Filipino Style Mocha Cake

My mom was reminiscing about the motherland a few days before her birthday.  In the Philippines, there is a bakery franchise called Goldilocks, which every good Filipino should know about.  Their cakes are delicious, and really like no other.  Seriously, I had a hard time making the cake not only taste like a famous Goldilocks Mocha cake, but it had to be light and fluffy just like it.  I eventually came up with the idea of sifting EVERYTHING!! Oh, and lots of egg whisking. (I just had to make sure the eggs didn't come from Iowa or Illinois)  After the second attempt, I perfected my Mocha version of the famous Goldilocks Cake.  Here goes:

INGREDIENTS:
 for the cake:
2 cups sifted flour
1 tsp. fine iodized salt
1-1/2 cups white sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
2 tbsp. instant coffee 
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup hot water
8 egg yolks
8 egg whites
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)


DIRECTIONS
for the cake

 Preheat oven to 350 deg F. Grease and flour 8 -inch round baking pans and 3 inch in height. For mocha roll, use 12 x 16 x 1.0 inches tray lined with parchment paper (lightly grease the bottom of pan before putting the liner).

1.  In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, 1 cup of the sugar, baking powder and coffee. Make a well in the center, amd pour in oil and hot water.
2. Beat the mixture at medium-low speed for 3 minutes.  Add the egg yolks one at a time. The set it aside
3. In another medium bowl, beat egg whites and cream of tartar medium high speed until frothy. Add the remaining 1/2 cup sugar in small portions, beating until mixture is stiff and glossy, like meringues.
4. Gently fold one fourth of beaten egg whites into batter, scrapping the bottom of bowl, until lightly blended. Gently fold about 1 cup of batter into beaten egg white mixture. Repeat until all the batter has been blended into egg white mixture. Pour evenly into prepared pans.
5. Bake for 25 - 35  minutes, then remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Fill and frost with coffee cream frosting and refrigerate. 

Now for the icing!!! yuuuum!!!

 This is the easy part!

Coffee Cream Frosting
INGREDIENTS
1 cup butter, cut into big chunks
1 tbsp. instant coffee
1 cup whipping cream, chilled
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted


DIRECTIONS

1. In a small mixing bowl of the electric mixer, beat butter at low-medium speed until it's nice and fluffy
2. Add instant coffee and beat for 1 minute. 
3. Add cream, little by little, beating well after each addition, until mixture is light and fluffy. 
4. add the powdered sugar in small portions, beating well after each additions, until mixture is smooth.
5. that's it! slather that delicious cake with your buttery mocha icing!

Remember to keep the cake in the fridge!

Happy Birthday Portal Cake

A few weeks ago, I asked my brother what kind of cake he would want me to make for his birthday.  I really wasn't expecting anything fancy from him because I know he's not that big on desserts, but when he gave me his reply, I had to laugh. "Portal Cake," he facebook instant messaged me.  Well, I went ahead and did a little research, and to my surprise, Portal Cake was a lot easier to make than I thought.

Portal Cake comes from a very nerdy video game called Portal, where you play as a part of an experiment. Throughout the experiment, the computer is supposed to entice you with "delicious cake".  Well, at the end of the game, you find out that the cake is actually not real, and you never get satisfied.  Well, I quenched my brother's thirst for cake, and I must say, it was delicious!

When I first saw the video game cake, I wasn't shown what flavor the cake was, so I just asked him what kind he wanted.  He wanted chocolate cherry.  Okay, easy!

INGREDIENTS

Cake:

Devil's food cake mix

16 ounce package of frozen cherries

everything needed for cake mix

I used regular vanilla icing between the two round cakes.

Icing:

8 ounces of bittersweet chocolate chips

5 tbsp butter

1/3 cup sugar

Garnish:

White icing and Maraschino cherries.

Chopped up bars of chocolate. (as many or as little as you want)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Blend cherries with about 1/4 cup of water.  Use that instead of just water for cake mix directions. (Make two 8 or 9" round cakes)
2. Make cake according to cake.

for icing

1. bring sugar and butter to a slow boil, and add the chocolate chips. Stir.
2. Pour this over the cakes that have been stacked on top of each other with white icing as a bonding agent in between.

After Icing:

1. chop your bars of chocolate (I used 2 big ones) and scatter them all over the cake.
2. Make 8 nice mounds of white icing around the cake and top them with the cherries.
3. Don't forget the candle!

Enjoy!

