The Ninja Baker - #TheSouthernCakeBook

Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting, #TheCakeSliceBakers

NinjaBaker — Thu, 21 May 2015 02:57:01 +0000

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Every month a new challenge arrives...Currently, we are presented with the opportunity to bake one of four preselected recipes from Southern Living’s The Southern Cake Book. I combined two choices and created one Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting.

Plump, pretty strawberries sway me to their side every time. Japan, my home country, is the world’s biggest consumer of dessert strawberries. This Ninja Baker couldn’t fathom saying no to those gorgeous fruit gems. Childhood influences are indelible, aren’t they?

Sometimes cake with coffee for breakfast is a beautiful thing.
(The frosting contains fresh strawberries so it must be legal, right?)

So, I plucked the Strawberry Mousse Cake option for this month’s Cake Slice Bakers presentation. Time, however, slipped through my hands. Resigned to my fate, I chose the Chocolate Marble Cake recipe. However, I stole the fresh strawberry frosting from the Strawberry Mousse Cake to top off my Pink Chocolate Marble Cake.

Fresh Strawberries 'n Cream in Cake!

Ninja Cake Notes:

Pink Chocolate: White chocolate powder with a dash of rose food coloring (the kind you use for candy) created the pink chocolate. The white chocolate flavor does not translate. Next time, I would melt additional white chocolate to add with the white chocolate powder. (Available at Coffee, Tea & Bean and online.)
Cake Test: The cake, however, does not disappoint. The Southern Cake Book’s marble cake is moist and hums homemade goodness. The kind your grandma, auntie or fill in the blank of your favorite childhood baker made. (I believe the butter may have something to do with this phenomena.)
Marble Magic: Despite the easy recipe, I was still a tad nervous about the marble effect. Would it work? Well, what do you know? Follow instructions and you’ve got a replication of the photo seen in The Southern Cake Book. (Except my marble was in pink instead of dark chocolate.) Perhaps you already know this trick. Basically, you pour vanilla batter into the bottom of the pan followed by the chocolate batter. Gently swirl to produce marble magic!

Pink chocolate marble cake magic!
The strawberry frosting is berry spectacular, too.

Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting

Pink chocolate marbles classic buttery yellow cake. Topped with fresh strawberry frosting, this fluffy, fun cake recipe is ideal for birthdays. Pink Chocolate Marble Cake with Fresh Strawberry Frosting is great for other celebrations, too...such as making it through Monday!

Adapted from The Southern Cake Book's recipe for Chocolate Marble Cake.

Ingredients:

For the cake:

1 cup butter, at room temperature
1¾ cups sugar
(1½ cups for the vanilla batter, ¼ cup for the pink chocolate batter)
2 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2½ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt (skip the fleur de sels, plain table salt works wonders!)
1 cup half-and-half
¼ cup white chocolate powder
3 tablespoons hot water
Rose pink food coloring

For the frosting:

6 tablespoons softened butter
6 tablespoons of finely minced fresh strawberries
2 ½ cups of powdered sugar

Directions:

For the cake:

Line a 13 x 9 pan with aluminum foil. (You probably already know this trick. But it’s worth mentioning and saves sooooo much time and dishpan hands!) Spray the foil with baking spray.

Preheat the oven to 325 (after 15 minutes of baking, you’ll increase the temperature to 350.)

In the bowl of a kitchen stand mixer, whip together the butter and sugar for 5 minutes. One at a time, add the eggs. Stir in the vanilla.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Divide the mixture into thirds. Pour the first third of flour into the butter bowl. (Begin and end with the flour mixture.) Beat on low speed. Alternate the flour additions with the half-and-half.

Once the batter is well combined, scoop out 1¼ cups into a separate bowl. Stir in ¼ cup white chocolate powder with 3 tablespoons of hot water and ¼ cup of sugar. Squeeze in a few drops of pink food coloring. Combine well. (For a more chocolaty taste, add melted white chocolate.)

Spread the vanilla batter into the prepared pan. Pour the pink batter over the first layer and swirl with a chopstick or knife.

Bake at 325 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn up the oven to 350 degrees. Bake for another 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

For the frosting:

Fluff up the butter with an electric mixer. Add in the strawberries and powdered sugar on low speed (to avoid dry cleaning bills from staining splatters!)

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you blessings of berry sweetness.

