October Roundup

Well, who knew! Such delicious goodies this month! Thanks so much Colleen for your amazing challenge and thank to everyone that participated.

Chocolate Carbonation Peanut Butter Cup Surprise Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting

Hi, I'm Kyleen and I'm the sixteen-year old girl behind sixteenbeans. This month, I made Chocolate Carbonation Peanut Butter Cup Surprise Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting.

 *          *          *

I’m a peanut-butterist. I’m that kind of girl who dips a spoon into the peanut butter jar and scrapes the sides of the jar in an attempt to get as much peanut butter on the spoon. It’s actually kind of strange that I’m not allergic to peanut butter, seeing as I’m allergic to walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts (I wish I could try Nutella...), and basically every other kind of nut. Maybe I’ve outgrown my allergies and I just don’t know because I haven’t tried any of those nuts in such a long time.

Either way, I count my blessings that I’m not allergic to peanuts. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to enjoy Boiled Peanuts with Chinese Five Spice or these scrumptious Chocolate Carbonation Peanut Butter Cup Surprise Cupcakes (oh no, I just gave the surprise away) with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Frosting.

I made these for the Have the Cake November challenge, which was to make a carbonation cake. After some research, I deduced that any box mix could be made into cake using pop instead of butter and eggs. I decided to use my chocolate cake recipe and just replace the liquid ingredients with soda water (who needs all that extra sugar from soda). Although I was skeptical, I have to admit that these cupcakes don’t taste half-bad, considering that they were made with just soda water and one egg. Butter is butter and it can’t be replaced, but these low-fat cupcakes were passable.

If you’re not into the whole no-butter or oil low-fat cupcake, then make these cupcakes and hide peanut butter cups in them. Of course, I think almost anything with peanut butter tastes good, so I’d give these cupcakes two sticky, peanut-buttery thumbs up.

Click below for the recipe.

Chocolate Framboise Bundt Cake

Posted by - Dorrie

A few years ago my homebrewing husband introduced me to a style of beer called "Lambic", which is a Belgian beer traditionally made with fruit added during the secondary fermentation. Lindeman's Framboise is such a Belgian lambic, which has been fermented with raspberries thus producing a rose-pink colored beer, with a slightly sour raspberry taste. After giving the baking challenge a little thought I decided to make a chocolate cake with Framboise since I love the combination of chocolate and raspberry.

Using a recipe that I found on Smitten Kitchen for a Chocolate Stout Cake that she turned into a bundt cake, I replaced the stout with Framboise and made the necessary adjustments for my above 6,000 foot altitude.

Chocolate Framboise Bundt Cake:

1 cup Framboise

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter (reduced 1 1/2 sticks - 3/4 cups for high altitude)

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

2 cups all purpose flour (increased to 2 1/4 cups for high altitude)

2 cups sugar (reduced to 1 1/2 cups for high altitude)

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter or spray a bundt pan.

Bring 1 cup Framboise and butter to simmer in a heavy large saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat and add the cocoa powder, whisking until it is smooth. Set aside to cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl to blend. Beat eggs and sour cream with hand-mixer or stand mixer to blend. Add the beer-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat to combine. Add the flour mixture and mix briefly on a low speed until blended and then fold the batter with a spatula until completely combined. Pour batter into prepared bundt pan.

Bake until toothpick comes out clean - about 45 minutes at high altitude and less for sea level - about 35 minutes. Allow cake to cool completely in the pan and then turn it out onto cake plate or rack. I drizzled mine with chocolate Ganache and finished it with fresh raspberries.

The chocolate cake with Framboise produced a wonderful cake with a raspberry taste that is not overpowering but seems to bring out the chocolateness of the cake. A real winner in our house!

Root Beer Chocolate Cake Cupcakes

Posted by - Vivian

I made some root beer cupcakes from the Prepared Pantry .  I don't know what went wrong but they rose beautifully and then flattened out making it impossible for me to remove them from the pan! I ended up cutting them out of the pan by removing the flat tops.  Ended up looking ugly but still edible! I topped with butter cream frosting and pop rocks.


