Red Velvet Cake Balls

I learned a lot of things over this winter break.   One of them is that baby showers are a lot of work to do well.  Making cake balls added a bit to that difficulty.  It was my third, maybe fourth time making cake balls and I had never made them from scratch before.  That is to say, I had never made a cake with the intention of crumbling it to pieces to make cake balls.  But, I had told my sister I would do such a crazy thing and decorate them in either blue or pink, dependent on the sex of her baby.  As luck would have it, blue became the color to decorate in.  So I, in a moment of brilliance, decided that the cake inside the cake balls should also be blue. Blue velvet cake as a matter of fact, since I already had a recipe for red velvet cake.

And so I learned my second lesson of break, there are reasons why people make red velvet cake and not blue velvet cake. First off, they don't sell huge bottles of blue dye at the grocery store. They sell red, they sell green, they sell yellow in the large 2 oz bottles you need for red velvet cake. And finally, they sell black.  Not blue.  Black.   Ridiculous.  Who dyes frosting or cakes black? That's just unappetizing. So I had to settle for buying a second set of red, yellow, green, and blue dyes in .25 oz containers.  In all, I had maybe .5 oz to dye a large cake blue.  It was in this way that I learned why you don't really see many blue velvet cakes around.  As it would happen, chocolate wants to turn red, not blue.  It seems obvious, but really, I thought it would be easier to make blue velvet cake than it was.  I eventually got blue velvet cake by adding highly concentrated gel dye, but it was a darker blue than I was envisioning.

Oh well, you live, you learn and because they're delicious, people still eat your funny looking blue velvet cake balls.

*Red Velvet Cake (lightly adapted from eatfirst)
Ingredients
1/2 C unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 C buttermilk
1 oz red food coloring (I recommend sticking to just red!)
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 t baking soda
1 T distilled white vinegar
2 C all purpose flour
1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t salt

Directions
1) Preheat oven to 350F.  Grease an 11 x 7 inch pan.
2) In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add eggs, buttermilk, food coloring and vanilla. Stir in baking soda and vinegar.
3) Combine flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Stir into batter until just blended.  Spread evenly in pan.
4) Bake for 25-30 minutes.

*Even though I would highly recommend this red velvet cake for making cake balls, I'm not sure I'd make it to eat on its own, every time I've made it, it's taken forever to bake on the inside and almost burns on the outside. It's fine for cake balls though!

Cream Cheese Frosting (also from eatfirst)
Ingredients
16 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1/2 C (1 stick) butter at room temperature
1 t vanilla extract
2 C sifted confectioners’ sugar

Directions
1) In a large bowl using an electric mixer, beat the cheese and butter until soft and smooth.
2) On low speed, beat in the vanilla and sugar, then beat on high speed for a few minutes until smooth.

Red Velvet Cake Balls (adapted from Bakerella)
Yield: 80 small or 60 large cake balls

Ingredients
One 11 x 7 inch red velvet cake (see above cake recipe)
16 oz of cream cheese frosting (see above frosting recipe)
24 oz of chocolate, separated (milk, white, or dark chocolate)
Parchment paper
Directions
1. Cool cake completely and crumble into a large bowl.
2. Add 16 oz of cream cheese frosting, or less if you want a more cake-like texture to the cake balls, and mix with the cake. You'll need to end up mixing it with your hands. Even though it's messy, it ensures the
3. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls, as though you're making meatballs, and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
4. Chill for several hours in the refrigerator. Do not put them in the freezer or they will be too hard and may get frost on them, which is not good when it unthaws inside it's chocolate shell.
5. Using a double boiler, melt enough chocolate to dip 1/3 of the balls in chocolate, about a cup. Then, melt more chocolate for the rest of the chocolate balls. (I like to melt it in a few batches because the chocolate firms up pretty quickly and then it's difficult to work with)
6. With a spoon, roll balls of cake in melted chocolate and lay on cookie tray with parchment paper until firm.
7. Store in a plastic container and refrigerate up to a week.

Eggplant Bruschetta

I meant to write about my last cook of the quarter and the beautiful results from it, but haven't had the chance with finals, Christmas, and my sister's baby shower (so exciting!! Much more about that later).  But, now that I have time, I wanted to focus on a couple of recipes from the amazing meal that my housemate and I made.

