Very Moist Spice cake

One night when my mother-in-law came home from work she asked me to make a cake for her boss 50th birthday and I was honored to do it. So without any hesitation, I said yes. I will make him a cake and it happened that I just bought a new football pan and I thought his cake with be in the shape of a football since most people here in Indiana is a fan of colts. My mom also mentioned to me that he loves cream cheese frosting so his  cake would be a spice cake with cream cheese frosting. After I baked the cake I tried to put  brown color on my cream cheese frosting but I didn't turned out good so I changed the plan right away to have colors of colts blue and white and it turns great. This recipe is so wonderful.
Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups cake flour
1/4 cup cornstarch
4 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground all spice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 cup whole milk
3 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
2 cups brown sugar

Directions:
1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Grease your 9-by-13 inch pan.Whisk dry ingredients and spice in a large bowl.
2. Mix milk, and vanilla extract in another bowl.
3. Beat butter and brown sugar together on slow then medium speed of your electric mixer until incorporated then add eggs one at a time.
4. Add 1/3 part of dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the milk mixture. Do this again and again till you mix all your dry and milk mixture with the rest of the ingredients.
5. Bake until a cake tester or toothpick inserted and comes out clean about 40 minutes. Set a pan in a wire rack for 30 minutes, preferably an hour before removing it from the pan.

Enjoy and have fun baking!

Chocolate Mousse

Baking  and decorating is such a work that needs plan and vision. This is wasn't my plan for decorating my cake for this year thanksgiving but my plan  A didn't work much as what I thought so I have to do a plan B. My plan A was just to pour the chocolate ganache on the cake but  it didn't work well so my plan B was to ice the cake with chocolate mousse which worked good too. I baked two layers of  my chocolate cake recipe and frost the middle with chocolate mousse and drizzle it with chocolate ganache then fresh strawberries.



Ingredients:
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 tablespoon cocoa powder
1 tablespoon brewed cafe de munde

Directions:
Put the cream, sugar, cocoa, and coffee liqueur in a stainless-steel mixing bowl.
Blend with a hand mixer at high speed until fluffy, about 1 minute. Use immediately or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving.

chocolate cake

My niece birthday is approaching and our gift is her favorite chocolate cake. But the night before her birthday, I started making my sugar flowers and let it set overnight and be ready on the following day. She also loves strawberry so I decided to surprise her cake with a strawberry in it. It was my first time to put fruits in a cake so I don't have any idea what will happen nor I don't have any idea how thin or thick should I slice the strawberries. I decided to slice the strawberry in half and put the strawberries on top of my chocolate fudge filling before putting the second layer and ice the entire cake. After decorating the  cake, it looked good at first but after few minutes, I noticed that the right side of the cake started to fall off. I was disappointed and worried but i don't have time to do it again, we need to go out that day and have lunch with the rest of the family. I was very disappointed of what I did. My husband said,  maybe you need to slice the strawberries a little thinner. Oh well, I said, I can't do anything about it anymore. So I decided to let the falling part of the cake face on the wall so when she gets in the house she won't noticed it. The plan was very successful because when she blew the lighted candle, she then said...oh my God, I blew so hard that made the cake fell off...It was so funny and everything just went alright.

Here's my recipe for most of my chocolate cake that I bake.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups brewed coffee

2 cups sugar

3/4 cups butter

2 large lightly beaten eggs

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup baking cocoa

1 1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Directions:

In a large bowl, pour the brewed coffee and stir the sugar and butter until melted.

Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Combine the flour, cocoa,baking soda, baking powder and salt. add to the butter mixture and mix thoroughly. Pour into a greased and floured 15 inches x 10 inches x 1 inches baking pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool completely in a wire rack.

chocolate chip cookies

I've been  baking cookies for months already. The taste was good according to my taster at home. but I was always disappointed with the shape of it, it looked like a chocolate hills of Bohol,Philippines. I wanted a round cookies just like what they sold at the store. There were times that I thought of not baking cookies forever.I was disappointed, then one day, an idea of...what if I will shape the cookie dough to a tiny ball before dropping them onto the greased cookie sheet, and let see the result?That I idea gave me a brighter hope and I was so excited to see the result. To my surprised after baking the first batch, my newly baked cookies  just looked like what they sold at the store.I was overwhelmed and I couldn't believe for another accomplishment of  my baking world. What a day!  This is the recipe I used for my chocolate chip cookies

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened

1 1/3 cup sugar

2/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

1 (12oz) package semi-chocolate chips

2 cups chopped walnuts

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream butter with sugar (brown and white sugar) until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well.

Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.

Drop dough by teaspoonful onto greased cookie sheets.

Bake 10 minutes or until edges are firm.

Enjoy and have fun.

Buttercream icing



cake that I ice during my class

 While I was baking a cake, I told my husband that I will not make an icing for my cake. He responded with this word....WHAT??? that's not right...cake should always have with icing...I responded with REALLY???? he said.REALLY. that would be muffins if there's no icing not a cake. (hahahahaha)
Anyways here's my recipe for a buttercream

( Stiff Consistency) used for decorations such as flowers with upright petals like rose

Ingredients:
1/2 cup solid white vegetable shortening
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla or almond flavor
7-8 tsp. milk or water
1 lb. pure confectioners' sugar
1 tbsp. meringue powder
pinch of salt

Directions:
Cream shortening, butter flavoring and water.
Add dry ingredients and mix on medium speed until all ingredients have been thoroughly mixed together. Blend an additional minute or until creamy. makes 2 1/2 cups.
(Don't over beat)

Note:

Stiff----used for decorations such as flowers with upright petals like rose
To check your consistency: Place a cup of icing in a 9 oz. cup,3 3/4 in tall and about 2 3/4 in diameter. Then insert a spatula all the way into the center of the icing and if the spatula will not move even if you jiggle the cup.

Medium---use to create stars, dimensional decorating. borders and flowers with petals that lie flat
How to convert stiff consistency into medium consistency???
Just add 1 tsp of water or milk for each cup of stiff consistency (21/2 tsp of water or milk for the whole recipe) Mix until well blended.

Use the same test as for stiff consistency but in medium consistency, will move slightly and start to lean when you jiggle the cup.

Thin---use for writing and printing, leaves, icing a cake
To convert stiff consistency to thin consistency, add 2 tsp of water or milk for each cup of stiff consistency icing (5 tsp of water or milk for a full recipe) Mix until blended.

Use the same test as of stiff consistency.
the spatula will fall over when you jiggle the cup.
When making thin consistency icing for writing and printing, add 1/2 tsp of Piping Gel per cup of thin consistency icing. It will add stretch to the icing to make writing and printing easier.

Peanut butter cupcakes

Peanut butter???I am not fan of it...I bought peanut butter last week its because I wanted to bake peanut butter cookies but today while enjoying my day off....I was thinking to try baking peanut butter cupcakes. I used my basic cupcakes recipe and just add some other stuff to make it healthier and tastier.

By this recipe, you can bake 24 delicious cupcakes...
2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 whole wheat flour
1 tsp.baking soda
2 tsp. lemon juice
a pinch of salt.

Directions:
Mix together brown sugar, butter, peanut butter, eggs, milk and vanilla using hand or stand mixer.
In another bowl combine all the sifted dry ingredients and pour into the butter mixture.

Spoon batter into prepared pan, filling two-thirds full. Bake in 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees or until lightly golden. Transfer muffin-pan cups to a wire rack to cool slightly.
Frost it with butter cream and serve.


Enjoy and have fun