Christmas Baking: Gingerbread Cake with Cinnamon Frosting & Chewy Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies

I didn't get to do as much Christmas baking as I'd planned, being away for most of the time. But what I did bake, people seemed to really like, which is always good, especially since I tried something new this year. I usually make Snickerdoodles every year but we didn't have the right sugar so I opted out.








Gingerbread Cake

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup molasses
• 2 eggs
• 2½ cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp ground ginger (I didn't have ginger so I used 1/2 tsp of cloves and nutmeg)
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup hot water

Grease a 9-inch square pan and pre-heat oven to 350°F. In medium bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, and stir in the molasses. In a separate bowl, sift the remaining dry ingredients; add alternately with water to molasses mixture in 3 additions, stirring after each addition. Bake in prepared pan about 50 minutes or until tester inserted in center comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Cinnamon Frosting

• 2 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1 8oz package cream cheese
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp heavy cream

I'm just guessing on the amounts, I never write them down for frosting. I just add more butter and more sugar and more cream until the taste and consistency is what I want.
Cream butter and cream cheese. Slowly add confectioners' sugar and cinnamon. Mix until well blended. Add heavy cream and beat until frosting is fluffy and of spreading consistency.

Chewy Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies (from ohmyveggies)

• 1 c. all-purpose flour
• 1/3 c. unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/3 c. butter, softened
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1 large egg
• 1/4 c. mini chocolate chips (I used dark chocolate)
• 1/2 c. crushed peppermint pieces (about 6 candy canes)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and whisk until combined and any lumps are broken up. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar together using a mixer on high speed. Add vanilla and egg and beat until combined. Set mixer to low speed and slowly add flour mixture. Beat until just combined and fold in chocolate chips and peppermint pieces.
Drop tablespoons of batter two inches apart onto a baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake for 12 minutes or until set. (Don't overbake or the cookies won't be chewy!) Cook on baking sheets for 5 minutes, then finish cooling on wire racks.

Someone Help Me Name This Cake?

I am terrible at coming up with names for cakes/cookies/meals of any kind. Chocolate cake with so many alterations it barely resembles a typical chocolate cake is still just "chocolate cake." Either that or I have to explain every time whatever is in what I made, instead of just having a clever name that sums it all up. So if anyone has any suggestions for this, let me know? I may not have a name for it, but I can assure you it's delicious.

Sometimes when I'm bored and in a cooking mood, I look up recipes for a specific thing to make (like cake for example), decide on a base recipe (chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, something with fruit), open up a new tab a million tabs from other sites and start assembling bits and pieces of the final recipe in Gmail. Today was one of those days. Obviously, this process gets complicated if certain things I want to make, I don't have the ingredients for, but most of the time I just make substitutions or alterations.
I originally hadn't intended to, since I make things with Oreos so often, but I added Oreos at the last minute because I knew I wanted a filling of some sort / two different frostings so it wasn't overwhelmingly chocolate. I love cakes dripping with ganache on top, but have never made one, and I also think cakes decorated in a creative way (not the frosting this time, since I lost my piping bag and tips) are always awesome.

So I decided on chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, cookies & cream frosting in between the layers, covered in dripping ganache and decorated with Halloween nonpareils and Whoppers because it's October and I need to use my Halloween sprinkles, don't judge me.
Another thing: I AM ABSOLUTELY AWFUL AT WAITING FOR CAKES TO COOL. I'm so excited and eager to frost the cake that most of the time, I put the frosting in between the layers and it melts right away. I have tried to hurry the cake up by putting it in the freezer / fridge but of course, the middle is always still warm and causes everything to melt and be lopsided, etc. Do not be like me. If you are like me, and end up with a tilty cake, put it in the fridge for a bit until the cake is cool and frosting has hardened up a bit, then fill in any gaps and try to make everything as even as possible. Other blogs have tutorials and things of that nature for how to properly frost the perfect cake, and I would advise looking at them at least once (unless you're one of those people who isn't a perfectionist and doesn't care what the cake looks like as long as it tastes good; then just keep being you because you are awesome and I admire you).

for the cake:

• ¾ cup butter room temperature
• ¾ cup sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 ¾ cup all purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tbsp cocoa powder
• 2 oz semi-sweet chocolate melted

chocolate buttercream: 

• 1 cup butter
• 1 tsp vanilla
• A pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar (or to taste)
• ½ cup + 1 tbsp cocoa powder

oreo filling:

• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
•  about 1 row of Oreo cookies, finely crushed
• 2 tbsp heavy cream or milk
• ½ tsp vanilla extract

dark chocolate glaze:

• ¾ a cup of dark chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp of heavy cream
• 1 tbsp of powdered sugar 
• (a couple of tsp of water if needed)

the cake:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8 inch pan with parchment paper or lightly grease with baking spray. Set aside.
Beat the butter and sugar until light and creamy.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Stir in the flour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
Add the melted chocolate to the cake batter and pour it into the prepared baking pan.
Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

the glaze:

Bring a pot of water to a boil. Place a heat proof bowl over the top of the simmering water.
Add in chocolate and heavy cream, stir continuously until melted.Stir in sugar.
If it does not look pourable, add some water 1 tsp at a time until it is.
Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 15 minutes.
You can work the chocolate down the sides with a rubber spatula to create drips

the chocolate buttercream:
Whip in a stand mixer using a paddle attachment butter, and flavoring till creamy then whip in powdered sugar and cocoa. Set aside until ready to use.

oreo filling:
Grind/crush Oreo cookies until fine.
Cube butter and place in stand alone mixer bowl.
Using the whisk attachment, whisk butter, vanilla, 1 cup of sugar, and Oreo cookies together on medium speed until smooth.
Add remaining sugar and 2 tbsp cream.
Whisk on medium to high for a few minutes until frosting is smooth.

(recipe sources / recipes altered:  cake | oreo frosting | glaze | buttercream)

Eggless Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies

People sometimes ask me if I'm a vegetarian or if I'm allergic to certain things because I've made quite a few eggless / gluten-free / dairy-free desserts. I don't have any food allergies and while I don't eat meat frequently, I'm not a vegetarian (and I don't have any problems with those who are). I always find it funny when people think this because the case usually is I was just out of certain items usually needed to bake but was determined to make something anyway. I also just really like trying new recipes and seeing what substitutes can work and still taste good.

Tonight, we had no eggs. The reason I wanted cookies so badly was for a ridiculous reason: Spongebob. Spongebob was on and he was eating a cookie and I instantly needed to make some. It's silly, but it's the truth. I wanted to make cookies so badly I looked up an eggless recipe and adjusted it accordingly. This is also the first baked good I've made a) with my replacement wire whip for my KitchenAid, and b) in the oven in my new apartment. So I was taking quite the risk.

It should be noted that the batter for these cookies is much lighter than normal dough because of the lack of egg, and it also has a slightly floury aftertaste that goes away with baking. If you bake the cookies too long, they crumble very easily (and don't taste very good) because of the flour to liquid ratio. The bottoms of my cookies got brown rather fast, but the tops barely browned at all, so don't worry about the bottoms burning and the rest not being cooked through. About 8-10 minutes and they should be perfect. They aren't crunchy and they aren't chewy, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. They're light and soft and melt in your mouth.

Eggless Dark Chocolate Chip Cookies (adapted from recipe4living )

• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tablespoons water
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1-1 1/2 cups dark (or semisweet, etc) chocolate chips 

Preheat oven to 375°F.
Beat butter and other wet ingredients until butter appears creamy. Add dry ingredients and mix well. Add in chocolate chips.
Bake for about 10 minutes.

Simple Brownies with Dark Chocolate Chips

I finally got to bake my first dessert in my new apartment! I finished packing up at my mother's house yesterday and the unpacking is almost finished here. I got a brownie pan and some other baking stuff, and since we need to go grocery shopping today anyway, I figured brownies weren't a bad idea for breakfast.

This is my go-to brownie recipe. I usually add chocolate chips of some sort, but you can add pretty much anything (candy, caramel, nuts, etc).


