Chocolate Volcano Cake (Chocolate Bundt Cake with a bunch of icing in the center)

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

This week it was my birthday! I love my birthday. But the night before my birthday I got home five hours later than planned from my conference. I did not have time to lovingly create a nice layer cake for myself. I actually didn't want to do anything hard at all. And I didn't. I made a gorgeous bundt cake that is super easy and super delicious and stays moist for DAYS (not that we need days around here, but still it's nice to know...).

I made it that morning. It takes about 20 minutes of hands on effort, though you do have to hang out at your house for an hour while it cooks. We ate it that night.

A few notes while I've got your ear.
-The fancy pants pan was a little small for this cake (it may have oozed over in the oven), so be sure you use a larger bundt pan.
-The frosting. The first time I made this it was perfect and liquid-y and glaze-y like it should be. But since then, I've sometimes had it seize up when I add the cocoa. I do NOT know why this happens (scientists???). I suspect it has to do with the temperature of the butter/water, but I'm really not sure. Anyway, when it seizes, it forms this thick chocolate-y paste. Do not fear if this happens. Put it in the bowl and add the powdered sugar. It will loosen up (I know it seems it will only get thicker, but it doesn't) and get runnier (the above picture is with a frosting that seized; you can see that it was still drizzle-able). It won't be as runny as a glaze, but it will be runny enough to drape over your cake in a glorious show of awesomeness.
-At the bottom of this post you'll find pics of the big bundt cake with the glaze-y frosting

Chocolate Volcano Cake
adapted from Through Her Looking Glass
Makes one large bundt cake
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Cost: $8.00 (much more than a usual cake in this house, but it's birthday season and I will splurge on those birthday cakes. Plus, as I sometimes point out, it's so much cheaper than buying a lousy cake make from lousy ingredients from the store. And it will feed a crowd. It's at least 16 servings making this only $.50/serving)
sugar: .30, butter: 1.25, eggs: .30, flour: .25, cocoa: .50, chocolate pudding mix: .50, chocolate chips: .90, more butter: .60, cocoa: .50, powdered sugar: .90, other stuff: .30

Cake:

2 C sugar
1 C butter, somewhat softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
2 1/2 C flour
1 C cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C instant chocolate pudding mix
2 1/4 C buttermilk
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Chocolate Icing:

1/2 C water
1/2 C (1 stick) butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 C cocoa
3 1/2 C powdered sugar

To make the cake: 

Grease that bundt pan, baby. Grease it, or you will regret it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat sugar, butter, and vanilla. Add eggs

Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, instant chocolate pudding mix. Of course you're supposed to sift this, and if you're a person with grit, I suppose you will. I always just dump it in the bowl and then sort of fluff it around with a fork or, heck, the beaters. Because I'm lazy. My cakes turn out anyway.

Now add the buttermilk.

Then the chocolate chips.

Pour it into the bundt pan (or a tube pan).

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, turn the temperature down to 325 and bake for another 30-ish minutes (mine was about 35 minutes). Insert a knife or other long cake testing device. It should come out with moist crumbs, but not batter.

Let it cool for 10 minutes. Then turn it out onto a cake platter. Here I must issue another warning. Don't leave this thing in the pan for an hour or few and then expect it to come out. The longer cakes sit in pans, they less they want to leave them. So give it just a brief cooling period and then turn it out.

When it is completely cool, you'll add the frosting.

For the frosting:

Heat water and butter. Melt butter. Then remove from heat and whisk in cocoa and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and beat (I always have to move it to a bowl for this step because my pan isn't big enough and is non stick and I like to beat icings so the ingredients incorporate fully).

When the cake is cool, pour this into the center. It will overflow down the sides. I should tell you that I also like to spoon it up onto all the sides so that it is on all sides. In fact, I do this a few times (every couple hours or so) to get a chocolate glaze coating on the cake. Because I like it like that, okay.

Old pics so you can see it with the glaze-y puddle of awesome. 

Cookies and Cream (Icebox Cake)

BEST OF TASTY CHEAPSKATE

If a river of cream marries a cloud of sugar and they hop into a bed of chocolate, well then, not to be too graphic, but you get this baby.

Today is my mother's birthday. Generally, I try to make something she loved on her birthday. I can't think of a better way to remember someone you loved than through food. You could try this wacky cake or these cookies. But I think that probably what she loved most of all was this here dessert. We called it Cookies and Cream, and everyone always thought it was ice cream. But it isn't. Since then I've heard it called an icebox cake because you layer the whipped cream with the cookies and leave it in the refrigerator for a day. The cookies get soft and you just get a pillow of creamy, chocolate-y sweetness.

