Blake Makes

This giveaway is over. Thanks to everyone who participated. We’ll announce the winners soon. bk

Hello, Blake Bakers. Ok. Here it is. The first free food giveaway on Blake Bakes! You all know that I only recommend and give away food that passes my taste test. If it’s not yummy, I don’t bother. Well, don’t let the fact that this cake mix is Peanut/Dairy/Egg/Nut Free discourage you. It’s yummy-fantastic, and it’s made by Cherrybrook Kitchen.

Comment on this post for a chance to win a box of chocolate cake mix, and a jar of their chocolate, ready-to-eat frosting. 60 people will win! Good luck!

The purpose of this giveaway is not only to share a great food find, but to persuade you to consider these allergy aware foods the next time you pass them in the grocery store. I can’t wait to see and read about what you think of this. I’m sure you’ll never know the difference, and you may even like it better.

Tom's Organic Old Fashioned Pound Cake

© Carrie Boyko

One of my trademarks in cooking is preparing things in advance, so I can enjoy the social time with company and family. This is a dessert which fits right in to my goal of preparing as much in advance as possible. This rich pound cake is best made 2-3 days before you plan to eat it. The passage of time helps the flavors blend and the moist texture become the best it can be. I think it is great to create my dessert for an event a few days ahead, since I’m always crazed the 2 days before the big day taking care of last minute details.

This pound cake has a thin, crispy crust on the top that remains even when you freeze the extra loaf. Surprise! The recipe makes 2 loaves, so you can freeze one for later, or give one to a friend. You can even eat them both and I won’t tell. Try it with a little fruit compote drizzled over the top for an added flavor boost. Like cheesecake, pound cake is a classic that always tastes good plain, but is delightful when you add a surprise topping. Enjoy it however you like it.

Tom’s Organic Old Fashioned Pound Cake

• 3 cups organic flour
• 3 cups organic sugar
• 6 organic eggs
• 1/2 pound organic butter
• 8 ounces organic sour cream (not low fat)
• 1 tablespoon organic almond or vanilla extract (or both–this is awesome!)
• 1/4 teaspoon aluminum free or organic baking soda

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and sugar well, followed by the eggs and then the sour cream.
2. Combine the dry ingredients and blend in thoroughly.
3. Pour into 2 prepared bread pans and bake 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours.
4. Test with a toothpick to determine when done.
5. Cool for a few minutes on a rack, loosening the cake from the pan with a knife, and then remove to finish cooling in 10-15 minutes.
6. When completely cool, wrap twice in plastic or wax paper, very securely. Loaves can be frozen, if desired, but are best left out to reach full flavor for 2-3 days before freezing or eating.

Baking for Blake Bakes is really making me popular at my house right now. Since my focus on my daily blog is totally on healthy and organic, I find myself enjoying the opportunity to create desserts which also fit these criteria. The result is I’m definitely not bored with fruits and vegetables, since I’m squeezing decadent desserts in between. I’ll be back next month with something less traditional, but I’ll keep it a surprise for now. Thanks for reading, and for giving organic a try.

Carrie Boyko of Organic Journey Online

Recipes for banana breads and muffins are just about everywhere these days, so why is this cake special? Psst…the title should give it away…

Honey! This dense, moist cake is infused with sweet honey, giving it a unique flavor and a subtle sweetness that’s perfect for breakfast, an afternoon snack, or dessert. This recipe comes from Williams-Sonoma Baking book and was chosen because I had a bunch of bananas that were going bad that I wanted to use, but I didn’t want to have to go to the store for any ingredients. After browsing through my cookbooks I found this cake which uses all pantry staples. Perfect! This cake came together in no time at all, and smelled so, so good in the oven. Seriously, this may be the most delicious smelling item to ever come out of my kitchen. And the taste - fantastic! The honey and banana flavors compliment each other perfectly and the crunch of pecans on top was the ideal finish. You know you have some browning bananas in your kitchen right now, so don’t wait - grab them and get baking this cake!

Banana-Honey Cake

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup plus 2 tbls unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 eggs
• 2 bananas, peeled and mashed
• 2/3 cup nuts (I used pecans)

1. Position rack in the middle of oven and preheat to 350. Grease and flour a 9-inch square baking pan.
2. In a bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.
3. In another bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat together the butter and brown sugar until creamy. Add the honey and beat until blended. Add the eggs and beat until smooth.
4. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in two additions, alternating with the mashed bananas, beating until smooth.
5. Spread the batter evenly into the prepared pan and sprinkle with nuts. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 35-40 minutes.
6. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into squares and serve.

