A Cake for a Birthday Boy

It was Emmett's birthday last week and we celebrated this weekend. He's a lover of all things chocolate, so I decided to do a chocolate cake. Eleanor told me that he'd want sprinkles (either that or a blue cake), so here we are. It was totally delish.

I used my Sheet Cake recipe in 2 layer pans, reducing the oven temp to 350F and increasing the cooking time to 30 mins.

For the frosting, I did a classic ganache:

• 1.5c heavy/whipping cream
• 16oz bittersweet chocolate, grated

We're pretty limited with our choc choices due to Emmett's peanut allergy, so I used choc chips, whizzing them in the food processor to break them up a bit.

Bring the cream to a boil and take off the heat. Dump your grated chocolate in there, stir until mostly dissolved and cover for 10 mins. Stir well until smooth. Now you can choose how to use it. You can pour it as a thin glaze at this point, or let it cool to the desired consistency to either do a thick, poured glaze or a spreadable frosting. Mine was somewhere in the middle. This made a LOT of ganache. Enough to fill and frost this cake with a fair bit leftover for eating with spoons. What's nice is that it's not very sweet so it is a good foil to a typical choc cake.

Holy Sheet Cake

It was my husband's birthday on the weekend, and because I love him I asked him what kind of cake he'd like. He said he wanted my chocolate sheet cake. Now if this was 5 years ago, I wouldn't have known what he was talking about. But now I am enlightened. I have christened this cake the Holy Sheet Cake. When you eat it you'll exclaim something similar to the name of the cake or you'll just eat the whole cake.

Here's how you do it (recipe is tweaked from the Joy of Cooking, 75th Anniversary edition):

Preheat oven to 375 degrees Farenheit and butter a 9" x 13" pyrex dish

What you'll need:

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 cup water
• 1/2 c sunflower oil (organic, preferably)
• 125g unsalted butter
• 1/2 c cocoa powder
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c buttermilk or a yogurt and milk combination
• 2 tsp vanilla extract

melt together the water, oil, butter and cocoa. Mix together the flour, baking soda and sugar. Pour butter mixture into the flour and mix until just incorporated and then add the eggs, buttermilk and vanilla. Pour into your prepared dish and place in the oven for about 25mins (mine usually needs 30 mins) until a toothpick comes out clean.

Now check out this pic:

If that doesn't make every icing lover weak at the knees, then I don't know what will.

You have 2 choices here and I will give them both. What's pictured above does not use icing sugar and here is how you do it:

Bring a cup of cream to the boil and break up 6oz of unsweetened chocolate into it. Let stand for 10 mins (exactly!). pour into a food processor with 1.5 cups sugar, 2 tsp vanilla and 3/4 stick of butter (95g). Whizz up for at least a minute until it's smoooooth and glossy. Pour it over your cake and check out your reflection in it!

This second recipe is less beautifully glossy but it's really good too and my husband says he actually prefers it.
Melt 6 oz semi sweet choc chips and 6 Tbs butter together over a double boiler (over? in? how does one describe this?!). add 1/4 c hot cream, 2 tsp vanilla and then beat in 4 cups sifted icing sugar. This makes a LOT of icing. It's pretty sweet. And good too.

Let me know which one you prefer. I'm off to have some cake now.

The Yummiest Chocolate Chip Cookies

This is another recipe that came from a loose paper somewhere; jotted down and changed several times. I borrowed the paper from my mom when I was in university but sadly I lost the original, so I have spent years trying to replicate it by adapting similar cookies on the internet. I love these cookies because they have a hearty, chewy, nutty flavor without actually having a single nut in the recipe (key when you have a child with allergies). Hands down these remain my favorite cookies (although my husband can make a few that rival them), because they retain their chewyness after they are cooled down:

Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup of salted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups oats (quick is fine)
3/4 cups semi sweet chocolate chips, or chocolate chunks
1/2 cup sweetened coconut (the most important ingredient in my opinion)
 Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Sift together flour, baking soda and baking powder in a bowl.
In another bowl, beat together butter and 2 sugars until fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then vanilla.
Add dry mixture to butter mixture slowly, then mix in oats, coconut and chocolate.
On an un-greased cookie sheet, scoop out cookies about an inch in diameter.
Bake for 11-12 minutes, or until edges are golden brown. Transfer to cookie racks to cool.
Serve with milk!

Delicious Brownies

 

Who doesn't love brownies? Last week, my friend Katie fed me some of her amazing Cookie Dough Brownies. I couldn't stop thinking about them. But with Emmett's newly diagnosed Peanut Thing, I didn't want to use the choc chips I already had in the house. Step in, Best Brownies Ever.

The Last Brownie Recipe You'll Ever Use

Adapted from the Joy of Cooking (75th Anniversary edition)

What you'll need:

• 1/2 cup butter (115g)
• 4oz unsweetened chocolate (yes, unsweetened. No sugar whatsoever. Sorry, but I've never seen it outside North America)
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 cup all purpose (plain) flour

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Butter and line a square pan (9" x 9")  with baking parchment.

Melt the butter and chocolate over low heat (you don't need a double boiler). Then, once it's all melted, let it sit to cool until about room temperature. Don't be like me and lick the spoon. Despite it looking luscious, the total absence of sugar renders it quite revolting.

Then beat your eggs until they are fluffy, preferably using a stand mixer or your muscles if you're feeling energetic. Gradually add the sugar and vanilla and keep on beating until it's a lovely, pale smooth deliciousness. Then pour in your chocolate beat it well. Now that your wooden spoon and fold in the flour using as few strokes as possible. We don't want to develop the gluten in the flour by over-mixing. Gluten development = tough brownies = sad me.

Now pour your batter into your prepared pan, but don't scrape the bowl out. That's for licking. Bake for about 25-30 mins (while licking the bowl) or until it's no longer jiggly and a toothpick comes out of the centre with a few crumbs sticking to it. Let it cool in the pan.

Now try not to eat the entire pan.