Tag Archives: cake

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuit

20180228_074239

The truth is, I didn’t make any fancy breakfasts last Friday. But Fancy Breakfast Wednesday just sounds weird. Luke’s birthday was Wednesday and he requested an omelette for breakfast. I decided to go big, and do bacon and biscuits to go with the omelette. I used this biscuit recipe and it was pretty good. Luke’s omelette was an absolute disaster because I messed up the fold. He said it was good though, because he is a polite gentleman. Jack’s was perfect because between making Luke’s and Jack’s I remembered how to make an omelette. Dave requested a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit so that’s what he got.

20180228_063545

I don’t know if this recipe makes taller biscuits or if I am just making them taller. I suppose I will continue on the quest to perfect the biscuit.

I also made this cake, but I used clementines and chocolate chips instead of lemon and blueberries because the clementines were languishing in the fruit bowl. It was kind of amazing. I cut the sugar from 1 cup to 3/4 a cup. Dave was surprised that I was able to make this cake when we were out of milk… but it called for yogurt. (Dave hates yogurt, but you can’t tell when it’s in a cake.) What no one in my family knows is that I was a little short on yogurt. And out of milk… so what did I do? I used a little mayonnaise. Everyone hates mayonnaise so it’s amazing that everyone loved this cake, right?

Lastly, it was Luke’s birthday and he requested the peanut butter ice box cake from the New Smitten Kitchen cookbook. I bought the cookies, pre-made and then I rallied and made the cookies from scratch. It was actually pretty easy.

20180227_124101

So anyway, after a fancy Wednesday and two cakes, I took Friday morning off.

20180227_205406

Game of Thrones Cake

If you start this instant, you can have this cake made before the season premiere of Game of Thrones. If not… well bookmark this recipe for the finale. This cake has been a work in progress for years, starting with Jack’s scientist birthday party, when I filled the center of the bundt cake with dry ice.

I started adding the chocolate shards after seeing this recipe. And the dry ice was a one time thing, but it would be cool to do the shards and the dry ice!

I volunteered to bring a cake to my friend’s birthday party a couple years ago, and her husband named it the Game of Thrones cake, and the rest is history. The best part is that it doesn’t matter how terrible the chocolate shards look, because it’s still fancy and delicious.

This version is especially impressive, because the bed frame in the background of the pictures indicates that this was shortly after the flood of 2013. Any cake baked during that time of our lives was a major accomplishment!

I’ve done a few versions of this cake over the years, but I have finally found the perfect recipe. I mean… how often does a cake come out of the bundt pan looking like this? With this recipe – every time.

OK – Now that I have this mostly typed up I am realizing you don’t have time to make it before Game of Thrones starts, especially if you have to go to the grocery store first. But, just remember, that sometimes the HBO app is super slow during the season premiere, so turn off all social media, make the cake and then watch the episode later tonight when the internet isn’t overloaded, and you can have your Game of Thrones cake and watch the show too!

Here is the overall process:
Get the cake in the oven
Make the chocolate shards and get them in the fridge
Make the ganache while the cake is cooling, and let the ganache cool.
Ice the cake with the ganache
Add the shards
Take pictures and instagram your cake #gameofthronescake
Share with all your friends because it’s really rich and it makes a big cake.
Watch Game of Thrones

Now for the details:

Use this Smitten Kitchen chocolate cake recipe with the following changes:

This calls for 300 grams of dutch process cocoa. I buy the generic brand from King Soopers, and it comes in a container that holds 226 grams. So I use 226 grams of cocoa. And I know the common baking wisdom is to use the best ingredients, but I’ve never heard less than a rave about this cake, so I think it’s ok.

I bake this cake in a bundt pan at 350 for 50 minutes and then start testing for doneness. I stick a wooden skewer in and if it comes out clean, it’s done. Otherwise I had 5 minutes or so at a time until it’s done.

After the cake is in the oven, you can make the chocolate shards.

The cake recipe calls for 3 ounces of semi-sweet chocolate, so the easiest thing to do is to buy a bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips, and another bag of chocolate chips to your preference. (Dark chocolate, milk chocolate, or more semi-sweet.)

