Molasses Ginger Cake (dairy-free)

Jan28

Well it has been awhile! My goal is to post regularly in 2018. We have been baking and cooking but don’t post about it. As you can see on our Instagram feed @cookswithevie.

We made this cake when my niece had a sleepover, she can’t have dairy (milk products) so we served it with coconut whipped cream. It was very good. Though I prefer my gingerbread type cakes slathered in butter.

Yikes looks at those holes! That was a nice wine in the background too.

Basically here is what you do.

Whisk flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, pepper and cloves in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl whisk oil, molasses, brown sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla.

Whisk wet mixture into the four mixture just until combined. Then whisk in the boiling water (I forgot to take a pic of that step).

This is what the batter looks like

Pour batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

Here is the cake, baked and cooling.

Cit into squares and top with ice cream (non-dairy or regular if you have no intolerance), whipped cream or just plain.

Dairy Free Molasses Cake

Ingredients:

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

3 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 ¾ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

½ tsp pepper

¼ tsp ground cloves

¾ cup canola oil

1 cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup honey

2 eggs

1 ½ tsp pure vanilla

¾ cup boiling water

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 9×13 in baking pan and line with parchment.

Whisk flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, salt, pepper and cloves in a large mixing bowl.

In another bowl whisk oil, molasses, brown sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla.

Whisk wet mixture into the four mixture just until combined.

Whisk in the boiling water.

Pour batter into the prepared baking pan and bake for 35 to 40 minutes.

In My Kitchen October 2017

Oct8

Fall is in full swing, but we have had a very unusually warm sunny fall and no complaints! I will take every last ounce of sunshine I can get because winters here are long and cold. And on a warm fall day we enjoyed a tropical creamsicle smoothie.

Because of the warm weather we have been continually harvesting bumper crops of raspberries from our garden.

In my kitchen are oatcakes for snacks

Porridge for breakfast

Some favourite treats from the British, Scottish and Irish store.

We made these little pizza bites for the lunchbox

Not in my kitchen, but after a long never ending hike we enjoyed poutine

It is Thanksgiving in Canada, and since it is warm we tried pumpkin pie ice cream

Evie loves Walker’s steak and onion crisps, but we can’t get them in Canada anymore because there is real beef drippings in them. Apparently that is not allowed to be imported into Canada due to mad cow or something like that. We saw these at our grocery store and decided to try. Doesn’t taste like the other ones but they are good and the potatoes and really good. We are definitely going to try the other flavours too

And a cake that my brother brought for dessert

The “In My Kitchen” monthly theme host is Sherry, from sherryspickings.blogspot.ie If you would like to know what is happening in other kitchens or join IMK head over to Sherry’s blog and check out all the other IMK participants and join in.

Sherrys Pickings

Crepe Cake with Raspberry Orange Mascarpone Cream

May13

This is a great celebration cake and would make the perfect Mother’s Day dessert. It would also be a great addition to a baby shower, bridal shower, or brunch table. The best part is that you can make the crepes the day before and then whip up the cream and assemble a couple of hours before you serve it.

I got this recipe from Canadian Living magazine. They test the recipes until perfect and I have never made a bad recipe from that magazine. I will include a link below to the original recipe.

For the crepes:

2&1/2 cups warm milk

2cups all purpose flour

6 eggs

6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup vegetable oil

In a blender ( I used my Hand blender in a large bowl) purée together milk, flour, eggs, butter, sugar and salt until smooth. Strain through a fine-mesh sieve into a bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.

You should have a very smooth batter with no lumps at all.

Heat an 8″ skillet or crepe pan over medium heat, brush lightly with oil. Pour a scant 1/4 cup of batter into pan swirling to coat. Cook turning once until golden.

Layer between waxed or parchment paper. Repeat with remaining batter. You should have about 30 crepes.

I ruined the first two and ended up with about 23, the last one was tiny as you can see on the top of the cake.

I wrapped the crepes in plastic wrap on plate wth parchment between each one and kept in the fridge overnight.

