happy birthday little one! (chocolate zucchini cake)

At the end of last year we celebrated the Little One's very first birthday (a.k.a. the marker of the fastest year of my life). I try really hard not to feed her a lot of sugar or highly processed foods. I didn't want her to miss out on cake for her birthday so I made her a zucchini cake to ease my conscious.  All of my inlaws though I was a weirdo until they tasted it. That's because the only difference between a chocolate cake and a chocolate zucchini cake is that the zucchini one (other than adding a bit of vitamin a, vitamin c, calcium, magnesium, and potassium) is that it is incredibly moist. I may never make a regular chocolate cake again!
I came across this recipe watching Sandra Lee. (I've tweaked it a tiny bit.) I know that she can be quite despised in the food world but let's be real. I have a 1 year old, Christmas, and a million in laws going on. Besides this recipe tastes like it's from scratch. That's really what matters right? Right!  So here we go...
Chocolate (Zucchini) Cake

2 cups of finely grated zucchini
1 (1-pound and 2.25-ounce) package chocolate fudge cake mix (I used Duncan Hines Dark Chocolate Fudge)
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon (this is totally optional. I used it because my little one loves flavor.)
2 large eggs
3/4 cup plain nonfat yogurt
3/4 cup applesauce


Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray two 9" pans with baking spray (or use parchment... do whatever you usually do)
You are going to want to drain all of the extra moisture out of your zucchini. So get a mesh strainer and smush your zucchini in there. If you don't you will end up with chocolate soup instead of cake.
In a mixing bowl combine everything but the zucchini. Beat for 2 minutes on a low speed. Fold in the drained grated zucchini and pour your batter into the prepared cake pans.
Bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Be sure to cool your cakes completely preferably on a wire cooling rack.

Now Sandra Lee makes a sort of tofu mousse that she serves with this and that is all well and good but 1) I wanted a nicely iced cake for LO's bday (which actually only happened because my sister in law decorated it for me...thanks mandy!) and 2) I have a "secret family recipe" up my sleeve.






I will never forget my first Thanksgiving with my inlaws. My mother in law actually pulled out the wheat to grind to make the rolls. I believe that it was at that exact moment that I secretly vowed to
a) Never cook in front of my mother in law
and
b) to learn everything i could from the woman
This is her recipe and with it comes a promise that it will change the way you ice your cakes from now on.  It's called Light Frosting because it's more the like whipped cream than that stuff you buy in a tub. Make it properly (a task in itself) and it will come of smooth and fluffy with no crunchy sugar. People who do not like icing will like it and  you will get compliments like " I love how your icing isn't just full of sugar".  But beware you must follow this recipe to the T.
Light Frosting

1 stick unsalted butter (do not attempt margarine. just trust me on this one.)
1/2 cup shortening

1 cup sugar

3 Tbsp flour

2/3 cup milk (must be at room temperature!)

1 tsp vanilla

Pull out your stand mixer....because honey you're going to need it. Cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar. Continue beating and add flour one tbsp at a time. Extremely slowly dribble the milk into the mixture. If you do this correctly then it will take a while. Add the vanilla. And continue mixing for 5 minutes until there is no crunchy sugar left.

I doubled the icing recipe so that i could fill it really nicely but you don't have to. One batch will be fine for cupcakes or it you don't want to use a lot. Then use it to frost your cooled zucchini cake.






be sure to check out a soft place to land for some great diy projects!

(daring baker's) home for the holidays

The December 2009 Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to you by Anna of Very Small Anna and Y of Lemonpi. They chose to challenge Daring Bakers’ everywhere to bake and assemble a gingerbread house from scratch. They chose recipes from Good Housekeeping and from The Great Scandinavian Baking Book as the challenge recipes.




This post is going to be short and sweet. This time of the year is from now on much, much busier. That's because this is the time last year that my little one was born. She's turning one day after tomorrow. So Christmas may be over but I still have a million things to do.

I chose the Good Housekeeping recipe. I doubled it and the kids made gingerbread cookies with the rest. My template is one from Martha Stewart's webpage which I will link to when I get a chance. Oh and I used a Chocolate Buttercream to stick down all the candies as it was left over from making the Little One's Birthday cake. It was my first ever gingerbread house from scratch and it was a lot of fun. I kind of felt like a kid again making this. Thanks Anna & Y for choosing such a fun challenge!

pumpkin chocolate chip cookies

If you still have your jack o lantern sitting around and it's not molded or dried out why not cook it. There are about a million pumpkin recipes out there floating around all the blogs.

These are really soft and closer to muffin tops than cookies in my opinion. But that's perfect for us because i didn't feel bad giving my Little One one of these cookies. (we try to avoid sugar in general but every once in a while its nice to give her a treat.) This was the first time she had ever had a chocolate chip and of course she loved it.

this recipe from joythebaker.com (if you haven't been to her site you should go. it's choc full of amazing looking recipes)

2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 cup canned (or fresh cooked & pureed) pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips


Preheat your oven to 325*F.
Stir together the first 7 ingredients (thats the flour through the cloves) in a mixing bowl and set aside.
Using an electric mixer on medium speed mix together the butter and sugar until it is smooth & light yellow in color... for about a minute.
Slowly mix in the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Stir in the flour and then the chips.
On an oiled baking sheet scoop (about 1/4 cup batter per cookie) cookies spacing at least 2
1/2 inches apart. This is a very runny dough and it does spread a lot.
Bake each sheet of cookies one at a time on the middle rack of your oven. They cook about 16 minutes each or until the top is firm and an inserted toothpick comes out dry. Cool them on the sheet for at least 5 min before transferring them to a cooling rack.