Shards
6 ounces of chips ( or one cup, or half a 12 ounce bag)

Put the chips in a glass measuring cup and put them in the microwave for 30 seconds. Then stir, and put them back in for 10 seconds at a time, then stir. Repeat until the chips are melted. Tear a 16 inch sheet of waxed paper and lay it flat on your counter. Pour the melted chocolate out and spread it evenly across the paper. Put another layer of waxed paper on top and roll it up and put it in the refrigerator, seem side down for 30 minutes. Don’t add the shards until the cake and icing are cool, because they will melt. When you are ready, unroll the wax paper and the chocolate will break into shards. Use the tallest ones to go around the cake, and put the smaller pieces on top. Try to work with cold hands too, because even the heat of your hands will melt the chocolate.

Ganache
8 ounces of heavy whipping cream
8 ounces of chocolate chips.

Heat the heavy whipping cream in a pot on the stove over low heat until bubble just start to form on the sides of the pan. Before it comes to a simmer, remove from heat and add the chips, stirring until the chips are melted and you have a even, chocolatey consistency.

The ganache needs to cool a bit until it’s spreadable, and not too runny. It can cool on the counter, in the fridge, or over a bowl of ice water depending on your hurry. Just be sure to stir occasionally as it cools.

And don’t get mad at me about how hot your kitchen is now… remember, winter is coming.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Road Trip

IMG_20170704_074057129_HDR

We have been to Hot Springs, Arkansas, Buffalo Creek Campground, and Breckenridge in the last two and half weeks. We’ve had lots of delicious restaurant meals – last Friday we celebrated Dave’s birthday at Lucille’s, and he even got a special birthday plate! It’s been too hot to turn on the oven, so this patriotic oatmeal is about the fanciest breakfast I have made.

I did make this cake for Dave’s birthday though. The secret is that I use a swiss buttercream that calls for 3 sticks of butter, 6 eggs, 11.5 ounces of sugar. I subbed 2 ounces of sugar with strawberry qwik because Dave likes pink icing on chocolate cake for his birthday.

IMG_20170628_210906699

I have been very slowly working on a summer reading program… but instead of finishing it (OK, starting it) I spent my evening making an extensive spreadsheet to track our James Bond Movie watching. (Just the basic spreadsheet of 26 movies that you can sort by actor, chronological order, Netflix status, Rolling Stone rating, or what we plan to watch and when. Simple stuff.) If for some reason, you think you would find this useful … click here: JamesBond.

We shall have a fancy breakfast again soon!

Fancy Breakfast Friday:Clementine Cake

Do you ever have that situation where everyone in your family loves clementines until that one day that they don’t? I buy bag after bag and I can’t stay ahead of the demand, and then one day someone gets a bad one in their lunch and then suddenly people are choosing apples or bananas instead and you are stuck with 5 lonely clementines in your fruit bowl. You can pack them in a lunch but you know you are going to see them 7 or 24 hours later, depending on when the lunch bag gets cleaned out.

No? Just me? Well I had my sweet revenge and turned those sorry clementines into a delicious cake last week. The recipe is here on Smitten Kitchen, and yes it does involve boiling the clementines for 2 hours, but that is not hard. It also calls for ground almonds… and I have to admit, I used homemade almond flour that has been in my freezer since my friend Ann Marie was making almond milk last summer and giving me her extra almond-flour-by-product. I’m not sure how long home made almond flour is supposed to last but as far as I’m concerned, if it was in the freezer, it’s fine. I also used some of this flour in this raspberry cake.

I had planned to share some clementine cake with Ann Marie, but… we just ate it all instead. (Sorry!)

The cake was good! I had to make Luke an egg/cheese bagel to go with it, but that’s a story for another day.

I made this cake the night before, because it’s obviously a time consuming process. But it was very fresh and moist tasting in the morning, and for the next several days. Very good with some strong coffee. This cake is gluten-free if you are into that sort of thing.

