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yucabelso last weekend i went on a baking spree brought on by my imminent last day at work (last sunday, which was unspeakably wonderful) AND a coworker's birthday the following tuesday, aka three days ago. i ended up baking three things for my last work day--a nice three layered chocolate cake, a lemon bundt, and a few cookies--and four for my friend's birthday, two of which ACTUALLY went out--a mini chocolate cardamom cake (failure bc im dumb as fuck), japanese cheesecake (actually a pretty good success), tiramisu, and some cupcakes that i made offhand with the leftover mini cake batter. all in all it was a good run...if a bit traumatizing for our kitchen lmao.
this post is part one of the marathon, what i made for my coworkers on sunday. the cake was gorgeous, so it gets to escape the cut.
the chocolate cake (standard)
i used this recipe, but i didn't do mise so: not the metric (shamefully). i definitely wasn't super fond of it...i have an obsession with making actually good chocolate cakes bc of a chocolate cake that i made when i was in high school where i fucked it up so spectacularly it actually turned out REALLY REALLY GOOD (by which i mean to say: i overshot some of the ingredients and it turned out for the better? but now i don't even remember what the base recipe was, or which ingredients i overshot...). so now i'm on this perpetual journey to find the joy of good chocolate cake again. it doesn't help that i only like dark chocolate.
anyway, the recipe here as well, for easier note-taking:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
i think that using oil and water is just the worst. i mean theoretically this makes it more moist (whatever) but oil and water is just NOT my cup of tea. from a chemical standpoint i think it makes sense...like i can't think of any subs that wouldn't just make it a little weird. but still--the cake itself was a little too moist. as a result of this, it took an extremely long paranoia filled last few minutes in the oven to make sure that it had baked through (not to mention that my sister doesn't even have toothpicks in her kitchen, so we just used a paring knife to check...which is so dumb in my opinion) and it ended up being a little overbaked. terrible. even after we pulled it out, it was still leaving some moist leftover bits on the check, so i was a bit distraught.
anyway, my thoughts generally: i'm theoretically fine with oil in chocolate cakes, but the inclusion of buttermilk meant i couldn't sub the water for milk. which, fine--but i think the liquid ratio made it a little toooooo moist. i'll probably use this as a base for experimenting. i was thinking of doing the usual milk-water sub (theoretically ruining the structural integrity of the cake, but thats fine), just taking out the buttermilk entirely (?), using dark cocoa instead of regular cocoa, and then adding some espresso to it for flavor. OR i might just do a complete butter-oil/milk-water sub and play with adding some veggie oil in there for tenderizing anyway. the ratios will be hard. we're going for moist but not too moist devil cake lmao. it's about the texture!!!!!!!!!!
compared to the cake, the swiss buttercream was far easier, possibly because i stole my sister's recipe. no metric, once again, for shame.
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups egg whites
3 lbs butter (aka 12 sticks of butter)
1 oz vanilla extract
you have to meringue it up over a double broiler first, to...soft-medium peaks, i think. mostly you're trying to get the sugar melted and make sure the eggs don't cook, which is a weird and slightly nerve-wracking process, but easy enough once u do it a few times. anyway--this recipe makes a lot a lot, but i split some of it off to make the internal icing (strawberry buttercream) by adding a few scoops of strawberry jam, to taste. we only did a crumb coat for the outside because the buttercream is quite thick anyway, and a second coating would've been too much, texture-wise. whole and chopped strawberries and raspberries for the between-layers and the decoration on top...along with chocolate ganache.
for the chocolate ganache, it was just:
7 oz chocolate
8 oz heavy cream
ganache isn't hard to make, just annoying. when i heated the heavy cream i forgot about it for too long (lol) and accidentally had it explode a bit on the stove...lmao.
the cake was good, just painstaking. all in all, making and assembly took, like...2 1/2 days of work, give or take. but it was a good cake and my coworkers evidently liked it, as it was gone before i finished my fucking 5 hour shift, so: a win for jamies everywhere!
the lemon cake
because i'm a rat, i forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but i made everything from here, including the icing, so nbd. i definitely burnt it though, sadly, as you can see from the picture...but it still tasted alright, if a bit sweet. the icing was sweet too, but everyone who tried it was like yeah, seems legit. so maybe i'm the only one who wasn't into it, ironically. mostly it just tasted like the starbucks lemon cake, which is fine in theory but, once again, way too sweet in practice.