The great news about this is that it's crazy easy to make. The bad news is that it probably contains approximately ten million calories per bite. The other bad news is that the cookies you really need to use are often hard to find. This recipe requires Nabisco chocolate wafers. And it really isn't as good with any other substitute (not Oreos, not chocolate graham crackers; trust me; I've tried it all). Nabisco chocolate wafers tend to be in the gourmet cookie section and I can often find them at Christmastime (and then I stock up like a chocolate-addicted lunatic). They can also be expensive. Which makes this not as cheap as most of the Best of the Tasty Cheapskate recipes are going to be. But I do find the cookies on sale every once in a blue moon, so I'm going for this. For the sake of my mom's legacy and all.

 Now, let me say that I made this pretty for you, but it's not super practical to put it on a pedestal cake display thing because you've got to shove this bad boy in the fridge for a full day. What we honestly usually do is throw it in a big salad bowl with a lid (just to spite salad and all) and then put that in the fridge and just scoop it out when it's ready).

For some tips on laziness and/or making this look nice without having to shove the pedestal cake holder into some corner of your fridge go HERE. For some really dreadful pictures and more self-indulgent stories about this dessert in our family, go HERE.

Cookies and Cream (Icebox Cake)
Serves: Um, my family of 6 (but it should serve more; it really should; we have issues)
Prep time: 15 minutes
Fridge time: 24 hours
Cost: $6.40 (about $1/serving)
(cookies: $4, cream: $2, sugar: .12, vanilla: .28)

1 box Nabisco Chocolate Wafers
1 pint cream
3/4 C sugar
2 tsp vanilla

Beginning by whipping your cream. Pour it in a bowl and blend it until soft peaks form. When they do, add the sugar and vanilla. Whip or beat until firmer peaks form.

Put a blob of it on the bottom of a salad bowl and spread that around. Make one layer of cookies, breaking some if you need to so they don't overlap. Add more whipped cream and spread. Add another layer of cookies. Repeat until you top it off with a thin layer of whipped cream.

Cover and refrigerate for 24 hours or until the cookies are perfectly soft.

Chocolate Cupcake Dress with Vanilla Butter Frosting

BEST OF THE TASTY CHEAPSKATE

So I'm more of a cake person than a cupcake person. I like the layers of a cake. I like that all the frosting isn't just piled/glopped/mountained up on top with all that delicate cake being crushed below it. I like the look of a cake, the promise when yo cut into one.

But then, I'm not eight years old.

And I must admit that my layer cakes aren't, um, well, incredibly beautiful. And to make them beautiful would require something called artistic skill, which is a wee tiny bit lacking in my brain.

Enter cupcakes. My daughters really love them. And you can make them absolutely gorgeous without a whole heck of a lot of effort. My own, personal thirteen-year-old designed this one following (loosely) this tutorial.

So, fine, if it's going to be cupcakes, then you should make a really, truly delicious cupcake. And for this part, I've got your back. Have a hop over HERE to see my two favorite chocolate cake recipes gone all cupcake. They are not hugely domed, but for decorating things like these cupcake pull apart cakes, I've found flat to be ideal. I hope yo do too.

And they are just the very best chocolate cake recipes you will find. The end.

For frosting, we used my favorite vanilla butter frosting. You may need to add a bit extra powdered sugar if you are going to make a decorative cake like this cupcake. You can't have the frosting too loose or it won't hold the pretty swirly patterns.

And the best part of this beautiful dress cake (besides the cake, which is amazing beyond amazing; did I mention that)? The cost.
Cupcakes: $1.75
Frosting: $1.90
Candy Pearls: $1.00/color-->$2.00 for us (Yes, you could get your true cheapskate on and skip these, but I didn't because I had an 8-year-old who desperately wanted them)
Total: $5.65
For 24 cupcakes, that means that you're spending about $.23/cupcake. Without the pearls, it only costs $.15/cupcake. *happiness* *diet-wrecking-ness*

[Note: These numbers are for 24 cupcakes. If you follow the recipes (cake and frosting) linked to above, you'll wind up with 36 cupcakes, so you can do math to reduce the recipes. Or do what we did and have 12 extra cupcakes sitting around for you to eat. The cost per cupcake is the same, but you're overall cost comes up to $5.50 for 36 cupcakes, or $7.50 for cupcakes with pearls.]

Apple Cake--Photo Redo

This is the best apple cake in the world with the best butter sauce in the world. Because of that, it's hard to get a good picture since swarms of hungry savages descend upon it and eat it before you get the chance (or maybe it's just me, hiding in a closet and scooping it out with my hands). Either way, it goes quick, so my last picture just didn't do it justice.

