Triple-Layer Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Ganache

My dad's birthday was coming up, and while I can get away with baking a fudgy brownie to satisfy my friends chocolate cravings on their bithdays, the situation remains different with my dad. He loves anything with good solid chocolate, (who do you think is the one who seeks out for my gharadelli chocolate chips and eats them all?!), and since hes my dad, why not spend a day of baking with chocolate, chocolate, and more chocolate for his birthday?

Ever since I was lucky enough to indulge into a gourgousely layered rich chocolate cake at a wedding lunchen, I was inspired to make one of these cubes of heaven myself. I didn't challenge myself to far, as far as finding interesting flavors to incporporate into the cake, finding challenge enough in baking a huge batch of devils food cake enough for 3 cakes , evening out each layer of cake, layering them on top of each other with home-made ganache, and why not make some chocolate leaves to top it all of!

I found a great guided recipe for the whole thing, which was self-explained very well, and as far as the cake, it tasted so good (with a hint of instant coffee added) that I'll definatly consider using the cake recipe to incorporate into others. The link from where I found the recipe (though I increased the serving size of the reipce) can be found right here: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/08/devils_food_cak.html

Below I posted my pictures of this decadent delightful chocolate cake through the steps I took in making it, but I must warn you, side affects may include extreme drooling and sudden intence chocolate craving...




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All you have to do to make chocolate leaves is spread a layer of melted chocolate onto clean leaves, and peel the chocoate of once its hardened. Use a little bit of the access melted chocolate as glue, to stick the leaves onto the cake.







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Apple Cake

My mom was taking my little brother over to his friend's house for a little holiday celebration (Rosh Hashanah, they were having a sukkah party), and wanted to bring a fruity treat over, with fruits being a main appreciation during that holiday. However, she only had about half an hour to make a cake, and I didn't have to guess hard to predict that she was hoping she could bake my aunt's famous apple cake (a recipe she got from a friend from germany!), which has evolved into a family favorite.

It has been constantly made not just my aunt, but my grandma and occasionally my mom, and lets not forget myself! Even the base of the recipe itself ,without the apple on top is a fabulous basic cake batter to work with. It is nice and moist, but still has a sturdy structure.

Anyways, there was no way the neat freak, aka my mom, could make a cake in less than half an hour, so I immediatly started peeling some apples for her (about 6) and took buttered a baking dish. Once she managed to mix all the ingredients together, a great advantage of the cake is that the mixing steps are so simple, I started layering the apples onto the cake, which I had lightly tossed into some cinamon, brown sugar, and sugar. My mom and I both agreed that some slivered almonds would add a happy crunch to the cake and would be a good combination to the apples, so not only did I add slivered almonds to the cake but I melted some butter with cinamon and brown sugar, and drizzled that over the apples and almonds layered onto the cake. Yummy!







I would have pre heated the oven as well, but their wouldn't have been enough time to bake the cake at our house, so my mom shrewdly, or so she thought, decided on baking it at my brothers friend house. But that is where all the trouble started;
Don't worry, my mom didn't drop the cake on her way to their friends house. However, the oven still didn't seem very friendly to invite to the cake into it, and literally refused to go onto the bake setting. The buttons were all set to 350 F on the bake setting, and after about half an hour in the oven, or so I heard, my mom
checked on the cake to see how it was cooking, and it was completely raw! Of course, out of all days for the oven not to work, it picked a day a delicious apple cake wanted to bake in it. So after minutes of stress and confusion, the oven seemed to cut my mom and my brother's friend's mom some slack, and decided to let its broil setting to work. And so the cake was cooked on the broil setting with a big blanket of foil wrapped on top of it. So the result? Umm, well it couldn't end up being that amazing moist texture everyone loves, but it still had that delicious flavor and tasted even better with a dollop of whipped cream.
The actual flaw of the cake that wasn't he ovens fault was that my mom didn't cover every corner of the cake enough with foil, so a good amount of the edge of the cake was a burnt black color, which she was kind enough to take home..so I could photogragh? ;)


I wish I had better pictures of the moist apple-licious beuatifully colored apple cake it was supposed to look like, but I guess this is just an excuse for you to go ahead and bake this amazing cake and send me some pictures. No seriously, it tastes amazing, as long as your oven doesn't feel like broiling on you!