Brooke is a food lover (desserts in particular!) from Hamilton, NJ who enjoys trying out new recipes and treating her friends, family and co-workers to nice fattening baked goods whenever possible. She always has plenty of help in the kitchen - her two cats, Roy and Roger, are only too happy to supervise her chopping, mixing and stirring while her husband Joe and dog Tucker are perfect taste-testers. Brooke can be found at …and a cookie for dessert.

My job involves eating a lot of chocolate (I know, I’m lucky). It also necessitates doing research, which meant I recently acquired a new cookbook: The Essence of Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg. This is a fantastic cookbook even just to look through. It makes me drool every time. But I wanted to start out easy, so I started with a little recipe called the Orbit Cake, which was adapted from David Lebovitz’s recipe from his book Room For Dessert.

Scharffenberger is a relatively trusted brand of chocolate. It was bought by Hershey about three years ago, and I haven’t done taste tests to see if it has lost quality, but it still qualifies as good chocolate. You want to use Scharffenberger, or something of similar quality, for this recipe because it only has four ingredients, hence the flavors of the chocolate will really come through and unless you’re a fan of Hersheys you probably want to taste something a little nicer.

The cake was super easy to make: basically just mix all the ingredients, put them in a cake tin, and bake it in a water bath for a little over an hour. And the result is fantastic. I used single origin, but non-name brand chocolate from Whole Foods and it tasted great. The cake is almost fudge, but not quite. And you can put some freshly whipped cream on top as well. I did. But by the time I managed to stop eating long enough to take a photo, the cream wasn’t looking its best. Oh well!

Ingredients:

• 14 tablespoons of unsalted butter;
• 10 ounces of 62% semisweet chocolate;
• 5 large eggs;
• 1 cup of granulated sugar

Process:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and lightly butter a 2-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.
2. Melt the butter and chocolate together on top of a double boiler. Occasionally whisk until it is smooth. Remove it from the heat.
3. In a large bowl whisk together the eggs and the sugar, and gradually whisk in the chocolate mixture.
4. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and place the pan in a larger baking pan. Cover the cake pan with foil.
5. Add hot water to the larger baking pan until it reaches halfway up the pan holding the cake.
6. Bake for an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 30 minutes, or until cake has set (You can touch the center of the cake lightly with your finger. If it comes away clean, it’s done.). Remove the cake from the water bath and let it cool completely.
7. Cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least two hours and up to three days.
8. To serve it run a knife around the edges to loosen it and hold it over a gas stove for a little bit while constantly moving it to loosen the bottom. Tip it onto a plate, peal off the parchment, cut into thin slices, and you’re done!

Lara grew up in northern California where the words “hella” and “tight” were avid members of her vocabulary. That quickly changed, however, as after starting at UCLA she was duly educated in proper SoCal etiquette. Being a dork, she majored in math, but being indecisive she also took a lot of writing classes, wrote for her school newspaper The Daily Bruin, and after graduating decided writing was what she wanted to pursue. She currently works as an editorial assistant at The Robb Report, where she writes about furniture, and hosts a blog, The Ladybug and the Lion, where she writes about whatever she wants. She also loves food. Her current favorites include beer, oysters, and authentic mexican.

I’m definitely not pregnant, but according to a story in Vera Bradley’s Cooking With Friends, pregnant ladies love this cake. The story also said that the cake induced labor the day after it was eaten. Seriously?? This I’d love to see… however, I have no way of testing this theory out. I can tell you, though, that this cake is uber-yummy. I had a slice for dessert and another for breakfast the next day. If I was pregnant, I’d want my baby to try it. :)

Ruth’s Italian Pound Cake

• 1/4 c butter, softened
• 3 c sugar
• 1/4 c vegetable oil
• 1 c milk
• 6 eggs
• 3 c flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 2 tsp almond extract

1. Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-cup tube or Bundt pan. With an electric mixer, beat the butter in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy. Add the sugar gradually, beating constantly. Beat in the oil and milk. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
2. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder. Gradually beat flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Stir in the almond extract. Pour into pan. Bake for 90 minutes or until toothpick inserted close to the center comes out clean.

Jessica is a 20-something Native Texan & TCU alumna who enjoys spending time with her family & friends. She also loves cooking and baking… with a little shopping, TCU football and collecting Longaberger on the side. :)

Well, I’m glad to say that it is cherry season in our area of the world. As such, I have been looking for ways to use cherries that I haven’t tried before.

