Honey Cake

This month's What's Baking theme was Quickbreads.  Of course, as soon as I saw this I thought to myself "what the heck is a quickbread???" but then I found out it's just any type of bread (or cake or muffin, etc) that uses something other than yeast to make it rise (ie baking powder, baking soda, etc).  It just so happened that when this assignment went out, I had begun thinking of what to bake for Rosh Hashanah to bring to my grandparents'.  As soon as I saw what a quickbread was, I immediately told my grandma that I'd be bringing a honey cake.  Hey, if you can kill two birds with one stone....

I looked in my cookbooks and online until I found one that sounded just a bit unusual but not too tricky.  And came upon this one from Epicurious.  It has a chocolate glaze for the cake in the original recipe, but since my cousin was already making a chocolate challah (YUM!) I didn't want to overload my family with chocolate.  In the end, it was sweet enough that it didn't need the glaze.

I did run into a few snafus while making this.  Things I found out while making this:  1) even if you find online that you can use vegetable shorting instead of vegetable oil, the consistency is totally screwy so it's better to just run to the store for more oil.  2) you should read the ingredient list thoroughly first so you don't realize you need brewed coffee after you've started mixing everything.  3) while the coffee may not have been as strong, steeping coffee grinds into hot water using a tea ball then pouring the "coffee" through a filter to get rid of the stray grounds seems to do the trick.  4) when you don't have a bundt pan, you can use a tube pan and it'll still come out nice.  5) I have an amazing husband who will run to the store a 11:30 at night as I have a meltdown that I don't have enough oil and just used up all the honey in the botched mixture that I tried to use shortening as the oil substitute (ok, I knew he was amazing before, but this was a nice reminder).

As it turned out, the cake was so big that we barely finished half at my grandparents', so I brought the other have to my in-laws' the next night.  But it received good reviews at both dinners!  I think this recipe is a keeper!

Honey Cake (from Epicurious)


Ingredients
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground clove
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup pure honey
3/4 cup lukewarm coffee (brewed, or instant dissolved in water)
1 1/2 teaspoons packed grated orange zest


Directions
- Heat oven to 350°F with rack in middle.

- Generously spray pan, including center tube, with baking spray.

- Whisk together flour, baking powder and soda, salt, and spices in a large bowl.

- Whisk eggs well in another large bowl and whisk in sugar, oil, honey, coffee, and zest until well combined.

- Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the honey mixture, then stir with the whisk until the batter is smooth.

- Pour batter into pan (it’s liquid enough to level itself in the pan), and bake in oven until springy to the touch and a cake tester comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes.

- Let cake cool in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes.

- Loosen cake from the pan with a thin rubber spatula, then invert cake onto the rack and cool completely.

Noodle Kugel

Noodle Kugel is one of those things that every Jewish family has a recipe for, and although they're most likely similar, there are so many different variations. In general, it's a dish made by baking noodles with some sort of dairy mixture. Some recipes add fruits (like raisins or apples), others are just the noodle. When we were talking with my mother-in-law about Rosh Hashanah dinner, I knew I wanted to make something, so I offered to make a noodle kugel, remembering that I had a recipe for it given to me at my bridal shower (in addition to the regular gifts, guests were asked to fill out recipe cards which were then sorted and the cookbook was presented to me at the end of the day). In my head I thought 'I think I remember it was given to me by my Auntie Barbara". Well, I got home and looked in the book, and it wasn't from my Auntie Barbara, but my husband's Aunt Barbara, who was going to be at Rosh Hashanah dinner! I'm sure there are people out there who will make whatever recipe they have and not care if the originator is there, but I always feel awkward about serving someone their own recipe. Thankfully, I pulled out my copy of The Kosher Palette and found a similar-but-not-too-similar recipe to use.

It wasn't hard to make, just make sure you give yourself a day's notice, as it needs to set overnight (or at least 8 hours, so you could also just make it in the morning).  The original recipe called for 2 sticks of butter PLUS 2 more tablespoons for the topping.  That just sounded crazy, so I used a bit less.  Not that this sounds very heart healthy to begin with, but saving that extra bit of butter made my arteries feel a little better...

