Festive Valentine’s Cake

I love festive sweets and treats so whenever a holiday rolls around I jump on the chance to make something cute and kitchy. And this is the official one for Valentine’s Day people (but don’t worry, I may have other things up my sleeve too). I originally came across this idea on Pinterest when I saw it in a red, green and white theme for Christmas and thought, why not for Valentine’s Day? I clicked over to the original blog and saw that she already had that thought…and integrated chocolate into the mix which is perfect for this lovely hallmark holiday. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy Valentine’s Day but it’s kind of hard to consider a holiday if you ask me. But, it gives me a reason to make pretty, sprinkly, pink things so I guess I’ll go with it.

The original recipe uses pink, red and black swirled cake to make a fun pattern but I have never liked the combination of pink and red. They don’t go and it bothers me. Call me crazy, maybe I am? I just couldn’t do it. So instead I went with a light pink, fushia and black. It still turned out very cute and Valentine’s-y. Especially because of those adorable itty bitty heart sprinkles. Love.

Another Pinterest find….how to make a cake mix taste like a bakery quality cake. I like using cake mixes as a starting point but I just can’t stand the idea of not doctoring them up somehow so when I saw this little idea I kept it in the back of my mind for future use. And this was the perfect time to put it into play. Random side note: that last sentence sounded sports-related…Joel is already sports obsessed and now his job revolves around sports….too.much.football.talk. It’s not good for my brain.

Ok, back to the cake mix trick. To make it taste oh so much better, replace the water in the recipe with milk (I used skim), add an extra egg for richness and replace the oil with double the amount of butter. Oh yeah, delicious. It came out super moist and if I wasn’t the one who had made it, I would have never guessed it started with a mix.

For step by step photos of the process, click here.

Festive Valentine’s Cake
recipe from Cooking with Sugar

1 box white cake mix
Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on cake mix box (or milk, butter and eggs as statedd in directions above)
1 box dark chocolate cake mix
Water, vegetable oil and eggs called for on cake mix box (or milk, butter and eggs as statedd in directions above)
Black food coloring (I use Wilton Food Coloring Gel)
Red food coloring (I use Wilton Food Coloring Gel)
1 (12 oz) can white frosting
Colored Sprinkles

1. Heat oven to 325°F. Generously grease a 12-cup bundt cake pan. Make cake batters as directed on boxes. Divide the white cake into two separate bowls.

2. Add some red food coloring to one bowl and mix to the desired shade of pink.  Then, add red to the other and mix to the desired color red.

3. Pour 2/3 of the chocolate cake batter into a bowl and mix with a few drops of the black food coloring. Discard the remainder of the batter or use it for cupcakes. (You only need 2/3 of the chocolate cake batter, because if you use the whole thing in won’t fit in the tube pan).

4. Pour 1/2 of the chocolate cake mix into the bottom of the greased pan. Carefully pour the pink over the chocolate, making sure you don’t stir it. Just pour it on top.

5. Then, carefully pour the red batter over the pink batter and pour in the remainder of the chocolate.

6. Bake as directed on box or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes.

7. Turn pan upside down onto cooling rack that is placed over a cookie sheet. Cool cake completely, about 30 minutes.

8. Once cake is cool, equally divide your frosting into 3 bowls. Use the food coloring again to make one bowl red, one bowl pink and leave one white.

9. Microwave each bowl of frosting for a few seconds on high until it is smooth enough to drizzle over the cake (about 10-15 seconds). With a spoon, drizzle the pink frosting back and forth around the whole ring in a striping pattern until you use it all. Then do the same with the red and then the white.

10. Sprinkle with colored sprinkles if using. Set cake aside to dry. Store loosely covered and unrefrigerated. Cake can be made a day or two in advance.

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Sheet Cake

I really wish I had better pictures so you could truly know the amazingness that was this cake. I kind of put off making this until the last minute for a gathering so I only had time to snap some quick pictures but it was so yummy that I wanted to make sure I shared it with you during prime pumpkin season.

