for our first brewing experience. Even the flat beer, before the yeast had time to produce carbon dioxide in the bottle, tasted amazing, a very labor intensive process but the flavor tastes so much better than your average store-bought varieties. I can't wait to try the final product once it is complete. M has also made homemade hard cider, wine, and mead.

Sanitizing the bottles and getting ready to cool the wort.


Steeping caramel grains and warming the malt extract (so it's easier to pour).

New York Style Cheesecake

Perfectly blonde, smooth consistency throughout, everything a cheesecake should be. Another Test Kitchen success story.

New York Cheesecake
America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients:
5 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus 1 Tbsp melted unsalted butter
for greasing the pan
8 whole graham crackers (4 oz), broken into rough pieces and processed in a food
processor to fine, even crumbs
1 Tbsp sugar

2 1/2 lbs. (five 8-oz packages) cream cheese, cut into rough 1-inch chunks, at room temperature
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 c. (10 1/2 ounces) sugar
1/3 c. sour cream
2 tsp juice from 1 lemon
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 lrg egg yolks plus 6 lrg eggs, at room temperature

Directions:
-For the crust: Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 325 degrees.
-Brush the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan with 1/2 Tbsp of the melted butter.
-Combine the graham cracker crumbs and sugar in a medium bowl; add 5 Tbsp of the melted butter and toss with a fork until evenly moistened.
-Empty the crumbs into the springform pan and, using the bottom of a ramekin, 1 c. measuring cup, or drinking glass, press evenly into the pan bottom, using a tsp to press the crumbs neatly into the corner of the pan.
-Bake until fragrant and beginning to brown around the edges, about 13 mins.
-Cool on a wire rack while making the filling.
-For the cheesecake filling: Increase the oven temperature to 500 degrees.
-In the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the cream cheese at medium-low speed to break up and soften it slightly, about 1 min.
-Scrape the beater and the bottom and sides of the bowl well with a rubber spatula; add the salt and about half of the sugar and beat at medium-low speed until combined, about 1 min.
-Scrape the bowl; beat in the remaining sugar until combined, about 1 min.
-Scrape the bowl; add the sour cream, lemon juice, and vanilla, and beat at low speed until combined, about 1 min.
-Scrape the bowl; add the egg yolks and beat at medium-low speed until thoroughly combined, about 1 min.
-Scrape the bowl; add the remaining eggs 2 at a time, beating until thoroughly combined, about 1 min, scraping the bowl between additions.
-Brush the sides of the springform pan with the remaining 1/2 Tbsp melted butter.
-Set the springform pan on a rimmed baking sheet (to catch any spills if the pan leaks).
-Pour the filling into the cooled crust and bake 10 mins; without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees and continue to bake until the cheesecake reads about 150 degrees on an instant-read thermometer inserted in the center, about 1 1 1/2 hours.
-Transfer the cake to a wire rack and cool until barely warm, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.
-Run a paring knife between the cake and the springform pan sides.
-Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate until cold, at least 3 hours. (The cheesecake can be refrigerated up to 4 days.)
-To unmold the cheesecake, remove the sides of the pan.
-Slide a thin metal spatula between the crust and the bottom of the pan to loosen, then slide the cake onto a serving plate.
-Let the cheesecake stand at room temperature about 30 mins, then cut into wedges (see note) and serve with Fresh Strawberry Topping, if desired.

Chocolate Marbled Cheesecake
Beautiful, made for a co-worker's birthday. Cracked quit a bit because I doubted the cheesecake was done since I didn't have a thermometer to check the temperature, oops.


Raspberry and Cream Jelly Roll Cake
Fun to make. First recipe i've made from my Martha Stewart Cooking School cookbook so far. I added orange zest to the raspberry preserves for an added flavor. Made for a Tuesday night get together. I chose the recipe because Jelly Rolls take about 8 minutes to bake in the oven since the cake is baked in such a shallow dish. Due to this, I was able to bake and assemble the entire cake after work in under 1.5 hours. While jelly rolls have a whimsical final product, the cake is spongey and rather low fat so this isn't the sort of cake crowds rave never forget like they would about a cheesecake or brownies.



Chicken Broth
Made and froze some homemade broth that I plan on using this week for Chicken Tortilla Soup.

Keep it Simple

Today my family got together to celebrate my Mom's birthday. My big sister prepared a Mediterranean meal inspired by the cuisine she encountered living in Istanbul: cucumber, tomato, and onion salad, eggplant stuffed with feta and lamb, and Turkish rice.
I was bringing dessert. I needed to make something quick because I was going to be spending my day helping Christopher paint his living room before the celebration.
One of my Mom's favorite life philosophies is "keep it simple." She truly feels many of the best things in life are the simplest and she lives by these words. Given the time crunch I was under, I borrowed this concept when choosing a dessert.
If there are two desserts that are almost as simple as making a boxed cake mix they are cheesecake and flourless chocolate cake. Labor intensive sweet treats are no competition for either of these one bowl classics. Trust me i've tried, and these classics always win. Flourless chocolate cake is the all time most requested recipe on Bon Appetit magazine's website and is one step easier than cheesecake since there's no graham cracker crust to be made. The recipe is only 4 ingredients long, one of which is optional which makes this recipe easy on the wallet which is something everyone is conscious of these days.
If don't know your way around the kitchen and want to bring something to a party that everyone will rave about, flourless chocolate cake is the recipe for you. If you only learn to make one dessert, this should be the one. In fact it's so easy I memorized the recipe, there's nothing to it.
The following recipe is for America's test Kitchen Ultimate Flourless Chocolate cake (I forgot to take a picture but I borrowed one from another site.)
1 pound semi sweet chocolate
2 sticks unsalted butter
1/4 c. strongly brewed coffee
8 eggs
-Preheat oven, to 325 degrees. Adjust rack to lower middle position.
-Crack 8 eggs and place them in a electric mixer. Mix at medium speed for 5 minutes until mixture becomes very frothy.
-Take two 8 oz boxes of semi sweet (sweetened) chocolate, unwrap the squares and break them apart and put them into a microwaveable bowl. Microwave the squares in 20 second increments stirring in between until almost melted. Add two sticks of butter cut into 1" pieces and continue microwaving process until melted. Add 1/4 c. strongly brewed coffee (I have instant granules in my pantry so I can quickly add coffee to recipes,) stir. Coffee is an optional ingredient but adds depth to the chocolaty taste in most recipes. Slowly fold in egg mixture until throughly combined.
-Put mixture into an 8" springform pan that has been sprayed with cooking spray and has parchment paper lining the bottom. Cover the entire outside of the pan with foil and place 8" pan into a larger leak proof pan.
-Microwave about 2 cups of water until boiling and pour into the sides of the larger pan half way up the sides (exactly half way is key!) being careful not to get the 8" cake pan filled with batter wet.
-Bake 22-25 minutes until the middle of the cake registers at 140 degrees and the edges of the cake have a brownie like consistency (middle will look undercooked but will firm up during cooling process.)
-Let cake cool. For best results refrigerate overnight. Unmold cake, sprinkle with cocoa powder or powdered sugar. Serve with whipped cream and fresh fruit garnish.