Rainbow Cake

A 7-layered 6-inch round cake in colors of the rainbow, with white vanilla frosting. Regular white cake recipe found on the web, with food colors - the fun was in mixing the 4 colors (red, blue, green yellow) plus a smidgen of black to make gorgeous VIBGYOR.

Each 6-inch round layer was about an inch thick. I baked them in batches and assembled them the night before her birthday.

I did think of making a single layer cake with rainbow rings or something, but the night before the big day I went with what I know works - layering. No psychedelic 70s style cake this time.

Nothing very innovative about this recipe, but this is exactly what my little girl wanted for her birthday and I was happy to make it for her.

Marthastewart.com has a rainbow cake recipe which was the inspiration for this, but, rather than red on top, I stacked them with violet at the top as it seemed prettier than the other way. Totally subjective, of course...

After the Penguin cake for the little guy's birthday, this was so much easier: a large batch of cake batter (7 cups), 6-inch round cake tin (I had multiples so I could bake a few at a time), red, blue, yellow, green food colors, some simple vanilla buttercream frosting, rainbow sprinkles; the wait for the cake to cool so I can frost them was the toughest part.

Of course, I had enough trimmings when I flattened the tops of the cakes to layer them to make cake pops. And knowing that there were Penguin cake pops for her brother's birthday, she was naturally expecting some "surprise" cake pops, and she wasn't disappointed.

Penguin Cake Pops

Of the 500 odd posts here, only a handful are sweets/desserts which about reflects the frequency of dessert-making in my kitchen. We don't eat sweets much so I don't feel the need to bake wonderful confections.

However, when I saw this tutorial, I was inspired to make some for the kiddos. And, when their birthday falls on a weekend, I am all excited to try something new.

Weren't cake pops the rage a while back? I sort of laid low and let the trend pass by, never attempting to make or eat these handy treats.

I made just a few changes from the video tutorial - used dark chocolate melts with added black food color; used M&Ms for the beak and the feet, no bow-tie, nothing fancy; and ready-made Wilton™ candy eyes.

Crumbs from the Penguin Cake I made for the birthday boy came in handy for making these penguin cake pops.

I was a bit doubtful about how they would turn out, being my first time and all. But, I was pleasantly surprised - they had the right amount of silly and cute - and the kids devoured them with methodical relish: beak first, feet next, followed by eyes, then head, and finally simply tear into the body at will.

Personally, the hardened candy coating didn't do much for me - the lemon cake inside was good, although hard to taste with relish, but the candy melts that coated the outside isn't my favorite, so, I could take it or leave it - eating-wise, I mean. But, eye-candy-wise, I will certainly take it. Gladly.

Penguin Cake

Cakes, desserts in general, are second-class citizens in my kitchen, as is probably evident from the handful of dessert recipes shared here among the few hundred recipes so far.

Birthday is that special occasion in our family that inspires me try some new cake just for the fun of it. I try to gauge the kids' interest and plan a cake that will surprise and amuse them, not to mention fill them with sugar high leading to invariable sugar crash. But, since we do this once a year, well twice - actually thrice (counting D) - it is quite satisfying.

So, when it was time to make a cake for Oggie turning four, I considered his unnatural affinity for these hardy flightless birds of the Antarctic and thereabouts as a prime candidate.

The deal was sealed when I came across this Penguin Cake.

Two layers of 6-inch round lemon cakes and two layers of 6-inch round regular white cake stacked up, along with a dome-shaped head made with the piece sliced off the top of the round 6-inch cakes made the penguin head+body.

Dark chocolate frosting with added black food color for sticking the layers together and frosting the outside made this little guy's adorable frame.

A triangular piece of lemon cake became the hat, covered in blue fondant, with buttercream frosting as the glue. Some white fondant colored appropriately for the beak, feet and eyes, stuck on with buttercream, as usual... had to keep the fondant to a minimum as none of us at home like it.

The squat and stocky little penguin, looking silly and cute at the same time, was too much of a treat for the kids: they had to taste a bit of the eyes, a bit of the beak, a bit of the feet, a bit of the hat, and a bit of the body, all gouged and cut and excavated from the cake and reassembled in their plates.

All in all, a wonderfully fun effort for me and an ecstatic eating experience for the kids. And, considering I was aiming more for rustic rather than elegant, I think I got close enough :)

Lemon Banana Walnut Bar Cake

Appa's Birthday called for something special, but something simple and quick as well. These Lemon Banana Walnut Bar Cakes came about as we had all the ingredients handy and I had a 4 year old sous chef raring to go.