It was our final cook of the quarter and we were determined to make up for our previous cook (let's just say that our previous meal didn't exactly go as planned).  Determined to make up for it, we decided on a meal which consisted of beef brisket, flatbread with honey and thyme, mashed potatoes, salad, eggplant bruschetta, and a Bulgarian pastry with cottage cheese.

You may be thinking, “wow, that's a lot of food”, and honestly, it was about enough food to feed our house of 40 plus some.  We really wanted to make sure we didn't run out of food.  Yet despite the vast quantities, we managed to make a pretty delicious meal.  One of the dishes which was particularly loved was actually our vegetarian option.  We (with our mass amounts of food) ended up having enough eggplant bruschetta for everyone to try it, and they gave us tons of compliments on it.  Here's the recipe so you can try it out for yourself!

Eggplant Bruschetta (adapted from the Smitten Kitchen)

Yield: About 4 salad/appetizer portions, assuming people will eat 2 rounds apiece.

Ingredients:
2 to 3 tablespoons plus 4 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds eggplant (about 2 medium), cut into 3/4- to 1-inch slices
2 ounces (1/2 cup) feta cheese
2 tablespoons capers, drained
1/3 cup finely diced red onion
3 seeded, diced medium tomatoes (1 1/2 cups)
3 tablespoons minced fresh mint leaves
2 teaspoon red wine vinegar plus a bit more
Freshly ground black pepper

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 425ºF.
2) Finely dice the 1/3 cup of red onion and place it in a small bowl.  Soak the onion in red wine vinegar, just to cover.  Let sit until you assemble the salad. This is intened to soften the onions a bit and make the onion flavor a little less intense, (especially important if you're like me and don't like raw onions).
3) Coat a large baking sheet generously with olive oil, 2 to 3 tablespoons. Arrange eggplant rounds in a single layer. Sprinkle with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
4)Roast, without disturbing, for 15 to 20 minutes. Flip each piece: the undersides should be blistery, dark and a bit puffy and should release from the pan with no effort. If they don't look this way, allow them to cook longer. Once flipped, sprinkle them with additional salt and freshly ground black pepper and return the pan to the oven for another 10 to 12 minutes or so, until the undersides match the tops.
5) Meanwhile, mix your feta cheese, capers, onion*, tomatoes, mint, vinegar and remaining 4 teaspoons olive oil in a small bowl. Taste for seasoning; feta cheese tends to be quite salty so this dish shouldn't need any salt.  Add freshly ground black pepper, to taste.
6) When the eggplant discs are done, arrange them on a serving platter. Scoop a spoonful of the salad over each round. Eat immediately.

Tortilla de patata or Spanish tortilla

It's been a while since I've written a blog post and I suppose that's a good thing since it means I was studying hard for finals.  But, now that they're over, I wanted to post the recipe for something which is (finally) a non baked good and Spanish.  I did, after all, study in Spain for six months and take a cooking class while there.   In fact, I got the recipe for Spanish tortilla from the cooking school we went to as a group in Madrid.  The only problem is, it's only a good recipe in terms of portions. The real reason I know the whole procedure for making them is the maid who came to my host mom's apartment every couple of weeks.  My host mom insisted they were the best so one day I decided to watch how she did it.

Since then, much to my surprise, I've found cause for making tortilla española fairly often. Like a large and very thick omlette made with potatoes and eggs, the Spaniards often cut it into small slices or squares and eat it for tapas.   It is also very common for it to be made at home and simply eaten as part of the meal.   My first opportunity to make it came when my housemate, Charlie, and I prepared Spanish food.  Our meal was Spanish from start to finish and consisted of paella (vegetarian and meat), tortilla española, and arroz con leche.  Then, since I am also a Student Advisor for the Madrid Study Abroad program, my fellow SA and I purchased tortilla española or tortilla de patata (that's what they call it in Spain) for our cultural orientation.  However, for our final event of the quarter before the Madrid group goes abroad for the the winter, Nick and I decided to try our hand at making the tortilla. The results were quite good and it's not as difficult to make as you might think. The hardest part is flipping the tortilla (a fact Nick discovered when he dropped one on the floor) so I would recommend using a small, very non-stick pan to flip.  Otherwise, you'll end up with tortilla on your floor or stuck to your pan.