For the cream:

2&1/2 cups whipping cream

1&1/4 cups mascarpone cheese

5 tbsp liquid honey

1tbsp vanilla

1/4 cup frozen orange juice concentrate, thawed

2cups fresh raspberries

In large bowl beat together cream, mascarpone and honey until stiff peaks form, then beat in vanilla, orange juice concentrate and 1 cup of the raspberries until evenly distributed. Remove 1/4 cup to a small bowl and set aside.

To assemble:

Place 1 crepe on cake plate. Spread with thin layer of cream mixture.

Repeat with others.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Just before serving top with reserved cream and mound remaining raspberries on top of cake.

Look at those layers!

Original source: Canadian Living

In My Kitchen April 2016

Apr8

I missed the IMK last month, I am not sure what happened it just kind of came and went and I didn’t get it done. I have had no internet connection for days and I am going to post this one before it is too late. Hopefully I will finish and post before I lose the connection, forgive any typos!

Here is a little of what has been in our kitchen lately:

Rosemary garlic sourdough

Easter cake and cupcakes

Hot Cross Buns

Empty Tomb Rolls

Delicious Apricot Scones from Tara, these really were amazing!

a little lemon tart with teeny tiny macarons, Evie picked each one off for herself!

Evie has been sewing and needle felting and made me this little donut and the cutest little needle felted sheep

A science experiment, making a clock from and orange and lemon juice.

We found our toddler banana bread recipe, from when Evie was in daycare, recipe to follow soon.

Balsamic mushroom pasta, will share soon

And my fearless protector, who is always close by watching.

I hope you enjoyed your visit and I hope you come back soon. If you’d like to write an In My Kitchen post, please do so by the 10th April and send your link to Maureen at The Orgasmic Chef. Thanks for hosting Maureen!

Vanilla Bean Cake with Buttercream Icing

Jun20

This post is for Mandy, who said that she was looking for a vanilla cake. I hope you like it, we sure did! This cake gets better a day or two after is has been made. I find it best to make the cake and frost it, then keep well covered in the fridge for a day before eating it…if you can wait that long.

This cake was a promised gift for a friend as a congratulations for a huge career accomplishment. Her favourite is vanilla cake and this cake has got vanilla!

Preheat oven to 350F and grease two 8″ cake pans and line with parchment. I forgot to line and had a little trouble getting them out, but they came out fine in the end. My round and are 9″ and they baked fine but I just caught them from getting too dark. I would say, whether you use 8″ or 9″ and keep a close eye towards the end of the baking time.

For the cake

3 cups of cake flour

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 vanilla bean, split with the seeds scraped out

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups sugar

5 large eggs, room temperature

1 & 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 Tbsp pure vanilla extract

Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.

Take 1 cup of room temperature cubed butter

Place in bowl of mixer.

Split a vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds.

Add the vanilla seeds to the butter and beat until well mixed, 2-3 minutes on medium speed until the butter is light and creamy.

You get this beautiful butter mixture flecked with vanilla seeds.

Add 2 cups of white granulated sugar, I beat in 1/4 cup at a time, scraping down the sides after each addition and beating for about 1 minute after each addition.

Add the eggs, one at a time. Continue beating until incorporated. Reduce speed to low.

Add the vanilla extract to the buttermilk

Add dry ingredients to the butter mixture alternately with the buttermilk. Mix just until incorporated. Sharpe sides of bold and mix for about 20 seconds to make sure everything is all mixed together well.

Add batter to prepared pans and bake for about 35 minutes or until done.

Let cool completely before removing from pan.

Once the cakes are completely cool you can prepare the Vanilla Bean Buttercream Frosting.

1 cup butter at room temperature

4 cups icing sugar (powdered sugar) (you can add mote if needed, but I didn’t want it too sweet)

1/2 cup milk

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

In mixing bowl cream butter with vanilla seeds until smooth and creamy. Add icing sugar a cup at a time, add milk and vanilla extract, continue beating until light and fluffy.

Guinness Chocolate Cake…a.k.a Best Cake Ever

May23

We all LOVE LOVE LOVE this cake. I make this at least a few times a year. This is another Nigella recipe (from her book Feast) and it is my favourite. It is a delicious dense dark moist chocolate cake topped with a very creamy smooth cream cheese icing.

