Friday, May 23, 2008

Cupcake Cake - 3 Dimensional Cake


DSCN0852

I decided to bake a cake for last Saturday's Spring Fair. They have a cakewalk every year and I wanted to bake something different but not too difficult. I bought a Wilton 3D Dimensions Cupcake Cake Pan. It helped me to creat an unusual cake. I will say that it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. Let me first say that I am not trained in any way as a cake decorator. I also think that the end result (see photo) looks a bit more like a mushroom than a cupcake. Oh well. It probably would look better if I had used a stiffer type of frosting. I liked the look with the large sprinkles on it. I think next time I would make sure that I had some chocolate frosting to cover the white frosting that got all over the bottom of the cupcake. I didn't check to see but I'm sure someone took this cake home from the cake walk. I hope they enjoyed it. The cake batter needs to be able to hold up to decorations so I used the recipe recommended by Wilton on their website. Most the other cakes looked store-bought. At least I tried to make something different. I did my best.

Double Chocolate Pound Cake

Tools:
• Dimensions® Large Cupcake Pan
• Cooling Grid

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons instant coffee
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour or use pan spray with flour to prepare pan. In small bowl, dissolve instant coffee in water; stir in cocoa powder and mix well. Set aside to cool.

Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla; mix well. Combine cocoa mixture and sour cream. Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating after each addition until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon 4 1/2 cups batter into top of cupcake pan; spoon remaining batter into bottom of pan.

Bake 60-70 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 15 minutes. Turn cake onto wire rack to cool completely. To assemble cupcake ice top of cake's bottom half. Place top half of cake atop iced bottom half. Decorate as desired.
Serves 10-12.

Decorate as you wish but remember what I said about the frosting. I used a cake round that I bought at Walmart and I covered it with foil. I also liked a large box with foil to carry it to the Fair. It worked fine.

The Creative Cook

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Chocolate Chip Cookies


Chocolate Chip Cookies

Bake Sale Chocolate Chips

This year, as always, all the parents are asked to bake something for our kids’ elementary school’s Spring Fair. I usually bake the Oatmeal Chocolate Chips that I have already posted but this year I decided that I needed a new recipe. Our favorite realtor, Linda Betts, has us on the mailing list for her promotional magazine called American Lifestyle. This magazine usually has a few interesting recipes. The January issue had an entire article on Chocolate Chip cookies. I’ve always loved Chocolate Chips. Doesn’t everyone? The article explained how chocolate chips were born at the Toll House Restaurant in Massachusetts as a bit of a mistake when Mrs. Wakefield ran out of nuts for her butter cookies and used a chopped up Nestle Semi-Sweet chocolate bar instead. A happy mistake, I call it. The recipe I chose to make is called The Orchards’ Chocolate Chip Cookies. According to the article, these cookies originated at a bed and breakfast called The Orchards in Massachusetts. The Orchards offered their guests fresh-baked cookies and milk by their beds each night. The recipe came from a nationwide contest that the Inn had sponsored in 1987. It sounds like a winning recipe to me. I baked up a batch, packed them two to a bag and tied the bags up with festive ribbons. I hope they sell well at the Fair!

The Orchards’ Chocolate Chip Cookies

6 cups flour
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 tablespoon salt
3 cups butter (6 sticks)
2-1/2 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup granulated sugar
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2-1/2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt, and set the mixture aside.
3. In a large bowl, cream the butter with a large wooden spoon. Add the brown sugar and granulated sugar and continue creaming until they are well blended. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla. Mix in the dry ingredients, using your hands to blend them well. Gently stir in the chocolate chips.
4. Drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined cookie sheets. Bake for about 8 minutes. Do not overcook. Place the baking sheet on a rack so that air can circulate under the cookies as they cool or slide parchment paper, with the cookies still in place, onto racks to cool. When they’re completely cool, store them tightly covered.

Yield: 9 to 9-1/2 dozen

Enjoy!

The Creative Cook