Checkered Cake

It's big (you might want to halve the ingredients), easy and pretty much mistake-proof :). Source.

Ingredients:

For the cake:
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
3 cups flour
400 g (a little less than 3 cups) sour cream or yogurt
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 1/2 tablespoons cocoa powder

For the cream:
1 kg (7 cups) sour cream
1 cup sugar

For the icing:
100 g (7 tablespoons) butter
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons sugar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C.
Beat eggs, sugar, flour, sour cream and baking powder together.
Split in two, add cocoa powder to one half.
Pour each half into a separate baking dish and bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.


In a large bowl stir sour cream and sugar together.
Break cake layers into bitesize pieces.
Dip each piece into sour cream mix, and arrange them on a serving plate in the form of a cake.
*or*
Drop all of them into bowl and stir well.


And flip on a plate:


For the icing:

Melt butter on low heat.
Mix in milk, sugar and cocoa and stir until the sugar is dissolved.
Cool and pour on cake.

Refrigerate cake for at least 4 hours, preferably overnight.

Nanaimo Bars

For serious sweet tooths (sweet teeth?) only :). This is a very easy, non-bake recipe, but it requires time (a total of about 3 hours) for the different layers to set. Recipe from my favorite Joy of Baking website.

Ingredients:

For the bottom layer:
1/2 cup (8 oz, 113 g) butter at room temperature
1/4 cup (50 g) sugar
1/3 cup (30 g) unsweetened cocoa
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups (200 g) graham cracker crumbs
1 cup (65 g) coconut flakes
1/2 cup (50 g) walnuts, coarsely chopped

For the filling:
1/4 cup (4 oz, 56 g) butter at room temperature
2 - 3 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons vanilla custard powder or vanilla pudding powder
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups (230 grams) powdered (confectioners, icing) sugar

For the topping:
4 oz (115 g) semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 tablespoon (14 g) butter

Directions:

For the bottom layer:

Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat.
Stir in the sugar and cocoa powder and then gradually whisk in the beaten egg.
Cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens (1 - 2 minutes).
Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla, crumbs, coconut, and chopped nuts.
Right away (otherwise it sticks to the pan) press the mixture evenly into a 9"x9" square pan.
Cover and refrigerate until firm.

For the filling:

Cream the butter.
Beat in sugar, pudding and vanilla.
Add the milk tablespoon by tablespoon until the mixture is thick, but spreadable. Be careful, as it is easy to make it too liquid.
Spread the filling over the bottom layer, cover, and once again refrigerate until firm.

For the top layer:

Melt the chocolate and butter in a double boiler if you have one or in a saucepan dipped into another saucepan filled with simmering water.
Spread over the filling and refrigerate.

To serve:
Recipe says to bring the squares to room temperature before cutting. I like to run a knife under hot water and carefully cut the squares straight from the fridge. You can skip both, but the chocolate will crack :).

* I didn't have any pudding powder this time, so I made my own pastry cream. And, of course, I misjudged the quantity, so there is much more cream in my version than there should be.

Black Bottom Cupcakes

Those are chocolate cupcakes with a cream cheese middle - what's not to love about them :D. Recipe from the Joy of Baking website.

Ingredients (for 12):

For the cream cheese filling:
8 oz (227 g) cream cheese at room temperature
1/3 cup (65 g) white sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract (essence)

For the chocolate cupcakes:
1 1/2 cups (210 g) all-purpose (plain) flour
1 cup (210 g) brown sugar
1/3 cup (30 g) natural unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch processed, and definitely not one of those hot cocoa mixes!)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup (240 ml) water
1/3 cup (80 ml) unflavored vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 F (180 C).

For cream cheese filling:
Beat the cream cheese until smooth.
Add the sugar, egg, and vanilla extract and beat until creamy and smooth.
Set aside.

For chocolate batter:
In a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a separate bowl mix the water, oil, vinegar, and vanilla extract.
Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and stir in the wet ingredients until smooth.

Divide the chocolate batter evenly among 12 oiled muffin cups.
Spoon a few tablespoons of the cream cheese filling into the center of each cupcake.

Bake in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, or until the cream cheese filling is a little brown and a toothpick inserted into the chocolate part of the cupcake comes out clean.

Remove from oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Choc Berry Butter Cake

My twelve-year-old sister and I made this yesterday. It's based on a simple butter cake recipe with various innovations along the way.

