Browned Butter Birthday Cake

I'm still here! I just took some time away from my blog and cooking because things got a bit busy. We had a house-guest. And there was an Admitted Student Day. And I was preparing for my final advocacy trial. It's amazing how much time can be spent preparing for something. My portion of the trial lasted 30 minutes. Yet, I spent probably about 30-40 hours preparing for it. This is not a joke. Of course, because of all of that (and Mother Nature's crazy abrupt weather changes) I am now sick again! So, the blog is in need of a pick me up and I am posting a delightful treat!

OH my goodness. Wow. This cake was made for Ron's birthday. And it will be made for birthdays to come. It was my first time browning butter. I was standing there for a good five minutes before anything happened. But then it did. And it was life-changing. I'm going to brown butter every single day!!  It smelled amazing. Then it turned into a nutty, caramel smell. And it permeated throughout the entire house. And then I put the cakes in the oven. And they smelled amazing. And then I took them out and set them on the counter to cool. And I guess the cakes smelled so amazing that they attracted our four legged friends. Cali, our sassy little calico cat, was caught on the counter with crumbs on face. She was standing on one of the cakes. I frisked her off, shut the door, and went about my business fully intending to deal with the cake once I was done. Apparently, I should have checked to see if Salem was locked in the kitchen when I shut the door. Because she was. And she too had her share of birthday cake. But her crumbs covered nearly all of her tiny chin. What a messy eater!

The cats ate one half of the cake. And then they ran around the house like they were on drugs. I was highly annoyed, but I chose just to cut off the parts that I knew they had attacked. Honestly, we might have been eating cake that had been stepped on, but we didn't care. This cake was so good. It's no wonder the cats ate so much of it!
Browned Butter Birthday Cake
from Honey and Jam
Ingredients
For Cake

• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 3/4 cup browned butter* (see step #3)
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 2 1/4 tsp baking powder

For Frosting

• 5 oz good quality bittersweet chocolate
• 8 Tbsp butter, at room temperature
• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp baking cocoa
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 4-8 Tbsp milk

Instructions
For Cake

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two cake pans or two cupcake pans.
2. Beat sugar and eggs together until slightly thickened, about one minute.
3. *Brown butter: Heat pan on medium heat. Cut butter in to pieces and melt in pan. Stir continuously. Butter will begin to foam up. After foam subsides, small brown flecks will start to appear in bottom of pan. Continue stirring, until butter has reached a nice brown color, and a nutty aroma. Turn the heat all of the way down. (This will take anywhere from 5-7 minutes.)
4. Add milk, browned butter, and vanilla, to sugar and egg mixture. Stir just until combined.
5. Add flour and baking powder, beating until well mixed -- about one minute. Do not over mix.
6. Bake in preheated oven. For cake, bake for about 30 minutes. For cupcakes, bake for about 20-22 minutes. When done, the top will be springy to touch and a toothpick inserted into the center will come out clean.
7. Cool completely before frosting.

For Frosting

1. Melt chocolate in a double boiler and allow to cool to room temperature.
2. Beat in butter until creamy.
3. Add powdered sugar, baking cocoa, cinnamon and vanilla.
4. Slowly beat in milk 1 Tbsp at a time until you reach desired consistency.

Double Chocolate Bread with Peanut Butter Frosting

A few weeks ago, I celebrated my birthday. And to celebrate, I obviously needed to bake up something that I normally would not bake on a random "I want dessert" type of day. So, I turned to my fabulous new cookbook, Baked Explorations, of New York Baked fame, to help.

I absolutely love reading cookbooks. I love reading the side stories that the writer is telling. I love reading the list of ingredients. I love reading about how to prepare the food. Of the 200+ pages in the book, I think I am interested in making all but one of the recipes, and this is mainly because I had to draw the line somewhere. But I kept returning to one recipe in the "breakfast" category: the Double Chocolate Loaf with Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Spread. I love chocolate. And I love peanut butter. And I love quick breads. So, I knew this was the one.

