Recipe: Chocolate Stout Cake →

Happy birthday to my brother!

Adapted from Epicurious.

Cake

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)

3/4 to 1 cup unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 cups all purpose flour

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/2 tablespoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoons salt

2 large eggs

2/3 cups sour cream

Topping

1/2 cup heavy whipping cream, cold

2 Tbsp powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 325°F. Line and butter a 9” springform pan and a half muffin pan (for 6 regular muffins).

For cake:  Bring stout and butter to a simmer over medium heat. Whisk together cocoa powder with ½ tsp baking soda. Add cocoa powder mixture into warm stout mixture and whisk until smooth. Cool slightly.

Whisk flour, sugar, ½ Tbsp baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend. Using an electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Fold in flour mixture.

Pour batter in 9” springform pan until about ½ full, and divide remaining batter among the muffin wells. Bake cake and cupcake until toothpick inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes for the cupcakes and 40 minutes for the 9” cake. Let cool in pan for at least 10 minutes before moving to serving platter.

For topping: Whip cold cream to soft peaks, sift in powdered sugar, and whisk to stiffer peaks. Makes enough topping for the /top/ of the cake. For decoration/crunch/mintiness, I sprinkled some crushed Thin Mints around the edge of the cake.

Recipe: One-bowl brownies

Adapted from the infallible Smitten Kitchen.

6 oz. bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup butter

1 1/2 cups sugar

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/3 cup a-p flour

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler. When it has mostly melted, remove from heat and stir to finish the melting process. Whisk in the sugar, then the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla. Add the salt and a-p flour and stir until combined.

Bake in a greased 9”x13” pan for 25-30 minutes at 350F. I think a half batch would also bake nicely in a 9”x3” round pan.

These brownies have a great melt-in-your-mouth texture, but I wish they had a more powerful chocolate taste. Next time I will try using unsweetened chocolate (and adjust sugar accordingly). My dad’s review: “I like these. Make sure you remember the recipe.”

update 14 Oct 2012 //

I was a poor scientist and changed three variables at once. In making a half batch, I increased the chocolate to 4 oz., I used 1/4 cup sugar + 1/2 tsp stevia, and I baked it in a 9” springform pan, which led to a thinner layer of batter that I consequently overbaked. Result: Dry and still doesn’t taste like chocolate (but not sure if it’s because a different brand of chocolate or because of sugar/stevia substitute or because I overbaked it.) Conclusion: Don’t overbake it next time.

update 25 Oct 2012 //

Made this recipe with Guittard unsweetened chocolate and used 2c of sugar for 6 oz. of unsweetened chocolate. Came out just as chocolatey as I hoped :)

update 15 Feb 2013 //

Made this recipe with 3 oz. Baker’s Unsweetened chocolate + 1 c sugar. Baked in a 9” springform pan for 20 minutes and it was still slightly dry or overbaked. I think I would bump up the sugar a bit next time.

Recipe: Castle Rock chocolate chip cookies

(previously known as Chocolate Chip Cookies a la Shyu)

3/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extra

1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp hot water

1-1/2 cup a-p flour
1-1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
1-1/2 cup chocolate chips or roughly chopped chocolate

1. cream butter and sugar
2. beat in eggs and vanilla extract
3. dissolve baking soda in hot water and add mixture to butter mixture
4. mix in flour and salt until just combined
5. mix in chocolate
6. shape into spheres and bake for 12-15 minutes at 350F

Recipe: Chocolate pudding pie →

The crust takes a long time (mix dough, refrigerate 1-2 hours, roll out into pie plate, freeze 30 minutes, bake 45 minutes, let cool) but the pudding comes together really quickly. Delicious. You will have leftover pudding and whipped cream.

