Brownie pudding cake

This cake recipe has been in my family for a long time. I can’t believe it took me 2 and a half years to write about it – maybe because it’s not the most photogenic of dishes. However, it tastes amazing, I always have all the ingredients in my pantry, and the whole recipe only contains 3 tablespoons of fat. How can you go wrong with that?

So where does the pudding come from? A thick layer of cocoa powder and brown sugar goes on top of the cake batter. Next, a few cups of boiling water are poured over the whole thing.



When the cake bakes, the base layer of batter rises to the top to create a cake topping and the pudding sauce ends up on the bottom.

This cake can be eaten hot, at room temperature, or chilled. The consistency of the pudding sauce will vary depending on what temperature it’s served at. If you serve it right out of the oven, the pudding is more of a thin chocolate sauce. As the cake cools, the pudding layer starts to thicken. The cake is great served with ice cream, or simply eaten as is.

Brownie pudding cake
Serves 4-6

3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 3/4 cups boiling water
powdered sugar, for serving

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 inch square baking dish or round souffle dish. Combine flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and 1/3 cup cocoa in medium bowl. Add milk, butter and vanilla, stir until just blended. Spoon the batter into the prepared dish.

Combine brown sugar and remaining 1/4 cup cocoa in small bowl. Sprinkle evenly over batter. Pour boiling water over entire mixture; do not stir.

Bake 35 to 38 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the top layer comes out clean. Cool at least 10 minutes. Sprinkle with powdered sugar before serving.

Blueberry crumb cake and cheddar dill scones

Be sure to enter the See's Candies giveaway if you haven't already!

Thursdays are breakfast days in my office, which means that each week, one of us is assigned to bring breakfast for everyone. It’s almost always bagels, with doughnuts thrown in now and then. When it’s my turn to bring breakfast, I like to do something a little different if I have the time. This was my week to bring food, and I decided to do some baking. I don’t really like to eat sweet things in the morning, so I made both sweet and savory options.

The sweet option was blueberry crumb cake, from the Everyday Food cookbook. I thought it would be a more unique take on your typical blueberry muffin. This cake was quite simple to make, and benefited from a delicious streusel topping. I used frozen blueberries, which worked out well. The blueberries are tossed in a bit of flour first so that they don't sink to the bottom of the cake. A small amount of allspice adds a nice background flavor.

For the savory option, I made cheddar dill scones from the Barefoot Contessa cookbook. I can’t even remember the last time I made scones, it’s probably been years. I had no trouble with these, and tried to put up my blinders when it came to the fat content. So. much. butter. cream. and cheese. But let’s not think about that! These scones are full of fresh dill, which is one of my favorite herbs.

The verdict? I would definitely make the coffee cake again. The scones were good, but in my opinion, not worth the calories. That being said, the scones disappeared faster than the cake. I think that people were a little relieved not to see bagels for the 5th week in a row!

Meyer lemon cake

There are some recipes that are just classics – they’re not particularly fancy or complicated, but delicious nonetheless. I think the lemon cake recipe from Barefoot Contessa Parties falls into this category. I make this cake every year during meyer lemon season, and it’s definitely the best lemon cake I’ve ever had.

The recipe is pretty straightforward, but what elevates this cake to the next level is the use of lemon syrup. Equal parts of lemon juice and sugar are cooked together, and then drizzled over the warm cake. The syrup soaks into the cake and adds an extra layer of lemon flavor and additional moisture.

I made two changes to the recipe. The obvious change is the use of meyer lemons in lieu of regular lemons. In addition, I added some zest from a buddha’s hand citron to the batter. I didn’t notice a major difference in the flavor of the cake from the citron, it just added to the overall citrus flavor.

My only caveat with this recipe is to make sure you butter and flour your pans well, and don’t skip the parchment lining on the pans. The first time I made this I decided to forgo the parchment, which was not a good idea!

Thanksgiving 2008 - dessert

This thanksgiving was a little bit different than other years. My grandmother recently turned 80, so we celebrated her birthday at the same time. I was in charge of the birthday cake. I almost never make layer cakes - for some reason, they intimidate me a little bit. I wanted a foolproof recipe that wasn't too complicated, since I had to split my time between the cake and other thanksgiving dishes. Who better to turn to than Dorie Greenspan? I pulled out her cookbook and settled on devil's food white-out cake, which looks beautiful on the front cover of the book. Here's a link to the recipe.