I didn’t do a very good job of putting my photo shoot props back in place, which led to this picture happening:

That puppy will use the oddest things for a pillow.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Black Friday

Starting the day before Jack’s birthday and continuing until Thanksgiving, I made a batch of cookies, three cakes, three Thanksgiving sides and we hosted a taco party/piano recital at our house. So, I was thinking of taking a Fancy Breakfast Friday off. But then I had a better idea!!! Delegate. We still have to eat, right?

As Dave says, when in doubt, make a bagel supreme. That is what is pictured above. Yum! Dave makes an excellent bagel supreme.

Then went out to breakfast with the kids to one of our fave spots. Dots. I had a latte.

And just because I have to have at least one thing to brag about, here is the cake I made for Jack’s birthday.

It’s called the Game of Thrones Cake. I have now officially perfected it. Although, I did try to rush the last few steps and my chocolate swords started to melt. I had to put the rest of it together outside and hope for the best.

I used this recipe in a bundt pan at 350 for 55-60 minutes. Maybe a smidge too long. I cut the cocoa a bit because it literally calls for more than what normally comes in a tin. And I wasn’t going to send Dave back a second time for more. I’ll do a Game of Thrones Cake tutorial before the next season comes out.

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Apple Cake

Last Friday Dave was out of town, mountain biking in the snow in Crested Butte, and I was home alone with the boys, one of whom had fractured his ankle. It was right at the beginning of the injury where everything was very complicated and I was feeling guilty. So I figured, why not turn these 3 pounds of apples into a giant cake? Well here’s why:

It wasn’t pretty, but it was delicious. Maybe I layered the cake and the apples in the wrong order, or maybe peeling the apples does make a huge difference. But I wasn’t going to peel 50 apples, or however many apples are in 3 pounds. As I was slicing apples, I imagined my kids growing up and eating a pastry that had peeled apples in it and saying, “How sophisticated! My mom never peeled the apples in her pastries.” And then someone looking at them with a mixture of horror and pity. (I make pie with peeled apples, but Dave does it for me.)

No need to share this recipe, I’m never going to make it again. If I need a breakfast apple cake, it will definitely be this one.

After we ate the tall part of the cake, I was able to flip it over without it breaking (more) and make it look like a fancy half eaten cake, so that was nice!

And now our month of apple breakfasts has come to a close. I had planned to move on to a month of pumpkin breakfasts, but I am not quite ready. Pumpkin spice is in the air…

Fancy Breakfast Friday: Raspberry Butter Cake

As I may have mentioned, my camera is broken so I have to get a job to pay for the repairs, thanks A LOT SONY! So I didn’t even bother with fancy photos for this raspberry butter cake. I went through a huge stack of magazines and tore out recipes and this was one that appealed to me. Raspberries, whole wheat… it sounded healthy. (Note, I did not read that butter was in the name of the recipe at first.) Then I saw almond flour and I recycled the magazine. I have enough going on in my life, I don’t need to buy almond flour. But then the very next day, my friend told me she had started making her own almond milk and had an almond flour by-product if I wanted any. Serendipity! I told her I would be happy to take her almond flour and I grabbed this recipe out of the recycling.

Time passed and it cooled off enough to run our oven. I grabbed a thingy (unit of measure) of raspberries and I planned to make this. Then I read the recipe again and I thought… “2 sticks of butter? That’s a lot.” and then I thought. “7 eggs? Well I guess if I am going to serve cake for breakfast, it should have 7 eggs in it.”

It was very good. (2 sticks of butter.) And moist. I know some people hate the word moist. That actually makes me use the word more, especially to describe cake, and especially when the cake is really moist. Like, 2 sticks of butter and 7 eggs moist. It was a little greasy.

I gave a tiny slice to my friend who gave me the almond flour. I should have given her more, but we were going camping that day, and I thought I needed 75% of a cake to get through the weekend. This was true, people get hungry camping and a moist cake on a desert camping trip will dry a lot of hangry tears.

I served the cake slices with a bowl of yogurt and a slice of bacon.

MetaMegan

kids, bikes, books, food