Eat Drink and Blog » Food Porn

Chocolate Cake

mcqueenie23 — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:00:19 +0000

I’m not a huge cake person but I LOVE this chocolate cake!!

Chocolate Cake

8 oz dark chocolate pieces
2/3 cup butter
1 cup of sugar
4 eggs
4 heaping tablespoons of flour
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1.5 teaspons baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 tablespoons of sour cream
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
9 oz semi sweet chocolate pieces

Line cake tin with grease paper and grease, melt dark chocolate pieces over
water, beat together eggs and sugar, mix in flour, cocoa powder,
baking powder and vanilla extract. Slowly fold in the melted butter
and chocolate mix with the sour cream. Bake suggested temp at 350
until toothpick is clean 40 minutes… Cut cake in half horizontally (I put half the batter into two 9 inch round cake pans and bake for about 25 minutes so I don’t have to deal with that cutting horizontally nonsense!)

Frosting:

Heat heavy cream in sauce pan so that it doesn’t burn and do not boil,
remove from heat, stir in semi sweet pieces, cool until thick. Then frost in between the two layers, and then all over the cake.

No-recipe Potato Salad

EmmieJ — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:18:29 +0000

A number of the people in my life are amazing cooks, especially for events where they need to feed tons of people. Unfortunately they rarely follow recipes which makes it hard to share their culinary creations. They have, however, been quite generous in teaching me how to recreate some of their specialities. Below is a staple at any bar-b-que at our house: potato salad. So far, my hubby likes it better than any other potato salad he’s had (including at awesome bar-b-que restaurants) and in my book, that’s the best endorsement it can get.

The secret is in not following the recipe. I’ve included estimates for quantities (for “small” and “normal” batches) but it turns out best when you experiment and adjust it to your own tastes. (Note: we make our version fairly sweet. Also, like so much food, it tends to taste better on the second day so feel free to make it ahead of time.)

Skin and chop russett potatoes into ~1 inch pieces (for a “small” batch, which feeds 6 people with a moderate amount of leftovers, I will use about 2.5 lb. or about 5 good sized potatoes; for a “normal” batch, I’d use a full 5 lb. bag; I’ve been known to cook up to 10 lbs though.) Place in large stockpot.
Add eggs (6 for a “small” batch, 12 for a “normal” batch) on top of potatoes. Cover potatoes and eggs with water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and walk away. Come back after you shower or clean the house or something. (The potatoes should be easy to pierce with a fork.)
Drain and let the potatoes and eggs cool off. If you’re in a hurry you can run cold water over them, but I prefer just to leave myself plenty of time.
Shell eggs and either chop finely or use your hands and squish them into small pieces. Place them in a LARGE mixing bowl along with the potatoes.
Add in sweet pickle relish to taste. (I use a 10 oz. jar for a “small” batch, almost a full 24 oz. jar for a “normal” batch.)

This is about the proportion of potatoes, eggs and relish that I go for:

Finely chop 2 – 3 stalks of celery (for small batch, double for normal) and add to bowl.
Stir until ingredients are evenly distributed.
Grab a large soup spoon and a jar of mayonaise. (I’ve been trying to be healthier so have been experimenting. Going with Light Mayo is ok, going with fat free mayo or Miracle Whip is a sin.) Add a couple of scoops to the bowl (probably ends up working out to about a cup) and stir. Keep adding mayo a scoop at a time until it’s a consistency that you like (i.e., for chunky salad use less, for creamy use more).
Add yellow mustard. Again, start with a small amount and add more until it reaches the color and flavor that you like. Mine is usually a light yellow. You could keep going until you reach a sunshine yellow if you so choose.
Next grab a small handfull (maybe around 1/8 cup for a “small” batch?) of sugar and sprinkle it on top of the mixture. Stir. (Again, you can keep adding more if you like yours sweet.)
Finally, grab some salt and add 1 – 2 tsp., adjusting for taste. Stir.
Taste. Adjust ingredients as appropriate.
If you like your potato salad room temperature, serve immediately. Otherwise, chill and serve.

Random side note, for some reason this stuff tastes great when you eat it side-by-side with baked beans. Put a little of each on your fork and enjoy. Just trust me on that one.

iPhone Food Porn: A Rebuttal

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:20:15 +0000

In response to Meghan’s Food Porn:

Toasted Baguette, Pesto, Tomato, Fresh Mozzarella, and Green Leaf Lettuce

So there!

iPhone Food Porn, v1.0

S’Mores Brownies… mmm

Lisin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:00:49 +0000

I was inspired to do these by a recipe I saw on Joy the Baker
but I adapted it heavily. First I used a different recipe for the brownies entirely. It can be found the back of the King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour package; I found a review of it here:Cooking on the Side

then I added my own spin.