You can eat it plain and it's fabulous.

Or with this pure evil butter sauce up on top. 

You can find the recipe (and original not-great picture) HERE.

Brownie Mousse Cheesecake

I should be posting red, white, and blue things right now. Instead I'm posting chocolate and cheesecake, and more chocolate. I still think it's pretty American.

My friend made a recipe similar to this for a party she threw a few months ago and it was so amazingly delicious that I knew I wanted to make it too. But when? My family is a little picky about cheesecake. So I worried that I would make this lovely, delicious thing, and have to eat it all by myself. There are worse fates in the world. But, well, I did turn 40 this year. And eating entire cheesecakes on my own didn't seem like the responsible thing to do. So I waited.

And then my niece visited. We had a birthday party for her. And she wanted cheesecake. Done and done. (P.S. EVERYONE--even devout cheesecake haters liked this recipe)

Now, I'm not gonna lie, this is fussier than a normal batch of cookies or wacky cake or whatever. BUT it is less fussy than something with three layers might normally be. The brownie is easy to throw together. The cheesecake is easy to throw together. The mousse is easy to throw together (and it doesn't have to be cooked).

That said, even though there is not too much hands on work, there is a very long, low cook time for the cheesecake, and several cooling periods. This needs to be made a day ahead when you have time to let things cool off. It just can't be rushed.

Now for a confession: I accidentally bought TWO fat free cream cheeses without realizing it. I pretty much consider fat free cream cheese Satan's cheese. But I unknowingly made my cheesecake anyway, and the texture was a little different than it should have been (which led us to discover my mistake). BUT it was STILL amazing. Even with the devil's cheese at its center. I'm sure there's a moral here somewhere, but I can't quite find it. Anyway, the point is that this is so good that even less than perfect ingredients will not destroy it (though, really, people, when making a brownie mousse cheesecake, please, just do the world a favor and use full fat cream cheese).

Brownie Mousse Cheesecake
makes 1 10-inch cake
Prep time: 30-40 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours (yup, you heard me)
Cost: Let's not talk about it on birthdays. Seriously, though--the total is about $8.50 or the cost of ONE slice of cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory, so it could be worse, right (unless you eat the whole thing yourself like an irresponsible adult, in which case, I cannot help you, friend)
Brownie layer: $1.50, cheesecake layer: $4.00, mousse layer $3.00 (Aldi prices)

Brownie: 

1/2 C butter (1 stick, partially melted)
1/2 C cocoa
1 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
3/4 C flour
3/4-1 C dark chocolate chips

Combine butter and cocoa. Add sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Beat in flour just until combined. Add chocolate chips.

Spread batter in a greased  9 or 10-inch springform pan.

Bake for only 10 minutes. It's going to look raw-ish. It's going to be raw-ish. That's because you're going to bake it more when you add the cheesecake layer, so don't fret.

Allow to cool (or mostly cool) before adding the cheesecake layer.

Cheesecake: 

3 packages cream cheese (24 oz total)
3/4 tsp lemon zest
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp whipping cream

Beat cream cheese. Add zest. Then eggs. Add vanilla and whipping cream.

Pour this mixture on top of your partially baked brownie.

Now you are going to do something slightly odd. You're going to bake it at a very low temperature for a very long time. This is going to keep your brownie from burning or overcooking while allowing your cheesecake to cook into velvety perfection.

Bake at 250 for about 2 hours or until the temperature at the center reaches 160. It'll still jiggle. [Note: Since I did make this with the wrong kind of cream cheese, you might want to check this before 2 hours to make sure that the weird fatless cheese didn't mess with it's cooking time somehow. I doubt it did but one can never be sure with the devil's cheese.]

Take it out and allow it to cool. This will take a few hours, so plan for that, my friends.

Mousse: 

2 Tbsp cocoa
5 Tbsp hot water
7 oz bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli)
1 1/2 C heavy cream
1 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp salt

Combine cocoa powder and hot water; set aside.

Melt chocolate in microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until melted. Set that aside too.

Whip the cream, sugar, and salt. Instructions for whipping cream here if you need them.

Whisk the cocoa water into the melted chocolate. Be sure both have cooled somewhat (they can be warm, but not hot). Then fold part of the whipped cream into the mixture. Fold more in, and more again until it's a lovely chocolatey yum. This is mousse.

Spread it on the cooled cheesecake.

But you're still not done. It needs to set for about an hour. Otherwise it won't be as firm as it should be.

