Chocolate Cake, Vegan of Course Mom's Crazy Cooking Challenge

Happy February 7th to you all.

Quickly I have to say Happy Birthday to my wonderful husband. He turns 31 today.

I will dote on him for a minute and say that I could not be luckier to have Kyle as my husband. He is a wonderful father and husband.

I have a chocolate cake for you all, but not the one I made Kyle (I will feature that tomorrow).

I am participating in Mom's Crazy Cooking Challenge hosted by the lovely Tina.

The challenge was to make a chocolate cake from a fellow blogger's site and share it with you all.

I chose Joy the Baker's Vegan Chocolate Avocado Cake (I swear you cannot taste the avocado).

Pin It


The only hint that you have that there is a funny ingredient is the green avocado buttercream icing.

This cake was so very moist and delicious. 

Not overly sweet but just right for a dessert and some hot tea.

In hind sight I think the cake would have tasted best with just the buttercream filling and no frosting on top (I prefer the cake to the frosting..I know I am weird). 

This cake was me going out on a limb because I really didn't think (no matter what Joy said) that the cake was going to taste weird, a bit like I stuck guacamole in my dessert.

I was pleasantly surprised and my kids were able to enjoy it as a lunch box treat all week long.

I strongly encourage you to try new things and to branch out with your ingredients...you never know when you are going to be surprised.

Be sure to check out my fellow bloggers (listed below) and see what other fantatic chocolate cakes they baked up.

This close to Valentine's Day you might need to whip one up and share with your loved ones!

Tweet

Nana's Sour Cream Pound Cake with Cinnamon Crunch

Today I am featuring another recipe by my Nana, hopefully you won't get tired of her recipes.

I fell heir to her recipes boxes and books and have just had a wonderful time going through them and pickig out the ones I wanted to try.

For some reason, I don't know why, but the desserts are always the first ones I want to do.

So today I give you Sour Cream Pound Cake with Cinnamon Crunch

4 eggs
3 C all purpose unbleached flour
1/2 lb butter
2 C sugar
1 pint of sour cream
2 tsp baking soda

Crunch Mix:
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C chopped nuts (I used my almonds again from my milk experiment)
1-2 tsp cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar together and then add your eggs.

Add in your sour cream and incorporate.

Add flour and baking soda and mix completely.

Put 1/2 of your batter into a greased 9x13 pan.

*Here I used two loaf pans instead of a 9x13

On the batter sprinkle half of your crunch mixture.

Pour your remaining batter on top and then put the rest of the crunch mix on top of that.

You will have nice layers of batter and crunch, but to mix it through out your cake use a knife and swirl it through the batter a few times.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour if you are using loaf pans.

When the time is us this is what you'll be rewarded with:

Just remember to let it cool off because it is REALLY hot when you cut that first slice (I may have a small burn in my mouth to attest to this safety issue).

I hope you all have a wonderful Tuesday.

Just to let you know I will be hosting a Pealightful giveaway on Monday in celebration of my 100th post.

Have a great day!!!

Tweet

Angel Food Cake Nana Style...NOT!

So some of the fondest memories I have of my grandmother involve food.  Seriously the woman was a phenomenal cook and baker.

One of her dessert's that brings back some of the fondest memories for me is her angel food cake.

It was always tall, light, and covered with a light glaze...YUM!

My grandmother passed almost 4 years ago and it has been at least that long since I had angel food cake and I decided it was time for me to give it a whirl.

I pulled out her recipes and got to work.  Now I thought about making this vegan but in researching my options not many people had had any luck with making a veganized version...apparently whipping eggs into a frenzy is something that is hard to replicate.

Instructions:

1 C egg whites
1/2 tsp salt

Whip these together until foamy, then add:

1 tsp cream of tartar

Beat until the egg white sand up in soft peaks, then add:

1/2 tsp almond extract
1 tsp vanilla

In a separate bowl sift 1 1/4 C sugar and 1 C cake flour

Fold your flour and sugar mixture into your egg mixture carefully.  Incorporate the flour mix slowly so as not to ruin the egg mixture.

In a tube pan flour the sides and bottom (no butter) and then pour in your batter.  Bake at 325 degrees for 50 minutes.

This next step I thought was a little odd, but who am I to question the recipe of a baking genius.  Turn the heat off and allow the cake to remain in the over for another 10 minutes.

Then take the cake out and turn it upside down until it is cool.

So I was feeling pretty good about this until I mixed in the flour.  I felt pretty certain about half way through that things were not staying as fluffy as they should.  However while it was baking it smelled delicious and exactly the way Nana's would have.

Once I got it out of the pan though things were VERY apparent that I had not correctly put my ingredients together.  My cake was probably 1/2 the size of hers and not nearly fluffy.

To my credit though the flavor was very good and had a wonderful slight almond taste.  I made a glaze and that brought the cake together. 

To make it all the more special and to recall memories of years passed I served it on my Nana's china.

So give it a try and maybe try more then once, because apparently angel food cake takes a little work to get right.

I hope you all have a happy Monday!

Tweet

My Grandmother's Sponge Cake

"Who lives in a pineapple under the sea? Sponge Bob Square Pants."

No not that sponge...today I want to share with you my grandmother's sponge cake.

I have never made this before and thought it would be a fantastic way to use up the egg yolks I had leftover from one of her other recipes (which I will share next week).

Ingredients

1 2/3 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C egg yolks
1 egg
1 1/2 C white sugar
1 Tbsp orange zest
1 Tbsp orange juice, strained
1/2 tsp lemon extract
3/4 C boiling water

In a bowl combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. According to my grandmother you are supposed to sift these ingredients together (this breaks up the flour and can give your baked good a lighter texture), however I don't have a sifter so I took a fork and fluffed the mixture.

In a mixing bowl combine the egg yolks and egg. Mix on medium until eggs are thick and a wonderful lemon color (this will take about 3-5 minutes).

Add the sugar in batches, mixing thoroughly between each addition.

Turn off the mixer and fold in the orange rind, orange juice, and lemon extract.

The nice thing about fresh squeezed orange juice for recipes is that often there is leftover (however not for long once my 3 kids sniffed it out and consumed it rapidly).

My grandmother's recipe calls for you to sift the dry mixture into the egg mixture...however I just used my trusty fork and sprinkled the ingredients in. You'll need to fold the dry into the egg mixture (this will take a little work but be patient and continue to fold, DO NOT STIR).

When you think all of the ingredients are combined add your boiling water and fold it in quickly. For me this "uncovered" some flour that wasn't adequately incorporated.

Next pour your batter into an UN-greased pan (I used a round bundt pan) and place in a 325 degree over for 1 hour.

Once your done cooking "hang" the cake upside down on a cooling rack for an hour. This will help the cake cool and hopefully easily release from the pan.

I had to take a knife around the edges to loosen it up and only had a minor incident with the cake once it was completely out.

However this has turned out to be a delicious treat and one that is enjoyed by the kids for breakfast with a smear of jam. I could also see this being fantastic with some sort of custard or cream in the middle and chocolate ganache on top.

For my first time out I wanted to make my grandmother's version from this point on though I will play with it and make it my own.

Tweet