She has been exploring marbling, so, she wanted to add food colors and swirl them around to make colorful cakes. But, can leave out coloring in this recipe, if preferred.

Somehow her heart was set on making flower and heart molded chocolate decoration for the cakes. Since we don't make this often, I liked that she got me interested in taking the little extra effort... so, we melted some White Melts (not quite white chocolate, we buy it in bulk food store), added food color and poured into molds to set.




Ingredients
1/3 cup sugar
½ cup Smart Balance Omega™ Light butter
½ cup powdered walnuts
2 medium bananas, mushed
juice of 1 lemon - about 2 Tbsp
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
11/3 cup flour
Food color (optional)

Frosting: Neufchâtel cheese with some black currant jam, or strawberry jam beaten in till fluffy; or, leave out the jam for some plain topping.

Preparation

1. Beat the sugar and butter till fluffy, then beat in the eggs, lemon juice, and mushed bananas;Stir in the powdered walnut
2. Sift together baking soda and the flour and add it a little at a time to the wet mixture, stirring gently with a ladle till well incorporated
3. Fill the batter into the bar cake mold; add a drop of food color in each and swirl it around gently with a fork or small whisk
4. Bake in a 350°F oven for about 20-25 minutes, turning half way through if desired, until toothpick inserted comes out clean
5. Frost as desired and top with the chocolate mold

Pineapple Carrot Cake

A simple cake for the New Year: carrots, pineapple, brown sugar, flour, and eggs.

Ingredients
¼ to ½ cup brown sugar (½ cup is very sweet)
¼ cup canola oil
1 egg
½ cup flour
½ cup grated carrots
¼ cup unsweetened shredded coconut
½ teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon powder
¼ cup crushed, drained, canned pineapple or fresh grated pineapple

Optional Frosting: 2-3 Tablespoon powdered sugar mixed in a few teaspoon of water; food color if preferred, maybe some sprinkles for the kids

Preparation

1. Beat brown sugar and canola oil till fluffy, then beat in the egg
2. Sift flour, cinnamon, baking powder together; fold in the brown sugar+canola oil+egg mixture
3. Fold in the carrots, coconut and pineapple and pour into a greased baking pan
4. Bake at 350°F oven for about 30 minutes, turning around midway, till brown and a paring knife inserted in the center comes out clean
5. Optionally decorate with icing

Blueberry Banana Bread

Overripe bananas seem to beg for salvation in the form of banana bread, don't they? And, I still have about a gallon bag full of frozen blueberries picked last season. Since the blueberry season is around the corner, I wanted to use them up as well. That's how this scrumptious bread came about.

This is a fairly reduced fat version where I used (0 trans fat) Canola Oil and brown sugar instead of butter and white sugar, without compromising the taste and texture. To give it a fairly rich aroma, I greased the pan with butter.

Ingredients
dry:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
wet:
½ cup canola oil
2 eggs beaten
2 or 3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 heaping cup of frozen blueberries
1 Tbsp butter

Preparation

1. Heat oven to 350°F
2. grease a loaf pan with butter
3. combine the dry ingredients in a bowl; stir in the oil and the beaten eggs till well incorporated; fold in the mashed bananas and frozen blueberries
4. pour into the greased loaf pan and bake in 350°F oven for about 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean

Lemon Fruit Bread

My dear pal Sig sent me some starter for the Amish Friendship Bread so I decided to make this Lemon Fruit Bread with it. Not only was she nice enough to send the starter, she actually sent me a bread book! Thanks a bunch, Sig, you know how much I appreciate it.

Unlike the yeast-leavened traditional earthy breads (like the Ciabatta Olive bread with a Biga)which need to rise, and maybe rise again a few times, this bread is along the lines of banana bread and zucchini bread and such which are closer to cake recipes, using beaten eggs, baking powder and baking soda for the rise and fluffiness.

The starter came with the traditional Amish Friendship Bread recipe so I decided to try it out, with a few simple substitutions.

It turned out moist, fluffy and moderately sweet (just the way I like it - not too sweet). I've passed along the starter to some of my friends who don't have a food blog to pass along the goodwill...