The Ninja Baker

© ™ Watkinson 2012

The Ninja Baker has guest blogged and contributed recipes to numerous food sites. These additional recipes can be found here.

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Tags:

#strawberry #frosting

#marble

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes, #TheCakeSliceBakers

NinjaBaker — Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:43:22 +0000

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Every month a new challenge arrives...Currently, we are presented with the opportunity to bake one of four recipes from Southern Living’s The Southern Cake Book.

This Ninja Baker’s winning choice?
Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes with Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting!

Do you tremble with excitement or fear at a new challenge? Even with Cake Slice Bakers assignments, it seems I’m wired to face foreign concepts and recipes with a bit of trepidation. But, with each accomplishment, I’m exhilarated and excited. So, I’m appreciative to the Cake Slice Bakers for introducing me to greater level of skill in the kitchen and self-confidence.

Thanks to the Cake Slice Bakers, too, a new collection of cookbooks has appeared on my shelf. My current favorite is The Southern Cake Book – the cookbook chosen by the Cake Slice Bakers for 2015.

Creamy cinnamon frosting accompanies velvet rich notes of chocolate cake.

The Southern Cake Book is full of glossy food photos, which reflect the (stereotypical) luxuriously rich and gentile lifestyle of the South. And the scrumptious recipes! Including this month’s Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes swirled with Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, which is out of this world. The chocolate is moist and fudgy. The Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting with the cream cheese base is like a Southern Belle – sweet with a wink of mischievous spice.

For savory cooking, the Southern trinity is onion, bell pepper and celery.
Chocolate, cream cheese and butter make be the trinity of Southern cake making.

I’ve always had a fascination with the South; the gentility, the charm, the good manners and ready smiles…Forgive me if my statements about the South are overly romantic. My impressions of the South are all from movies and magazines. But, impressions can be strong motivators…One Japanese friend moved to Kansas because he was mesmerized by the cornfields pictured in the film Superman. Another friend said sayonara to Japan, hello to Colorado thanks to John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High song….You never know one of these days this Ninja Baker may be saying hi y’all from South Carolina! But then again moving down South would be a new challenge…Hmmm.

Which cupcake is more likely to appear on your dessert table?
Red Velvet or Chocolate Velvet?

At any rate, The Southern Cake Book’s Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes and Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting is a challenge definitely worth embracing!

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes, Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting

Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes are chocolatier than the standard Southern red velvet cake. But, just as moist and light...And maybe even more delicious when topped with Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting.

The recipes are adapted from Southern Living's The Southern Cake Book.

Ingredients:

For the Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes:

1½ cups semisweet chocolate chips (12-ounce bag of Ghirardelli)
½ cup softened butter
2 cups organic light brown sugar
3 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
8 ounces of Greek yogurt (or 1 (8-ounce) container of sour cream
1 cup hot water
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting:

½ cup butter
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 (16-ounce) packages of powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 generous teaspoon of cinnamon

Directions:

For the Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes:

Fill cupcake tins with liners. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or in a microwave.

Ninja Note: If microwaving the chocolate: 1. Do cover the bowl with a paper towel so a chocolate volcano does not explode in your microwave. 2. Do stir every 30 seconds or so. (The chocolate should melt within 2 minutes.)

In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a hand-held mixer) beat the softened butter and sugar for about 5 minutes. One at a time, add the eggs. Blend in the melted chocolate.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking soda and salt together. Pour in a third of the dry mixture to the melted chocolate mixture. Stir in some of the Greek yogurt (or sour cream.) Pour in some more of the flour mixture. Add the rest of the yogurt. Add in the remaining flour mixture.

On the mixer’s low speed, stir in the hot water. Blend in the vanilla extract.

Divide the batter into the cupcake cases. Bake for 20 minutes. Cool.

For the Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting:

Melt the butter in a saucepan, constantly stirring for about 8 minutes. The butter will bubble and transform from golden yellow to deep chestnut. (Do keep stirring to avoid burnt butter and do-overs.) Pour the browned butter into a large bowl. Cover with cellophane. Refrigerate for one hour.

Empty the softened cream cheese on top of the hardened butter. Beat with a mixer until combined. Slowly pour in the powdered sugar. Stir in the vanilla and cinnamon.

Fill pastry bags with the Browned Butter Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting and pipe onto the cooled Chocolate Velvet Cupcakes.