Shimmy, Shimmy, Coconut Cake (with Lemon Buttercream).

My Mom’s birthday recently passed (she share’s her special day with Abraham Lincoln, as a matter of fact), and of course I did what I do best, and baked her a birthday cake. Last summer, I had made a Lemon Coconut Cake that she was particularly fond of, and went as far as saying that I should make that cake for her. So…that’s just what i did. I used my recipe for the cake (you can find it here), but I did something a little different for the frosting this time. Instead of using lemon juice or real lemons, I used lemon extract. I know, it sounds like cheating; but if you had tasted this icing, you’d cheat too. It may have been my favorite icing to date, and I’m not even a big fan of lemon desserts! If you don’t believe me, try it for yourself – the recipe is at the end of this post You can thank me later.

baked birthday bliss.

Once I had iced the cake with the lemon buttercream and covered it with fresh coconut, I felt like something was still missing. It needed a topper. The cake I made last summer had a cherry on top – that looked great! But I didn’t have any cherries…so I began scanning the kitchen for something that could work. Being it was just before Valentine’s Day, I had a container of conversation hearts just sitting on the table. I scoured them all, in search of the perfect message for the top of my mom’s cake. And there it was: “For You.”  Because, that’s what is was, after all.

pure and simple.

My mom loved the cake, and just as I  had hoped, she sent me home with about a third of it. Don’t worry, I shared it with friends – only after eating a large piece myself, of course.

Anyway, as promised, here is the new Lemon Buttercream recipe. Enjoy!!

Lemon Buttercream (new and improved version!).

What you’ll need:

8 oz butter (room temperature)

4 oz shortening

1 lb 6 oz confectioner’s sugar

1 tsp lemon extract

1/2 oz water

What you’ll do:

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy, using the paddle attachment. Add the lemon extract and water, mix until shiny. If you want a thinner consistency, just add more water.

 

 

Recipe Saturday: Storm Cakes.

What do you do when the thing you’ve feared more than anything since you were about 5 years old is finally about to happen in the form of a superfreak ”frankenstorm” with a path that appears to have curved intentionally to slam dead smack into your house? Bake, of course.

Enter: The Storm Cake.

I figured maybe by making a cake in honor of the storm, it would ease the blow – you know, the old “offerings to the angry gods to keep them from unleashing their wrath” kinda thing. Anyway, I began thinking, what kind of cake could live up to such a great task? What goes into a “storm cake?”  More importanly, what doesn’t? I couldn’t just frivolously use up my storm-essentials like eggs and milk. Not at a time like this. No, this cake must be egg and milk-free. But what to add? Chocolate chips seemed like a good choice. And coconut. Oh, and oats. And how ’bout some crushed oreos? So far so good. But a storm has clouds, and lots of them. Marshmallows seemed like a good cloud-representation, however, I had absolutely zero marshmallows in the house, and I was not about to go to the supermarket in the midst of the storm-preparation frenzy for mere marshmallows. So, I improvised.

peep no more.

I mixed it all together, and the batter looked like a jumbled mess – which was rather storm-like.

the wrath of cake.

I opted for cupcakes, and baked them up. When I took them out of the oven, they were bumpy, with things sticking out here and there - yet they rose to life as any normal cupcake should. These were truly Frankencupcakes.

it’s alive!

I topped them with a swirling cloud of cinnamon whipped cream, of which I originally made as topping for the Pumpkin Rosemary Pie, but still had a ton left over.

here comes the twister.

I had to eat one, to see if they lived up to the hype. And unlike I hope the real storm does, they did. The Storm Cake of the Century, I’d say. Give it a try and see for yourself. And if you don’t have all the ingredients, that’s ok – use what you’ve got. No two storms are exactly alike.

———————————————————————————–

Storm Cakes.

What you’ll need:

2 cups warm water

3/4 cup canola oil

2 tablespoons white vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 1/2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 cup chocolate chips

1 cup coconut

1 cup oats

4 crushed oreos

3 ghost-shaped marshmallow peeps (cut up)

What you’ll do:

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, combine the water, oil, vinegar and vanilla. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, and mix until well combined and smooth. Fold in the chocolate chips, coconut, oats, Oreos, and cut-up Peeps. Scoop into lined muffin tins, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Should make about 2 1/2 dozen cupcakes. Bake for 15 – 18 minutes. Cool, ice, and enjoy.

 

Eat Dessert and Adopt a Pet.

This weekend, I’m participating in a bake sale to benefit Furrever Friends Rescue and Volunteers, Inc, which is a wonderful organization dedicated to saving the lives of homeless pets. This particular cause is very dear to me, as I grew up in a family where all of our pets were shelter animals and I adopted my own pet (Gandalf the Gray) almost 10 years ago from a shelter.

10 years old, and still crazy as a kitten.

