Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake

I think close to a year has passed since I bought a can of pumpkin puree.  At that time, I had found a few pumpkin recipes that I really wanted to try out.  What I didn't realize was that those recipes required pumpkin spice, nutmeg, or several other spices.  So I never used the pumpkin puree I bought until now, when I finally bought some pumpkin spice.

This chocolate chip pumpkin cake was pretty good.  It was a little bit too sweet for my taste, and I'm someone who really likes sweets.  I had already adjusted the amount of sugar used in this recipe too.  Another tweak I made was decrease the amount of chocolate chips to only one cup because two cups would, in my opinion, overwhelm the cake.  Even when I only added only one cup, each bite of the cake had several chocolate chips in them.

I liked how the cake turned out though.  If you are someone who likes pumpkin pie, then you will like this cake because it tastes like pumpkin pie in cake form.  I gave some to my friend A. and she said that her family enjoyed it.  However, my brother, on the other hand, would not even taste the cake because he dislikes pumpkins. 

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake
Recipe slightly adapted from Tracey's Culinary Adventures

Zebra Cake

As seen in my previous post, I attempted to make the Rose Ombre Cake for my grandma.  I wanted the cake to be something really special because it was her 80th birthday.  For my dad's birthday, I wanted to make something simpler and healthier (because the previous cake was super rich!).  So after changing my mind several times on what recipe I should use, I somehow remembered a recipe that I really wanted to try: the zebra cake!  Although I really wanted to make the cake for a long time, I never had the courage to make it.  Today when I finally made it, it was so much easier than I thought it would be.  This cake would be really difficult to mess up.  The cake wasn't grossly sweet because I cut the sugar down to 3/4 cups.  The texture of the cake was normal.  It was moist enough, but not super moist.  The bad part was that this cake was a bit bland, so you might want to make the zebra cake with a different cake recipe.  On the bright side, this cake is very pretty and I am sure that people will be impressed by all the stripes this cake has. 

Zebra Cake
Recipe slightly adapted from King Arthur Flour.

Red Velvet and Light Cheddar Cheese "Ombre" Rose Cake

The month of September is always a busy one for me.  Lots of my friends have their birthdays in this month.  This week it was my grandma's birthday on Sunday, then Tuesday was my uncle's birthday, today is my dad and K's birthday, on Friday is my best friend's birthday and on Saturday is another close friend's birthday.  So many people I know are born in this month!

This year was my grandma's 80th birthday.  So in order to celebrate this significant event, my parents and close relatives decided to have a surprise birthday party for her.  After several weeks of planning, the special day finally arrived.  For my grandma's birthday, the reception was held at my Uncle's church and several trays of food were ordered from a buffet.  Around 40 relatives showed up to celebrate her birthday.  Because it was a surprise party, my mom and I had to trick my grandma into getting on the car with us so we could bring her to the place.  My mom told her that she needed help with choosing some meat at the supermarket to barbeque.  At first, my grandma argued that it was too late to bbq meat among other things, but then after my mom's persuading she finally relented.  Then I had to bring this cake onto the car and because this cake was too difficult to put into a box or container, I had to hold it on my lap.  Bringing a cake on the car was suspicious because my grandma had no idea that there was going to be a surprise party, so I had to make up a story of how I wanted a special decoration for the cake and we needed to go to this particular store to buy the decoration.  Luckily, she fell for the story.  When we finally arrived at the church, everything was revealed to her and she had a blast at the party.  She was really happy and that was awesome.  All the lies were worth it. ;)

In order to celebrate her special day, I decided to bake a cake for her.  I quickly found this recipe on Honey Bee Sweet's blog.  It was not a hard decision to make because I had seen a few ombre rose cakes on tumblr and I really wanted to try making that type of cake.

Although this cake took me around 4-5 hours total to make it, it was worth it.  The cake is delicious!  Although I kind of messed up on the cheesecake part, many people still complimented me on the cake, saying that the cake tasted amazing, etc...  Also, the roses on the cake really impress people.  However, mine were a bit sloppy because of the hot weather and my hot hands.  At one point, the frosting was so soft that it wouldn't stay on the cake and slid right off like this.  In addition, I wasn't able to make my cake an ombre rose cake.  I was able to make it two different colors, but ran out of time to tint the frosting darker. 

Red Velvet and Light Cheddar Cheese "Ombre" Rose Cake
Recipe from Honey Bee Sweets.  Please refer to her blog for the recipe.

