Easy on Kitchen3N

Small Chocolate Cake

Sun, 24 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

There are many a great chocolate cake recipes out there. Why, say you, post yet another? Take for example the great Beatty's Chocolate cake recipe that I made for many years. All the elements of a great chocolate cake: good quality cocoa, buttermilk, coffee. The problem is, they're quite big if you're making something for an intimate gathering. I've learned an 8in cake feeds approximately 20 people, and 9 feeds about 25. So, if you're looking for a small celebration cake for the family, this is the recipe for you. If you invest (~$20) in 3 6in round pans, you can have small, chic cakes any time. I always freeze my cake layers by inverting onto plastic wrap lined 6in cake board, then wrapping well with the plastic wrap. Small cakes can be kind of wobbly and difficult to decorate unless frozen solid. Then, let come to room temperature before serving. I also recommend using a good quality cocoa powder for your chocolate cakes. You don't have to break the bank. Rodelle from Amazon is really good quality for a reasonable price. You'll get 6 to 12 servings, depending on how big you cut each slice. I always find the best chocolate cakes are the ones with coffee in the batter. The batter will be quite thin - don't let this worry you. It makes for a wonderfully aromatic and moist cake - doesn't taste like coffee or mocha at all. For the biggest chocolate fans, frost with a chocolate ganache, using a 1:1 weight ratio of chocolate to heavy cream. Otherwise this goes great with salted caramel, vanilla, chocolate or raspberry buttercream. Links to each below!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup whole milk, room temperature
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup freshly brewed strong, hot coffee

Directions

1. Spray 3 6in cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Place the pans on top of a big sheet of parchment paper and draw circles around the bottom of each pan. Cut out each circle and line the bottom of each pan with one. Spray the parchment lined bottoms of the pans with a bit more non stick spray. 2. Brew coffee. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Add sugar to the bottom of a large bowl or the mixing bowl of your stand mixer.* Place a sieve over the bowl and add the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda. Sift into the bowl. Add salt. Whisk to combine. 3. In a large measuring cup or bowl, combine oil, milk, eggs and vanilla extract. With the mixer running on low, or by hand, slowly add wet ingredients to dry, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Finally, add the coffee, stirring slowly and carefully, until batter is combined. 4. Divide evenly between the three cake pans (I use a scale to determine this). Bake for 25-28 minutes in preheated oven or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool, then remove from pan and slice off the domes before stacking and frosting. Frost with my raspberry swiss meringue buttercream, american buttercream, vanilla swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate ganache or your choice of frosting.

*I do this step first because I’ve forgotten to add the sugar too many times.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

Thu, 05 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

If ever you've craved a cookie so intensely chocolately, with little to meddle with it pure chocolate flavor (no nuts, no eggs, and a high cocoa to flour ratio), then this cookie is it.

I first made these about 1 year ago when I made my first ice box cake…for 50 people. I must have made 4 batches. Probably could have made less if I hadn’t been snacking on them along the way.

Crepes

Tue, 03 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

The first time I had crepes was in Paris in 2006. Kids coming home from school were snacking on this conical things wrapped in paper filled with all kinds of chocolately/fruity goodness. My buddy and I did not hesitate. We got ourselves some crepes filled with nutella and slices of banana and our minds were blown. So delicious and, as I'd soon discover, so easy to make, with such simple ingredients?!

Flash forward to 2017 and I’ve made it 34098734287234 times. I’ve filled them with sautéed mushrooms and swiss cheese to serve to guests. With scrambled eggs and spinach for a savory breakfast. Most often though, with nutella/banana or simply with strawberry jam for my sweet-toothed family. It is the THE most requested breakfast item, surpassing pancakes, waffles, french toast, everything. Which works for me since it’s SO EASY and cooks much faster than all those other options.

Boneless Short Ribs with Asian BBQ Sauce

Thu, 11 Dec 2014 00:00:00 +0000

How can I explain to you how good these are? Do the pictures do justice to them? Are you drooling on your keyboard? If so, then I’ve done my job. Though I have a confession to make: I’ve never made short ribs before. I’ve never even had them before, you know, as a separate entity. Sure, I’ve eaten them as part of a larger curry, but not like this. But hooray for internet, right? I checked my cookbooks and could not find anything for boneless ribs. They all had recipes for bone-in ribs, the type that you braise in a casserole. Balsamic braised. Beer braised. Red wine braised. But then, I found this recipe for easy bbq boneless ribs! And though I was grateful for Sunny Anderson’s (easy) cooking technique, I knew I wanted an Asian BBQ type thing, something rich in soy sauce and garlic with a hint of sesame flavor, but not one that was so authentic I needed to make an extra trip to my local Asian grocery. Na’m sayin? In keeping with halal guidelines, I’ve never had korean or japanese bbq (I doubt any halal establishments exist in NY). But I knew I really wanted to try Korean BBQ short ribs, or Kalbi. The problem is, you need a special cut of short ribs to prepare in that way - called the flanken cut. And if I had thought a little bit in advance, I could have convinced my friends at Honest Chops to hook it up. But I didn’t. And here we are. For this post, I took a page out of my research days, when, clueless about coding, I’d have to piece together bits from existing code, tweak it according to my data, and try to make some science! So I took a little from a recipe here, a recipe there, and badda bing badda boom. Definitely feel free to swap out the regular soy sauce for low-sodium. I served it here with rice, but I actually liked it better when it was shredded and wrapped in lettuce leaves. The cool, crisp texture and flavor of the lettuce worked perfectly with the slow cooked, soy sauce spiked flavor of the ribs. I used Sunny’s cooking technique with an adapted version of the Kalbi recipe below (I didn’t have an asian pear, and I wasn’t about to venture out into this torrential rainfall to get some). And I had to add chili flakes. Had to. I found by the end of the recommended 3 hours, the meat dried out a bit (that didn’t stop me from inhaling them). I did taste it at 2 hours, and it was tender enough. I would recommend for this amount of meat, 2 to 2 1/2 hours. And there is more than enough sauce. I actually used some of the leftover sauce to season some salmon. You can easily do 4 lbs of ribs in it.