Kevin and Susan's Joint Birthday Cake!

Oh, how I wish I had my pastry bags...

In honor of the days-of-birth of my super Canadian roommate and my friend Kevin, I decided to make a cake. And yes, I'm aware that this cake is pink. To Kevin, I apologize, but it tastes delicious so I'm pretty sure he didn't mind much. Anyway, a very, very happy birthday to two of my good friends down here!

The birfday boy and girl, respectively.

A short sidenote: I leave DC in 6 days, and all the friends that I have made here will be scattered across the continent. I want to thank you all for making this summer amazing. I will honestly miss you. All of you. Even the ones I complain about. Really. Truf.

So, this cake is the very first undertaking of a significantly difficult recipe since being in DC, mostly because I was getting sick of making cookies. It involved buying several kitchen utensils to add to my arsenal back home, and making up a significant part of this recipe. For being a brand new recipe, mostly made-up using techniques from other recipes I've tried in the past, this cake turned out FABULOUSLY. I felt almost like a real pastry chef... hahahaha... right. I definitely lamented not having my pastry bags and decorating tips down here with me though... The finished product was pretty, no doubt, but being the perfectionist I am, I wish I hadn't just had to use ziplocs. Sigh.

Chocolate Cake with Raspberry Cream Frosting and Chocolate Sauce

Ingredients:

(For cake)

• 1 c sugar
• 3/4 c flour
• 1/3 c unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 c fresh-brewed coffee
• 1/2 c whole milk
• 1/3 c vegetable oil
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla

(For frosting)

• 6 oz fresh raspberries
• 2 tbsp light brown suga
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• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
• 3/4 c whipping cream
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar

(For chocolate sauce)

• 1/4 c whipping cream
• 1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips

To Make:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 4.5 in x 8.5 in loaf pan with nonstick spray and dust with cocoa powder.
2. In a large bowl, sift together the first 6 ingredients for the cake. In another bowl, combine coffee, milk, oil, eggs and vanilla, and beat to blend. Pour wet ingredients into the dry ones, and stir until just combined. Pour into floured pan and bake for 35 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool in pan for 20 minutes, then invert onto cake tray and cool completely before frosting.
3. In a small saucepan, mash together brown sugar, raspberries, and lemon juice. Cook on low heat, stirring for 3 minutes. Remove from heat, and push raspberry mixture through a sieve to remove seeds (what is left should be raspberry juice, basically). Add cornstarch to the juice, and cook on medium heat in saucepan for 5-7 minutes. Remove and refrigerate until very chilled.
4. In a refrigerated bowl, combine whipping cream for frosting, powdered sugar, and about 1/3 of the raspberry sauce. Whip until stiffer than you would want whipped cream to be. Fold in another 1/3 of the raspberry sauce.
5. In a double boiler, combine the whipping cream for chocolate sauce and chocolate chips until melted. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, and then spoon into a pastry bag.
6. Okay, now it's time to assemble the cake! Frost the completely cooled cake with the raspberry cream frosting, and chill for 10 minutes more. Drizzle with the chocolate sauce and the rest of the raspberry sauce. Chill until ready to serve.

I put the 'mess' in 'domestic'.

Raspberry Chocolate Clafoutis

I love this last photo. It makes me drool.

Clafoutis: the dish so nice, I made it twice... in the span of two weeks. Okay, that was cheesy. I apologize. I'm not going to lie; clafoutis are easy, delicious, versatile, and can sort of pass as breakfast food when I'm running out the door in the morning. Ahem. Also, I just plain love anything chocolatey, and since the HUGE power outage that knocked out the power for something like 300,000 houses in our area, I've been looking to use the defrosted frozen (previously fresh) berries that have been sitting in my fridge.

This is me being industrious and delicious AT THE SAME TIME. Admit it; I'm awesome.

I think my roommates are FINALLY getting used to my style of baking (aka loud music, dancing, godawful singing, and a huge mess everywhere... hey, I never claimed to be the prettiest baker to ever hit the interwebs). Cassie even asked... okay, who the hell am I kidding? Cassie DEMANDED to help me mix the batter, in between screaming at the new episode of Jersey Shore. I live in a mental asylum, but at least it's interesting. :)

Also, for the first time, I let the gods of last.fm decide upon my musical selection while baking. Laaaaazy. I just used the "Play Your Library" function, and it spit out a great mix, which I will now enumerate. Those who care, feel free to add me as a last.fm friend! --> http://www.last.fm/user/alynnhouse

Those who don't, feel free to skip ahead.

