zuchotto

(daddy, mama, michael, nardo, kevvie, j, bill, sue, mary, frankie-baby, james, moi, joseph, jim & joe. mara & col were gone by then and old greg graciously took this one for us. and i have no idea where steven was. i kept asking and never got an answer.)

this past weekend, we had my favorite annual tradition: gaining four pounds in two days while the ice in our drinks melts way too fast in the sweltering northern virginia august. also known as the hughes cousins convention at uncles jim & frank's.

after a solid year of emails and obsessive, mouth-watering discussion, jim & i finally got to make our zuchotto. bill recorded it for posterity. because by the time it was unveiled, jim & i were SEVERAL margamaritas in. what? they're GOOD.

zuchotto is a dome-shaped confection compromised of layers of pound cake "bricks," whipped cream with roasted hazelnuts and whipped cream with chocolate chips, all generously doused with booze and set in the fridge for several hours.



so, basically, you line a bowl in cheesecloth, spray booze, then line it in bricks. which you spray with booze.


does my family turn it ON when there's a camera, or what? this was about 10am. if mama didn't do it, kevvie would have had to, but he was busy JUMPING OUT OF A PERFECTLY GOOD AIRPLANE at the time.



then a floor of whipped cream with whichever mix-in. you want to alternate. then bricks. then booze. repeat as necessary.



we used about five 8" pound cakes, 2 quarts of heavy cream and... um... some nuts & chips. and booze.


young james was SUPER helpful with disposing of leftover bricks. spread with nutella, natch.



did i say REAL whipped cream? cause: REAL. and unsweetened. trust me.







after a good spraying, wrap her in cheesecloth, cover with plastic wrap and chill for 7-24 hours.







perfect!


and HUGE. cutting through it wasn't doing my tendinitis any favors, let me tell you. so uncle jim took over and people started sharing cause-- whoa-- my uncle cuts a serious piece of cake.





(i mean, he DID jump out of a perfectly good airplane that morning!)

tres leches cake

oh, god, i've been planning, organizing, cooking and blogging these TWO meals for weeks. will anyone blame me if i just link to pioneer woman's recipe for tres leches cake? because it's the recipe i used, right up until i was supposed to make my own whipped cream. frosting that cake was the last thing i had to do in a fooding process that involved two spreadsheets, four grocery stores, a fish milkshake, inhaling mccormick's barbecue seasoning, hands and eyes burning with chili juice, a five am trip to a diner i'm still recovering from, ingredients i'd never heard of and a five-gallon spring mix salad i forgot to serve. so i used a can of whipped cream. sue me.

on that note: daddy.

pear-champagne cupcakes

i found this recipe through the lovely and talented lexa. it's perfect for if you need an excuse to drink most of a bottle of cheap sparkling wine alone in your jammies.

and for your mother's birthday.


cake ingredients:

• 2 3/4 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 cup softened butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 pears
• 1 cup sparkling wine (j. roget "champange" in this case)

frosting ingredients:

• 1/4 cup softened butter (no, seriously, if it's not really softened it will be gross)
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3 cups confectioners sugar
• splash "champagne"
  

prep work:

• preheat to 350*
• peel & quarter pears
• grate them in the food processor, ohmygod, not by hand
• combine flour, salt & baking powder

actual cooking:

• beat together sugar & butter
• beat in eggs one at a time
• add dry mixture
• add vanilla & "champagne"
• add pear
• distribute into lined muffin tins-- they won't rise much, so feel free to fill them a bit more than usual
• bake until a toothpick comes out cleanish (lexa says 12-15 minutes, my experience was more like 25)
• beat together frosting ingredients
• frost
• use leftover frosting to take a funny picture of any brave soul you can convince to eat frosting at nine am to star on your blog (thanks, pop)
• have four beers and forget to take a picture of, oh, i dunno, your mom blowing out her birthday candle or ANYTHING
  

madeleines

last weekend my uncle jim gave me a madeleine pan. the week before, the miminator gave me a miniture madeleine pan. there's something about me that just insists that you give me the baking tools you don't use anymore. it's how i've become the proud owner of lots and lots of neat things, like antique lab & bunny cake molds, a few extra muffin tins and a checkerboard cake kit.

j is fond of madeleines. "fond" might be a staggering understatement. j left for a new job in another city this morning. yesterday, i made 8 dozen 3" madeleines and two dozen minis. i filled a 2.5 gallon bag with the full-sized cakelettes (the minis require more discipline than i generally exercise) and this morning he drove away with it half full. fond. in order to make so damn many, i had to quadruple the recipe-- i think i need to buy another madeleine pan.

ingredients:

• 2 cups unsalted butter, melted
• 4 cups flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 12 eggs
• 2 2/3 cups sugar
• 4 tsp vanilla

prep:

• melt the butter
• preheat to 375*

actual cooking:

• combine flour, baking powder & salt
• beat eggs & sugar at medium-high until tripled in volume (eh, 6-7 minutes)
• sift a 1/2 cup or so of the flour mix over the eggs and fold it in
• gently, slowly fold in the rest of the flour mix
• add about 1/4 cup of the egg/flour mix to the cooled melted butter & whisk
• gently fold the butter mixture into the rest of the batter
• chill for an hour
• grease your mold (i used baking spray)

• drop rounded tablespoons of batter into the mold (i piped mine in, as i do with anything that doesn't all go in one pan)
  

• bake for 11-12 minutes
• drop pan from a couple inches onto your counter to loosen madeleines
• cool un-scalloped side down on a rack
• present the little darlings elegantly on a tray or impressively in a giant zippy bag
  

best of luck, j.

