Secret Recipe Chocolate Cake

We celebrated a special event with a gathering of artist friends. It was a "carry in." I brought the cake.

Chocolate cake, raspberry buttercream, strawberries and mint leaves.

Secret Recipe Chocolate Cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and if your oven has one of those moving racks... either use a different rack or detach it so that it does not move. Moving a cake in the baking process can kill it.

1 Duncan Hines Devil's Food Cake Mix
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup water (Or cold coffee if you like, I don't drink coffee so I use water.)
1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla
3 large yada yada eggs

(Yada yada eggs are the good ones that have fancy labels like "organic" or "free range" or "from happy chickens who listen to Mozart..." or simply from someone you've actually met who doesn't seem like the type that would be mean to critters... that sort of thing, you get the idea.)

Combine everything but the mix in a mixer and... uh... mix. Then add the mix and... well... uh... mix. Spray a 10 inch round cake pan with Baker's Joy.  (It has the flour and the shortening together in a one step spray.)  Put batter in pan and bake.

Most people over-bake cake, and dry cake = a waste of good calories.  So... here's how I tell if this cake is done.  I touch the surface of the cake.  If your finger comes back covered in batter... well... it's time to see if the oven is turned on.  If the surface jiggles and looks wet when you open the door, don't even touch it.  If it's starting to look baked and you touch the surface and you leave a finger print, it is not done.  As soon as you can touch the surface and it springs back... it's done.  Cake pulls away from the edges of the pan slightly as it bakes... the longer it bakes the more it shrinks.  You want to catch it just as that shrinking process starts.  Does the surface spring back?  Has it started to pull away from the edge?  Then it's done.  I should try the toothpick test, but I never remember.  Any longer and it will start to dry out.

Bring it out of the oven, put waxed paper over the top of the hot cake and then add a cutting board, a piece of cardboard... a plate... something... over that.  Put the cake pan with the waxed paper against the solid surface and FLIP the cake over.  A friend of mine baked lots of cakes, but she would leave them out on the counter to cool for hours and then wonder why they turned out so dry.  As soon as you can, remove the pan and wrap the warm cake in plastic wrap.  I've never had the plastic wrap actually melt into the cake and I'll wrap a steaming hot cake, so don't worry about that.  The plastic wrap and the waxed paper on the bottom are designed to seal in the moisture of the cake, try not to leave any bits of cake uncovered.


If you'll need to carve the cake or split layers for filling, or if you won't be using the cake until the following day, then place the cake in the freezer once it has cooled and been securely wrapped.  It's easy to carve a frozen cake, but very difficult (if not impossible) on fresh moist cake.  Cake is very sensitive to picking up freezer odors, so don't leave it in there indefinitely but overnight or till the weekend should be fine. 


Take the cake out of the freezer, carve if desired and ice immediately, even as the cake is still frozen.  Garnish and serve.  It thaws quickly and if you do this step just before a meal, it will just be chilly by the time you serve it, rather than frozen.


It's an easy recipe, and if you get it out of the oven at the right time, and keep it wrapped up tight until it's time for the icing... you should have an excellent moist chocolate cake.

Shhhh... this ultra easy little recipe has been my little secret for a long time!  Try it and let me know how it goes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Oh... I'm not sure if I should confess this or not... but it you like Whoopie Pies...

as I do... (And who doesn't like whoopie pies?!) Then simply line a cookie sheet with parchment and using tablespoons, make drop cookies with this recipe. Bake them at 350 degrees for about seven minutes.  Watch these close so they don't over bake. They should be cakey, not crispy.  Add whoopie pie filling or vanilla butter cream between two halves. (Some people use marshmallow fluff)  I leave some out and wrap the rest individually and freeze them. I love these, especially right from the freezer on a hot summer day.

Savor the Flavors,

Carmen Rose

I love to cook

Here are some of the things I've made, or cooked with.  I was wading through some of my ba-zillion photos on my computer and started to realize that I take lots of photos of food, but don't manage to write bog posts about all the food I photograph.  So this post is designed to catch me up.  One day I'll be a foodie, but for now I'll just enjoy eating!  LOL!

Savor the flavors
-Carmen Rose

Quail Eggs with Alton Brown & Benedict (perfect for the Hollandaise!)

Hmmm... I have two dozen quail eggs from my CSA... what to do? What to do! As a child I hated eggs and realized later that I had been allergic to them. I would eat them when I had to, then be nauseous for most of the morning. In recent years have I tried them again and realized that they didn't make me sick anymore, plus - I kinda liked them. I'm not a fan of yellow goo oozing from a fried egg. I don't like the texture of whites or yolks in a hard boiled egg. I do, however, LOVE a good scramble or omelet. So with all that in mind... I am going to try to make something wonderful with quail eggs.