1) "The Resistance" - Anberlin

2) "Cuddle Fuddle" - Passion Pit

3) "Are You Sleeping?" - Harry Nilsson

4) "Crush'd" - Say Anything

5) "Tidal" - Imogen Heap

6) "Are You With Me" - Vaux

Primo jumping around the kitchen music. :)

ANYWAY... on to the actual recipe. This recipe, it turns out, is NOTHING like the other clafoutis recipe I posted. This dessert is very much a dessert; it's very rich and sweet and tangy (thanks to the raspberries). The texture is much more like a custard (thanks, I'm sure, to the whole milk and less eggs). Still, this recipe is absolutely a keeper, just for a different purpose. Yum!

Raspberry Chocolate Clafoutis

Adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients:

• 12 oz raspberries
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1/3 c flour
• 1/2 c brown sugar, packed
• 2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 eggs
• 1 c whole milk
• 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 6 oz semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped

To Make:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Spray baking dish (I used the infamous casserole dish, but I'm sure any would work) with nonstick spray.
2. Toss raspberries with sugar and set aside.
3. Combine all remaining ingredients EXCEPT chocolate, beating until smooth.
4. Spread raspberry mixture evenly in bottom of baking dish. Pour batter over raspberries.
5. Bake for 35 minutes (SEE NOTES) until puffed up. Remove and immediately scatter chocolate over the top. Cool for at least 20 minutes.

Some Notes:

• Next time I am absolutely going to butter the dish instead of nonstick-spraying it. It created the best crust on my last clafoutis.
• I would definitely recommend lengthening the baking time by at least 5 minutes on this dish. It didn't firm up the way I expected it would... nothing like my last clafoutis. I think this was probably because the raspberries I used were much juicier than the cherries. Although this clafoutis was cooked through, it was the most custard-like around the edges.
• Next time I might also use bittersweet chocolate, like the original recipe called for, instead of semisweet. The semisweet and the raspberries together were a bit much. It would have been nice to have the bite of bittersweet.

The Breakfast Bonanza: Jan. 2010!

So, I am pretty damn sure I have some of the best friends in the history of awesome friends. If I had to describe us as a collective in a single sentence: we are all notorious foodies who don't take ourselves too seriously. Of course, we are all highbrow artsy-type college kids home for winter break, as well, and this morning we felt the need to rub it into our younger siblings' faces that they had to go to school while we got to stay home and play in the snow. So what did we do? Oh, Morgan, Joelle Diane (read her blog here), and I just decided to make the biggest, fanciest, most delicious hot breakfast ever to be eaten on a snowy day (at the crack of noon, of course).

The menu? Joelle made the best egg and potato scramble I've ever eaten. You can see her feverishly sauteeing in the second picture. Inspired by my dear cousin Kat's foray into french toast-dom the other day, I decided to try out a recipe for orange-flavoured french toast, and ended up accidentally leaving out ingredients (in my defense, we were dancing around the kitchen to Andrew Bird), and topping the whole delicious mess off with fresh raspberry syrup and dried cranberries.

The result?

Tutti Fruity French Toast

(very loosely) Adapted from Gourmet

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
• 1/4 c. thawed, concentrated orange juice
• about half a loaf of italian bread (or other crusty bread)
• 1/2 c. raspberry syrup
• 1/4 c. dried cranberries
• a little butter for the skillet

To Make:

1. Whisk together eggs, vanilla, sugar, and orange juice. Dip bread into the mixture and coat well. Place on a pan and allow to sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, melt a little butter in a skillet. Fry the french toast over medium heat for a little less than 5 minutes on each side.
3. Top with warm raspberry syrup and cranberries.

Some Notes:

• We didn't use powdered sugar, but you should.
• We used raspberry syrup because we forgot to buy maple syrup. The toast would be just as good with maple, but less fruity, obviously. If you can't find raspberry syrup, or don't have any on hand, thinning out a little raspberry (or any other berry) jam would most likely work.
• I'd love to top this with shredded toasted coconut! Yum!