The famous Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake

In 1966, Ella Helfrich entered the annual Pillsbury Bake-Off contest with her Tunnel of Fudge Bundt Cake and took second place.  This second place finish is a more sought after recipe than any other first place winner since.  For my birthday this year, I made Helfrich's cake with some modification. The original recipe calls for a Pillsbury product that is now discontinued. This is Pillsbury's version of the recipe.

 The cake's fudge-like center is delicious and any chocolate lovers will be head over heels for this week's cake!

Brown Sugar Pound Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

This time around I followed Mellisa Gray's recipe for Brown Sugar Pound Cake and a I used her cream cheese frosting.  Obviously, I can 't share every one of the recipes from All Cakes Considered or you'd never have a reason to go out and buy her book.  That wouldn't be fair to her and she would probably want to come to my house and beat me up.

One thing I am learning is that most recipes ask you to get your butter and eggs to room temperature before you begin.  This is one step of the recipe that I am endlessly forgetting.  This time around I remembered!  I'm still unsure of how it makes the cake better, but I will let you know when I find out.

This recipe contained a ridiculous amount of brown sugar and when I tasted the batter it seemed far too sweet for my tastes.  (Yes, I know I shouldn't eat the batter for fear of salmonella but it's for the good of the cause.)

The recipe's bake time was 70 minutes.  I took the cake out after 55 minutes.

I had my super-cute taste-tester try the frosting to make sure that it was to her liking.  It was.

The husband and the boy thought that the cake was better accompanied with ice cream.  So far, this is my favorite cake.   I'm in love with the brown sugar flavor.  Today, I served up a piece of cake with a glass of milk while I read my book and I savored every bite.  I think that next time I make it though, I will add a few more hand fulls of the chopped walnuts.

Update: I brought the cake into work to get more feedback. This cake was much loved.  It is a pound cake and a pound cake brings a different cake-texture to the table than most are used to.  The Brown Sugar Pound Cake is great with morning coffee or a late night glass of milk.  This is not a dessert cake and is certainly not the cake texture that you are used to in store-bought baked goods.

R2D2 Birthday Cake

Sometimes the cake will be more about the decorating than about the baking. This weekend was my son's 5th birthday and we were having a StarWars party. I was so concerned with the amount of time I would need to decorate the cake that I forgot to take pictures along the way of baking the cake!

I made Martha Stewart's basic chocolate cake recipe for the cake part:

After letting the cake cool for most of the morning, it was time to start decorating.  A few years ago I asked for decorating tips for Christmas.  The first time I used them was for my son's 4th birthday cake:

I enjoyed the process, but most of all, I love the look on the boy's face when he saw his cake.  This year I was going for the same! So R2D2 it was.  I found a cake pan from 1977 on Ebay... score!  It still had the 1977 price on it of $8.95. And the decorating started.

And this is where the hand cramping would start from squeezing the pastry bag.

And the finished product.

And the happy birthday boy.









Cinnamon Almond Coffee Cake

Part of the goal of this experiment is to increase my baking knowledge but since we are in week three and not week forty I'm going to be needing the help of some other bakers out there.  This week I started reading Melissa Gray's All Cake's Considered.  Gray is National Public Radio's "cake lady" and I have a feeling her book is going to help me a lot on the way.  It's a definite must-have for any baker you know.

My first cake from All Cake's Considered in the end turned out rather well, but unfortunately I had to vear very far from Gray's Miss Saigon Cinnamond Almond Coffee Cake because I couldn't find Saigon Cinnamon at either of my supermarkets.  I have found a resource online now and I have no doubt if I would have made a trip to Penzy's I would have found it.

Also the last ingredient to add was almond extract.  When I wrote my grocery list I looked in the cupboard and had a box marked almond extract.  Go figure that when I opened the box the bottle would be empty. 

So here is my recipe, adapted from All Cakes Considered:

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 cup sliced almonds
1/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour + 2 tablespoons
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup vanilla yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, almonds and flour in a medium mixing bowl.  Add 2 tablespoons melted butter and mix to make the streusel.

2. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare an 8 1/2 by 11 inch pan with cooking spray. The true recipe calls for 8x8 but my 8x8 was occupied. 

3. Cream together shortening and sugar on medium speed.

4. Add the two eggs, one at a time continuing to beat well in between.

5. In another medium mixing bowl mix together 1 1/2 cups flour and baking powder.

6. Add half of the flour mixture to the shortening and sugar mixture. Then add 1/2 of the yogurt and alternate back to the flour mixture followed by the remaining yogurt.  Then add the vanilla extract.

7. Add half of the batter into your prepared pan.



8. Sprinkle 1/3 of streusel over batter. 

9. Layer the remaining batter and smooth.  Top with remaining streusel.

10. Make things interesting by having a live drumming performance in the background.

11. Bake for 40 minutes.

12. Cool the cake in the pan and serve.





Banana Chocolate Chip Cake

This cake is an easy to bake cake and very versitile; meaning we had it for dessert and for breakfast. The kids definitely liked the addition of chocolate chips, I liked the plentiful banana flavor.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

8 tbsp. butter, softened

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup vanilla soy milk

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 cup. semi sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 8x11 glass baking pan with cooking spray.

2. Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl.  Set aside.

3. Beat sugar and butter in an electric mixer on medium speed for three minutes. Add eggs one at a time and mix, scraping the sides of the bowl when needed. 

4. Beat in bananas, milk and vanilla.  Then add in flour mixture until combined.

 5. Stir in chocolate chips, or ask a little cutie to do it like I did.

6. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and flatten with spatula.  Bake for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.  

7. Let cake cool on a wire rack.  Do not serve until cooled.

Chocolate Vanilla Marble Bundt Cake

My first cake of the year will need to be corrected at a later date but I'd still serve the cake as is, I'd just choose to serve it with ice cream. Orange sherbet was a perfect addition, the chocolate/orange combination is always a favorite of mine.

The reason the ice cream makes this cake a win is that the vanilla part of the marble cake was a little dry.

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cup flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup butter, plus 2 tbs. softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tablespoon, plus 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup chocolate syrup
3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels

1. Bring eggs and butter to room temperature. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Use cooking spray to grease 10 inch bundt pan and lightly coat with flour.

It helps to do all of this with this cute little face standing by:

3. In a medium bowl mix flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

4. In your mixing bowl beat 3/4 cup butter and 1 1/2 cup sugar together on low speed.  Add eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla and beat until fluffy, scraping the bowl frequently.

5. Add half of flour mixure and half of buttermilk, beat on medium until mixed completely.  Then add the remainder of butter milk and flour mix until combined.  Reserve two cups of batter.  Pour the rest of the batter into your prepared pan.

6. Add chocolate syrup to the reserved batter and mix.

7. Layer chocolate batter over vanilla batter in the pan.  Do not mix.

8. Bake at 350 degrees fro 50 minutes or until and inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Cook for 15 minutes on wire rack.

9. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack.

10. In a microwave safe batter bowl combine chocolate chips, 2 tbls. butter, 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla and microwave in 20 second intervals mixing in between. Drizzle chocolate over your cooled bundt cake.

And eat.