I love pumpkin, cinnamon rolls and cake for that matter so I knew combining them would be good….really good. And it was. The pumpkin with the buttery cinnamon swirl is what I loved about this delectable dessert. Don’t worry about all the calories, they were rich so a small piece will be enough to satisify you! This would be the perfect dessert to share at Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Sheet Cake
recipe from Picky Palate

1 box yellow cake mix
4 eggs
1/2 cup canola or vegetable oil
1/2 cup milk or buttermilk
3.4 ounce box vanilla instant pudding mix
1/2 cup sour cream
15 ounce can pumpkin
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/4 cups powdered sugar
1/4-1/2 cup heavy cream (start w 1/4 cup and add a little more cream if needed)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. and spray a jelly roll pan with non stick cooking spray.

2. Place cake mix, eggs, oil, milk, pudding, sour cream and pumpkin into a stand or electric mixer, beating until well combined, about 1 1/2 minutes. Pour into prepared pan, spreading evenly.

3. Place butter into a microwave safe bowl and melt, about 30-40 seconds. Add brown sugar and cinnamon to bowl, mixing until combined. Drizzle mixture evenly over cake then take a knife and run it through to swirl.

4. Bake cake for 30-35 minutes, until cooked through and remove. Place powdered sugar and cream into a large bowl and mix until creamy and smooth. Drizzle over warm cake then let cool for 20 minutes before cutting into squares. Refrigerate if not serving same day.

Makes 16 to 20 squares

Apple Streusel Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze

See these apples? We picked them….for free. And we took them home…for free! Seriously people, nothing is free anymore. I found out about this cute little orchard owned by the city last year but we never got around to checking it out. So when I heard that the apples were ready this year I put it as top priority in my phone’s to-do list. I take my lists VERY seriously.

So we headed to the orchard and had a great time picking the apples.

Good thing that boy of mine is so tall!

Many of the apples we brought home were dedicated to Noah’s favorite snack, lala, known to normal people as applesauce. We are still not sure where he came up with that one. To use up the rest of the apples, I went through all my recipes I have saved to find some yummy apple options.

This was the first recipe I found and after giving Joel tons of options, it was his hands down favorite. I will be sharing another of his must have picks later. It was even Noah’s top choice (after lala of course). Whenever we give him two options he always picks the second one, no matter what it is. I’ll admit we sometimes use that to our advantage.  Anyway, I asked him if he wanted apple cake or apple pie. His response: “apple cake.” I reversed the order and: “apple cake.” I asked several more times with a conclusive result of: “apple cake mama.”

You can’t really blame them can you? Apple cake with streusel and a glaze…I’m totally with them! I don’t care for fruit in dessert all that much but I can absolutely get behind this.

Apple Streusel Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze
recipe from Lauren’s Latest

For the cake:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup peeled, diced apple (1/4 inch pieces)
1/3 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/4 cup low fat buttermilk
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the streusel:
3/4 cup oats
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup walnuts

For the glaze:
3 oz. softened cream cheese
1 1/2 tablespoons softened margarine or butter
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
3 tablespoons milk, or enough to make it a glazing consistency

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Spray 9-inch spring form pan with non-stick cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk all dry ingredients together. Make a well in the center and pour all wet ingredients in. Slowly start mixing the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Toss in apple pieces and stir. Pour batter into prepared pan. In a small bowl, stir all ingredients for streusel together until butter pieces are small chunks found throughout mixture. Sprinkle over top of cake and bake 45-55 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean when inserted. Remove from oven and cool.

3. Before serving, whip cream cheese and margarine together until smooth. Stir in powdered sugar, vanilla and milk until smooth and runny. Add the milk slowly until desired drizzling consistency is reached. Un-hinge spring form pan and place cake on serving platter. Drizzle with glaze and serve.

Applesauce Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

If you are a regular follower of my blog, you will already know that my little man turned two recently. We had a big yellow party for him the weekend before his birthday but I still couldn’t bear the thought of him not having another little celebration on his big day. I made chocolate cupcakes and lemonade cupcakes for his party so I wanted to go a different route for his birthday. My mom and I brainstormed and finally came up with applesauce spice cake. Some of his favorite snacks include applesauce and raisins so I thought it would be a fitting cake for the man of the hour.

