Smith Island Cake

Maryland has a state dinosaur (it's the astrodon in case you were wondering). We also have a state exercise (walking), not one but two state sports (jousting and the team sport is lacrosse), a state boat (the skipjack), a state crustacean (the blue crab, of course) and as of October 1, 2008, we have a state dessert, the Smith Island Cake. 10 layers of yellow cake with chocolate icing, containing nearly half a dozen eggs, a pound of butter, 2 pounds of powdered sugar, and almost 3 cans of evaporated milk, this cake is not for the faint of heart. Or diabetics. But for everyone else, this almost seussical (as in something out of a Dr. Seuss book) cake is delicious. It is quite the cake, certainly not an everyday cake, and so I had been waiting for an excuse to make it for awhile. But thank goodness my sister moved home, bringing a gentleman friend who had never really been to Maryland before with her, and just like that I found my excuse. This is an intense cake but it isn't all that difficult to make. The worst part for me was the icing, but a good deal of that has to do with my lack of patience and not wanting to wait for it to cool before slapping the cake together, resulting in a topsy turvy creation; which I remedied with several strategically placed skewers. The recipe can be found here.

Like most good things, it starts with butter. And sugar.

Next you beat in the eggs, one at time. All 5 of them.

Then you sift together your dry ingredients, which you then slowly add to the butter and sugar and eggs. Once the flour is in you don't want to over mix the batter, heaven forbid it gets tough, it's one thing to have one or two over-mixed layers, but when you have nine or ten it's a whole other ball game, each layer raises expectations.

Add your liquids, evaporated milk, water and whatnot, and mix it until it is uniform. The batter will be wet, don't be alarmed.

Split the batter between your lightly greased pans. I would recommend using those disposable cake pans as it will make you life much easier, unless of course you happen to have 10 matching cake pans hanging around your house. It will be easier to split the batter evenly, and you won't have to wait for the layers to cool and wash the pans before popping the next layers in the oven.

Bake the layers in sets of three, it takes about 9 minutes a set. You can tell a layer is done by listening to it, which sounds like one of those ridiculous things you sometimes find in recipes, but it actually works. If you hold the cake up to your ear and it's not done you will hear it sizzle, when it is done it is quiet. The change happens fast, you check it once and then thirty seconds later all is quiet. I honestly don't know how I would have told when it was done otherwise.

When the cake is done it's time for the icing. You basically mix melted butter, evaporated milk, cocoa powder and powdered sugar together and cook it over moderate heat until it thickens some. Then you wait, until your icing cools.

Once the icing cools you can put it all together. Start with a layer of cake.

Grab your icing.

And spoon some onto the cake. The recipe calls for two or three serving spoonfuls of icing, if you figure out what that is, let me know. Anything that oozes out between the layers can always be pushed up onto the sides, or puddle on the plate in a delicious goopy pile.

Repeat until you run out of cake.

Ta da!! Doesn't it look funny? Part of that is due to the scalloped edges of the disposable cake pans, which I thought was an interesting choice on the part of the manufacturer. This was about the time I started to explain about how I had never made this before and that I am generally a much better baker than this and so on...

...but then I cut into it and it looked just like the picture (you know, minus the skewers), and all was well in the world.

Hazelnut Torta

One of my favorite breakfasts in Ireland was nutella on toast, it was quick, easy, and on those rainy days when walking to school seemed like a monumental task, and you didn't have time to take a shower because you opted to hit snooze instead of get up and turn on the hot water, and you really really wanted a nice cup of coffee, nutella on toast, all the melty chocolate and hazelunutty goodness could really turn your day around. This is the fancy dinner party version of that, it inspires the same feeling of all being right in the world. My mom picked it out for her mother's day dessert, my dad said he would serve it to the Obama family if they ever came over for dinner (I mean I did see Barack once so we are basically close personal friends and having him and his family over for dinner is totally in the realm of possibility). I just want you to know what you are getting into with this, it's super tasty, uses a whole jar of nutella, has absolutely no flour, half a dozen eggs, and there is heavy cream involved. The recipe can be found here and I will post the American conversion of the ingredients after the pictures so you don't have to drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what gas mark 4 is in fahrenheit or anything like that.

Start by mixing up the butter and nutella, then add the frangelico/rum/water (I used water), egg yolks and ground hazelnuts.

Meanwhile, in your stand mixer, whip up those egg whites (unless you have freakish forearm/wrist stamina and want to do it by hand) until stiff. I may have spaced out just a tiny bit and over beat them by a few seconds, but the cake still turned out lovely.

After the egg whites have been beaten up you do the whole standard shebang where you lighten the chocolate mixture some with a dollop of them and then fold the rest in. Then you pour that mixture into your springform pan and bake it. Ours is nonstick so I didn't do the whole greasing it then lining it with parchment paper step and it was fine. If you are the nervous sort you could always do that step, I personally prefer to skip steps like that and then afterwards when I can't get it out complain loudly about how the damn cake won't come out of the pan, but that's just me.

While it is cooking, or any time really, (you want these to be cool when you use them) toast up your hazelnuts. I could not find whole ones in my grocery store, which I thought would be less aesthetically pleasing and as we all know you eat with your eyes first, but the cake ended up quite pretty anyways.

