Spiced Chocolate Torte Wrapped in Chocolate Ribbons

My sister Steph is a character.  She's a dreamer, a planner, a doer and the most adventurous free spirit I'm lucky enough to know.  She's one of those stubborn, loyal, gregarious sisters you are glad to have.  Steph definitely knows what she wants, and she demands grand cakes.  Last year I made her this chocolate cake, but this year I needed to up the anti.  I tried to roll in her twentieth birthday in style, with this over the top chocolate monstrosity.  It's a cake wrapped with a bow, could you make a better birthday gift?  Steph, I can report, loved the cake!  I received multiple pictures over the next few days of what meal the leftover cake was substituting for.  It's a show stopper for sure.

The cake was overwhelming, both in it's making and consuming.  I find with huge decadent cakes their denseness and sweetness always overdo it on my poor stomach, which makes them a better idea than reality.  I had a great time spending a day making this cake, each step was a project in it's own right. Although it's not perfect I'm very pleased with the results.

Angel Food Cake with Strawberry-Blueberry Sauce

This cake was wonderful in every way! To make because it was for my mother-in-law's birthday. To bake because it's a great recipe. To eat because well...ditto, it's a great recipe!  I made it in the few hours I was home that day (after a fantastic hike and before eating dinner out with the 'rents).  It was such a breeze to make and an excellent use of the accumulating egg whites in my freezer.  I think it wins as the nicest angel food cake I've eaten.  It was light and tender,  had a great flavour, light on the sugar and the perfect amount of almond. There isn't much more to say, it was brilliant!  And that sauce! I subbed out raspberries for strawberries since there is a surplus flowing through my kitchen right now.  The flavours are fresh and bright, and luckily for me, one of her favourite desserts!

Raspberry-Yogurt Cake

Easter weekend was a whirlwind.  There was my working the whole thing and trying to find time to sleep.  There was glorious sunshine and warm (even hot) temperatures.  We ate outside where the flowers were blooming and the mosquitoes were biting.  I think my face might have burnt my face on a very long training run on Saturday morning.  But the very best part of the weekend was the brunch-for-dinner we had on Sunday night.  I had a few contributions to the meal, but the main one was this cake.  Among the spread of waffles and sausage this cake held it's ground.

I was looking around for a sweet to bake for this "dinner".  I thought about ginger, or lemon or even carrot cake (a personal favorite).  But no, I decided there had to be berries involved this year, which I will directly attribute to the amazing weather we'd been having.  Once that was decided the decision was easy, berries + yogurt = breakfast.  And done.

This cake was wonderful, soft and moist.  I found it pleasantly tart, not too sweet.  It's is a great slice of cake to have with a cup of tea in the afternoon, or a indulgent breakfast in the morning.  The orange was a beautiful bright flavour, but the almond was truly wonderful.  I had a bunch of frozen raspberries that I layered (after I thawed and drained them) on the bottom, covered them with batter and then used fresh quartered strawberries on the top layer.  The strawberries cooked down into sweet gooey spring-y bites.  Now that the weather has turned back into it's dark, grey self, it's the bright spot in my morning, even without a garden and sun hat.

Baking notes:
-I followed the recipe exactly as it instructed, except for the type of berries I used.
-I thawed some of last years raspberries in a strainer, leaving the juices behind.  I dolloped some batter in the very bottom of the bundt pan, added a layer of raspberries (about a cup), dolloped another layer of batter, smoothed it out, tossed about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of quartered strawberries with 2 Tbsp of flour and layered them in and then finished with the remaining batter, smoothing the top nicely.
-My cake took only one hour to bake, watch that you don't overcook it.
-To get the slightly sticky cake out of the pan I took a skewer and pushed it down the sides jiggling it loose all the way around, but carefully so it didn't tear the cake.  The same for the inside tube.  (Be careful!)

The recipe for Raspberry-Yogurt Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

73/569

Mocha Crunch Ice Cream Cake

This time it was ice cream cake.  The day started early, like it always does (or did, anyway), in his pack I packed away a tidy special breakfast, something different then the same old oatmeal.  Blueberry muffins and glazed bacon.  That ought to get him off on the right foot.  I drove the hour and a half to have lunch with him, I gave him his gift.  There was buckets of rain and plenty of mushy I-love-you-happy-birthdays.  We had dinner later that night with friends, at a far-to-dimly-lit place not to far from us.  We had coffee and dessert at our place afterwards and like I said, this time it was ice cream cake.

