Making the strawberry lobster was more tedious than making the whole cake

Edit: holy crap this took off!! I changed the flair to add the recipe for those who are curious!

https://kitchen-by-the-sea.com/vanilla-cake/?utm_campaign=linkinbio&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=later-linkinbio#recipe

ELPRIT CAKE (it's a weird name lol I know, but my audience picked it):

For my American, British, Canadian and Aussie friends - this cake isn't meant to be eaten separately. What I mean by that, there is no "I prefer cake" or "I prefer frosting", the cake is meant to be eaten as a whole, with all the components complimenting and completing one another. I understand that your cakes typically consist of very thick cake layers with frosting and people will often prefer one or the other. That, I do admit, is a fairly strange concept to me but I do get it which is why I want you to heed the warning and take my words into consideration. This cake is decadent, however it's not overly sweet and it has a very robust chocolate flavor. Please use QUALITY CHOCOLATE ONLY as that is what impacts the flavor the most (eg. Callebaut, Valrhona,** **Ghirardelli etc.)

Below are the ingredients for a 26 cm (10-inch) round cake. The cake batter recipe yields one 10 inch cake layer, the cake calls for 3 cake layers. For narrower pans, you can either not adjust the ingredients; simply bake the sponge 10–15 minutes longer and cut it in half. Bake 2 cake layers and slice them into 4 layers instead of baking 3 separate layers like you would for a bigger pan. You will get a taller layered cake, or if you don't want a super tall cake with 4 cake layers, you can halve the ingredients and bake 3 separate smaller layers. In that case, bake the layers about 20-25 minutes.

CAKE LAYERS:

125 g dark chocolate (50–60% cocoa, not more than 60%)

60 g butter

60 ml oil

200 ml milk (room temperature)

2 tsp alcohol vinegar (also called distilled or white vinegar)

2 medium eggs (room temperature)

130 g granulated white sugar

120 g all-purpose flour

30 g cocoa powder (Dutch-processed!)

1 level tsp baking powder

1 level tsp baking soda

Preheat the oven to 175°C (347°F), conventional heat (no fan), with both top and bottom heating elements on. Add the vinegar to the milk, stir, and set aside. Heat the butter, oil, and chocolate over low heat until melted, then set aside to cool slightly. Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale, fluffy, and doubled in volume. Add the milk mixture and the cooled melted chocolate mixture, then mix for another minute. Finally, sift in the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and baking soda, and gently mix into the wet ingredients. Pour the batter into a cake pan lined with baking paper and bake for 30 minutes. For an extra dark sponge, use black Dutch-processed cocoa powder (extra dark cocoa).

Bake 3 cake layers.

Dark Mascarpone Mousse

Ingredients

400 ml heavy whipping cream

250 g mascarpone (well chilled)

300 g dark chocolate (50–60% cocoa)

Pour the whipping cream into a saucepan and add the finely chopped chocolate. Heat gently while stirring constantly, making sure the mixture does not boil, until the chocolate has completely melted. Once cooled, first whip the mascarpone for 2 minutes. Then add the cold chocolate mixture and whip until light and airy (about 3–4 minutes on high speed).

Finally, take a cup of the light mousse cream and fold it into this dark mousse cream. I apologize for not weighing this in grams but I tend to eyeball it so I forgot.

Light Mousse Cream

Ingredients

4 egg yolks

300 g milk chocolate (30–35% cocoa)

50 g butter

250 g mascarpone

300 ml heavy whipping cream

Place the chocolate and butter over a double boiler, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Lightly beat the egg yolks with a fork. When the chocolate and butter have melted, remove from the heat and immediately pour in the egg yolks, stirring vigorously. Return the mixture briefly to the double boiler, whisking continuously until everything combines into a smooth, glossy, non-sticky mixture resembling pudding. Remove from the heat and cover directly on the surface with plastic wrap. Allow it to cool completely.

Whip the cooled chocolate base together with the mascarpone. In a separate bowl, whip the cream until stiff peaks form. Fold it into the chocolate mixture and mix briefly until fully combined.

Syrup

Ingredients

200 ml water

150 g granulated white sugar

5 tbsp coffee liqueur, or 2 shots of espresso, or 5 tbsp strong black coffee

Place everything in a saucepan and stir over heat until it comes to a boil. Allow it to simmer for 3–5 minutes, until slightly reduced and lightly syrupy. Adjust the simmering time according to the width of your saucepan, the wider the pan, the faster the liquid evaporates and reduces.

Assembly

For the neatest layers, assemble the cake inside a cake ring and/or with acetate cake collar. Soak each sponge layer with several tablespoons of syrup. Divide both creams into two equal portions.