Root Beer Chocolate Cake Recipe

3/4 cup shortening

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 tablespoon root beer flavor (or vanilla but will not have as deep of root beer flavor to the cake)

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 12-ounce can root beer, not sugar-free

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

 Cream the shortening and sugar together. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Beat for five or six minutes so that the mixture is light and fluffy. Add the extract.

In another bowl, mix the flour, cocoa, salt, and soda together.

In three or four additions, alternately add the dry ingredients and the liquids to the creamed mixture starting and ending with the dry ingredients. Mix only until smooth.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake a 9x13 inch pan for 35 to 40 minutes, cupcakes for 15 minutes, or until the cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool completely before frosting with the frosting of your choice.

Baker’s Note: When making a cake such as this, you are mixing oil (shortening) and water (soda pop and buttermilk)—which don’t mix. The egg yolks act as an emulsifier, a bonding agent between the oil and water molecules and the flour absorbs much of the water. That is why you start with the flour addition—so that the water doesn’t overload the fat mixture before the flour is there to start absorbing water. It’s also why you add the liquids in stages between the flour additions.

October - Dr. Pepper Chocolate Cake

Posted by - Jessica

Since the soda of choice in my house is Dr. Pepper I decided to see if I could find a recipe. I found a few different ones but settled on this one because it included Dr. Pepper in the cake and frosting. I would totally make the cake portion again but found the frosting a little a short on taste. The cake is super moist and delicious but I can't say I could tell there was Dr. Pepper in it.

Chocolate Stout Cake with Bailey's Irish Cream Frosting

Posted by - Angela from Soap Mom's Kitchen

I was thrilled when Colleen posted her beer cake for the October Challenge on Have the Cake. I actually had found this recipe on a blog called, Closet Cooking that I love and had copied it down in the hopes of trying it out one day. The stout beer sounded so intriguing!  This recipe however, is very similar to the one Colleen posted, but I had to give it a try.  Well, here it is and I must say that the beer does add a little something different. I really think the Irish Cream Frosting really compliments this cake very well. I would definitely recommend this cake with a traditional Irish meal.

Chocolate Stout Cake (as posted on Closet Cooking)
(makes 1 cake, 6+ servings)
Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
1 cup stout (such as Guinness)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream

Directions:
1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan, remove from heat and let cool a bit.
2. Mix in the stout and cocoa powder.
3. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
4. Mix the eggs and sour cream in another large bowl.
5. Mix the stout mixture into the egg mixture.
6. Mix the dry ingredients into the wet.
7. Pour the batter into one or two greased and parchment lined circular cake pan(s).
8. Bake in a preheated 350F oven until a toothpick pushed into the center comes out clean. If you bake it in a single pan then it should take about 40-50 minutes. If you bake it in two cake pans then it should take about 20-30 minutes. I baked my cake in a 8" pan and it took 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Bailey's Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients:
4 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
1 cup confectioners sugar
3 tablespoons of Bailey’s Irish cream

Directions:
1. Cream the cream cheese.
2. Slowly mix in the confectioners sugar.
3. Slowly mix in the Irish cream.

October Inspiration: Carbonation

Posted by -colleen

I have been looking for an excuse to make this Chocolate Guinness Beer Cake for a long, long time. Every review and variation on it seems to draw rave reviews. It's a super-moist but not too sweet chocolate cake balanced with the dark, stout beer and then a whipped up, frothy, foam-like frosting which should resemble the head on a glass of beer.
Then one day, a friend made a Chocolate Dr. Pepper Malt Cake for my birthday (a recipe she got from the amazing and personally highly recommended Dinosaur BBQ cookbook. This was the best chocolate cake I have ever tasted. EVER. So apparently, the richness, the moistness, the not-so-over the top chocolate goodness is greatly helped by carbonated beverage.
So, that is my challenge to all the bakers this month: bake yourself up some yummy goodness using some form of carbonated beverage. It can be a cake, cupcakes, I even saw a bunch of recipes for breads. There are a TON of recipes out there using Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite and the
previously mentioned beer and Dr. Pepper.
Can't wait to see what everyone does!
Enjoy!

