Four Layer Chocolate Raspberry Cake

This weekend's dessert experiment was a four layer chocolate raspberry cake.  I used the fail-safe Real Simple magazine chocolate cake recipe and chose the chocolate sour cream frosting.  I wanted to do something different with the filling, but wanted to make sure I used a fresh produce item, so I found this recipe for fresh raspberry filling. 

I split the cake making process into two days so that I wouldn't be running around my kitchen screaming this morning.  Yesterday, I made the cakes and the filling.  I've always read about the need for butter and eggs to be at room temperature for baking, but never bothered to consider why.  Just so you know, according to Joy of Cooking, having butter at room temperature allows for the butter to be properly aerated, which helps with the leavening process.  So, if you want light and fluffy cakes, let your butter and eggs sit out awhile.  Mine hung out on the kitchen counter at least an hour before I started the batter.

Layers, pre-splitting.

While the cakes were baking, I made the raspberry filling.  In hindsight, I didn't need the whole recipe - halving it would have been more than sufficient.  When cooled, both the cakes and the filling went in the fridge overnight.


This morning, I made the chocolate icing.  I melted a package of semi-sweet chocolate chips in a double boiler.  A double boiler is an insert you place over a shallow pan of simmering (not boiling!) water.  This way, you can melt the chocolate without scalding or burning it.  If you don't have a double boiler, you can also use a metal mixing bowl - just be careful lifting it off the pot of hot water.  I'm shocked I've never spilled molten chocolate or 150 degree water on myself pre-double boiler.

Melting chocolate in a double boiler.

One issue I have with recipes featuring sour cream is that we always have some left over, and we rarely, if ever use it.  So, for the icing, I decided to sub something we always have in the house and eat frequently, Fage Greek Yogurt.  The tang and consistency is similar to that of sour cream, so it worked just fine for the icing.  Considering that there were three (yes three) cups of confectioners sugar in the icing, it definitely needed something to cut the sweetness.

Since we had oodles of filling, I decided to split the layers on the cake.  To do this, I used a cake leveler.  I've split layers with a bread knife before, but a cake leveler gives you much more precision, and it's only $3.29.  So, if you think you'll be baking a decent amount, it's not a bad investment.  You can also use it to level out the tops of a cake if you are putting a lot of care into decorating it, but, given that it takes all of my precision not to drop the frosting on the floor before it gets to the cake, I don't bother.  I did make one of the layers much thinner than I intended, but once it's in the middle of the cake and iced, no one needs to know . . .

Cake in cross section.

One smarty pants thing I did this time, per the suggestion on the packaging for the cake leveler, was to put some waxed paper under the edges of the cake as I filled and iced it.  When I was done, I removed the wax paper and there was no evidence of my usual dripping and spattering.

I garnished the cake with fresh raspberries and stuck it in the fridge for awhile so it could handle the car ride and being out on the table.

The verdict - nice and chocolately, but not overly sweet.

Happy Father's Day! Black Bean Burgers & Peach and Berry Pie

This Father's Day, my parents, my fiance & I headed to my soon to be in-laws for a BBQ.  My favorite vegetarian barbeque recipe is my version of the black bean burgers from Tosca Reno's Eat Clean Diet Cookbook.  My tweaks include using one whole egg instead of two egg whites, kale instead of celery leaves and extra sunflower seeds instead of flax seeds.  I also leave out the curry powder, since I don't usually have that in the house.  The recipe is super easy - dump everything in a food processor, mix well and bake. They reheat exceptionally well in an oven or toaster.  Microwaving them might make them a bit soggy.

For dessert, I made a peach, blueberry and raspberry pie based on a peach & blueberry pie recipe in a cookbook we just refer to as "The Book."  "The Book" never fails to produce hit desserts.  It's actual title is Baking, by Martha Day.  The one catch is that all of the amounts are written in ounces, so you either need a kitchen scale or a desire to do a lot of math.  There are also websites that do conversions for you - just remember that there are different conversions for dry and liquid measures.

One different thing I did with this pie versus the previous pies was to make the crust in our brand spanking new 14-cup Cuisinart food processor.  Previously, I've made pie crust by hand using a pastry blender, as well as in our Kitchen-Aid mixer.  Having sampled multiple versions of my pie experiments, my family said the processor made the best crust, and I'd have to agree.  The blades help the butter incorporate much more evenly into the flour, and the ice water mixes in quite nicely as well.

