Our Favorite Apple Cake

One summer when we were in Italy one of our neighbors had us over for lunch. For dessert, she had this REALLY good apple cake that was so moist and yummy. Over the years, we've tried several different recipes. Some we're good but they were just different. We came across this recipe on Deb's blog Smitten Kitchen. We are so glad that we tried her recipe because this is exactly what we've been looking for! This cake has just enough apple flavor and is SOOO moist. We will keep the recipe for this cake and make it for years and years to come.

Try it yourself!!

6 apples, we used McIntosh apples

1 tablespoon cinnamon

5 tablespoons sugar 2 3/4 cups flour, sifted

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup vegetable oil

2 cups sugar

1/4 cup orange juice

2 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

4 eggs

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a tube pan. Peel, core and chop apples into chunks. Toss with cinnamon and sugar and set aside. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together oil, orange juice, sugar and vanilla. Mix wet ingredients into the dry ones, then add eggs, one at a time. Scrape down the bowl to ensure all ingredients are incorporated. Pour half of batter into prepared pan. Spread half of apples over it. Pour the remaining batter over the apples and arrange the remaining apples on top. Bake for about 1 1/2 hours, or until a tester comes out clean.

Black Magic Chocolate Cake with Nutella Frosting!

This recipe is our FAVORITE cake recipe! Whether you're a chocolate lover or not, you'll love this cake! We came across this recipe when our cousin in Italy made something very similar to it. Over the years we've modified it to our liking and truly created something so good! It consists of a moist chocolate cake with a filling and frosting that is made of only whipping cream and nutella. It's so simple yet so amazing!

The cake recipe is from Ina Garten's beatty's chocolate cake. We discovered this recipe a couple years ago and have loved it ever since. The cake recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

Butter, for greasing the pans 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans 2 cups sugar 3/4 cups good cocoa powder 2 teaspoons baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 1 teaspoon kosher salt 1 cup buttermilk, shaken 1/2 cup vegetable oil 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Place 1 layer, flat side up, on a flat plate or cake pedestal. With a knife or offset spatula, spread the top with frosting. Place the second layer on top, rounded side up, and spread the frosting evenly on the top and sides of the cake.

The frosting is so simple! The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients

2 cups of heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup nutella

Directions

Whip the heavy cream until thick anf fluffy. Place the nutella in a large bowl and slowy add the whipped cream to it, folding it in. When you have incorporated all the whip cream into the nutella it should be a mocha color. If the cream is too pale or the nutella flavor isn't strong enough, feel free to add more nutella by the tablespoon! I probably added up to 3/4 cup into my frosting!

Ciambella al cocco

We've been wanting to post this recipe for a long time now. We have made this cake several times, but we never got around to taking pictures of it. This is one of our favorite cakes. Lisa found the recipe on an italian website. We both love coconut and searched long and hard for a cake that would satisfy us. We have changed things here and there every time we made this cake and now, we have a recipe down that we are happy with. This cake is very moist because it has yogurt in it. It asks for coconut yogurt but in America, it's very hard to find plain coconut yogurt in the grocery stores. The coconut yogurt is AMAZING in Italy and that is really why we fell so in love with coconut in the first place. We used pina colada yogurt and found that it works well also. This cake is so simple to make and requires very little clean up too! You have to try it! The recipe is below.

Coconut bundt cake

1 container of coconut yogurt (or pina colada)

3 eggs

1 container of sugar

1 container of dehydrated coconut

1 container of corn oil

1 tsp coconut extract

3 containers of flour

1 Tbs Baking Powder

Pinch of salt

Zest of 1\2 a lemon

1 cup of mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Mix the eggs and yogurt in a large bowl. Then, one by one, mix in all the ingredients in the order they are listed. Once everything is mixed together, pour into a buttered bundt cake pan.

Bake for 35-40 minutes, until the cake is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean!

Once the cake is cooled we usually just sift some powdered sugar over the cake and it's done!