You can dust them with powdered sugar if you like.

Makes approx 18 cookies.

I have pretty much only been baking for Daring Baker's challenges lately so this was definitely a nice change of pace. It reminded me just how easy baking can be.






be sure to check out a soft place to land for some great diy projects!

french macarons: a daring baker's fail

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.Actual baking time: 12 minutes total, plus a few minutes to get your oven from 200°F to 375°F.

As you can tell my macarons didn't turn out. I've been making a list in my head of all the things that could be the culprit.
1. I did age my eggs... 4 days in a sealed container in the refrigerator... but the eggs themselves were super fresh. As in my husband went outside and pulled them out from underneath the chickens fresh.
2. I did let them sit until room temperature but it was a cold day. Maybe I should have nuked them for 5 - 10 sec to knock the chill off even more.
3. It was also a rainy day. So maybe the humidity played a part.
4. I did a terrible thing and omitted 1/4 cup of powdered sugar... i know that this was very wrong of me but i couldn't get past how sickeningly sweet to dobos torta was and i didn't want these to turn out the same way.
5. I kinda wished that they had puffed up a bit more. Maybe I should have beaten my egg whites stiffer?
6. The outsides were crispy but the insides were goop. I'm thinking that the oven i used cooks way too hot. (This is why I didn't fill them. They were inedible. Hopefully I still get credit for doing this challenge because I did work my a$$ off. And I don't have time to make more right now. I have a baby!)

Those are my best guesses. The sad thing is for a few minutes I actually thought that they were going to turn out. They developed feet and everything. I even danced around the kitchen when I noticed the feet. sigh. oh well. Such is life.

I will tell you that one thing I am learning from the Daring Bakers is that it's okay to try things you don't know how to do. And that it's okay to fail at those things. There is a lot of pressure in this world to be perfect even though no one is. I'm not perfect and I'm learning to be okay with that.

Well had my macarons been edible the plan was to fill them with a faux Devonshire Cream. And Possibly a fresh strawberry slice. So here is the Devonshire Cream recipe:

8 oz cream cheese
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
powdered sugar to taste

Whip cheese until softened. gradually add cream until mixture is smooth. Stir in vanilla extract. Add powdered sugar to taste.

And here is the macaron recipe copied from the daring baker's website:
Equipment required:
• Electric mixer, preferably a stand mixer with a whisk attachment
• Rubber spatula
• Baking sheets
• Parchment paper or nonstick liners
• Pastry bag (can be disposable)
• Plain half-inch pastry bag tip
• Sifter or sieve
• If you don’t have a pastry bag and/or tips, you can use a Ziploc bag with the corner snipped off
• Oven
• Cooling rack
• Thin-bladed spatula for removing the macaroons from the baking sheets
• Food processor or nut grinder, if grinding your own nuts (ouch!)

Ingredients
Confectioners’ (Icing) sugar: 2 ¼ cups (225 g, 8 oz.)
Almond flour: 2 cups (190 g, 6.7 oz.)
Granulated sugar: 2 tablespoons (25 g , .88 oz.)
Egg whites: 5 (Have at room temperature)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 200°F (93°C). Combine the confectioners’ sugar and almond flour in a medium bowl. If grinding your own nuts, combine nuts and a cup of confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a food processor and grind until nuts are very fine and powdery.
2. Beat the egg whites in the clean dry bowl of a stand mixer until they hold soft peaks. Slowly add the granulated sugar and beat until the mixture holds stiff peaks.
3. Sift a third of the almond flour mixture into the meringue and fold gently to combine. If you are planning on adding zest or other flavorings to the batter, now is the time. Sift in the remaining almond flour in two batches. Be gentle! Don’t overfold, but fully incorporate your ingredients.
4. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a plain half-inch tip (Ateco #806). You can also use a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off. It’s easiest to fill your bag if you stand it up in a tall glass and fold the top down before spooning in the batter.
5. Pipe one-inch-sized (2.5 cm) mounds of batter onto baking sheets lined with nonstick liners (or parchment paper).
6. Bake the macaroon for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and raise the temperature to 375°F (190°C). Once the oven is up to temperature, put the pans back in the oven and bake for an additional 7 to 8 minutes, or lightly colored.
7. Cool on a rack before filling.

Yield: 10 dozen. Ami's note: My yield was much smaller than this. I produced about two dozen filled macaroons.



My batter was not going to make 10 dozen either. It was a lot closer to 1 1/2 to 2 dozen.
I do think that I will try this challenge again... one day when I have some time. I would love to learn how to really make these cookies if for no other reason than to try one. (unless anyone knows where you can find them in Fort Worth?)

And last but not least I thought I would share a picture I took of the Little One at the pumpkin patch. She's almost 10 months old now. It's amazing how time flies once you have kids.