Cinnamon Apple Cake and The Stocking Exchange Party

I had a stellar idea this year if I do say so myself. It was the first week of November and I had heard a few friends talk about the holiday season in general, and more specifically about Christmas stockings. The problem was they didn't usually get one and let's face it, stockings are one of the best parts of Christmas day, right?

So I took to email and invited a few girls I know to take part in The Great Steamboat Stocking Exchange. The rules would be simple. Each person buys something to put into each of the girls stockings. The money limit was anywhere from $5 to $15 a person and you could put one or two or three (whatever you wanted) into everyone stocking. Think along the lines of Starbucks gift cards, nail polish, lip gloss, etc. The only real guideline was it had to be something you would want for yourself. Then on a weekend near Christmas we would all get together for a Christmas tea (although we ended up drinking coconut hot chocolate) and swap presents. The idea was so everyone would have a stocking to open on Christmas morning. It didn't work out that way as I seemed to be the only one wanting to wait that long. My friend Danielle was practically foaming at the mouth ready to tear into hers. My friend Kel kept dropping "tic-tac" comments about wanting to open them, which later progressed to a full on talk about the importance of not waiting. Melissa and Caroline seemed neutral about it, but I could tell they wouldn't mind opening them. I'm not sure how Rebecca felt come to think of it, but I decided to put it to a vote. We didn't even get to vote as it was explained to me that I would surely be out-voted. So, we opened them. Right then and there. Danielle was extremely delighted. And I have to agree, it was better that way. We all had fun fawning over our gifts complimenting one another on our outstanding taste. ;) A cocktail ring, one mini grapefruit body butter, a rosebud salve, lip gloss and perfume samples, tweezers that looked like little ladies and cuticle oil, and one guava body gel and hand lotion later we were happy campers. Oh, and Danielle got a wooden spoon in her stocking, compliments of me, who is tired of using heavy metal when cooking at her house. Ha ha.

I guess I should start talking about this cake now that I have gone on and on about the stocking exchange. I adore this cake because it is so unassuming yet fabulous. It is a great breakfast food because it's not too sweet and would go perfect with coffee. I love it because the cake itself is moist, but toothy meaning it feels great to chew. Is that weird to anyone? Maybe it would just suffice to say it has excellent texture. The apples are mildly spiced with cinnamon and the whole thing has a crunchy top due to a nice coating of cinnamon sugar. It's sort of coffee cake-esque but if you dressed it up with some cinnamon whipped cream it would be a fine dessert, anytime. It's made in a cheesecake pan which is a little out of the ordinary, but it makes for a handsome presentation. This is my recommendation on what to serve the family before they leave your house this holiday.

Cinnamon Apple Cake

adapted from Steamboat Seasons

1 3/4 cups sugar, divided

3/4 cup (6 ounces) block style cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 eggs

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons cinnamon

3 cups chopped Rome apples (about 2 large)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray an 8-inch springform pan with non-stick cooking spray.

Beat 1 1/2 cups of the sugar, the cream cheese, butter and vanilla in a bowl at medium speed for about 4 minutes or until well blended. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Set aside. mix the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Add the flour mixture to the creamed mixture and beat at low speed until blended. Combine the remaining 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Mix 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon mixture and the chopped apples in a bowl. Stir the apple mixture into the cake batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon mixture. bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the side of the pan. Cool the cake completely in the pan on a wire rack. Serve warm alone or with whipped cream or ice cream.

Banana Layer Cake

Oooooh, doggie, this cake is scrum-diddily-yum! Actually we, at the MacGray house, say "scrum-didily, yone" The way you say "yone" should rhyme with "cone". Really we mean, it's delicious, but I didn't know if you would get that...so I changed the ending to "yum" so you'd get the point. Good? good.

This is the BEST banana cake out there. I assure you that. When I was testing out cake recipes for Sugar Me Sweet (my cake company-www.sugarmesweetcakes.com) I dedicated some serious time to banana cake. I actually ended up with two on my menu, this version and also a bananas foster cake. Both are scrum-didily...well, you get the point. With this cake, I ended up hodge-podging different recipes together and adding my own ingredients to finally come up with this homey banana cake nirvana. I don't generally recommend tweaking cake recipes. Baking is a science and a little tweaking could cause you a big problem. But, on the other hand, I was making 3 cakes a day sometimes, trying to test recipes out and come up with my menu. I got to know cakes pretty well and could easily come up with acceptable proportion changes and add-ins to form my own recipe.

