All-in-One Holiday Bundt Cake and a Give Away

Britin of The Nitty Britty selected this super cake. The recipe is on Britin's blog.

Nice and easy to make and what a divine aroma coming from the kitchen! I followed the recipe exactly except for the oven temp. - my bundt pan was one of those Kaiser or Nordicware dark-colored pans, so I baked at 325 degrees F instead of 350. I have learned that the darker pans conduct heat more quickly so hence the need to bake about 25 degrees lower than the recipe states.

Umm! I've just had a teeny piece of bundt cake that fell off as I was setting it up for its maple syrup glaze. It's a perfect cake for Thanksgiving, with its warm spices and tangy cranberries.



I'm also giving away a delightful little book: i heart macarons by Hisako Ogita. The first edition in English has just been published. I ended up with two copies, due to impatience with the Post Office and running to get another copy from Barnes and Noble. So if you just leave a comment on todays post I'll do the random number thing (or put the numbers in a hat!) next week, in time to announce the winner in my next TWD post.

Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake - Tuesdays with Dorie

This is an amazing cake to make. Everything about it is elegant - the luscious ganache with loads of butter, the chestnut cream in the cake, a good cognac and more gourmet chocolate for the syrup, and the smoothe-pouring glaze. I am quite beside myself with excitement about what it will taste like and have already picked out the best shaped chestnuts I bought from the gourmet store.

If the cake tastes good, it will become the kind of dessert I would like to take to a small literary dinner party with beautiful china on the table and fine wine....Oh well, tis "such stuff as dreams are made on" as I don't get invitations to such affairs!

I found it quite fussy to prepare and what an awful chocolatey mess all over the sink and countertop but it's looking pretty neat right now in the fridge. I followed Dorie's recipe exactly, with the exception of making two layers instead of three - haven't risked cutting three layers yet ever, and the cake square didn't look deep enough to get three layers.

I have told the team at work they are getting a chestnut chocolate cake tomorrow; everyone is looking forward to it.

Katya of Second Dinner picked this recipe. It's a really great choice. Thank you, Katya.

(I didn't want to disturb the cake when I took the pic so it's presentation is pretty rough looking.)

Sugar-topped Molasses Spice Cookies - Tuesdays with Dorie

These are the best ginger cookies I have ever tasted! I love the size also, the flattened shape, and the fact that they are not too sweet. They are nice and soft in the middle and a bit crunchy on the outside (that is, with baking for 13 minutes).

I have no more to say, nothing but praise, and they are going to our troops in the Middle East - the Operation Baking-GALS program.

The recipe is on Cookies with Boys, a delightful blog created by Pamela. Thanks for a wonderful TWD pick Pamela.

White Chocolate and Orange Cookies - Sweet & Simple Bakes

A plate full of cookies and there's more to come - I got 40 cookies out of this recipe. They are delightful and delicious. I found the best baking time was 8 minutes as they are left to sit on the hot tray for 5 minutes after being taken from the oven.

Here is a case of "From England - To England." Sweet and Simple Bakes is a wonderful English blog and my niece in England is going to get a box of these cookies in the mail. My niece lives in Cornwall, UK. It's her Birthday and I'm also sending her something pretty from L.L. Bean in the package, plus some lemon cookies from the Lemon Cookie recipe I posted last week.

White Chocolate & Orange Cookies

Ingredients
115g (one stick) unsalted butter, softened
200g (7ozs.) caster sugar (superfine)
1 egg
Grated zest of 1 orange (2 to 3 tsp)
1 tsp vanilla extract
200g (7 ozs.)plain flour
½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
¼ baking powder
¼ tsp salt
225g (8 ozs.)white chocolate chips (milk or dark chocolate)

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Beat the butter and sugar. Add the egg, orange zest and vanilla extract.Sift together the dry ingredients.

Stir the dry ingredients and chocolate chips into the butter mixture and combine.

Roll into balls. Use your fingers to flatten onto a non-stick baking sheet 5cm/2in apart. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Cool for five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

When cool, store in an airtight container for up to four to five days.

A Lovely Award!

I've got the Kreativ Blogger award from Nat of Girls are Made of Sugar and Spice. Why, thank you, Nat! It's perked up my day and my blog - been quite a while since I got a nice award. Check out Nat's blog - she's got some great recipes and pics.

This award comes with a tag therefore here is the list of rules :

1) Thank the person who has given you the award.
2) Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3) Link to the person who has nominated you for the award.
4) Name 7 things about myself that people might find interesting.
5) Nominate 7 Kreativ Bloggers.

My 7 Kreativ Bloggers are:
Occasional Sugar
Eat My Cupcake
Chocolatechic
Eat My Cake Now
Katiecakes
Spike.Bakes
Crazy Asian Gal

Seven Things:
I speak Afrikaans as my second language.
I taught English in the Western Transvaal in S. Africa.
I went to school in Australia.
I love to visit my niece, Lisa, in Penzance, UK.
My favorite hobby is looking at pictures of beautiful cakes in glossy cookbooks.
I have a closet full of cookbooks.
I love spicy foods, particularly Indian and Middle Eastern foods.We got fabulous curry in S. Africa.

Cherry-Fudge Brownie Torte - Tuesdays with Dorie

I have such hopes for the deliciousness of this torte. It's almost cool and just waiting for its mousse topping. I can't wait to take it to work tomorrow to get comments.

I made a couple of changes to Dorie's recipe - firstly, I used glace cherries, not sour cherries, and soaked them in the Kirsch for 24 hours. I did not strike a match -there is no way I'm going to play around in the kitchen with bringing up flames. I left out the cherry preserves as I believed it would be too sweet mixed with the glace cherries.

The torte mixing was pretty straightforward; it took more like 70 minutes to get baked. I tasted the mousse - wonderful! A delicate flavor and not too rich.

Thank you April of Short+Rose. This is an exotic pick.

The picture of Kitty Cat is Phoebe trying to get in the way of her Mommy's sewing.

Macarons - Daring Bakers

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! My first Macaron effort. I'm posting them just so I can get DB credit for October but I am really ashamed of them; if I only had the time I would try another batch. I did learn some things, though. I made coffee macarons (no feet showed up) and orange zest macarons (feet showed up but still mega room for improvement). One "scientific" discovery was that I should let the macarons sit in the oven at 200 F for more than 5 mins.- more like 10 mins. This way I got the feet on the orange macarons.

I also found that 7-8 minutes at 375 F was not enough. Next effort I'll try 10, but my 2nd batch, the orange macarons, are a bit overbaked, to say the least, as I left them in for 15 mins!

For the filling I have chosen Nutella - always delicious and I just don't think my little experiment matches up to getting a gorgeous buttercream filling. Hopefully my next batch will. I have just pre-ordered, "I Love Macarons" by Hisako Ogita - I have always been a person who buys a book as the solution to whatever problem arises so hopefully this wonderful looking book will do the trick.

The ray of hope is that they tasted really good - particularly the coffee macarons.