A Veritable Cornocopia

Holiday season is upon us, and after a weekend of gorging myself on Thanksgiving treats, it was somewhat depressing to return to DC and discover that the leftovers had not magically returned along with me.  Of course the obvious solution to this problem was to create my own leftovers.  And an early Hannukah offered the perfect excuse.  Additionally, while I would be quite content to nourish myself entirely on cakes and pies, I could hear the Jewish mother in my head reminding me that vegetables are an important food group.  So I dragged myself to the grocery store and spent an embarrassing amount of money on butter, eggs, chocolate, vegetables, cheese and the like.  Then I set to work in the kitchen.

There's really nothing I like more than to spend my day off in my running clothes, covered in flour and cocoa and baking something sweet for people I love.  Occasionally the thought crosses my head that this might be a fun way to spend my life, but then I wouldn't have anything to do with my free time.  Also I like to take my time when I bake, and I'm pretty sure professional bakers are constantly rushing.  And they get up at 4 AM to make bread which does not sound even slightly appealing.

Anyway, I am going to break this post up into several installments only so it's easier to follow the recipes.  I got occasionally distracted while baking so a few recipes have less pictures of the process, but I am confident that should you try to recreate any of these you will do just fine.  Worst case scenario you have a bowl of sugary butter, and there's nothing wrong with that.  Nothing wrong at all.

On my menu for the week was a quinoa-cauliflower-feta invention and a spinach and mushroom lasagna.  I forgot that cheese is surprisingly expensive and that managed to bring me back quite a pretty penny.  But the results were oh-so worth it.  Assuming you're not lactose intolerant.  But if you are you probably have no reason to continue reading my blog other than my occasionally witty remark.  Because I love butter.  And cheese.  A lot.  Perhaps one of the reasons veganism didn't quite work out for me.

But back to the recipes (how did I manage to write so many paragraphs without even hinting at my dessert?!).  Also on the menu were two desserts from my favorite cookbook in the entire world.  It is the Toll House dessert cookbook and I may or may not be obsessed with it. I picked out the Toll House Cake (a white cake with chocolate chips and milk chocolate frosting) and an Apple Pie.  If your mouth isn't watering yet you should check your taste buds to make sure they're still working.  Seriously.

I'll start with the cake recipe and put the rest of them up over the next two days.  Get psyched!

Tollhouse Cake Recipe
Ingredients:
Cake:

2 cups flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 eggs
1 cup butter/margarine softened
2  tsp baking powder
1 cup chocolate chips (or one chocolate bar chopped into small to medium chunks)


Frosting:
1 cup butter softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 cup chocolate chips
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350.  But when you're baking, that's almost always a given.

You start by doing the traditional cake thing.  Beat the margarine for about 30 seconds, then gradually add in the two sugars until you get a nice creamy consistency.  It takes about 3 or 4 minutes which always seems like an eternity to me, but it's worth it if you want a good batter.  Then slowly add in the eggs one at a time making sure the beat well after each one.  Your batter should look something like this:

I saw the Cadbury chocolate bar and decided to use it instead of chocolate chips just to mix it up a bit.  I chopped it up and then had a hard time resisting the urge to eat it all before adding it to the batter.

Now, after making sure your flour isn't clumpy, and ideally after mixing it in a separate bowl with the baking powder and salt (though we all know by now I pretty much never do this) you can slowly beat it into the sugar/butter mixture.  I also added a few dashes of cinnamon, because I can really never get enough of that spice.  After that, you can slowly mix in the chocolate chips with a spoon.  Resist the urge to eat all the batter immediately.  And if you're really smart you'll dust the chocolate chips in flour first so they don't all sink to the bottom of the batter as soon as it goes in the oven.  As you can see, I did not do this:

But it turned out okay in the end anyway, so no worries.  I slid it in a small loaf pan:

And baked it for about an hour and a half.  This is because I accidentally preheated my oven to 250 degrees instead of 350 and realized this 30 minutes after I put the cake in the oven.  So I just upped the temperature and periodically checked on the cake until it was thoroughly baked.  Theoretically if you bake it at the correct temperature it should only take 45 minutes to bake.  But you're welcome to try it my way.  I took it out and sliced off the lump on top to make frosting easier.  Cakes ALWAYS have a little lump towards the center, if they don't they have definitely been trimmed before frosting.  It looked so good inside!

While your cake is cooling you can melt a little over a cup of chocolate chips on the stove for the frosting.  You could theoretically do it in the microwave, but chocolate melts better over a low flame, and when you're using it in a frosting consistency is very important.

Now beat the cup of softened butter and slowly add in the confectioner's sugar and vanilla.  Feel free to add more confectioner's sugar if the consistency isn't right, but make sure to beat it for at least 3 minutes after all the sugar is in before adding more.  Once you have a nice frosting-like consistency add in the melted chocolate and beat until you have a nice chocolate colored frosting.

Now, once the cake is cooled remove it from the pan and slice it into four equal layers cutting the long way across.  I like to cut it in half using a bread knife, and then cut each half in half.  This makes for the most even layers, but you're welcome to eyeball it starting from the bottom.

Place the bottom layer on a plate and put a large dollop of frosting down and spread it evenly:

Add a layer and frost continuing until you've done all four.  Then use the remaining frosting on the top and sides.  This recipe doesn't make a ton of frosting so either be conservative in your frosting of the layers, or double the recipe for the frosting.

I added some festive chocolate chips on top.  Unnecessary, and I didn't have enough space to make a proper chanukiya, but still pretty.

And when your guests finally finally FINALLY arrive, you can cut it open and it looks like this:

 

Tada!  Delicious cake magic.  And it only took me 50 million paragraphs to report.

Now go eat and be merry.