Orange Chocolate Cake

To celebrate a double birthday (early birthdays for my brother and my dad), I made two desserts. Well technically, I was supposed to just make this cake, and my cousin B was supposed to make the apple tart. In the end, she had other stuff to do as well, so she helped me make the applesauce. Then I made the rest of the tart using store-bought puff pastry for the crust. This was also because my dad mentioned preferring it with puff pastry.

While debating what cake to make, I recalled the Black Forest cake I had made. I didn't have applesauce, but I used some my cousin made for the apple tart. I also used a sweetened cocoa powder (like those to mix in milk) as I did not have unsweetened cocoa, so reduced the sugar a lot. Also, instead of using 1/2 cup of decaf, I used about 1/4 cup decaf, and 1/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice. To add to the orange flavor, I zested an organic orange and threw it in with the dry ingredients.

For decoration, I sliced a smaller organic orange and simmered it in a simple sugar syrup (1 part sugar, 1 part water) until translucent, then drained on a grill. On a whim, I took some chocolate, melted it with a bit of vegetable oil to make it shinier. Then I swiped some leaf/drop shapes on a sheet of baking paper using the back of a spoon, and put it in the freezer to set.

I whipped cream with some icing sugar in it and put it between the two cake halves. Then I spread the rest over the top of the cake, and cut halves of candied orange slices before arranging them on top. With the chocolate, I settled for a flower-like shape, trying my best to keep the chocolate from melting in my hands. I chopped up a bit of a leftover candied orange for the flower's center.

Here's the cake with the candles, as well as a bit of the apple tart. I had planned to try making my own puff pastry, but didn't want to make the effort while having so much to do that day. Unfortunately, I had forgotten my camera at college, so had to settle with my phone's camera. We had a nice dinner with family, ate the cake, apple tart, and a fruit salad accompanied by some tea, then played games. All in all, it was a great party!

Black Forest Cake (No Liquor)

For a first hallway dinner of the semester, I opted once again to make dessert. As it is still the beginning of the semester, and my workload is still manageable, I decided to make something a little fancier than plain cupcakes or something.

One unfortunate side effect due to my procrastination is that I tend to start baking kind of late. In the winter, this means that by the time I have a finished product, I'm required to take pictures with indoors lights instead of natural daylight. This leads to a lot of pictures that are more on the yellow side... As this cake was eaten about an hour after it was baked, I could not wait until tomorrow to take pictures.

I signed up for dessert, as usual, but this morning, I still did not know what to make. On a whim, I opted for chocolate cake. Then the thought of "Black Forest Cake" popped into my head, so I worked towards that. The chocolate cake recipe is from Minimalist Baker.

After the cake was baked, I cut it in half, and put a layer of whipped cream and a layer of cherries (from a jar of pitted cherries, with the juice thickened with some cornstarch). I closed it off with the second layer, more whipped cream, and 8 cherries I had reserved. The rest of the surface was covered in shaved milk chocolate (all I had in stock), as I did not have time to pipe a pattern with the cream, as I had originally intended.

The cake recipe yielded an extremely moist cake that went well with the cherries. Upon hindsight, the cake would have been much better if the top also had an entire layer of cherries, but I had not purchased enough, so had to make do with what I had. Except for the whipped cream, this cake is vegan.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

     Chocolate Cake (adapted from Minimalist Baker)

• 1 1/2 cup unsweetened almond milk
• 2 tsp vinegar (white or apple cider)
• 1 1/4 cup apple sauce
• 1/2 cup strong brewed coffee (I used decaf)
• 2/3 cup melted coconut oil, or other neutral oil
• 1 packet vanilla sugar, or 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cups + 2 tbs flour
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

     Topping

• 1 jar or can pitted cherries
• whipping cream (use non-dairy cream for vegan option)
• icing sugar (optional)
• chocolate

  Procedure

     Chocolate Cake

1. Preheat oven 176˚C.
2. In a mixing bowl, mix almond milk and vinegar. Set aside a few minutes to activate.
3. Add oil, coffee, applesauce, and whisk until foamy*.
4. Sift in flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt progressively while whisking or beating.
5. Taste and add sugar as desired.
6. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 25-30 min.
7. Let cool in pan for a few minutes, then remove and cool completely on a rack.

      * Mine didn't foam up, but still ended up fine.

     Assembly

1. Cut the cake into 2 halves.
2. Whip cream with desired amount of icing sugar.
3. Drain cherries, and reserve some for the topping.
4. In a small pot, mix remaining drained cherries, 1/4 cup of their juice, a sprinkling of sugar, to taste, and 2 tsp cornstarch. Heat until thickened, then cool completely.
5. On the first layer of cake, spread an even amount of whipped cream. Add the cooled cherries.
6. Delicately slide the 2nd layer of cake on top of the cherries layer.
7. Spread with cream. 
8. Place reserved cherries as desired.
9. With a sharp knife or a vegetable peeler, shave some chocolate. Cover the rest of the surface with shaved chocolate.
10. Cut and enjoy~

Lemon Sponge Cake with Cranberry Topping

I rarely start a post with a picture of the slice, but this time, the inside was what was important! For a dinner among friends, I tackled a recipe I found on Indian Kitchen, for an eggless lemon sponge cake. When the cake came out of the oven, I was surprised at how nicely spongy it was.