It seems to me that the first step in doing something wonderful with quail eggs must include... Bacon! I cook bacon in the oven, it's so ultra easy and nobody has to hover over the range while a fine spray of grease coats everything nearby. Just line a pan with foil, spread out the bacon and cover it with foil (to keep that fine spay of bacon grease off of the inside of your oven) and bake at 400 until it's the crispness you prefer (between 20 - 30 mins.) I like it crispy, DH likes it chewy. (So I make it crisphewy.) While I was at it, I tried making some little cup like shapes out of bacon, just to see if it would work.  I curled up some bacon in some foil cupcake cups and covered that with foil.

And into the oven it went:

And then I started on the Hollandaise sauce.  I used the Alton Brown recipe that calls for butter chunks rather than clarified butter.  It sounded easier to me, plus Alton Brown is a genius.  If he says it will work... it will work!  There are three organic chick egg yolks in here (I get 1 doz free range, organic, yadda yadda eggs in my CSA box each two weeks.)  STIR!

Add a few chunks of butter at a time and keep stirring, make sure it doesn't get too hot.  Don't want to make scrambled eggs!

OO00oooo... pretty!  Add the lemon juice, salt and cayenne.  I added those, then added more for a little additional flavor.  I ended up using the juice of half a lemon, nice bit of tang!

The bacon came out of the oven looking all lovely and filling the kitchen with "ode to cooked PIG!"  (yum)

I don't have photos of the next steps cause it all pretty much happens all at once.  The English muffins went in the toaster oven and I broke four little quail eggs into a round ring in my egg skillet and began frying them.  Eggs Benedict call for poached eggs, but that's an adventure for another day when I want to work with chicken eggs.  This whole adventure started with Quail eggs... so I fried them a bit, pried them off the cookie cutter round and flipped them.  They were SO cute in there cooking away, but quail eggs are really hard to crack.  The shells are very soft and the membranes are pretty strong.  But they are O SO CUTE!  (I had to go after a piece of shell with  my tweezers, that's why there are tweezers in my kitchen.)

Get the English muffins from the toaster oven, add the bacon, top with the four fried quail eggs...

Hurry now, eggs are never good cold!

Top with the Hollandaise and run to the herb garden for some fresh chives and sprinkle those on top.  I called the man and he sat down to eat his... I looked up and it was gone while I was still working on mine.  He eyed my plate while I finished mine, then he licked his plate clean.  Yes, literally.  He kept eying mine until I gave him the last bite.  Not bad, not bad at all.

What a lovely breakfast!  (DH's second breakfast, my first)  Hmmm... I still had those little rounds of bacon, so the next experiment involved getting quail eggs into the little bacon rounds.  As you can see from the photo, it really only worked about 3 out of 12 cases.  What a silly MESS!

I decided that if they already looked that bad, flipping them wasn't going to hurt them.  So... over they went - as one solid mass.  Then I picked them back apart...  I put some Hollandaise on the plate, tucked three little quail eggs in bacon baskets into the sauce.  I sprinkled this with the rest of the chives.  Now they aren't exactly pretty, they didn't turn out looking at all like I imagined... HOWEVER!  When one pops one of these little buggas into one's mouth... it does elicit an involentary creamy-smokey-bacon-and-egg YUMMMMMMmmmmm!

Ok, so not entirely pretty food... but a pretty big YUM! 

I love my CSA!  (Community Supported Agriculture) 

I would never have tried quail eggs without them!

Savoring the Flavors,

-Carmen Rose

Yumm

I made scones for the first time the other day. They turned out soft and yummy, blueberry scones with blackberry glaze... especially good warm from the oven. But of course everything is good warm from the oven.

I made these chicken chimichangas with home made salsa inside and home made guacamole outside, talk about YUM.  I'm making myself hungry here!

One of the first things I made on my new range was scrambled veggies...

Oh, with some egg thrown in... and some melted cheese on top, fresh cracked pepper and sea salt.  Oh mercy, that's good food.  I like mango chutney with them, O yeah!

The weather has been mild and beautiful here (with the exception of yesterday and today when it hit over 90 degrees) perfect for eating on the back deck.  Pull up a deck chair and some good food, sit back and enjoy the view.  Yummm...

My Mom made strawberry pie Monday evening, now I'll tell ya... THAT's a lotta yum, especially with vanilla ice cream.  I ate a big piece then went back for a second round.  Mercy, that was GOOD!