The only thing you have to have on hand, which could be sort of a pain if you are wanting to make this cake, like now, are very ripe bananas. This sadly is not an option. You simply cannot make banana cake or banana bread for that matter with anything less than dark, heavily spotted, or even black bananas. An unripe or even just ripe banana, does not a great cake make. Say that three times fast. OK, but seriously, If you need ripe bananas pronto, toss your bunch into a paper sack along with an apple and seal it up and leave on the counter overnight. It should speed up the ripening process. I don't know...Something to do with the gasses an apple gives off and how a banana reacts to it (it gets ripe). If you simply can't wait you can do what I do and as bananas go bad, or are in other words, prime for some cake, chuck them in the freezer, skin and all. When you need ripe bananas on the fly you can pull them out of the freezer and defrost them at room temperature for a couple hours. Make sure they are on a plate because some liquid will ooze out. When ready, just cut the skins off and mash the bananas and juice together. However, if you have not prepared in advance for the time when you would need absolutely overly ripe bananas, I'm sorry, but the only thing to do is buy the ripest ones you can get your hands on and wait patiently. I know you didn't want to hear that but it is what it is.

I team this cake up with a creamy vanilla icing that is perfect. It's technically a buttercream, although a little less sweet and a lot creamier. Also you can leave out some of the sugar and make it less sweet if you want without affecting the outcome. I love it because the frosting on this cake is like putting butter on your banana bread. We all know banana bread is fine on it's own, but warm it and top it with some butter and you've taken it to a whole new level, AND managed to add another pound to your thighs. Personally, I like my butter best when it's about room temperature so it stays nice and creamy instead of melting into the bread. It's basically "frosting" if you will be so kind as to go with me there. buttercream frosting is butter, sweetened, is all. So the parallels are appropriate. Behold, the BEST banana cake!

Banana Cake

cake:

3 1/2 cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1 cup (packed) brown sugar

4 large eggs

2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (4-6 large)

6 tablespoons sour cream (or buttermilk)

2 tablespoons dark rum

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Butter and flour two 9" cake pans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift first 4 ingredients into a medium bowl. using electric mixer, beat butter and both sugars in a large bowl until blended. Beat in eggs one at a time, then mashed bananas, sour cream, rum, and vanilla. Beat dry ingredients into the wet in 2 additions until just combined. Spoon batter evenly into pans.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, about 40-45 minutes. Cool 15 minutes in their pans, then turn out the cakes onto wire racks to cool. When cool, you can frost the cake.

makes 2 layers

Frosting:

Creamy Vanilla Frosting

adapted from the Magnolia Bakery

3 tablespoons flour

1 cup milk

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar (I use bakers granulated sugar b/c it's finer and dissolves quickly)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk milk into flour in a medium sized saucepan. Place over medium heat and stirring constantly, cook until mixture becomes very thick and begins to bubble, about 15 minutes. (I stir constantly after it begins to bubble for about 3-5 minutes, just to make sure the flour taste is cooked off). Take the pan off the heat and cover with waxed paper placed directly on the surface and cool to room temperature.

Beat butter until smooth; gradually add sugar beating continuously for 3 minutes, until fluffy. This beating is important as it help to dissolve the sugar granules. Add vanilla and then the cooled milk mixture, which will have gotten very thick, and beat on medium-high speed for 5 minutes.

Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Use immediately.

If you are planning on doing a lot of decorating or pipework on the top of your cake, you might want to double the frosting recipe, or maybe even more appropriately, just 1 1/2-ing it. I one and a half recipes quite a lot. Mostly because doubling it would yield more than I need, but if that messes with you, just be on the safe side and double it. I just used the same word twice in one sentence ("double"). Dang, I hate that, but I don't want to go back there and try to re-structure the sentence to make it proper. A ha! I will just divide both thoughts here and create two separate sentences for those of you are bothered by it too. Here it goes: Mostly because doubling it would yield more than I need. If that math messes with you though, just be safe and go ahead and double it. Oye, (no, i'm not Jewish) the things one thinks about while blogging. The joys and grammar. OK, now make this cake! And no, I don't really say "oooooh, doggie!".