Anyway, if you are in the Philly area over the weekend, swing on down to the PetSmart in Deptford, NJ , and sample some delicious baked goods, all for a great cause. And, heck, why not adopt a pet while you’re at it!

And just to further entice you, here’s a glimpse of my donations.

Chocolate Chip Cookies….

the cookie next door.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies….

The exotic.

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies…

the party cookie.

and Marzipan Mice.

the cheerleader.

The sale will be going on today from 10am to 9pm, and tomorrow 10am to 5pm. If you love animals and baked goods (and who doesn’t) then come on down!

 

Recipe Sunday: Lemon Coconut Cake.

So I was feeling really guilty that I haven’t posted any recipes in a while. So I decided earlier this week that I would post one today, but I hadn’t decided what and had no real direction. I did however, have this bag of Meyer Lemons which I had picked up because my cousin seemed to like them, and I trust her judgement. They were also cute and smaller than a regular lemon. I’ve used my cat for a size comparison:

note: this lemon was NOT used in the production of this cake.

Anyway, I decided I would put these little fellas to good use and make a lemon cake. As I started crafting the recipe, I thought that it would taste even better as a lemon coconut cake. So, that’s what I went with. Lemon cake, with lemon buttercream, covered in fresh coconut. And topped with a cherry. It makes a lovely light cake, perfect for a summer gathering on the veranda.

refreshingly sweet.

Lemon Coconut Cake.

What you’ll need:

6 oz eggs

2 1/4 oz half and half

2 1/2 oz high-ratio liquid shortening

1/4 oz lemon juice

5 oz sugar

4 oz cake flour

1/4 oz baking powder

1/4 oz salt

Zest of one small lemon (or half of a large one)

What you’ll do:

Preheat the oven to 350. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, half and half, liquid shortening and lemon juice. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sugar, flour, baking powder and salt. Pour the dry ingredients on top of the wet, add the lemon zest,  and mix for 5 minutes on medium speed, with the paddle attachment. Scrape the bowl to make sure all the dry ingredients are incorporated, and mix on medium speed for 5 more minutes. Makes one 8” or 9″ round. Bake for about 25 minutes.

Lemon Buttercream.

What you’ll need:

8 oz butter (room temperature)

4 oz shortening

1 lb confectioner’s sugar

1/2 tsp bottled lemon juice

1 oz fresh lemon juice

Zest of one small lemon (or half of a large lemon)

What you’ll do:

In a large mixing bowl, cream together the butter, shortening, and sugar until light and fluffy, using the paddle attachment. Add the lemon juice and zest, mix until shiny. If you want a thinner consistency, just add more juice.

Assembling the cake:

Slice the 8″ or 9″ round into two layers.

and one becomes two.

Cover the top of one of the layers with buttercream, and sprinkle with fresh coconut.

halfway there.

Place the second layer on top, ice the rest of the cake, and cover the entire thing with coconut. Top with a cherry in the center.

oh cherry!

 

The Power of Pixies.

So the other night, I participated in WHYY’s Best of Chefs Event, as I mentioned in my last post. The event was a blast! It was organized, fun, well-attended and also provided me with a serendiptious opportunity to do some market research. Allow me to explain: I made an assortment of Pixie Cakes, in the following flavors:

Chocolate Pixies

Chocolate cake mixed with buttercream icing, dipped in dark chocolate, with chocolate sprinkles.

Vanilla Pixies

Vanilla cake mixed with buttercream icing, dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with sugar.

Red Velvet Pixies

Red Velvet cake mixed with buttercream icing, dipped in white chocolate, sprinkled with red sugar.

Cookies and Cream Pixies

Chocolate cake mixed with cookies and buttercream icing, rolled in cookie crumbs.

and Coconut Pixies.

Vanilla cake mixed with coconut buttercream, dipped in white chocolate, and sprinkled with coconut.

I placed them all on a tray, as so:

Pixies on a plate.

Now here’s where it got interesting: the doors opened and the crowd shuffled in. As they approached my table, one after another after another went straight for the Red Velvet. And if it wasn’t the Red Velvet, it was the good old fashioned Chocolate. Now by mere coincidence, I made more of the Red Velvets than any of the others; but it didn’t matter – I ran out of them first, and people were coming back and asking me if there were anymore! When I told them I ran out, they were only dejected for a second, and then just sampled another flavor instead (and liked it!).

The moral of the story: cake is great, but Red Velvet rules.

The people have spoken.

 

You say Potato, I say…Candy?

I didn’t realize how easy Irish Potatoes were to make. I also didn’t realize that they were pretty much just a ball of coconut icing covered in cinnamon. I didn’t realize how much I love them. Funny what you don’t realize.

Anyway, I decided to make these this year for the first time. I had imagined they were difficult – not sure why, but possibly because no one I know ever seemed to make them, or discuss making them, so that just led me to subconsciously place them in the “hard to make” category. I was completely wrong. I admit it. I’m wrong sometimes.