My efforts so far have given me a really delicious Cherry Gelato recipe that I will use again in the future, as well as a Brown Sugar Cherry Sauce that is equally delicious on pancakes as ice cream.

I also found this recipe for a Cherry-Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake - try to say that five times fast :P

Ahem, anyway, since it sounded intriguing, I decided to give it a try. Well, all I can tell you is that this cake is really pretty easy to make and is really, really good. The reason mine doesn’t look as pretty as it should is fairly simple - I didn’t follow the directions to use a non-stick skillet and chose to attempt to make this in my cast iron skillet instead.

You can see the results of that here - and yeah, not so pretty on the edges. Anyway, I’m sure that, had I used even a regular cake pan instead it would have been much prettier.

Either way, if you have cherries around and want something different than a pie, I wholeheartedly suggest you give this cake a try. Happy Summer to all (and if you are in Winter - then Happy Winter too!!)

Definition from Wikipedia:

Kuchen, (pronounced: IPA: /kʰuxɛn/phonics: /coo-hen/) the German word for “cake,” is used as the name for several different types of sweet desserts, pastries, and gateaux. The term itself may cover as many distinct desserts as its English counterpart “cake.”

I really enjoy expanding my culinary and foreign vocabulary, even when it expands my waistline. I learned the meaning of “kuchen” while trying to find a new recipe to use with blackberries. I came across this one from the website for Larriland Farms, based in Woodbine, Maryland and it’s really yummy.

Though it means “cake”, this “kuchen” I made was more like a cross between a tart and a galette than it was a cake. It’s a very simple recipe with a light dough that holds the fruit nicely. The recipe calls for 2 pints of blackberries, but I decided to use 1 pint of them and 2 cups of chopped Gala apples. The combination of the 2 fruits gave the dessert a good balance between sweet and tart, especially with the streusel topping. It’s delicious served warm or at room temperation with a scoop of vanilla or butter pecan ice cream.

BLACKBERRY KUCHEN
Source: Larriland Farms
Website: http://www.pickyourown.com/recipe_blackberry.html

Filling:

1 quart blackberries (I used 1 pint of blackberries and 2 cups of chopped Gala apples)

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 flour

Dough:

2 cups sifted flour

1/3 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/3 cup butter, quite soft

3 large eggs

Streusel:

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2/3 cup sifted flour

1/3 to 1/2 cup butter

For Filling: Combine sugar and flour; pour over berries and let stand while making dough.

For Dough: Sift together flour, sugar and baking powder. Add butter and eggs. Work together lightly until it forms a dough (can use hands). Press dough against bottom and sides of 9″ x 13″ pan.

For Streusel: Sift sugar, flour and cinnamon in bowl. Cut in butter until size of peas (can use hands to get good texture). Pour Blackberries into dough and spoon streusel over top. Bake at 350F for 30 to 35 minutes.

Carlo wanted to add that this recipe has gotten the “CSA: Carlo Seal of Approval!”

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a complete klutz. When Hubby responded with Yes to the question, “Do you often find yourself tripping over your own feet?” while setting up my Mii on our Wii, I had to agree.

So, what’s a klutz like me doing in the kitchen? For some reason, I’m usually okay in the kitchen. I have perfected my own little ways of doing things that seem to work for me.

Have you ever dropped a blob of frosting right on the edge of your pastry bag as you attempted to fill it? I know I have. Here’s one of my little methods that makes the task of filling a medium or large pastry bag easier.

Stuff:

• Wonder Cup or other push-up style measuring cup. (I bought mine at my neighbor’s Pampered Chef party.)
• medium or large pastry bag (prepared with coupler and tip of your choice)
• frosting

Method:

Pull the measuring cup’s plunger nearly out of the cup.

Use a large spoon to spoon the frosting into the cup, filling it to the top.

Tap cup on kitchen counter to remove as many air bubbles as you can. Scrape excess frosting from top of cup so that it can be cleanly placed in pastry bag.

Place pastry bag over measuring cup.

Grab bag and cup and invert.

With one hand holding the bag and cup, use the other hand to plunge the frosting down into the bag.

Give the cup a slight twist and pull it up and away from the bag.

There you have it — a pastry bag with nice clean edges ready to be twisted up.

See? Filling a pastry bag is so easy that even a klutz can do it! Now, as for that walking thing, I guess I’ll just have to keep working at it!