I searched around the internet and actually had a hard time finding an applesauce spice cake recipe that sounded just right. Many of them had cocoa powder in this which just sounded a bit odd to me. I wanted a true cinnamon, clove-y cake and I found it via 52 Cupcakes. The recipe was originally for cupcakes but I wanted Noah to have a cake so I baked up some of the batter in my awesome Wilton Mini Tasty-Fill Cake Pans then I baked the remaining batter in an 8×8 pan.

The cake was super dense and moist as a spice cake should be in my opinion! And the brown sugar cream cheese frosting was incredible. It’s unbelievable so three simple ingredients can combine into such deliciousness!

And I of course had to include some photos of Noah tearing it up!

Applesauce Spice Cake with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
recipe from Martha Stewart via 52 Cupcakes

2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups unsweetened apple sauce
raisins, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray 8×8 and mini pans liberally with non-stick spray.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, cream butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. On a low speed, add applesauce and then the flour mixture, beating until just combined.

4. Fill mini pans 3/4 full with batter. Pour remaining batter in the prepared 8×8 pan. The mini cakes took about 12-15 minutes and the 8×8 took about 20-25 minutes (my oven tends to cook quicker than a lot of recipes so it may take longer than this). Once cooled, frost with Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting (see below). You could fill the cakes with something but I just skipped it since it was going to be torn apart. Sprinkle frosted cakes with raisins.

Brown Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup packed light-brown sugar

In the clean bowl of electric mixer, mix cream cheese with 1 stick butter and 1 cup light brown sugar on medium speed until smooth. Spread cream-cheese frosting on cupcakes. Cupcakes can be refrigerated in airtight containers up to 2 days.

Key Lime Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberry Sauce {Crazy Cooking Challenge}

This month’s Crazy Cooking Challenge is cheesecake…my absolute favorite dessert! I was kind of excited to have an excuse to make a cheesecake. I have only made a couple in my life and very rarely eat cheesecake (like once a year maybe) because it is just way too dangerous for me. I would literally eat the whole thing if left alone with it. I always think of the Friends episode with the cheesecake…if you don’t know what I’m refering to you have to check it out!

While cheesecake is my favorite, I am really particular about what varieties I will devour. The crazy cookie dough peanut butter chocolate ones or others filled with tons of toppings and flavors always look really yummy but when it comes to what kind to eat I stick to the simple. I just don’t like those crazy flavors in my cheesecake. I guess I’m a cheesecake purist.

Since the Challenge recipe no longer has to come from a blog, I decided to scour my cookbooks to see if I could find a simple, yet tasty cheesecake to whip up. I went straight to one of my favorites for dessert, Classic Southern Desserts {by Southern Living}, and found just what I was looking for in a cheesecake. Not only are the flavors pure and simple but they feature sweet and zingy fruit making it the perfect summer indulgence.

I was also attracted to the recipe because it reminded me of our Florida vacation last month that now seems so far away. I enjoyed a really tasty slice of key lime pie there so I was hoping this recipe could bring me back, if only for a few minutes! The cheesecake was dense and creamy with a slight zing from the key limes. The strawberry sauce tasted so incredibly fresh and added a nice sweetness. It was definitely worth the time and calories!

Oh, and it didn’t have any cracks so I totally knocked something off my Top 100 list! Yay!

Key Lime Cheesecake with Fresh Strawberry Sauce
recipe from Classic Southern Desserts {by Southern Living}

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
3 (8 oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 (8 oz.) container sour cream
1 1/2 tsp. lime zest
1/2 cup Key lime juice
Garnish: strawberries, strawberry sauce (recipe follows)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Stir together first three ingredients and press on bottom and 1 inch up sides of a greased 9-inch springform pan. Bake for 8 minutes; let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325 degrees F.

2. Beat cream cheese at medium speed with an electric mixer until fluffy; gradually add 1 1/4 cup sugar, beating until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Stir in sour cream, zest and Key lime juice. Pour batter into crust.

3. Bake at 325 degrees F for 1 hour adn 5 minutes; turn oven off. Let stand in oven, with door partially open, 15 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately run a knife around edge of pan, releasing sides.

4. Let cool completely in pan on a wire rack; cover and chill at least 8 hours. Garnish, if desired, and serve with strawberry sauce.

