Archive for the ‘Cakes’ Category
This Banana Buttermilk Chocolate Cake is the kind of classic cake that never goes out of style. It’s the kind of cake that you can bring to bake sales or barbecues, and even serve at dressy dinner parties. It is also very easy to make, so it’s the type of recipe that you can keep “in your back pocket” for occasions when you need a cake quickly. In short, it is an all purpose cake recipe and it is absolutely delicious.
Bananas and chocolate share the flavor spotlight in the cake. There are very generous amounts of both mashed banana and cocoa powder in the cake batter, and they contribute to a cake that is extremely moist and has a very tight, tender crumb to it. There are subtle butter and vanilla undertones here, but chocolate and banana are the stars. The cake is very satisfying, but it is not to rich or heavy, so you can eat a generous slice without feeling stuffed, too.
I baked this cake in a 10-inch ring pan, but it can also be baked in a bundt pan. The baking time will be about the same, but don’t forget to grease and flour your bundt pan to ensure that the cake comes out cleanly. You can serve it plain, or top it off with a drizzle of chocolate or cream cheese frosting. You can even turn it into a sundae with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. The cake keeps well for several days when stored in an airtight container, and you can even freeze a few (unfrosted) slices to save for another day.
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Madeleines are small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape. They’re baked in a specially shaped pan and there is something special about them that seems to put a smile on peoples’ faces when they see them. Traditionally, madeleines are made with a genoise batter, which is a type of cake where melted butter is folded in to a sponge cake batter just before baking in order to tenderize it and no leavening agents apart from beaten eggs are added. These very classic cakes are tasty, but I find that adding a small amount of baking powder lightens the cookies up a bit and makes them a little bit more consistent.
My Vanilla Madeleines are light, tender and golden, with a soft and slightly spongy texture to them. I flavored them with a generous splash of vanilla extract, and will sometimes use vanilla sugar (when I have some on hand) to further boost the vanilla flavor. The vanilla blends well with the buttery sponge cake, and also helps the madeleines go well with coffee and tea. I recommend using metal pans, as opposed to silicone, for the best results.
Madeleines keep very well when stored in an airtight container, as their flavor only seems to improve over the course of a few days following baking. They are best when served with coffee or tea, and their spongey texture makes them perfect for soaking up a bit of the liquid when dipped. You can also dip a corner of each cookie in chocolate to dress them up a bit, though you can’t go wrong when serving them plain, either.
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There are many flavors that pair well with chocolate. Coffee is one, and it is often included in chocolate cakes to bring out some of the darker notes of chocolate. Believe it or not, but dark stout is another. These dark beers often have an intense malty flavor and an almost chocolate-like profile to them, and they can enhance the bitter and malty notes that you find in dark chocolate, giving a cake a great chocolate flavor and a lot of character.
This Chocolate Stout Sheet Cake is made using a stout beer. I used a beer called Boatswain Chocolate Stout, which is actually brewed with cocoa to enhance the chocolate-like notes often found in stout beer (although it doesn’t have more than a subtle hint of cocoa to it). It is worth noting that any stout beer will do the trick in this recipe. The cake is very moist and tender, using butter, vegetable oil and yogurt in it. It has a great dark chocolate flavor to it thanks to both the beer and a generous amount of cocoa powder. You won’t taste the beer in the finished cake, but it definitely takes the edge off what would otherwise be a fairly sweet cake and gives it a grown up chocolate taste.
I topped this cake off with a Chocolate Stout Buttercream, adding a little bit of my chocolate stout beer to a simple chocolate buttercream. This introduced a distinct malty note to the frosting (again, giving it a grown-up flavor) and really tied it in well with the cake. You can leave out the beer and opt for a plain chocolate buttercream by simply adding milk to your frosting instead. This cake is also good with vanilla frosting, and is satisfying enough to eat plain – with a cup of coffee or even a glass of that chocolatey stout that you used to make it.
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This Applesauce Oatmeal Bundt Cake is a favorite cake of mine when the weather is still a little bit chilly, because the cake seems very homey and satisfying, the perfect thing for enjoying on a cool morning without any fuss or fanfare. The cake contains applesauce, rolled oats and honey – all of which work well together – as well as some cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg that serve to highlight the fruity applesauce.
Applesauce adds both moisture and flavor to this cake, and stands as its own ingredient (not a replacement for something else). Applesauce is easy to work with because it doesn’t need to be chopped, blended or grated, but it delivers a lot of fresh apple flavor. I recommend using plain applesauce, although a chunky applesauce with big pieces of apple in it can be a very nice addition to the cake, too. The oatmeal also adds a lot of flavor to this cake, just as it does to a batch of oatmeal cookies. You can use whole rolled oats for the most distinct oat flavor, but quick cooking oats will give the cake a slightly finer texture if you have that type of oatmeal and prefer to use it. Both will give you a great cake, and I tend to use what I have on hand (the cake pictured uses rolled oats).
This cake is not too sweet and, while it could be topped with some cream cheese frosting and served for dessert, it is an excellent breakfast or snack cake. If you leave off the frosting, you can even toast a slice and serve it spread with a little bit of butter or some confectioners’ sugar. The cake keeps well when stored in an airtight container, but the fact that it holds up to toasting means that you can “refresh” a slice of cake to enjoy with a cup of tea even many days after baking.
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A traditional whoopie pie is a pair of cake-like chocolate cookies sandwiching a fluffy, marshmallow frosting center. It’s a good combination, to be sure, but whoopie pies are a lot more interesting when you mix things up with different flavors and, fortunately, it is very easy to add some flavor to a whoopie pie. These Chocolate Whoopie Pies with Raspberry Buttercream pair soft, chocolate cake and a fruity raspberry filling. Flavor-wise, it’s a great combination, but the bright colors in the finished dessert make this a lot of fun, too.
The cake portion of the whoopie pies is a simple, chocolate cake that has a generous amount of cocoa powder in it to ensure that each pie has a strong chocolate flavor. They’re moist and tender, but they are a little sturdier than chocolate cupcake would be so that they are easy to handle when filling and serving. The raspberry filling is a simple American buttercream – butter, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar – spiked with some raspberry puree. You can buy the puree at some stores, but I make batches by defrosting frozen berries and pureeing them in the food processor, then straining out the seeds. It takes a little extra time to make a puree, but they pack a lot of flavor and the raspberry really turned this buttercream a beautiful shade of pink. Chocolate and raspberry is a good flavor combination in any kind of dessert and this one is no exception.
The recipe makes about 16 generously sized whoopie pies, so they’re good for serving to a crowd or at a party. I think they’re an especially good Valentine’s Day treat because of the lovely pink filling inside of the pies. They keep well for several days when stored in an airtight container and they can even be frozen if you want to tuck one or two away for another day.
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