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Texas Sheet Cake in a Cup

March 26, 2013 by 2 Comments

So yesterday you got to see how absolutely wonderful the Texas Sheet Cake was that I made. It was so full of chocolate that you thought you’d died and gone to heaven.

In the original recipe, the Pioneer Woman used an 13×18 sheet cake pan. I used a 10×15 jelly roll pan. So since her pan was bigger than mine, I reserved some of the cake batter so that it didn’t overflow the pan when it baked.

I spooned enough batter to fill up half of this coffee mug.

Then I sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top.

Mug_before

Then I put it in the microwave for about 1 minute and 15 seconds.

I spooned a little bit of the frosting on top (while it was hot).

Mug_after

And then I grabbed a spoon for a taste.

Mug_spoonful
And that’s all she wrote.

mug_eaten

If that’s not an incentive to use a 10×15 jelly roll pan instead of an 13×18 sheet pan,
than I don’t know what is ;)   Now that’s a cup full of chocolatey goodness!

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Texas Sheet Cake

March 25, 2013 by 2 Comments

TexasSheetCakeTXT

When I see anything about a Texas Sheet Cake, it makes me think of my Grandmother. When I was younger I remember her making this and I always enjoyed it. I bought a jelly roll pan from Pampered Chef and decided to try making one myself. So I set out to find the perfect recipe. There were a few that I found that I wanted to try, but my grocery delivery wasn’t going to be arriving until later in the afternoon, so this meant that I had to pick a recipe included ingredients I had on hand.  [Read more...]

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Cake Batter Doughnuts

April 16, 2012 by 5 Comments

Who doesn’t love a good doughnut? I know I’m a fan. Cake Batter Doughnuts? Yes, please. I’m totally there. And they are super simple to make. Baked, not fried, so they are fine for your waist line!

I felt like making some doughnuts in my doughnut pan and I had a box of funfetti cake mix open from when I made the awesome Cake Batter Pudding. And I knew that I couldn’t possibly have been the first person to come up with this idea, so I did a little bit of Googling! Stephanie Cooks had a pretty good recipe that look super simple. So I figured I’d give it a try.

[Adapted from Stephanie Cooks ~ I made a few changes]

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup all purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup yellow cake mix
  • 1/4 cup sugar
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
  • 2 tablespoons rainbow sprinkles
  • non-stick cooking spray

INSTRUCTIONS

First things first. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Spray your doughnut pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Combine the flour, cake mix, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Mix well.  In a measuring cup, beat the milk, egg, and vanilla together.  Add the milk and egg mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until well combined making sure not to overwork it. Stir in the sprinkles.

If you have a wonderful Pancake Pen like I do, pour the batter in that. If you don’t have one, go to Williams-Sonoma and get one! Or you can just pour the batter in a large Ziploc bag and cut the tip off. That also works.

Fill the doughnut pan about 2/3 of the way full.  It should look something like this:

Bake for 10 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for a minute or two.

Then transfer the doughnuts to wire rack so that they can cool completely.


Now in the original recipe they used some frosting in a can to put on top of the doughnuts. I would’ve done this, but I don’t really keep frosting in a can in the house. I usually prefer to make my own buttercream. But for these doughnuts I wanted to go with just a glaze-like topping.

For the the vanilla glaze I just used 1/2 cup powdered sugar + 1 teaspoon vanilla + 2 tablespoons milk.

For the chocolate glaze I used 1/2 cup powdered sugar + 1 tablespoon of cocoa + dash of vanilla + 2 tablespoons milk.

Doesn’t that look amazing?


And you can eat them plain if you want. But make sure you eat them before they fall over!


Enjoy!

 

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Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce

January 19, 2012 by 2 Comments

So we’re currently on this Homemade Ice Cream Cake kick in my house. Now that we’re in a tiny apartment we don’t have an extra freezer, so I don’t have a ton of room to store frozen items. An ice cream cake from Dairy Queen is usually quite large (which is a good thing, don’t get me wrong!) but I don’t have room for it. So I decided to work with what I do have and I set out to make my own! I’m still working on “the perfect recipe,” but in the midst of it I made an amazing Homemade Hot Fudge Sauce. Once I get the Ice Cream Cake recipe down pat I’ll share that with you all. It’s definitely something that you should make at home as opposed to spending $20 – $25 for one.  I made mine for less than $5.