Ingredients:

All tablespoons are 20mL metric tablespoons

8 ounces butter / margarine
8 ounces caster sugar (super fine sugar)
4 eggs
8 ounces self raising flour
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
1 or 2 ~400g / 1 pound tins of mixed berries in syrup (my tin had strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries) - strained and the syrup reserved
1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180 C and grease and flour an approx 20cm x 20cm (8" x 8") square cake tin.

2. Cream margarine and caster sugar.

3. Add eggs one at a time and mix together thoroughly

4. Sieve (sift) in flour and cocoa and stir in until completely incorporated.

5. Add sweetened, condensed milk, 2 tablespoons of the berry syrup, and the vanilla essence one at a time and stir until completely incorporated.

6. Gently fold in the mixed berries. I used one tin of berries but the mixture could easily have taken another tin's worth so use your own judgement depending on how berry-filled you like your cakes!

7. Spoon the mixture into the greased and floured cake tin and place in pre-heated oven. bake for about 50 minutes (I cooked mine for an hour and it was just slightly burned on one corner, so check regularly!).

8. Once baked, turn onto a wire cooling rack and leave to cool.


Icing (Frosting):

I made this with the aim of trying to replicate a crystally, slightly crunchy icing I'd tasted on a cake at a school morning tea, but it didn't work very well. This is a modified recipe replacing the white sugar I originally used with more coconut.

Ingredients:

All tablespoons are 20mL metric tablespoons
All cups are 250mL metric cups

2/3 cup icing sugar (confectioner's sugar) - preferably the pure stuff not icing mixture
1/2 cup dessicated (shredded) coconut
1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted
2 tablespoons sweetened condensed milk
2 tablespoons of the syrup from the tinned berries
Red food colouring (can be ommitted if you don't mind the icing being a funny brownish colour)

Method:

1. In a bowl, combine sieved (sifted) icing sugar and coconut.

2. Add the melted margarine and stir thoroughly.

3. Add the sweetened condensed milk and the berry syrup and mix thoroughly until all ingredients are combined.

4. Add four drops of red food colouring to make a nice pastel pink - or more or less to your own tastes!

5. Using a flat implement, smooth onto the top and sides of the cake. You may need to refrigerate the mixture slightly to make it firm enough but don't leave it too long - this icing sets rock solid! Once the cake is iced, refrigerate overnight to set the icing.

Chocolate Cake for Tiziri

This recipe was originally my Great Aunt's, but then I changed it a little (which is what ends up happening to just about every recipe I've ever made). I hope you like it!

1/2 c Butter
2 t Baking Soda
2 c Sugar
1 t Salt
2 Eggs
3/4 c Cocoa Powder
1 t Vanilla Extract
2 c Boiling Water
2 c All-purpose Flour
Strawberry or raspberry pie filling/syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl. Add eggs and vanilla. Sift together flour, soda, and salt in a separate bowl. In yet another bowl (that can hold 3+ cups), pour the boiling water over the cocoa and stir. Mix a little of the flour mixture with the butter, then a little cocoa/water, then a little flour... Repeat until all is combined. Bake for 30 minutes in a 9x13 pan. When cooled, pour a little too much of the pie filling or syrup over the top and spread it around. Let it soak in and serve.

Sweet Chocolate Fruit Cake

I just invented this cake for the fun of it today, based on various other cakes, and it’s scrumptious – moist, sweet, chocolatey, fruity . . . oh, try it. It’s good.

This quantity makes a small cake in a loaf tin, but it’s easy to make it bigger.

Ingredients:

4 ounces (110g) margarine
4 ounces (110g) caster sugar
2 eggs
4 ounces (110g) self-raising flour
2 heaped tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons milk
½ cup (125mL) mixed dried fruit
Heaped ¼ cup (60mL+) desiccated coconut (shredded coconut)
Golden syrup

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C (350 F) and grease a loaf tin (pan).

2. Cream margarine and sugar.

3. Add eggs to margarine and sugar, and mix until incorporated.

4. Sieve (sift) flour and cocoa and mix until incorporated.

5. Add milk, dried fruit and coconut and combine until mixture is even.

6. Place about half of the mixture in the loaf tin (pan) and spread it out evenly. Drizzle golden syrup (generously, but not completely covering the mixture) over the top of the mixture, then add the rest of the mixture, smooth out and repeat drizzling of golden syrup.

7. Bake in 180 C oven for half an hour.

8. After cooking, turn cake out onto cooling rack and immediately flip over so that the top of the cake is facing upwards. The top of the cake will be extremely soft and may stick and tear if allowed to cool onto the cooling rack.

9. The cake should be left to cool for a while as the hot fruit may burn the mouth, but it can be enjoyed warm once it has cooled a little – that’s what I did!

