Caramel Apple Cake

Really, what is there not to love about a cake with skor pieces and apple? It’s like a caramel apple with cake, perfect! I have been making this cake for a while and I think it is a nice afternoon tea cake, breakfast cake, midnight snack cake, you know a go-to kind of a cake. It doesn’t have icing so it almost feels healthy;) This is the last of the baking from S.’s 30th birthday party. Needless to say there was enough baking there for two more parties, so he was eating birthday treats for weeks.

The recipe is available here. I didn’t include the white chocolate chips, mainly because I forgot. I think it would be tasty with milk chocolate chips, but then again, I add them to everything so I may be biased.

Pumpkin Apple Bundt

Did you know that today is National Bundt Day (at least in the United States anyways)? I know because Mary The Food Librarian has just finished 30 days of Bundts, affectionately named I Like Big Bundts. Mary’s blog is awesome and she is a bundt aficionado and thus, we were treated to 30 days of bundts. I couldn’t let the day pass without getting in on the action so I made the Pumpkin Apple Bundt from day three. I was tempted by many of them and I am sure that I will refer back to them when the bundt urge hits again. Thanks Mary for such a great event!

Post photo taking I added a Maple glaze to the cake. I mixed icing sugar, maple syrup and a bit of water (you could use milk but I didn’t have any). I think this added a little something special, a good improvisation if you will.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

OK, so I know we have been slacking here at Bake with Us. We have missed the last two TWD posts and we haven’t been posting much else. My only excuse is that I have been so busy baking (and partying with friends), that I haven’t had time to blog. Lame I know, but on the bright side I am having tons of fun and sharing the baking love. Sorry to our virtual friends, I will try and it make up to you over the coming weeks with lots of posts.

So this past weekend was my favorite baritone saxophonist’s 30th birthday. He has this thing for peanut butter and so I wanted to hook him up with a peanut butter cake. Peanut butter isn’t my favourite so I was worried about finding a good recipe. I went straight to some of my favorite blogs and found success over at Smitten Kitchen.

Deb’s recipe is great. I decided to omit the chocolate glaze and the extent of my artistic license was the addition of chopped peanut butter cups. I added finely chopped pieces to the middle layer and then coarsely chopped ones on top. Confession: I didn’t actually eat a piece but it looked fabulous. I ate some saxophone cookies, which will soon be appearing here. Stay tuned for more 30th birthday party recipes.

Image Credit: Shirantha Beddage

Sour Cream Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips

Back in the day I lived in Waterloo with Joy, Pam and Kristin. We had a couch in our kitchen and spent MANY hours there, drinking tea and trying to solve our problems and everyone else’s. There were white boards where we kept track of our Myer’s Briggs personalities and friends’ phone numbers and there was brown paper on the wall where we wrote random quotes, lists and posted pictures. Basically, it was a great house. One day Joy brought home a recipe for a sour cream banana cake and our lives (OK my life) have never been the same since.  We baked this cake for friends and ourselves, we took it camping, it was a go-to recipe and it remains my FAVORITE cake.

My favorite cake

We were fortunate enough to all be together this past weekend. Joy lives on the west coast but she was in town for a conference. In honour of Joy’s visit I threw a party. My apartment is MUCH smaller than our house was but it didn’t matter. We had a great evening and of course, it would have been wrong not to serve up the cake. I was so consumed with the party that I didn’t take a picture so I managed to grab a shot on Sunday. Disclosure: I ate that huge peice after I took a picture of it, as I said this is my favorite.

Sour Cream Banana Cake with Chocolate Chips

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2.5 cups mashed bananas
3 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda

1 cup sour cream

1/2 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup chocolate chips (as you all can imagine I use milk but Pam, Joy and Kristin probably use semi-sweet)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an angel food pan or a 9 x 13 or a large bundt pan. Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and bananas and mix well. In a separate bowl combine four, baking powder and baking soda. Mix alternatively the dry ingredients and the sour cream into the banana mixture. Pour half the batter into pan. Mix together the brown sugar, cinnamon and chocolate chips and sprinkle over the batter. Cover with remaining batter. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until your cake tester comes out clean (if you are using an angel food pan it will take longer). Allow to cool and ice with chocolate icing or not, it’s up to you.

The Marshall Street Crew

Armenian Orange Cake

Remember how I shared with you the lemon tarts I made up in Smithers? Well here is another yummy treat I made while I was there.  I somehow managed to mangle this recipe completely.  I think it was the pressure, once people know I have a baking blog I seem to choke a little, ugg. So I messed up the sugar and I didn’t read the instructions and added the nuts in the cake rather than on top. I actually prefer the integrated nuts (as opposed to putting them on top of the cake) and highly recommend it. I made one without nuts and it was delicious as well (let’s face it I am not a nut person so when I can avoid them I do).

What I dig about this cake is the fact that you get two different textures out of one mixture. It is like making a square but in a cake format without having to bake two layers. Basically you use part of the recipe to make a crumb base and then you add more wet ingredients to get the cake bit. Go check it out and if you have any other recipes similar to this let me know.