Ok, I'm writing this to disclose something. I'm writing this about 5 days after I originally posted this but I just realized that I didn't make this recipe up. I totally thought I did and might be a genius if it was true, but sadly I didn't. It's eerily similar to a recipe over at smitten kitchen, and so I must have gotten it there. It would not be the first time!

Red Velvet Cake

Lots o' pictures! Sometimes, that's just how I roll. I made Red Velvet cake for Jeremy's Uncle Randy the other week because he was visiting over his birthday. Red Velvet is his favorite. It's a lot of people's favorite. Laura, his wife, asked me to make a "real" red velvet since sometimes people just make white cake and dye it red. A travesty. White cake is NOT red velvet cake. There are a few things that separate authentic red velvet from regular white cake. Number one being, red velvet, by nature, is not white cake. It's like a half chocolate, half white cake. Cocoa is always added to enhance the deep red color it is supposed to have. You don't add enough of it to deem it a chocolate cake though, however, once you add any cocoa and it's definitely not a white cake. It's a hybrid of sorts. The more cocoa you use, the deeper the red color (and the more red food coloring you have to use) but as you can see from the picture of the finished slice itself, mine is a very pretty deep scarlet color. We use lots of cocoa and lots of food coloring! The pictures make the batter and unfinished cake look sort of brownish red, but really it should be red, red. My camera bites the big one...but I won't have that problem for long! My sweet generous husband informed me last night that he bought me a brand new, wonderful camera. This is all on his own, mind you. I mentioned I wanted one and he did some research on the one I had previously specified and just bought it! That stuff doesn't happen too often anymore, so I was thrilled! Food photography is tough with a point and shoot! It's tough anyway, but maybe this will help.

The other thing about Red velvet cake is it does not have any butter, just oil. This might not seem weird to anyone who is used to making box cake mixes (they all call for oil) but from scratch, it's not all that common. Most require you to beat the butter with sugar for a while at the start of any cake recipe. Then there is the addition of the baking soda and vinegar. Baking soda, OK, but vinegar is another strange ingredient called for that lends itself to the mystery of red velvet. Actually its not a mystery. Baking soda mixed with vinegar makes a chemical reaction. It foams up and you in turn fold this mixture into your cake batter. It's equivalent to folding in egg whites, really. It makes for a tender, fluffy cake.

Let's get real for a minute. Most people love red velvet for the cream cheese icing. I don't love cream cheese icing. I don't not like it, it's fine and all but sometimes I prefer a creamy vanilla icing on my red velvet. I'll provide both recipes down below and you can make the call for yourself.

FYI: You are going to need A LOT of red food coloring...6 tablespoons to be exact, so buy a couple bottles of it!

Also, since this is a layer cake I had wanted to give you a few pointers about how to handle and frost such things because it will make your life way easier a yield a better looking result.

1) When the cake has cooled after baking, wrap each layer in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes to 1 hour. The cake will be stiff enough to work with without the danger of flaking or breaking apart. Then I take a serrated knife and cut the cakes across the top so the surface is flat. To achieve this best, cut the cake about 1" in all around, rotating as you go (like in picture 3) that way when you cut across the middle it will be perfectly straight. Sometimes if you just cut all the way through you can't get it as even. I bend down and look at it eye level to ensure it's even after I've cut it, then I trim if needed.

2) Whenever you frost a cake that is darker than the icing you are applying, you will want to do a crumb coat. A crumb coat is just a very thin layer of frosting all the way around the cake as demonstrated in picture #4. It seals in all the crumbs so you don't see it all in your frosting. Then you refrigerate said cake with the crumb coat for about 30 minutes until it's set (if you are in a hurry, you can skip this step and the crumb coat will still be helpful) applying the rest of the icing generously over.

Red Velvet Cake

adapted from "The Confetti Cakes Cookbook" by Elisa Strauss via Smitten Kitchen

Yield: 2 tall cake layers or three thinner layers

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

3 1/2 cups cake flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa (not Dutch process)

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 cups canola oil

2 1/4 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

6 tablespoons (3 ounces) red food coloring

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1 1/4 cup buttermilk

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 1/2 teaspoons white vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees

Place a teaspoon of butter in each round 9-inch layer cake pans and place in oven for a few minutes until butter melts. remove pans from oven, brush interior bottom and sides of each with butter and line bottoms with parchment. Alternately, butter and parchment your pans how you normally would. Just please, parchment, people! Please!