I have no plans to ice the cake but I’m sure it would be superb with a vanilla cream cheese icing or even just a drizzle of basic glacé icing.

Melting Moments

These are light, crumby, buttery, sweet biscuits (cookies) that I’ve been baking for years. The plain version is the original but I’ve developed my own chocolate version, which is also included here.

Ingredients:

120g / 4oz butter or margarine (recipe says butter but I’ve always used marg) OR
140g / 5oz butter or margarine if you’re making the choc version
60g / 2oz icing sugar (confectioner’s sugar)
30g / 1oz cornflour (cornstarch)
1 cup Self Raising flour
2 tablespoons cocoa for the chocolate version
About 2 tablespoons white sugar for choc version

Method:

Preheat oven to 150 C / 300 F

1. Melt butter/margarine and sieve (sift) in icing sugar. Mix well.

2. Add sieved (sifted) flour and cornflour to butter mixture (and cocoa for choc version). Mix thoroughly until it forms a dough.

3. Roll into balls – this quantity should make 20 balls. Place the balls on a greased / oiled baking tray (cookie sheet) and squash down with a fork. I generally push the fork down twice, the second time at right angles to the first time, to form a cross-hatch on top.

 

4. Choc version only: using a sieve, sprinkle white sugar over the biscuits.

5. Bake at 150 C / 300 F for 15 minutes.

6. Allow to cool on the tray. Once cooled they can be kept in a sealed container or on a cling-wrapped plate in the fridge.



Icing (Frosting)

There are a variety of ways to ice (frost) these. Traditionally they’re sandwiched together with vanilla icing, but there’s many variations and you can simply pipe squiggles of icing on top of the biscuit if you don’t want to make sandwiches.

Ingredients:

4 metric (20mL) tablespoons icing (confectioners’) sugar
2 metric (10mL) teaspoons butter / margarine, melted
1 metric tablespoon milk
1 metric teaspoon vanilla essence (can be substituted for any other flavour of essence, such as lemon, orange, raspberry or peppermint)
Food colouring if desired.

Method:

Mix all ingredients together to make a creamy mixture. Spoon or pipe onto the biscuits as desired, and chill before serving.

Homemade Hot Cocoa.

I'm a big lover of hot chocolate and whenever I get a strong sugar craving I'm apt to make this. It's very, very good, if a bit involved. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• 1/3 cup boiling water
• 3 1/2 cups milk
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 Cup Half and Half
  

I normally skip the half and half, as we never need it for anything else.

• Instructions
• Combine the cocoa, sugar and pinch of salt in a saucepan. Blend in the boiling water. Bring this mixture to an easy boil while you stir. Simmer and stir for about 2 minutes. Watch that it doesn't scorch. Stir in 3 1/2 cups of milk and heat until very hot, but do not boil! Remove from heat and add vanilla. Divide between 4 mugs. Add the cream to the mugs of cocoa to cool it to drinking temperature.

Now I always up the vanilla amount, normally at least a tablespoon to two tablespoons. This would also be fantastic with Bailey's Irish Cream.

Mary's Hot Cocoa Mix

A friend of mine gave me this recipe. It's very easy and tastes really good, although it's not quite as sweet as store-bought mixes.

1 Tablespoon Cocoa Powder
1 Tablespoon Sugar
1 Tablespoon hot milk*
Hot milk

Mix cocoa and sugar in a mug, then pour the tablespoon of milk into it. Mix it all into a thick syrup/paste. Fill the mug with the rest of the hot milk. Add more sugar if needed. It's great with a half-pinch of ceyenne pepper, too.

*You can use cow milk, goat milk, soy milk, rice milk, or even water.

Chocolate Rum Balls

This is another of Mum's recipes, but I've made them a few times myself. They're a pretty-much-failsafe recipe for an afternoon tea or after-dinner treat.

They need to be made in two stages (usually, over two days) as you have to make the cake first.

Ingredients:

Cake:

4 oz (110g) margarine
4 oz (110g) caster sugar (super fine sugar)
2 eggs
4 oz (110g) self-raising flour
3 metric (20mL) tablespoons cocoa or to taste
½ teaspoon vanilla essence
dash milk (optional)


Rum Balls:

Cake as above
3 metric (20mL) tablespoons apricot jam (US jelly or preserves)
½ metric cup (125mL) dried apricots, finely chopped
½ metric cup (125mL) dessicated coconut (shredded coconut)
2 metric (20mL) tablespoons rum
2 metric (20mL) tablespoons water
chocolate sprinkles to coat (these: choc sprinkles -  Cora tells me that they're called the same thing in the US :-D)


Method:

Cake:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 C (350 F) and grease and flour a large cake tin (pan).

