Happy Birthday Cake!

This cake is dedicated to a super awesome blogger, Cheryl from Tidymom.  Today is her birthday!

Happy, Happy Happy Birthday Cheryl!

Birthday Cake for Tidymom.net

 

Cheryl is such a huge supporter of her fellow bloggers!  She shares her knowledge and wisdom.  She promotes other blogs as if they were her own.  She encourages her many many thousands of readers to become better homemakers and bakers and people!

I just love that.

Rich Chocolate Cake

To make Cheryl’s special birthday cake I just used my new favorite white cake recipe and then a rich chocolate buttercream I saw on the Food & Wine website.

To decorate I just used a small offset spatula and swirled swirled swirled my cake around while holding the spatula steady.  The little poms are made from tissue paper.  I followed this easy tutorial from HGTV on How to Make Tissue Paper Pom Poms.  The turquoise is for Cheryl… its one of the main colors on her blog!

Chocolate Covered White Cake-Perfect for Birthdays!

Print
Rich Chocolate Buttercream

Ingredients

  • 1 cup powder sugar
  • 3 large egg whites
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 2 sticks plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
  • 4 ounces extra-bittersweet chocolate, melted and cooled

Instructions

  1. Melt chocolate. Place in microwave safe bowl and heat in 30-second increments. An alternative method would be to use a double broiler. Place chopped chocolate in heat proof bowl and set over saucepan of simmering water. Gently stir until chocolate is fully melted, then set aside to cool.
  2. Place sugar in a medium heatproof bowl and add in the egg whites and salt.
  3. Set the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water (about 2 inches deep) and whisk gently until the sugar is completely dissolved, about 5 minutes.
  4. Transfer the warm egg-white mixture to standing mixer fitted with the whisk.
  5. Add the vanilla and beat at medium-high speed until glossy and firm, about 8 minutes.
  6. Beat in the butter a few pieces at a time, making sure it is fully incorporated before adding more.
  7. If the buttercream appears runny at any time, transfer the bowl to the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes, then return it to the mixer and continue.
  8. Beat in the melted chocolate until fully incorporated, scraping down the side and bottom of the bowl.
  9. Slightly adapted from Food & Wine
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Birthday #cake! White cake with rich chocolate buttercream!

Wishing Tidymom a very very special day!  If you are able, do stop by her fabulous blog and spread some birthday love! (She even has a great giveaway right now… you can win a gift card to Home Depot and lots of other awesome prizes!)

· 39 Comments

The Perfect White Cake

I have been searching for this cake for about two years now.  In my experience, making white cake at home is just never as good as the bakery. (Sorry!  I know some of you just cringed reading that.)

The Perfect White Cake

Until now.

I am not kidding when I tell you that this recipe is it.  The flavor is fantastic and the texture is truly perfection.  Even the-pickiest-dessert-eater-ever, aka my hubby, loved it.

And I know you will too.  As I noted in the recipe I found this cake on epicurious who got it from Cooks Illustrated.  I have never been led astray with either of those sources so I am confident you will find the same success I did!

One major adaptation I did was using 8-in cake pans.  The original recipe calls for 9-in and about 5 minutes less cooking time.  If you plan on using 9-in plans please do consult the original recipe.  The first time I made it I used 8-in cake pans with no time adaptation and was not as successful.

The Perfect Homemade White Cake

 

 

Print
The Perfect White Cake

Ingredients

  • 2 1/4 cups cake flour
  • 1 cup milk at room temperature
  • 6 large egg whites at room temperature
  • 2 teaspoons almond extract
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
  • 4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon table salt
  • 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened but still cool

Instructions

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare two 8-inch cake pans.
  2. Make sure milk and eggs are room temperature.
  3. Pour milk (I used skim) , egg whites, and extracts into medium bowl and mix with fork until blended.
  4. Mix cake flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in bowl of electric mixer at slow speed. Add butter, cut into cubes and continue beating on low for about 1-2 minutes.
  5. Add all but 1/2 cup of milk mixture to flour mixture and beat at medium speed for 1 1/2 minutes. Add remaining 1/2 cup of milk mixture and beat for about 1 minute.
  6. Pour batter evenly between two prepared cake pans.
  7. Bake until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 27 to 30 minutes.
  8. Allow cake to cool to room temperature.
  9. Frost cakes with favorite frosting.
  10. Just barely adapted from epicurious, taken from Cooks Illustrated.
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The Best Homemade White Cake

Do you have a perfect white cake in your life?

· 142 Comments

Chocolate Curls Christmas Cake

I know I said I would stop with the red and green but apparently I was totally lying.  Sorry.

