Sour Cream Pound Cake

I recently needed a simple and quick dessert to serve to some family, and since it was going to be an afternoon (sort of a tea-time event) visit, this pound cake came to mind. I'd been wanting to try it out since seeing the recipe in The Savannah Cookbook a while back.

The beautiful thing about this pound cake is how delicious it is, despite having no frills or extra flavoring. If you really need to add something, some fresh fruit, particularly strawberries, would be an excellent accompaniment.

Unfortunately, I didn't think about taking any photographs of the process until after the fact, but here's the basic rundown:

• In a large mixing bowl, cream together 2 sticks of soft butter and 3 cups of sugar until light and fluffy.
• While that's happening, sift together 3 cups of all-purpose flour and 1/8 teaspoon of salt.
• Once the butter and sugar are ready, mix in 6 eggs, one at a time, then add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
• In several additions (I think I did three), carefully add the flour mixture and beat until incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
• Add 1 cup of sour cream and  mix until the whole thing is nice and smooth.
• Butter and flour a tube cake pan or bundt pan, or use a cake release spray like Wilton Bake Easy.
• Evenly pour the batter into the prepared pan, run a butter knife through to release large air pockets, and give it a couple taps on the countertop.
• Bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes, until golden brown and a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean.
• Let cool 10-15 minutes in the pan, then invert onto a cake plate and allow to continue cooling (though it's delicious served warm). If desired, invert the cake a second time so the crusty top is facing up.

That's it!

March of the Fondant Penguins

Wow, sorry for the super sporadic posts of late. Can I blame work? I've been just staying above the Common Core waters of late, and my focus has been elsewhere.

Anyhoo, I have something fun to share today. Not a recipe per say, but a fun way to play with food.

My sister got married about a month ago, and her theme was penguins. She really, really loves penguins.

Really loves penguins.

And she wanted her cake to look like a big ice hill with penguins playing and sliding and otherwise looking adorable on it. She found a cake topper on Etsy, and then asked me to make a whole bunch of fondant penguins to match. I agreed, though I wasn't sure exactly how this would all work out. But it would give me a chance to play with all the fondant tools I bought when I took the Wilton Method fondant and gum paste course a few years ago. I also made my sister help.

Fortunately for me, Wilton makes rolled fondant that's already dyed black. Otherwise it would not have been fun tinting white fondant.

We started off by making all the bodies. Sixteen of them. Most standing, but three sliding on their bellies.

Then we formed all the teeny tiny pieces and parts. Tummies, eyes, wings, beaks, and feet.

I made a fondant glue (a pea-sized ball of fondant dissolved in 1/4 cup of really warm water) and started assembling. And three hours later - voila! Penguins! (Sorry he's so blurry!)

Sixteen dang adorable penguins of all kinds!

They sat for a week to dry. Then we brought them to the baker who was making the cake, and he arranged them on the cake. And it looked awesome.

Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake from Pampered Chef

I really need to stop buying cookbooks that involve amazing dessert recipes. Really. It's becoming an addiction.

A couple months ago, I acquired a Pampered Chef recipe book that's nothing but chocolate. In fact, it's actually called Chocolate. And it has an unbelievable recipe for a flourless chocolate cake that was described by several people as "eating chocolate frosting," or just "OMG!"

For finishing you can add chopped pistachios around the outside edge and chocolate curls to the top. But I didn't. It was still awesome.

I really splurged a bit on the chocolate for this one.

Chocolate Stout Cake from Smitten Kitchen

I'd had my eye on a couple recipes for a chocolate stout cake for a while.  I wanted to make something like this for St. Patrick's Day, but the timing has never been right.  But this year, we ended up celebrating my cousin's birthday on St. Patrick's Day, so I whipped up this decadent treat for the occasion.

After perusing the different recipes I'd uncovered over the past couple years, I settled on the version from Smitten Kitchen.  From the reactions of everyone involved in tasting this cake, I think it's a keeper.

My husband particularly liked the ganache.

Savannah Sponge Cake with Strawberry-Rhubarb Compote (OXO Product Review)

One of my coworkers celebrated a birthday a couple weeks ago, and I tasked myself with making her birthday dessert.  It was a small challenge, because she can't have anything with dairy in it, even if it's baked. Fortunately, this sponge cake recipe from The Savannah Cookbook has no dairy.  In fact, it's so simple, it has only four ingredients.