2. Cream margarine and sugar until fluffy.

3. Add eggs one at a time, creaming until mixed.

4. Add sieved (sifted) flour and cocoa and mix until absorbed. Taste-test to see whether more cocoa is required.

5. Add vanilla essence and mix in thoroughly.

6. The mixture should be at dropping consistency (if you lift a dollop up on a spoon and turn it sideways, the dollop should fall off). If it’s too stiff, add a little milk.

7. Add cake mixture to greased and floured tin, smooth over and bake for 30-40 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.

8. Leave cooked cake until completely cold before proceeding to next step.


Rum Balls:

1. Place cold cake, broken into pieces, into food processor, and blend until it forms fine, even crumbs.

2. In a large bowl, combine cake crumbs and all other ingredients (except chocolate sprinkles) thoroughly

3. Roll into balls a little smaller than 4cm (1.5 inches) in diameter

4. Roll each ball in chocolate sprinkles to coat and refrigerate until required. These can also be frozen for several months – just take out of the freezer to defrost a couple of hours before they are required.

Brownies

This is my mom's recipe, so it uses European cups that hold 220 ml of liquid. I've translated them into grams/mililiters using a table in an old cookbook. I normally use US cups and just fill them up to the 220 ml mark. The recipe uses both baking powder and soda + yogurt - that's not a typo, though it is weird. My mom has recently started making them with half the oil, and she says they turn up just fine. I've never tried that, though.

Anyway... the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cup (220 ml) oil
1 cup (200 g) sugar
500 g yogurt + 1 teaspoon baking soda
3 tablespoons chocolate syrup (or cocoa powder, but chocolate syrup is better)
2 cups (250 g) flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat oven at 350 F/175 C.
Stir baking soda into yogurt.
Stir in baking powder.
Add the rest of the ingredients and beat with a mixer.
Pour batter into a 9"x13" baking pan.
Bake for 20 min or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I usually frost with store-bought chocolate frosting, but that's optional.

Or, you can try to adapt this one. I've never actually made the second one, but a friend made them and I tried them (yummmm!), so it kind of counts.

Edited to adjust the metric components - I think my cookbook's conversion table is off.

"Christmas Pudding" Chocolates

This recipe is from Australia, and uses metric measurements. An Australian tablespoon (tbsp) is equal to 20 millilitres.

These are yummy little chocolates that I've made for the last two Christmases. The recipe is flexible and I've given a couple of options here.

This recipe makes 12 chocolates.

You will need:

2 sheets of 6 chocolate moulds in the shape of little plum puddings (see picture below) – about 4cm in diameter and with a volume of 20 millilitres. Or equivalent moulds / cases.
System for keeping melted chocolate in a liquid state – I use a fondue maker.
Paintbrush suitable for chocolate making (ie one not likely to shed bristles)
Food processor
Spoons
Spoon or dipping utensil for coating in chocolate

Ingredients:

Approx 500g milk (sweet) cooking chocolate
Approx 100g dark (bitter) cooking chocolate

1 tbsp mixed peel (or an extra tbsp of the mixed dried fruit)
1 tbsp mixed dried fruit (sultanas, raisins, currants)
2 tbsp dried apricots
1 tbsp blanched almonds
2 tbsp almond meal
1 heaped tbsp glacé cherries
1 tbsp glacé pineapple or ½ tbsp glacé ginger
1½ tbsp rum (or you could use sherry or brandy according to taste)

Method:

1. Set both types of chocolate to melt so that they are ready when you need them.
2. Place all of the ingredients except the chocolate into a food processor. Blend until it forms a dough-like consistency and rolls into a ball.
3. Divide the fruit mixture into twelve pieces and roll into balls.
4. Using the paintbrush, paint the ‘sauce’ detail in each of the moulds with the dark chocolate.
5. To fill each of the moulds in turn:
      5a. Place a small spoonful of milk chocolate in the bottom of the mould
      5b. Dip the fruit mixture ball in the milk chocolate to coat it, then place it in the mould
      5c. Use a spoon to fill the remainder of the mould up to the top with milk chocolate.
6. Once all of the moulds on the sheet are filled, tap the sheet hard on the table several times to release any air bubbles
7. Place in the refrigerator to harden.

These will keep for several weeks in an airtight container. In warm weather it’s advisable to refrigerate them to avoid melting.