Whisk cake flour, cocoa and salt in a bowl (or sift together on some aluminum foil if you re like me and want to save a dish)

Place oil and sugar in a bowl of an electric mixer and beat at medium speed until well blended. beat in eggs one at a time. With machine on low, very slowly add the red food coloring. (Take cake: it may splash.) Add vanilla. Add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk in two batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down sides of bowl and beat long enough to just combine.

Place baking soda in a small dish, stir in vinegar and add to batter with machine running. beat for 10 seconds.

Divide batter between the two prepared cake pans and place in the oven and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, 40-45 minutes (check at 40 min.) Let cool in the pans on cooling racks for 20 minutes. Then remove from pans, flip layers over and peel off the parchment paper. Cool completely before frosting.

Cupcake variation: yield 35 cupcakes. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 of the way with batter, and bake between 20-25 minutes, but check them 2/3 of the way through in case your oven gets the job done faster.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING:

2 packages cream cheese (8 ounces each) at room temperature

2 sticks of unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups confectioners sugar (powdered sugar)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 dash pure maple syrup (optional)

Beat together the butter and cream cheese until well combined. Add the powdered sugar and mix on low until combined. Add the flavorings and mix thoroughly.

CREAMY VANILLA FROSTING: to use if you don't care for cream cheese frosting

6 tablespoons flour

2 cups milk

2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter

2 cups sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Whisk flour into milk in a medium sized saucepan. Place over medium heat and stirring constantly, cook until mixture becomes thick and begins to bubble, about 10 minutes. Cover with waxed paper placed directly on the surface and cool to room temperature.

Beat butter until smooth; gradually add sugar beating continuously for 3 minutes, until fluffy. Add vanilla then add cooled milk mixture and beat on medium high speed for 5 minutes. Cover and refrigerate for 15 minutes. Use immediately.

Fourth of July Flag Cake

Every 4th of July, I am expected to make an American flag cake for my families annual BBQ. Every year my side of the family gets together on this day either at my Grandparents or my house to celebrate and eat food. We used to go to the rodeo and stay to watch the fireworks. It was tradition, that just what you did. Now my allergies are too bad to tolerate the dust so mostly we end up going back home to watch the display which works out better for a family with young kids anyway.

My side of the family is very predictable. They get together at every single holiday imaginable and it is always the same. For years, Christmas to me meant "Eggs Grillo" at my Grandma's house and then later, my Aunt Kellie's. Now it means "Eggs Grillo" (which is basically eggs benedict with a beer cheese sauce instead of hollandaise) at my house. I love this tradition and tend to find comfort in doing the same things. However it is just now dawning on me that most families I know don't operate like this. Sure families in general like to get together, but it's done differently in each. In Jeremy's family, if they have a get together, it is almost always unexpected and last minute. The attitude is if you can make it, great, we would love to see you but we are going to have a great time with or without you. That might sound slightly mean or weird and for a while I thought it was, but really, it's awesome. There is freedom in that attitude. Freedom from expectations. Freedom in saying no if you have (or would like to make) other plans. Freedom in knowing their feelings will not be hurt if you decline because they are secure in your love for them. Freedom. Freedom. Freedom. And do you know ultimately what that freedom does? It makes you rarely want to say no. Why would you? You want to be with them and at the party that is flexible, unfussy and relaxed where you are free to do whatever it is you want to do whether it be nap on the couch or play bad mitten in the backyard because anything goes there.

When Jeremy's side had a family reunion last year I was sort of shocked at how it was conducted. Jeremy's Mom has 4 brothers and sisters so there are 5 families who's sole purpose was to see and visit each other during the course of a week. In my family, that might be a stressful situation for me personally because when you have a family reunion it is expected (probably as it should be) that you will be together, doing things together, eating together, etc. This is the general idea when Jeremy's family gets together, but there are no expectations of what the time will look like. Basically, each family went off and did their own things. Dan and Sandy's family went river rafting. Gracie's family was hiking. Tim and Sherry went out to lunch with Laura and Randy (and no one else's feelings were hurt that they were not formally invited!) and Cindy was home with her Mom who was napping while she cleaning her house for that night's dinner. When it was time for dinner there was no set time to come. You just came whenever you were done with your nap, or with the activity you were doing. No expectation, no judgement. Just family wanting to be together, unselfishly without their own agenda in mind. If you couldn't come because you had a headache there was no reason to feel badly. You would just see everyone the next day if you were up to it. It was strange. It was downright weird but in the end I rather liked it (shocker huh?)