You can top this with a ganache or whipped cream and chocolate shavings (which is what we chose) or nothing at all).

All that waiting has been worth it. Enjoy!

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Soup and Cake

This morning I read a quote so striking that I started to cry immediately upon reading it.

I have no doubt each one of us would move the earth for the people in those photos on our kitchen walls. But so often we don’t want to scare them with our power to bless and heal, so we move the world in increments of soup and cake. They may never even recognize the universe has been realigned for their good. It may be that our mother does glorious things right in front of us every day so often that she blinds us with commonness. Maybe she serves the whole world soup and cake every night.--Sharon Eubank

Has that ever happened to you? For me, it happened on the phrase "blinds us with commonness."

I still can't quite get over it.

And so I thought I would celebrate this concept with a few of my favorite soup and cake recipes. Serve it to the world every night.

Most of them are simple. A little life changing. At least day changing.

5 Favorite Soups

1. Creamy Tomato Basil Soup (Easy)

2. Meatball Soup. (Easy)

3. Moroccan Carrot Soup (Easy)

4. Thai Soup (Some weird ingredients, but totally worth it. Once you get the ingredients, it's easy)

5. Creamy Cheese Potato Soup (Beyond easy)

Okay--so I was going to rate those--you know, like intermediate, hard, easy, etc. Apparently, I only make easy soups. You should too. These are less than 30 minutes each to make, several of them closer to 15-20 minutes.


15 Favorite Cakes (How could I even choose? Clearly, I couldn't (though, truthfully, there's hordes more cake than this on my blog; I really did pick my favorites). You get a lot of cake from a lot of different, er, food groups. Spread them through the world, people.)




1. Best Chocolate Cake (Intermediate)

2. Best White Cake (Intermediate)

3. Carrot Cake (Easy)

4. Orange Bundt Cake (Intermediate)

5. Diana's Apple Cake of Awesomeness (Easy)

6. Peanut Butter Cake  (Easy)

7. Julia Child's Chocolate Almond Cake (Intermediate-hard)

8. Kentucky Caramel Butter Cake (Intermediate, a little harder if you make your own caramel)

9. Red Velvet Cake (Easy)

10. Wacky Cake (Dumb easy)

11. Coconut Cake (Intermediate)

12. Flourless Chocolate Cake (Easy)

13. Lemon Layer Cake (Intermediate) (Note: There is a lemon bundt cake and a lemon sheet cake on this blog, both of which I also consider noteworthy.)

14. Chocolate Volcano Cake (Easy)

15. Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. (Intermediate.) Noteworthy for the amazing peanut butter frosting if nothing else.

Nothing says, "I think I have a problem" more than trying to list your favorite cakes. Oh dear.

But, seriously, is there any other food that feels like quite the act of love like making cake and soup.

Caramel Kentucky Butter Cake

I've had my eye on Kentucky Butter Cake for a while. Generally, those southerners know how to do both butter and cake, so it seems like a winning combination. But the thing that really pushed me over the edge was the caramel version I stumbled upon. Oh, that, and turning 40. Every 40-year-old needs something buttery, caramel-y, and southern on her birthday, don't you think? (It's that, or you go on some vegan wrinkle-fighting diet; I opted for the cake and wrinkles.)

It was fantastic in every way. And also not very difficult to make. I did mess my caramel up just a smidgeon so that it was a bit grainy, and the cake was still fantastic. In fact, the crunchy, delicious sugar didn't hurt it at all, and might have even made it better.

This cake uses a flavored creamer instead of milk. In the original recipe, it used an all-natural creamer with real milk and cream and stuff. That seemed positively righteous, and I intended to do the same thing. But then I accidentally bought the regular old fake kind of creamer. And it was still delicious.

So make this. I bet you can even mix up creamer flavors and toppings if you want. The possibilities....

Caramel Kentucky Butter Cake
adapted from Wishes and Dishes (how birthday appropriate)
Prep time: 30 minutes for cake and caramel
Cook time: 50 minutes
Cost: $5.50
flour: .45, sugar: .55, creamer: 1.00, butter: 2.00, eggs: .40, vanilla: .35, cream: .75

Cake:

3 C all-purpose flour
2 C white sugar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1 C caramel coffee creamer (I used International Delight brand; they also make a "Pure" version with whole foodsy ingredients)
1 C butter (in somewhat melty state)
2 tsp vanilla
4 large eggs

Butter Sauce:

3/4 C white sugar
1/3 C butter
3 Tbsp caramel coffee creamer
2 tsp vanilla extract

Caramel (for topping):

1 C sugar
3/4 C heavy cream (warmed)
3 1/2 Tbsp butter
1 tsp vanilla
crunchy salt to taste (about 1 tsp)

Preheat oven to 325. Grease a 10-inch (standard) bundt pan--like, grease the heck out of it with a spray on grease. Nothing else works quite as well.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cream of tartar.