Dark Chocolate Chip Brownies (recipe via Living Lou)

• 6 tbsp unsalted butter
• 6 oz coarsely chopped semisweet chocolate
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• a handful—1/4 cup dark chocolate chips (depends on your preference; too many chocolate chips and the brownies won't cook properly)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease an 8-inch pan or line with parchment paper, and grease the parchment paper.
Melt butter, chocolate and cocoa in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water, or melt in microwave at 30 second intervals, mixing each time. Stir together until melted. Once melted, cool slightly.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a bow, and set aside.

Beat sugar, eggs and vanilla in a bowl with an electric mixer for 4 minutes. Add the melted chocolate mixture and beat until combined. Add the flour mixture and beat, scraping down the sides of the bowl until completely combined.
Pour batter into the prepared pan and bake until a cake tester comes out with a few crumbs, which takes about 30—35 minutes, depending on your oven.

Dark Chocolate Mousse

August 15th was Julia Child's birthday. She's a huge inspiration to me, always has been since I was a child and watched her every Sunday on channel 2. I wanted to make something fitting in honor of her, and decided upon chocolate mousse. This isn't her classic recipe, but I'd like to think she'd be flattered nonetheless. Bon appétit!



Dark Chocolate Mousse

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup dark chocolate (I used dark chocolate chips)
• 3 eggs, separated
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (with an extra splash)

Melt butter and chocolate together in a double boiler or in the microwave at 30 second intervals, mixing in between. Whisk egg yolks into the chocolate mixture and place in the refrigerator. In a large bowl and with a large whisk (or with a hand mixer), beat egg whites for a minute or two. Add half the sugar to the egg whites and continue to beat until they form stiff peaks, another 3 minutes or so. Set aside. In another large bowl and with a large whisk (or hand mixer if you have one), beat cream for about a minute. Then add the remaining sugar and vanilla until it holds soft peaks, about 2 minutes. Be very careful not to over-beat the cream. If it has a cottage cheesy texture, you have gone too far. Take the chocolate mixture out of the refrigerator and stir in a couple of spoonfuls of the whites. Then fold in remaining whites thoroughly but gently. Fold in cream in the same manner. Stick mixture back into the fridge until chilled, at least 2 hours or overnight.
Yields 4 servings.

(adapted from The Chubbette)

Macarons: Attempt #1

I had been wanting to make macarons ever since I saw a picture of them, mostly because there are so many flavor combinations you can create with them, and there aren’t many places to get them around here. The only place I’ve been to that has them is LA Burdick Chocolates in Cambridge, and they call them Luxembourgers.
About a year ago, being impatient, I tried making macarons without the use of almond meal (I made chocolate ones, one version with nutella buttercream and another with mocha buttercream) which turned out disastrously, but still tasty. I knew as soon as I could get my hands on some almond meal, I had to make them correctly.
Chocolate Desserts By Pierré Herme has a recipe for macarons that isn’t in the metric system. That’s one thing I find confusing about most macaron recipes. I figured it would be better to start out with a base recipe that was easier to measure and that I didn’t need a scale for. So I started from scratch on my first real macaron making adventure.

Notes for next attempt: These came out rather flat and cracked instead of smooth and puffy like they were supposed to. I think this happened because I didn’t sift the ingredients as much as I needed to which made the ingredients hard to stir together, and thus caused me to overwhip the egg whites. We shall see what happens on take 2. For the filling, I used a chocolate ganache made of Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate and heavy cream. Even though these didn’t come out perfectly, they still tasted delicious (really good with ice cream in the middle, actually). I’m excited to try again as soon as I have time so that I can get really good at making them and make more macarons with different flavors and fillings.

Pierre Hermé’s Chocolate Macarons Hermé’s notes that come with the recipe:

“Egg Whites are the key element in this recipe. Take care to beat them until they are only just firm and still shiny, and don’t be concerned when, as you add the dry ingredients, they deflate - they’re supposed to. Knocking some of the air out of the whites is what will give these macaroons their characteristic smooth top. Keep the whites too firm and you’ll end up with meringue.”