I was more than happy to make this ice cream cake.  Under the directions of the recipe I used store bought ice cream, (infinitely easier than making my own, but so much more expensive!) and what a relief that was.  I can be mother of the ice cream cakes if I can use store bought ice cream!  Of course the cake was very sweet, but there was more to it.  I loved the hint of coconut in the chocolate glaze, and how fast it melted when it was at room temperature.  I loved that the crust wasn't baked, just frozen, which made things so simple.  The entire thing was delicious, crunchy and smooth, coffee and chocolate, we were totally impressed.  My only gripe (and it's a small one) is that the glaze got grainy once it froze and frustratingly I'm not sure why.  Happily my husband loved the cake, it was a happy birthday.

Baking notes:
-I made the chocolate glaze/fudge with only 1 cup of water instead of 1.5 cups.  I think this was a perfect consistency, I can't imagine how much runnier it would have been.
-I used approximately half the amount of coffee ice cream I should have (that Haagen dazs is expensive!)
-Each layer of ice cream took around 30 minutes to freeze adequately. The layer of fudge in the middle needed an extra half an hour to get semi-solid.
-I used one package of Oreos instead of the shortbread it called for.  I didn't have enough by weight of the crushed Oreos, but I thought it was just the right amount.  I used 1/3 of the crumbs for the middle layer and 2/3 for the bottom (and just a little less butter). Perfect.
-In Canada Heath bars are the same as Skor bars.  I used four.

The recipe for Mocha Crunch Ice Cream Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

71/569

Parsnip Spice Cake with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

So a few days ago a good friend of ours stopped by with her arms full of stuff.  She has a hobby farm where she raises chickens and tonnes of vegetables.  There were about 8 frozen chickens, one and a half dozen eggs and a pail full of dirty brown veggies she had just pulled from the garden before she drove over.  We are so blessed to have the friends we do.  In the pail were many things, but among them about 10 parsnips of varying size.  We ate a few roasted but with the surplus I decided to make a parsnip cake, which although it sounds weird, is only as strange as carrot cake!  The cake is an excellent snacking cake, it's warm with spice, fresh with ginger and toasty with walnuts.  It's not too sweet, and has a lovely light texture. I've been loving every slice. (Though I still prefer carrot cake).

Baking notes:
-I used only 10-11oz of powdered sugar in the icing and found it perfect.
-Watch the baking times very closely.  I took the cake out at only 18 minutes.

The recipe for Parsnip Spice Cake with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting can be found on the epicurious website.

69/569

Tres Leches Cake

It was for Natasha's 21st birthday that I made this cake last weekend, and it had some odd requirements.  Natasha lives 8 hours away, and my mom and I were driving half way north to meet her, she drove half way south.  In the middle we met, snowshoeing, drinking wine in front of a fireplace curled up with blankets, cross country skiing and laughing our butts off.  I sent Natasha a list of cakes to choose from and she sent me three options back.  Of the three there was only one that was a practical choice since the cake needed to be baked before we left and eaten two days later.  I assumed the caramel syrup would relieve any dryness that developed in the cake as it sat. The other requirement I had was that it also needed to be able to stay together in the back of the car for four hours, during the long drive. For which of course, this cake was suitable.

Now, I've had some awesome tres leche cake before, without the caramel component, so I only assumed this cake would be even better. Unfortunately, I couldn't have been more wrong.  The cake was boring, bland, and after two days totally dry.  It was a very disappointing birthday cake if there ever was one.  Maybe this cake would be better if it was consumed on the same day it was baked.  I personally think the cake was too dry regardless, but I might have to try again, to give it a better chance.  Currently I believe there are far better recipes out there.

Baking notes:
-I did not cut the cake in half and layer it with whip cream, it seemed that it was already a doomed cake.
-I used only half the amount of whip cream called for in the frosting, it was enough.
-Watch the baking time closely, and start checking around 30 minutes.  Mine came out early.