Boston Cream Pie

A long time ago, I made Boston cream pie cupcakes.  Those turned out surprisingly well, so today I decided to make the actual Boston cream pie.  Actually, my cousins returned from Taiwan just recently and one of them turned a year older when he was in Taiwan.  So, in order to celebrate his belated birthday, my mom said I should make a cake.  I spent a whole hour agonizing about what cake I should make and then finally thought of making the Boston cream pie.  Just the day before, I had made some fruit tarts, but I ended up with a whole tone of custard leftover.  So by making a Boston cream pie, I would be able to use up all that custard!

I believe that previously, I have attempted making the cake before....but I don't think the cake turned out that good.  So as a result, I never completed the pudding and glazing part.  This time, I thought the cake was still alright.  When I was beating the eggs, it seemed like it would be successful.  When I actually tasted the end result, the cake was kind of dry. :(  I don't really know what I did wrong with that...  My family enjoyed the cake, but I'm not sure if they're just being nice.  XD


Boston Cream Pie
Recipe from Lick the Bowl Good





Everything seemed to be fine when I was beating the eggs, but when I started folding in the flour I think I deflated the eggs.  Also, I don't think I mixed the butter and milk mixture well enough.  Anyway, this is how it turned out.


After I flipped over the cake, there were some lines left on it.


Slice the cake in half.




Cover it with custard/pudding.


Use the other half of the cake and make a sandwich.  Make sure to use the bottom half, that way the top of the cake will be smooth.




When you make the glaze, make sure to bring the heavy cream to a boil!  Otherwise, the glaze will never harden up...I learned this the hard way.  I didn't really pay attention to the instructions and the glaze wouldn't harden up at all.  I tried cooking the glaze longer with the chocolate already mixed in, but then the glaze curdled. :(

2nd Attempt:


Time to glaze the cake!



P.S. does anyone know why my cake is so short compared to Monica's?  Do you think it's because I deflated the eggs too much?  Thanks :D


P.P.S.  I wasn't able to continue the rest of my crazy day series because I felt like my pictures were too ugly to make a post with.  I will continue posting for that Crazy Day when I remake the items I made and take better pictures.

Oreo Swiss Roll Cake

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope you all had a great time spending your day with family and friends.  There are many things to be thankful for, especially Jesus' birth.  I can't believe the year passed by so fast and we are quickly nearing the end of 2011 and the start of 2012!  I hope you all have a great last few days of 2011.

Since it is Christmas, I thought it would be fitting to post a recipe for an Oreo swiss roll cake because it resembles the yule log cake that is popular during this time  I have always wanted to make a swiss roll cake, but the thought of rolling up the cake and having it crack always deterred me from making this cake.  In addition, the many eggs that this type of cakes requires always scare me due to my fear of messing up the cake and wasting the ingredients.  However, I finally made this cake due to a carton of heavy cream that needed to be used up and a dinner party that I was going to attend.  I easily found the recipe for the Oreo swiss roll on Honey Bee Sweets.  (Btw, this post is alllll the way from September, Labor Day weekend.  I am sooo behind.)

This cake was easier to make than I expected.  I thought it would take around 3 hours, hands on, to make it.  However, I was able to finish making it in around 2 hours.  This cake turned out to be a pretty successful cake, ignoring the cracks that is.  I loved the texture, it was soft and spongy, not dense at all.  The oreo heavy cream filling sandwiched in the roll had a pleasant taste to it; it was mildly flavored and just right, not too sweet.  The oreos and cream tasted like cookies and cream ice cream, especially after you refrigerate the cake.

Here's the recipe for you to enjoy. :)  Thank you Honey Bee Sweets for sharing this delicious recipe!  I posted up a brief summary of the directions to help make my pictures more understandable.  Please refer to Honey Bee Sweet's recipe for the ingredients and better instructions. 

Oreo Swiss Roll
Recipe from Honey Bee Sweets

Pantry Chocolate Cake

I've always wanted to make this cake. The only thing stopping me was the dutch processed cocoa powder, which I didn't buy until recently. On Mother's Day I was supposed to make a cake, as per my dad's request, for Mother's Day dinner. I didn't know what I should make, but remembering how much my family enjoyed the Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake, I chose to make this easy peasy pantry chocolate cake. It is called pantry chocolate cake because supposedly all the ingredients used in this recipe should be available in your pantry.

This cake is super easy to make; it's for beginners. It only takes a few minutes to mix everything together and it's great if you ever want to bring it to a potluck or you're just craving some chocolate. I doubt anything could go wrong with this cake, unless you over mix or substitute the cocoa powder.