My family is not flexible. I don't mean to say that in a bad way. They are just not flexible and that's the truth. There are expectations. On the fourth of July the flag cake must be made, we must have a BBQ and we must get together come hell or high water. If you had another invitation from anybody to do anything else you must decline it because you have already committed to do this same thing year after year. It's like an unwritten code. They are not Nazi's. I just read this paragraph over and it sounds like my family might be Nazi's. I assure you they are not and they are lovely people but they just march to the beat of a different drum. On the other hand, Jeremy's family description sounds like they are hippies. HA! They are sooooo not hippies. I remember when we first got married Jeremy saying to me "Your family gets together for every single holiday. That's kind of strange". Poppycock! Your family are the strange ones! Jeremy would sometimes say something like "Let's go to the Heit's for Thanksgiving, wouldn't it be fun?" Fun?!?! Thanksgiving is a holiday. It is for families (the un-written code). The Heit's are our friends. I couldn't call my Grandma or my Mom and say "oh yeah, were not going to make it tonight. Oh, no were fine. No, no ones sick. We just want to go to our friends house who doesn't have any family in town to celebrate with, instead". Yeah no. That would not go over well.

Somewhere along the line, after 6 years of marriage, Jeremy's logic is starting to make more sense to me. I'm sure, somewhere at sometime, during some holiday I will make that fateful call to my family to tell them I will not be coming, but yes I am in town and that I have other plans that year. In a good relationship you should have the freedom to be able to do that. Your family should know and rest in the fact that you like to be with them and will be, just not maybe on this particular day. It should be no big deal. Just writing that, however, makes me kind of dizzy. It won't be this year. It won't be this fourth of July. Nope, today I will log off this computer, march straight into the kitchen, allergies and poor sleep be damned and make this flag cake. After all, it is tradition!

American Flag Cake

adapted from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

2 1/4 sticks (18 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3 cups sugar

6 extra large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup sour cream, at room temperature (or plain yogurt or buttermilk)

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

For the icing:

4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 1/2 pounds (3 8-oz packages) cream cheese, at room temperature

1 pound confectioners sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

To Assemble:

2 half-pints blueberries

3 half-pints raspberries

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour an 18x12x1 1/2-inch sheet pan.

Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment on high speed, until light and fluffy. On medium speed, add the eggs, 2 at a time, then add the sour cream and vanilla. Scrape down the sides and stir until smooth.

Sift together the flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda in a bowl. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture to the butter mixture until just combined. Pour into prepared pan. Smooth the top with a spatula. bake in the center of the oven for 20 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool to room temperature.

For the icing, combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla int he bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mixing just until smooth.

Spread three fourths of the icing on top of the cooled sheet cake. outline the flag on the top of the cake with a toothpick. Fill the upper left corner with blueberries. Place two rows of the raspberries across the top of the cake like a red stripe. Put remaining icing in a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and pipe rows of white stripes below the raspberries. Alternate rows of raspberries and icing until flag is completed. Pipe stars on top of the blueberries (optional).

This isn't about the cake. Can you tell that? it's all about the decor on top so feel free to you use your favorite vanilla or chocolate (or carrot, banana, etc) cake recipe. You don't need to use this one as most recipes for a 2-layer cake will be the perfect amount of batter for the sheet pan. Just make sure to use white icing or it won't look like the flag. I use a different recipe almost every year, but it's supposed to be the same so don't tell my family! :) Serve this cake right in the sheet pan. If you want to be able to remove it after it's baked then put parchment paper in the bottom of the pan before you butter and flour it. But for best results I'd say to serve it in the pan.

Another thing is I never have my eggs at room temperature when I need them to be. Eggs add more volume when they are not cold so in order to achieve this last minute, I put the amount of eggs called for in a bowl of warm water for a couple minutes. It does the trick!

I was in a hurry today and didn't add the stripes of icing in-between the raspberry lines like I usually do. It looks better if you do it, but as you can see it's a beauty anyway. God bless the USA and all our families too.