Noodle Kugel (slightly adapted from The Kosher Palatte)

Ingredients
8oz medium noodles
3 large eggs, separated
1 cup reduced fat sour cream
1/3 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted
6oz 1/3 les fat cream cheese, softened
3/4 cup corn flake crumbs
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter, melted


Directions
- Prepare noodles according to teh package directions; drain.
- Beat egg whites and sour cream at medium speed with an electric mixer.  Add sugar, butter, and cream cheese; beat until smooth.  Add egg yolks; beat until blended.  Fold in noodles.
- Pour noodle mixture into a lightly greased 13x9 inch baking dish.
- Combine crumbs, sugar, and butter; sprinkle on noodles.  Cover and refrigerate 8 hours or overnight.
- Remove from refrigerator and let stand 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Bake for 75 minutes.

Salted Caramel Blondies

As I've said before, I love participating in recipe swaps.  It forces you to venture outside of your normal recipes and try something new.  When I saw a posting for a dessert swap, I jumped at the chance to participate.  I sent off a favorite family cookie recipe and anxiously awaited my assignment.  I got the e-mail with a link to Peace, Love and French Fries (a sentiment that I agree with) for Salted Caramel Blondies.  It sounded so delicious, but seemed like something that I wouldn't have picked out of a book to make on my own.  The best kind of assignment!

What was even better - I looked at the list of ingredients and the only things I needed to buy were butter (I had just used up the last of my supply) and caramel sauce.  It cost me less than $10 to make this, using almost everything straight from my pantry.  It probably would have cost me less, but I didn't want to drive across town to the bigger grocery store, so I went to my favorite local place which only seemed to carry organic caramel sauce.

The third great thing about the timing of this - we were invited to a Labor Day weekend barbeque.  So this was the perfect treat to bring!

The blondies were super easy to make.  The only things that I'd do differently next time, is that I'd make sure the caramel doesn't go all the way to the edges, and I'd use a shallower spoon to drop the top layer of batter on.  I used a deep tablespoon and then had to spread out the batter to cover the wholes.

These tasted delicious, and went over very well at the barbeque!

Salted Caramel Blondies (as posted on Peace, Love, and French Fries)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups firmly packed light brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt, divided
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup caramel sauce (homemade or store bought)

Directions
- Preheat oven to 375.  Spray a glass 9×13 dish with cooking spray.
- Pour sugar into a large bowl.  Add melted butter and stir until smooth.  Cool to room temperature. 
- Whisk together flour, baking soda, and 1/2 tsp salt.  Set aside. 
- Beat eggs and vanilla into the sugar/butter mixture.  Add the flour mixture a bit at a time and mix until a smooth, thick batter forms. 
- Spread half the batter in the bottom of the baking dish.  Bake for 12-14 minutes, or until batter starts to firm.  Remove from oven.
- Drizzle caramel sauce evenly over the top. Sprinkle other 1/2 tsp of salt over the top.
- Carefully drop spoonfuls of remaining batter over the caramel, smoothing it out as best you can.  Top with an additional sprinkle of salt, if desired.
-Return to oven, bake an additional 12-14 minutes.
- Let cool before slicing and serving.

Multigrain Pancakes

My husband and I are runners.  He's run a couple of marathons and I have become an avid half-marathoner.  One of our favorite magazines is Runner's World.  Not only does it have great, inspiring articles about running, but it also has recipes each month for different meal ideas that are beneficial for runners.  After I made the devil's food cupcakes last week, I had some buttermilk left over.  My husband was reading the latest RW issue and spotted a recipe by Pam Anderson for "Multigrain Medallions" (aka buttermilk pancakes).  Always looking to cut out pre-made/processed foods, I decided to give this a try.

It was so easy.  We had everything we needed in our fridge or panty already, so I didn't even need to do any shopping!  We make pancakes every few weeks for a weekend breakfast or even a simple dinner, so we very much looked forward to seeing how this would turn out.  The steps were incredibly simple and easy to follow.

