autumn double-cake (part one)

okay, i forgot to blog this phenomenal cake that i invented because i intended to play it close to my chest until almost thanksgiving, and now thanksgiving is tomorrow and i haven't posted it and i meant to do it in time for thanksgiving, so here are instructions, if not a recipe.

basic plan:

1. in a spring form pan, bake a spice cake from the recipe of your choice. (i use the spice cake adaptation of the "lightning cake" recipe from the joy of cooking but use pumpkin pie spice blend instead of whatever the spices called for are.)
2. next, in the same pan (or same-sized pan), make a cheesecake with crust only on the bottom and the crust mixture spiced with pumpkin pie spice blend. (i use this recipe, sans topping-- and the helpful hints? they are totally helpful.)
3. after both cakes are cool, so, several hours later, plate the cheesecake and put the spice cake on top of it. (you can use a little caramel sauce or cream cheese frosting to secure it if you want, but probably don't need to.)
4. either frost with a crumb coating of cream cheese frosting and top with butterscotch pudding or drizzle with caramel sauce and top with lightly-spices whipped cream.

so, what i really love about this cake is, once you get the idea, you can make it ANYTHING. you can make it chocolate and vanilla. neapolitan. chocolate-cherry. strawberries and cream. gingerbread. do you see where i'm going with this?

i'll post the full recipe later.

(oh, and i also made this for my mom's birthday. hi, mom's boss!)

squash'd tomato flor-n-bean

this soup is one of the varieties i call "veggie sludge." it's thick, flavorful and easy to make. generic veggie sludge is really easy to make, but if i don't feel like thinking about what veggies to use, i go with this insanely simple one.

ingredients:

• 2-3 yellow squashes/zucchinis
• 1 can of tomato paste
• frozen spinach
• 1 can of white kidney beans
• mirepoix (chopped celery, carrots and onions, which i buy prepared from trader joe's because i'm lazy and it's good)
• veggie broth (a quart? or chicken, i guess, or ham would probably be tasty)
• olive oil

prep:

• chop your squash into, eh, chunk-sized chunks
• rinse the beans

actual cooking:

• coat the bottom of your (not huge) pot with olive oil
• add mirepoix and stir
• give that a minute
• add broth
• add spinach, beans, tomato paste and squash
• simmer for 45 minute to an hour, depending on how sludgy you want it (i want to be able to eat it with a fork, so 45 minutes mostly covered and 15-20 uncovered to boil off the extra water)
• salt & pepper to taste

this soup is delicious alone, over chicken, as a pasta sauce, with some grated cheese, with some melted cheese, hot, cold, whatever. it's good.

cheese ravioli filling

okay, i made these several weeks ago with the intention of boiling them, dipping them in egg wash and drenching them in breadcrumbs, then toasting them on a lightly greased baking sheet sprayed with olive oil (on top). instead i just bagged them to be eaten when we felt like raviolis.

i'm a little lazy, so for the actual pasta recipe, go to my turkey florentine ravioli recipe. i'll wait.

so, for a regular cheese filling, you kinda just bullshit around a little bit.

ingredients:

• ricotta cheese (the not-huge size)
• 1 egg
• chopped fresh basil
• a dash of garlic powder
• about 1/4 cup scratch cheese

then i mixed them together and filled my raviolis. ta-da! delicious. and easy. i'm pretty sure this made about 25 large triangles (they were supposed to be appetizers, remember) and 15 or so small (1.5") squares. i also got a little tricky with the filling-- i used a pastry bag. next time i probably won't bother with a tip, because who cares if it looks pretty? no one will see it.

regularly scheduled baking: christmas cookies

when i was growing up, my mother made christmas cookies. thousands of them. hundreds of thousands. million, maybe. a whole damn lot. candies, too! fried walnuts and almond brittle. but, umm, that's crazy hard. CRAZY. now, with two teenaged boys in the house and one only half out, she can't set a batch of cookies aside, anyway, so why bother?

but christmas cookies are so NICE. two years ago, i guess i made some pretty regular cookies: chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, and some gluten-free meringues. there might have been shortbread and spritzes. i don't remember. it just seemed like the thing to do, newly married in our own little apartment.