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Armenian Orange Cake

This is another Best of Bridge recipe and it is available on their website. I have a Best of Bridge cookbook but haven’t used it for a while. I am inspired to peruse mine after these two great successes.

Classic Banana Bundt Cake TWD

I was so excited about this weeks recipe as I LOVE banana cake, banana loaf, banana muffins, whatever banana baked goodness I can get. The recipe was chosen by the Mary the Food Librarian. I dig this blog for a number of reasons; first, the photos are great and her food always looks so good; second she often uses beautiful pottery in her photos; and third, Mary is a librarian, just like me! Head on over to the Food Librarian’s virtual digs for the recipe and beautiful photos.

So this cake was super easy to make and really delicious. My dad even liked it and he claims not to eat banana baked goods. I thought about adding chocolate chips but the banana loving purist in me wouldn’t let it happen (it would be a delicious addition though). I will definately be making this one again, a real keeper. Thanks Mary for choosing a great recipe and super thanks for Dorie for giving us this treat.

TWD Tiramisu Cake

I am a cake person. Some people are pastry people but I am all about cake. I will pass up pastry anytime in exchange for cakey goodness. Since Claire is studying for her licensing exam, this months baking falls to me. Fortunately for me (and my coworkers) I am up to the challenge.  This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Tiramisu cake, was selected by Kristin of My Baking Adventures, make sure you check out her blog for the recipe. I think I have had Tiramisu only once before but given that this recipe was in cake format I was up for the challenge. I had a few problems locating the espresso powder, but fortunately the fourth stop was the charm. The cake was definitely worth it!

Tiramisu Cake

I used two 8 inch square pans because I wanted to create two cakes. My brother in law made a delicious dinner this weekend so I wanted to gift him and my sister this cake. However, I couldn’t have my coworkers miss out on home baking, especially since Jenny helped me shop for the ingredients. Thus, I cut the two squares in half and layered them. I was a little short on the icing so I would adjust the quantities if I was going to do that again.

Once again, the photos don’t do the cake justice. I thought it was a lovely cake and would make it again. Now that I am done school for the summer, I vow to try and take nicer photos. I aim to bake more during the day in order to have more natural lighting. It’s always good to have a little project! Perhaps I will even have to buy myself pretty plates to accent the baking goodness.

15 Minute Magic Chocolate Amaretti Torte TWD

I was intending to bake this while I was in Kingston for Easter, but after baking three different treats on Friday, I was baked out. I whipped up the torte this evening for a goodbye “Snack Friday” this week. Sarah our co-op student is finished so I am sending her off in Dorie style. When I pulled the torte out of the oven I realized that my oven racks weren’t in correctly, thus it is a little lopsided, my bad.  This really was a quick desert which makes it an excellent choice for mid-week baking. Thanks to Holly of Phe/Mom/enon for picking this recipe. Check out the other TWD bakers over at the mother blog. Can’t wait to try it on Friday!

Note: Our older sister has been complaining about the quality of our photos. I am the first one to admit that this photo is a titch lame. I think it could do with some pretty pink flowers or at least a nice table. But I have a paper to work on and I really don’t have any time for fancy photos so for now this will have to do.

Better late than never…Guinness Chocolate Cake

This post is a little late as St. Patrick’s Day was last week but Tuesdays with Dorie was posted that day and then I forgot to put this up until tonight. Traditional Irish meals are not a very common occurrence in our house anymore. After many grumbles over Irish Stew and the like, my mum has stopped making them for dinner. So last Tuesday, when my dad called home to see what was for dinner he was a little upset (though I don’t think he should have been surprised) that my mum was planning a spaghetti dinner. I had a little chuckle to myself over this as my dad loves his potatoes while some other members of the family (me) do not share his love. He loves potatoes so much that he will often suggest that meals that are traditionally served with rice should have potatoes instead ie. Asian-inspired menus. So to make up for the lack of traditional Irish food at dinner, I made this cake.

Guinness Chocolate Cake

This recipe comes for Annie’s Eats and I had been waiting for St. Patrick’s Day to give it a try. I halved the recipe because there is just the three of us at home and my dad has been complaining that since I have been home his waistline has paid the price! This cake was moist and delicious plus I love cream cheese icing!

TWD: Devils Food White Out Cake

First of all, I would like to thank Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater for choosing this dessert. I was so excited for this because a) it is the cover cake! and b) I have never made a cake from scratch. I tend to stick to cupcakes, squares, and muffins so this was a great way to push myself into the world of cakes!

As some of you may know, I am currently in my last semester of university and I am doing placements. I had the opportunity to spend the first month in a fabulous pharmacy. On my last day at the pharmacy, we had a potluck. So I decided this would be a great opportunity to try out the cake. It went over very well and I only managed to sneak a tiny sliver home for my boyfriend so I think I will need to make it again for the family.

All and all the cake making went pretty well.I was making it after work and it was getting late, so instead of using the original icing I used a similar one that I knew would go great with the cake. It was a 7 minute frosting that I have used in the past for cupcakes. It seemed fairly similar to Dorie’s recipe. Next time I will use the original recipe when I have a little more time!

The picture of the cake was taken at the potluck and it was a little dark so sorry about the quality. Hopefully there will be more cakes and more pictures in the future!