This week’s edition of Friday Cakeblogging is in honour of Jenn’s (Musings From Baby Jail) 30th birthday. As my son pointed out, we don’t have any party hats, which just seems wrong, so when he gets up from naptime, we’re going to see what we can piece together with construction paper and ribbon. We’re going to toast her good health as well, though the only thing I have in the house to toast with is a bottle of Mogen David blackberry wine left over from Passover. I do have a bit of lemon cordial I made at New Year’s still in the fridge, but it has such an overwhelming odour of lemon it is a bit like drinking window cleaner. Actually, given that it is a combination of vodka, lemon peel and superfine sugar-I probably could clean windows with it.
The cake is a jumble of things as I haven’t been grocery shopping in a while. Still, as a former US Defence Secretary once said-“You go to the kitchen with the ingredients you have” (well, it was something like that-I’m paraphrasing). I scraped the last ½ cup of cocoa powder out of an ancient box in the back of the cabinet and started baking. Although the filling of the cake is orange, I used maraschino cherries to decorate with (as well as leftover Easter candy) because I thought they looked festive, and if nothing else, a Birthday cake ought to look festive.
So again, happy birthday and many happy returns and hopefully you will get the card I sent ages ago soon (#@!!&**^!@Canada post!).
(As I am baking this for a Canadian, I thought it would be polite to include a conversion chart. I foolishly thought I’d do the conversion in my head, as I used to know and use metric all the time. Unfortunately, that was long ago, and I wasn’t much of a baker then. I really ought to get a kitchen scale and offer the ingredients by weight as that is most accurate and this blog reaches readers all over the world. At any rate, my apologies if using US measures seems arrogant as that is not the intention-I’m just lazy).
*************************************
1 teaspoon 5 ml
60 drops 1 ts
1 tablespoon 15 ml 3 teaspoons 1 tb
16 tablespoons 1 c
1 cup 237 ml
2 cups 1 pt
1 pint 473 ml
4 cups 1 qt
1 quart 946 ml
2 pints 1 qt
4 quarts 1 ga
8 quarts 1 peck
1 gallon 3.78 litres (or 3785 ml)
1 fluid ounce 30 cc -- 2 tb
1 cup 240 ml
1 1/2 fluid ounces 1 jigger -- 3 tb
1/8 litre 6 2/3 tablespoons
WEIGHT EQUIVALENTS
1 ounce 28.4 gm
1 pound 454 g
1 pound 16 oz
1 kilogram 2.21 lb -- 35.3 oz
1 gram 0.035 oz
*************************************
For the cake:
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/16th teaspoon salt
½ cup Canola oil (because Jenn is Canadian. If you make it for an American, by all means, go ahead and use soybean-that was a joke. Gee whiz, I shouldn’t have to point that out).
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix the dry ingredients. Add the rest in a well and mix thoroughly but not too the point of being over mixed. The batter should be lumpy.
Place in a greased pan (I would use parchment paper on the bottom-but that’s me)
Pour into cake pans-don’t fill past half-way. If you have left-over batter use it for a few cupcakes. A 9x13 sheet cake pan would comfortably accommodate all the batter.
Bake 35 minutes or until toothpick tests clean in centre.
Cool in pans for about 20 minutes. Then on racks. While cake cools, prepare orange filling.
Orange Filling:
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
Mix all in a heavy pan. Bring slowly to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil an additional minute (keep stirring). Remove from heat. Chill before spreading.
Ganache
(Even spell check didn’t know that one. Until a few years ago, most of us just called this chocolate glaze).
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons corn syrup
16 ounces semi-sweet (or bittersweet) chocolate chopped into small bits (food processor makes this easy).
1 tablespoon vanilla
Heat the cream and corn syrup until they begin to boil. Pour over chocolate in a large bowl. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Using a good whisk (don’t even bother with the cheap flimsy ones) beat until smooth. Make certain cake and filling are cold (let the assembled cake sit in the refrigerator. Place cake on a rack atop a cookie sheet. Pour on a small amount of ganache to cover any crumbs. Let it set five minutes. Then pour the ganache on and spread with a good spatula. When set, remove to a plate and set in the refrigerator to harden. If you have a good amount of ganache still sitting in the bottom of the cookie sheet-place it in a bowl in the fridge and let it harden. Then roll it into balls and dust with cocoa or nuts and you have truffles. Sort of.
