"Triple Layer" Chocolate Cake

Triple Layer Chocolate Cake - made April 1, 2017 from The Stay At Home Chef

The original title of this recipe was Triple Layer Chocolate Cake. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you if you can only see two layers. I actually did make all three layers that the recipe yields except, as usual, I baked them in 8” round cake pans instead of 9” pans. Which made for thicker layers. By the time I was assembling and frosting the cake, I knew early on that a three-layer cake of this much chocolate goodness would probably be daunting for most eaters, even a seasoned veteran such as myself. So I stopped at two layers and froze the third layer, well-wrapped, for a future concoction.

You might scoff that I quaked in my chocolate-loving boots over a three-layer fudge cake but I had used Pernigotti cocoa for this cake and I knew from past experience that that meant no-holds-barred chocolate decadence that would fell even the most stalwart chocoholic. It’s true. I like to tantalize people with baked goods, not slay them flat onto their backs into chocolate-induced oblivion. Most of the time.

I also made up the fudge frosting recipe for this cake and gauged I was going to run short if I tried to make it stretch to 3 layers of towering chocolate goodness. I could have made more frosting, I suppose, but I felt like I had already achieved maximum desired flavor and consistency with what I did make that I felt hesitant to throw my frosting off balance by fiddling with it further. Pernigotti cocoa was also used in the frosting but tempered by whole milk and powdered sugar. Even then, it was powerfully chocolate. And was just enough to cover a two-layer cake.

All that lead in to say….this is an amazing cake. Serious chocoholics should apply, fork in hand, to validate my findings. Soft, moist, richly fudgy chocolate. Your tonsils will hum, your chocolate tooth will sing an aria, your jeans will say “you’re working out later, right?”

One word of advice though – you won’t get that deep dark chocolate look or flavor if you use “grocery store chocolate”. As in, Hershey’s isn’t going to cut it. You really need a high quality cocoa. I favor Pernigotti (I swear I’m not affiliated with them; I just think they have a fantastic product) but you can also use something on the higher end of the cocoa spectrum like Valrhona. If you don’t want as dark a chocolate flavor as I have mine, you can always “cut” the high end cocoa with a Hershey’s-standard cocoa and get something between dark and milk chocolate. I don’t advocate it but it’s an option if you’re not a dark chocolate lover. If funds are tight and you must stick with Hershey’s, it isn’t the end of the world but you may get slightly different results.

Cake

3 cups all-purpose flour
3 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 large eggs
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups warm water
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Frosting
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
3-4 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3-4 tablespoons whole milk, more if needed for desired consistency

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray 3 8- or 9-inch round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray and dust with flour, tapping out the excess. Line with round parchment circles.
2. Mix together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt in the large bowl of a freestanding electric mixer on low speed until combined.
3. Add eggs, buttermilk, warm water, oil and vanilla. Beat on medium speed until smooth, 2-3 minutes. Do not overbeat.
4. Divide batter evenly between the 3 pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center of each pan comes out with a few moist crumbs or clean.
5. Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes then loosen the sides with a small rubber spatula. Turn out the cakes onto wire racks and cool completely.
6. Make frosting: cream butter with cocoa and powdered sugar. Add vanilla and milk and beat, adding milk teaspoon by teaspoon until desired consistency,

Restaurant Review: Thai Chili Cuisine

Thai Chili Cuisine - dinner on April 3, 2017

I found a small business restaurant that was female co-owned in my neighborhood and talked one of my friends into meeting me there for dinner. It’s closer than my favorite Thai restaurant where I get my favorite pad thai and it’s always good to find another small business to support.

We went on a Monday night and it wasn’t that crowded. Maybe 12-16 tables of varying sizes and a quarter to a third full? We were greeted and seated promptly at a table originally meant for four but the hostess (owner?) separated the two two-toppers slightly in case more customers came in to use the other one. But she kindly invited us to use the chairs from the nearby table to place our purses on which we appreciated.

Roti - $6.95

 As always, when trying a new Thai restaurant, I get – what else – the pad thai, no bean sprouts. I’ve never understood the purpose of bean sprouts. They have no flavor and an annoying crunch. Left to themselves, they camouflage among the noodles then interfere with the dish by inserting their crunchy texture when you just want soft noodles. No, bean sprouts and I are not friends.

Pad Thai with Chicken - $9.95

Fortunately, the restaurant was very accommodating of my aversion to bean sprouts and served me the pad Thai without them. Which made me enjoy my favorite dish just the way I like it. My friend had the drunken noodles which looked good but I was too wrapped up in my pad Thai to try it. We split an appetizer order of roti and OMG, that made the whole dinner worthwhile. The roti was served warm; it was deliciously buttery, flaky and crisp yet chewy. Much as I liked the pad Thai, I’d go back for the roti alone.

