Daring Baker's Challenge: Sans Rival Cake

I made this delicious cake for Thanksgiving. I wasn't planning to bake it, but then my step-mom asked me to bring something chocolate to Thanksgiving, so that was that.

Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog. The Bibingka cake was a little to crazy for my family, so the sans rival cake was a much better match.

This cake takes 10 eggs! The cake layers are meringue with ground cashews and cocoa folded in. The frosting is made from half of the left-over egg yolks and is an extremely rich French buttercream. It was my first time making butter cream in this way and it was difficult but ultimately worth the effort.

I don't know if I'll make this again, just because it was so labor intensive. But, it was a fun thing to bring for the holidays and everyone enjoyed it.

Strawberry Cream Cake

This weekend was great! I finished up a whole bunch of work for my journal this week and after my class for the legal clinic on Friday I was free, free, free! My friend Allison came to Iowa City to visit because she just moved back to the Midwest for graduate school. That was great, too!

On Saturday, I made this strawberry cake. The recipe is essentially this recipe from She Simmers, except I didn't make the cake from scratch, I doubled the filling recipe, and I put a frosting on top.  I baked a white box cake in my 10" spring form pan and then split is in half. The filling is cream cheese, whipping cream, sugar, gelatin, and strawberry. I put the pink topping on because I am really bad at splitting and the top ended up breaking when I moved it. The topping is just margarine (I know, I know, but butter is expensive right now and I had a stick of margarine), pureed strawberries, and powdered sugar.

I also drank this beer over the weekend. It has the flavors of ruby red grapefruit and ginger. Was there ever a more perfect beer for me? I do not think so.

This cake is really, really good. But also intensely rich. Five of us didn't even manage to eat half of it. And now everyone is gone and I'm going to leave it with Matt. Although, I worry that if I leave it for him in his time of intense bar studying, he might now eat anything else. At least it has multiple food groups represented?

Lane Cake

Look at this gorgeous background...it's the mess that is M's dining room!

Dear Lane Cake,
You were kind of a b*tch. But my boyfriend really, really liked you. I knew that he would, with your bourbony, pecany, goodness. You are trouble, but unfortunately, I think I'll have to let you come visit again.
Hearts,
Christy


A Lane cake is a traditional southern cake, made with light white cake layers, a boozy fruit/nut filling, and fluffy white frosting. I saw a recipe in Cook's Country and knew that I had to try to make a version for my boyfriend's college graduation. He is a big whiskey drinker and has an affinity for pecans.

The frosting uses corn syrup and is sticky as all get out. It is like glue. Delicious, delicious glue. I still am very wary of corn syrup, after the incident where I accidentally spilled an entire bottle of it on the floor of my car's trunk. Oh, life.

It was a really delicious, though very boozy! I enjoyed it, despite the fact that I'm not a whiskey drinker at all. My boyfriend really enjoyed it at as well, and carried on about it more than I've seen him do for almost anything else I've baked.

Two Cranberry Recipes

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

Two weeks back, I found a couple of recipes using cranberries. I'd never actually used an actual cranberry in anything, despite my fondness for its flavor.

The two recipes I tried were Sugar Plum's Apple Cranberry Cobbler and Kitchen Simplicity's Cranberry Upside Down Cake.

Both of these were really good, but I ended up liking the second one more because of the caramelized brown sugar and the tartness of the cranberries. Both are really worth a go, though!

This is the base for the cobbler. You pour a biscuit mixture over the top and then bake the whole thing. Yum!

This is poor photographic proof of the cobbler when done. I was having issues with my camera.

Cranberries are really easy to work with and yield such a festive flavor for this time of year. Now I'm scheming about something to make for my family for Christmas Eve that uses them.

Avocado Cake

Not the most delicious looking photo ever - I forgot to take one when it finished baking and I didn't have any cooking spray so I had to use butter and flour to keep it from sticking. Still tasted good though!

I am living with my boyfriend this summer, and that boyfriend has an obsession with Costco. Due to this obsession, we seem to frequently end up with way too much of something that is perishable. One week, our excess was avocados. Now, I love guacamole as much as the next person, but I can only eat so much of it. A college friend had tried CakeSpy's Avocado Cake and said it was really good, so I decided to give it a try. Verdict: It's pretty good. It also go better the longer it sat out and bonus point - it's vegan if you make it with oil!

This blog lacks tortes, I know

So, for a blog that is supposed to be about tortes, I haven't posted any cakes. To remedy this, I baked two cakes over my break from law school.

Here is the coconut cake I baked on Christmas Eve for my family:

I went with this recipe, which was good but the frosting was more like marshmallow fluff then frosting. The cake was probably one of the most delicate I've ever made and had to be handled with extreme care.

I baked it at my dad's house, and unfortunately, they only had square layer pans AND a ridiculous oven that baked the cake in about 2/3 the amount of time it was supposed to take.

On the Christmas table, it was elevated and made it hard to see my little siblings. Hopefully, nothing tortious happened over there...

If it did, this one was probably the culprit:
Hard to believe, isn't it? She's got that, "Who, me?" look down.

Pumpkin Bundt Cake with Citrus Glaze

Admittedly, this is a giant version on the below recipe. I made it for Thanksgiving and I've made it a couple of times for various parties and in cupcake form. It always turns out well! Even M can make it!

Cake:
Yellow Cake Mix
Half of a large can of pumpkin pie filling (plain pumpkin works too) - I think this is 14oz
3 Eggs
1 Teaspoon of Vanilla
1 Teaspoon Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Nutmeg
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cloves

Glaze
1 1/2 Cups Powdered Sugar
1/2 Cup Orange Juice (It's best if it doesn't have pulp)

1. Mix everything together. Coat your cake pan with non-stick cooking spray - I like Pam for Baking. Pour cake mix in and bake for the recommended time at 350 degrees.
2. Let cool.
3. Add orange juice to powdered sugar a bit at a time until you reach a consistency of glaze you like. Pour glaze over the top of cake.

I like to make this in my stoneware Pampered Chef fluted pan. Don't judge me - it loves me back AND I bought it at a garage sale.