Birthday Cake: Sponge Cake with Custard and Strawberries

We made this cake a couple weeks ago. It was our godparents, our uncle and aunt, birthdays. We told them that we would make them a cake and that's what we did! This is our go to birthday cake. It consists of an italian sponge cake filled with vanilla custard and fresh strawberries. The sponge cake is very simple. You need 6 eggs, 180 grams sugar, 180 grams of flour and a pinch of salt. All you do is blend the eggs, sugar and salt in a stand mixer for 15 minutes until the batter is very fluffy and pale yellow, then you slowly sift the flour in and voila! Place the cake in a 12" round cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean!

After you fill the cake with some vanilla custard and fresh strawberries, you can frost the cake with some fresh whipped cream, sweetened with powdered sugar. We love the the look of slivered almonds on the sides of the cake!

If you would like our recipe for the vanilla custard just ask!

Strawberry Muffin Cake

Our father asked us to make a cake to give to our aunt and uncle for their birthdays. We had some nice strawberries in the fridge so we decided to go ahead with a strawberry cake. The recipe was for a 13"x9" pan but we decided to make one 9" springform pan and a little loaf pan.

This pictured loaf cake was the first out of the oven. It took less time to cook since it was smaller. Lisa took pictures of the loaf cake first in the mean time. Then after 10 minutes she went to get the larger cake out of the oven.... and... while she was transferring it to the counter, the bottom of the springform pan fell and the cake followed it.... yah she destroyed the cake. My parents didn't have a cake to bring to our aunt and uncle. We felt really bad.... but we had to work the next morning and there was no way we could have made it or something else again! Oh well! Next time we will be extra careful with those springform pans!!

This cake was good overall. The cake part was a little too bland though. Next time we would increase the sugar and butter! If you would like to give it a try here's the recipe!

Crumble Topping 1 c. flour

1/2 c. sugar

1 stick of butter, cold

To make crumble topping, sift the sugar and flour together in a large bowl. Place the margarine in the center of the bowl and sprinkle a little of the sugar and flour mixture over it. Place all 10 fingers on the stick and start crumbling it by making cat-kneading gestures with your fingers so the margarine turns into little pea sized bits. If you need a visual, refer to this little fella. Keep crumbling until the stick is completely whittled down.Keep the bowl of crumbles in the fridge until you’re ready for it.

Strawberry Coffee Cake 2 c. flour

1 c. sugar

2 tbsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 c. milk

2 eggs

1/4 c. butter, melted

3 c. strawberries, sliced -Sift the first four ingredients together in a bowl and set aside-Whisk the milk, eggs, vanilla, and melted margarine together in a bowl.-Add the mix of wet ingredients to the bowl of dry ingredients.-Beat together with a handheld mixer until well incorporated.Pour into a pre-greased 13×9 pan. Arrange the sliced strawberries on top of the batter. Sprinkle the crumble toppings.Bake at 350F for 35-45 minutes.

Nutella Self-Frosted Cake

We've came across this recipe several times for a while now. We never got a chance to making it until now and we wished we wouldn't have waited that long! We don't know many people who don't like nutella. Actually.... we know ONE person...

::cough:: ::sarah:: ::cough::

Nutella is amazing and this cake is just perfect! Its a good dessert to have after dinner and even better to have in the morning with coffee or tea.

You could either make this as a cake, like we did, or also as cupcakes.

Nutella Frosted Cupcakes

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup, 12 oz) butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3 large eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 3/4 cups sifted all purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

2 tsp baking powder

Nutella, approx. 1/3 cup

Preheat oven to 325F.

Line 12 muffin tins with paper liners or grease the cups with some butter. Alternatively, butter an 8-inch round cake pan. Cream together butter and sugar until light, 2 minutes. Add in eggs one at a time, until fully incorporated. Don’t worry if the batter doesn’t look smooth. Add vanilla. Stir in flour, salt and baking powder until batter is uniform and no flour remains.

Fill each muffin cup about 3/4 full (or pour all the batter into the cake pan). The batter will be thick. Top each cake with a dollop (I used about 2 tsp per cupcake and about 1/3 cup dolloped in tablespoon measures for the cake round) of Nutella. Swirl Nutella in with a toothpick, making sure to fold a bit of batter up over the nutella.

Bake cupcakes for about 20 minutes and the round cake for 25-30.

Remove to a wire rack to cool completely.Makes 12 cupcakes or 1 8-inch round cake.