To this add coffee creamer, butter, vanilla, and eggs, beating after each addition.

(See, you're done with the cake. Wasn't that ridiculously easy?)

Pour into your extremely well-greased bundt pan.  Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a fork inserted comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.

When it comes out of the oven, let it sit, and prepare the butter sauce:

Combine sugar, butter, caramel creamer. Heat until the sugar is dissolved (this is where mine got a little messed up; my sugar didn't completely dissolve), but don't let it boil (although life would probably go on if you did--probably). Take off heat and whisk in the vanilla.

Poke holes into the cake while it's still in the bundt pan. Then pour this beautiful butter sauce all over it, nice and slow, getting the sauce into the holes.

Now you're going to let the cake cool (or mostly cool) in the pan. I know you're afraid because it's always hard to get cakes out after they cool, especially bundt cakes. But I promise you that this worked for me, so it will work for you too.

When it's cool, turn it over on your serving platter.

Now you can make the caramel, which is always a pain in the butt, but worth it because homemade caramel is the best.

Add sugar to a large skillet. Let it get hot and melt, stirring occasionally. It might form some pesty chunks, but that's okay. Eventually it will turn a dark amber color. When it does, add cream and butter. Whisk in. There may be a few hard masses that don't dissolve. That's okay. Just remove them with a spoon.

Let your caramel cool somewhat and then pour or spoon it over your cake. I then sprinkled it with chunky sea salt.

I also made a chocolate ganache (1 C chocolate chips, 1/2 C cream, melt in microwave and stir), but it's not pictured here because it was ugly (but delicious, but ugly, but unnecessary, but still delicious).

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Carrot Cake--Photo Redo

This week, for book club, we discussed The Girl Who Drank the Moon. I was planning to make homemade moon cakes as the treat. I googled them. I pinned them. But then I just didn't want to make them. I wanted to make homemade carrot cake instead. I wanted to bad. And so I did.

And then I realized that the pictures on this blog were from six years ago and that seemed very wrong, since I could barely take a picture at all back then. So today I present you with the best carrot cake. And some new pictures to go with it.

Carrot Cake
adapted from Blue Ribbon Recipes
Serves: many (probably about 30)
Prep time: 10 minutes (with food processor)
Cook time: 25 minutes
Cost: $1.90 (not bad for 3 layers)
(carrots: .75, oil: .24, sugar: .32, eggs: .40, flour: .18, other stuff: .01)

1 1/2 C oil
2 C sugar
4 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 C flour
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp baking soda 
1 tsp salt
3 C grated carrots (just a bit shy of 1 lb)

Heat oven to 325. Grease three 9-inch pans and put wax paper on the bottoms, then grease again. 

Mix oil and sugar. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

Sift flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. Mix it into the creamed mixture. Add the carrots, a bit at a time so as to avoid getting a huge clump of them somewhere (your kids will never go for that).

Pour batter evenly into the cake pans. The batter will be shallow. I suppose you could probably get it into two pans (though I can't 100% guarantee that), but I like to have the extra frosting. I guess I'm a bit of a frosting lush. Don't tell, okay. 

Bake for 22-25 minutes or until a fork comes out clean. Let cool for 10 minutes in the pans and then turn out on a rack (or some parchment paper or waxed paper on your counter top if you don't have a rack). Let cool completely and then frost. 

Cream Cheese Frosting
from The New Best Recipe Cookbook (with an orange cream cheese adaptation from me)
enough for 3 layers
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cost: 3.10
(cream cheese: 2.20, sugar: .40, butter: .70)

2 packages of cream cheese (16 oz. total), softened
10 Tbsp butter, softened
2 Tbsp sour cream
2 1/2 C powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Beat together cream cheese, butter, and sour cream. Add vanilla. Beat in powdered sugar.

An option for Orange Cream Cheese Frosting: 

Add the zest from one small orange and 2-3 Tbsp of orange juice to make orange cream cheese frosting. 

Chocolate Volcano Cake

Don't worry. It doesn't blow up. It's not that kind of volcano cake. But "molten lava cake" was taken, so I couldn't use that name. And, frankly, this one is better. And you should all make it. It's easy. And perfect. And it oozes chocolate. So win. Win. And win.