Woah. This bread was delicious. Though, arguably, I do not think that I would really call it a bread that I would want to eat for breakfast. The ingredient list is beautiful for a dessert, but I can't really say the same for breakfast! I've made chocolate bread before, but never with this much chocolate. But I'm not going to lie - I really didn't mind all of the added chocolate. Truthfully, I probably spent about $20 just on the chocolate alone. (When I go big, I go BIG!) I've been advocating for good quality chocolate ever since I made the NY Times cookies. Sorry Hershey's. You simply can't cut it in some of these recipes. Try this bread/cake for your next special occasion. It is absolutely worth it!
*The bread freezes beautifully. I actually cut our loaf in half so we wouldn't eat it in one sitting! I'm waiting for the right time to defrost the other half. After writing this post, it might be today.

Double Chocolate Bread with Peanut Butter Frosting
from Baked Explorations
Yield: 1 loaf
Ingredients
Bread

• 3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
• 1 cup dark unsweetened cocoa powder (like Valrhona), sifted
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 large egg yolk
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 8 ounces good quality dark chocolate (60 to 72%), coarsely chopped

Cream Cheese Spread

• 5 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 2 Tbsp creamy peanut butter
• 1/3 cup sugar

Instructions

1. Bread: Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and position the rack in the center. Butter a 9-by-5 inch loaf pan, dust it with flour, and knock out the excess flour.
2. Place the brown sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Press out any lumps with the back of a large spoon. Add the cocoa, flour, granulated sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and egg yolk until blended, then add the buttermilk, oil, and vanilla; whisk until combined.
4. Turn the mixture to low and slowly stream the wet ingredients into the dry ones, mixing just until combined. Stir in the dark chocolate chunks by hand.
5. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.
6. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then turn it out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
7. Spread: In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth. Add the sugar and beat until incorporated. (If you are not using the spread immediately, place it in a ramekin, tightly cover it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate it for up to 3 days.)
8. Serve the loaf plain or toasted, topped with peanut butter spread. The loaf will keep, in an airtight contained or wrapped tightly, at room temperature for up to 3 days.

*Freezing bread is incredibly easy: let the loaf cool entirely to room temperature and just wrap tightly in two layers of plastic wrap and one layer of aluminum foil. You can freeze bread for up to two months. Bring the loaves back to room temperature by way of your fridge for 8 hours, then let sit at room temperature for 4 hours before unwrapping the loaf.

Marble Cake

I haven't been blogging recently because we're still trying to get settled in.    The kitchen has taken some time to get used to, so a few meals have been failures.  Boo.


But, this cake turned out pretty well.  I decided to bake this cake shortly after moving in to celebrate my new oven.  It was moist, chocolately and delicious.  It was also very simple to make and very quick to put together.  


I enjoyed this cake.  Ron did too.  But, he seemed rather confused that there was no icing to go on the cake and requested some icing.  After what seemed like the tenth day in a row of cleaning and de-bugging our house and basically no relaxing whatsoever, I told Ron to stuff it.  I made the cake because it was simple and I was tired and wanted an easy treat.  


The cake was eaten as prepared, with no icing, and no further complaint.  

Marble Cake
from Martha Stewart
Yield:  1 9x5 loaf cake
Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temp
• 1 3/4 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 large eggs, at room temp
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 cup buttermilk, at room temp
• 1/4 cup + 1 T dutch-process cocoa powder

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and butter a 9x5 loaf pan; set aside.
2. Whisk together the cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
4. Mix in vanilla.
5. Add flour in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk and beginning and ending with the flour.
6. Set aside 1/3 of the batter.
7. In a bowl, mix cocoa and 1/4 cup + 2 Tbsp boiling water w/ a rubber spatula until smooth.  
8. Add the cocoa mixture to the reserved 1/3 of the cake batter; stir until well combined.
9. Spoon batters into prepared pan in 2 layers, alternating spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate to simulate a checkerboard.  To create marbling, run a knife through the batters in a swirling motion.
10. Bake, rotating the pan halfway through, until a cake tester comes out clean, 40-50 minutes.  
11. Transfer pan to a rack to cool 10 minutes.  
12. Turn cake out from pan and cool completely on the rack.