Sunday Night Cake

This week’s recipe is for something called Sunday Night Cake from Baked Explorations. It’s a simple one layer yellow cake with a dash of cinnamon thrown in for a bit of spice. When a recipe calls for cinnamon I usually double or triple the amount, because I am crazy for cinnamon, but in this case I decided to follow the recipe as written. The cake was very easy to mix together, not even requiring so much as separating an egg. I guess that is what makes it an ideal “Sunday night cake.” The cake rose beautifully while baking, and after 45 minutes looked ready to come out of the oven.

While the cake was baking I worked on the frosting. I’ve never made a chocolate frosting like this one before, and I must say I was very impressed. It was quite easy and came out rich, thick, and easy to spread. I can see it becoming a standard frosting recipe in my repertoire.  Next time I make it I might use bittersweet instead of unsweetened chocolate, because it did taste quite dark. I would also add a bit of espresso powder or Kahlua, depending on what sort of dessert it would be paired with.

Overall I feel like the cake is just ok. There’s nothing wrong with it exactly, and I enjoyed a slice for breakfast with a cup of coffee, but I feel like it’s lacking in something. It is moist and has a good light texture, but I think it would be improved by jazzing it up a bit, adding in other flavors, like vanilla, bourbon, nutmeg or citrus. I even think it would be great with a handful of mini chocolate chips thrown in. I am crazy about the frosting though, and would definitely make that again.

Had a bit of trouble typing this morning with my Boston Terrier snoozing on my arm.

Have a great week everyone!

Lemon Cornmeal Pistachio Muffins

This week’s recipe is for Lemon Pistachio Cornmeal Muffins.  I love a good homemade muffin. They’re small enough to be a delicious snack, but can also make a great breakfast. Muffins also tend to be some of the easiest and quickest recipes to make, requiring no fancy tools or ingredients. These Baked muffins came out wonderfully. They’re very moist and lemony, and not too sweet. The cornmeal adds a pleasing grainy texture. The pistachios look really nice on top, but I think the muffins would have been just fine without them. I think if I made these again I would toast the pistachios first to being out more of their flavor, or substitue another nut like almonds. I made this batch yesterday, and we’re already down to only one left. I wish this had made two dozen! 

Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème

This week’s Baked Sunday Morning recipe is for Malted Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème from Baked Elements. I was really excited to try this. “Pot de Crème” just sounds delicious. It is also not terribly complex to make. When a recipe is “à la française” I am always worried that I am about to start a fiendishly difficult recipe, like making croissants from scratch.  Fortunately, making a custard is not as difficult as that. Hot cream is added to chocolate, which is then added to some egg yokes. The addition of some sugar adds sweetness, and in this case a bit of malted milk (I bought Carnation) is added for flavor. The mixture is then baked in a hot water bath for around twenty minutes, and then cooled in the fridge for about three hours.  It took a bit of patience to wait that long to taste them, but overall the recipe was not too taxing and was fairly quick to put together. However, I would highly recommend using half dark chocolate as suggested as an alternative for the recipe. I would also suggest using half as much salt. While the texture of mine came out perfectly, they were aggressively sweet, with a strange noticeable saltiness to them. I couldn’t detect malt at all. It actually tasted a lot like a salted caramel pudding.  It wasn’t bad exactly, just not what I think the recipe was shooting for. I also had a bit of trouble figuring out how to place the malt balls as decoration. Everything other than just putting one in the center looked a bit wacky. I’m curious to see what my fellow bakers come up with. This one was fun to try , but I’m not sure if this recipe is one that I would make a second time. Have a good week everyone!