always trying to outdo myself, last year i made chocolate chip, peanut butter, oatmeal, shortbread, springerle, spritzes, other spritzes, pinwheels, these insane chocolate pillows with maraschino cherries on top that are made with cake mix and never made it onto the trays because they looked a little obscene, gingerbread SNOWMEN-- each frosted and decorated because i bought cookie-cutters too late to find gingerbread people, sugar cookies, chocolate-orange biscotti, vanilla meringues, white chocolate cranberry-walnut fudge and candy cane fudge. i think that's it.

this year's plan includes choco-chip, pb, oatmeal raisin, shortbread thumbprints, springerles (which all go to my daddy), spritzes, pinwheels, gingerbread snowmen, sugar cookies, chocolate-orange biscotti, snickerdoodles, white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, meringues, chocolate-pb oatmeal squares, white choc cra-lnut fudge, candy cane fudge and almond brittle. plus, some gluten-free gingerbread ladies (yadies), but that's just for fun.

ingredient shopping is scheduled for black friday (when everyone else is in a gift-shopping frenzy the supermarket will be all mine!), with springerles that weekend and everything else commencing december 1st.

this is the big one, people. the great christmas cookie flood of ought-eight.

gluten-free/egg-free chocolate birthday cake (licensed character merchandise optional)

this recipe is incomplete, but i'm hoping not to have to make it again until next year, so i'll try some variations then, okay?

there's a pair of littles in my life who have some special dietary needs: no gluten for either of them, and no eggs for one. loving them as i do-- and loving kitchen experimentation as i do-- i spend lots of time thinking about how to accommodate their allergies without making them feel left out. their fourth and second birthday party was saturday and i made them this delicious, mostly-hypoallergenic cake. i've also included adjustments for dairy allergies and no allergies, just for the hell of it.

i bought some of my ingredients from amazon.com, so...

special ingredients:

• gluten-free flour blend-- i totally forget what brand i got, but next time, i'm going to try for one that doesn't smell like ass. i'm a super-smeller, though, and no one else had a problem with it. i think the ingredients are potato starch, corn starch, garbanzo beans and fava beans. the cake was originally going to be half chocolate and half vanilla, but the vanilla smelled so unappetizing that i had to make the whole thing chocolate. really, really chocolate. if dealing with a chocolate allergy, too, i'd make this cake with another STRONG flavor. like gingerbread.
• egg replacer-- i forget what the vendor for this was, too, but i suspect you can pretty easily find it in supermarkets or fancy food stores.
• gluten-free/egg-free frosting mix-- total. ripoff. you know what was in it? confectioner's sugar and vanilla flavoring. i had to add butter and milk (or margarine/butter flavored crisco & soy/rice/almond milk). just make a butter cream. it's cheaper.

ingredients:

• 3 1/4 cups flour OR flour blend
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs OR 6 tbs egg replacer & 8 tbs warm water
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbs baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter OR margarine, softened to the consistency of mayo (butter flavored crisco might work, too, and it doesn't have any major allergens in it)
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• (1 tbs instant coffee powder, optional, but makes it taste chocolatyer)
• 3 ounces chocolate, chopped very fine (semisweet, unsweetened, whatever you have, just watch ingredients if you're going hypo-allergenic)
• 1 1/2 cups milk OR soy/rice/almond milk
• 1 tbs vanilla

prep:

• preheat to 375
• chop/grind chocolate
• soften butter or margarine

actual cooking:

• combine dry ingredients
• add wet ingredients
• mix it all up
• pour into greased baking pans (2 8" squares, i guess, it doesn't rise as much as you think it will)
• bake at 375 degrees until a cake tester (or toothpick, or sharp, unserrated knife) comes out clean
• cool completely before frosting

so, the issue i'm left with is HOLY CRAP was that cake dry. HOLY CRAP. next time i'm going to try adding either a can of tomato paste (no, really, this is a good idea!) or some vegetable oil/more butter. it could probably also use a bit more sugar.

i frosted mine to look like the magic carpet from disney's aladdin and decorated it with figures of the characters. it's not my favorite way to decorate, but it works.

the kids loved it and even a couple adults said it tasted like food. so i'll call it a success. next up in my allergy test-kitchen: gluten-free/egg-free gingerbread people.