Drunken Noodles - medium spicy, $9.95

Thumbs up for Thai Chili Cuisine. It isn’t fancy or large but I like this kind of “neighborhood gem” that isn’t too crowded, has good service, reasonable prices and serves good food. I’m already thinking of who else I can meet for dinner so I can go back.

Sweet Potato Chili

Sweet Potato Chili - made April 1, 2017, adapted from Tastes of Lizzy T

I’ve been trying to cook again. Or at least, I make one thing over the weekend that’ll feed me some random meals during the week and call it a day. Chili has become my fallback meal. It’s easy to make, tastes better the next day and freezes easily. Plus I get to use the spices I ordered from Penzey’s! As with Pernigotti, I’m not affiliated with the company. I just like their products and the company itself so I tout their virtues whenever I can. Plus, their spices are what's encouraging me to cook more. Once I've bought them, I have to use them, right?

When it comes to chili, the hardest thing is chopping up the ingredients and in the case of this recipe, even that isn’t very hard. The only mise en place I had to do was peel and chop the onion and sweet potatoes. I cheated on the minced garlic because I had a (free) jar of minced garlic from Penzey’s that I used instead of fresh garlic. It was pretty good in the Skillet ChickenAlfredo Pizza and I’m not snobby about garlic so using it from the jar was just fine with me.

I modified this recipe, mostly by cutting the amount of chili powder in half. Not out of any culinary skill or preference but simply because I only had a 1/4-cup jar of chili powder from Penzey’s and not half a cup. At first I thought it was going to end up too soupy to be chili but I let it boil and boil (and boil), partially covered, until it had thickened enough to surpass the soupy stage. And once it had cooled, even when heated up the next day, it had thickened up to a satisfyingly chili-like consistency. Fortunately, my sweet potatoes didn’t disintegrate into mush and held up quite well but you might not want to chop them too small in case you have to boil your chili for a bit longer.

This chili had some heat. I wouldn’t say it was spicy-hot (me and my bland taste buds balk at that) but it was flavorful. If I sound surprised, you have to understand I’m a bland eater and a bland cook who never used to really use spices. But I feel like I successfully used spices this time to make something with rich, robust flavor rather than be spicy-hot; that doesn’t happen that often. Go me. Go chili.

1 pound ground beef

1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 29.5-ounce tomato sauce
2 cups diced tomatoes with juice
3 cups beef stock
5 cups sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
1 15.5-ounce can kidney beans, drained
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon thyme
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons black pepper
1/4 cup chili powder
dash of oregano
dash of red pepper flakes

1. In a large saucepan, brown ground beef, ground turkey, onions and garlic. Drain off the fat.
2. Add the remaining ingredients to the saucepan. Mix well, bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for about 30 to 40 minutes or until the sweet potatoes are cooked through.
3. Remove and discard the bay leaves. Serve.

Skillet Chicken Alfredo Pizza

Skillet Chicken Alfredo Pizza - made March 31, 2017

I’m going to try and space out my cast iron skillet recipes but if you check dates, you’ll know I obsessed about using my new skillet within the same few days as that’s when I tried out recipes using it. For this one, I didn’t really have a set recipe but an idea of “hey, I wonder how pizza would turn out in this thing.”

A cast iron skillet is great for baking anything bread-like. The heat and darkness of the skillet, so anathema when making cakes and cookies (the edges cook faster and get darker before the middle is usually done) is perfect for pizza dough. It crisps the outer edges and forms a nice crust. Because I used a smaller skillet (6”), the outer ring of the pizza didn’t have time to burn before the middle was baked. But did have enough time to crisp to a still-chewy exterior and turn a beautiful golden brown.

This pizza requires no cooking skill to make, which is fortunate. I bought the whole wheat, ready-made pizza dough from Trader Joe’s, used cooked chicken (also from TJ’s) as the topping and made up an alfredo sauce (recipe, such as it is, below) which I poured over the chicken. Bake until golden brown and cheese has melted and voila – Skillet Chicken Alfredo Pizza.

I only wanted a little sauce and the only reason I made it alfredo was I didn’t have any tomato sauce for a tomato-based pizza sauce. This turned out pretty well although I admit, I think I could’ve stretched out the pizza dough to a thinner crust. I like thick crust pizza though so I wasn’t too upset with my impromptu “cooking”.