Layer as follows:

Sponge layer

Syrup

Half of the dark cream

Half of the light cream

Repeat the process once more, then finish with the final sponge layer on top.

Decorate the outside of the cake as desired (whipped cream, buttercream, ganache, fondant, etc.).

Refrigerate overnight before serving.

My husband started a new job back in September and I baked a ton for his office. Then in January everyone went on a diet and requested that he not bring any desserts, so I stopped baking, and then kind of fell off the routine of baking for people. In February, he told me people have started to mention my baked goods again. Then he mentioned it several times after that, saying people really miss my baking. I thought maybe one or two people were mentioning it to him.

Then, last Friday, I visited his work to have lunch with him, and while I was there he introduced me to all his co-workers, and every single one of them told me how much they love my baking and how much they miss it. Message received! 😉

I baked mini brownie bites and decided to fill half of them with Biscoff cookie butter and the other half with Nutella. He took them in this past Monday and they were gone before 9am! It helps that he has incredibly sweet co-workers.

Recipe: https://siftwithkima.com/chewy-fudgy-brownie-bites-no-mixer/

Second time I’ve ever made cookies (first I overbaked💔💔) but on my life these are the best things I’ve made in my LIFE.

I got the recipe from Buzzfeed Tasty on Youtube: https://youtu.be/rEdl2Uetpvo?si=Txi06NiCAfCWpGka

The only thing I did differently was 1tsp instead of 2tsp of salt, then added flaky salt just before I put them in the oven.

EDIT: Apparently I’m confusing anyone who isn’t British and under 30😭 Leng means good-looking or attractive in UK slang, and can be used to describe just about anything tbh. Yes, it’s a good thing. A very good thing. I beg try the recipe.

https://www.biggerbolderbaking.com/pear-chocolate-frangipane-tart/

I've always looked at these tarts and thought, that kind of looks like a ribcage, so I made one

Every year I spend the first week of December doing Cookie Chaos: a week-ish where I lose my sanity and bake a ton of cookies for friends and family instead of buying cheap gifts or passing the same bottle of wine back and forth. This year’s total was 41 buckets and eleven types of cookies. Total cookie count was 2,341 including gluten free and sugar free! I had to pivot from a lot of my planned cookies because work went crazy this week so I opted for some simpler cookies. 

We also changed it up this year. Instead of pre-packing all the friend buckets, we invited everyone over to pack their buckets themselves. I think we’re going to try to make this a new tradition. 

All the recipes are linked below. I tried to find an approximation for Funzie’s Knots since they’re a secret family recipe. 

Cookies in order are: 

1. M&M Cookies

2. Confettis

3. Rum Gingerbread

4. Snickerdoodles

5. Funzie's Knots (not the full family recipe but close enough)

6. Peanut Butter Blossoms

7. Orange Cardamom

8. Spritz

9. Bourbon Caramel Sables (bourbon caramel recipe)

10. Chai Trees

11. Creme Brulee Sugar Cookies

Here’s some answers to some common questions from last year! 

I’m a freelancer so that’s how I find the time to do this. I find that the week after Thanksgiving is usually pretty slow. This year that wasn’t the case so a lot of these were done after work instead of in the normal 12 hour blitz days. 

To keep cookies fresh and make sure I have enough, I normally put all the cookies in the tins and buckets they’re being gifted in. The harder cookies that I know will last longer get made first and the chewier, softer cookies get made closer to gifting day. Buckets are frozen after being assembled if I know I’m not seeing the person for a bit. 

I started with the doughs that needed to be refrigerated on December 1st, baked them later in the week and then baked or decorated a different cookie or two or three every night of the week after.  Normally I can knock this out in 4-5 days but because of work it took me nearly two weeks. 

Total cost this year was $263. I intentionally planned a lot of the cookies around stuff I already had in the pantry because of grocery costs. Most expensive ingredients were the Hershey Kisses and M&Ms for a whopping $43. I always ask friends for their buckets back or if they can bring them to refill to keep costs down. 

No kids, just cats. And a husband who benefits every time I mess up a cookie. 

Happy holidays and happy baking!!

I followed the entire recipe (in comments) to the letter because it was provided to me by one of my direct reports. I offered to bake him something for his birthday (I offer to both of my direct reports, the other one got cupcakes last month) and this is what he requested. He said “I know it sounds weird but my niece makes them and they’re so good!”

Cookies are 100g each. I doubled the recipe (habit) and ended up with 5lbs of cookie dough. Only produced 30 cookies.

I gifted 20 of them to the birthday boy and he was willing to share. I put in the office slack channel: “Come back to the IT bullpen and wish [my guy] a happy birthday, if you’re nice he’ll share one with you!” People went apeshit. CEO ate two. My fatass has eaten 5 in the past day and a half.