The cake was moist, but not as moist as Hershey's cake. Also, I reduced the sugar by a few tablespoons, so the cake wasn't too sweet. The frosting completes the cake and only takes a few minutes to make.

Pantry Chocolate Cake
Recipe from America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book
it can also be found here.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake

I made this cake for my brother's birthday (beginning of April). Originally, I wanted to make this old-fashioned chocolate cake from America's Test Kitchen, except seeing all that butter made me change my mind. Instead, I chose this recipe that used the healthier vegetable oil for making a moist chocolate cake. This cake was so good that my family requested for another one the next day. So I made another one, and used some of the leftover frosting to frost part of the cake. I made the second cake with my friend and it only took a few minutes to whip up. It's always nice to have a helper when baking. :)

Because I baked two cakes at the same time, I had to put the cakes into the oven side by side. What happened was that my cake was puffier on one side than the other one because the sides of the cakes that were in the middle of the oven did not rise as much. To solve this problem, you can rotate the pans halfway through baking, or you can just match up the puffy side and unpuffy side of the two layers and make an evenly leveled cake.

This was my first layer cake ever and I was so excited to frost it. It was so easy to make. In fact, this recipe reminded me of the easy chocolate cupcakes I made before. Also, after tasting this cake and looking at it, I was reminded of that humongous chocolate cake in Matilda, the movie. I don't know if you ever watched it, but in the movie and the book, this boy was forced to eat a whole chocolate cake by the mean principal.

I was inspired to make this cake when I saw it here.

Hershey's Perfectly Chocolate Chocolate Cake
Recipe slightly adapted from Hershey's

Lemon and Matcha Marble Pound Cake and Award

I remember seeing this recipe for the first time and thinking, wow that's a lot of eggs! So, I halved the recipe and ended up with a short cake. It was very pretty and my brother rated it a 9. I reduced the sugar from 260 grams to 220 I didn't want to risk the texture, but I knew that Von's pound cake had less sugar so it would be fine. Next time, I will try further reducing the sugar.

This cake is relatively simple to make, you don't even need a mixer! I just did everything by hand. The texture was really nice. I didn't have humongous holes, maybe that's because hand mixing makes it harder to get holes.

But I tend to have a problem with marbling cakes! I don't marble them enough because I'm scared of mixing the batters into one shade of color. :/

Lemon and Matcha Marble Pound Cake

Sour Cream Pound Cake Take Two

Recently, I always want to revisit the old recipes that I have tried and wasn't 100% satisfied with the results. I want to remake several things in hopes that I will be successful. So one of the recipes I revisited was the sour cream pound cake by Von. The cake tasted delicious, but it did not look as delicious as Von's because mine had humongous holes in it.

So I tried it again, baking it in a 8x4 inch pan and I was extra careful to avoid over mixing the batter. I didn't over mix it terribly last time, but just enough so that I was left with big holes. This time, I succeeded! The holes definitely aren't as big as last time's.

After
Okay, fine there still are lots of holes, but the first time's were huge.

Before


Batter and lined pan.

I line my pan by tearing a rectangle sheet of parchment paper and then cutting 4 long slits so that I can place it in the pan.

Smoothed out batter.

Tada!


Now a time of suspense, time to check for holes.

New York Style Coffee Cake

Last month, I bought a huge container of sour cream. I wanted to make Honey Bee Sweet's marble cake and to attempt making many more desserts that required sour cream. With that container of sour cream I was able to make 1 batch of scones, 1 marble cake, 1 sour cream pound cake, 1 New York style coffee cake and 1 batch of chocolate glazed donut muffins. I was halfway through the container of sour cream when I didn't know what else to make. I went on google reader and found this recipe that used a bunch of sour cream. Right then and there, I decided that I would make this cake.

The cake was pretty simple. The only problem I ran into while making this cake was I ran out of eggs. A few steps into the cake making, I looked in my fridge and discovered that we only had one egg left! Luckily, my aunt and uncle live only a few blocks away, so I quickly called and asked if I could have some eggs. My grandma answered the phone and said, "Come on over." I rode my bike there, got the eggs, returned home and promptly started continuing my cake mixing. Problem solved!

I didn't have a 9x13 glass pan so I used a 8x12 glass pan. I chose to decrease the topping by 25%. Boy am I glad I did that! When the cake was baking, it rose; if I had made the full amount of topping, my cake would have spilled over. That would have been a terrible disaster... Now it's time for the recipe.