Trade Strawberry Cheesecake for laundry

I think I made an amazing deal with my neighbor.  I don't have a washer and drier, so I always have to go to the on site laundry.  When I found out that my neighbor and good friend has them, the wheels in my head began to turn.  He's always been a sweet guy and we are constantly doing favors for each other.  We babysit each other's dogs, Albert and him are constantly trading video games, so I wasn't too weird about the laundry trade.

For the first load, I asked him what his favorite dessert was, and he replied Strawberry Cheesecake. YUM!  Cheesecake is one of the easiest things to make, and anything can be added to it for personal flair.

Here's the recipe:

INGREDIENTS:
3 (8 ounce) packages of cream cheese
1 (10 ounce) package of frozen sweetened strawberries
1 1/4 cup of graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup of butter
1 tbsp corn starch
1 (14 ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup of lemon juice

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine graham cracker crumbs, sugar and butter. Press onto the bottom of a pie pan. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
2.  In a blender or food processor, blend the strawberries and cornstarch;let it really get smooth.
3.  Pour the strawberry mixture into a saucepan and bring to a boil. Boil and stir for 2 minutes on low. Make sure to really watch it, you don't want it to burn.  
4. In a mixing bowl, beat cream cheese until light and fluffy. Really beat it into submission.
5. Gradually beat in the condensed milk. Add lemon juice; mix well. 
6. Add the eggs one at a time, and make sure everything is combined.
7. Pour half of the cream cheese mixture over crust. 
8. Drop half of the reserved strawberry mixture by 1/2 teaspoonfuls onto cream cheese layer. 
9. Carefully spoon remaining cream cheese mixture over sauce. Drop remaining strawberry sauce by 1/2 teaspoonfuls on top. 
10. With a knife, cut through top layer only to swirl strawberry sauce, unless you like having glops of strawberry :)
11. Bake at 300 degrees F for 45-50 minutes or until center is almost set. 
12. Let it cool down for about 10 minutes... 
13. Stick it in the fridge and don't touch it!!! Let it sit in there for the night. 

Enjoy!!!!

Tonight's Menu: Caprice Salad, My famous Lasagna, and some kind of dessert.

Albert really wants to have a dinner party, so I figured that my lasagna would be a slam dunk.  (Go Celtics!)  I plan on dressing that up with spinach and sausage.  In addition to that, I will be serving caprice salad, since that's fun, easy and tasty, and I hope to be making some sort of dessert, I'm just not sure what.

Here's what I can think of in 5 seconds:

Strawberry Shortcake
Lemon Bars
some sort of pie

and that's about it.

I've been scouring allrecipes.com and foodnetwork.com to maybe find something new.  Any suggestions would be FANTASTIC!  


Thanks,
FAB

Tres Leches

This one's for all the milk lovers out there!  Seriously, I did not have any time to take pictures of this awesome cake.  Fortunately, I will be making the cake for Albert's birthday, so I'll have another chance to take pics. Here is a pic I found online:

Tres Leches is a hispanic dish.  It's called tres leches because it is soaked with three types of milk: whole milk (we already know it's fatty), evaporated milk and condensed milk.  In my cake, I took the liberty of adding a fourth milk.  Caramel.  So I guess, this is no longer tres leches but quatro leches.

This cake is for those with a sweet tooth.  It's creamy, moist, and by no means light.  This will definitely give anyone the "itis" (thanks, Dave Chapelle)

INGREDIENTS
one can of condensed milk
one can of evaporated milk
1 1/2 cup of whole milk
1 cup sugar
1 jar of caramel: the kind you can stick in a microwave for about a minute to heat it up
yellow or white cake mix
1 1/2 cup of heavy whipping cream
1 tbsp of vanilla extract

1.  Set the oven to whatever the box mix says, and follow the instructions on the box.
2.  Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool.  Once it's cooled, poke holes in it with a fork.  Poke the holes all the way to the bottom, you really want the cake to absorb the milk.
3.  In a separate bowl, mix the three milks
4.  Pour the mixture onto the cake.  ALL OF IT!! Don't worry, the cake will absorb it all!!!
5.  let the cake stand for about an hour.
6.  heat the caramel in the microwave (follow the directions on the jar) and pour it all on top of the cake.  (this is still not the icing
7.  In a separate mixing bowl, whip the whipping cream, sugar and vanilla extract into submission-- or until you get soft peaks. (This is your icing)
8.  Ice the cake and enjoy!!

Mind you, this is one of those cakes that get better the next day.  This cake mist also be refrigerated!!!