And talking about it is only making me hungry all over again... and there are two pieces left in the fridge...

Happy Creating, Happy Consuming,
-Carmen Rose

And it was YUM!

Spiced Shrimp White Pizza
Dough, olive oil, basil, sea salt and fresh cracked pepper, garlic, onions, yellow peppers, freshly grated Parmesan cheese, fresh spinach and good quality motz. I sauteed the shrimp in olive oil and (spiced with fajita seasoning) and put them on the pizza in the last few moments of baking the pizza. I topped it with cut green onions the second it came out of the oven.
Delicious, and pretty good for ya also! Yummm... You would not believe how good it smelled when it came out of the oven! Tasted good also.

Bon Appetit,
-Carmen Rose

Chocolate Cake

Last evening I tried an experiment. I’d heard a friend mention 5 minute microwave cake, they raved over how good it was. I was curious, I researched it a bit and found that this kind of thing gets a very mixed reviews. So I had to try it.

Here's the recipe if you'd like to try it: (serves two)
(But before you scamper off to get out your mug and reach for an egg... please FIRST read the rest of the post!)   =)

* * * * * * * * * *
5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
a small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug
Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.
Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed! Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.
* * * * * * * * *

As an aside, my first business was one I started in college making wedding cakes for my friends. I am familiar with chocolate cake, and I may be a *tad* bit biased about what constitutes good cake. But I followed the recipe, and popped that thang in the mic. I used two mugs instead of one because I wasn’t going to eat the whole thing anyway. I watched it turning, and I started to catch the aroma of cooking cake. Hmmm… maybe this won’t be so bad, it smells good. I pulled it out, I wasn’t sure what to think of the appearance, so I popped it out on a plate and cut it open. It was done, no question about that. So how did it taste? It tasted exactly like you’d expect chocolate cake to taste that had been made in the microwave… it was… uh… rubbery. I figured I could get past the texture if the flavor was good, was it? Nope. Never again. Dang, how cool would it have been if it HAD been good?! Who doesn’t like the idea of a nice warm chocolate cake in 5 minutes and only dirtying a spoon and a mug?

I had a good friend over to Studio B today. We finished up a lovely lunch and I assessed the situation. Was that complete? Or did we need something yet? I looked at her and asked if she’d be interested in having molten chocolate cake?  We could make it together. She thought for a moment, I could see the wheels turning. And then she answered with a resounding “Yes!” I laughed with delight, some people are so afraid of good food that they won’t even try something if they think it’s loaded with calories. (Sometimes things that taste rich and decadent don't actually aren't all that loaded, it's just that everything is in balance - that's a mark of a great recipe in my opinion!)

And so we made chocolate molten cake. It didn’t take long to make, it took twelve minutes to bake. We added a little bit of peppermint ice cream…. and it was good! Well… I should say… it was excellent. There could not be more difference between the two chocolate cake experiences. It’s very different kind of cake than I would make for a wedding or special occasion cake, but it’s really really good.

So I ask you, why would anyone ever eat a cake that took five minutes to bake, when you could have this chocolate molten cake that took only seven additional minutes to bake? Because I’ll tell ya, they aren’t even in the same ballpark when it comes to flavor! Believe me, it is worth the wait!  (Can seven minutes reasonably be considered "a wait"?!)

And so... (Drum rollllllllllll)

I'm very pleased to present

The Emeril Lagasse Molten Chocolate Cake Recipe

(serves four)

And I made it with this baking chocolate... the stuff is HIGH TEST.

 

Seriously, there is a reason why dark chocolate is a super food

I try not to knock it.

And please allow me to point out that cake for cake... 

the molten chocolate recipe will have less calories.  

~ Think of it as health food. ~ 

Wishing you warm chocolaty goodness,

-Carmen Rose

PS WHY DIDN'T I TAKE PHOTOS?!

(Because for just a second there, living was more important than documenting.)

Julie and Julia!

I’m a blogger, I watch Food Network almost religiously and I have a fantasy of some day finishing my book(books) and having it(them) published. And when I was a kid I would pretend I was cooking for an audience, no kidding! Sometimes I think I still do cook as if people are watching. (When I cooked professionally, people were watching.) And I LOVED the movie Julie and Julia! It touched nerve after nerve after nerve in my life and I laughed and cried. I got this copy of the movie from blockbuster but I’ll get my own copy, promise. And I’ll watch again and again because I need a reminder that it’s important to do what you love even when there isn’t much support. That’s ok, I still adore creating something delicious, I still love to create anything artistic and I still love to write. And right now, that’s all the important stuff. Oh, and making some music along the way. And Julia loved well, and was so beautifully loved, and what an amazing miracle that is when it happens. That about covers it. Bon Appétit!