Ingredients

wet: 1 cup starter 1 cup oil 1/2 cup milk 3 eggs 1 tsp vanilla

dry: 2 cups flour 1 cup sugar 1½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda 2 tsp cinnamon 1 - (5.1 oz) box instant lemon pudding mix 1/2 tsp salt

additional: 1 cup chopped prunes, figs, dates, apples 1 Tbsp lemon zest (optional) 2-3 Tbsp lemon juice (optional)

Preparation

1. Beat the eggs till fluffy
2. Heat the oven to 325°F ; Grease two bread pans and keep handy
3. Combine the dry ingredients in a plastic or ceramic bowl, make a well in the center
4. add the wet ingredients and mix gently with a spatula till well incorporated, do not over beat
5. stir in the additional ingredients, if using
6. Pour the batter into the two bread pans equally, spread a bit to fill the corners and bake in the 325°F oven for about one hour, or till done
7. Remove from oven, allow to cool for 10-15 minutes, slice and enjoy!

blueberry coffee cake

About 6 weeks ago, we went to pick some blueberries at Sauvie island farms. We go there pretty much every year for the last several years and this year was more fun as we had Ana help us pick berries with full gusto.

As always, we froze about 2 or 3 gallon bags full of blueberries to be used over the coming year, till next blueberry season. And I used up some of the fresh ones to bake some goodies. Plus I had canned several jars of blueberry jam last year and they needed to be used up as well. That's how this coffee cake came about.

As usual, I did not follow any particular recipe strictly or closely - and looks like coffee cakes are hard to mess up, even for me :-)

Note: if blueberry jam is not handy, just simmer some extra fresh blueberries with some sugar, stir in cornstarch to thicken into a spreadable consistency and use it instead.

Ingredients:

dry ingredients: 2/3 cup sugar 1½ cup all purpose flour ½ tsp baking powder ½ tsp baking soda

wet ingredients: ½ cup buttermilk 4 Tbsp butter 1 egg beaten

fruit filling: 2 cups fresh blueberries 2 Tbsp blueberry jam

Preparation

Heat the oven to 350°F. Grease a baking pan, keep handy.

In a mixing bowl, sift together the the dry ingredients: flour, ½ cup sugar, baking soda and baking powder.

Cut in 3 Tbsp butter to the above mixture until the mixture has the texture of fine breadcrumbs.

Combine the liquid ingredients: eggs and buttermilk; stir or beat a little to form a smooth liquid.

Gradually stir in the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients until moistened, not too runny, not too thick either.

Spread half the batter at the bottom; add the fresh blueberries and blueberry jam over the batter layer; then, scoop the remaining batter and drop them in dollops or small mounds on top.

Mix the remaining sugar and butter together and sprinkle on top.

Bake in 350°F oven for about 30-45 minutes or until done - checking half way through.

teddy bear cakes

Teddy bear cakes seemed like the perfect thing to do for my baby's birthday... and, since my mum-in-law stopped by and was equally excited about the idea, we decided to pool our efforts and make a few instead of buying a giant cake for the birthday festivities...

The nice thing was that D found these little teddy bear silicon moulds and bought about half a dozen of them so we didn't have to bake just one at a time. From there on, it was almost too much fun to stop us... and, even if we didn't quite know how the cakes would turn out, it was just a two-step process, how hard can that be, right?!

Step 1: bake as many teddy bear cakes as needed
Step 2: frost and decorate them, packing as much fun in the process as possible

For Step 1, any simple yellow cake recipe is good - we just looked one up - and got the cakes baked the previous night and allowed it to cool overnight. They turned out soft, fluffy and good.

For Step 2, it had to be chocolate frosting overall as we wanted to make brown bears; and then go crazy with powdered sugar, butter, milk and food coloring to make batches of colored frosting; find all the little cake decorations tucked away in cupboards and keep them handy; then, pick one cool teddy bear cake as the guinea pig before working on the "real" ones...

We almost had it down to assembly line perfection: first the chocolate frosting all over the bear, then, one of gets one color frosting and does the paws and nose; another does the almond sliver claws and cake decoration ears; then, start the second round of decoration, adding details like eyes and pads, the goal being: have as much fun as possible in the process.

And, since one of my little nieces is about 6 years old, I got her crafting food for the party as well and I think she had fun helping out: the little strawberry mice in the slideshow were made by her! I wanted black cake decoration for eyes, chocolate chip nose, and sliced almonds for ears, but, since I didn't plan ahead, we ended up with mutant mice sporting peanut ears and chocolate chip eyes :) The licorice lace tails were the most adorable part for me.

We couldn't help making one little flower cake (again a small silicon mould) specially for the birthday girl, frost it pink, and put her name on it. And since she can recognize the alphabets, if not her name, she liked it I think.

Some home-made vanilla ice cream complemented the cake. It is a basic ice cream, similar to fudgsicle pudding ice cream, except, this time we didn't use the pudding mix, just used regular wholesome ingredients.

All in all, it was a quiet, yet fun day. I am not a cake-baking aficionado with years of decorating experience. I just wanted to do something special for my baby and am glad I could do it this year, even if she doesn't quite understand it all...