• 1-1/3 cups (5 oz.) almond flour
• 2 cups plus 2 T. powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa
• 1/2 cup egg whites (about 4 large; see step three)

1) Line two large insulated baking sheets with parchment (or stack two together if you don’t have insulated sheet pans). Fit a large pastry bag with a plain tip. Set aside.

2) Sift the sugar and cocoa, whisk in the almond flour.

3) For this recipe to succeed, you need 1/2 cup of egg whites which means using 3 large egg whites plus part of the fourth egg white. Gently whisk the extra egg white to break it up then measure it out. Bring the whites to room temperature. This is very important to get the most volume out of the whites.

4) Beat the whites at low to medium speed until they are white and foamy. Turn the speed up to high and whip them just until they are firm but still glossy and supple - when you lift the whisk, the whites should form a peak that droops just a little. Leave the whites in the mixer bowl or transfer them to a large bowl and, working with a rubber spatula, fold the dry ingredients gently into the whites in three of four additions. It will seem like a lot of dry ingredients to go into a relatively small amount of whites, but keep folding and you’ll get everything in. Don’t worry if the whites deflate and the batter looks a little runny - this is what’s supposed to happen. When all the dry ingredients are incorporated, the mixture will look like cake batter; if you lift a little with your finger, it should form a gentle, quickly falling peak.

5) Spoon the batter int the pastry bag and pipe it out on to the prepared baking sheets. Pipe the batter into rounds about 1” in diameter leaving about an inch between each round. When you’ve piped out all the macaroons, lift each baking sheet with both hands and then bang it down on the counter. Don’t be afraid - you need to get the air out of the batter. Set the baking sheets aside at room temp for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven.

6) Center the rack in the oven and preheat at 425F.

7) You should bake these one pan at a time, so dust the tops of the macarons with cocoa powder and slide one of the sheets in to the oven. As soon as the baking sheet is in the oven, reduce heat to 350F and insert the wooden handle of a spoon into the oven to keep the door slightly ajar. Bake the macarons for 10 to 12 minutes or until they are smooth and just firm to the touch. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and turn the oven back up to 425F.

To remove the macaron bases from the parchment - they should be removed as soon as they come from the oven - you will need to create moisture under the cookies. Carefully loosen the parchment at the four corners, and lifting the paper at one corner, pour a little (note: VERY little) hot water under the paper onto the baking sheet. The water may bubble and steam so be careful. Move the parchment around or tilt the baking sheet so that the parchment is evenly dampened, allow the macarons to remain on the parchment, soaking up the moisture for about 15 seconds, then peel the macarons off the paper and place them on a cooling rack.
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8) Repeat the process with the remaining sheet pan.

9) Pipe your choice of filling onto one base and top with second base.

Éclairs

I had an urge to bake, despite my allergies being so bad I could barely keep my eyes open. I’ve wanted to make pâte à choux since I was very little and saw Julia Child make it on television, but I always forget about all of the pastries that include it when thinking of what to make on my next baking adventure. When I was little, my mother used to buy those boxes of frozen cream puffs from the grocery store every so often and I would eat my weight in them, but cream puffs are never the first thing that comes to mind when I think “dessert.” Today, though, I remembered and decided I would make éclairs.

I used this recipe (the website also has a lovely photo tutorial to go with the recipe as well — I didn’t notice this until just now, but thankfully my éclairs turned out perfectly), except I used soy milk, since I had no other type of milk on hand, and about 1Tbsp of vanilla extract instead of a vanilla bean. I also made my choux dough by hand since the paddle attachment on my kitchenaid didn’t seem to be reaching the dough and I didn’t think it would work, and it was quite a workout for my arm (but completely worth it).

I also made the chocolate glaze differently, since I had no heavy cream.


Chocolate Glaze

• 3.5oz Ghiradelli Twilight Dark chocolate
• about 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 Tbsp light corn syrup
• 3 Tbsp butter

Over a double boiler, combine chocolate, corn syrup, and butter until melted and combined. Remove from heat and whisk until shiny. Refrigerate for about 5-10 minutes until chocolate starts to thicken. Dip the tops of filled éclairs into glaze, shaking gently to allow excess to drip off, then place upright on a wire rack and allow to set.