Chocolate Raspberry Cake

Hubby asked for a chocolate raspberry cake for his birthday this year. After scouring the Internet for some good recipes for about 2 hours and coming up empty handed I decided to make up my own..

First we start off with my FAVORITE chocolate cake recipe.. I kinda made up this cake to incorporate my favorite things.. After a few misfires I've finally perfected this recipe and I have to say it's AMAZING! But then again how could yo ever go wrong mixing chocolate, coffee, and bourbon?!?! We're going to call this one Coco-Loco Cake because well.. my hubby defiantly thought I was loco when I was trying to figure this one out! Hahah One great thing about this cake mix is that there is no need for a mixer! You can just whisk everything together:)

Coco-Loco Cake
What you will need:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
pinch of salt
1 3/4 cup hot coffee
5 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, cut into small pieces
2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/4 cup bourbon
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

What you will do:
In one bowl mix the dry ingredients flour, baking soda, and salt. Then make sure you have your butter and chocolate chopped into small pieces and put them in another bowl. Pour the hot coffee over the chocolate and butter making both melt and stir/let sit/stir until all of it is melted together. Add the bourbon and sugar and whisk the sugar quickly so as to avoid it clumping and then let the coffee mixture cool until it's room temp. Mix the dry ingredients into the coffee and bourbon mixture in 2 parts and then add the eggs and vanilla and give it a few more whisks until everything is good and mixed together.

Now usually what I do is coat 2 round 9in pans and then when they are done stack them on top of each other but because I wanted this one to be 3 smaller layers I just used one of my 3in tall baking pans and baked this in 1 cake pan. However you decide to use it.. this cake mix is pretty flexible! So you will want to coat the pans with vegetable spray and then line the bottom with parchment paper before adding the cake mix. Then  pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake at 275 for 45 minutes(for 2 9in rounds) baking time may need to be adjusted for other pans but basically bake it until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean :)

When they are done baking your going to want to let them cool completely on wire racks in the pan. I find it's much easier to decorate after the cake is completely chilled so after they cool on the counter in the pan I put them in the refrigerator,  in their pans, wrapped in plastic to cool even more. Once chilled completely take a knife and run it along the inside edges of the pan and then turn it upside down and tap the bottom the cake should slide out pretty easily. :) SO like I said for this cake I put the entire cake batter into one 3"tall 8"round cake pan and I separated it into 3 layers by knife :)

So, we have the chocolate cake as requested now to add the raspberries. Unfortunately, raspberries are not currently in season... Yea, wonderful time to start craving them huh! LOL So, I had to do something with frozen raspberries. Here is what I did

Raspberry Filling

What you need:

1 bag of frozen raspberries (I think it was 12 ounces?)

1/3 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon lemon juice

What you will do:

Thaw and drain the raspberries saving the juice from the berries. Add enough water to the juice drained from the berries to equal 1 1/4cup of juice. Add liquid to pan with sugar and cornstarch and heat until bubbly and think. Remove from the heat and add lemon juice then fold in berries and chill until ready to use.

Swiss Buttercream Frosting

What you will need:
5 large egg whites
1cup + 2tablespoons sugar
4 sticks of butter softened and cut into chunks
2 teaspoons of vanilla
pinch of salt

What you will do:

Arm you mixer with a whisk attachment. Take the mixer bowl and make sure it is thoroughly cleaned because in this recipe just a little bit of grease will kill you! take the 5 egg whites and sugar and whisk them together. Then take the mixer bowl and make it a water bath.. Like this.....

Heat up the egg white and sugar mixture until the sugar is dissolved then transfer to the mixer with the whisk attached and put it on high for about 1-2 min until the eggs whip up thick like this

Then switch your mixer to the paddle attachment.....

Add the cubes of butter and continue to mix until the frosting is smooth and silky. If it starts to curdle just keep mixing! After it's all mixed together add the pinch of salt and the vanilla and quickly mix that in as well. Then frost the cake like normal!

Lastly it's time for the finishing touches! For this cake I took chocolate sprinkles and put them around the bottom of the cake Then put a chocolate ganache over the top. for the ganash I just took one of the monster Hershey's bars, I think they are like 4.4oz or something? Put it in my double boiler with about 1/4 cup of heavy cream and melted the chocolate.