Strawberry Sauce

1 1/4 cup fresh strawberries, washed with tops removed
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp. lime zest

Process all ingredients in a food processor until smooth, stopping to scrape down sides.

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Recipe linked to Totally Tasty Tuesday, Cast Party Wednesday and Full Plate Thursday.

Banana Cake

Ok, I have a weird confession to make. I love banana muffins, bread or cake but actual straight up bananas I could totally do without. I enjoy the flavor but the texture is usually too much for me to handle. I know, it’s odd but I kind of am too so it makes sense in the end. Now that the confession is out in the open we can move onto the recipe.

This is one of the best cakes I have ever made! It’s moist and dense and bursting with banana flavor. And who could forget that rather thick layer of cream cheese frosting? Not me. It is cooked at a low temperature for a longer amount of time then thrown into the freezer immediately. This attributes the moistness of the cake so make sure to keep the freezing time in mind before you start baking.

After the freezing time, frost it liberally with cream cheese frosting and keep in the refrigerator. I think it tastes best when chilled.

I love to bring this lovely cake to potlucks because everyone seems to enjoy it, it travels well and can feed a crowd.

Banana Cake
recipe from Food.com

1 1/2 cups bananas, mashed, ripe
2 teaspoons lemon juice
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
2 1/8 cups sugar
3 large eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk

Cream Cheese Frosting
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/2 cups powdered sugar

Chopped walnuts, optional

1. Preheat oven to 275°.

2. Grease and flour a 9 x 13 pan.

3. In a small bowl, mix mashed banana with the lemon juice; set aside.

4. In a medium bowl, mix flour, baking soda and salt; set aside.

5. In a large bowl, cream 3/4 cup butter and 2 1/8 cups sugar until light and fluffy.

6. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then stir in 2 tsp vanilla.

7. Beat in the flour mixture alternately with the buttermilk.

8. Stir in banana mixture.

9. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake in preheated oven for one hour or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

10. Remove from oven and place directly into the freezer for 45 minutes. This will make the cake very moist.

11. For the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese until smooth.

12. Beat in 1 teaspoon vanilla.

13. Add powdered sugar and beat on low speed until combined, then on high speed until frosting is smooth.

14. Spread on cooled cake.

15. Sprinkle chopped walnuts over top of the frosting, if desired.

Easy King Cake

I was recently looking through my Top 100 and realized that I had a King Cake listed. Considering that Mardi Gras is the time to make a King Cake I figured I better jump on that train before it’s too late and I have to wait a whole year.  It is traditional to make king cakes between January 6th (Twelfth Night) and Fat Tuesday. When making the cake, a small plastic baby, a coin or dried bean are hidden and whoever gets the slice with the trinket will have good luck. Make sure to warn those eating the cake to be on the lookout!

I have never made or eaten a King Cake so I had a bit of a difficult time choosing a recipe since many of them vary quite a bit. Should I go with a cinnamon filling, one with citron or a cream cheese? My final decision factored on the ease of the recipe. For Valentine’s Day I made cinnamon rolls and I didn’t really feel like dealing with a yeast dough twice in a week. Therefore, I went with a recipe that starts with crescent roll dough and has cinnamon and cream cheese fillings.

The recipe calls for coloring the glaze the traditional green, purple and yellow of Mardi Gras but I wanted to stick with the colored sugar to really make the colors stand out. So after drizzling the glaze on the cake I simply sprinkled the cake with sugar that I colored myself. To make colored sugar, place 1/4 cup sugar in a plastic bag then place a very small amount of gel coloring in with it. Seal the bag then mash and mix until it is thouroughly distributed.

This “cake” is more of a sweet bread or pastry. The crescent dough gave a light, flaky texture which was really yummy with the silky cream cheese and sugary cinnamon fillings. Plus, it only took about 5-10 minutes to put together so from start to finish it was about 30 minutes for a yummy little treat.

King Cake with Cream Cheese Filling
recipe from Taste of Home

2 tubes (8 ounces each) refrigerated reduced-fat crescent rolls
4 ounces reduced-fat cream cheese
2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter, softened
3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

ICING:
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons 2% milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Red, blue, yellow and green food coloring or purple, green and yellow sugars

1. Unroll both tubes of crescent dough and separate into triangles. Place triangles on a greased 12-in. pizza pan, forming a ring with pointed ends facing toward the center and wide ends overlapping. Lightly press wide ends together.