Thanks to Karly from Buns In My Oven for sharing this recipe!


New York Style Coffee Cake
Very lightly adapted from Buns In My Oven who got the recipe from Baked Explorations
(I changed the proportion of the crumb topping and the cake. I also slightly decreased the amount of sugar in the cake.)

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Marble Cake

On the last day of my grandparents stay in the U.S. I baked a cake for them. I had wanted to bake this cake a week ago, but I didn't get to it until today.

Many other bloggers have made this marble cake too and all of them gave excellent reviews. Thank you Honey Bee Sweets for sharing this recipe! I will definitely be using this recipe again and again.

Like what Honey Bee Sweets said, the cake had a nice velvety texture to it. Right out of the oven, it had a nice, thin crisp exterior. Although the two batters weren't distinguishable when the cake is viewed from the top, they are inside the cake. Cutting through the cake, I could tell that it was going to be very yummy. When I brought a piece to school the next day to share with my best friend, she told me that she enjoyed it very much.

While making this cake, I had some doubts. The batter was surprisingly thick! I was beginning to think that I did something wrong while I was folding in the flour. At one point it was so difficult to even make one fold that the batter even resembled soft cookie dough. The batter was even harder than my sugar cookie dough before it got chilled. Regardless, I proceeded as the recipe told me to and it turned out fabulously. The one thing I forgot to do was actually give the batter a few swirls, so the cake wasn't all that marbly. I know, I know, there's no such word, but I can't think of any better word to describe it.
Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Marble Cake
Recipe from Honey Bee Sweets and adjustments from Bakericious 

Ingredients for a 10 cup bundt cake
Chocolate Paste
2.5 tbsp cocoa powder
2.5 tbsp hot water

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake

I saw this recipe on Wendy's blog all the way back in July. I was really interested in making it for my mom's birthday, but then I changed my mind and made a sponge cake instead because my mom prefers sponge cakes over cheesecakes. I still haven't blogged about the sponge cake I made because apparently sponge cakes are not my thing.... I tried out one sponge cake recipe 2 times and it was successful on the second time. I tried another recipe once, and it majorly deflated. The texture of that cake was nice, but the cake was around 1.5 inches tall.

I decided to make this cheesecake for my own birthday instead. I was very, very worried because after my bad experience with sponge cakes, I surmised that cakes are not my thing. Especially cakes that require egg whites and egg yolks in order to make it all light and fluffy.

I made it through though!! After 2 hours spent in the kitchen mixing the batter and stuff, I accomplished mixing what seemed like a successful cake.

I ran into several problems along the way, which I will go into detail later in this post.

The cheesecake was tasty. My aunt, uncle and parents remarked that it tasted just like the one's from the Chinese bakeries. I have to agree. :) Thank you Wendy for this great recipe.

I found out that I don't really like this type of cake though. The day I made it, and I tasted it, I found out it was a bit too dense for my liking. But when I tasted it the next day, it became more delicious! So I would recommend that you refrigerate it first before serving. A warm cheesecake does not taste good, no matter how fresh from the oven it is. (That's just my opinion.) Also, my brother said that the bottom was a bit soggy, but that was because of the moisture that it got from cooling down in the pan on a really cold day. (around 57 degrees) The cake didn't taste soggy when I ate it the next day though, so I don't know.

Japanese Cotton Cheesecake
Recipe from Wendy (Table for 2...or more)

Sour Cream Pound Cake

So, I just baked my first pound cake today. (10/24/10) In fact, I am typing this post as it's baking in the oven right now.

I can't believe how it's already the end of October! Wow, then it's going to be November and then I will have to send in my college apps. These days I really wanted to bake some bread, especially some bread with matcha. However, my kitchen scale was not functioning even after I changed the batteries. Then one day I tried looking at the scale again and it worked. Whewf...I was so worried that my scale broke. It does use up batteries quite fast though.

I made this pound cake for English class because we just read the book Frankenstein, and now we have a non-fiction research project. I decided to do one on food during the Romanticism period. I discovered that pound cakes were created during the 1700s and that they are called pound cakes because of the simplicity of the ingredients. A pound of butter, sugar and butter along with some eggs would give a pound cake. Back then, most women couldn't read so just memorizing the ingredients by pounds made it much easier for them to make pound cakes.

Then I immediately thought of Von's recipe. She shared this beautiful pound cake recipe on her blog. It looked amazing! The texture was perfect and everything, so I just had to make it. I was a bit doubtful of how mine would turn out and I didn't get to try the recipe out until today because I ran out of yogurt/sour cream.

