Chocolate peanut butter cake. Alex’s birthday was this past weekend and in case you are new here, let me give you a loose outline of a Standard Dessert Alex Politely Requests: Chocolate. Chocolate with chocolate. Chocolate with caramel. Chocolate with toffee. Chocolate with coffee. What, can you sense a theme or something? This year we added one more to the chocolate cake pile: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake. Because did I mention the chocolate cake? You might be noticing a recurring theme here this summer, but what can I say? If you like baking cakes, especially celebration cakes, you really want to get this book. But here’s the other best part (you know, if the notion of a boston cream pie cake wasn’t enough to convince you)–a lot of these cake recipes are one-bowl.
Peanut butter, previously: Peanut Butter Brownies and Peanut Butter CookiesOne year ago: Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake This cake is INTENSE. Makes an 8-inch triple-layer cake; serves 12 to 16 (the book says, I say a heck of a lot more) 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 1. 2. 1.
Chocolate Wonders. Cheesecakes. Red Velvet Cake Recipe. Red Velvet Cake. Until I met my husband, I had never even heard of a red velvet cake. Since it seems to be a southern specialty, I guess it’s not surprising that I never ran across one growing up in California. But thanks to the California cupcake boom, it seems like there’s now a cupcake shop on every corner and every single one of them features some version of miniature red velvet cake.
But that’s not why I made this cake. My husband’s family LOVES Red Velvet Cake. His sister Katie gets it every year for her birthday, but they all love it. And partly because I was tired of waiting, but mostly in celebration of a momentous occasion, I decided to take matters into my own hands, and give this cake a try myself. You see, right before we left Sicily last year, my husband was promoted. I even toyed with the idea of a Black Forest Cake, another one that gets requested from time to time (maybe next time, Justin). Now, I won’t lie. Especially my hands. I thought this really was a great cake. Red Velvet Sheet Cake. I’m a sheet cake type of girl. I love the simplicity…the ease…the I-don’t-have-to-make-layer-cakes-if-I-don’t-want-to-dangit beauty of a sheet cake.
With a sheet cake, it’s all about the cake, and very little about stacking and icing and crumb layers and balancing and cursing because you just don’t have it in you to create the beautiful layer cakes you see out in the world. (See: I Am Baker. Girl’s got talent.) This is the red velvet cake recipe from my cookbook; I adapted it ever so slightly when I made it yesterday afternoon. Guys, this frosting. And after trying my first bite last night, it was instantly clear that these two things were M.F.E.O. (If you know what that stands for, you watch way too many movies. Let’s make the cake! Here’s what you need. Begin by throwing cake flour and salt in a sifter (Thanks to Bridget, who very kindly sent me a sifter after discovering during her visit here that I just use big, unwieldy fine mesh strainers to sift my dry ingredients.)
Two eggs… Bueller? Mom’s apple cake. My mother makes the best apple cake, and has for as long as I can remember. Big cinnamon-y chunks of apple nestle into a coffee cake I would call “unbelievably” moist, but really, should not be hard to believe considering that my mother is also the one who brought us another of the best cake recipes on this site, The Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Cake.
The cake gets better the second day, when the apples juices seep further into the cake and I have seen the conviction of many a chocolate-obsessed/fruit dessert non-believers crumble upon trying a single slice of it. The apple cake, it’s some good stuff. Not above pilfering content for my website from my nearest and dearest, I talked my mom into coming over (and heaving up all 51 stairs–she likes to count them) on Sunday to bake the cake with me for the New Years dinner at my in-laws today.
I wanted to get the recipe down, but also to get the back story on the cake recipe. As it turns out, the actual story is, uh, a little less romanticized.