2 Minute Vegan Chocolate Mug Cake

I have seen many recipes for the single serve 2 or 5 minute mug cake. I admit I was a bit leery of them; I didn’t think they could taste very good. Oh, how wrong I was.

A month or so ago I was craving some kind of chocolate dessert. One problem, I was out of eggs, a key ingredient. I look at numerous websites, looking at recipes, trying to find a non-egg version. No luck. No problem, I thought, I’ll just make up my own, which is what I proceeded to do. The first draft was pretty dry, but edible. So I spent a lot of time tweaking and changing ratios and ingredients, until I finally achieved what I was looking for, a dark, moist, chocolaty cake.

I have made it will all the add-ins I listed. Sometimes alone, others times I’d combine them.

Another thing I did was experiment with oats for flour, just to try to make it a bit more “healthy.”

The best thing about this recipe is that in under 5 minutes of a chocolate craving, you'll be digging into a delicious chocolaty delight.

Fresh Strawberry Cake

I’m still slowing getting back into the swing of things. It took me 2 days to recover from the drive up north for my uncle’s memorial. Then, we get back and I discover I’m out of one of my medications. I spent that day going through horrible withdrawal; shaking, headaches, rocking back and forth. Not fun. The pharmacy, God bless them, expedited my refill when I explained the situation.

Needless to say, during all this food was the last thing on my mind. But now I’m finally forcing myself to get some of my posts together.

I made this strawberry cake awhile ago, I just never got around to posting about it. I strayed a bit from the original recipe and I made the cake a few times before I got it right.

The crumb and texture is divine. You could use just about any fruit. I might try it with some peaches from the farmer's market.

Fresh whipped cream tends to get runny if it sits too long. I found by using powdered sugar and a bit of cornstarch I could get a whipped cream that would last the 2 days this cake lasted in our fridge.

Dark Chocolate Espresso Cake

I should call this cake death by chocolate it's so rich. The first time I had this recipe was 2 years ago, when I was gluten free (for my elimination diet). It was love at first bite. I like that this flourless cake doesn't have a lot of butter in it. A lot of flourless chocolate cake recipes call for 2 sticks of butter--no thank you, my stomach would be in knots for days.

This recipe is perfect. The cake is so dense,moist, and delicious. It's wonderful served with whipped cream and raspberries. A note about the cake; it rises when it bakes and falls when it cools, resulting in a crackled top. But don't worry, the cake will be gone before anyone notices a cracked top.

Tiramisù

Here is another recipe typed up from my sister. We both love tiramisù. I remember the summer I spent in Italy, I ordered tiramisù while out to dinner with my cousin and her friend while visiting Milan. The waiter, who had been friendly and joking with us American girls, stood behind me and, putting his arms around me, picked me up. I was confused. He then explained to us that, in Italian, tiramisù, literally means "pick me up." Don't worry if you find this dessert a bit runny, authentic Italian tiramisù should be that way. It's an involved recipe that takes a bit more effort to make, but in the end it's worth the extra work.

Also, sorry about the crappy photos. I forgot to take my camera flash to Philly, so the photos didn't turn out well. But don't worry, it still tasted amazing.

And now onto my lovely sister for the recipe.....

Tiramisù is one of my favorite desserts. I’ve started with Williams-Sonoma’s recipe and found it made WAY too much, so after many experimentations, I came up with these ingredient proportions that make just the right amount for me. This recipe is a commitment; however, even with using an electric mixer to perform the whisking, be prepared to use a lot of cooking bowls and utensils (for those more along the lines of being culinary neophytes, although it may be tempting to just reuse your whisk(s) and bowls between steps, remember the cream and egg whites (separately) should be whisked in a clean bowl with a clean whisk. Get a sink full of soapy water and wash things in between steps (running under cold water for the final rinse) if needed.

So yes, afterward you may find yourself surrounded by a mound of accouterments, but since this delectable treat won’t be ready for 4 hours, this can be time well-spent.

Tea Scented Glazed Sponge Cake

While searching for low oxalate desserts I came across this Emeril recipe. Sponge cake is on either my good list or limit list; I can’t remember. I just know it’s low oxalate. As usual, I halved the recipe and made a few minor changes. I have never made a sponge cake before so I wasn’t sure how much it would rise while baking. Therefore, I poured it into two 4 ½“ springform pans. Turns out I probably could have gotten away with pouring it all it into one small pan; the cakes were pretty thin. But with two cakes, I decided to make two kinds of glazes. The honey cinnamon glaze was definitely our favorite. When Mr. Surly was eating it he said it “tasted like Christmas.” The other glaze I made was just a lemon, vanilla, milk and powdered sugar glaze. Not bad, but nothing to get excited about. I served it with powdered sugar and a dollop of homemade whipped cream. Yum. I can’t wait to make this again and experiment with different herbal teas.

Berries would be a great accompaniment to this. Unfortunately for me, berries are high oxalate, so I can't have them. But you should serve it with berries and think of me as you savor each berry, and I can eat vicariously through you.

I Wanna Dip My (Cake) Balls In It!

Unless you watched The State you probably don’t get the title of my post.

Does anyone else remember the sketch comedy show “The State” that was on Mtv in the early 90’s? I think it came on after 120minutes. OMG, my sister and I loved that show. Barry and Levon were probably our favorite characters. $240 worth of chocolate pudding, anyone? We waited and waited for years for it to be released on dvd. It finally was back in may/jun of 2009. My sister pre-ordered copies for each of us on amazon and sent me mine while I was in the hospital recovering from my cholecystectomy (gall bladder surgery).