Then for the fun part, the icing. This pot of heavy cream and chocolate chips turns into a lovely chocolate goo once the chips melt. After that it is just a matter of it cooling some so that it is the right consistency to ice the cake.

Spread a thick layer of icing over the cooled cake.

Top with the toasted hazelnuts and serve. Rich, but not too dense, it melts in your mouth.

Hazelnut Torta (from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson)

Here are the American conversions of the ingredients and the recipe can be found here.

For the cake

6 large eggs, separated

pinch of salt

1/2 cup soft unsalted butter

14 oz. nutella

1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water

scant 1/2 cup ground hazelnuts

4 oz. buttersweet chocolate, melted

For the topping

4 oz. hazelnuts

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 tablespoon frangelico, rum or water

4 oz. bittersweet chocolate

Coffee Cheesecake Brownies

I had this fabulous idea to make mocha brownies, and because bigger is better, I decided that I should not only make brownies, but I should make cheesecake topped brownies, with coffee flavored cheesecake. Brilliant I know. In fact so brilliant that a bunch of other people apparently had the same idea. It wasn't quite as disappointing as when I found out that Caribou Coffee is a ginormous chain (so I may not be the brightest crayon in the box, but seriously, I had only ever seen one in my entire life, until I switched planes in the Minneapolis airport and passed like 4 on my way to my gate) but still, it turns out that I am not a culinary genius/super innovator just yet. That wont keep me from trying though, I have big plans for a whole assortment of cheesecake brownies, raspberry ones, carmel ones, lime ones (Nigella has a great chocolate lime cheesecake that I plan on using for those), peanut butter ones..... Anyways, I must confess something, I love brownies from boxes. Generally I would rather use a box than make them from scratch. My very favorite brownie mix was the generic Safeway one. Tragically, they do not make it any longer and I have yet to find my a new favorite, I am taking suggestions if anyone knows of a spectacular mix.

Start by making your favorite brownies, be it from a box or scratch, I added some of the super strong coffee I made for the cheesecake to the brownie batter, about 1/8 cup worth to bump up the mocha factor.

Next make your cheesecake. I adapted this recipe.

Now, put the brownie batter in the pan, but not all of it, don't really scrape out the bowl just yet, we want to have some batter left to dollop on top of the cheesecake so it looks pretty.

Pour the cheesecake over the batter and spread it out so it covers the entire pan. Then dollop the remaining the brownie batter around on top of the cheesecake. Take a knife and swirl the brownie around to make the pretty patterns.

Bake for about half an hour, you want the brownie bit to be done and the cheesecake bit to be set.

Coffee Cheesecake Brownies

1 batch of brownie batter (enough for a 9x13 pan)

16 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup sugar

about 1/4 cup very strong coffee

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 350, grease a 9x13 pan

Beat the cream cheese and sugar together until well blended. Add the coffee and vanilla, mix well. You want to be able to taste the coffee in this mix, I started with a small bit and kept adding until it tasted coffee-ey enough to me. I had some coffee left so I tossed it in the brownie batter. Mix in the eggs one at a time. Spread almost all of the brownie batter in the pan. Top with the cheesecake mixture, spreading it evenly. Dollop the remaining brownie batter on the cheesecake, drag a knife through the dollops to swirl around. Bake for about 30 min, until the brownie is done and the cheesecake set.

Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Cupcakes

I love the Pioneer Woman, (for those of you who don't know who she is, she was a city girl who fell in love with a real, live cowboy and now she lives on a ranch with Marlboro Man and their four kids, blogs about it and has a cookbook) all of her recipes are delicious and what we call 'cowboy food' which is short for 'the most decidedly NOT low cal food of the sort that cowboys eat due to the extremely demanding physical nature of their work.' These cupcakes are no exception. In fact, I ended up making full size cupcakes as well as mini ones for a 'healthy' option; the idea being that instead of having a big cupcake you eat a mini one or two and are satisfied, in practice the mini ones were excellent snacks in between big ones. Being healthy is overrated anyways.

Start by mixing together your dry ingredients.

Next mix together the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda and vanilla. Note the old pyrex measuring cup, it is now in pieces in some landfill due to an unfortunate accident and we haven't been able to find a replacement, so tragic.

Then melt the butter and add the cocoa powder and water, to make a sort of hot buttered cocoa, not that you would want to drink it, what with the two sticks of butter in there.

Add the chocolate mixture to the flour mixture and stir it up, at this point it looks kind of like a lovely brownie batter.

Next add the buttermilk mixture and stir it up, but don't mix the hell out of it, you wouldn't want your cupcakes to get tough.

Then, spoon the batter into your prepared muffin tin. I have been having troubles with my muffin tins lately and should have probably put those paper liners in them instead of living on the edge and just greasing them. I paid for that mistake when I couldn't get them out of the pans and nearly had a mini breakdown (I ended up popping the pieces from the worst cupcakes into these silicone muffin molds my lovely cousin gave me, and the cake was so moist and lovely it sort of smushed back together). Anyways, drop a hershey kiss in the center of each one before you pop them in the oven, don't press down in it, just let it sink on its own.

