Cho-ket Cake

Happy Friday ;) The bf's nephew pronounces chocolate like Cho-ket. He's 3 and too cute for words but now I have to admit whenever I see the word chocolate I pronounce it as CHO-KET. Love u Is.

Anyways what better way to enjoy a Friday evening than with a moist chocolate cake? For being a baker I'm not big on cake. Ya, I said it.

I don't like cake.
Ok, ok let me rephrase that, I like tasting cake but I'm the wedding guest that takes a nibble of cake with a proportional amount of filling to frosting and that's it. I'm such a waste of $7.50 a slice the bride & groom pay, don't judge me. And it's not that I really don't like it, it's just that I bake it so much and enjoy watching others eat it :) Like my sister who says when she's been cooking all day she doesn't want to eat what she cooks. Weird, go figure.

With that in mind I've been receiving some constructive criticism from my family, since they're basically the ones who request/order anything for me to bake, and like a good baker I took their criticism to the kitchen. I give you my recipe for the best, if I can even be the judge of this, moist chocolate cake. joy The Baker titled it Devil's food cake but I don't like the name Devil's Food cake so I'm gonna call it: The Super Moist Chocolate Cake. Ok, that name isn't much better but we'll work on that later. Oh ya, remember that pecan filling I made from Pioneer Woman's chocolate sheet cake recipe? Well it's back and better than ever. I told you I was addicted to it. I think it compliments the cake very well.

The Super Moist Chocolate Cake

1 cup hot brewed coffee
3/4 cup Dutch processed cocoa powder
1/2 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs

1) Preheat oven 350 degrees.
2) Whisk together coffee, cocoa, milk and vanilla.
3) In a separate bowl whisk together flour, salt and baking soda.
4) Using a mixer cream together butter and both sugars. Add eggs 1 at a time, making sure each is well mixed before adding the next.
5) Alternate coffee mix and flour mix. Don't over mix!
6) Bake. 45mins for 2-9in pans then cool on racks.

Simple Syrup:
1 C granulated sugar
2 C water

7) Boil for 3 minutes; let cool.

Filling:
1/2 C chopped pecans
1 3/4 stick butter
4 T cocoa
6 T milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 lb powdered sugar

8) Chop pecans finely.
9) Melt butter in a saucepan.
10) Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together.

Chocolate Buttercream:
1 stick unsalted butter
4 C powdered sugar
4 T cocoa
6-8 T milk, depending on consistency desired

11) Poke holes in cake, spread simple syrup over layers.
12) Fill with chocolate pecan filling, frost with chocolate buttercream.
13) Chill for 10mins in fridge for frosting to set.
14) Cut a slice, pour left over pecan filling over if you're as in love with it as I am.
15) Eat cake. Drink milk to wash down the richness.
16) Goto the gym so you won't feel guilty.

I didn't quite make it to step 16 but the bf came back from the gym right as I finished making the cake. I of course asked him to taste test and he says "NOOOOOO!! I just burned that all off!" ;) but tasted it anyway and gave me his typical "mmmmmmmmmMMmmmm that's goooood" comment which lead to a second ginormous bite.

I found my perfect chocolate cake recipe. Let's hope the family approves :)



It's not the most attractive cake but none of my trial run cakes are. Still makes me wanna eat another slice... and that's saying a lot coming from me. Please enjoy the cake recipe. I promise if you don't like cake now it'll make you a Cho-ket cake lovah' in no time.

<3
Noey

Tres Leches Cake

3 Milks cake-Condensed milk, evaporated milk & heavy cream. Did I mention there's condensed milk. MmmMm so yummy. Back to the recipe. I received a request to make a Tres Leches cake for a friend's little sister's birthday. She's turning the big 2-1. Naturally when I heard of it I researched a ton of recipes. My main source of research is always from Lovin' From The Oven. Kim rocks :) She in turn obtained her recipe from the Pionner Woman. I followed the link to Ms. Ree's page. Her whole site is pretty awesome. So here's her recipe:

Ingredients
Cake
1 cup All-purpose Flour
1-½ teaspoon Baking Powder
¼ teaspoons Salt
5 whole Eggs
1 cup Sugar, Divided
1 teaspoon Vanilla
⅓ cups Milk

Leches
1 can Evaporated Milk
1 can Sweetened, Condensed Milk
¼ cups Heavy Cream

Icing
2 cups Heavy Cream, For Whipping
3 T Sugar

Baking
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray a 9 x 13 inch pan liberally until coated. You can use whatever pan you like. I tried (3) 6" pans
- Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl
- Separate eggs
- Beat egg yolks with 3/4 cup sugar on high speed until yolks are pale yellow
- Stir in milk and vanilla
- Pour egg yolk mixture over the flour mixture and stir very gently until combined.
- Whip egg whites on high speed until soft peaks form. With the mixer on, pour in remaining 1/4 cup sugar and beat until egg whites are stiff but not dry.
- Fold egg white mixture into the batter very gently until just combined.
- Pour into prepared pan and spread to even out the surface.
- Bake for 35 to 45 minutes depending on the pan, I did 20mins or until a toothpick comes out clean.

- Turn cake out onto a rimmed platter and allow to cool.
- Combine condensed milk, evaporated milk, and heavy cream in a small pitcher.
- When cake is cool, pierce the surface with a fork several times
- Slowly drizzle all but about 1 cup of the milk mixture—try to get as much around the edges of the cake as you can.
- Allow the cake to absorb the milk mixture for 30 minutes

- To ice the cake, whip 2 cups heavy cream with 3 tablespoons of sugar until thick and spreadable.
- Spread over the surface of the cake.
- Decorate cake with whole or chopped maraschino cherries.

Meet Sergio, my new silicone spatula from Crate & Barrel. My other one fell apart :(

Uno, dos, tres leches

MmMM Condensed milk!

I didn't take that many pictures because I was getting so anxious to make it :) BUT I also have someone else I'd like you to meet. As I was prepping the strawberries I met him:


This is Doug. He has awesome hair.

I wanted to give him eyes but he looked waaay scary.

Good thing this was just an experiment run, because there would be NO WAY I'd give this to anyone.

I cut the bf and I a slice before it had a chance to set. I told you I was anxious, didn't I? :) Anyways I let the cake sit in the fridge for a few hours and when I went to check on it one side of it was flopped over. :( talk about bummmmmer. In the rush to fix the problem I didn't capture my motedness on camera. So you'll just have to imagine this pseudo-pretty cake as a complete disaster. Nonetheless it was DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEElicious! Love love love it!

Until next time...

x O X o,