Holly is the proud Mama of two sweet little boys and has loved baking and cooking since she was little. She hopes to pass that love on to her two funny kiddos. Holly is married to a full-fledged action sports junkie who is constantly jumping out of airplanes and off bridges and cliffs. On her blog, PheMOMenon, she likes to write about baking, cooking and family. Holly openly admits to having a strange sense of humor, honestly inherited from her own mother. You’ve been warned.

Do you have a favorite Banana Cake recipe? Banana Bread? Well, I hate to break it to you, but unless it’s this one, you might as well put it away. Seriously. Put it away and get ready to gather these ingredients. It is that good.

I have made so many different recipes on the road to this one that I had pretty much given up on finding The One. You know - the one recipe that gives you all the things you want in the end result. Well, mission accomplished and now, there is no going back.

When I decided to make this Banana Bundt Cake, I actually wasn’t very excited about it. I figured it would be tough, or dry, or heavy and I just couldn’t get inspired. But, I had several bananas languishing on the counter and I had to use them somehow. I decided to put my faith in Dorie Greenspan once again and trust that she wouldn’t steer me wrong.

Bless Dorie. She sure didn’t! This cake is flavorful, light, moist without being overly heavy with it at all. In a word that I never use lightly, this cake is perfect. I actually doubled the recipe for the recipe for the lemony glaze that goes on the cake, just because, what can be bad about more glaze, right? To be honest, the glaze is wonderful with this cake, but the cake actually doesn’t even need it. Really. It does just fine on its own. I ended up eating two pieces of this the first night.

In Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home To Yours, Dorie actually mentions that this tastes better the next day, and I have to tell you, it is absolutely true.

So, to all the other recipes out there for banana cake - my many apologies but I’m going to have to go out on a limb and just say that this is The One. In fact, I now buy bananas, just so they can get nice and overripe so I can make this again!

Classic Banana Bundt Cake
(Adapted from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home To Yours)

- Makes 14 Servings -

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 2 large eggs, preferably at room temperature
• About 4 very ripe bananas, mashed (you should have 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups)
• 1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Generously butter a 9 to 10 inch (12-cup) Bundt pan. (Don’t place it on a baking sheet though - you want the oven’s heat to circulate throught the inner tube of the pan.

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (or you can use a hand mixer and a large bowl) beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla, then add the eggs one at a time, beating for about 1 minute after each egg goes in. Reduce the speed to low and mix in the bananas.

Finally, mix in half the dry ingredients (don’t worry when the batter curdles), all of the sour cream and then the rest of the flour mixture. Scrape the batter into the pan and rap the pan on the counter to get rid of any bubble air pockets. Use a small rubber spatula to smooth out the top of the batter.

Bake the bundt cake for 65 to 75 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted deep into the center of the cake comes out clean. Check the cake after about 30 minutes - if it is browning too quickly, cover it loosely with a foil tent (I definitely had to do this, which could have been partly because of my dark nonstick pan). Transfer the cake to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding onto the rack to cool to room temperature.

If you can wait, wrap the cooled cake in plastic and allow it to sit on the counter overnight before serving.

Lemony White Icing (optional):
Sift 3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar into a bowl and squeeze in enough fresh lemon juice (start with 2 teaspoons and add more by drops) to make an icing thin enough to drizzle down the Bundt’s curves. - If you choose to double this, as I did, then it took the juice of almost one entire small lemon.

When I flipped to this recipe in Pichet Ong’s “The Sweet Spot,” I couldn’t help but channel in Joey from that one Friends episode where Rachel made a trifle. “Cake, gooood. Custard, gooood. Jam, gooood. Beef, gooood.” Grand Marnier, Cheesecake, Tofu, all elicit a “goooood” from me…but put altogether??? Well, that was something I had to try!

I have actually tried the delicious tofu chocolate mousse from Alton Brown, and was really surprised by how delicious it was. But the chocolate completely overpowered the tofu, so I was curious as to if this cheesecake would actually bring out the tofu flavor, and preferably in a good way.

It is supposedly summer now (although the weather is still hardly the humid grossness I have come to know so well in St. Louis), so I thought that this light, refreshing cheesecake would be a great thing to try out. And trying out tofu and cheesecake loving family was hard to pass up.

This recipe went against everything I know about making cheesecake: it called for a glass square pan, you beat the cream cheese for 10 minutes, it is not baked, and it has tofu. Ahhh, the madness!