The recipe follows: APPLE CAKE

-6 eggs
-2 cup. Sugar
-3/4 cup. Oil
-3 cup. Flour
-3 Tsp. Baking Powder
-1/2 cup. Orange Juice
-Vanilla
-5-8 apples
-1 Tbsp.Cinamon, brown sugar, and sugar to toss the apples in (optional)
-1 Tbsp. butter melted in cinamon and brown sugar (optional)

Directions:
1.Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla together.
2.In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together
3.Alternate adding the flour and baking powder mixture and the orange juice to the wet ingredients, starting with the flour and ending with the flour.
5.Slice the apples as thinly as you like and layer them onto the cake however way you like, after you've tossed them in some cinamon, brown sugar, and sugar (optional)
6. Optional: Sprinkle some slivered almonds on top, and about a tablespoon of butter melted with cinamon and brown sugar in it, on top of the cake.
7.Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

Whole-Wheat Strawberry Shortcake

I was at my grandma's house, and my aunt brought a simple and very tasty dessert. Strawberry Shortcake. I decided to post about it, because shortcakes have only a couple of steps, can be put together as slopply as you like, and always taste good.
For the cake part, my aunt used the recipe she always uses, only this time, she used whole-wheat flour in replacement of white flour:

-6 eggs
-2 cup. Sugar
-3/4 cup. Oil
-3 cup. Flour
-3 Tsp. Baking Powder
-1/2 cup. Orange Juice
-Vanilla

Directions:
1. Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla together.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together
3. Alternate adding the flour and baking powder mixture and the orange juice to the wet ingredients, starting with the flour and ending with the flour
4. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

After the cakes are ready, start layering in a large serving bowl a layer of cream, sliced strawberries, cake, cream, sliced strawberries, etc. Do this until the whole bowl is filled to the top with a final layer of cream and decorate with strawberries if you like


There is really no better way to serve this, than to just dig in with a big spoon. Even if it gives of a sloppier appearence of the cake, that's just part of the fun of it, and your still going to be eating the same wonderful flavors from the strawberry shortcake.

Theirs the spoon that's been attacked ^^ with cream

Strawberry shortcake anyone? It's whole wheat..

Chocolate Nutella Cake

As much as my brother enjoys what I bake, he's been complaining about how often I do, and how he never does. He is pretty young, but my grandma, my aunt, and I all love baking, so maybe it just runs in the family. He wanted to bake a chocolate cake with his own made up recipe, and I decided on helping him. He made a list of the basic ingredients he knew to put in the cake, and I added a few extras. The measurments were figured out along as we made up the cakes recipe, but overall, the texture and flavor of the cake was pretty good.

Chocolate Nutella Cake
-3 eggs
-1/4 cup dark brown sugar
-1/4 cup white sugar
-1/2 cup oil
-1 tsp. coffee
-1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
-1/4 cup milk
-1 1/4 cup white AP flour
-1/2 tsp. salt
-2 tsp. baking powder
-1 tsp. cocoa powder
-1 tsp. Orange Juice (optional)
-1/3 cup chocolate chips
-1/3 cup chopped hazelnuts (I didn't have any on hand ): )
-1/4 cup AP flour
-1/4 cup-1/2 cup nutella (based on how fudgy you want your cake)
-Melted Chocolate and Sprinkles to decorate (optional)

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, sugars, and oil.
2. Add in the coffee and vanilla and beat until all combined. Add 1/4 cup of nutella, or 1/2 cup for a fudgier cake
3. In a seperate bowl, sift togther the flour, salt, baking powder, and cocoa powder all together.
4. Alternate mixing in the sifted flour mixture with the milk and orange juice into the egg mixture, until it's all combined together
5. Toss the chocolate chips and hazelnuts in the extra 1/4 cup of flour (to prevent the chocolate chips/nuts from sinking into the bottom of the cake), until each chocolate chip/hazelnut is evenly coated with flour. Pour the flour coated chocolate chips and hazelnuts into the batter and mix in.
6.Pour the batter into a greased pan and bake at 350 F for 25-30 minutes.


To add a little something extra to the cake, once its cooled down, take it out of the pan and melt about 1/3 cup of chocolate. With a wisk or a fork, drizzle it over the cake, however way you like, and then top it of with some sprinkles while the chocolate is still melted.