Tortilla de patata or Tortilla española (Recipe translated and lightly adapted from Cocina Cayena)

Yield: about 2-3, 9-inch tortillas

Ingredients
2.5 pounds of potatoes (brown russet potatoes work fine for this)

8 eggs

1 onion

3 cups of extra virgin olive oil

salt to taste

pepper (optional)

Directions

1) Peel and wash the potatoes. Using the widest opening of a box grater, grate the potatoes into thin slices. Set aside. Next, slice the onion into thin strips.

2) Combine the potatoes, onion, and salt in a large pan and add olive oil almost to cover. (I know, it looks like a heart stopping amount of olive oil, but trust me, it's necessary. And besides, no one ever said this was a healthy recipe, though I bet you didn't know it was this bad for you!) Stirring often, allow the potatoes and onions to simmer in the olive oil for about 30 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Stir occasionally to make sure the potatoes and onions don't stick to the pan

3) Once cooked, dump the potatoes, onions, and obscene amounts of olive oil, into a paper-towel lined colander to drain.

4) In a large bowl (large enough to combine the eggs and the potato mixture) whisk 8 eggs with some pepper to taste. Though the Spanish would never use pepper since they can't handle even the remotest bit of spice, I like to add a bit.

5) Add the drained potatoes a bit at a time to the eggs, careful not to cook the eggs as the potato mixture will still be hot. Mix well.

6) In an 8 or 9 inch non-stick skillet (really make sure it's non-stick!!), heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Swirl skillet to coat.

7) With a ladle, add about 1/3 of the egg and potato mixture to the pan. Stirring very slightly in the middle (be sure not to break through the bottom layer) continue until the egg is cooked about halfway through along the edges.

8) Using a large plate, cover the pan and carefully but quickly flip the tortilla onto the plate. Then very carefully slip it back into the pan, uncooked side down.  Return to flame.

9) Continue cooking over low to medium heat until it is cooked through.

10) Once it's done, slip it onto a large plate. Make the other 1 or 2 (depending on the size of your pan) and cut into squares or slices to serve.  

Chocolate Stout Cake

Things have been super busy this quarter and as you can see by the frequency of my posts, it's been a while since I've had the chance to bake.  But, there was a need with it being one of my best friend's birthdays.  I missed his birthday last year as a result of being abroad, so I decided I need to make up for it this year in the form of a cake.  Since the birthday I'd missed was his 21st, I thought I'd make this cake to show Kyle that I hadn't forgotten that I still owed him a drink. The resolution: make a chocolate stout cake.

In addition to being pretty delicious and quite moist (I am always afraid of overbaking cakes) it was pretty simple to make. It also looked pretty nice, that is until I decided to add some lettering to the cake. I tried to practice beforehand, but my lettering still needs some work (there's a reason the lettered version isn't up here). I guess I'll just have to keep making birthday cakes in order to improve!

Chocolate Stout Cake (Lightly adapted from the Smitten Kitchen)

Ingredients:
1 cup stout beer (such as Guinness)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)*
2 cups all purpose flour (I used half whole wheat flour and half all purpose since it was all we had)
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sour cream (I used 1/3 cup plain yogurt and 1/3 cup crème fraiche because it was also all we had)

*Recipes always say this and I always ignore it because I don't have the money to buy Dutch-process and my co-op has a perfectly acceptable billion pound bag of cocoa. But one day, I'll buy it. If you do use Dutch-process cocoa, let me know how it works out.

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter or spray a bundt pan well; make sure you get in all of the nooks and crannies. (Some people even go so far as to brush the inside of their bundt pans with melted butter–you cannot be too careful!). Bring 1 cup stout and 1 cup butter to simmer in a medium size saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.
Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and 3/4 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Using electric mixer, (I almost never use one and it still comes out well) beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add slightly cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined (Do not overmix!). Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Transfer cake to rack; cool completely in the pan (be sure it's really completely cool or you might get chunks of cake stuck to your pan!), then turn cake out onto rack for drizzling ganache.

