Chocolate Mudcake

My friend's birthday was last month, so when I moved in temporarily into the apartment she shares with a couple other friends, I brought a chocolate cake with me. I didn't have any cocoa powder on me, however, so I used a white chocolate mudcake recipe and subbed dark chocolate for the white chocolate.

Without my usual tools, I had to eyeball the cutting of the cake in half to put whipped cream between both halves.

Random decoration with chocolate chips and shaved choc chips.

Recipe similar to the white chocolate mudcake in this cake~

Chocolate Checkerboard Cake with Strawberries

Last Monday was one of my friends' birthday. Unfortunately, this last week was also one of the busiest weeks of the semester, being midterms time. Due to this quite pressing engagement, we couldn't really celebrate. My cousin and I thought we should do something at least, however, as we are usually on Fall break when her birthday comes around. This year, however, our semester somehow got moved up a week, so we are actually on campus on her birthday.

I know that she likes chocolate. Instead of doing boring plain chocolate cake, however, I thought I'd alternate dark and white chocolate in a checkerboard cake. I decided to stick to two mudcake recipes (like the ones I used in the Christmas tree cake) but ended up with a bit less white chocolate mudcake than dark. I thus had to chop some off in order to make it somewhat equal. I thought I'd just chop off the top, domed part, and just stick a layer of white and a layer of dark, and invert 1/3 of that for a 2-layer cake.

As you can see, however, I ended up including the domed parts, cut into strips, for a third, somewhat smaller layer. I just didn't want the cake to be too flat... The strips of cake were attached together with a dark chocolate ganache.

I thawed some frozen strawberries (fresh ones being a bit too pricey now for my student wallet), drained them, and sliced them. I "glued" them over the seams on the top with some melted dark chocolate, then I arranged whatever leftover I had a bit around. These provided a nice refreshing touch to counter the sweetness of the chocolate. For contrast, I added words of white chocolate that I wrote on a small piece of baking paper and stuck in the freezer to set.

The two cakes should probably have been refrigerated before I cut them, as they somewhat crumbled when I tried arranging them right after they just cooled to room temperature. In the end, after the ganache and the cooling in the fridge, they stayed together nicely.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Dark Chocolate Mudcake

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup tepid water
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

     White Chocolate Mudcake

• 1 cup sifted flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup soymilk or other milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tbs vinegar
• 100 g white chocolate, melted

     Chocolate Ganache

• 150 g chocolate, chopped
• 75 mL (~1/3 cup) heavy cream

  Procedure

     Dark Chocolate Mudcake

1. Preheat oven at 180°C. Grease and line a loaf pan.
2. Sift together all dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix together wet ingredients.
3. Make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet ingredients. Mix well
4. Pour into the pan, and tap the pan against the table/working surface to release trapped bubbles.
5. Bake 30-35 minutes or until well risen and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out dry.
6. Leave to cool in the tin for 20 mins, then remove to cool completely.

     White Chocolate Mudcake

1. Preheat oven at 180°C. Grease and line a loaf pan.
2. In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients.
3. Melt the chocolate.
4. Add the soymilk, oil, chocolate, and vinegar to the dry ingredients mix.
5. Mix until smooth.
6. Pour into the pan, and tap it against the table or working surface to release trapped bubbles.
7. Bake for 20-30 mins.
8. Cool.

     Chocolate Ganache

1.  Place the chocolate in a medium bowl.
2. Heat cream until boiling.
3. Pour cream over chocolate, and mix until all chocolate is melted.

     Assembly

1. Cut the two cakes into even layers. Spread ganache on one of the layers, then top it with a layer of the other one. Repeat if there is sufficient cake remaining.
2. Cut the assembly into 3, lengthwise.
3. On a surface, set down the edge piece. Spread some ganache on the inside-facing side of it.
4. Turn the middle row upside down, then set it next to the edge piece, pressing slightly for it to adhere.
5. Spread more ganache on the bare side of the middle piece, and add the remaining edge piece.
6. If desired, cover the whole cake in ganache or other icing.
7. Refrigerate before serving.

  Tips

• Ideally, the recipe quantities should be tweaked to make 2 cakes of equal height. In that case, 2 cakes of opposing patterns can be made.
• Refrigerating the cakes before cutting them will make them a bit firmer and thus less likely to crumble.
• If there are remaining cut-offs of the cakes (like from the domes), they can be made into cake pops.
• Other cakes and flavors or icings can be used to make such a cake.
• Using vegan chocolate and non-dairy cream will make this cake vegan.

Birthday Apple Cake

Part 2 of my mom's birthday! I figured that an apple tart would not be very convenient for candles. At my brother's request, I made an apple cake (well he wanted an apple and pear cake, but I was short on time, so I just went with apples).

The recipe is very similar to the one I used in this cake, but I did not have any whipping cream, so I just topped it with lightly caramelized apples. The whole cake is glazed with the remaining glaze from the apple tart. Inside the cake, there are diced apples that I tossed in some flour to keep them from sinking too much (but I forgot to take a picture...)

I also added some leftover homemade applesauce to the batter for extra moistness.

Birthday Apple Tart

For my mom's birthday this year, I scribbled a few ideas during one of my classes (shhh don't tell my professor). I know from over the summer that she loves the apple tarts I make (see here and here). So at least one of the desserts was decided on.

I could not really take my time to make desserts this time, since I had spent the first half of the afternoon helping my brother. Afterwards, I left him to go to the kitchen and cook and bake. I made a spinach lasagna for the main dish, accompanied by a simple lettuce and corn salad.

It was my intention to start with the dough I still had in the freezer from one of the previous tarts. Unfortunately, it did not defrost on time (lack of foresight on my part), so I quickly made a new batch. I used a whole recipe for a thicker crust this time, after my parents mentioned wanting more crust in the tarts.

My parents bought Boskoop apples, which are a bit more sour, but one of the best varieties to cook. Due to the additional sourness, however, I had to sprinkle some brown sugar on top of the apples before baking. Besides these modifications to the crust and the apple type, the recipe is much the same as all the other times I made apple tarts!

Lemon Crumble Cheesecake

Yesterday was my brother's birthday. He's not a big fan of cheesecake, but my mom had already ordered a durian cake for him. That cake, however, has eggs, which means not everyone could eat it. So as usual, I took it upon myself to make a cake.

My mom's first suggestion was "a banana cake," to which my first thoughts were "I have only made one before in my life, and it's not something I see as a birthday cake." Then after some thought, she added "what about that really good lemon cheesecake you made before?" I knew it was her favorite of all cheesecakes I'd made (and that she had eaten), so I thought "why not?"

The recipe is the same as this one, except I used 2 whole lemons in zest and in juice. I used about 185 g of cream cheese, and 500 g of sour cream. For the egg replacer, I used my usual Orgran ones, since I had it on hand (instead of making my own like that time I made this cheesecake).

I thought the topping being crumble mix would make it kind of boring. Decorating the cake makes it much more interesting, but the challenge was to decorate it without making the crumble topping soggy. I went for an arrangement of 3 candied lemon slices. Easy enough to make: slice lemon, boil in a sugar syrup (2 parts of water for 1 part of sugar), then let cool. After putting them on, I sprinkled some granulated sugar for extra prettiness.

Last Christmas, one of my brothers gave me a decorating pen, with which I could write things on cake. I thought I'd test it out on this cake, using some chocolate.

I tested it out a bit on some spare baking paper, to make sure I could control it well enough. Surprisingly, it is easy to use. Just squeeze the barrel a bit while writing.

Melted some chocolate chips over a bain-marie. Then I got to writing. I tried to copy the Brock Script typeface for the capital letters, the rest being my own (neatified and fancified) handwriting.

"Bon Annif" is short for "Bon Anniversaire," which means "Happy Birthday" ~

Birthday Cupcakes and Truffles

June 9, 2013

June 8th was the birthday of someone who is very important to me. I wanted to give her something special, but had no chance to make anything intricate. So I settled for cupcakes. The recipe for the cake is this basic vegan cake recipe (it's almost my go-to recipe for cakes nowadays), except without the matcha. I made some large cupcakes as well as some mini ones.

The frosting is the same as well, except that I tried to give it a slight strawberry flavor by mixing in some strawberry jam. The difference in moisture content (as well as a lack of time resulting in insufficient cooling of the mixture) led to it having a weird, almost unmixed aspect >.<

Some of the mini cupcakes fell apart when I tried to take them out of the silicone mold, so I thought I would try to make some impromptu cake truffles that I've read about on so many blogs. I put the broken cupcakes in a blender to turn it into cake crumbs, and mixed in leftover frosting to make it stick together. I formed little balls, stuck toothpicks in them, then dipped them in melted chocolate.

I had a few issues with the cake balls not staying on the toothpick while dipping in the chocolate. After looking it up, it would seem that it's best to refrigerate the uncoated truffles before dipping them. It will be worth trying another time (with maybe less sugar in the cake/frosting mix).

For the end result, I packed a couple of large cupcakes with a few of the mini ones, and a bunch of truffles, into an aluminum pan (kind of like those that pre-cooked lasagna comes in at the store, because that's all I had), decorated it all, and gave it as a present, with a card.

Birthday cheesecake~

Made another cheesecake for my brother's 29th birthday. The crust is store-bought pastry dough this time, since I was short on time.

For topping, it's blueberry sauce that was too runny, and "leaves" and numbers cut out of apples.

Cousin's Birthday

For my cousin's birthday:
1) fluffy white cupcakes (my first time ever) with whipped cream on top.

2) a failed cake... (It's supposed to be a fondant au chocolat but it failed....)