Here we go

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
* 2 1/4 cups sugar
* 4 large eggs
* 1 1/4 cups Dutch-process cocoa
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 1 1/2 cups flour
* 2 cups chocolate chips
* 1 jar Marshmallow Fluff
* 1 sleeve Cinnamon Graham Crackers
* 1 Package Large Jet Puffed Marshmallows

METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch pan. (The pan I used was slightly larger, it was a large sheet cake pan, but a 9×13 casserole dish will work for this too) I do this all by hand so as to
a) not dirty up a mixer and
b) make sure I don’t over mix anything…
you could use a hand mixer if you so desire.

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium high heat. Once it is melted add the sugar stirring it until it is hot and shiny looking but not bubbling. You want the sugar to dissolve a bit. Remove from heat and add the cocoa, salt, baking powder and vanilla. Transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl and add the eggs. Beat it until smooth and then add the flour. Once flour is just combined stir in the chips.

Spoon half the batter into the prepared pan and make sure it covers the whole bottom. Now take large dollops of the fluff and swirl it onto the batter, you don’t want to mix it fully, just give it a marbled look. (I used about half a jar of fluff in this step; you could do less if so inclined)

Take whole graham crackers and lay them on top of the fluff/brownie batter covering it completely.

Spread the other half of the jar of fluff over the top of the graham crackers. (again you could use less, but why would you??)

Spread the remaining half of the brownie batter on top of the fluff covered graham crackers.

Place Large Marshmallows about 1/4 inch apart on top of the whole pan. Basically you’re looking for each marshmallow to be one brownie when you’re finished so space them accordingly. In my larger pan I got 5×7 marshmallows, or 35 brownies, if you use a glass 9×13 casserole dish you may be closer to 4×6…

Bake the brownies on the middle rack of your preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Start testing them around the 30 minute mark. I usually look to see if the sides are getting a bit hard and crusty and make sure the middle looks set. I am addicted to undercooked brownies, but these are so gooey that you don’t want to under cook on purpose (like I tend to do). The marshmallows will be nice and puffed and toasted. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

I don’t know how to post a picture here, but here’s a link to the twitpic I took of these when I first made them…
Food Porn

Here is where I also tell you that these were VERY gooey and it was suggested that the next time I make them I line the bottom of the pan with graham crackers as well, so you could totally do that and let me know if it works!!

The Review of the Cookie Cake Pie

Erin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 15:25:02 +0000

I did try the Cookie Cake Pie…It was really yummy!! It was super easy to make.

I think I used a smaller pie plate because I did have enough cookie dough left over to make an 8×8 pan of cookie bars, and I also have enough cake mix to make 3 1/2 dozen mini cupcakes! In my oven it took about 45 minutes to fully cook but the color was beautiful! I also used the confetti cake mix and I forgot to buy the sprinkles so we used crushed up MnM’s and it looked great!

Let me tell you, IT IS SWEET! So we thought that instead of frosting maybe if you wanted to tone down the sweetness of it you could use cool whip as the frosting. It’s definitely a do-again for this family but it is one of those recipes you only have one slice of, it is that rich with sweetness!

Photos of the entire process can be found on my blog.

iPhone Food Porn, v1.0

Meghan — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:08:34 +0000

Toasted Bread, Fresh Mozzarella, Beefsteak Tomato, Basil, Fresh Ground Pepper, Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Need I say more?

iPhone Food Porn: A Rebuttal

Turducken of the Sweets World

moburns — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 22:06:46 +0000

Some of you may have seen this when I tweeted about it last week, but I thought it was so awesome that it needed to be shared here again in case you missed it.

This fantastic site, the Seattle-based CakeSpy.com, has become one of my favorite daily online indulgences. Besides its absolutely adorable illustrations, it has some rockin’ info of all aspects of the world of sweet treats. On a recent trip to Seattle, I relied on it to guide me to some really yummy cupcake spots that were a highlight of my stay.

In this post, the Head CakeSpy, Jessie, has created the Cookie Cake Pie, defying all sorts of laws of baking and common sense in the most delicious way possible. She used:

A batch of cookie dough
A single batch of cake batter
A single pie crust
Enough frosting for a birthday cake

…and combined them into one amazing Turducken-like creation. The specifics and pictures of putting it together are here and it’s worth a visit, even if you aren’t up to tackling this tempting triple play of goodness. But if you do: A) Take pictures, B) Come back to tell us, and C) Invite me over to try it!