2. In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, confectioners’ sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spoon over wide ends of ring. In another bowl, stir the brown sugar, butter and cinnamon until crumbly. Sprinkle over cream cheese mixture.

3. Fold points over filling and fold wide ends over points. Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 5 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, combine the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla and enough milk to achieve desired consistency. Divide icing among three bowls. Using red and blue food coloring, tint one portion purple. Tint another portion yellow and the remaining portion green. Drizzle over cake. Or drizzle the white frosting over the cake then sprinkle with colored sugars. Serve warm. Yield: 16 servings.

Funfetti Cake Balls

If you’ve never consumed a cake ball you must go out and buy the ingredients now. I mean, it’s only 4 ingredients (3 if you don’t want to get all fancy with sprinkles). These would be the perfect, cute little treat for your loves on Valentine’s Day.

I chose to do funfetti this time around because it makes the cake balls undeniably cute and pretty darn irresistible. Biting into them and seeing all those sprinkles is so fun. Who doesn’t love sprinkles?

There are so many different flavor options and combinations for cake balls so mix it up if you want! The sky is the limit! I think these combo’s would be delish: chocolate cake with coconut pecan frosting dipped in dark chocolate, strawberry cake with strawberry frosting dipped in white or dark chocolate, lemon cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in white chocolate, red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting dipped in chocolate. If you really want to be an overachiever, you could make homemade cake and frosting. That was just too much work for me with the freezing required but if you have the ambition, go for it!

Funfetti Cake Balls

1 box Funfetti Cake mix + required ingredients on box
1 canister vanilla frosting
1 bag red or pink candy melts (or any color if you aren’t making them for Valentine’s Day or chocolate)
Sprinkles of choice

1. Prepare and bake cake according to box directions. Allow to cool completely.

2. Crumble cake and discard any brown or crispy edges. Mix cake crumbs with entire canister of frosting. Place mixture into refrigerator for 2-3 hours.

3. Roll cake mixture into uniform sized balls (I used my cookie scoop which is probably about 2 tablespoons). Place on wax paper then freeze for 1 hour.

4. Melt candy melts in microwave according to directions on bag. Dip cake balls in the candy melts and place on wax paper. Quickly sprinkle with sprinkles before they harden. Enjoy!

Chocolate Cake with Mint Chocolate Chip Frosting {Crazy Cooking Challenge}

When Tina from Mom’s Crazy Cooking informed us that this month’s challenge was chocolate cake, I was a tad concerned. This will be shocking and slightly disheartening to many of you but I am not a chocolate cake fan. Please hold back your judgement, disgust and gasps. It’s just too rich for me. But I didn’t want to miss out on the fun so I decided to bite the bullet and see if I could find a chocolate cake that we would truly enjoy. I thought the frosting could really make a difference for us so I went for one that I knew we would love.

After lots of searching, I came across this chocolate cake made by Aimee at Shugary Sweets and I knew I had found it! After reading that the frosting tasted like mint chocolate chip ice cream I thought I might die. That’s my favorite flavor so it had to find out for myself…and she is totally right. The frosting was amazing and so was the chocolate cake. The coffee in the cake batter really enhanced the richness of the chocolate.

Although I don’t make layered cakes too often, I have learned a few tips when it comes to icing them. The first is to place strips of wax paper under the first cake layer on the cake stand/plate so that you don’t get any frosting on it. After frosting the cake, all you have to do is pull out the wax paper and you have a perfectly clean cake stand.

Another tip I have learned is placing the top cake layer upside down so that the bottom of the cake will be the top of the cake. This provides a nice, flat surface on the top of the cake to frost.

I passed along some of the cake to friends and also got rave reviews from them so you definitely need to give this a try!

Make sure to check out Aimee’s other amazing eats and treats here…umm, Pumpkin Pound Cake with Caramel Walnut Sauce? Sign me up!