The recipe for Tres Leches Cake can't be found online.

65/569

Black Pearl Layer Cake

Wow, I feel as though I've really been pumping out the birthday cakes! It's wonderful, as each cake brings me one step closer to mastering them.  You'd think someone who calls herself a baker would be better at pies and tarts and cakes.  Really, the only thing I can do reliably is make cookies and brownies and the odd candy concoction.  But I digress, it was my mother's birthday, and a big one at that. Forty, 40, the big 4 - 0.  So we celebrated with Indian food and wine, totally my mom's style. We sang an enthusiastic birthday tune to a candleless cake and capped off the night with large slices of this unique and titillating confection.

This cake kinda blew my mind.  When mom shortlisted it for her birthday options and left the rest up to me, I knew immediately that this was her cake.  It's unique and very interesting, while still maintaining a classic chocolate cake texture.  To look at it, there is nothing amiss.  But to taste it is totally different!  Ginger! Black Sesame! Wasabi!  It's crazy-town up in here.  All together you get a riot of flavour, hidden in an unassuming chocolate cake facade.  It's a rare and distinctive gem in the birthday cake world.  I must point out that the texture of this cake was incredible, in fact it was the best textured chocolate cake I've ever had.  If I wasn't in the mood for the asian flavours this cake could be adapted to a coffee, or mint, or just plain chocolate.  This is a winner in so many ways.

Baking notes:
-While making the chocolate ganache the instructions say to wait until the chocolate is room temperature to add the butter.  In my experience I added the butter as soon as the sesame seeds and syrup were added and the chocolate was already a little too cool to melt it, so don't wait until it "comes to room temperature" because it already is.
-Watch the baking times on the cakes closely, I monitored them by the minute after 20 minutes, and they took about 24-26 minutes to bake.

-Super easy and super delicious!

The recipe for Black Pearl Layer Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

63/569

Winter-Spiced Molten Chocolate Cakes with Rum-Ginger Ice Cream

After a very disappointing end to a date we had planned, (read: it didn't happen) I knew dinner was going to have to be amazing to salvage the evening.  The fondue I made was fantastic (how couldn't it be?), but I think this dessert is what really blew me away.  Or maybe that was the extra large glass of wine talking.  I doubt it.  The cake was very easy to make the day before and stick in the fridge overnight.  After dinner was over I popped them in the oven for 18 minutes and voila! One amazing dessert that took very little effort.  These cakes were a perfect consistency, with a crackly crust and and oozing molten insides.  The ice cream paired wonderfully with the cakes and the spices were wonderfully winter-y.  My only complaint is that they were extremely sweet, I'd be happy with about a third less cake next time, which would not be hard to do.

Baking notes:

-I made a quarter of this recipe, which was very easy to do, that way there was no leftovers!

-Make this dessert!

The recipe for Winter-Spiced Molten Chocolate Cakes with Rum-Ginger Ice Cream can be found on the epicurious website.

62/569

Cranberry-Glazed Orange Layer Cake

 It was my birthday a few days ago, I turned twenty-two.  I felt/feel old.  Oh how I will hate myself for saying that in eight years when I turn 30, or in ten years when I finish this project and I turn 32.  Thirty-two, can you believe it?!  I can't even imagine 23! My family and friends made my day very special and spoiled me absolutely rotten.  Some people think it is wrong to make your own birthday cake, but I argue it couldn't be more right for me! I love baking, and the only birthday cake I get full control over is my own.  I actually made this cake for my family and chocolate peppermint cupcakes for my friends.  Every last bit got eaten, for realz.

I knew that some of the cakes in this book were going to be harder to make than others, not technically, but convincing the birthday person that I should make them as birthday cakes.  Chocolate, peanut butter, anything with coffee or candy, or vanilla are easy sells, everyone wants those. But the folks I know don't seem to love citrus cakes.  I knew if I wanted to bake these, they'd be on my own time, so I chose a seasonal citrus cake for my own birthday.  It's an adult cake for sure.  It's not very sweet, cranberry and orange are the main flavours and I could not sell my little brother on a slice, but all the adults I shared it with loved it.  LOVED it!  The cake was not very pretty (though I've definitely made worse), but the flavours were spot on.  Light cake, zingy cranberries and a sweet brown sugar frosting.  I would eat a slice of this again!