I have to say, about the time I was spooning the pureed tofu out of my blender, I started to get quite nervous as the aroma of tofu wafted into my nostrils and I started to imagine what it would taste like in a cheesecake. But the big question is, how did it turn out??

Well, as suspected, there was way too much crust, and it was way too sweet, so I would definitely cut back on that next time. I was also very disheartened to find out, upon trying to serve my beautiful soy-protein filled dessert, that although the filling had actually set up properly, something had gone wrong because the crust was actually bathing in leftover liquid.

But fortunately, the taste was the cheesecake we know and love, with just a bit more subtlety. I made a raspberry sauce from David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop” to pair alongside, which went fantastically with the light and creamy citrus cheesecake. Go crazy this summer, and try your hand at tofu cheesecake!! Nobody knew before they tasted, and all happily admitted, it IS delicious.

Grand Marnier Tofu Cheesecake
From Pichet Ong’s “The Sweet Spot”
Makes one 8-inch square or round cheesecake, about 10 servings

“This cheesecake has all the richness of traditional American-style cheesecake but with a distinctive fresh flavor. Although traditional Japanese versions use only tofu, I prefer combining the tofu with cream cheese and citrus juice and zest. Grand Marnier is popular in Asia, and the orange liqueur adds a sophisticated note.”

Ginger Graham Cracker Crust

• ½ cup (4 oz/113g) unsalted butter, melted
• 11 (6 1/8 oz/174 g) graham crackers, crushed into fine crumbs, about 1 ½ cups
• 1 ½ cups (8 oz/224 g) packed dark brown sugar
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• ¼ tsp salt

Grand Marnier Tofu Filling

• 19 oz (538 g) silken tofu
• 1 ½ tsp fresh lemon juice
• ½ cup (4 oz/113g) heavy whipping cream
• 1 tsp salt
• 5 gelatin sheets, soaked in cold water until softened and drained, or 2 ¼ tsp powdered gelatin, softened in ¼ cup (2 oz/56g) cold water
• 12 oz (341g) cream cheese, at room temperature
• ¾ cup plus 1 tbsp (5 ½ oz/156g) sugar
• 3 tbsp grated orange zest
• 1 tbsp grated lemon zest
• 2 tbsp Grand Marnier

1. To make the graham cracker crust: Preheat the oven to 300ºF. Lightly butter an 8-inch square or round glass or ceramic baking dish and set aside.
2. Put the graham crackers, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, and salt into a mixing bowl. Mix well, then add the melted butter and mix with your hands until the crumbs are evenly moistened. Transfer the mixture to the prepared baking dish and press into an even layer on the bottom.
3. Bake the crust until golden brown, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool completely.
4. To make the cheesecake filling: Put the tofu and lemon juice in a blender and blend until smooth. Set aside.
5. Put the cream and salt in a medium saucepan and warm over medium heat until bubbles being to form around the edges. Stir in the softened gelatin until completely dissolved. Remove from the heat.
6. Put the cream cheese, sugar, and orange and lemon zests into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 10 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, add the Grand Marnier, and mix on medium speed until smooth, about 1 minute. Gently fold in gelatin cream and tofu mixture until well incorporated.
7. Pour the filling into the cooled crust. Refrigerate, uncovered, until set, at least 4 hours, or preferably, overnight. Serve chilled.

Chunky Raspberry Sauce
From David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”
Makes 1 cup

“All raspberry sauces need not be created equal. Unlike the previous sauce, this one is loaded with big, chunky raspberries. It was inspired by a sauce that baking guru Nick Malgieri whizzed up during a cooking demonstration, and I’ve been making it ever since.”

• 2 cups (225 g) raspberries, fresh or frozen
• 3-4 tbsp (45-60g) sugar
• A few drops freshly squeezed lemon juice

Puree 1 cup of the raspberries with 3 tbsp sugar in food processor until smooth. Put the remaining raspberries in a bowl. Set a mesh strainer over the bowl and press the puree through the strainer over the raspberries. Stir the puree together with the whole raspberries, mashing the berries just a bit as you stir. Add the lemon juice. Taste, then add the additional tablespoon of sugar if you wish. Serve chilled or at room temperature. This sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.

Emily’s love of baking grew out of her desire to eat lots of warm chocolate chip cookies that her Taiwanese mother never made. Although she loves the Taiwanese food she grew up with, she also loves devouring sugar and chocolate laden desserts, which she now creates to share with family and friends. When she’s not in her St. Louis home baking away, she attends school in Philadelphia, eating through the city as much as possible.