The recipe calls for baking the cake layers in 8"x2" rounds. I only had 9" rounds, so I went with that, and my layers came out a bit flat for obvious reasons. I wanted a tall, dramatic cake, so I went ahead and doubled the recipe, making a total of 4 layers and twice the frosting. Since my layers came out fairly thin (about 1") and flat, I decided not to slice them in half. The frosting is meringue based and pretty simple to make.

In the recipe, one of the cake layers is crumbled and used for decoration on the sides of the cake. I skipped this step, instead opting to use all 4 layers in the cake. I stuck a couple of skewers into the cake for some support, because I had to transport it later. I coated the outside of the cake with mini chocolate chips. I think this was a good move; the chocolate chips added a nice textural contrast.

Here's grandma with her cake:

She was thrilled, and I'm happy to say that the cake tasted as good as it looked. The meringue frosting kept it from being too heavy and rich. Everyone finished their piece after a huge thanksgiving meal, and a few people commented that it was the best cake they'd ever had.

We also had a pumpkin pie and some chocolate frosted pumpkin bars, but I didn't get a chance to get pictures of those.

Dimply plum cake

If you're the kind of person that prefers the doughy topping on a cobbler to the fruit itself, this recipe is for you. It's almost like a cobbler in cake form, with plenty of batter in relation to the fruit. This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's baking cookbook. Everything I've made from this book has been great; this cake was no exception. I used applesauce in place of the oil to lower the fat content, it seemed to work fine without any noticeable changes in texture. I served this cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream. When the plums on my tree are ready to picking, I'll definitely be making this one again.

Carrot cupcakes

My husband happens to love carrot cake. Me? Not so much, although I do love cream cheese frosting. I had some leftover cream cheese frosting from when I made Ina's coconut cupcakes, so I decided to make some carrot cupcakes. I used this recipe from the Everyday Food cookbook. These cupcakes were really simple to put together. They didn't rise much, but a generous swirl of frosting made them not look so flat. Even I liked these cupcakes - the cake is very moist and light, which just a little bit of walnuts and coconut in the batter. Sometimes carrot cakes can be very dense from all the add-ins. The toasted coconut on top adds a little bit of sweetness and crunch. All in all, a nice treat to make when you want something simple and don't want to go to the grocery store to purchase a bunch of ingredients.

Lunch for my grandma

My grandma was in town visiting this weekend. It's become a tradition that I cook her a meal each time she comes to visit. This time, I did a lunch that focused on springtime ingredients:

Baby spinach and mache salad with french radishes, peas, chive blossoms and pecorino romano

Pizza with fennel, oyster mushrooms, fresh mozzarella and truffle oil

Barefoot Contessa's coconut cupcakes

Cranberry upside down cake

I still had half a bag of cranberries lingering in the freezer, so I put them to good use by making this cake. The recipe is from the Everyday Food cookbook. When making the recipe, I thought the cake might come out too sweet, but the sweet/tart balance was perfect. The bottom of the cake pan is coated with butter and a spiced sugar mixture before the cranberries go on top. This creates a spiced cranberry syrup that soaks into the cake. I think it would be good served with vanilla ice cream, but I just served it as is.

Cinnamon squares

This is another great recipe from Dorie Greenspan's baking cookbook. A mixture of chopped bittersweet chocolate, cinnamon and sugar is sandwiched between two layers of moist cinnamon cake. The original recipe calls for some instant espresso powder in the chocolate mixture, but I didn't have any, so I omitted it. I don't think the recipe suffered at all from this. The top layer is melted bittersweet chocolate with a little bit of butter. After the frosting hardens, the cake is cut into generous squares.

Sometimes, I feel like baking but I don't want to dirty up every dish in the kitchen. This cake has a minimal amount of prep, and doesn't use a ton of bowls. You don't even have to wait for your butter to soften since it gets melted anyway.

All in one holiday bundt cake

Yes, I realize that it has been too long since my last blog entry. You know what they always say, life just gets in the way sometimes. And, I do realize that it is strange that I made something called an all-in-one holiday bundt cake in February. However, I had a bag of cranberries in the freezer and a can of pumpkin, so I decided to go for it. This recipe is from Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours. It's a pumpkin spice cake base with chopped cranberries, pecans and apple. I used walnuts instead of pecans. The cake is very moist, partly due to the bits of apple. I chose to use the suggested maple glaze to finish it off. I will definitely make this again, even if it's not the holidays.