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Chocolate Cake with Mint Chocolate Chip Frosting
recipe from Shugary Sweets

FOR THE CAKE:

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cup flour
9 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup brewed coffee, cooled
1/2 cup milk

FOR THE FROSTING:

1 cup butter, softened
8 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1/2 cup milk plus 2 Tbsp
11 oz dark chocolate chunks (62%cacao) or mini chocolate chips
1/8 tsp green food coloring gel

FOR THE GANACHE:

3/4 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
1/4 tsp peppermint extract

1. In medium bowl, sift cocoa with flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder. Set aside. In measuring cup, mix coffee and milk together. Set aside.

2. In mixer, beat butter and sugar for about 5 minutes until smooth. Beat in eggs one at a time. Slowly add in dry ingredients alternating with the coffee/milk blend (about 3 additions of each).

3. Pour cake batter into two prepared pans (two 9inch cake pans lined with parchment paper and then greased and floured). Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 25 minutes. Remove and allow to cool about 10 minutes before removing from pans. Cool completely before frosting.

4. For frosting, in food processor, pulse dark chocolate until small bits (not powder)! Set aside.

5. In mixer, beat butter, powdered sugar and milk (slowly add the milk, you may not need it all) for 3-5 minutes, until smooth and creamy. Add in extract and food coloring gel. Mix until fully blended. Add more milk if necessary to desired consistency. Fold in chopped dark chocolate or chocolate chips.

6. Frost first layer of cake, then top it with second layer. Completely frost sides and top of cake.

7. For the ganache, heat 3/4 cup heavy cream in saucepan. Bring just to a boil and remove from heat. Place chocolate chips in a bowl then slowly add in hot cream and extract. Stir until smooth and completely combined. Allow ganache to cool then pour over chocolate cake.

Recipe linked to Mangia Monday, Tasty Tuesday, Totally Tasty Tuesday and These Chicks Cooked.

Classic Southern Dessert Series: Cherry Coke Cake

I’ve been wanting to make this cake forever. Anyone who knows me knows that I am slightly addicted to Cherry Coke. When I was in high school I was on the newspaper staff. We spent a many a night at school late working on our publication and I always had this delicious beverage in hand. If I didn’t, people were concerned. Even my wedding pictures included a Cherry Coke bottle (and it totally wasn’t staged)! I am not usually a lick the beater kind of girl but this cake batter totally changed me. I licked it clean and I’m not afraid to admit it. I didn’t save any for Joel and I don’t feel bad about it. I don’t even care for chocolate cake but the Cherry Coke gave it such a light, airy, bubbly texture that I just couldn’t resist. Amazing. I couldn’t taste the Cherry Coke in the finished product but it was extremely moist and airy due to the carbonation. I couldn’t get it out of the pan in one piece because of the moistness (is that a word?). And the crunch of the toasted pecans totally makes this cake. It was a huge win in our house and it marked off another item in my Top 100 list.

Cherry Coke Cake
recipe slightly* adapted from Classic Southern Desserts by Southern Living

1 cup chopped pecans
1 cup Cherry Coke
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup butter, softened
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
Cherry Coke Frosting

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Arrange chopped nuts in a single layer in a shallow pan. Bake 8 to 9 minutes or until toasted and fragrant.
2. Combine cola and buttermilk.
3. Beat butter at low speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add sugar, beating until blended. Add eggs and vanilla; beat at low speed just until blended.
4. Combine flour, cocoa and baking soda. Add to butter mixture alternately with cola mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Beat at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in marshmallows. Pour batter into a greased and floured 13×9-inch pan.
5. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from oven; cool 10 minutes.
6. Pour Cherry Coke Frosting over warm cake; sprinkle with toasted pecans.

Cherry Coke Frosting

1/2 cup butter
1/3 cup cherry coke
3 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa
1 (16-oz.) package powdered sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract

Bring first 3 ingredients to a boil in a large saucepn over medium heat, stirring until butter melted. Remove from heat; whisk in sugar and vanilla. Use immediately.

*Original recipe called for regular Coke.Recipe linked to What I Whipped Up Wednesday, Cast Party Wednesdsay, Full Plate Thursday, Sweet Treats Thursday, Friday Food, Fusion Fridays and Sweets for a Saturday.