Once melted you want to let it cool (this it the tricky part) you don't want it to cool so much that it starts getting hard again but enough so that it won't melt you icing and make an ooey-gooey mess running all over you counter. So.. When you think the chocolate is cool enough to pour over the top than do so by keeping the chocolate in the middle of the cake. Take a spoon and spread out the chocolate to the edges of the circle but then let gravity take it's course after that by dripping down the side of the cake :) Once it's all done.. I have to say it's one yummy cake, inside and out!



Hot and Sour Soup & Chinese Chicken Stock

So, if you think being in an Asian country makes it easy to find Asian you are sadly mistaken... Since we've been in Korea we've yet to find a good Chinese restaurant or good sushi.. :( So, when in need improvise! I, or I should say WE because it was defiantly a group craving which inspired this hunt for Chinese recipes, have found the most awesom-est Hot and Sour Soup recipe! So I thought I would share :)

I'm going to start with the Chicken Stock so if you are using bullion cubes or broth you can skip this step and move on to just making the soup. :)

Chinese Chicken Stock

This recipe should yield you 2 quarts of chicken stock which is just what you need for the Hot and Sour Soup

What you will need

1 (4lbs) whole chicken

1 bunch green onions halved

4 garlic cloves, smashed

3 in piece of fresh ginger, whacked open with the flat side of a knife

1 onion, halved

1 tsp whole white peppercorns

about 3 quarts cold water

What you will do

Put the chicken along with all the other ingredients in a big stock pot and simmer for about an hour uncovered. Your going to need to skim off the foam periodically. When it's done take out the chicken and then strain the rest of the juice so that all of the big particles are taken out of it.

Hot and Sour Soup

What you will need:

1 oz of Chinese fungi (this could be Black fungus, cloud ears, wood fungus, wood ear fungus, ear fungus, Chinese fungus) usually looks something like this...

 

Comes in a package like this....

2 tablespoons canola oil

1 in piece of ginger, peeled and grated

1 tbsp red chile paste (this is what gives the soup the "hot" kick so if you wanna tone it down use less)

1/2 c canned bamboo shoots, sliced

1/4 lbs pork, shredded

1/4 c soy sauce

1/4 c rice vinegar

1 tsp salt

1 tsp white pepper

pinch of sugar

and 2 quarts of Chinese Chicken Stock (or regular chicken stock will also work)

1 square of firm tofu, drained and sliced in 1/4in strips

3 tablespoons cornstarch mixed in 1/4 c water

1 large egg, beaten

chopped green onions or cilantro if desired for garnish

What you will do

Your going to want to first rehydrate the fungi so place it in a bowl with super hot water and let it sit for 30 min to reconstitute. Then drain and rinse them off. Heat the oil in a wok, of if you don't have a wok big enough for all of the ingredients (or even at all) a regular soup pot will work. Add the ginger, chili paste, fungi, bamboo shoots, and the pork; cook and stir for 1 min to infuse the flavor. Combine the soy sauce, vinegar, salt, pepper, and sugar in a small bowl  then pour it into the wok and mix everything together - You will REALLY smell the soup right now! Then pour in the chicken stock and bring it to a boil letting it simmer for 10 minutes. Add the tofu and cook 3 more minutes. Dissolve the cornstarch in the water and stir it until smooth then mix the slurry into the soup and continue to simmer until the soup thickens. Lastly remove the soup from the heat and stir it in 1 direction so that you get a current going, stop stirring and slowly pour the beaten egg in a steady stream. It should cook immediately and rise in like a feathering effect. Garnish if you want with the onions or cilantro and Voila! Awesome Hot and Sour Soup!

Rainbow cake... Or should I say cakes?

So, I got a request for a rainbow cake... The birthday girl wanted a cake with all the colors of the rainbow mixed up together. O-K Can do! Here is what I did...