Baking notes:
-I couldn't find orange extract in my little town, so instead I doubled the orange zest.  The flavour came through brilliantly.
-I baked the cakes in three 8 inch pans, which worked really well and kept the cakes from drying out.  I also didn't bake them for 35 minutes (I forgot to record how long I did bake them), I kept a close eye on them and took them out exactly when they were done.
-Other than that I followed the recipe closely and had great results.

The recipe for Cranberry-Glazed Orange Layer Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

55/569

Semisweet Chocolate Layer Cake with Vanilla Cream Filling

My last shift before the start of my weekend I received a flu shot.  Not one that I wanted, mind you, but one that I got anyway.  Less than 24 hours later I was laid up on the couch with the flu.  It might be part of the reason this cake bombed so bad, because as you can see, bad things happened.  During the making of this cake I went from perfectly healthy to very sick, all in a matter of hours.  We tried the cake a few days later and promptly threw it out.  It sucked that bad.  Reviews on this cake are mixed, some people hated it, others loved it.  I'm firmly in the hate category, but for a few different reasons.  Oddly the cake recipe on the website is not the same as the recipe I used in the book.  If you follow the online recipe, your results might be dramatically better, let me know!

Firstly, is the matter of the actual cake layers.  The cake was so fragile it literally tore apart in my hands. Strangely this is not a problem I usually have, I'm a (fairly) gentle baker.  I believe it had to do with the cake flour called for, it made the cake way too delicate.  Of course, it could have been a creaming method problem as well, we'll never know.  Second, I take issue with the whip cream layers, which never set up as firm as they could have.  When the cake was placed on top of the whip cream they separated into four (or more) pieces, thus moving outwards and leaving giant gaps in the cake. By the time this happened I was feeling very crummy and I threw the cake in the fridge to set. I made the chocolate layer and left it on the counter, both needed to sit for two hours and I collapsed on the couch.  I never got up that afternoon.  Two days later, when I got around to it, I tried to salvage the now rock hard chocolate frosting by whipping it with the mixer.  This resulted in a split frosting.  I piled it on top of the cake and left it.  Enough was enough, was there a point in salvaging a doomed cake?

We tried a slice, but were totally disappointed.  The texture left much to be desired and the flavour wasn't anything but sweet.  There was an absence of true chocolate flavour in the cake layer and a defined vanilla flavour in the whip cream. Everything felt both cloying sweet and strangely mute.  I tossed it in the garbage, as it was taking valuable space in our tiny refrigerator.  Yes, having a small kitchen means that sometimes treats get tossed.  Sorry. (but not.)

Baking notes:
-I made this cake exactly as outlined in the book.  It's not the same recipe as the one online (even though it has the same name).  Unfortunately I wasted a lot of ingredients in this cake, including 18 oz of chocolate.  So sad.
-I stopped following the recipe when the ganache was meant to be poured.  I was to sick too get off the couch, and tried whipping it the following day.
-Fail, total fail.

The recipe for Semisweet Chocolate Layer Cake with Vanilla Cream Filling can be found on the epicurious website.  (Hopefully a better version, give it a shot and let me know.)

47/569

Halloween Candy Cake

So it's birthday season again, the part of our year when things get crazy.  Crazy in the best way possible of course.  Thanksgiving starts it off every year, then a birthday (that was Thursday), Halloween, three more birthdays, Christmas, New Years and two more birthdays, Valentine's day, another birthday and then things are finally over.  I love it each and every time.  We have something to celebrate every second week from now until March (and then the blues hit hard).  Luckily that means you can count on a lot of cakes and big desserts between now and then.  My pocket book will be crying before the end of all this, and maybe the sugar detox I was talking about the other day makes more sense now.   Get ready, it's celebration time!

Heather, who turned 17 on Thursday, got to pick her cake from a list of 132.  It was simple for her though, she saw the word Halloween and decided immediately.  (The girl loves Halloween, what can I say?)  It's perfect timing of course, little packages of candy are abundant in the stores right now, though with all the varieties of chocolate around you'd wonder why I couldn't find butterfingers for the life of me!  This cake is peanut heavy, which was perfect for us, we all love our peanut butter and could eat it forever.  There are Reese's peanut butter cups, Reese's pieces and Oh Henry's inside the cake.  Sugar overload? I think so.