(Gratuitous display or excessive chocolate)

The nice thing about tube and/or bundt cakes is that you don't have to mess with layering, yet they're still showy (especially when they ooze chocolate). You do need to grease your pan mighty well with cooking spray. I'm sorry if you're opposed to cooking spray on moral grounds and only use butter and/or coconut oil and/or the hair grease of virgins. I understand this snobbery, I do. But I don't know what it is about cooking spray (it probably has silicone in it or something dreadful), but it keeps bundt cakes from sticking in a way other greases won't. So, you can be a grease snob if you want, but your cake might stick.

While we're speaking of snobbery, this cake also calls for a partial package of instant chocolate pudding mix (1/2 C to be exact). How annoying, I thought. How cheaterly. And it kind of is. But it's worth it. Totally worth it.

Honestly, it looks pretty good naked too. 

Chocolate Volcano Cake
adapted from Through Her Looking Glass
Makes one large bundt cake
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 1 hour
Cost: $8.00 (much more than a usual cake in this house, but it's birthday season and I will splurge on those birthday cakes. Plus, as I sometimes point out, it's so much cheaper than buying a lousy cake make from lousy ingredients from the store. And it will feed a crowd. It's at least 16 servings making this only $.50/serving)
sugar: .30, butter: 1.25, eggs: .30, flour: .25, cocoa: .50, chocolate pudding mix: .50, chocolate chips: .90, more butter: .60, cocoa: .50, powdered sugar: .90, other stuff: .30

Cake:

2 C sugar
1 C butter, somewhat softened
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
2 1/2 C flour
1 C cocoa
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C instant chocolate pudding mix
2 1/4 C buttermilk
1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

Chocolate Icing:

1/2 C water
1/2 C (1 stick) butter
1 tsp vanilla
1 C cocoa
3 1/2 C powdered sugar

To make the cake: 

Grease that bundt pan, baby. Grease it, or you will regret it.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Beat sugar, butter, and vanilla. Add eggs

Add flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt, instant chocolate pudding mix. Of course you're supposed to sift this, and if you're a person with grit, I suppose you will. I always just dump it in the bowl and then sort of fluff it around with a fork or, heck, the beaters. Because I'm lazy. My cakes turn out anyway.

Now add the buttermilk.

Then the chocolate chips.

Pour it into the bundt pan (or a tube pan).

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Then, without opening the oven, turn the temperature down to 325 and bake for another 30-ish minutes (mine was about 35 minutes). Insert a knife or other long cake testing device. It should come out with moist crumbs, but not batter.

Let it cool for 10 minutes. Then turn it out onto a cake platter. Here I must issue another warning. Don't leave this thing in the pan for an hour or few and then expect it to come out. The longer cakes sit in pans, they less they want to leave them. So give it just a brief cooling period and then turn it out.

When it is completely cool, you'll add the frosting.

For the frosting:

Heat water and butter. Melt butter. Then remove from heat and whisk in cocoa and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar and beat (I always have to move it to a bowl for this step because my pan isn't big enough and is non stick and I like to beat icings so the ingredients incorporate fully).

When the cake is cool, pour this into the center. It will overflow down the sides. I should tell you that I also like to spoon it up onto all the sides so that it is on all sides. In fact, I do this a few times (every couple hours or so) to get a chocolate glaze coating on the cake. Because I like it like that, okay.

Afterwards, my daughter sprinkled it with powdered sugar for beauty's sake. Then my husband took a picture of it with flowers. Because, apparently, that's what he thinks food bloggers do.

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Lemon Bundt Cake

My birthday is coming up this week. I love my birthday--love it like a child. This is what I do every year. On the day of my birthday, I spend the morning going to various stores/restaurants that give you free stuff for your birthday. For a few good resources about where you can go to get free stuff on your birthday, look here. Then Kip and I go out for dinner (often for Indian food, which I love, but Kip doesn't). And then I have adult friends over for cake and ice cream. Because I think we all know that it's perfectly adult to eat cake and ice cream together. I love it. Love love love it. 

But it's only good if you've got good cake. 

I also loooove making my own cake on my birthday. Not everybody does, but I do. Truthfully, I usually make it the night before, but it must be made by me me me. Because I make amazing cake. And I like making cake. And I like eating amazing cake. The end. 

Here is what I'll be making this year. It's a lemon bundt cake. I first made it for a church potluck. I wasn't sure how it would turn out (and, in fact, only snapped a few quick shots of it with my camera). I didn't quite trust the recipe. It had no baking soda. I was worried it'd be flat or weird. Nope. It was incredible. If I had known how amazing it would be, I might have skipped the potluck and just sat in a corner of my kitchen eating it by the fistful. So it's probably fortunate that I didn't know how fantastic it would be. The glaze for this is perfect, but if you wanted to do orange or lime or raspberry, I wouldn't stop you. 