Ganache:
Ingredients:
6 ounces good semisweet chocolate chips
6 tablespoons heavy cream
3/4 teaspoon instant coffee granules (We didn't have any instant coffee, so I skipped this and just made regular ganache.)

Directions:
For the ganache, melt the chocolate, heavy cream, and coffee in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of cooled cake.

Cake Balls!

After making tons of cupcakes, I, not surprisingly, had some leftover frosting. In the kitchen, scraping out the bowl of the enormous mixer in my house, I was torn with what to do with my frosting. Meanwhile, next to me was Scott, one of my housemates and another of the dessert makers for our Special Dinner mentioned in my Coconut Cupcakes post. He was, rapidly, assembling his delicious berry trifle and said offhandedly that he had a lot of cake and didn't know what to do with it. He'd already cut the cake into small squares so simply frosting it was out, and then suddenly an it occurred to me, it was obvious. Extra cake, extra frosting, make cake balls! All I needed was the chocolate for the coating. We were all out of chocolate chips in my house so I hunted around and managed to find some extra bars of Hershey's Dark Chocolate. Perfect. Though the texture was a little bit odd because of the kind of cake I used, I wasn't sure how they would turn out. Much to my surprise, however, the reviews were awesome because according to my roommate, Joanna, “of course they'll be good, they're cake and frosting dipped in chocolate!” Good point.

A note about the recipe, I discovered it last summer when I was on a huge baking spree and decided to make some cake balls with leftover red velvet cake that didn't turn out so well (I over baked it) but in the end, the cake balls were delicious. So my conclusion, cake balls are a perfect and delicious way to correct or recycle a botched cake. Or just fun to make.

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Cake Balls (adapted from Bakerella)

Ingredients
One 13 X 9 cake
16 oz of cream cheese frosting (see the frosting recipe from Coconut Cupcakes)
2 cups of chocolate, separated (milk, white, or dark chocolate)
Parchment paper

Directions
1. Cool cake completely and crumble into a large bowl.
2. Add 16 oz of cream cheese frosting and mix with the cake. (Even though it's messy, it's easier to mix it with your hands)
3. Roll mixture into 1 inch balls (as though you're making meatballs) and place on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. (It should make 45-50 balls)
4. Chill for several hours. (You can speed this up by putting in the freezer.)
5. Using a double boiler, melt enough chocolate to dip half of the balls in chocolate, about a cup. Then, melt more chocolate for the rest of the chocolate balls. (I like to melt it in two batches because the chocolate firms up pretty quickly and it's difficult to work with)
6. Roll balls in chocolate and lay on cookie tray with parchment paper until firm. (Use a spoon to dip and roll in chocolate)

Coconut Cupcakes

Living a in a co-op has meant some pretty good meals so far this year including: bison steaks, filet mignon, smoked salmon, the list goes on. For college kids, we may eat too well. But the most amazing meal came from our special dinner. It's a dinner that on campus houses have once a quarter. Most houses have a chef and he or she will cook up amazing food like steak, lobster, tuna steaks, duck etc. It's really quite absurd. But since we're a co-op and cook everything ourselves. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. But people really outdid themselves. Our dinner consisted of but was not limited to smoked salmon, ribs, fig and mushroom galette, risotto, two kinds of fresh bread, potato salad, hummus, tomato, mozzarella and basil, steak, prosciutto wrapped melon, tacos de lengua and al pastor, fresh bread topped with cheese and caramelized onions, salad with homemade crutons, and I'm sure I'm forgetting something else. I, of course, volunteered to make dessert. Wanting to make something fun, somewhat gourmet, and not too complicated I finally decided on making Ina Garten's (aka The Barefoot Contessa) Coconut Cupcakes. My godmother made them for the first time a few years ago and they've been in a hit in our family ever since. So I figured, why not? And in fact, they turned out pretty well. I was concerned about doubling the recipe, whether I had enough time to make them in the two hours I had before dinner (I'm now even more in awe of the people who are able to make 1000 cupcakes and put them on a stand on Cupcake Wars in just 2 hours, I think) and whether or not I would produce enough cupcakes since we were supposed to scale for 80 people instead of 40 as we do for a regular meal. But, shockingly, I ended up with 70 cupcakes which was more than plenty for the number of people at dinner who still had room for dessert after dinner and chose my cupcakes over the delicious berry-rum trifle and strawberry shortcake. They were also fun to make and I got to use a pastry bag to pipe the frosting out onto the cupcakes which made them look (I hope) pretty classy.