Fresh fruit pies can be super juicy, so if you do make one from scratch, put a cookie sheet under it to help catch drips and spatters.  You also might consider wrapping the edges in foil or using a pie shield to prevent the edges from burning, especially if your pie takes more than a half an hour to bake.

Fruit-Tastic Dinner

It was 98 today in DC.  Outside, I don't mind the heat so much.  But, after watching three trains pass me by in an overcrowded Metro station and half an hour in a metro car where the air was barely blowing, I felt more than a bit wilted, and the last thing I wanted was a hot heavy meal.

This is where my fruit-tastic dinner came in.  Fruit makes a great component to a summertime meal.  Not only do you have a lot of variety to choose from, but the high water content and the vitamin content help me feel replenished after a hot day.  Also, if you eat it raw, it's just prep and serve, no waiting for the oven to heat up (or make your apartment stifling).

Tonight in addition to some not heated leftover couscous and a Quorn patty*, I enjoyed some fresh raspberries and green grapes, as well as a little salad of ripe avocado, cherry tomatoes, lime juice and salt and pepper.  It filled me up, but also helped me cool down on such a hot day.

Most people think of oranges when it comes to Vitamin C, but raspberries are also a good source of C, with 47% of the RDA.  And while some people are scared off by the fat and calorie content of the avocado, this fruit means you're getting fiber, potassium and the healthy fats that help your body absorb nutrients.

*Yes, I know . . . it was only a few days ago I was promising to back away from the fake meat.  After today's lousy commute, I thought I'd cut myself some slack.

Adventures in Passover Baking Edition, aka - I screw up, I throw a tantrum, I fix it, I reclaim my title as baking wunderkind!

Yes, it all turned out JUST fine.

My cousins invited me to join them tonight for Seder.  Since I have been on a baking roll lately, I offered to make the dessert, specifically the paerve Lemon Layer Cake from last week's Washington Post food section.  Paerve was key, as my cousins keep kosher and are serving meat for dinner.

The recipe started off easy enough.  I make pastry cream all the time, so the lemon "cream" (eggs, sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest) was a no brainer.  And whipped cream icing, which is normally the source of my culinary temper tantrums, was blissful with the kitchen aid mixer.

Now, it was on to the cake.  I make cakes ALL THE TIME.  I have never effed one up.  Seriously.  Perfect track record.

I do believe we see where this is going.

The recipe called for separating the eggs.  No problem.  Then it called for combining the yolks, sugar, lemon, etc. and then beating in the matzo cake meal and potato starch.  No problem - into the mixer.  Ah, but I have to beat the egg whites in a separate bowl.  And I only have one bowl for the Kitchen-aid . . . Hmm.  I don't feel like dragging out the hand mixer.  Surely I can get these nice and frothy by hand.  So, I sat there whipping the egg whites with a whisk and feeling very proud of myself.  Look how strong my arms are - I barely feel this!  It must be all the chatarungas I do in yoga!  I don't need modern machinery!  I can whip egg whites!

Do we see where this is going yet?

If not, behold what I had 45 minutes later:

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, behold the Guiness Book of World records winner for the largest passover cookie.

Now, as a yogini, you think I would handle all of this with grace and strength.  I would acknowledge it as a teaching experience.

Not so much.

To recap - I tried to convince the fiance that I needed to start over that night.  He said that it was 10:30 and we were out of sugar and my relatives would be fine with the cookie.   Cue minor temper tantrum. 

So, I decided to instead bump up my work departure time an hour to attempt a cake remake so as not to show up at a Seder for 27 people with no dessert, or worse, a soggy cardboard cookie.  This morning, I bought eggs at CVS so they'd be at room temp by the time I got home, and, once I got back to my neighborhood, I ran to the local market for more lemons and sugar.  This time, I used the hand mixer for the batter and beat the egg whites into a veritable nimbus cloud in the mixer.

See the difference?

Not well beaten egg white cake

Well beaten egg white cake.

 

Cookie on the left, cake on the right.

After some time in the freezer, I was able to get the cake into two layers.  I didn't dare attempt three.