Preheat your oven to 180C, which I think is 350F. Start with a can of Guinness. This is what happens if you are unprepared when you open it and don’t have a pot ready to pour it in. I lost a little bit.

Pour the can of Guinness (250ml) into a pot and add butter (250g) heat until melted. I just realized, while typing this, that I just poured in the whole can. I think that was quite a bit more than I needed. Which explains why the batter was wetter than I remembered it being and it took longer to bake. But it turned out amazing!

Add sugar (400g) and cocoa powder (75g)

Whisk this together while heating

Take that off the stove and let cool a couple of minutes, in a separate bowl whisk together 142ml sour cream, 2 eggs and 1Tbsp vanilla

Pour that mixture into the chocolatey beer mixture.

To that add 275g of flour and 2&1/2 tsp baking soda

Pour batter into prepared (greased with a round of parchment lining the bottom) springform pan (8 or 9″)

Place the pan on a cookie sheet, just in case of leakage.

Bake for about 45-60 minutes until done. Don’t worry about the cracks in the top, those nooks and crannies will get filled with the delicious cream cheese icing.

Let cool completely before icing. Once the cake was at room temperature I wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in the refrigerator overnight and did the icing the next day.

The cream cheese icing is amazing but very simple. Beat together 300g room temperature cream cheese with 150g icing sugar and 125ml whipping cream. I used a little less that that amount of whipping cream as I found the icing was getting too liquid. Use your judgement.

Dollop the icing on top of the cake and spread to the edges.

It kind of looks like a pint of Guinness!

I think this cake would also be great without the icing or just a sifting of icing sugar.

Wild Blueberry Cake with Brown Sugar Sauce

Aug12

We went to pick some blueberries, they just grow on a little hill right next to the house. We probably picked about 4 cups, the blueberries here are wild and plentiful, extra sweet and tasty too. We wanted to make something out of them, but not muffins. We chose this recipe because I haven’t had it in a long time and Evie really likes it. This is a traditional Newfoundland recipe.

we used about 1 and 1/2cups blueberries

mix together 1/4 cup butter and 1/2 cup sugar

add 1 egg and mix then add about 1 to 1 and 1/2 cups of flour, 1 tsp baking powder and mix until combined

add milk (about 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup) while mixing so it is thick and creamy like cake batter.

then add the blueberries and fold in

then place in an 8 inch square baking pan and bake at 350F for 35 to 40 minutes until dark golden brown and a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean

While the cake is baking you can make the brown sugar sauce.

place 2 tbsp butter melted and 2 tbsp flour in a small pot and whisk while heating

Whisk in 1 cup brown sugar (it will be dry and thick)

then add 1 cup of boiling water and 1 tsp vanilla whisking and heating bring to boil and whisk until it thickens to a syrupy brown sauce

Serve the warm sauce drizzled over a piece of the cake

The Big 5!

May6

Evie has officially turned five. She has been talking about her birthday forever and what to have as her special birthday supper. In the end she chose cheese pizza and sprinkle cake. I made Sally’s funfetti cake (www.sallysbakingaddiction.com). Check out her website she has a lot of yummy treats, we follow her religiously for recipes and the delicious pictures, Evie has a whole list of what she wants to make from there, most involve sprinkles. Sally loves sprinkles and I am pretty sure that when Evie is an adult she too will still love sprinkles.

The cake turned out great and was even better a day or two after, got a little moister. If I make that cake again, I will definitely do it a day or two ahead of time.

Here is the cake, we covered it nonpareils but left the number 5 un-nonpareiled. Is that even a word?

There are even sprinkles inside the cake, double the sprinkle concentration!

She got her own binoculars for birdwatching, some new books and more of her favourite coloured pencils to add to her collection.

The birthday party with her friends was also a lot of fun. It was at a cooking school and the children, in little chef hats and little aprons made pizza, fruit snacks and decorated cupcakes. Everyone had a great time, it was lots of fun and extremely cute.

cookswithevie

our adventures cooking … and other fun stuff

Tag Archives: cake