I made a white cake, tinted some frosting red and green, then melted some chocolate.  Have you ever made chocolate curls?  I had tried once before.  It was a major fail.  I am pretty sure there were even some comments mocking my skills, and if they werent totally right I might have been upset.

Ok, so looks like I still have not mastered this technique.  I could not get one single perfect swirly curl.

I blame the red candy melts I used.  And the warm December weather. And that one boy in 2nd grade who called me 4-eyes. *cough*

Clearly I have issues.

In addition to sharing this sweet little Christmas cake with you, I also wanted to give you a chance to share something with someone you love.  Say that sentence three times fast.  Or dont.  Just remember I am not an English major.  I am not even an English minor.  Words. Good.

 

Would you like to win a brand new Motorola DROID RAZR smartphone?  These things are awesome.

  • 8-megapixel camera and an HD display that makes movies, photos, magazines and websites appear with vibrant clarity
  • are near-field communications(NFC)-enabled
  • battery that allows for up to 32 hours of normal use and double the internal storage to 32 GB
  • run over 4G LTE, combined with Chrome for Android, meaning customers can enjoy blazing fast speeds that make downloading documents or surfing the Web a breeze
  • Global Ready

Not only would I love to give an iambaker reader this beautiful phone, but I would love to give you a $50 Verizon Giftcard to be used towards your bill or any phone accessory!  All in all, this gift is worth over $250!

A Beautiful New Smartphone.

A $50 Verizon Giftcard.

A sweet little cake.

Its the recipe for a perfect Christmas folks. ;)

Official Rules

To enter simply follow the instruction through the Rafflecopter widget below!  I gave you LOTS of chances to win! (It can take a moment to load, so please be patient!)
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· 371 Comments

Desserts for the Deserving

The need can be anything from a new baby to a hospital stay to the loss of a loved one.

The desire on our part is the same, to make life easier for the recipient.  To give them a gift of a warm, comforting, homemade meal.   

When my church reached out and asked if I could bring a meal to a family that just had their first child I said yes before she could finish talking.  Having just have had a baby myself, I know how wonderful a small kind gesture can be!

So in addition to the main grub, I decided to bring them a fun dessert.

IMG_4035.cakeinjar

I made the six different cakes in jars!  They are roughly a single serving each, or if you are like me, they are half a single serving.

IMG_4024.strawberrycakeinjar

Each jar is different and each has its own distinctive frosting.

But here is the fun part.

I made them all from ONE cake recipe.

White Cake

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup milk

4 egg whites

2 cups cake flour

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine sugar and shortening until well blended.  In separate bowl, beat egg whites until light and frothy. (about 3 minutes)  Sift baking powder into flour.  Add flour to sugar mixture alternating with the milk.  Add extract.  Gently add egg whites and fold in until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pans and bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes depending on your stove.

Baking tip specifically for jars:

Add 1/2 cup cake batter to well greased jar and bake at 325 for 35-45 minutes.  The goal is to make sure the center is not raw, hence the longer cooking time.  Start watching your jar at 30 minutes to make sure you don't over-bake.

Here is how I made six different cakes with one batter!

In every recipe I added the suggested ingredients to 1/2 cup of the plain white cake batter.

(I used this buttercream recipe and Cool Whip for my whipped topping)

   Blueberrycake
 

  VanillaCake

ChocolateCake

PeachSpiceCake

 Doh!  That should totally say PEACH, not peace.  Sorry!

  ChocolateCaramelCake

 

StrawberryCake

This was a fun and easy way to make sure everyone gets something they would like!

IMG_4102.blueberrycakeinjar

I also tied a tag onto each jar describing the contents.  I sorta had this vision of the new mom sitting at her kitchen table at 2:00am feeding her baby with every jar open in front of her and shes sampling a little from each one.

Maybe that was less of a vision and more of a fantasy.  Cause like, I am still feeding my three month old at 2:00am.

I also added little words of encouragement on the top of each jar… a Bible saying on a couple, "Congrats", "Blessings", easy sayings like that.

This whole project with definitely a labor of love and I felt so privileged that I was able to offer up a small gift! 

If you try it, be sure to leave a comment and let me stop by and gush over your Dessert for Someone Deserving!

· 124 Comments

Red, White, & Blue Dessert

Kinda. More like red, white, and deep, deep navy.  Maybe even purple? Sorry Uncle Sam.   See, I saw these amazing chocolate edible bowls over on bakerella and I knew I wanted to try them.  I seriously get lost on her site.  The amount of creative and original and stunning [...] Read more »

· 50 Comments