Baking notes:
-I thought the actual cake was kinda weird.  6 eggs, 2 yolks and ground peanuts?  That's hardly a cake.  But I made it as directed and it worked alright.  You could feel the peanut-y crunch with every bite.  I only baked the cakes for 15 minutes instead of 20, and I still found them a little dry.
-I assembled the cake at home, wrapped it up and refrigerated it.  On the long drive to our destination the cake actually flipped over, but it was oddly unaffected.  I whipped the cream and decorated the cake just before we ate it.
-The layers were like this: peanut cake, peanut butter frosting, chopped peanut butter cups x4.  Then whip cream covering the cake, chopped peanuts on the sides and the reese's pieces and oh henrys for decoration.  Wow!

The recipe for Halloween Candy Cake can not be found online.

43/569

Cornmeal Pound Cake with Rosemary Syrup, Poached Pears, and Candied Rosemary

It's one of the first recipes you see when you flip through the book, and it's been haunting me ever since the project started.  I'm not sure why it nagged me so much, there doesn't seem to be anything overly special about it.   Maybe it's the candied rosemary?  That, and the fact that it has a picture, and most of the recipes do not.  I wonder if it would have stuck with me so much if there hadn't been a picture?  Anyway, I was looking for a project and my heart was set on this one.  After lunch I set about creating this dessert.

First there were vanilla poached pears.  I took my ripest pears, the ones that were on their way out, and cut them up into quarters.  They were too big to leave whole like the recipe called for, and frankly just weren't nice enough.  The poaching was easy and soon they sat cooling in the fridge.  While that was happening I made the pound cake, a half recipe mind you, in a tiny little loaf pan, the perfect size for two.  It's a cornmeal cake, both simple and easy.  Once the cake was in the oven and the pears were chilling, I candied the rosemary.  It was a much easier process than I anticipated.  I started the syrup and added my sad looking rosemary sprigs.  They cooked in the sugar for five minutes and almost right away took a quick dusting in superfine sugar.  The best part of the whole dish?  The rosemary syrup left behind!  Seriously, the syrup was so good I had it in my chai tea.  I'd make more just to have the syrup again!

It's safe to say I was a bit disappointed with the dessert.  All the opportunity was there, but I think it fell short.  The pears were okay, the pound cake was actually a nice texture. Unfortunately it tasted like nothing and the rosemary was so woody it wasn't actually edible.  The syrup was too reduced and constantly needed to be reheated to maintain a fluid consistency.  There were a few things I'd change to make them really sing.

Baking notes:
-I didn't use wine in my pear poaching liquid, I didn't have any one hand.  Instead I substituted apple juice and a tablespoon of triple sec.  Wine would have added another dimension altogether.  I also forgot to add the rosemary to the pot.
-My vanilla isn't very strong and the pound cake needed the flavour desperately.  Without good vanilla the cake tastes like very little.  I baked the pound cake in a half size loaf pan for 53 minutes.
-The candied rosemary was easier to make than I thought it would be.  Be sure to use young tender rosemary sprigs for the best texture.  The sugar used to coat the rosemary can be saved, with it's faint but delightful flavour, for another purpose.
-Next time around I would add a tablespoon more water to the syrup after I took the rosemary out to make it a little more useable.

The recipe for Cornmeal Pound Cake with Rosemary Syrup, Poached Pears, and Candied Rosemary can be found on the epicurious website.

38/569

Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake

We have very little counter space you see, and between the coffee maker and the dishes drying there was just no room for a cooling cake.  I placed the cake on a rack on the TV stand and went about my day.  We leave food out all the time and our dog never sniffs twice.  The cake was fine from it's low perch as we sliced little pieces off here and there, it's glaze dripped to the wood beneath it.