September Roundup

Thanks to everyone that participated in this challenge. I think we successfully ushered in fall in NY. Hope it has arrived where you are! Looking forward to next month's challenge. Colleen is stepping in to pick our dessert.

Chocolate Coffee Icebox Cake

Posted by - Kyleen.

Hi, I'm Kyleen, from sixteenbeans. and I'm so excited to join this month's Have the Cake Challenge! It seems that I joined at a perfect time, since I've had my eye on this icebox cake for a while.

*          *          *

Whipped cream is a saving grace. It can be used to make rich, creamy sauces, or replace a failed ganache, or to revive stale cake. In this month’s Have the Cake challenge, icebox cakes took center stage, with whipped cream as the star of the show. As much as I like cookies, whipped cream is definitely the best part of this Chocolate Coffee Icebox Cake.

Coffee and chocolate are such a natural combination that I had to add some coffee flavour in the chocolate cookies as well as the cream. The dark notes of coffee bring out the rich hues in chocolate, complimenting them oh so subtly. I used decaf instant coffee powder in this recipe, although in retrospect, I probably could have replaced some of the milk with coffee or espresso.

The cookies themselves are almost too delicious to be made into a cake. As soon as they came out of the oven, I was salivating. I picked one up while still hot and ate it. Someone has to do quality control, right? Well, it seems that the rest of my family agreed, because one by one, they trickled into the kitchen, following the alluring scent of chocolate and coffee. With my back turned, they grabbed the cookies and I tried to shoo them away. My icebox cake would have been two inches taller if not for the sneaky hands of my younger brother who has a penchant for cookies.

I didn’t bake my chocolate cookies to be quite as crisp as advised because I like that soft and chewy texture. So I figured that the cake would be suitable to eat a couple hours after I had assembled it. The cookie layers were sufficiently softened and the cake was deliciously moist and rich. The next day, I cut myself another slice and to my slight surprise, the cake had transformed completely into a rich, dense, almost fudgy brownie with thin layers of cream in between. The coffee cream was more subdued and the two components blended seamlessly. Obviously, this is one of those cakes that just get better and better with time.

Click below for the recipe.

Icebox Cake Redux

Posted by - Dorrie

For a long time when I was a child my favorite birthday cake was an icebox cake that my mother would make with chocolate wafers and whipping cream. Using the whipping cream as glue between the wafers she would stand them up on their sides, form them into a loaf and then slather the whole thing with whipping cream and keep it in the refrigerator for 24 hours. By the time the birthday celebration rolled around the wafers were as soft as cake and so delicious!

Then a few weeks ago my mother called me all excited about an episode of The Barefoot Contessa that she had just watched. Apparently Ina Garten makes a delicious Mocha Icebox Cake, and uses a spring form pan - hooray! - no more delicate loaf making! Ina, who is not afraid of fat (yay!) also adds marscapone, kahlua, cocoa powder, etc. to her whipping cream - yum!

So when this month's Have the Cake challenge turned out to be Icebox Cake I jumped at the chance to make my own version of Ina Garten's icebox cake. As much as I love the sound of it, I skipped the marscapone, and because I was taking the cake to a dinner party with kids (including my own) I also skipped the espresso powder and kahlua.

My version goes like this:

In a stand mixer or with a hand mixer mix until it forms stiff peaks:

3 cups of heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup of sugar

2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder (I used the really nice Dutch stuff)

1 tsp vanilla extract

I lined the side of my spring form pan with butter and then parchment paper. On the bottom of the pan I made a layer of chocolate wafers (the Nabisco "Famous Chocolate Wafers"), filling in any holes between the round cookies with broken cookies. I then spread 1/5th of the whipping cream mixture on top and continued layering until there were 5 layers of cookies, each covered with whipping cream.

Layering the icebox cake

After the cake had spent 24 hours in the refrigerator I grated dark chocolate and white chocolate on top for a finishing touch. Here's the finished product, ready for devouring:

Finished cake

The cake was pretty on the outside and on the inside and tasted absolutely delicious:

Yummy!

We completely decimated the cake, several people going back for seconds (including myself). I love my new version of icebox cake and may never go back to the old loaf again. So delicious!