The yellowish color of the crumb comes simply from the lemon. When we ate it, however, we deemed the cake a little on the dry side. Maybe infusing it with some juice after baking, or baking it for a shorter time would have remedied that.

The topping is a sauce I made with rehydrated dried cranberries and candied orange peels that I had made a few weeks ago. I just stuck a couple handfuls of chopped dried cranberries and some candied orange peels in a pot with some water, and simmered it all until all the dried bits were rehydrated. Then I added a bit of a slurry of cornstarch to thicken it up. After cooling, I topped the cake with the mix.

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RECIPE adapted from Indian Kitchen

  Ingredients

• 1 3/4 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/3 cup yogurt
• 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• zest 1 lemon
• 3 tbs lemon juice
• 1/4 cup vegetable juice

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180˚C.
2. In a bowl, sift flour, baking soda, and baking powder.
3. In a mixing bowl, whisk yogurt and powdered sugar.
4. Add lemon juice and zest, and oil. Mix well.
5. Add in sifted flour mix, and mix until combined.
6. Pour into prepared pan and bake 20-30 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.
7. Cool in the pan for about 2 mins.
8. Unmold and cool on a cooling rack.
9. Top and enjoy.

Lime and Lemon Shortbreads

The end of another short (and unofficial) internship meant another batch of cookies to deliver. I especially wanted to thank the doctor I was shadowing at the time, so I stamped a handful of these cookies with a "Thank You" message with a heart~

I was half tempted to make cranberry shortbreads again, but decided to opt for something different. Part of my motivation for this was that I did not want to deal with creaming butter and sugar. Therefore, I flipped through my "La Grande Imprimerie Gourmande" recipe book, which is full of various shortbread recipes, from the sweet to the savory.

I came across this citrus shortbread recipe that didn't seem like it would be too much trouble. In fact, the only problem was that there was no lemon or lime at home! A quick trip to the grocery store at the end of the road, and that was remedied with 4 untreated lemons and some limes.

I made a single batch of these, intending to make more. However, a shortage of time caught me, and I only managed the one. However, it was sufficient for the doctor and the nurses of the department. Unfortunately, one did not like lemon, so she did not eat any, but I could not have predicted that.

I made a small package with the portion for the doctor, and then put the rest in a small box to leave on the table of the nurses' room. Ingredients lists were stuck on, and a small blue flower.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 small lemon
• 1 lime
• 200 g unsalted butter, softened
• 300 g flour
• 100 g powdered sugar
• 1 pinch of salt

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 150˚C.
2. Zest the lemon and the lime. Juice them in separate bowls.
3. In a mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, salt, and zests.
4. Add 1 tsp lime juice, and 1 tbs lemon juice, then the butter.
5. Mix by hand until the dough comes together, without overmixing.
6. Form a ball, and cover it in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 1 hour.
7. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface to about 1 cm thickness.
8. Cut out desired shapes, and bake for 20 minutes.
9. Let cool and enjoy.

Pumpkin Cranberry Cupcakes

Even with the holiday season newly over, we were still receiving guests from time to time. This time, one of my indirect cousins came over to our house for an afternoon. For lunch, I made a pot of veggie spaghetti sauce, and my aunt helped me cook the spaghetti while I went and handled dessert. While we're on the topic of leftovers, I still had some ingredients left from the pumpkin cake roll. I still had about 3/4 of a cup of pumpkin puree left, along with half a jar of applesauce, and half a tub of cream cheese.

To make it manageable, I decided to make cupcakes. Due to shortage of time, I couldn't do very extended research, so settled for one of the first things I could find: a pumpkin muffin recipe from Vegan Richa.

As I did not have a full cup of pumpkin puree, I filled in the remaining volume with applesauce. In lieu of chocolate chips, I went for a handful of chopped dried cranberries. I did not want to deal with filling the inside with a cream cheese mix, so these were topped with cream cheese frosting. I wanted to play around a little with decorations, so went with a flower. The center is a trimmed dried cranberry. I used dairy milk this time because that was all I had. I also do not stock molasses, so I used some reduced sugar syrup I had.

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RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 cup pureed pumpkin
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 tbs molasses
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 handful dried cranberries

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 200˚C.
2. In a bowl, mix all dry ingredients.
3. Add in wet ingredients. Add in a tbs or 2 of milk as necessary.
4. Fill cupcake pans 3/4 full.
5. Bake for 15 min, then lower heat to 180˚C for another 5 mins.
6. Cool, frost, and enjoy.

Mini Frozen Cheesecakes

After making the pumpkin cake roll for Christmas dessert, I had some chocolate whipped cream leftover, on top of having some cream cheese mix left. On top of that, I also had a bunch of brownie crumbs, as it was very difficult to cut good pieces out of the brownie.