(and thanks for taking care of him, uncles jim & frank!)

(and for the madeleine pan! i hope there were some left after he was alone in a car with them for 5 hours.)

creamcicle cupcakes

over the weekend i read that (seriously.) "brownies are the new cupcake." determined to prove them wrong, i whipped up a quick batch of blitz cupcakes that bill swears tasted EXACTLY like a creamcicle.

ingredients:

• 1 cup butter (softened)
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbs milk
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp orange extract
• 2 bricks light cream cheese
• 2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• (1 tsp "white-white")

prep:

• preheat oven to 375*

actual cooking:

• combine flour, salt, sugar & baking powder in a mixing bowl
• beat in 1/2 cup butter (VERY soft), milk & orange extract
• divide batter between 18 cupcakes
• bake for 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean
• beat together remaining butter & cream cheese until light
• slowly add confectioners sugar, vanilla & color if desired
• allow cupcakes to cool and then frost by filling a pastry bag with frosting and cutting the tip at about 1/2 inch wide, swirl frosting from the outside in
• garnish with orange zest if you're not running behind (i ALWAYS am)

i also baked my daddy's birthday present over the weekend: 6 kinds of shortbread. i'll post a basic recipe, the chocolate-raspberry filled recipe and the lime-rum recipe.

AND i've ordered some rose extract, orange blossom water and culinary lavender from jr mushrooms & specialties.

cookies 'n cream cake

it remains unclear exactly WHO gave my BABY brother permission to turn eighteen, but there is one thing we do know: there was no road test.

whilst enjoying kevin's chocolate cake with coffee frosting in june, i asked leonardo what his preference would be. "well," he said after some consideration, "i can't ask for this again, so... something cookies 'n cream."


the body of the cake is comprised of two textures-- unfortunately this part needs some tweaking, but i'll get to that-- soft white cake and brownie. the frosting was a white "cream filling" butter cream, colored with wilton "white-white" and flavored with clear vanilla artificial flavoring. a bit of granulated sugar gave it that slightly gritty texture. wilton cookies n' cream sprinkles added, ummm, more cookiness. originally, the second texture was going to be a chocolate cookie, but the logistics were fuzzy and an obligation to school and my waistline prevented me from experimenting beforehand. so i did something possibly incredibly stupid: i left one egg out of the brownie layers hoping for a crumbly, cookie-like layer. this may be what propted anna to ask, "is this... toffee?" um, crumbly? not so much. imbued with a facinating tar-like quality might be closer to the mark.

everybody liked it though, especially greg, who ate twice as much as everyone else in a fraction of the time. boy, if you ever need to feel good about something you baked, call greg.

so, moving on...

brownie layer ingredients:

• 4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
• 3/4 cups butter
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 (or 3) eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup flour

cake layer ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter (softened to a mayonaise-like consistancy)
• 1 3/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup egg whites
• 1/2 cup plus 1 tbs milk
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla flavoring

frosting ingredients:

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 4 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tbs artificial (clear) vanilla
• liberal splash of "white-white" to preferred color
• about a tablespoon of milk

prep:

• warm everything up to room temp, or as specified
• grease 8" pans (or foil linings of said pans)
• preheat to 350*

actual cooking:

• nuke chocolate & brownie butter for 2 minutes
• stir until chocolate melts
• add sugar, eggs & vanilla
• add flour
• divide between pans
• bake for 25 minutes
• remove and cool
• preheat to 375*
• grease & flour pans
• combine dry cake ingredients
• add egg whites, vanilla, milk & butter
• beat until combined
• pour into two pans
• bake for 20 minutes
• remove and cool
• whip frosting butter until creamy
• SLOWLY add confectioner sugar
• add granulate sugar
• add vanilla flavoring & "white-white"
• add milk until desired consistancy is reached
• frost & decorate cake

happy



birthday

simba!

strawberries 'n cream, pretzel-crusted double-cake with chocolate ganache

until i met bill, i'd never heard of strawberry cake. the first time i made him a birthday cake, i asked what kinds he'd like. obviously, he answered that his grandmother used to make strawberry cake and he'd like that. (no pressure, though, right?)

i scoured the internet (okay, i googled) to no avail. when i happened to discover artificial strawberry flavor in the spice section of the grocery store, i felt like the luckiest person EVER, and made a strawberry-flavored white cake.

shortly thereafter, mimi told me to add a packet of strawberry jell-o to my cake batter and then my mother-in-law informed me that her step-mother's strawberry cake was a CAKE MIX. i know, right? i felt like a fool.

after two birthdays and four strawberry cakes, bill was ready to move on to better and more complicated cakes. enter the strawberries 'n 'cream, pretzel-crusted double-cake with chocolate ganache.

