I love when I am able to convert people who don’t like cakes in general or specific cakes like chocolate cakes into devotees. #sorrybutnotreallysorry. While yes, my cakes are rich and decadent – they are balanced in the flavor profile and never too sweet. When I started to thinking about and creating this cake, it was with my family specifically in mind. There have been many tough moments in 2020 for all of us (as I am sure it has been for you) but it really hit me hard when we all decided that we had no choice but to celebrate Easter apart this year. But it was amusing to find that all households had purchased Reese’s Easter cups and I was reminded how much we all love this candy. So finally got around to a fantasy cake version that I think does justice to our shared love and even my Dad who will have any cake BUT chocolate loves this cake. It’s my favorite chocolate cake base layered with an airy peanut butter mousse and chopped up Reese’s peanut butter cups frosted with a creamy peanut butter frosting coated in chocolate ganache and crowned with more Reese’s peanut butter cups. What chocolate and peanut butter dreams are made of.
I love desserts which any person that goes to dinner with me will attest to as “yes, I will see the dessert menu please” and will probably (definitely) indulge in one or two of the offerings. One of my favorite pairing is the raspberry coulis that accompanies so many chocolate desserts – one of those really fancy plating techniques that I always fell head over heels for with the flavor combination working so well together. So this is my homage to those desserts in cake form with the tartness of the raspberries helping cut through the richness of the chocolate cake and frosted with this airy chocolate frosting. Whenever I am making the seedless filling, I always tell myself that I’ll just leave the darn seeds in next time because it is such a pain to extract them but the silky texture is so reminiscent of the coulis, I know that I will go through the process because really helps tie everything together with a *chef’s kiss*
I had gotten quite a few requests for carrot cake but it’s not one that I ever order myself so I had been hesitant to make one. But after the sixth or seventh ask, I knew that I should at least try to make one and maybe the way forward wasn’t with a traditional approach. I recalled a pretty great version I had in Hawai’i that included Maui pineapple which really enhanced the flavor and the tartness cut through the sweetness of the cake. Side note: if you go to a restaurant and the waiter raves that something is their specialty that they can’t ever take off the menu, try it – normally it’s popular for a very good reason! So then I decided that I would tip the balance back to a more traditional cake with the addition of walnuts that would also help tone down the sweetness (why I don’t normally get carrot cakes – I find them to be tooth achingly sweet). So this a spiced version with a brown butter filling that plays off the walnuts and helps balance the creamy traditional cream cheese frosting. The cinnamon spiced walnut toppings help reinforce all the flavors and the extra crunch bring a nice texture contrast
I received a message from a friend: are you doing any Halloween cakes? We would love one – I hadn’t been planning on it but I was up for the challenge. She had seen that I had made a pinata/surprise cake for my niece’s birthday party and requested that the cake is maybe a fun Halloween theme? So here we are: a “pumpkin pinata” marble cake filled with chocolate mousse and when you cut into the cake – there’s a sweet surprise of M&M’s!
(Espresso glazed vanilla cake layered with tiramisù filling covered with a sublime espresso mascarpone frosting dusted with cocoa powder and chocolate shavings). Italian restaurants and tiramisù are probably most of our first forays into exploring other cultures through cuisine. And now one of my favorite things about traveling is trying ALL the foods especially the desserts of a locale and I love trying to recreate the magic of those moments in my own kitchen when I am back home. So tiramisù reminds me not only of some lovely nights in Italy but also of home and family. I remember being transfixed by the flavors of this dessert – I have always loved coffee and you really get the sense of how the name translates “pick me up” – yum! I also remember vividly wanting to create this dish at home and how my mom had to search everywhere to locate appropriate ladyfingers (even then I was very exacting lol) and the mascarpone cheese and how expensive they were (dating myself here for how exotic these ingredients were back then)! Even now mascarpone is still not that cheap but I’ve learned there is nothing that you can substitute for it. And as always, no corners cut here ~ so much mascarpone is used in this recipe as it used twice! I wanted to create a cake version that paid homage to this dessert so it was finding the right cake base, then tweaking the filling I normally use in my tiramisù (made a zabaglione to cook the egg yolks) and as luck would have it, a friend sent me something to inspire this frosting…some taste testings to compare, a couple of trial runs and finally this cake was born. Something that ties my childhood to that late night in Rome…..and a different angle of my kitchen showcasing my fridge and magnets from some of the places I have been to.
The cake that started it all. And I think that I may have to offer this cake EVERY weekend because it is THAT popular. A simple zucchini Cake with cream cheese frosting and fruit but it is so much more. I couldn’t tell you when I first had this cake – it’s been a part of my life for so long now that it became something that I took for granted. There was this incredible bakery/coffee shop/deli/gourmet food store called the Market at Larimer Square that served this. Some of you are familiar with this place as one of my “I have to bring you here” places when you came to visit me in Colorado or if you live here, I’ve probably have brought this cake over or you directly to the Market. Our family would order the whole sheet cake for special occasions and it was one of the few desserts that really crossed generations and cultures that we could serve and everyone would be happy. So when it closed, I set upon creating a version that would pay homage to their version and many, many test tastes and tweaks, I finally think I have one that does it justice. And now, I am amazed and humbled how often people order this to celebrate a birthday or anniversary!
For my sweet niece’s birthday – Princess Harper requested a marble cake. I filled this one with a semi-sweet chocolate mousse and iced it in chocolate buttercream. There’s chocolate ganache and sprinkles and crowns because it needed to be as special and festive and colorful as she is…
I lost someone very near and dear to me when we first started quarantine in the US and I do what I often do with stress – I bake. I made my favorite chocolate cake and decided to add one of my favorite things: a thick layer of chocolate ganache but I decided that life is about celebration – that he lived a good life as well and I was grateful that our lives were intertwined. So for the pop of color and to add height and to really make something worthy of his memory, I added strawberries and chocolate swirls. Every time I make this cake, I am reminded that life is about the connections that we make (and there have been some truly incredible people that have ordered this one) and should always be celebrated!
One of the first layer cakes that I ever made from scratch and still continues to be my favorite chocolate cake to this day. I create all my cakes with the same goal in mind: to not have them be overly sweet and to have a flavor profile that will really wow you. So I added in a decadent dark chocolate mousse filling in the middle to really make sure that your chocolate fix is taken care of. And I changed it recently from two layers to three so there’s more chocolate mousse frosted with chocolate buttercream with shaved chocolate curls on top.
I have only recently started making marble cakes and upon request for a dear friend that couldn’t decide between vanilla and chocolate cake so the best of both worlds. This version has my chocolate mousse filling and is frosted with the chocolate buttercream – and I was amazed that I sold four of these on my first weekend!
Maybe my favorite thing I have done so far and for one of my faves. A smash cake for my niece – actually my first time doing these rosettes and making it multi-toned…I really loved how it turned out especially when I looked at this bouquet of roses I received a few weeks later and compared them. Plus these flowers were a “congratulations for selling so many cakes so soon but not surprised” so it was especially sweet and touching.