In an effort to use up all these leftovers (or at least most of them, as I still have brownie crumbs left), I made these mini frozen cheesecakes. The base is simply brownie crumbs pressed into the bottom of a silicone mini-cupcake mold. Then I folded the cream cheese, quark, and icing sugar mixture into chocolate whipped cream, and plopped it all on top of the bases.

The tops were flattened with the back of a buttering knife, and everything was put into the freezer. While a little hard to manage straight out of the freezer, as they were virtually impossible to scoop with spoons, these cheesecakes were enjoyable when softened but still cold.

Lemon and Berry Cheesecake with Marzipan Mice

November 11, 2015

This cheesecake got lost between posts as I had taken pictures with my dad's camera, having forgotten my own. This was one of the many many desserts available for my niece's 5th birthday party.

The cheesecake itself was made in a manner that was similar to the reunion cheesecake, except with lemon, as I did not have any limes around. The last of the frozen berries I had used then to make the topping, so I watered down some red fruits jam.

The base is the usual shortbread pastry.

The focus point this time are these little family of mice I made to run on the serving plate that I borrowed from my cousin. They are made of plain marzipan, a bit of which I kneaded with chocolate powder to turn it brown. The eyes just have less chocolate. I made a baby one with inverted colors for some variety. Maybe one day, I'll post a tutorial how to make these, as I learned it from a book my brother has.

Christmas '15: Pumpkin Yule Log Cake

Christmas desserts this year were split between my cousin B and myself. B made little choux and éclairs, and I dealt with the egg-free stuff for those among us that don't eat eggs. Having seen a recipe on Dash of (Vegan) Butter for a vegan pumpkin cream roll, and seeing how I still had a pumpkin sitting around, I jumped on the opportunity.

First, I roasted the pumpkin in the oven, puréed it in a food processor, then drained it in a colander with paper towels in the fridge to remove all excess moisture. Then I whipped up about 6 tbs of aquafaba (the liquid from a can of chickpeas), and proceeded with the rest of the recipe.

For the filling, I folded some whipped cream into the leftover cream cheese mix from the brownie topping. I also added a little more sugar. Then I cut a small section at the end to make a stump on top, which was glued on with more of the cream cheese mix.

The whole cake was covered with whipped cream that was mixed with chocolate powder. At first, I just dragged a fork over the whipped cream to make it seem like bark, but then opted instead to shave some chocolate off large choc chips (the only chocolate I had) to dust over the top.

In the end, the cake was well liked, but the cake batter was a little tough. Either I had overbaked it a bit, or the amount of dry ingredients should have been reduced.

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PUMPKIN CAKE ROLL RECIPE

  Ingredients

• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground ginger
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 6 tbs aquafaba
• 1/4 cup applesauce
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup puréed pumpkin
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
• icing sugar

  Procedure

1. Preheat oven 180°C.
2. In a bowl, combine dry ingredients. Set aside.
3. Whip aquafaba on high until soft peaks. 
4. On medium speed, add in applesauce, the progressively add sugar.
5. Mix in pumpkin and vinegar.
6. Fold in dry ingredients.
7. Pour into a prepared pan, then bake for 15 min or until it springs back when lightly pressed.
8. After removing from oven, immediately put on a clean dishtowel dusted with icing sugar.
9. Roll it up with the towel and set to cool.
10. Once cooled, unroll, fill with desired cream, and roll again.
11. Ice as desired, and chill until eaten.

Christmas '15: Brownie with Cream Cheese Pattern

This year for Christmas presents, I decided to bake a big batch of brownie and cut it up into squares to pack up. I had originally planned to have 2 different brownies and some kind of gingerbread-like bars in there as well, but due to time constraints, I had to settle with just the one.

For the brownie, I used a double batch of the classic egg-free recipe I have been using. To make it a little more interesting, at least to the eye, I topped it with a pattern of cream cheese, quark, and icing sugar mix. The quark helped make the cream cheese more fluid, and I had some left from before that needed using up. The pattern was made by drawing lines of cream cheese mix over the top of the batter, then running a chopstick in opposite directions.

The wonderful image I had in mind for nice, even squares went out the window the moment I cut into it after cooling and refrigerating it a couple of hours. The no-crust parts were crumbling and falling every which way. Luckily, I managed to somehow cut 30 squares that were more or less intact, and to package them in little bags, each piece sitting on its own square of baking paper. Unfortunately, in some cases, the pattern did not really survive the cutting and packaging.

Lime Pistachio Shortbread Cookies

December 18, 2015

A friend had requested that I bake something for her (anything was fine). I also needed more cookies to give away as there was not enough mint chocolate cookies. This time I was extremely fed up with studying for exams, so I figured I could go and deal with a lime.

This recipe is adapted from Cooking Channel, although I did not use cardamom. I chopped the pistachio into stick-like slivers instead of crushing them or putting them through a blender.

I glazed them with the same lime glaze I have used before. As a last minute decoration, I slivered some lime zests and dropped them on top. The squares I had originally scored in the dough were a little big, so instead of re-drawing the lines, I split each in half to get triangles. I think these were the most fragile shortbreads I have made.

These were also packaged into little bags to give away, and served as snacks to go with tea for an end-of-semester get-together with friends.