for this cake i used this cheesecake recipe, omitting the topping and replacing the graham cracker crumbs with crushed pretzels. in between layers i used strawberry jam, though really you don't NEED to fill this cake. the top layer was a strawberry blitz-cake from the joy of cooking, you could use whatever cake recipe you like with a generous splash of strawberry flavoring. the frosting was this chocolate ganache recipe (maybe doubled?). and the decorations were, obviously, mini pretzels and fresh strawberries.

chocolate cake with coffee frosting

kevin's birthday cake was a bakers chocolate one-bowl chocolate cake. it took, frankly, too damn long. in the future, i'll probably stick with the joy of cooking's "lightning cake" (or blitz-cake, as we call it).

ingredients (cake):

• 3/4 cup (1.5 sticks) butter
• 6 ounces (1 cup chips) semi-sweet chocolate
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/4 cups water

ingredients (frosting):

• 1/3 cup skim milk
• 1/8 cup instant coffee
• 6 cups confectioner's sugar
• 3/4 cups (1.5 sticks) butter, softened

prep:

• grease & flour 2 8" circle or square cake pans
• preheat over to 350*

actual cooking:

• in a small, microwave safe bowl, nuke frosting milk for 1.5 minutes
• add coffee and stir until dissolved
• set aside
• in a large, microwave safe bowl nuke cake butter & chocolate for 2 minutes
• stir until melted & combined
• add sugar
• add eggs & vanilla
• add 1/2 cup flour, salt & baking soda
• add remaining flour & water (alternating)
• pour batter into cake pans
• bake for 35 minutes
• combine softened butter and confectioners sugar
• add coffee-milk by the tablespoon until desired consistency is reached

blue ribbon lamb cake

this is a molded easter lamb cake baked in a blue ribbon bakeware easter lamb mold using the blue ribbon bakeware lamb cake recipe. the mold belonged to my great grandmother, and she used this same recipe (which came with the mold). last year i tried to use a joy of cooking white cake recipe and it turned out really hard and dry, so this year i'm using the recipe that's worked for 60+ years because, to quote the recipe, "in all our testing and use there was no leakage of batter-- no breakage of the nose or ears and the cake was removed very easily."

ingredients:

• 2 cups flour
• 3 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1tsp vanilla
• 2/3 cup milk

prep:

• grease & flour mold
• preheat overn to 375*

actual cooking:

• combine flour, baking powder & salt, set aside
• cream butter
• add sugar
• add eggs & vanilla
• add dry mixture alternating with milk
• place mold on edged baking sheet
• pour batter into the front side of the mold
• place the back side on top
• bake for 45 minutes
• remove mold, back side first and allow cake to cool upright
• frost & decorate

because i hate coconut, i frost the cake with white frosting (after an attempt at boiled butter cream & regular butter cream yesterday, i settled on duncan hines fluffy white for this) and sprinkle green sweetened coconut around it. you could, instead, gently press the coconut into the frosting. i made the lips with 1/4 of a pink jellybean and the eyes with a split black one, but the traditional decorations are 1/2 a cherry and 2 raisins.

batter poured into the face side of the mold

back side of the mold on top

cake removed from mold (face-up)

the bow is at one end of the ribbon and secured to the other end with a dot of frosting

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.

cooking, bb (before blog): lisa's last birthday cake

i do the bulk of my cooking on the weekends, but just for fun i'm going to post now about a cake that has long since been devoured because i have a picture of it. good idea, right?

lisa may never have another birthday. she's twenty-four and holding. no, no, she's not terminally ill. why would i blog about that? she just doesn't want to get old, and who can blame her? so, for her massive, blow-out, last birthday EVER party, she had a fabulous luau (about three months ago). i got it into my head to bake her a birthday cake and make it SPECTACULAR.

my only ALONE cake-making experience up until then was molded lamb and bunny cakes last easter. they turned out okaaaaaaaaay. next year's will be better. so i enlisted the help of my fabulous friend meg, who can watch 4 kids, decorate a spectacular cake and carry on a serious-ish conversation all at the same time. in my book, that makes you a goddamned superhero. (yay meg!)

so, i told meg what i wanted to do (three tiers: ocean with floor, ocean with fishies, island with hula boy) and she sketched it out. i'm gonna repeat that, because it bears repeating, she sketched it out. then, through some kind of sorcery, she made fantastic yellow and orange fishies that you can EAT. and then she made frosting that coordinated and looked all pretty together. i, meanwhile, bought a wiggily dashboard hula boy from archie mcphee. glorious. i also bought 3 cake carriers in which to transport the three tiers of cake up to west bumble (no offense, lisa, but it is) where the party was. go me.

meg and i made plans to get together and DO IT on the sunday before the (friday) party. that morning i called meg and said something to the effect of, "uhduuuuuuuuuuuuur, whud r we doin wif dis here cake thinger today?" meg, very patiently, told me that we were decorating it. i? had not made the cake. so we made it out of mixes (eh.) and i watched while meg decorated it. things didn't QUITE work out as sketched because the mix cake didn't get tall like a real cake would have. my bad. but it DID turn out kind of amazing: