Chocolate Whiskey Layer Cake with Irish Creme Frosting

Kris — Thu, 19 Jun 2014 08:45:02 +0000

I know what you’re thinking, especially if you follow this blog with any kind of regularity: Kris, where hast thou gone? My only (poor, to be frank) excuses involve a new job, a constant stream of visitors, so on and so forth… so I won’t bore you with any of them. You, my friend, are not here for idle chit-chat. You are here for cake! Or perhaps recipes, and possibly cake? Let’s backtrack a little, shall we? A certain friend of mine from San Francisco that shall remain nameless–you know who you are!–is quite crazy about cake, despite her normal lack of love for desserts. To make a long story short, I promised her that if ever she came down to LA to visit me… there would be cake with her name on it. So where’s her name? It’s a little more subtle than that. She can drink me under the table in mere minutes; mere mortals dream of having her tolerance for whiskey. Therefore, I figured the best way to personalize this cake for her was to make said cake as alcoholic as tastefully possible. Ta-dah! Two shots of Crown Royal and one shot of Bailey’s swim in a delicious chocolate/cream cheese dream of cake. Yes, you can definitely taste the alcohol in each bite. Is it jarring? Well… not if you like whiskey as much as we do The best part about this cake is its not-quite-sweetness. It’s chocolate-y without being cloyingly sweet–thanks to the inclusion of freshly-brewed coffee and use of cocoa powder as opposed to chocolate chips or bars. I loved the inclusion of black pepper and cloves–it complimented the honeyed tang of the whiskey that you faintly detect in the cake. And the cream cheese paired with Bailey’s Irish Cream is a match made in heaven; the soft sourness of the cream cheese goes very well with the milky-sweet Bailey’s. Don’t worry about how liquid the cake batter is when you pour it into the cake pan–it will solidify into a moist, rich cake during the bake time. I would highly recommend you take the baking time in the recipe as more of a suggestion than the rule as well; everyone’s oven is different and cake can be so finicky! Start out with 35 minutes, then start using a toothpick through the center to test for doneness. The tops of the cakes may crack, but that’s okay–that’s what frosting is for! Just make sure that you allow the pans to mostly cool before removing the layers; since the cake is very moist, it’s also delicate and will break off if too much force is applied. The original recipe is for a 9-inch springform pan, but I dressed it up as a layer cake to pair it with the cream cheese frosting. I used 2 6-inch round layers to create a 4-layer cake, and ended up with a bit more batter to spare. Since there is a decent amount of batter leftover, you could always fill a coffee mug halfway with it and microwave it for a minute and a half for instant chocolate cake… which is a terrible, terrible idea, and I definitely did NOT do that. (I totally did, and it was awesome.) She loved the cake, and has since emailed me to tell me how much she misses it since she couldn’t smuggle it on the plane at the end of the weekend. If you’re willing to put some time into creating it, I just know you’ll have the same reactions! Good luck! Original recipe from The New York Times.

Blueberry Cornmeal Cake

Kris — Wed, 28 May 2014 18:58:34 +0000

Trying to bake or cook in someone else’s kitchen is always a tough order. I wanted to make something fresh for my friend’s Memorial Day BBQ, but was baffled as to what I could bake without sacrificing quality or consistency. Fortunately, I remembered that I had this recipe up my sleeve and came prepared… or so I thought. When I came in with my skillet and voiced my intentions to bake a cake in said skillet, everyone joked about how they wanted to have the cake to themselves (or at least a good half of it). The host talked up my baking skills–to my embarrassment–and pretty soon, a genuine excitement around how the cake would turn out was buzzing in the air. Imagine my dismay, then, in the midst of this anticipation… to realize that I had left out a large portion of the sugar when mixing the batter! I can’t even tell you how or why–just that I can be a bit addle-brained once in a while. The exact moment of realization was horrible: as the batter refused to spread evenly onto the skillet, I realized that something was missing and gasped aloud. In a tizzy, I threw in the sugar and stirred vigorously, hoping that it wasn’t too late to salvage the cake. And guys… it was fine. The cake was demolished in record time. The only sign that I had deviated slightly from the recipe was the cake’s tendency to stick to the skillet a little more than usual… but the flavor itself was still spot-on. Thank goodness! The moral of this story is: don’t be like me. Well, probably more along these lines: this recipe is so easy and forgiving that you can mess up, sloppily fix it and still end up with a damn good cake for a summer BBQ. Hooray! I found the original recipe far too sweet for my tastes and dialed back the sugar to allow the fresh blueberries to sweeten the cake on their own. The turbinado sugar is mostly for show, but adds a nice, subtle crunch of flavor to each bite. And the best part about this recipe is how versatile it is–raspberries, blackberries, strawberries… even a mix of berries will taste wonderful on this cake! I’ve made it several times with a varying mix of the above and it’s turned out quite well. If you don’t have a cast-iron skillet, you can still use a glass or aluminum pan–I’ve provided alternate instructions below. I definitely recommend using the skillet if at all possible; just make sure that the skillet is seasoned before you attempt to bake in it, or you’ll have quite a time trying to scrape all of the cake from the pan. Recipe adapted from Martha Stewart Living.

sweet – umami holiday

Chocolate Whiskey Layer Cake with Irish Creme Frosting

Blueberry Cornmeal Cake