Grandpas Favorite Chocolate Cheesecake

This is serious adult cheesecake meant for mature palates. It's not sweet. It's got a deep complex and rich bittersweet chocolate flavor and is tangy and sour (like cheesecake is supposed to be) with a welcoming sweet cocoa crust. It's the James Bond of cheesecakes. It doesn't mess around and it just so happens to be my Grandpa Grillo's favorite. The story goes like this; One day my Grandma went over to help a neighbor out who's husband was sick. As a thank you the woman brought my Grandma this chocolate cheesecake and they both flipped over it and asked for the recipe.

I am right at the tail end of making up my menu selections for Sugar Me Sweet (my new cake and pie business...sugarmesweetcakes.com) but I still had to make this cheesecake to make sure the recipe still worked since it's been a couple years since the last time I made it. My Grandma is out of town visiting Napa Valley, CA with a friend of hers so I thought it was the perfect time to invite my Grandpa, over and to make his favorite cheesecake for dessert. He came and ended up bringing us some very nice wine and we spent a great evening out on the deck eating and talking. A win, win situation. The highlight of the night, of course was the cheesecake in all it's chocolate glory. How could it not be? Homemade cheesecake is no small feat, especially one with NO cracks, yes I said no cracks thankyouverymuch and I'll show you how to do it too. Cheesecake is very high maintenance as far a desserts go. It's not hard to make, but it gets finicky in the follow up. Turning the oven to high, turning it back down to low, cooking it for a long time, then turning the oven off, but leaving the cheesecake in there with the door ajar for exactly 30 minutes. Then theres the cooling. You leave it at room temp for a while. Then you have to refrigerate it overnight to get it to set up properly which means you have to plan in advance. Like I said...It's not hard, you just have to make sure you have most of the day at home to dedicate to it. Ohhh, but it's worth it and everybody likes cheesecake and chocolate don't they? I'm telling you even if they don't (I'm going to confess, that I don't really enjoy cheesecake too often) they will like this.

Grandpa's Favorite Chocolate Cheesecake

1 box chocolate teddy grahams (or chocolate wafers)

1 stick butter, melted

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

8 oz semi sweet chocolate

3 8-oz packages cream cheese, at room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 cups sour cream

3 eggs, plus 1 egg yolk

2 teaspoons cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup sweetened whipped cream, for serving

preheat oven to 450

Process teddy grahams is food processor until finely ground (or crush manually) Add in the butter and cinnamon and mix well (if crumbs are not wet enough, add more butter. they should stick together when squeezed in your hand) Press crumbs into the bottom and slightly up the sides of a 9" springform pan. Chill in the refrigerator, don't bake. Melt chocolate in a double broiler or in a bowl in the microwave heated in 30 second intervals until melted. In the bowl of the electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar and then add eggs and egg yolk one and a time beating well after each addition. Beat in melted chocolate, cocoa and vanilla blending thoroughly. Lastly, beat in the sour cream. Pour mixture into the crust (it will fill the pan) and place in the 450 degree oven. Bake for 15 minutes. Turn the oven temperature down to 225 degrees and bake for another 1 hour and 15 minutes. Turn the oven off and open the door wide. The cake will not be completely set in the center. Allow the cake to sit in the oven with the door open for 30 minutes. Take the cake out of the oven and allow it to sit at room temperature for another 2-3 hours, until completely cooled. Wrap and refrigerate overnight or for at least 6 hours. Remove the cake from the sprinform pan by carefully running a hot knife around the outside of the cake. Leave the cake on the bottom of the springform pan for serving.

Serve with whipped cream

Make sure to follow the cooking and cooling directions exactly for a crack free cheesecake!

Devils Food Cake with Marshmallow Frosting

Well, if you remember a few posts ago I ranted about not having found the perfect chocolate cake. Since then, I have decided that I couldn't go on this way, I have to find it, the recipe is out there! So I have taken on the task of baking a couple cakes in the last couple weeks to try them out (I know it's a hard job...) The recipe that follows down below was a devils food cake that I made that was awesome. It was by far the best devils food I have made, and I have made a couple. My Grandpa has always talked about a devils food cake that his Mother used to make (my Nani) that was so moist and flavorful that all it needed was simple whipped cream to frost it. I dream of this cake even though I have never had it. So when I knew he was going to be coming over last Sunday, I took it upon myself to bake my new recipe for Devils Food so he could taste it. Although, I had no intention of topping it with just whipped cream, even though it would have been delicious, because I had a recipe for seven minute frosting which is basically a homeade marshmallow without the gelatin (YUM!) It just sounded too good to pass up. A grown up ding dong if you will or hostess cupcake. I was more excited for this cake than perhaps any cake I have ever made and I was crossing my fingers that it would be a winner. Guess what? It was...for about 2 hours.