While I’m writing, let me tell you about a little dessert I created this week. I fought this one the whole way because I could NOT make up my mind what I wanted the finished product to be and I’d been to the grocery once and had decided that I was NOT going back. I wanted strawberries, the ones at the store were mauve, not red. (I hate mauve) I wanted to do the strawberry, herb and spice combination that I saw a French guy do that was DIVINE, but there was no yum to be found in those berries, so I kept on going.

Meryl Streep as Julia!

I’ve been wanting to try this divine looking chocolate shortbread. (By Alex Guarnaschelli) The original idea was a chocolate version of gingerbread, since I have a low tolerance for gingerbread and I’ve already had my fill for the year. I baked a double batch and don’t even ask how much butter is in there, they have the most WONDERFUL texture. Crunchy but not hard at all, it’s melt in your mouth shortbread, not biscotti. I cut them into rounds with a cookie cutter after the pan came out of the oven. However, I did not have the sour cream or white chocolate for the dipping sauce, and I didn’t have cream of tarter to do something with egg whites, or the time to let a mousse set up, so that wasn’t going to happen. And I thought back to the old days, one of my favorite creamy fillings was whoopie pie filling, so I pulled out an old Mennonite cookbook and made this light and barely sweet cream, added some peppermint and voila! A light fluffy mint cream for the shortbread. The whole thing required a chocolate sauce so I whipped up ganache to drizzle and crumbled some shortbread cookie over the top. Someone had mentioned peppermint ice cream a while back and so I picked that up while I was out. Now the interesting thing about the ice cream is that it is sweet. The shortbread wasn’t very sweet, kind of like eating crunchy buttery dark chocolate, the whipped filling was just barely sweet… the cold sweet ice cream pretty much brought the whole thing together. Or was it the rich velvety ganache? That might have done it. Whatever it was, in my mouth it was wonderful. And guests seemed to enjoy it, and so that was fun. PLUS: LEFTOVERS at my house! (YUM PERK!)

(Plating in someone else's kitchen on their plates)

Sometimes I think cooking is just another art media, one that I really enjoy. And it’s all about the process! And it’s a nice perk if the food turns out to be delicious in the end. Maybe I’ll treat myself to a copy of Julia Child’s cookbook this Christmas and try something loaded with butter with a French name. That sounds lovely! Bon Appétit, and if you haven’t seen the move… do so at once!

While Waiting for the Paint to Dry

I decided to try something a little different for dinner. I pulled a pork tenderloin out of the freezer and put it straight on the grill, seasoning it with garlic olive oil and lemon. I turned it very slowly so that each side got nice and brown.

As that was cooking we sliced up some potatoes thin, set them to rest in balsamic vinegar for a bit and then put them on the grill. I turned them once, brought them out and dusted them with sea salt and a little more balsamic vinegar. We ate those rather quickly while waiting for the pork to finish cooking. They were Good!

I cut into a pineapple and it was a good one. The first two slices were devoured on the spot before I realized that it might be good on the grill. I love serving fresh pineapple with a strawberry lime yogurt sauce, I love that. I cook with canned pineapple some, on pizza, in quiche and sweet and sour dishes, but I’ve never grilled fresh pineapple before. So I got some ideas from friends on Facebook and couldn’t make up my mind between sweet or savory, so I did both. First was a lime, jalapeño oil and fresh basil combination. The second was vanilla bean paste, brown sugar and fresh mint combo. A soon as we took the pork loin off the grill I popped the pineapple on. While the cheddar garlic bread was toasting the pineapple cooked, a few minutes per side.

I cut into that pork roast and sliced it up. Hubby wandered by and helped himself. “Da-Yum!” LOL! I think THAT is a compliment! =) The pineapple came off the grill and the toast came off at about the same time and we started in. Hubby liked the sweet one with the vanilla and brown sugar, I think I liked the one with the jalapeno kick a little better. I was really surprised how good it was. I would do the sweet version again with a desert, maybe served with something creamy plus something crispy. And I would do the spicy one again and figure out a way to ratchet up the heat a little more, it was a bit on the mild side for me but still lovely. Both were wonderful paired with the pork. And the crispy edges to the bread were nice also.

I looked at my plate and had to laugh, it was all kind of beigy yellow, which is totally not my thing. A meal should have color, but what this one lacked in color it more than made up in flavor. That was fun!