Still fairly scrawny looking, but fluffier in person.

So, after adding the lemon "cream" filling and mixing the leftover "cream" with the whipped topping and then frosting and decorating, let's look at the final result again:

Vegetarian Cheesesteak - Brought to You By My Friend Seitan

My co-workers were asking me about a vegetarian diet today, specifically how I get protein.  It's a common question when you tell people you're a vegetarian, I suppose. 

Now, I'd venture to guess that most people's first suggestion about protein for a vegetarian would be tofu.  One challenge I have is that I've got a soy allergy.  It's nothing life threatening, but I do get violently ill if I have too much of it.  So, that puts tofu and a number of "fake meats" out of the picture.

That said, I really don't feel protein deprived - I eat all kinds of beans, lentils and nuts (with the exception of walnuts and hazelnuts, which make me even more violently ill than soy).  Quinoa, farro, bulgur and wheatberries are also good sources of protein.  I still eat the occasional egg and dairy product.  And, I'm a big fan of Quorn - both in the grounds and tenders styles.   (I will share a post on the glories of Quorn sometime soon - the stuff is really amazing).

But, my #1 favorite vegetarian protein source is seitan.  With a single serving having around 25 grams of protein, it's a great way to work more protein into your diet if you're concerned you're not getting enough.  I avoided seitan for awhile, because I assumed that it was soy based.  In actuality, seitan is a form of wheat gluten.  From our friends at Wikipedia:

Wheat gluten, also called seitan (pronounced /ˈseɪtæn/), wheat meat, Mock Duck, gluten meat, or simply gluten, is a food made from the gluten of wheat. It is made by washing wheat flour dough with water until all the starch dissolves, leaving insoluble gluten as an elastic mass which is then cooked before being eaten.  Wheat gluten is an alternative to soybean-based meat substitutes such as tofu. Some types of wheat gluten have a chewy and/or stringy texture more like that of meat than most other substitutes. Wheat gluten is often used instead of meat in Asian, vegetarian, Buddhist, and macrobiotic cuisines. Simulated duck is a common use for wheat gluten.

I will note that Seitan is more challenging to find in a traditional grocery store than tofu and "fake meat."  In all the grocery stores I frequent in the DC area (and man, do I hit them all - I love the grocery store!), the only place I can ever find it is Whole Foods.  That said, it does have a decent shelf life, so I will often stock up on several packages at a time when we go there.

The brand I buy is WestSoy.  I prefer the strips to the cubed version.  You can sub it anywhere you'd use strips of meat - stir-frys, etc.  But, my #1 favorite way to use Seitan is in my Vegetarian Cheesesteak.

The Vegetarian Cheesesteak came to be last Fall.  At that point, I had been "off meat" since May.  And then football season started.  As a native Philadelphian and a die-hard Eagles fan, I ate my share of Whiz Wit in my day.  And, lo, when I was looking for something to eat during MNF (that's Monday Night Football for those of you not as football obsessed as me) I missed my cheesesteaks, but not enough to go back to actually eating beef.

Enter Seitan!  When you run a knife through it roughly, it resembles cheesesteak meat.  To make the sandwich above, I saute onions in olive oil until they are golden, then add the seitan.

Once the seitan is nicely browned, I season it with red pepper flakes and add sliced peppers (I used the leftover roasted yellow peppers from Sunday's enchiladas), spinach and cheese.  I use Daiya when I want a vegan version, but since we're out of both Daiya (need to make another run to Whole Foods, as I've also cleared out all my seitan), I used what we had in the house, which was some rennet free Cabot Monterey Jack cheese (Provolone is also great on this, and more traditional, but the other eater in my house may have eaten all my provolone . . .).   I serve the whole thing on a whole wheat sub roll carried by my local market.

The result is a satisfaction of my craving for a cheesesteak without that feeling of having swallowed a bag of lead.

Good sides for this bad boy are oven roasted potato fries (425 or 450, yukon golds cut into wedges, seasoned with salt and pepper, bake until browned) or sweet potato fries (I'm particularly fond of using Hannahs.)  Tonight, since I got home on the late side from yoga and it takes our oven about 37 years to heat up, I had a side of fresh fruit - blueberries and golden raspberries.