Alfredo Sauce
2 tablespoons butter

¼ cup half and half

¼ cup whole milk

1 tablespoon chopped fresh garlic (I used Penzey’s minced garlic and it was perfect)

½ cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Melt butter and whisk in half and half and milk. Add garlic and stir in mozzarella cheese. Whisk over medium-low heat until completely melted. If mixture is too thin, add more cheese, a tablespoon at a time. Sauce will thicken after being baked and once it sets.

Peanut Butter Nutella Blondies

Peanut Butter Nutella Blondies - made March 26, 2017 from Relish

If you know any peanut butter and/or Nutella lovers, this is the easiest thing you could make for them and get raves. You make the peanut butter blondie batter, spread half in the bottom of the pan, pour a layer of warm Nutella over it and then drop the rest of the blondie batter on top, covering the Nutella completely.

The trickiest part is telling when it’s done. You can’t do the traditional toothpick test without running into the Nutella middle and that’ll mask whether the blondie has baked enough or not. Instead, angle the toothpick so that you’re able to spear the top half of the blondie without encountering the Nutella. If it comes out with moist crumbs and not raw batter, it’s done.

While I’m not a big peanut butter lover, I liked this combination. It’s straightforward, simple and the flavors marry well. It’s also easy to make ahead of time and freeze for when you need it. I used creamy peanut butter but you can use either creamy or crunchy. Just don’t use natural peanut butter or you won’t get the same texture or results. I also admit I was a bit generous with the Nutella because, hello, Nutella. You can use as much or as little as you like although I wouldn’t go much more than 1 cup or the Nutella layer will overwhelm the peanut butter (I know, I know, I say that like it’s a bad thing). I wouldn’t go too skimpy with the Nutella either; otherwise, why bother?

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

2/3 cup creamy peanut butter
1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 to 1 cup Nutella

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line an 8 x 8 baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, peanut butter and brown sugar together until smooth, about 30 seconds.
3. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in the vanilla. Add the flour and baking powder; stir until just combined. Do not overmix.
4. Pour half the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top. Measure out Nutella in a glass measuring cup and microwave for 15 to 20 seconds. Spread evenly over the batter. Top with remaining batter by dropping spoonfuls evenly over the Nutella and gently smoothing out the top.
5. Bake for 23 to 25 minutes or until the top is no longer glossy and the edges are golden brown. Cool completely before slicing.

Restaurant Review: La Fontaine

La Fontaine - dinner on March 30, 2017

I haven’t done a restaurant review in awhile. I’ve still been trying new local restaurants but just haven’t been good about blogging about them. So I thought I’d get back in the swing with this review for La Fontaine, which I took to be an Italian restaurant based on the cuisine but they bill themselves as French-Italian. Okay.

The menu offers a pretty good selection of different dishes. Price range is in the $20-$30+ per entrée with desserts (you know I look at the dessert menu first) under $10.

This is one of those menus where I had a hard time making a selection because there were several options that looked mouth-wateringly viable. I waffled between a couple of the pasta dishes, the short ribs, the steak frites and the Salmon Wellington. Pasta is usually my go-to at an Italian place, it’s hard to go wrong with steak and the short ribs sounded amazing. But I ultimately went with the Salmon Wellington because that’s not something you see on a menu every day.

Salmon Wellington - $25

The description was knee-weakening in and of itself. Salmon “wrapped” in puff pastry, stuffed with leeks and rock shrimp and served atop a bed of saffron risotto. Yum, right? Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as good as it sounded. Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty tasty. But it wasn’t actually “wrapped” in puff pastry like you would picture a traditional Beef Wellington is wrapped, as in encased completely so that you had to cut through the pastry to see what was inside. No, this was a salmon fillet which had a strip of puff pastry wrapped around its horizontal edge (like where its skin would have been) so you can still see the salmon, exposed. The middle had a spoonful of stuffing but I was hard pressed to find more than a few bits of shrimp. It was more leek than shrimp. I almost forgot it was supposed to have shrimp in the stuffing. The puff pastry was soggy because of the sauce poured over the salmon. The risotto was quite tasty but there wasn’t much of it. I sound more negative about the dish than I actually was. It was a modest portion that didn’t leave me feeling stuffed, which was good. What there was of the dish was delicious. But I think the reality didn’t live up to the advertising.

Meatballs

Seafood Pappardelle

One of my friends ordered the short ribs, which had been on my short – haha – list of entrees to get and let me have a taste. It was amazing. As in, “I’m coming back here again and ordering that instead” amazing. My other friends ordered pasta dishes and those looked good too so I might have to come back a couple more times.