The marshmallow seven minute frosting, when exposed to the air starts to turn into a meringue of sorts and gets tough and hard but up until that happens it is light and fluffy, not too sweet and absolutely delicious. You could make this cake into cupcakes and fill them with this frosting and it would stay soft and probably taste just like a homeade hostess cupcake, especially if you topped it with ganache and piped those little loops on top. Is anyone else drooling? Even Jeremy liked this cake and he is a bit hard to please in the dessert area. My Grandpa said it reminded him of his Mothers and he loved how the frosting complimented the cake in a not too sweet way just like whipped cream would. It was a proud moment for me.

This recipe has coffee in the batter but you won't taste it. Coffee just makes the chocolate sing. If you don't have buttermilk, make you own sour milk by adding a teaspoon of vinegar or lemon juice to regular milk in the same quantity as called for buttermilk. You can do that trick for any recipe that calls for buttermilk.

Devils Food Cake
adapted from The Smitten Kitchen

2 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 cup hot brewed coffee
2 cups sugar
1 2/3 cup flour
1 cup cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
1 1/3 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees. Grease pans and line with parchment paper, then grease the parchment paper.

Finely chop the chocolate and in a bowl combine with hot coffee. Let the mixture stand, stirring occasionally, until the chocolate is melted and the mixture is smooth.

Into a large bowl (or if you are like me, over a big piece of foil) sift together sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another large bowl with an electric mixer beat eggs until thickened slightly and lemon colored (about 3 minutes witha standing mixer or 5 minutes with a hand-held mixer). Slowly add oil, buttermilk, vanilla, and melted chocolate mixture to eggs, beating until combined well. Add sugar mixture and beat on medium speed until just combined well.

Divide batter between pans and bake in the middle of the oven until a tester inserted in center comes out clean, 50-55 minutes.

Cool layers completely in pans on racks. Run a thin knife around edges of pans and invert layers onto racks. Carefully remove wax paper and cool layers completely. Cake layers may be made one day ahead and kept, wrapped well in plastic wrap, at room temperature.


Marshmallow or Seven Minute Frosting

2 large egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup light corn syrup
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Combine frosting ingredients with a pinch of salt in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water (like a makeshift double boiler) and beat with a hand-held mixer at high speed until frosting is thick and fluffy, 6 to 7 minutes, Remove bowl from heat and continue to beat until slightly cooled (1-2 minutes) Use frosting to frost the cake and eat within 2 hours.

If you want to make cupcakes and use ganache here is a recipe

Ganache
1/2 pound fine quality semisweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 Tablespoon light corn syrup
1/4 stick (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter

Finely chop the chocolate. In a 1 1/2 to 2 quart saucepan bring cream, sugar, and corn syrup to a boil over moderately low heat, whisking until sugar is dissolved. Remove pan from heat and add chocolate, whisking until chocolate is melted. Cut butter into pieces and add to frosting, whisking until smooth.

transfer frosting to a bowl and cool, stirring occasionally, until spreadable (depending on the chocolate used, it may be necessary to chill frosting to spreadable consistancy). I found that stirring this over a bowl of ice water did a great job of cooling it off quickly and evenly.

Spread frosting over the top and sides of cake. Chilling the cake will harden the chocolate coating.

Although, this particular set up is not what I was looking for initially, it was a fantastic find. I really would LOVE to find the ultimate chocolate cake, dense and moist with thick chocolate frosting that is not too sweet. This very well might be the cake, but alas, I must still find a frosting to match. This variation with the marshmallow frosting is awesome for when I am feeling nostalgic or when my Grandpa comes over and is a definate crowd pleaser.

Please note that this frosting does not keep well. Make and frost just before dinner and it will stay good long enough for you to enjoy it that night (at least 4 hours or so) then, sadly, it will start to get gummy like a marshmallow and form a crust. But, enjoy it while it lasts!