Okay – now let’s talk about this Hot Fudge Sauce! I used up the Hot Fudge that was purchased from the grocery store on the first Ice Cream Cake run. I needed some for my second Ice Cream Cake (since the first one was all gone!) and I didn’t have any more. I didn’t feel like going to the grocery store, so I started looking up some recipes online to make my own. I came across one on Allrecipes called Sue’s Hot Fudge Sauce. It got 4 1/2 stars and looked pretty simple so I figured I’d use that as a base recipe and make a few of my own modifications to it. You can find the original recipe here. The ingredients/instructions below include the changes that I made.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 1/2  cups white sugar
  • 1 (12 fluid ounce) can evaporated milk
  • 1/4 cup chocolate chips
  • 1 cup mini marshmallows
  • 1 teaspoon espresso powder
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS

Combine butter, cocoa, sugar, chocolate chips, espresso powder, marshmallows, and evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium heat. Use a whisk to combine everything. Continue to whisk while the mini marshmallows melt.

Bring to a boil and boil for about 7 – 8 minutes.

Remove the pot from the heat; stir in vanilla. Pour the hot mixture into a blender and blend for 4 minutes.  I would not skip this step – it’s essential. Some people have used a hand blender – you could probably try that if you wanted. I used my Vitamix and it worked perfectly.

Once it starts to cool it will thicken up.  Store in refrigerator.

 

This Hot Fudge Sauce was amazing.  I really loved the addition of the marshmallows – it seemed to make it more fudgy. The espresso powder brings out that rich chocolate flavor. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t have the espresso powder. I think it’ll be fine without it. I don’t think I’ll ever buy jarred Hot Fudge Sauce again!

 

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Cupcake Monday: Tartes

June 6, 2011 by 3 Comments

Welcome to Cupcake Monday! Last week it was all about the Brown Betty Boutique. This week we’re reviewing the cupcakes from Tartes, which is located in Olde City at 2nd & Arch Street. This is one of those little places that I learned about through reading about cupcakes in Philadelphia. If I hadn’t been researching, I wouldn’t have come across this place. It’s a tiny little pink shack and you have to order from the window.

It was a very hot day and I wasn’t about to walk a mile in 90 degree heat with cupcakes, so I ended up driving. I was able to get a parking spot on the street that was pretty close to the bakery. So I walked up to the window and looked at the menu. They only had 4 cupcakes available – Chocolate, Vanilla, Red Velvet and Carrot Cake. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t like Red Velvet, so I ended up getting two chocolate, one vanilla, and one carrot cake. She had to go in the back to get them, so you couldn’t see what they looked like first.

There were many people online that commented on the fact that the service at Tartes wasn’t all that friendly. I tend to agree with them, but since I knew what I was going to run into, I wasn’t surprised. It’s their decision how they run their establishment, I can’t control that. But I can control where I go back to in the future.

First up – Chocolate Cupcake with Vanilla icing. I was a bit let down because I thought that the Chocolate Cupcake would have chocolate icing, but it had vanilla. We didn’t think the chocolate cake was all that moist, so that was a bit of a let down. The icing – I was pretty disappointed in the icing. It was very heavy on the butter. It was on the whippy side and was definitely lacking sugar. It just wasn’t sweet enough.

Next – Vanilla Cupcake with Vanilla icing. The vanilla cupcake was moister than the chocolate cupcake, but I’ve still had better. The icing was the same as the icing on the chocolate cupcake – waaaaaaaaaaaay too heavy on the butter and definitely lacking sugar. It’s a shame they were generous with the icing when I didn’t care for it. I guess that’s usually how it goes, eh?

Last – Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese icing. This cupcake was hands down the best out of them all.  The cupcake had a lot of flavor – it was very moist due to the raisins, little bits of carrot, and small pieces of nuts. It had the perfect amount of spice. And the icing…it had just enough sweetness and it was a nice and fluffy icing. It just complemented the cupcake so well.

Out of all three cupcakes, the only one I’d want again was the Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese icing. It was out of this world. It’s a shame the others really weren’t that good. But I guess if at least one was good, the trip was worth it.

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