Experiment #6: Strawberry Coffee Cake Courtesy of Joy the Baker

I had some strawberries in the fridge that needed to be eaten so I decided I would bake something with them. I happened to be reading Joy the Baker's blog (www.joythebaker.com) when I made this decision so I decided to see if she had any recipes that featured strawberries. That is where I came across her Strawberry Coffee Cake. It looked a little more complicated than I was used to but I was up for a challenge. I planned it so that I would bake the cake when my older son, Holden, was at daycare and while my baby, Easton, was sleeping. Luckily for me, Easton took a two and a half hour morning nap so the cake was out of the oven before I even had to worry about feeding him his lunch!

The next time I try this recipe (because it is for sure a keeper) I will use fresh, local strawberries and Chris and I both agree that adding some rhubarb would be a nice touch!

Here is the recipe:

"Inspired by Panache at Rose Hill"

Strawberry Mixture:

1 heaping cup sliced strawberries

1/3 cup sugar

2 tbsp cornstarch

2 tsp water

Coffee Cake:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

8 ounces sour cream

1 tsp vanilla extract

a few drops almond extract (optional)

Topping:

3 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

3 1/2 tbsp sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

To make the topping:

Combine all the topping ingredients in a bowl and rub together with your fingertips until crumbly. Set aside.

To make the strawberry mixture:

Combine strawberries, 1/3 cup sugar, water and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Cook over low heat for 5 to 7 minutes, stirring constantly until the sauce is thickened and strawberries are soft and somewhat broken down. Set aside to cool.

Grease and flour a 10x10 inch baking dish, knocking out excess flour, and set aside. (I do not own a 10x10 baking dish so I used an oval shaped dish that I thought was the perfect colour to hold something strawberry-ish!)

To make the coffee cake:

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla extract, and almond extract if you're using it.

Sift dry ingredients together in separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter in 3 parts alternating with the sour cream in 2 parts, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Beat until just combined.

Spoon 2/3 of the batter into the prepared pan. Spread the cooled strawberry mixture over the batter. Spoon remaining batter onto the strawberries and spread evenly. Top with streusel topping and bake in the upper third of the oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes, until a knife inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean.

Blending the strawberry mixture...that is cornstarch on my stove, that stuff gets everywhere! Pretty sure I've never used cornstarch before. Have I mentioned that a lot of this baking stuff is pretty new to me?!

After spreading 2/3 of the cake mixture on the bottom of the pan, I poured on the strawberry mixture then put the rest of the cake mixture on top of that. I had no idea how to spread it around "evenly" so I pretty much used my fingers. It worked out okay!

The finished product looked pretty delicious and smelled AMAZING!

A nice warm slice, just minutes after it came out of the oven...YUM!

Easton didn't seem to mind that I ate the whole piece right in front of him without offering up a bite.....he was happy enough chewing on Buzz Lightyear.

Experiment #5: Black and White Cookie Cake

A few months ago my husband, Chris, started coming home from work with some yummy baked goods created by the girlfriend of one of his co-workers. We discovered that she had a blog called takeamegabite.com. The two of us would sit together at night reading her posts while trying not to drool on the keyboard. Take a Megabite is one of the reasons I started my own blog. Chris and I were both anxious to try Megabite's recipes on our own....this is the first of probably many we will "borrow" from her blog.

Our friend, Barry, wanted to throw a surprise 30th birthday party for his fiance, Mindy. Of course I saw this as another opportunity to make my way into the kitchen so I offered to bake a cake. I thought I would make a German chocolate cake but Barry informed me that Mindy would probably prefer a white cake so I went in search of a recipe for one. One of the first places I looked was http://takeamegabite.com/. There I found this recipe:

Buttermilk Cake

2 and 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

4 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk

Line 2 (9 inch) cake pans with buttered parchment paper. Position rack in the middle of oven and preheat to 350 degrees.

Stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a bowl, mixing well.

Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl and beat on medium speed for about 5 minutes, or until very soft and light. Beat in the vanilla, then beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed to low and beat in one third of the flour mixture, then half the buttermilk, stopping and scraping down the bowl and beater after each addition. Beat in another third of the flour, then the remaining buttermilk, stopping and scraping again. Finally, beat in the remaining flour mixture.

Scrape the bowl well with a large rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops.

Bake the layers for about 30 to 35 minutes, until they are well risen and firm and a toothpick inserted in the centre emerges clean. Cool the layers in the pans for 5 minutes, then unmold onto racks to finish cooling.

(Recipe from Food Mahem, original source Nick Malgieri's Perfect Cakes)

Black and White Cookie Icing

3 cups confectioners sugar

2 tbsp light corn syrup

2-3 tsp fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp vanilla

2-4 tbsp water

1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

Make icing while cake chills.