When making pancakes, I like to use my trusty electric skillet, so that you know it's cooking evenly (our stovetop always seems to be a bit slanted or the pan is much larger than the burner and it's hard to get things to cook 100% evenly).  It worked perfectly for this.

In the magazine, she gives the basic recipe then has 10 other variations which are supposed to promote different healthy side effects (one is a "muscle motivator" with dates and raisins, another has guacamole to help regulate blood sugar).  We opted to make the basic recipe and then added a few of our favorite toppings, like chocolate chips and blueberries.  Top with real maple sugar from Vermont, and I think we have a new way to make pancakes.  Sorry, Aunt Jemima!

Pam Anderson's Multigrain Medallions (originally published in Runners World magazine, October 2012)

Ingredients
1 cup white flour
1/3 cup each: cornmeal, whole-wheat flour, and old fashioned rolled oats
4 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
1/2 cup low-fat milk (or water)
2 large eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil, plus extra for brushing the griddle
1 tsp vanilla


Directions
- Heat a large nonstick-skillet or griddle over low heat.
- Mix flour, whole grains, sugar, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in a bowl.  (NOTE: white flour is included to provide fluffiness. If you don't have all three whole grains, pick one and use the following ratios: 1:2 whole wheat to white; 1:1 oats/cornmeal to white)
- Microwave buttermilk and milk for 30 seconds in a 2-cup measuring cup.
- Whisk in eggs, oil, and vanilla.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry; whist until just mixed.
- Return batter to measuring cup.
- Increase heat to medium and brush skillet with oil.
- When oil starts to spider, pour batter 1/4 cup at a time.
- When pancake bottoms are golden brown and tops start to bubble, after about 2-3 minutes, flip pancakes; cook until golden brown on other side.
- Repeat, brushing skillet or griddle with oil.
- Serve hot.

What's Baking Roundup: Bake Your Happy Place

I had the privilege of hosting this month's What's Baking.  I had to choose a theme, and I opted for something that left the options wide open, while letting us get a little personal with our creations.  I chose "Bake Your Happy Place".  Whether our happy place was a trip we made to an exotic place or being home with our family at our favorite time of year, whatever reminded us that happiness was what we made this month.  Here are all of our Happy Places:

Heather from Books and Cooks brought us on her honeymoon in Hawaii with her Blue Hawaiian Cupcakes.

I'm thinking of planning a trip to Hawaii as it seems to be a popular "happy place".  Eva of Eva Bakes recalled her own Hawaiian honeymoon with her Pineapple Upside Down Cake.

Jaida from Sweet Beginnings loves a good Girls' Night, hanging out with friends, sipping a good wine, so she made Blackberry Merlot Cupcakes.

I personally think s'mores should be everyone's happy place, and Jenna from Jenna's Cooking Journey agreed with her S'mores Brownies.

Stephanie from Brownies and Blondies brought us to dinner with her Italian family with her Pasticiotti
.

Ange, the Tiny Tyrant, made us all want to hang out in her backyard with her Zucchini Bread.

Yudith recalled her childhood with these Blissfully Delicious Yellow Buttermilk Cupcakes

Carrie of Carrie's Sweet Life made us all want to visit Iowa with her Sweet Corn Ice Cream

Kim from Just Baked By Me re-lived a perfect day picking strawberries with her kids in her Strawberry Soda Ice Cream.

Melissa of I was Born to Cook had us all screaming "more Ovaltine, please" with her Ovaltine Brownies.

Ammie from Adventures in My Kitchen made us anxious for fall to get here with her Harvest Muffins.

And you probably saw my post from earlier which brought me back to my wedding with my Devil's Food Cupcakes with Oreo Frosting.

I can't wait to see what everyone makes next month when Jenna from Jenna's Cooking Journey hosts with the theme QuickBreads!

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Oreo Frosting

This month, I had the chance to play host to What's Baking and I had to come up with a theme.  I chose "Bake Your Happy Place".  I chose this over a month ago thinking it would be easy to choose my own happy place.  Boy, was I wrong!  Did I want to make something coconut-y that reminds me of my honeymoon?  Do I want to make something that reminds me of childhood like s'mores or Kentucky Derby Pie (although I grew up in Jersey, there was a restaurant near me that had the BEST derby pie).  Something that reminded me of my summers in Cape Cod growing up?  In my entire 30 years, what makes me the happiest?