Chocolate swirl gingerbread

We've been having cooler weather and some rain around here, so I thought I'd start off the fall and winter baking season with some gingerbread from the Everyday Food cookbook. This recipe is special because it incorporates chocolate. Melted chocolate is swirled through the batter to create a nice visual effect and added flavor dimension. This recipe literally came together in minutes, I sped up the prep time by melting both the chocolate and butter mixture in the microwave. I would recommend serving this cake warm, with a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I know the recipe says vanilla ice cream, or whipped cream, but I think the chocolate ice cream nicely complements the chocolate in the cake.

Strawberry almond macaroon galette

This recipe came from the current issue of Martha Stewart Living. I love almond macaroons, so I automatically cut out the recipe without really looking at the details. Turns out, the recipe calls for baking the galette in an 8 and 3/4 inch cake ring and requires you to prop the oven open for part of the baking time by sticking a wooden spoon in the door. This sounded strange to me (and I didn't have the cake ring), but I decided to try the recipe anyways with the provisions I had on hand. I used a 9 inch springform pan which worked perfectly. And sure enough, the wooden spoon propped the oven door open without causing any damage to the spoon. I already had almond meal in the pantry, so I used that instead of grinding the blanched almonds. I didn't have kirsch to macerate the strawberries in, but I did have amaretto, so I used that. I also added a teaspoon of almond extract to the batter. The galette came out great, I would make it again. I was thinking next time I might arrange an assortment of fruit on the top for variety. If you're an almond macaroon lover, try this cake!

Marble bundt cakes

I made black and white cake a few weeks ago to use up some leftover buttermilk. The cake was exceptionally good, so I made it again. This time, it was for company, so I swirled the batter into six individual bundt pans. I baked the cakes at 350 for 20 minutes. I served the cakes with creme anglaise.

Barefoot Contessa Parties - Lemon cake

This recipe is from Barefoot Contessa Parties

If you've never made Ina's lemon cake before, I highly recommend it. In fact, I should probably warn you that this cake is addictive. I think it's impossible to just have one slice. I didn't use all of the lemon syrup the recipe called for, it didn't seem to be necessary.

Angel food cake with citrus salad, blood orange sauce and crème anglaise.

I wanted to find a way to showcase the many types of oranges I had in the fridge. I was looking for a neutral cake base, and decided on a homemade angel food cake. I had never made an angel food cake before, and this was a definite success. The flavor and texture is so much better than the store bought cakes, which tend to remind me of cotton. The sauces can be made a day or two in advance.

Angel food cake with citrus salad, blood orange sauce and crème anglaise
Serves about 8

Angel food cake – recipe
Crème anglaise – recipe (make the sauce, but don't freeze it)

Blood orange sauce
¼ cup sugar
1 T grated blood orange zest
2 large eggs
2/3 cup blood orange juice
2 T butter

Combine sugar, orange zest and eggs in a saucepan. Cook on medium heat, whisking constantly, until sugar is dissolved (about 2-3 minutes). Stir in orange juice and butter, and whisk constantly until mixture thickens slightly (about 5 minutes). Cool and chill in refrigerator.

Citrus salad
2 large navel oranges, peeled and sectioned
2 blood oranges, peeled and sectioned
1 cara cara orange, peeled and sectioned (this orange has a pink flesh – if you can’t find it, you could try substituting pink grapefruit or just use more navel and blood oranges)
2 teaspoons sugar

Combine orange segments and sugar in a bowl. Refrigerate for at least one hour.

To assemble:

Pour blood orange sauce and crème anglaise on a plate in a decorative manner. Add a slice of angel food cake and top with the citrus salad. Alternatively, bring the sauces and citrus salad to the table and let your guests assemble their own dessert.

I had leftover sauces, so I combined them and put them in the ice cream maker to make a blood orange ice cream.

Almond torte

Last night I made an almond torte. I had seen this recipe on Everyday Food and was intrigued. It's basically just almonds, egg whites and sugar. I had almond meal from Trader Joe's, so I used that instead of grinding my own almond flour. The torte came out very light, with a unique texture from the almonds. It would be good served with raspberry or strawberry sauce.