The cake is a jumble of things as I haven’t been grocery shopping in a while. Still, as a former US Defence Secretary once said-“You go to the kitchen with the ingredients you have” (well, it was something like that-I’m paraphrasing). I scraped the last ½ cup of cocoa powder out of an ancient box in the back of the cabinet and started baking. Although the filling of the cake is orange, I used maraschino cherries to decorate with (as well as leftover Easter candy) because I thought they looked festive, and if nothing else, a Birthday cake ought to look festive.
So again, happy birthday and many happy returns and hopefully you will get the card I sent ages ago soon (#@!!&**^!@Canada post!).
(As I am baking this for a Canadian, I thought it would be polite to include a conversion chart. I foolishly thought I’d do the conversion in my head, as I used to know and use metric all the time. Unfortunately, that was long ago, and I wasn’t much of a baker then. I really ought to get a kitchen scale and offer the ingredients by weight as that is most accurate and this blog reaches readers all over the world. At any rate, my apologies if using US measures seems arrogant as that is not the intention-I’m just lazy).
*************************************
1 teaspoon 5 ml
60 drops 1 ts
1 tablespoon 15 ml 3 teaspoons 1 tb
16 tablespoons 1 c
1 cup 237 ml
2 cups 1 pt
1 pint 473 ml
4 cups 1 qt
1 quart 946 ml
2 pints 1 qt
4 quarts 1 ga
8 quarts 1 peck
1 gallon 3.78 litres (or 3785 ml)
1 fluid ounce 30 cc -- 2 tb
1 cup 240 ml
1 1/2 fluid ounces 1 jigger -- 3 tb
1/8 litre 6 2/3 tablespoons
WEIGHT EQUIVALENTS
1 ounce 28.4 gm
1 pound 454 g
1 pound 16 oz
1 kilogram 2.21 lb -- 35.3 oz
1 gram 0.035 oz
*************************************
For the cake:
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
2 cups granulated sugar
¾ cup cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/16th teaspoon salt
½ cup Canola oil (because Jenn is Canadian. If you make it for an American, by all means, go ahead and use soybean-that was a joke. Gee whiz, I shouldn’t have to point that out).
1 cup hot coffee
1 cup milk
2 eggs
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix the dry ingredients. Add the rest in a well and mix thoroughly but not too the point of being over mixed. The batter should be lumpy.
Place in a greased pan (I would use parchment paper on the bottom-but that’s me)
Pour into cake pans-don’t fill past half-way. If you have left-over batter use it for a few cupcakes. A 9x13 sheet cake pan would comfortably accommodate all the batter.
Bake 35 minutes or until toothpick tests clean in centre.
Cool in pans for about 20 minutes. Then on racks. While cake cools, prepare orange filling.
Orange Filling:
1 cup sugar
4 tablespoons cornstarch
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup orange juice
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 ½ tablespoons lemon juice
2 tablespoons butter
Mix all in a heavy pan. Bring slowly to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Boil an additional minute (keep stirring). Remove from heat. Chill before spreading.
Ganache
(Even spell check didn’t know that one. Until a few years ago, most of us just called this chocolate glaze).
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons corn syrup
16 ounces semi-sweet (or bittersweet) chocolate chopped into small bits (food processor makes this easy).
1 tablespoon vanilla
Heat the cream and corn syrup until they begin to boil. Pour over chocolate in a large bowl. Let stand 5 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Using a good whisk (don’t even bother with the cheap flimsy ones) beat until smooth. Make certain cake and filling are cold (let the assembled cake sit in the refrigerator. Place cake on a rack atop a cookie sheet. Pour on a small amount of ganache to cover any crumbs. Let it set five minutes. Then pour the ganache on and spread with a good spatula. When set, remove to a plate and set in the refrigerator to harden. If you have a good amount of ganache still sitting in the bottom of the cookie sheet-place it in a bowl in the fridge and let it harden. Then roll it into balls and dust with cocoa or nuts and you have truffles. Sort of.
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