Recipe: Tiramisu Cake →

Made for my friend’s 22nd birthday surprise. My favorite parts of this cake were the espresso-flavored frosting(delicious and well flavored) and the chopped chocolate bits in the middle (texture contrast). The cake texture itself was not my favorite, a bit gummy (possibly overbeaten?). I didn’t use up all the espresso syrup when flavoring the cake layers, and unfortunately the cake wasn’t flavored enough for my tastes. We decorated the outside of the cake with chopped chocolate bits and the top with a stencil of “S X 2 2” cut out and cocoa powder.

Recipe: Chocolate Cloud Cake →

This has been my go-to cake for the holidays: I made this for Christmas Day dinner, NYE dinner, and my friend’s 21st birthday last weekend. 4 layers of cake and 4 layers of frosting looks festive and tastes delicious. The frosting is one of the best I’ve ever tasted (like eating a chocolate-flavored cloud).

The very first time I made this cake, the resulting cake had some small solid chocolate bits remaining in the cake layers, almost like minced pieces of chopped Costco chocolate truffles. It was a great texture contrast, but I haven’t been able to replicate it since. I think it’s related to how long I cool the melted chocolate before mixing it into the batter.

Sometimes it seems silly to own four 9x13” pans…but then I decide to make make multiple batches of crack in a night, and I am grateful.

Recipe: Ginger Chocolate Chip Cookies →

Chocolate is what gingersnaps have been missing all these years…

I used a cleaver to chop up half a bag of chocolate chips and it worked well for me. I used 1 cup a-p flour and 1 cup w-w flour. I found the chocolate flavor overpowering the ginger flavor; right now my parents are IN LOVE with ginger, so next time I would reduce the chocolate volume (6oz to 4oz) and increase the amount of fresh ginger (1.5 Tbsp to 3 Tbsp). This recipe made about 3 trays worth of cookies. They’re good! I rolled them in regular sugar this time, but I’m sure a larger grained sugar would be pretty.

Today was a prolific baking day: sparkling cranberries, three cities of spain cheesecake (cracked today, not sure why) + chocolate teddy graham crust (1.5 thickness), ginger syrup and candied ginger, and ginger chocolate chip cookies

Recipe: Mint Chip and Chocolate Ice Creams

Mint Chip Ice Cream

Mint chocolate chip ice cream is my favorite flavor of ice cream. I bought two bunches of mint (possibly spearmint) from the local Chinese market. I only used 4 egg yolks instead of 5. I made it without a machine and it took about 3-4 hours to solidify, longer than I expected but the result was a creamy ice cream. Incorporating the chocolate “chip” portion by stirring melted chocolate into almost-frozen ice cream was satisfying. The interesting thing about this ice cream was that the first bite tasted like “a skunk,” or to me, it tasted like what weed smells like, a woody but cloying sweetness. After the first bite though, my brain more readily accepted the mint flavor. Next time I may try a different type of mint. 

Chocolate Ice Cream

This ice cream definitely tasted like chocolate, but my final texture was a bit icy (most likely because I fell asleep 2.5 hours into the freezing process.) This was a a bit trickier process than the mint chip ice cream; I had a friend help me, and 4 hands seemed like exactly enough.  I would definitely make this again. 

Recipe: Vegan Chocolate Cake with Cherry Filling

A chocolate cake that uses 1 mashed avocado and oil to replace butter and eggs. You’ll still need the beater, though, to completely combine the wet ingredients. For presentation purposes, I would level the cake layers for more effective cake frosting. 

For the filling, I used 1/2 lbs. of cherries, destemmed, pitted, and cut in half. I simmered them in 1/4 cup water and 3/4 cup sugar for about 30 minutes, although 15-20 minutes would have done. My filling was so solid after a night in the fridge that I used some warm water to make it spreadable. 

The frosting was a “buttercream” made with a margarine, shortening, almond milk, vanilla extract, and copious powdered sugar. It was a bit melty while I was frosting it; next time I would pop it in the fridge for a while to firm up before serving. 

For Matt’s 22nd birthday. I asked Heidi to draw a yeti. She drew a yeti with evergreen trees and snowmen reaching up to his knees. It was a very convincing picture.