What you will need:

Vegetable shortening + a lil bit of flour for the baking pans

3 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 1/3 cups sugar

5 large egg whites, room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups milk, room temperature

Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple gel food coloring

What you will do:

Make cake batter like normal So.... In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and sugar. Slowly add egg whites and mix until well combined. Add vanilla and mix until fully incorporated. Add flour mixture and milk in two alternating additions, beginning with the flour and ending with the milk. Mix until well combined. Then divide the batter into six bowls of even content... If you're like me (OCD and perfectionist) this is harder said than done!! My best guess is that each bowl has about 1 1/2cups of batter in it :)

Then you wanna take your gel paste colors... I use gel paste because you don't have to use as much as you would with like the liquid food colors you buy in the spice section of the grocery store but I'm sure that those would work in a pinch? I also recommend the Chef Mate colors over Wilton (ssshhh don't tell Wilton) I know I know I am usually a HUGE Wilton customer but Chef Mate colors I find to be more condensed so you use even less paste than you do with Wilton. The draw back is that Chef Mate doesn't have all of the colors that Wilton does so I have an array of different pastes :)

With each paste color your going to want to color your batter to the desired color. Remember use very little paste because a little goes a long way... AND you can always add more but you can't take away after it's been added :)

Once you have beautifully colored cake batter it's time to start the baking process :) Your going to grease and flour either an 8 or  9in baking pan and bake each color individually. I baked mine at 350 for about 15 min each or until a knife stuck in the middle comes out clean :)

Once baked then you want to cool and level off each layer and then stack in the desired order with a little bit of frosting in between each layer to hold them together. Now, I'm a fan of whipped icing so that's what I used on this cake.. It's super simple to make. Put 1 carton of heavy whipping cream and 3tbsp of powdered sugar in a mixing bowl and turn it on until the whipping cream turns into a thick, icing like consistency (also called stiff peaks). Then frost the outside and stick it in the fridge until it's ready to be consumed! And once cut you will have a lovely slice of rainbow on every plate :)

Now, if you remember the birthday girl had actually requested a cake with all the colors mixed up so I made her her very own cake. With this one I simply took 2 spoonfuls of batter out of each color before dumping them into 8in pans to be baked and I slowly added each color on top of each other starting with the red then adding the orange and so on and so fourth and that made a wonderful tie-dye looking cake that pleased the birthday girl :)

Happy rainbows!

Jello Shots to ring in 2012!

New Years.. what a better time to experiment with some new jello shots, right!?!?! Here are a few our clan tried on New Year's Eve. These are all pretty simple :)

#1 Margarita
3oz package lime Jello
8oz boiling water
4oz tequila
4oz sweet and sour/margarita mix

#2 Strawberry Daiquiri
3oz package Wild Strawberry Jello
8oz boiling water
6oz white rum
1oz sweet and sour/margarita mix

#3 Fuzzy Navel
3oz package Orange Jello
8oz boiling water
2oz vodka
6oz peach schnapps

#4 Cherry Amaretto
3oz package Cherry Jello
8oz boiling water
2oz cold water
6oz amaretto

#5 Sex on the Beach
3 oz package Orange Jello
8oz boiling cranberry juice
3oz peach schnapps
5oz vodka

#6 Jager Bomb
6oz package Orange Jello
1 can Red Bull, heated to boiling
4oz Jagermeister
2oz vodka
2oz cold water

#7 Mojito
3oz package lime Jello
8oz boiling water
6oz white rum
2oz cold water
mint leaves, chopped and crushed

#8 Peanut Butter and Jelly
"Jelly"
3 oz package Strawberry Jello
8oz boiling water
8oz vodka

"Peanut Butter"
1 envelope plain gelatin (Knox)
8oz cold water
2tbsp peanut butter
2oz Bailey's Irish Cream
2oz Amaretto
2oz butterscotch schnapps or hazelnut liqueur

For all of the jello shots the same instructions apply: Boil the water, add the jello and mix until dissolved, let cool, add alcohol stir and pour into cups, place in fridge and let set... EXCEPT the peanut butter and jelly shot which is somewhat the same but using Know you have to let the gelatin "bloom" so you put the cold water in a saucepan and sprinkle the jello packet over the top. Let it sit for a minute and then turn on the burner and bring the water to a boil stirring to make sure the jello is dissolved and then of course let cool, add alcohol, and voila!

I have to say the peanut butter and jelly shot I almost decided against making but figured what the heck! Might as well try... It is definitely one of those jello shots that should not be consumed unless already wasted! The texture is one that will mak you gag... And, at our house, with that "drunken Irish man" the peanut butter and jelly shot turned into that one everyone was peer-pressured into taking. Haha

Oh yea... and for the mojito I definitely recommend FRESH mint leaves... I couldn't find them here so I substituted with crushed dried mint leaves... Not so yummy!