Louie was a recurring character on The State who carried around ping pong balls exclaiming, “I wanna dip my balls in it!” to everything. If you want to check a sketch with Louie, and get a good laugh click here. Each time I dipped my cake balls, I kept chuckling to myself thinking of that skit.

Anyway, back to the cake balls. I went straight to the authority, Bakerella, for instructions. It didn't look too difficult, sounded like something I could handle.

It took me three days to make these, but not because they were difficult, but because I was sick. I baked the cake one day. Then the next day I broke it up. I started trying to crumble it with my fingers, but that wasn’t very effective. So I used my hand mixer--not such a good idea. I had pieces of cake flying out everywhere. Once I added the frosting that helped out a bit with flying cake crumbs.

When it came time to roll the balls, I used various sizes of heart shaped cookie cutters to make cute hearts. I also left some round balls as well for variety.


By the time I had all the balls rolled and the cleaned cake off the walls and floor of the kitchen I had no more energy to dip the balls. So I covered the cake balls with waxed paper and left them in the fridge overnight.

Finally, on the third day I was ready to dip and decorate. Having never made cake balls before, I tweeted out asking for any tips/tricks. Haley, from The Girly Girl Cooks advised me to put a bit of shortening in the chocolate to help thin it out. It worked great, thanks Haley, for the tip!

I used dark chocolate and red vanilla wafers to dip. Once the balls were dry I added detail. I put a couple Tbls of chocolate and vanilla chips in snack sized Ziploc bags, and cut of the tiniest portion of the corner to pipe on designs and words. I added a bit of red food coloring to the white chocolate chips to make some pink for piping.

Since it made so many I put some in the freezer so that I can pull more out as needed. I'm definitely hooked on the cake ball craze.


If anyone has any more tips/tricks/hints, please, leave them in the comments.

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

I was thrilled when Claire asked me to be a part of her and Taylor's Merry Mondays. I was very excited to see cranberries were the first featured ingredient. I love cranberries and have made lots of delicious dishes including them recently.

I have been trying to plan out my holiday treats, and the options are endless. She didn’t specify whether we were suppose to make sweets or savories with the week’s ingredient. I’m assuming a dessert/treat since it’s holiday baking time. I had half a bag of cranberries left over from Thanksgiving that I hadn’t decided what to do with. While flipping through this year’s Cook’s Illustrated holiday baking magazine I saw this recipe for cranberry upside down cake. I’ve never made, nor eaten an upside down cake. I’m not sure why, I guess they never appealed to me very much. I thought it would be fun to try something new. I didn’t want a big 9” cake, since I knew the two of us wouldn’t be able to eat it, so I halved the recipe.

I tried a piece as soon as it was slightly cooled, and it was okay. However, when I went to have a piece a day later, it was so much better. (I had it sitting, covered, at room temp). I also added a (generous) dollop of whipped cream. Yum, this was a tasty, different kind of dessert, more tart than sweet. Which is perfect for the holiday season when I'm usually overloaded on sweet treats. I wish I had thought to put a splash of bourbon in the cranberry topping, that would also have taken it up a notch. Why is it that bourbon makes everything taste better? Also, I split this up between two pans, and that made the cake a bit too thin in my opinion. So next time I’ll just keep in all in one 4½ inch pan.

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream Frosting

The following story is an illustration of how crazy all the medications I’m on are making me. The other day, while browsing the internet for food options and ideas, I came across a fall soup served in mini pumpkins. I just skimmed over the recipe (I will later regret this) thinking I would make it sometime soon. I went to the grocery store a day or two later and saw they had pumpkin pie pumpkins on sale. “Awesome,” I thought to myself, “I can get a couple of these pumpkins and make that soup this week.” Oh, how wrong I was.

A couple days after buying the pumpkins I pulled up the recipe to make the soup. Well, when I went back to the bookmarked recipe I discovered the soup was served in individual acorn squash “bowls”, not mini pumpkins. I could have sworn the first time I looked at the recipe they were in pumpkins. Also, there wasn't really a recipe, just a description of the soup. How in the world did I think that I had "skimmed" a recipe? I wanted to kick myself for relying on my (not-so-accurate) memory instead of verifying the ingredients before I went to the grocery store. I wish I could say this is the first time something like this has happened to me, but sadly it is not. You would think I’d have learned by now not to rely on my heavily medicated brain. But I guess I’m in denial about how mixed up the meds actually make me.

I then found myself stuck with two pumpkins and no idea what to do with them. So I let them sit around a bit longer to think. After mulling about it for a few days I decided to make some kind of pumpkin dessert with them. I roasted the pumpkins, scooped out the flesh, and made my own pumpkin puree. My two little pumpkins yielded about 1 ½ cups of puree. I decided to make these cupcakes because they looked yummy and were highly rated.

The cupcakes are moist and full of pumpkin flavor, but I was not a fan of the icing; I’m glad I only made half the icing recipe. I found it too sugary and I wish I had left some cupcakes un-iced. Oh well. Mr. Surly loved these, after trying one he uttered a “Holy shit, these are really good,” and went on to pop about 3 more mini cupcakes in his mouth. I bet you can guess who ate most of the batch.

Also, I apologize about the crappy job I did of icing the cupcakes; I’ve never been a good ice-er. The recipe yielded 24 mini cupcakes and 6 regular sized cupcakes. I had some bourbon and decided to add some to my cupcakes and icing for a little something extra.

Almond Cake

This has quickly become our favorite dessert. It’s sweet, but not overly so. I serve it with whipped cream. I buy almonds already sliced and toasted from Trader Joe’s. All I did was measure out 1 cup and poured it into the food processor--so easy. I have made it using cake flour and all purpose, and didn’t notice much of a difference between the two versions. We usually share a cake; I can’t eat a whole one in one sitting; it’s just too much.