We did a recipe and a half and used a 9inch cake pan. We think next time we'll just stick to 1 recipe so the cake part will be a little thinner and you'll get more nutella with each bite!

ENJOY! =)

TWD: Chocolate Amaretti Torte

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) recipe was chosen by Holly of Phe.MOM.enon: 15 Minute Magic: Chocolate Amaretti Torte. Aside from ground almonds, one of the main ingredients in this torte are amaretti cookies. We LOVE amaretti cookies. We have a cake that we have made several times and everybpdy always loves it. Its a cake with almonds and amaretti. We tried to recreate the cake after we had it in Italy at our Aunt's house. Took a few tries, but we got it down!

We were excited to try this recipe, but we are sad to say that we weren't crazy about this cake. We weren't crazy about the texture. It just wasn't anything special and did not meet our expectations. Oh well! Better luck next time.

You can find the recipe here!

TWD: Blueberry Crumb Cake

On St.Patrick's Day, the Tuesdays with Dorie (TWD) group was accepting new members! I signed up but, I'm still not sure if it's official yet, but I decided to start anyways! This is my first TWD post and i look foward to posting a new recipe every tuesday! This weeks recipe was Blueberry Crumb Cake. I enjoyed this cake a lot. Its really good to have for breakfast or even for a midday snack with tea or coffee. =) I love any kind of sweet with blueberries. Lets begin with the recipe!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and place the rack at the middle position in the oven. Butter an 8-inch square pan and put it on a baking sheet. To make the crumbs: Put all the ingredients except the nuts in a food processor and pulse just until the mixture forms clumps and curds and holds together when pressed. Scrape the topping into a bowl, stir in the nuts and press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface. Refrigerate until needed. (Covered well the crumb mix can be refrigerated for up to 3 days.)

To make the cake: Using your fingertips, toss the blueberries and 2 tsp of the flour together in a small bowl just to coat the berries; set aside.

Whisk together the remaining 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Working in the bowl of a stand mixer or in another large bowl, rub the sugar and zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and aromatic. Add the butter and, with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat the sugar with the butter at medium speed until light, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs one by one, beating for about 1 minute after each addition, then beat in the vanilla extract. Don’t be concerned if the batter looks curdled — it will soon smooth out. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately, the flour in 3 parts and the buttermilk in 2 (begin and end with the dry ingredients.) You will have a thick, creamy batter. With a rubber spatula, gently stir in the berries.

Scrape the batter into the buttered pan and smooth the top gently with the spatula. Pull the crumb mix from the fridge and, with your fingertips, break it into pieces. There’s no need to try to get even pieces — these are crumbs, they’re supposed to be lumpy and bumpy and every shape and size. Scatter the crumbs over the batter, pressing them down ever so slightly.

Bake for 55 to 65 minutes, or until the crumbs are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the cake to a rack and cool just until it is warm or until it reaches room temperature.

Blueberry Crumb Cake by Dorie Greenspan For the crumbs: 5 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature 1/4 cup sugar 1/3 cup (packed) light brown sugar 1/3 cup all purpose flour 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup chopped walnuts For the cake: 1 pint (2 cups) blueberries (preferably fresh, or frozen, not thawed) 2 cups plus 2 tsp all purpose flour 2 tsp baking powder 1/2 tsp baking soda 1/4 tsp salt 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon 1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 2/3 cup sugar grated zest of 1/2 lemon or 1/4 orange 3/4 stick (6 tbsp) unsalted butter, at room temperature 2 large eggs, at room temperature 1 tsp pure vanilla extract 1/2 cup buttermilk or plain yogurt

3 words: RED VELVET CHEESECAKE

I've never met anyone who isn't a fan of red velvet cake. I found this recipe over at Peabody's blog and when i saw it, I couldn't believe that i'd never thought of this recipe on my own. I mean, red velvet and cheesecake?? I knew there was NO WAY this recipe couldn't be amazingly successful. I think everybody should give this a try. I made this for my sister Phyllis on her birthday. EVERYBODY raved about it. What are you waiting for?! Definitely make this as soon as you can! You won't regret it! =) You can find the recipe here: http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2008/12/02/yes-virginia/