Anyway, I had no recipe for these anywhere in any of my books at home, so I googled it, and found this recipe –
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/irish-potato-candy/
. I thought, “Gee, that sounds too easy. Let me make sure it’s actually the real deal.” So I checked out a few other links, and the recipes were all basically the same. So, I gave it a whirl.

They looked and tasted great. Better than I remembered even the ones in the box tasting! Not only were they super simple to make, they were fun too.

Simple. like Love.

Really good things don’t have to be complicated. We just often think they need to be.

 

Shine on you crazy cakeball.

So on a whim, I wandered into the kitchen tonight after having dinner with a friend and fellow baker, and just started creating, without any real plan. I used coconut the other night, so that was in the front of my mind, and I had a bag of leftover cake scraps in the freezer, so I pulled that out. I was totally on autopilot. I then mixed the cake with some vanilla buttercream, added a little coconut extract, and some shredded coconut, shaped them into balls, melted some light blue colored white chocolate I just happened to have in the cabinet, coated each ball, and sprinkled them all with white sanding sugar. The result? White chocolate covered coconut cake balls that sparkle like diamonds in the snow..

shiny.

Not only do they look like a winter wonderland,  they taste like it too. And if you’ve never tasted winter wonderland, it’s about time you did. Just goes to show you, sometimes the best things come out without thinking. I should really stop thinking more often.

 

Recipe Sunday (New Year’s Day Edition): Orange Coconut Mousse.

Happy New Year!! This is my first post of 2012, and it also happens to be a Recipe Sunday! This is what happens when worlds collide, folks. Anyway, I thought I’d keep with a theme that is on the tip of everyone’s tongue right now: New Year’s Resolutions; the most common being some sort of combination of eat right/lose weight. Well, I can help! After all the over-indulging we’ve done over the holidays (notice I said “we”), and all the heavy food and rich desserts we’ve consumed, I thought I’d offer a light, less-fattening, yet equally delish dish for your resolution-laden desserting pleasure: Orange Coconut Mousse.

I had actually decided on the theme for this post before the recipe itself – I knew I wanted to do a light, airy, lower calorie dessert, however I couldn’t think of a single one. So, I went into the kitchen and started poking around. I came across an almost full carton of orange juice, and an equally almost full carton of heavy cream. It was a true “aha” moment: and Orange Coconut Mousse was born, and even whipped on my brand new KitchenAid Mixer!

Anyway, good luck with your resolutions, and I wish you all a positive, powerful, passionate, and pastry-filled 2012! I hope you enjoy the mousse.

if you like pina coladas…

Orange Coconut Mousse.

What you’ll need:

.25 oz powdered gelatin

8 oz orange juice

.66 oz lemon juice

1 oz sugar

.66 oz coconut rum

8 oz heavy cream (whipped)

What you’ll do:

In a pot on the stove, heat about 1/3 of the orange juice until it reaches 140 F (about 5 minutes). Add the gelatin and stir until it dissolves. Add the lemon juice and the sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. Add the rest of the orange juice, stir, and add the rum, stir. Let cool for about 10 minutes, then fold in the whipped heavy cream (should be whipped to medium/stiff peaks). Pour into desired molds (I used little ramekins) and chill. Sprinkle shredded coconut on top and enjoy a bit of the tropics in January.

 

the bird’s the word.

So last year I saw these bird cupcakes on Martha Stewart’s website, and I had to make them. Coincidentally, a friend, who also happens to be a self-proclaimed “bird nerd” was having a birthday around the same time. Perfect excuse for me to whip up my own version of these sweet tweets. 

give someone the bird.

The cake itself was just a regular white cake – I tend to keep the base simple if the decorations are elaborate. I iced them with a coconut buttercream, then topped them with coconut flakes colored with a few drops of brown food coloring to make nests. I piped the nests with varying amounts of baby blue birds, gave each a yellow beak, and some eyes, and we’ve achieved chirperfection (I just made up a new word!).

a bird in the hand is worth two in the mouth.

They were such a success, I got a request to make them for another party after that. So, if you like birds and cupcakes (only a real jerk doesn’t like birds and cupcakes) then you should order these for your next party too.

 

 

The pie’s the limit.

Everyone loves pie. It’s practically a crime not to. I think you’d be considered unpatriotic, and possibly get deported if you didn’t at least enjoy one of the many varieties pies have to offer. But pies are so big. If you happen to take a piece of one that’s not your cup of tea, then you’re (excuse my french) screwed. Enter the mini pie. A 4″ or 5″ two-bite godsend of deliciousness, offering you the option to try – you guessed it – more than one type of pie at a time! Have a hankering for Cherry Pie, but wouldn’t mind sampling a bit of that Key Lime as well? no problem. Mini-pies provide the dessert solution we’ve all been waiting for. So bring on the pies, and start sampling.

Any suggestions for a mini-pie you’d like to see?

so many pies....so little time.