Stir together confectioners sugar, corn syrup, lemon juice, vanilla, and 1 tablespoon water in a small bowl until smooth. Transfer half of the icing to another bowl and stir in cocoa, adding more water 1/2 teaspoon at a time to thin to same consistency as white icing.

Ice the bottom layer half white and half black and place the top layer on top.

Frost the opposite sides of the top layer white and black.

(Recipe adapted from Epicurious)

When you line a cake pan with parchment paper, only line the BOTTOM of the cake pan. I learned this the hard way. I lined the whole cake pan and the above photo is the outcome. It looks like a few chunks were taken out of the sides of the cakes! Oh well, now I know!

Mmmm, drippy icing! Like it says on takeamegabite, "...as far as frostings and icings are concerned, there is never a for sure recipe. I'm always adding this and that to get it to the desired consistency. Feel free to add more powdered sugar and then more water until consistency is all you are dreaming of." I may have added a little more water then necessary because I wanted to make sure the icing was going to achieve this great dripping effect!

The finished product!

I bought some of these icing flowers at the Bulk Barn and decided to place them down the centre of this cake in order to disguise the fact that the line was not so straight.

By the way, I was so worried about serving my cake to a bunch of people who weren't family that I almost didn't bring it to the party. I called my mom and asked her to help me bake another cake and by the time I got to her house she had a carrot cake in the oven for me...now that's a great mom!! I ended up bringing both cakes to the party and both were a hit!

Experiment #4: Red Velvet Cupcakes

My husband, Chris, and I decided to host another birthday party...this time for my father-in-law. I thought Holden (my 2 year old) and his cousins, Owen and Carter, might enjoy cupcakes in place of a birthday cake but mostly it gave me an excuse to experiment with something I hadn't tried in a long, long time. Plus, I have never, ever tried red velvet! I found this recipe on Joy the Baker's blog which I am certain is a great recipe when followed properly. However, I decided to try my own thing with the recipe which is probably the reason the cupcakes turned out a wee bit (okay, a lot) dry. They LOOKED amazing and I am glad I tried them. Next time I will follow Joy's recipe more closely. I should have known that I am not an experienced enough baker to play around with someone else's recipe but I am learning as much from my mistakes as I am from my successes.

Here is the recipe:

8 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temp

1 cup plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar

2 large eggs, at room temp

1/2 tsp vanilla

2 cups cake flour

2 tbsp cocoa powder *

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

scant 2 tbsp red food colouring

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda. Add the kosher salt after sifting and set aside. Measure out the buttermilk and food colouring. Add the die to the buttermilk for easier incorporation later.

Cream the butter and the sugar using an electric mixer, until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, letting the eggs beat for 1 minute in between additions. Scrape down the bowl in between additions.

Add the dry ingredients alternately with the wet ingredients. Start by adding one third of the flour mixture. Mix just to incorporate. Add half of the buttermilk. Add another one third of the flour mixture. Mix to incorporate. Add the last half of buttermilk, followed by the last third of flour.

Spoon into paper lined cupcake pans. Check the cupcakes after 12 minutes. Makes 12 cupcakes.

* Okay, this is where I think I went wrong. I wanted my cupcakes to be extra chocolaty so I added 1/4 of a cup of cocoa powder. Since I did this I probably should have added a little more buttermilk because they were kind of dry. I'm not certain that this was the problem but I'm guessing it had something to do with the dryness.

I used Joy's Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting (Minus the Cinnamon)

2 and 1/3 cups powdered sugar

3 tbsp butter, room temp

4 ounces cream cheese, room temp

(I had to add about a tbsp of milk and decided a splash of vanilla extract would make this frosting extra yummy!)

Beat the powdered sugar and butter on medium-slow speed until it comes together. (This is when I added the milk, since it wasn't coming together for me.)

Add the cream cheese all at once and beat on medium to medium-high until incorporated.

Beat on medium-high for 5 minutes, or until the frosting becomes light and fluffy.

Do not over-beat as the frosting can quickly become runny.

Now that is some RED batter!

Yep, still red.

I love the contrast of red and white.

I just had to add some sprinkles for the kids (and a little bit for me)!

Experiment #3: Cream Cheese Cutout Cookies for Easter

I wanted to bake some cookies for Easter and decided to go with a recipe I had already tried. Grandma and I baked these same cookies the first time we got together for my baking lessons. This recipe is great for every holiday! I had originally thought I would just find an oval shaped cookie cutter and decorate the cookies to look like Easter eggs but I could find no such cutter. After a bit of a search I finally found an egg shaped cookie cutter at the Bulk Barn and it had a pattern to follow which worked out well. I also found a bunny and a hatching chick cookie cutter that I just couldn't pass up...they both looked adorable. I think the cookies turned out pretty well - cute and yummy! You can find the recipe for these cutouts on my "Baking With Grandma" blog.

Is it a beater or a flute?

Holden and I made the dough together.

Grandma whipped up some icing for me while I was at her house baking bread.

The "before" picture.

A sample of the finished product!