We did it for my birthday with the lemon glaze and then a strawberry glaze over that. Delicious. 

Lemon Bundt Cake

adapted from My Recipe Confessions

Makes one bundt cake

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cook time: 70-80 minutes

Cost: $3.35

flour: .40, butter: 1.00, sugar: .30, powdered sugar: .20, buttermilk: .30, sour cream.25, lemons: .75, other stuff: .15

Note: When I made this the first time I used a cheater buttermilk (1/2 C milk and 1/2 Tbsp vinegar). The second time I made it with real buttermilk. The truth is that I think it's better with the cheater version--moister.

Cake: 

3 C flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 C butter, softened

2 C sugar

3 eggs

1/2 C buttermilk (can use 1/2 C milk and 1/2 Tbsp vinegar if don't have buttermilk)

1/2 C sour cream

4 Tbsp lemon juice

zest of two lemons (about 2 Tbsp)

1 tsp vanilla

Lemon Glaze: 

1/4 C butter, softened

1 1/2 C powdered sugar

3 Tbsp lemon juice

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees and spray bundt pan well. 

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. 

In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one by one. Mix in the sour cream, lemon juice, vanilla, and lemon zest.  

Mix half the flour mixture in. Then add the buttermilk. Then mix in the other half of the flour mixture. Mix just until incorporated. Pour batter into bundt pan. 

Bake for 60-70 minutes (this was the original instruction; mine took longer--probably close to 80 minutes, so don't freak out if it's not quite done at 70 minutes). A toothpick or knife or some other pricking implement should come out clean or with moist crumbs (not wet blobs) when inserted into the thickest part. 

Allow the cake to cool for 5-10 minutes, then turn it out on a cake platter. Spread half the lemon glaze over the warm cake. Do this! It will soak into the cake and contribute to its sheer amazingness. 

Let cake cook completely and add the rest of the glaze (Note: The picture you see up top is just with the first layer of glaze. I had to wait for it to cool and by then we were at the potluck and I was dumping it on there, so I didn't get any shots of it truly complete. The glaze on the cooler cake will be more of a frosting and less of a glaze that sinks in.)

For the glaze: 

Cream butter. Add sugar and lemon juice. Beat well until it's smooth and creamy. 

Optional Strawberry Glaze:

1/2 C strawberry jam

2 Tbsp cream

1-2 Tbsp milk

1 C powdered sugar

Blend in a small blender or whisk. 

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Coconut Almond Cheesecake

I was supposed to finish killing you with sweetness yesterday and this cheesecake was it. But yesterday I had a little girl with a very high fever, so I didn't get to kill anyone with sweetness. Lucky for you, she's mostly better and the sweetness killing can happen today.  

The inspiration for this recipe came from a cheesecake called Almond Joy Cheesecake. That was an apt name. You can put some coconut and chopped almonds into the creamy cheesecake as well as on top or just leave it as topping. I left it as topping because I served it at book club and wanted people to be able to pick out any nuts or coconut if they didn't like those things (my picky children have ruined me), but truthfully I think it would have been fan-flibbing-tastic on the inside too.

Cheesecake is a a scary food to make. And it does take some forethought as it needs time to cool. However, I think that most of us are afraid of it because most of us have had icky, chalky, bland cheesecake before. But cheesecake is actually pretty simple--cream cheese, sugar, eggs, flavor of some sort, and that's it. You just beat this stuff together. The biggest secret I think, to good cheesecake is that you not overcook it. And here I must tell you that this is an act of faith. Because when cheesecake is done somewhere between 165 and 180 degrees, that sugar mamma is still jigggggly. Don't doubt. Don't leave it in till the jiggle is gone. Take it out when it's between 165 and 180 degrees at the center. Do it. It's helpful to have an instant read thermometer, but if you don't, know that the center 2-4 inches (sometimes even a little more) is still going to jiggle. The edges should be set, but not firm as a rock.