It would be beautiful topped with a dusting of powdered sugar, but I wanted to be a bit more festive.  So I decided to whip up some strawberry-rhubarb compote (you might remember me mentioning in when I made the meringue cupcakes - a.k.a. Cupcakes of Doom - in May).  And since I had some strawberries and rhubarb tucked away in my freezer from this summer's crop, it seemed the perfect combination.

And it was.

What was even more fun is that I got to use my new Mini Measuring Beakers from OXO.

Aren't they cute?  They come in four sizes - 1 teaspoon, 1 tablespoon, 2 ounces and 1 ounce.  Plus they next together for easy storage.

The fill lines are well below the top of the beakers, which means no spills, and if you overfill, it's very easy to pour the liquid back into the container.

Aside from using them to measure the lemon juice for this sponge cake, I've also used them to measure flavor extracts while baking my Christmas cookies this year. I love them.

Anyway, would you like to learn how to make the cake and compote?

Italian Purple Grape Cake (The 10th Sweet of Christmas)

I stumbled on this recipe a couple years ago out of necessity.  My mother-in-law had bought some little purple grapes (which I now know are seedless Concord grapes) at our local farm market.  But they were very ripe, and I had too many left to eat before they spoiled.

Enter Italian fresh purple grape cake.

This is awesome at any time of year, but the seedless Concord grapes are only available in the fall (at least in my area).  However, if you wash and dry the grapes off the vines, they freeze very well in containers or ziplock bags.  Just measure and defrost when you need them.

With some fresh homemade whipped cream on top, and perhaps a sprig of fresh mint, this can be a very festive and different dessert for your holiday table.

Carrot Cake for Christmas? Why not? (The 9th Sweet of Christmas)

You probably don't think of carrot cake when you think about holiday sweets, but this particular recipe definitely has its place.  Think about it - spice cake is sort of a fall/winter cake flavor, and that's essentially what this cake is.

Just with some carrots thrown in.

Smear some cream cheese frosting on it and you've got something totally delicious, even though it does happen to have vegetables in it.

Caramel Banana Cake (The 1st Sweet of Christmas)

I'm starting a little "series of sweets" this month, which hopefully will give some of my readers ideas for holiday sweet treats for family and friends.  And the first sweet of Christmas is Caramel Banana Cake.

We do birthdays big time at my school.  Anytime somebody has a birthday, their grade level breaks out the metaphorical party hats and celebrates with the birthday girl's (or boy's) favorite baked treat.  A coworker of mine requested a banana cake for her birthday, because she loves banana cake and hasn't been able to find a recipe that really knocks her socks off.

I scented the challenge a mile away.  Especially since I was already primed to try out this caramel banana cake after Amanda at i am baker gave it a whirl (with her own buttercream twist).  My coworker's birthday proved the perfect opportunity.

I called dibs on making her birthday treat almost two months before her birthday rolled around.  It proved particularly delightful because my grade level happened to be participating in DIBELS Next training the afternoon we had chosen for the birthday lunch.  As much as we "love" training, having cake definitely made the afternoon much more enjoyable.

Cakes for a Good Cause

Every Father's Day weekend, my church holds its annual summer bazaar (or Festivale Italiano, if you will), and for the past couple years I've done my part by making cakes for the cake booth.

I love our summer festival, because aside from getting to see people and eat really good chicken barbeque, it's for a good cause - the proceeds go towards our town's Catholic school, which serves kids from all over the county (as it's the only Catholic school in the county).

This year, I made a lemon Bundt cake with lemon icing, a dark chocolate fudge Bundt cake with chocolate frosting, and devil's food chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting and caramel frosting with chocolate sprinkles.

I apologize for the beyond bizarre way these cakes seem to have anti-gravity properties in this picture.  Their only superpower is deliciousness.

A 12-Layer Cake ~ An Amazing Dessert!

My cousin's 19th birthday was a couple weeks ago, and after I showed him the completely awesome and amazing 14-layer cake made by the talented Bakerella, he asked me, "Can you make a 19 layer cake?"

I considered it for about a month before his birthday rolled around.  It was going to be a challenge, because I would have to double any recipe for such multi-layer cakes as this one.  Then he said just a 14-layer cake would be fine.  Then I got to thinking about it, and decided just to make a 12-layer cake.

Please wipe the drool off your keyboard.