The almond extract and flaky salt really do add something, I didn’t expect them to. Froze the dough balls overnight and they developed very nicely. Underbaked them a bit and they came out soft and dense, with that cooled-previously-gooey-almost-underbaked texture.

EDIT: My version actually didn’t melt the butter first. I just used room temp butter.

I had been wanting to try a strawberry cake (never made one) and figured my birthday was a good excuse. This ended up being a strawberry and raspberry cake though because I love raspberries the most 😄

I used this recipe for the cake layers:

https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/strawberry-cake-recipe/

The fillings are cream cheese icing, raspberry filling, and then between the middle and top cake layer is more cream cheese icing and a raspberry cheesecake layer. I cut it while it was still somewhat cold since all the fillings were very soft, which probably doesn't do the look of the crumb any favors. But it was so moist and flavorful and overall delicious!

This week I’m celebrating a project at work that focuses on flora and fauna, so a green cake felt just right.

Recipe here with a few observations: next time, I would definitely go with additional raspberries and possibly jam or compote for the layer in between. The cake was simple, fresh, and not sweet, but a stronger berry flavor would have added just the right amount of goodness. Also, I have used juice from less than 1/2 a lemon, since it tends to be very sour where I live.

i couldn’t get this stupid idea out of my head for months. originally it was supposed to be a whole cake, but i figured start small with cupcakes as this was my first time making cornbread at all. it came out AMAZING and i kind of want to make them for thanksgiving

i used mel’s kitchen cafe’s best cornbread ever recipe: https://www.melskitchencafe.com/the-cornbread-and-fluffy-honey-butter/

the recipe doesn’t give the instructions to make it into muffins, so i used sally’s instructions: bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then 350 for 15 minutes 😊🌽

Went out on a limb and tried brownie “uncrustables”…

Filled with peanut butter but the possibilities are endless

I found lots of different recipes and ideas but ended up sticking with the one below for the ganache & fresh strawberries throughout!

https://www.queensleeappetit.com/chocolate-covered-strawberry-cake/#mv-creation-274-jtr

It is filled with Milk Chocolate Ganache and fresh diced strawberries 🍓 with a Fresh strawberry buttercream frosting!

Base is fudge cake slice

• 2 packets super wine biscuits crushed
• 225g butter
• 200g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla essence
• 55g cocoa powder

Filling is Nutella cheesecake by recipetineats, topped with mini reeces pieces :)

https://www.recipetineats.com/nutella-cheesecake-no-bake/

It’s way easier than I thought it’d be just very tedious!

RECIPEEEE

https://natashaskitchen.com/baklava-recipe/

turns out he never liked hanging out with me. i baked for him every time we met up (if you remember my s'mores cookies!). to cheer myself up, i baked a lovely chocolate pudding n fudge cake. cherries just for decor, i wanted a full chocolate bomb inside 😇 the timing was awesome since my grandma from ireland is visiting so she had a taste of my baking too! this was the best chocolate cake ive ever tasted - super moist and the frosting was perfect too, as i dont like buttercream!

recipe from ash baber https://ashbaber.com/brooklyn-blackout-cake/

These cheesecake bar entremets are inspired by Sailor Moon’s Silver Millennium ✨🌙. They’re peach-jasmine cheesecake mousse with lychee-yuzu gelée, salty almond-peach crunch, vanilla cheesecake frosting, kohakutou candy crystals, and crescent moon cookies.

Recipe/process: https://www.theinspired.network/blog-layer-by-layer/moon-prism-cheesecake-bars

These guys are composed of key lime cheesecake mousse, tart key lime crémeux centers, and salty brown butter coconut-graham croustillant crusts. The design was inspired by SpongeBob’s world of Bikini Bottom 😁

Recipes: https://www.theinspired.network/blog-layer-by-layer/key-lime-cloud-entremets

https://www.joshuaweissman.com/recipes/best-gourmet-poptarts-recipe#recipe

Tasty none the less. I think I will use a shortbread cookie recipe for the crust instead next time.

The filling: frozen strawberries, sugar lemon juice reduced until thick.

Frosting: powdered sugar, freeze dried strawberries blitzed into a powder, then water 1 tbsp at a time until desired consistency. I did 1/2 cup sugar to 1.5 tbspoon water

https://butternutbakeryblog.com/cookie-dough-cake/

Snickerdoodle cake, with brown sugar cinnamon cream cheese frosting and corn starch “maple syrup”

Cake Recipe: https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/snickerdoodle-cake/

Decor instructions: https://sugargeekshow.com/recipe/pancake-cake-recipe/