(cake)
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 Tbsp lemon zest
4 eggs, large
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup milk (whole or 2%)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup sour cream (greek yogurt may be substituted)
1 tsp vanilla extract
(icing)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
it was certainly very lemony. if i remade it i'd probably just do a different icing altogether (this one was okay, but certainly made it sweeter...and dried in a very funny way on the cake anyway), plus less sugar. 1 1/2 cups instead of 2? something like that. overall a solid recipe, but i'll have to remake it to satisfaction, and with less overbaking lmao.
chocolate chip cookies from levain bakery, like, the fluffy kind
i've never been to levain bakery (i don't actually even know what it is) but this is a recipe i stumbled upon last year when i was looking for a nice thick chocolate chip cookie recipe, you know, like the kind you find in really good bakeries that are lowkey insane...yeah. anyway, it was a success the first time i made it, so i was like: why not make them again?
predictably, i fucked it up. mostly this is because i didn't follow the instructions (as the fool that i am), which i'll say was because i started this one at midnight and just went with what my heart desired, but oh well.
1 cup Cold Butter cut into small cubes
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 1/2 cups Cake Flour*
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 cups Chocolate Chips
2 cups Walnuts roughly chopped
fucked this one up in two ways: 1) forgot that i was supposed to cream it first, and 2) i baked it at 350 instead of 410...lmao. so i ended up with pretty flat cookies, because they were in there for waaaaay too long, and at the wrong temperature, PLUS they had like no air in it because i threw all the ingredients in and just mashed them together...but that's neither here nor there. i was so sad about the turnout that i didn't take a picture. but they still tasted good despite the fuck ups, and my coworkers definitely didn't need to know about how they were ACTUALLY supposed to be...so they went out anyway, LOL. they were just crispy and flat, but mostly okay. it was off in a weird way, but they were for someone out there? idk dawg.
when they're made properly, they're really very thick and extremely gooey...i could barely eat two the first time i made them, since it LITERALLY felt like i was having a whole meal. i like to chop up the chocolate chips so that they kinda marble in the dough and the cookie, but that's just a personal thing. next time i make these, i'll make them properly, but otherwise: no adjustments to be made, shamefully. the recipe is just too good!
this post is part one of the marathon, what i made for my coworkers on sunday. the cake was gorgeous, so it gets to escape the cut.
the chocolate cake (standard)
i used this recipe, but i didn't do mise so: not the metric (shamefully). i definitely wasn't super fond of it...i have an obsession with making actually good chocolate cakes bc of a chocolate cake that i made when i was in high school where i fucked it up so spectacularly it actually turned out REALLY REALLY GOOD (by which i mean to say: i overshot some of the ingredients and it turned out for the better? but now i don't even remember what the base recipe was, or which ingredients i overshot...). so now i'm on this perpetual journey to find the joy of good chocolate cake again. it doesn't help that i only like dark chocolate.
anyway, the recipe here as well, for easier note-taking:
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
i think that using oil and water is just the worst. i mean theoretically this makes it more moist (whatever) but oil and water is just NOT my cup of tea. from a chemical standpoint i think it makes sense...like i can't think of any subs that wouldn't just make it a little weird. but still--the cake itself was a little too moist. as a result of this, it took an extremely long paranoia filled last few minutes in the oven to make sure that it had baked through (not to mention that my sister doesn't even have toothpicks in her kitchen, so we just used a paring knife to check...which is so dumb in my opinion) and it ended up being a little overbaked. terrible. even after we pulled it out, it was still leaving some moist leftover bits on the check, so i was a bit distraught.
anyway, my thoughts generally: i'm theoretically fine with oil in chocolate cakes, but the inclusion of buttermilk meant i couldn't sub the water for milk. which, fine--but i think the liquid ratio made it a little toooooo moist. i'll probably use this as a base for experimenting. i was thinking of doing the usual milk-water sub (theoretically ruining the structural integrity of the cake, but thats fine), just taking out the buttermilk entirely (?), using dark cocoa instead of regular cocoa, and then adding some espresso to it for flavor. OR i might just do a complete butter-oil/milk-water sub and play with adding some veggie oil in there for tenderizing anyway. the ratios will be hard. we're going for moist but not too moist devil cake lmao. it's about the texture!!!!!!!!!!
compared to the cake, the swiss buttercream was far easier, possibly because i stole my sister's recipe. no metric, once again, for shame.