However, after making it, it wasn't that bad. I was worried mine would not turn out because I have very few successes on baking cakes. Luckily for me, the batter was pretty thick and it smelled really good. The only sad part was that there were a lot of holes in my pound cake.... it didn't look like Von's pretty, tight crumbed, yummy looking cake. I'm guessing that I might have overbeaten the eggs and incorporated extra air into the batter, causing the little holes. Please correct me if I'm wrong though.

Sour Cream/Yogurt Pound Cake
Recipe from Vondelicious who got it from the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook

Baked Nian Gao 烤年糕

Sorry for not posting for such a long time. I did bake these past few weeks, I just have not been able to get the pictures that I took because I borrowed my Uncle's camera. Recently, some things I made are black bottom cupcakes, hotdog buns, chocolate cupcakes, thin and crispy chocolate chip cookies, Von's pound cake!, and that's about it. I'm going to post about Von's awesome pound cake soon, as soon as I get the single picture for it. I'm also going to get a new camera soon. Actually, my mom bought one for me already, but I'm not sure if that is a good model or not so I'm still deciding. I'm debating between getting a Nikon Coolpix S4000, Canon PowerShot SD1300IS or keeping the Nikon Coolpix L22. Any suggestions? My favorite color is pink, but I don't know which camera is better. I'm getting sidetracked now... anyway back to my post about nian gao. By the way, thanks for reading that super long paragraph.

My mom used to make this for our family when I was little, back in elementary school. I remember coming back from school and finding this cake in the kitchen. After seeing it there, I would always be so happy. Then after a while, she stopped making it. I just recently asked her why and she told me that she had made it so often that everyone got sick of it. I also found out that back then, everyone was making it because it was really easy to make, really cheap, and a great gift for people. A gift as in when you're visiting someone, someone's sick, etc etc. I really missed eating this cake and didn't make it until now (Oct 31). I don't know why it took so long for me to ask my mom for the recipe, but here it is. I hope you enjoy the recipe. :)

So after making it, I ate around 1/4 of the cake. Ekks, pretty scary! It was sooo good and I did not eat it for such a long time that I couldn't control myself.
The crust tastes crispy and the middle is chewy, just like mochi. So a crispy crust with the chewy inside balances everything out and makes a great "cake"! In terms of sweetness, it was just right. It was not that sweet, so if you like really sweet dessert, you might want to add a little more sugar.

Baked Nian Gao 烤年糕
Recipe from my mom's friend

1 lb glutinous rice flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 Eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 -3 cups milk (Add more milk if you want it to be softer, less if you want it to be chewier. I used 2 1/2 cups milk)
1/2 stick butter, melted

Toppings: red bean paste, walnut, raisins (Optional)

Bake at 350*F for one hour.

Easy way: Dump all the ingredients in one bowl and mix together until uniform. Pour into a 9x13 pan and bake at 350*F for one hour.


What I did: Whisk together the glutinous rice flour, sugar and baking powder in a large bowl. Melt the butter and warm up some milk. Mix the butter, vanilla and some milk together and add into the large bowl. Add the rest of the milk and then add the 3 eggs. (I did this so that way the butter would not solidify due to the coldness of the milk. Of course, it would not matter if your milk was at room temperature though.)

Whisk everything together. Keep on whisking until the batter is smooth and there are no lumps. Pour batter into a oiled glass pan. I don't know how it will turn out with a metal pan, but you can try.

Bake at 350*F for one hour, so that the crust become golden brown and puffy. After that, take it out of the oven and cool or eat it while hot. :) The cake will deflate a bit, but that's normal.

Btw, you can half the recipe and bake in a smaller pan.

It deflated!


I got a few pieces.


My family ate a few. So quickly eaten! This was on the same day. Within a few hours too. Everyone missed the nian gao.
For the toppings, sprinkle raisin and walnuts into the batter if you want some.

For red bean paste, my mom said you are supposed to bake it for around 1/2 hour and then somehow spread the red bean paste onto it and then put it back into the oven to continue baking it for another 1/2 hour. My aunt's sister also made this variation before and I think what she did was put a portion of the batter inside, bake, add red bean and pour the rest of the batter on and finish baking. I'm not 100% sure though. If you feel adventurous, do try it out and tell me how it goes. Thanks :)

Serving suggestion: Cut into squares and serve. If a day or 2 passes and the cake is not finished yet, very unlikely but possible, just get the portion you want to eat and microwave for a few seconds to achieve the nice, chewy texture.