Coconut Cupcakes (by The Barefoot Contessa)

Ingredients:
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk
14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut

Directions:
1) Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2) In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.
3) In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut. (A bit less could be used)
4) Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner to the top with batter. (I would suggest filling just 2/3 of the way full, you get more cupcakes and if you fill them to the top they'll overflow) Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Frosting
Ingredients
1 pound cream cheese at room temperature
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 1/2 pounds confectioners' sugar, sifted

Directions
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed, cream together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla and almond extracts. Add the confectioners' sugar and mix until smooth.
On a rimmed baking sheet, evenly spread the remaining coconut and toast, in the oven, until lightly golden.  Frost the cupcakes and sprinkle with the toasted coconut.

Lemon Butter Cookies

 

A few weeks ago we had our first progressive in our new on-campus house. Our staff pleaded for people to make food, and not just drinks, so my roommate, Joanna, and I happily obliged. Not having ordered any ingredients for our cookies we decided to just make something that we had the ingredients for in the house. Coincidentally, someone had bought cake flour from the store on just that day so we decided to use it, against the advice of one of the best cooks in the house. It turned out just fine and in fact, making the orange (original) version of these one day this summer, I used regular flour and it produced equally good results. So don't worry, if you have some cake flour to spare, by all means use it, if not they'll still come out beautifully. In any case, our wonderful new house, which is actually a co-op, was filled with all the ingredients we needed, including the lemons we used which were provided by our own lemon trees! We also decided to put a little twist on these cookies and were going to turn them into thumbprint cookies but discovering the softness of the dough (these cookies spread a lot) we decided to just simply frost them with some of the delicious jams we have in the house. A thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam made for delectable little cookies which our housemates raved about. I also think you could make these in so many ways with all different types of citrus and even have lemon cookies with lime frosting, etc. The possibilities are endless!

Lemon Butter Cookies (adapted from The New York Times)
Yield: About 4 dozen cookies (or maybe 5 dozen if you make them as small as we did)

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 2/3 cups cake flour or more all-purpose flour (cake flour gives a finer texture)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter
2 packed teaspoons freshly grated lemon zest
1 large egg plus 2 large egg yolks, at room temperature

Directions
1. Position two oven racks in top and bottom third of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. In a bowl, whisk flours, baking soda and salt together. In a mixer, cream together the sugar, butter and orange zest at medium speed until light and smooth, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of bowl frequently. Add egg and mix. Add one egg yolk and mix. Add remaining egg yolk and mix. Stir in dry ingredients just until combined.
3. Scoop tablespoons of dough onto parchment, leaving more than 1 inch between cookies. Press each one down lightly with 2 fingers to flatten to a thickness of 1/2 inch. Leave any ridges and valleys on top of cookie intact, but smooth the edges.
4. Bake about 15 minutes, rotating cookie sheets halfway through. Cookies should be pale but baked all the way through. Cool on sheets 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack and cool before storing in airtight containers up to 1 week.

Icing
Ingredients
1 lemon
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk
2 drops almond or vanilla extract
Pinch fine salt.

Directions
1.Bring a small pot of water to a boil. Peel orange, being careful to remove only outer lemon zest, and cut into thin strips. Blanch in boiling water 1 minute; drain.
2.Sift confectioners’ sugar into a bowl. Whisk in 2 tablespoons milk. Whisk in more milk if needed to make mixture thin enough to spread.
3. Add extract, salt and zest, and whisk to combine.
4.Place cookies on a rack and drizzle icing over each one (make sure there is some lemon zest in each spoonful). Icing will settle into cookie crevices; let harden.
Note: Instead of icing, cookies can be sprinkled with coarse crystal sugar before baking.
Or you can do what we did and spread them with a thin layer of raspberry or blackberry jam.