3 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups egg whites
3 lbs butter (aka 12 sticks of butter)
1 oz vanilla extract
you have to meringue it up over a double broiler first, to...soft-medium peaks, i think. mostly you're trying to get the sugar melted and make sure the eggs don't cook, which is a weird and slightly nerve-wracking process, but easy enough once u do it a few times. anyway--this recipe makes a lot a lot, but i split some of it off to make the internal icing (strawberry buttercream) by adding a few scoops of strawberry jam, to taste. we only did a crumb coat for the outside because the buttercream is quite thick anyway, and a second coating would've been too much, texture-wise. whole and chopped strawberries and raspberries for the between-layers and the decoration on top...along with chocolate ganache.
for the chocolate ganache, it was just:
7 oz chocolate
8 oz heavy cream
ganache isn't hard to make, just annoying. when i heated the heavy cream i forgot about it for too long (lol) and accidentally had it explode a bit on the stove...lmao.
the cake was good, just painstaking. all in all, making and assembly took, like...2 1/2 days of work, give or take. but it was a good cake and my coworkers evidently liked it, as it was gone before i finished my fucking 5 hour shift, so: a win for jamies everywhere!
the lemon cake
because i'm a rat, i forgot to take a picture of the finished product, but i made everything from here, including the icing, so nbd. i definitely burnt it though, sadly, as you can see from the picture...but it still tasted alright, if a bit sweet. the icing was sweet too, but everyone who tried it was like yeah, seems legit. so maybe i'm the only one who wasn't into it, ironically. mostly it just tasted like the starbucks lemon cake, which is fine in theory but, once again, way too sweet in practice.
(cake)
1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
2 Tbsp lemon zest
4 eggs, large
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 3/4 cup all purpose flour
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup milk (whole or 2%)
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup sour cream (greek yogurt may be substituted)
1 tsp vanilla extract
(icing)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2-3 Tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp lemon zest
it was certainly very lemony. if i remade it i'd probably just do a different icing altogether (this one was okay, but certainly made it sweeter...and dried in a very funny way on the cake anyway), plus less sugar. 1 1/2 cups instead of 2? something like that. overall a solid recipe, but i'll have to remake it to satisfaction, and with less overbaking lmao.
chocolate chip cookies from levain bakery, like, the fluffy kind
i've never been to levain bakery (i don't actually even know what it is) but this is a recipe i stumbled upon last year when i was looking for a nice thick chocolate chip cookie recipe, you know, like the kind you find in really good bakeries that are lowkey insane...yeah. anyway, it was a success the first time i made it, so i was like: why not make them again?
predictably, i fucked it up. mostly this is because i didn't follow the instructions (as the fool that i am), which i'll say was because i started this one at midnight and just went with what my heart desired, but oh well.
1 cup Cold Butter cut into small cubes
1 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Eggs
1 1/2 cups Cake Flour*
1 1/2 cups Flour
1 teaspoon Cornstarch
3/4 teaspoon Baking Soda
3/4 teaspoon Salt
2 cups Chocolate Chips
2 cups Walnuts roughly chopped
fucked this one up in two ways: 1) forgot that i was supposed to cream it first, and 2) i baked it at 350 instead of 410...lmao. so i ended up with pretty flat cookies, because they were in there for waaaaay too long, and at the wrong temperature, PLUS they had like no air in it because i threw all the ingredients in and just mashed them together...but that's neither here nor there. i was so sad about the turnout that i didn't take a picture. but they still tasted good despite the fuck ups, and my coworkers definitely didn't need to know about how they were ACTUALLY supposed to be...so they went out anyway, LOL. they were just crispy and flat, but mostly okay. it was off in a weird way, but they were for someone out there? idk dawg.
when they're made properly, they're really very thick and extremely gooey...i could barely eat two the first time i made them, since it LITERALLY felt like i was having a whole meal. i like to chop up the chocolate chips so that they kinda marble in the dough and the cookie, but that's just a personal thing. next time i make these, i'll make them properly, but otherwise: no adjustments to be made, shamefully. the recipe is just too good!