(photo credit Matt Rainey)

Here's where I get sappy (I'm a newlywed, I'm allowed!).  My happy place is with my husband.  Whether we're halfway across the world on vacation or in our living room watching TV, he's what makes me the happiest.  When we met we knew within weeks that we were it for each other and were married less than 2 years later.  Never any games, it was always clear that we were meant to be.  But how do I bake this??  Then it hit me - why not re-create our wedding cake?  It was from Palermo's Bakery.  We had two flavors; one was a vanilla cake with raspberry filling, but the other was devil's food cake with oreo cream.  Can we say YUM?!

So I set out to find a way to re-create the cake.  I first went through my cookbooks and found in Craft of Baking the recipe for devil's food cupcakes, but couldn't find anything for the icing.  But then I remembered seeing a post on Tide and Thyme for Oreo cupcakes and decided to use the frosting recipe from there (though the cupcakes themselves also look delish, so I plan to make those at some point, too!).

I had a few speedbumps in my cupcake making, but I turned to The Baking Answer Book by Lauren Chattman which I had picked up on a whim last year.  The first hiccup was when I realized that I forgot to buy cake flour.  I had bread, pastry and all-purpose, but those weren't right.  According to the book, you can use all-purpose flour and cornstarch to substitute for cake flour (1 cup of cake flour = 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour + 2 tbsp cornstarch) .  The other problem I had (which I always seem to run into) was that my packed dark sugar was rock hard.  I found out from the book that you should break some off (approximate how much you'll use), put it into a microwave safe bowl, cover it with a damp paper towel and then plastic wrap and cook for 30 sec - 1 min and fluff with a fork, it's good as new! (just use it immediately).  Worked perfectly!

The only snafu I ran into while making the frosting is that I originally made a half batch and the consistency was a bit stiffer than I expected.  After asking Laura from Tide and Thyme what she recommended doing, she said "beating the crap out of it with the mixer helps" and then added that if that didn't work, you could always add a splash of milk or cream to the mixture.  When I did a second try, I took her first suggestion and let the mixer run on medium-high speed (6 on my mixer) for a bit, it came out much fluffier than the first batch!

I think it came out pretty darn close to our wedding cake.  The cake wasn't as fluffy as the original, but all in all I'd say this was a success.  Maybe once we have the year-old frozen/stale top layer of our actual cake for our 1st anniversary this October, I'll start the yearly tradition of making these each year!

Devil's Food Cupcakes (from Craft of Baking)

makes 12 cupcakes

Ingredients

3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder

3/4 cup cake flour

2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp packed dark brown sugar

5 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 large egg

1 large egg yolk

1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp buttermilk

3/4 tsp pure vanilla extract

Directions

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
- Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners

- In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the cocoa powder and 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp warm water together to form a paste; set it aside.

- In another bowl, sift together the cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the brown sugar and the butter on medium speed until they are well combined, with no pieces of butter visible.
- Add the cocoa paste, making sure to use a spatula to get all of the cocoa paste into the mixer bowl.  Once this is well combined, add the egg and egg yolk.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- In three additions each, add the buttermilk and vanilla extract, alternating with the flour mixture.

- Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them three-quarters full.
- Bake, rotating the tin halfway through, until the cupcakes spring back to the touch and a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes.
- Invert the cupcakes onto a wire rack, turn them top side up, and let them cool completely.

Oreo Buttercream Frosting (from Tide and Thyme)

this makes enough for 20 cupcakes

Ingredients 

8 tbsp butter, room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

4 cups powdered sugar (1 lb)

6 tablespoons Oreo cookies, finely crushed

10 Oreo cookies, cut in half, for garnish

Directions

- In the bowl of your standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or using a hand mixer) cream the butter on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the powdered sugar, about 1/2 cup at a time, until thoroughly mixed.
- Add the butter flavoring, and Oreo crumbs; mix well.
- Frost cupcakes as desired. Top cupcakes with half of an Oreo cookie, for garnish