Coconut Almond Cheesecake
adapted from Creations by Kara
Makes 1 cheesecake
Prep time: 25 minutes
Cook time: 75-85 minutes
Cool time: 4-6 hours, or overnight
Cost: $8.00 (not cheap, but still a steal when you consider that one slice at Cheesecake Factory will cost you this, and that even a cheap frozen cheesecake from Walmart is significantly more)
Meh, cheesecake isn't cheap, but it doesn't have to break the bank. I always look for cream cheese on sale. It freezes well, especially if you'll be using it to cook with, not spread on things. I always try to get mine for less than $1.
cream cheese: 4.00, generic oreos: 1.00, sugar: .05, butter: .15, more sugar: .30, eggs: .40, extracts: .50, coconut: .30, almonds: .50, cream: .30, chocolate chips: .50

Crust:

1 1/2 C crushed Oreos (or generic version) crumbs--this is about 20 cookies
1/2 C sweetened flaked coconut
1/4 C sugar
1/4 C melted butter

For the cheesecake:

4 8-oz. packages cream cheese
1 1/2 C sugar
4 eggs
1 tsp almond extract
1/2 coconut extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
pinch salt
1/2 C sweetened coconut flakes (optional)
1/2 C chopped almonds (optional)

For the topping:

6 Tbsp cream
1/2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 C toasted coconut
1/2 C chopped almonds

Note: My almonds were covered in a sweet chocolate powder covering. I found them at Aldi. They seemed perfect. But they're not necessary. Regular almonds would be delicious too.

For the crust: 

Place cookies in a food processor and crush them. Add other ingredients and blend. If you don't have a food processor a blender will work. If you don't have a blender, you can put the cookies in a large Ziploc bag and use a rolling pin to crush them.

Press the mixture into the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan. (Note: I used a round of parchment paper on the bottom of mine.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees.

For the cheesecake: 

Blend cream cheese. Add sugar and blend. Add eggs and blend. Add extracts and blend. Add pinch salt. If using add coconut flakes and chopped almonds.

Put this mixture over your crust in the springform pan.

Bake at 325 for 75-85 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads between 165 and 180 (165 will be creamier and looser than if you cook a little longer). If you don't have a thermometer, the center 2-4 inches will JIGGLE. (Note: I did use a water bath and you can too if you wish--put the cheesecake in a roasting pan that has been filled with a few inches of HOT water. However, I think your cheesecake would cook fine even without this. Do know that it might cook faster so you might want to check it at 60 or 65 minutes.)

Cool your cheesecake. Overnight is ideal, but you need at least 4-6 hours.

When you're ready to top it, run a knife along the edge and then release the sprinform part of your pan.

When it's cool, make the chocolate ganache by  combining the cream, chocolate chips and vanilla. I do this in the microwave in 30 second intervals, mixing in between. When it's silky, pour it over the cheesecake.

Then put on toasted coconut (or regular coconut if you're too lazy to put it under the broiler for 2 minutes and toast it--no judgment here; you just made a cheesecake by golly). And add the almonds. I mixed mine together and thought it was pretty.

Allow your ganache to set for an hour (if you can; if you're in a rush, life will still go on).

PRINTABLE RECIPE

Andes Mint Cake

I'm going to be honest: I don't even think you should make this. It's ridiculous. It's over-the-top. It's way too rich, way too filling. It's a triple layer cake with two entire frosting recipes (one mint, one chocolate) in/on it, then ganache, then candy. Are you hearing me? Of course you're not. I probably lost you somewhere between Andes and ganache. If you're a thirteen-year-old boy, I definitely lost you. I probably never had you. My own son was sure not having any kind of overly-indulgent warnings, and it was his birthday. And, at my house, birthdays win, so here you go.

This cake was honestly super gorgeous and easy-ish (for such an over-the-top cake anyway). It was also delicious--every bit. But you must believe me when I say that it was intensely filling. You guys know that I'm kind of a cake girl. I have no qualms about putting away a nice slice of cake, especially on a birthday. I struggled to make it through half a piece of this. It was just so rich. If there's a diabetic in your life you're hoping to kill, then this is the recipe for you (Public Service Announcement: Do not kill diabetics or any other humans. Do not feed this cake to diabetics; thank you.). So here's my advice: make this only if teenagers are involved. Just saying. They'll help you out.

Here's what you do: 
(Idea from Your Cup of Cake)

1. Make a recipe of the Best Ever Chocolate Cake.

2. Make a recipe of mint frosting (I dyed it green.)

3. Make a recipe of Kip's fudge frosting.

4. Make a recipe of ganache. (3/4 C chocolate chips, 1/2 C cream; warm and mix together; I did this in the microwave)

(Have your arteries clogged yet? Are you dead? Can you hear me? I'll call an ambulance.)

5. Take two boxes of Andes mints and unwrap them.

Assemble the cake with the mint frosting in between.

Add the chocolate frosting.

 3. Make a ring of Andes mints around the bottom.

 Pour the ganache on top. Smear and nudge it till it till it spills gorgeously over the edge. (Ambulance is on its way; stay with me.)

Break more Andes mints and put them on the top.