Brownie Pudding Cake

http://community.jeroxie.com/groups/cookbook-challenge/

I've been doing too many desserts and baked goods on here, but I couldn't help it this time because the Cookbook Challenge theme is Dessert. I'm a little late once again, but everyone else was too, so I don't feel too bad about it! I had this really great dessert planned, but I couldn't find a key ingredient at the supermarket, so at the last moment I had to change my idea for what to make. This brownie pudding cake was perfect because not only did it sound delicious (It's a brownie cake on top and pudding on the bottom! Of course it sounds delicious!), but every single ingredient was something that I already had on hand.

The recipe is from the 2007 edition of The Good Housekeeping Cookbook.

2 teaspoons instant-coffee powder (optional)

2 tablespoons plus 1 3/4 cups boiling water

1 cup all purpose flour

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

4 tablespoons butter or margarine, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

whipped cream or vanilla ice cream (optional)

I didn't use any instant-coffee powder when I made it, because I can't stand the taste of coffee. People sometimes say that if you add coffee/espresso powder to chocolatey recipes, it doesn't make them taste like coffee, it just gives them a more intense chocolate flavor. I don't know if this is true or not, and I don't care to find out. People that drink coffee are so desensitized to the harsh bitter flavor that they go around saying that their mochas don't taste anything like coffee and that I should try some because I'll like it. And when I try it, all I taste is coffee, and it is horrible.

Anyway, I don't know if the extra two tablespoons of water is necessary if you don't use the coffee powder, but I used it anyway and added it when it told me to just to be on the safe side.

Preheat oven to 350F.

In cup, dissolve coffee powder in 2 tablespoons boiling water, if using.

In large bowl, combine flour, 1/2 cup cocoa, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In 2-cup measuring cup, combine milk, melted butter, vanilla, and coffee mixture, if using. With wooden spoon, stir milk mixture into flour mixture until just blended.

 Pour into ungreased 8-inch square baking dish.

In small bowl, thoroughly combine brown sugar and remaining 1/4 cup cocoa; sprinkle evenly over batter. Carefully pour remaining 1 3/4 cups boiling water evenly over mixture in baking dish; do not stir. Be careful not to make my mistake and boil the water so long that some of it boils away. Just add some warm or hot water to the boiling water if you do.

Bake 30 minutes (batter will separate into cake and pudding layers). Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Serve hot with whipped cream, if you like. Makes 8 servings.

You must view this at full size to get the full effect. It looks so good.

 This turned out amazing, of course, and it was so quick and easy to make, too!

Tres Leches Cake

"Tres leches" is Spanish for "three milks", and tres leches cake is a Mexican cake that is soaked in three kinds of milk/cream: evaporated milk, sweetened condensed milk, and heavy cream (although some recipes replace the heavy cream with whole milk). If the idea of a slightly soggy cake sounds disgusting to you, just think about the times you've had cake and ice cream together, and how good the cake is when the ice cream melts into it. Tres leches cake is quite similar, except that it's even more moist.

It was very difficult for me to find a recipe for this. I own dozens of cookbooks, but most of them don't have very many Mexican recipes in them. I have one cookbook that is entirely Mexican recipes, but tres leches cake was not included. So I had to search through cookbooks at libraries to find the perfect recipe. I finally found what I was looking for in Fresh Mexico by Marcela Valladolid.

This recipe says to use a 10-inch cake pan with 2-inch sides, and I only have 9-inch cake pans with 1.5-inch sides, so I had some batter left over. Even with leaving out a lot of the batter, the cake expanded more than I thought it would and spilled over a little bit, so I would suggest placing the cake pan on a baking sheet. I would do this even if I had the correct size pan just to be on the safe side.

I also didn't own any platters that had 1-inch high sides, so I just squeezed the cake into a 9x13 baking dish, which worked wonderfully.

Unsalted butter, for the pan

 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground cinnamon

4 large eggs, separated

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 cup milk

One 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk

One 12-oz. can evaporated milk

1 cup heavy cream

1 tbsp orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier (I replaced this with about 1/2 tsp orange extract)

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter and flour a 10-inch cake pan with 2-inch-high sides, and then line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter the paper.

Mix the flour, baking powder, and cinnamon in a medium bowl.

Using an electric mixer, whip the egg whites until frothy. With the mixer running, gradually add the sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. (I could NOT get this to stiffen, even after completely starting over, probably due to so much sugar being added. I decided to not worry about it, especially since it would collapse anyway after adding the other ingredients.)

Beat in the egg yolks, one at a time, blending well after each addition. Add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the whole milk in two additions.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 30 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool slightly in the pan; then invert it onto a platter with 1-inch-high sides.

Pierce the top of the warm cake all over with a thick skewer.

Mix the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, heavy cream, and orange liqueur (or orange extract), and pour over the cake.

 

Cover and refrigerate until cold, about 3 hours, or overnight.

Serve as is or top with whipped cream and/or fruit, if desired.

 

If you have never tried tres leches cake before, prepare to fall in love.

Black Velvet Cake

Sorry about the lack of updates. I'm participating in NaNoWriMo this month and it's eating up most of my free time. Anyway! This cake was meant to be posted around Halloween, but obviously that didn't happen. It's just your basic red velvet cake recipe, but with black food coloring instead of red, and orange food coloring added to the frosting. The recipe is from Beyond Grits and Gravy: The South's All-Time Favorite Recipes, by Gwen McKee and Barbara Moseley. I forgot to take a photo of the cover so this is a low quality one from Google Image Search.

By the way, this recipe is to be used with three 8-inch cake pans to make a three-layer cake, but I only had 9-inch cake pans so mine was only a two-layer. I had to add a little extra baking time and I used the excess frosting to frost the sides of the cake, but other than that I didn't make any changes and there was no leftover batter. So if you're in a similar situation, just add an extra 10 minutes or so to the baking time, and it should come out perfect!

Cake:
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp red food coloring (Or black, or blue, or whatever you want! It's okay to use as much as 1/4 cup of food coloring if you want the color to be richer, or less grey if you're going with black.)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk

Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour three 8-inch round cake pans, tapping out any excess flour; set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together with an electric mixer until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add food coloring and vanilla; beat until well-blended.
In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine cocoa, flour, baking soda, and salt.
Add dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk to creamed mixture, beating well after each addition and ending with dry ingredients.
Scrape batter evenly into three prepared pans, and bake until a cake tester or straw inserted in center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.
Let cakes cool in pans for about 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack and let cool completely.


Icing:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 pound powdered sugar, sifted
food coloring (optional)

In a small bowl with an electric mixer, blend cream cheese and butter until light. Gradually add powdered sugar, a couple of tablespoons at a time, beating well after each addition, until fluffy and light.

To assemble cake, place 1 layer on a cake plate and spread 1/3 of frosting over top. Repeat with remaining layers and remaining frosting; do not frost sides of cake.

(I'm a sloppy cake-slicer.)