Bake and then let cool. Once cool, you can frost them with the delicious ganache, I am sorry there are no pictures of the ganache being made, I was far too busy taste testing it to make sure it was just right and forgot. You will just have to make them and see for yourself. The recipe can be found here.

Chocolate Lime Cheesecake

I make 1 cheesecake, and this is it. I have thought about branching out, but why mess with perfection? This is another Nigella recipe (love her), you can find the recipe here and I will put the american conversions for the ingredients at the bottom of the post. This is a seriously good cheesecake, people who don't like cheesecake like it, and people who do like cheesecake have seconds, it is just that good. I could go on and on about it, but that would get boring, so just make it and eat it and understand what I am talking about with the whole perfection thing.

Start by prepping the spring form pan and wrapping it in foil. Water always gets in the foil during the water bath baking when I make it, but I figure much more water would get into the actual cheesecake if I didn't do it.

Make the crust by processing the chocolate cookies until they are crumbs and adding the butter. Press it into the bottom of the pan and stick it in the fridge while you get on with the filling.

Start with cream cheese. Lots of cream cheese. Three packages to be specific. I cut it up into chunks, which starts to feel a bit tedious by the third package, but the food processor is happier when I do that.

Add the eggs, sugar and lime juice and process it until it is a nice creamy gloop.

Pour the gloop over the crust and put the whole thing in a roasting pan. Pour boiling water into the roasting pan to create a water bath. (Pardon the blurry/steamy/not very good picture, I just really wanted an action shot)

Bake for about an hour and then immediately remove from the water bath and take off the foil.

When cool, take off the sides of the pan and place in the fridge. Be sure to take it out about 20 minutes before you serve it.

Nigella's Chocolate Lime Cheesecake

7 oz. chocolate wafer cookies

1/3 cup unsalted butter

1 1/2 pounds cream cheese

1 cup sugar

4 whole eggs

2 yolks

Juice of 4 small limes (about 3/4 cup)

Triple Chocolate Cookies

I brought these cookies when I went to my very first Redskins game. It was a lot of fun, except for the fact that we lost to the Saints, but at least the cookies were good. I basically followed the recipe on the back of the bag of white chocolate chips with a few minor tweaks. White chocolate chips are fine, but they are even better when you mix in semi-sweet or dark chocolate chips. And a generous handful of dried cranberries cuts the sweetness a bit with a nice little tartness. The process is the same you would use for regular chocolate chip cookies, but these have a bit more pizzaz.

Start with butter, beat it with the sugar and vanilla.

Add the eggs, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt and flour to make a lovely chocolate dough.

Next, add the chocolate chips. You want a bit over 2 cups total and can adjust the proportions according to your taste. I used slightly fewer white chocolate chips than semi-sweet ones. These cookies are delicious with dark chocolate chips added into the mix too.

Stir in the chips and about 1/2 cup of dried cranberries. Drop by spoonful onto cookie sheets.

Bake for about 10 minutes or until done. Be sure to snag one when they are nice and warm and the chocolate chips are still melted, so yummy.

Triple Chocolate Cookies (adapted from Nestle white chocolate chip cookie recipe)

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup cocoa powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp. vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups chocolate chips (white and semi-sweet and/or dark)

1/2 cup dried cranberries

Preheat oven to 350

Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract in a large bowl until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add cocoa powder, salt, baking soda, and flour, mix well. Stir in chocolate chips and cranberries. Drop by spoonful onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 9-11 minutes.

Birthday Cake

This chocolate cake is for my wonderful dad for his birthday. After all he does....

....such as scaling large christmas trees that we talked him into getting....

...and putting up with the crazy dog that we talked him into getting....

....and much, much more, he deserves a chocolate cake made from scratch.

Happy Birthday Dad!!

A note about the cake itself now, it is from the cookbook Nigella Bites, and the recipe can be found here (I will give the American conversions below, as she is british and so is her website). Nigella is perhaps my very favorite cookbook author, I just love her. You should probably read some of her cookbooks, how can you not love a woman who in describing how to tell if a cheesecake is done uses the phrase "the slightest, sexiest hint of quiver within."?

Start by mixing up the dry ingredients.

Then whisk the sour cream (it sounds kind of odd, but it works), eggs and vanilla until smooth.

Take the butter, melt it and toss it in the mixer. Add the oil, then the dry stuff. When that is combined pour in the sour cream mixture to complete the luscious batter.

Pour into the pans and bake for 45 min.

Add frosting (a small confession, I did not follow the recipe for the frosting, in my family we draw the line at 3 1/2 sticks of butter in one dish, so I used one stick and one box of powdered sugar, plus enough milk to make it come together and 4oz. of melted chocolate.)

Chocolate Fudge Cake Ingredients

2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/3 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup best quality cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 eggs

1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sour cream

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1/2 cup corn oil

1 1/3 cups chilled water

For the Fudge Icing (that I did not make)

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, minimum 70% cocoa solids

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened

1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

(the rest of the recipe can be found on Nigella's website, the link is provided above)