Monday, January 19, 2009

Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake

Blue Seude Shoes
Well, its one for the money,
Two for the show,
Three to get ready,
Now go, cat, go.

But dont you step on my blue suede shoes~
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes!

Well, you can knock me down,
Step in my face,
Slander my name
All over the place.

Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Dont you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes~

You can burn my house,
Steal my car,
Drink my liquor
From an old fruitjar.

Do anything that you want to do, but uh-uh,
Honey, lay off of my shoes
Dont you step on my blue suede shoes.
You can do anything but lay off of my blue suede shoes~



Who doesn't love Elvis Presley? And who doesn't love pound cake? Elvis Presley loved pound cake and I understand why. I first tried pound cake as an afternoon snack after school at my aunt's house a couple years ago. It was the Sara Lee brand and oh my goodness it was like the best thing I had ever tasted. So moist and sweet.. so flavorful and cold.. and so so so creamy! I later asked my mom to buy me some and was dissapointed to find that one loaf was almost $5. After that, I forgot about pound cake for a while then when I got my "Baking from my Home to yours" by Dorie Greenspan I quickly tried to make the "Perfection Pound Cake". I, without the help of an electric mixer of any sort, beat the 4 eggs into the batter. While baking, it smelled like eggs and after it was done, it tasted like eggs... I was very much dissapointed and wondered what I had done wrong. Last week I was again craving pound cake and I decided to try once more. I was stuck between this pound cake recipe from recipezaar and this recipe. I eventually chose this recipe only because it had more reviews and better ratings. Might I say this is the best pound cake in the world! The Sara Lee kind is good too but this one has a fresher taste. Mine burned a little bit on the bottom because I put the timer for the longer baking time and forgot and thought that it was the minimum, not the maximum. Next time, I will definately reduce the time by about 10 minutes. Also, the top on mine began to burn alittle when there was 30 minutes of baking time left, so I put some aluminum foil on top. This cake is everything that Sara Lee's has. Plus, it tastes fresher. I find that pound cake tastes better when cold.

Elvis Presley's Favorite Pound Cake;makes 2 loaves or 1 tube cake

Ingredients
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering pan
3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) plus additional for dusting
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
7 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup heavy cream

Directions
Put oven rack in middle position, but do not preheat oven.
Generously butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.
Sift together sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl (flour will have been sifted 3 times total).
Beat together butter (2 sticks) and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment or 6 to 8 minutes with a handheld mixer. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour, then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become creamier and satiny.
Spoon batter into pan and rap pan against work surface once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. Place pan in (cold) oven and turn oven temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool cake in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool completely.

In conclusion, YOU MUST MAKE THIS CAKE! it is foolproof and delicious.
try it!!

Thursday, January 8, 2009

chocolate mousse cupcakes


hey hey hey. happy new years! I'm kind of late huh? No Susan, you're very late! :'( well not to worry! I made chocolate mousse cupcakes! I've made it in the cake form before but when I looked up chocolate mousse cake on google, I found all these images of beautiful little cakes. I decided to step up to the challenge and guess what? It was so fun! But kind of hard work. I took the recipe from the preview cake I'd made, made cupcakes in the throw away souffle cups from Smart & Finals so they'd be even from top to bottom, I sliced off the tops and sliced em in the middle. Then I piped chocolate mousse in the middle topped it with the tops I had previously cut off and topped em with chocolate ganache. Then I put a strawberry slice on each of em. So really, I combined the classic chocolate mousse (chocolate mousse w/ chocolate sauce that hardens which I took for ganache) with chocolate mousse cake (chocolate cake and chocolate mousse) and got this (chocolate fudge cake with chocolate mousse with chocolate ganache)! haha. ok. So, lets go on. The first time I made a chocolate mousse cake was when my dad's friend ordered one from me saying that his son liked spiderman. I had heard rumors that chocolate mousse cake was hard to make and so I chose the easiest looking recipe I could find. I came up with this and it tasted good. But I had mistakenly bought double of what was needed because I thought I needed that much and so I got another chance to make it. Let me say, the cake form is easier but this way is so much cuter and much much more rewarding.


Spiderman chocolate mousse cake. stop wondering why I cut off the edges!
instead, focus on the cute spiderman I piped out of ziploc bagss. :o what i learned.. i need to buy some piping bags and new tipss.

Chocolate mousse cupcakes



Chocolate Mousse Cake; makes a 2 9-inch layer cake or 24 cupcakes.

INGREDIENTS
1 (18.25 ounce) package chocolate cake mix i used chocolate fudge but you could easily substitute Martha's one bowl chocolate cupcakes if you wanted. It would taste the same.
1 (14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
2 (1 ounce) squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
1/2 cup cold water
1 (3.9 ounce) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup heavy cream, whipped

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Prepare and bake cake mix according to package directions for two 9-inch layers. Cool and remove from pans.
In a large bowl, mix together sweetened condensed milk and melted chocolate. Gradually stir in the water, then instant pudding until smooth. Chill for at least 30 minutes. <--I did this first. then made the cake.
Remove the chocolate mixture from the refrigerator, and stir to loosen. Fold in whipped cream and return to the refrigerator for at least another hour.
Place one layer of cake onto a serving plate. Top with 1 1/2 cups of the mousse, then cover with the remaining cake layer. Frost with the remaining mousse, and refrigerate until serving. Garnish with fresh fruit or chocolate shavings.

if you wanna make cupcakes, prepare the cupcakes then leave alone til cool. Then, slice off the tops and middle and pipe chocolate mousse in the middle. You can do more than I did since I piped twice and still made leftover. Put the top of the cake back on and pour a teaspoon of ganache on the top. Spread and top with fruit or whatever you want. Cool in fridge til serving time. These taste better when cool.

I made a ganache out of 4 unsweetened baker squares and about 4 ounces of extra dark chocolate. I boiled a 1/2 cup of half and half and poured it on the chopped chocolate. I let it stand for 2 minutes and stirred til smooth. It was wayy too bitter so I added confectioners' sugar and more half and half to reach the consistency I wanted.