The next morning, thinking nothing of it, I brought Shane to the train station.  It's a six minute round trip journey.  When I came back into the house Butter slunk down onto his mat (the place we put him for discipline) licking his chops.  He knew he was in trouble before I knew what he did.  I looked around for vomit before I spotted the scene.  My pretty cake completely devoid of icing, mashed up against the TV with a picture frame sitting on top (he had pushed the whole thing back into it) and a good third of the cake missing.  I don't know what pushed him to eat the cake, I've never known him to eat my sweets.  (Corn thief he most definitely is.)  But this is his game, once every few months, after we've forgotten about a previous incident he'll strike again.  We'll up our vigilance for a few weeks before letting our guard drop again.  We forget, he attacks.  Needless to say the slobbery cake went straight to the garbage.

Luckily for me I didn't find the cake all that enjoyable anyways.  It thought it was bland and tough.  The only part I really enjoyed was the sugar craving it satiated.  Shane on the other hand liked it a lot, so I'll leave it for you to decide.

Baking notes:
-Even though I lowered the oven temperature to 325 and had the cake in for only an hour (instead of 68 minutes) I found it hard and dry.  I needed less time, but even then I'm not sure the very thick and hard crust on the outer edge would be better.
-I had to tent the cake for the last 25 minutes of baking because it was getting so dark.
-The cake itself had little flavour, it could have used a nice splash of vanilla or something.
-When I combined the icing sugar and sour cream I couldn't figure out how they were going to make something liquid, but I just kept stirring and oddly enough it eventually worked.
-I did love the walnut topping and could have eaten it all off the top (like my dog).

35/569

The recipe for Chocolate Chip Coffee Cake can be found on the epicurious website.

Texas Sheet Cake

I've never had to keep the house stocked with food suitable for lunches and now that I do I realize the constant challenge.  By myself I can make and eat pretty much anything I find, my lunches for work are never a problem, but supplying Shane's lunch is an entirely different experience.  I feel as though if I don't have a plan, he won't eat and it's true.  I bake a lot, but there wasn't necessarily a sweet available on every day, now there is.  Homemade granola bars are a constant in the freezer, soups can be found there too.  Buns and homemade bread make quick sandwiches and oatmeal makes a fast breakfast.  Fruit must always be on hand for a healthy snack, and no 12 hour long day can go by without something sweet.  We've been going heavy on the cookies, which is always tasty, but I was in the mood for a snacking cake.  More precisely, a cake recipe we had all the ingredients for, because this time I wasn't going to the store.

Texas sheet cake sounded like a great idea and in fact it easily could have been.  I halved the recipe, because the whole recipe suits a family of five better than a family of two.  Unfortunately I didn't like the cake.  I found it very dry, which I suppose I could have alleviated, but more so I found it bland.  I like a slap-you-in-the-face chocolate cake and this was more of a hint of chocolate kind of cake.  I'd also argue that this cake could be a lot prettier if the frosting had drizzled better or the toppings were sprinkled on top instead of sandwiches between the two chocolate layers.  I might try a texas sheet cake again, but I'd use a different recipe.

Baking notes:
-As mentioned I halved the recipe and baked the cake in an 8x8 inch pan.  I checked on the cake at 20 minutes and it was more than done.  Thus, overbaked.
-I used a nice dark chocolate with a higher cocoa content than called for and I think it was better for it.
-The toppings I used were toasted shredded coconut and toasted walnuts.  Pecans would have been best.
-Next time I would glaze the cake, let it set for 5 minutes and then sprinkle the toppings on top.  If they looked like they would fall off I'd press them in a little with my hand. Easy.

The recipe for Texas Sheet Cake is not available online.

30/569

Triple Chocolate Celebration Cake

"Something kinda chocolate-y or something super chocolate?" I asked my sister.  I had promised her a fondant cake (a strange obsession of hers) but backed out of it last minute, too much work.  I swore that the cake I made would be even better.
"Super chocolate!" She messaged back.  It was settled then, I'd be making a triple chocolate celebration cake.

The cake took two days to prepare and a seeming metric tonne of chocolate, but in the end I had two beautiful cakes, layered with mousse and a thick ganache, enough for twenty or so people!  It was delicious, light and dense, dark and chocolate-y.  I shared it with almost everyone I knew!  It went down very well, especially with a mound of raspberries and tayberries on top.