Braised Shortribs - $26

The good news about the modest piece of salmon is I had room for dessert. Which, of course, I had to get. The lava cake called out my name and I paid heed. It too was modest in portion size but that wasn’t a bad thing. The chocolate lava cake was rich so a little went a long way. It was also delicious as was the caramel gelato that accompanied it.  

Lava Cake - $9

Overall, I liked La Fontaine. The servers were nice and it wasn’t too crowded. The menu items were a little pricey but I don’t mind that if it’s for good food with good service. Looking forward to going back and trying out some of the other entrees.

Skillet Apple Crumble for Two

Skillet Apple Crumble for Two - made March 26, 2017

I cycle through various baking obsessions from time to time. I’m in the beginning of one with cast iron skillets. I had a gift card to Sur la Table that I’d received last Christmas begging to be spent. I already knew I needed espresso powder for the Mocha Cream Cheese Brownies but there was still room on my gift card so I wandered the aisles to see what would catch my fancy.

What caught my eye, as always, was the “made in the USA” label. I’m a big believer in buying “local”, including buying US-made goods as much as possible. It isn’t always easy or readily available and is often more expensive but I’d rather buy less to make up the price difference if I can buy USA-made. Fortunately, cast iron pans are often made in the US and they’re reasonably priced. I bought this one at Sur la Table for $11.95 and found the same one on amazon for $8.49 and at Target for $7.99. I already had an 8” cast iron skillet, also made in the USA, but I wanted the smaller one for dessert size.

I haven’t done a lot of skillet cooking or baking but that’s not to say I couldn’t start. And start I did with making up this Skillet Apple Crumble. I had a lone Granny Smith hanging out in my refrigerator and I got the bright idea of making myself an apple cobbler. At first I had in mind making it more like a skillet apple pie with a real pie crust on top. But as I put this together, I changed my mind and reverted back to the crumble idea.

I made up this recipe, also something I don’t often do as I’m more of a follower of recipes than a creator of them. But, really, it’s hard to go wrong with an apple cobbler or crumble; it’s a very forgiving dessert. The cast iron skillet was perfect for this one because I softened/semi-caramelized the apples in the skillet directly with a little butter, sprinkled on some nutmeg and cinnamon (from Penzey’s, naturally) and a little sprinkle of brown sugar. Let it cook to semi-soft state, add a few dollops of salted caramel, then cover with the crumb mixture.

The crumb mixture I also made up from cobbling – haha – together bits from past recipes. Some flour, a little brown sugar, granulated sugar, generous dashes of nutmeg and cinnamon, melted butter and a little milk to hold it together in biggish crumbs. Cover the apples entirely with the crumb mixture then put the whole thing into the oven to bake.

It might go without saying but I’ll say it anyway for any other cast iron skillet novices. Make sure you’re using a potholder to touch the skillet handle with, even when it’s on the stove and before you put it in the oven (and after as well, of course). The heat from the stovetop fires up the whole skillet, including the handle so it’ll burn your unprotected hand. I might have some firsthand knowledge of that….just sayin’.

This turned out really well as my first skillet dessert creation. The Granny Smith apple was tart and I hadn’t used enough sugar in the apples themselves to tone down the tartness but the crumb topping and the salted caramel dollops made it a perfect complementary combination. The topping also crisped up so it provided a terrific contrast to the softness of the apples. Of course, there’s no point having warm apple crumble without a scoop of vanilla ice cream (to everyone except my brother in law who thinks combining flavors and textures is a travesty) so that also went well to provide a cool contrast to the warm cobbler.

In the picture, you’ll see I put the ice cream off center. That’s because I knew I was only going to eat, at most, one half of the cobbler. While a 6” skillet is a nice size, it’s mostly a nice size for two and is more than one serving for someone who still wants to fit into her existing clothes. The only downside to the skillet is it isn’t microwavable so when I went back for the second half of the cobbler the next day, I ate it at room temperature. Turns out it wasn’t bad that way either, although I did forego the ice cream that time around. First world problems abound. Look for further cast iron skillet obsessing to come.

1 large Granny Smith apple, peeled and sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons brown sugar or 2 tablespoons salted caramel

Topping
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 tablespoons milk

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
2. Using a 6" cast iron skillet, melt butter over low heat and add apple slices. Sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg then brown sugar if using, stirring gently until sugar has melted. If using salted caramel, cook apples until slightly softened then dollop caramel over apples.
3. Topping: Combine melted butter, flour, granulated sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Mixture will be crumbly with loose flour. Dribble in milk, a little at a time, until mixture gathers together in crumbly pieces and there's only minimal loose flour.
4. Sprinkle topping mixture over apple, covering apples completely. Bake for 20 minutes or until apples are soft and topping is golden brown. Remove from heat and cool for several minutes. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.