If I would have thought of this earlier (and was up for the extra calories ;p), I probably would have sliced the cake down the middle and spread on a layer of nutella and chopped up hazelnuts onto the bottem half, and then closed it with the upper half of the cake!

Banana Bread/Cake with Chocolate Chips and Walnuts

A long while back I was craving banana bread for a whole week, after I found a recipe of it I really liked. So, of course, when the weekend came up, I had to make it. I found the recipe on http://www.icecreambeforedinner.blogspot.com/, a really great blog.
The recipe provided was http://icecreambeforedinner.blogspot.com/2008/01/mini-banana-breads.html.
I made a couple of changes throughout the many times I baked it. It never listed how many eggs are required so I always go with 2 eggs, which seems to always work out fine. For the sugar part I put 1/4 cup white sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, and 1/8 cup honey. I personally find the full 3/4 cup of sweeteners to sweet but its all based on your preference. If you replace half the butter with applesauce, it gives the banana bread the complete texture of bread. I you replace half the butter with oil, it will give the banana bread the texture of a cake being really nice and moist. Both ways don't make dramatic changes but either way, they both taste amazing. Finally, I always love adding walnuts, which I roughly chop, and just recently, I added choclate chips.

Most of the times I bake it, I don't have overripe bananas on hand, so I put mine in the microwave for a minute softining it up, and add about an extra half to bring out the banana flavor. This week, I actually made it due to these extremely overipe bananas we all refused to eat raw


I also whisked the wet ingredients instead of shaking them in a container, though I'm eager to try the shaking method


And then into the oven it went


Which baked up perfectly




Banana Bread/Cake anyone?

Girly Girl Birthday Cake

When my cousin turned 3 years old in June, I baked her cookies with sprinkles. Simple as they were, that also meant her older sister who was turning six, excpected me to bake her something as special, with a little more awareness towards the definition of 'big and special'. I would have gone with cupcakes with colorful frosting designs on it, but when my grandma called, informing me we would all get together at her house for my cousin's brithday and wondering if I could bake a cake, I decided to comine her big birthday treat into one really special cake.

I already knew it would have to be a pink super girly cake, and tryng to kick it up a knotch, I decided to make it int0 a brithday cake as well. Usually, I would have a contrast as one layer vanilla and one chocolate, but she wanted everything in the cake to be vanilla and no chocolate.

For the basic cake I used a recipe my aunt always uses her friend had shared with her, wich is originally meant to be an apple cake, but has such a nice moist flavor but still sturdy texture to it, that I used it for the cake part.

-6 eggs
-2 cup. Sugar
-3/4 cup. Oil
-3 cup. Flour
-3 Tsp. Baking Powder
-1/2 cup. Orange Juice
-Vanilla

Directions:
1. Mix the eggs, sugar, oil, and vanilla together.
2. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking powder together
3. Alternate adding the flour and baking powder mixture and the orange juice to the wet ingredients, starting with the flour and ending with the flour.
4. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

This recipe was enough to fill up to round cake pans



I used one one of these same cake pans to press ice-cream into after i covered the pan in a layer of plastic wrap to make taking the layer of icecream out easier



To attach all the layers i bought premade frosting, and flavored one with pureed strawberries that i sifted all the seeds out of, knowing my cousin would enjoy the flavor from them.
The only flaw of adding the puree was that it took away a good amount of the sturdy/thick texture the frosting originally had

The assembly of the cake went like this:
1. A layer of cake
2. A layer of frosting
3. A layer of ice-cream
4. A layer of frosting
5. A final layer of cake
<--It would have helped if the icecream would have been more frozen and the frosting wouldn't have been as liquidy from the strawberry purree, to have helped keep its shape better

After everything firmed up a bit better in the freezer, i covered it in a layer of light blue frosting (that being my cousins second favorite color)
I also whipped up some cream coloring it with food coloring since the strawberry purree would have made the cream to heavy to whip up properly, and the covered the whole cake with it after it had fully hardened in the freezer
I decorated it by piping designs with the access cream I had leftover

At the very end I had very few spinkles leftover from previously, and sprinkled it onto the flower and her name (not photo-graphed)
Overall the cake was delicious, but the ice-cream was very messy and wouldn't firm up enough, even with sitting a few hours in the freezer