Happy Birthday Sister!

Baking notes:
-I didn't use chocolate chips as called for in the cakes, though it would have been a nice addition.
-I made 8 inch cakes, after each layer was cut in two there were six layers.  The recipe calls for only three layers in the cake, which means this makes two three layer cakes.  A lot if you ask me!
-I thought the cake was a bit dry, I would watch the baking times closer next time.
-The mousse firms up a considerable amount in the fridge, it becomes harder to spread.
-The ganache layer was beautiful, first I made a crumb coating and then went around and made a nice smooth surface.
-I did not use the transfer sheet that the recipe indicated.  There is no where in my small town that sells them and the cost of shipping them as well as the chances of them breaking in transit, it wasn't worth it.

You can find the recipe for Triple Chocolate Celebration Cake on the epicurious website.

16/569

Caramel-Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake

What a mouth full! The titles of the recipes in this book are certainly descriptive.  I made this cake for another father's day celebration that happened this past weekend.  I took a risk, since my Dad might not be the most open-minded guy - food wise.  Happily the cake went over with resounding success, everyone liked it, my dad especially. 

A few days prior I intentionally squirreled a few bananas away top of my refrigerator until they were so dark they nearly met their fate in the garbage.  Then I peeled off their black skins, mashed them with a fork and swirled my pureed bananas into a sweet vanilla rum batter.  The banana batter sat atop a nearly sickly sweet caramel and the two mingled in the oven until they were one.  In the end the cake was delicious, but very, almost overly sweet.  Please note.

Baking notes:
-In reading the reviews on this recipe I noticed how hard the caramel became when the cake cooled.  To counteract this I added a 1/4 cup of thick cream as soon as the caramel was cooked, but before the walnuts were added.  While the caramel still hardened to a tooth-some chew, it was not crunchy and tooth-breakable.
-I used a 9-inch spring-form pan to cook this cake.  Unfortunately, all-though I suspected it might, the caramel did leak out the bottom.  Next time, and I would advise you too, I'll use a regular cake pan.  The 8-inch pan called for would never be big enough.
-Next time I would add about a 1/3 cup more walnuts to the caramel, I found this a little lacking.

You can find the Caramel-Walnut Upside-Down Banana Cake recipe on the epicurious website.

13/569

Apple Cake with Maple-Walnut Cream Cheese Frosting

It's not that I needed much encouragement to bake a cake, my reasoning only requires a worthy event, so my mouth isn't the only one consuming vast amounts of frosting and I'm not stuck with cake for 12.  Though on that note, I am always the one to consume the most frosting, because I am the queen of slicking.  I just can't keep my fingers out of the bowl!

I baked a cake.  And contrary to many reviews it worked out perfectly.  We ate moist, flavourful cake with a delectable and memorable frosting. It was a cake where spice and walnut punched out and called attention, maple stood fast and strong waiting in the background and apple played a passive role keeping things moist and subtle.  There were currants (love! I never use currants!) and a hint of almond from the homemade amaretto I substituted for brandy.  It was a fantastic cake and would be perfectly suited to a cup of coffee and a rainy afternoon, or better yet, a cup of coffee and a table of friends after a wonderful winter's dinner, which is exactly how we enjoyed it.

Baking notes:
-The apple is not a main flavour in this cake, but does play an integral part keeping things moist.  I used 4 apples, about 1.25 lbs dressed, (unpeeled and uncut) which cooked down to a perfect 1 1/4 cups of sauce.  Also, I didn't puree the sauce, just kept it slightly chunky.
-Use your best cinnamon here, the spices are warm and inviting. So the better the quality of spices you include, the nicer the flavour will be.
-As I said before, I substituted amaretto for brandy because I didn't have any.  I've also read other bakers swapping out vanilla or almond extract for the alcohol.
-I was skeptical of the frosting based on the reviews I'd read, saying it was far too runny.  I didn't experience this at all, I followed the recipe's refrigeration times for cooling and setting and the results were perfect.
-I replaced the maple flavoring with vanilla extract, I couldn't find that in my town to save my life!

You can find the recipe for Apple Cake with Maple-Walnut Cream Cheese Frosting on the Epicurious website.

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