Irish Cream-Chocolate Cake with Irish Whipped Cream

We have people over almost every Saturday for Magic the Gathering (a trading card game), and typically order pizza for dinner. Well, for St. Patty's Day, I wanted to do a themed night more friends might attend, so we had a general "board game" night and potluck for themed dishes! As you may already have realized...I LOVE baking! So I wanted to find a delicious cake recipe that held to the "Irish" theme. And found this one on Pinterest!

When it came time to actually baking it....I couldn't find my regular smaller cake pans for doing a layered cake. So I used my larger springform cake, which still turned out delicious, but I ended up with a LOT of whipped cream for the outside of the cake, since I couldn't do a layer filler (unless I sliced the cake in half). My whipped cream also didn't seem as thick as in the recipe's pictures, so I could have probably added more sugar. But still yummy! ^^

Original recipe here

Servings: 12
Calories per serving: 543

Cake Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup baking cocoa, unsweetened
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon baking soda
1 large egg
2/3 cup oil
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup Irish Cream liquor*
1 cup black coffee

Frosting Ingredients:
1 pint heavy whipping cream
2/3 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup Irish Cream liquor
1/2 cup chopped milk chocolate (optional)

Cake:
Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°F.
Step 2: Grease springform cake pan.
Step 3: Beat the egg, oil, buttermilk, Irish Cream liquor, and coffee together.
Step 4: Mix dry ingredients together in separate bowl.
Step 5: Add dry mixture to liquid mixture.
Step 6: Beat for 2-3 minutes.
Step 7: Pour into greased cake pan.
Step 8: Bake for 35-50 minutes, or until a wooden stick comes out clean.**
Step 9: Cool completely. This takes about 3-4 hours, depending on your ambient temperature. My house is usually 66-72 degrees and it took close to 4 hours.

Frosting:
Step 1: Beat all ingredients together until cream holds it's shape (keeps peaks) and is the desired consistency.
Step 2: Frost cake.
Step 3: Sprinkle with chopped chocolate, if desired.

*I did not have Bailey's, but had another brand of Irish Cream liquor. I don't think it really matters. Also couldn't really taste it in the chocolate cake, so this might be unnecessary (or maybe just needs more?).

**Original recipe says to bake for 25-30 minutes, but since I was using a larger cake pan, I kept adding on time until a wooden chopstick came out clean. It ended up being about 48 minutes (but if you don't keep opening the oven like I did, your time should be shorter).

As a note, I typically do not sift anything even when a recipe calls for it. Because I'm lazy. It still turned out good without sifting. :)

Recipe time: Prep = 20 minutes, Cooking = 25 mintes. Cooling not estimated.
My cooking time: Prep = 30 minutes, Cooking = 48 minutes, 3-4 hours cooling.

The cake turned out delicious! I can definitely see where it'd be good to have a filling layer, because the cake is pretty dense. But still soooooo good! I piled on the whipped cream, so it was a bit much for some people (but not for me ^^), but everyone who had some enjoyed it. Some of us even had two pieces by the end of the night...... All-in-all, very good recipe!

Cake Ingredients

Cake - Step 3

Cake - Step 4

Cake - Step 6

Cake - Step 7

Cake - Step 8

Frosting Ingredients (plus cake)

Frosting - before mixing

Frosting - after mixing

Sliced cake (some of the whipped cream is drooping down in the middle)

Moist Pumpkin Bundt Cake

So I've already failed at trying to post a new recipe once per week..... byebye New Year's Resolutions lol. Maybe I'll change it to at least once a month? Anyways.... I (we) got a bundt cake pan as a wedding gift, and I was super excited to use it over the holidays. And I LOVE pumpkin desserts, especially baked goods! Found what turned out to be a SUPER AWESOME recipe on Pinterest. ^^ I made it three or four times between Thanksgiving and Christmas. So delicious! And surprisingly easy to make. I was a little nervous since I've never made bundt cakes before.

Original recipe here

Servings: 24*
Calories per serving: 206

*24 slices worked out perfectly with my bundt pan. Some shapes/designs may not cut as easily into 24 servings.

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups white granulated sugar
1 cup canola oil
3 large eggs
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 can (15 ounces) pumpkin
Confectioners' (powdered) sugar, for dusting

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350°.
Step 2: Grease bundt cake pan with either butter or spray Pam. Do not use liquid oil, it beads and pools in the pan, rather than evenly greasing it. I made this mistake my first attempt.
Step 3: Dust greased pan with flour.
Step 4: In a large bowl, combine sugar and oil until blended.
Step 5: Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Step 6: Combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves in separate bowl.
Step 7: Add flour mixture to egg mixture alternately with pumpkin, mixing well after each addition.
Step 8: Transfer batter to greased & floured pan.
Step 9: Bake 60-65 minutes or until toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.
Step 10: Cool 10-20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack. Remove pan and cool completely. Step 11: Once cooled, dust with confectioners' sugar.

Recipe time: Prep = 10 minutes, Baking = 1 hour. Cooling not estimated.
My cooking time: 15 minutes for prep, 1 hour cooking. 3-4 hours cooling.

Everyone liked the cake at the parties I took them too. It was still good after a couple days. I brought some to my coworkers after the weekend, and they enjoyed it. :)

Ingredients

Step 2

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

Mini Cheesecake with Oreo Cookie Crust

So it's been a while since I've updated this blog. Things got more hectic (and really, I got more lazy) the closer we got to the wedding. But that was all done with in November and now I want to start updating this again! I do cook new recipes fairly regularly, so I'm hoping to have a new recipe to post at least once a week or so. Here's hoping I can stick to the plan! :)

I've posted a mini cheesecake recipe before, but that was more of an ultra-mini (bite-size) cheesecake! I've made mini cheesecakes that are 2-3 bites (or could still be one bite if you want), with both original Nilla wafer crust and Oreo cookie crust. I wanted to make a dessert in honor of the Deadpool movie, since I was seeing it with a group of friends, so I decided to go with Oreo cookie crust this time. This is based off a very simple recipe from Philadelphia (cream cheese company). These are pretty hefty calorie-wise, but I didn't make any modifications to try and cut calories this time.

Original recipe here

Servings: 12
Calories per serving: 229

Ingredients:
2 pkg (8 oz each) Philadephia cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar (white, granulated)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
12 Oreo cookies (whole, do not crush)
Red food coloring, optional*

Step 1: Heat oven to 350F.
Step 2: Beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with mixer until blended.
Step 3: Add eggs (and red food coloring); mix just until blended.
Step 4: Place 1 Oreo cookie in each of 12 paper-lined muffin cups.
Step 5: Top with cream cheese mixture.
Step 6: Bake 20 minutes or until centers are almost set.
Step 7: Cool completely, then refrigerate at least 3 hours or overnight.

Recipe time: 4 hours 10 minutes
My cooking time: 40 minutes for prep and cooking; I left my cheesecakes in the fridge overnight.

*Food coloring is optional. I made them red to go with the Deadpool theme (red and black). I added a lot of red food coloring, and it still turned out more pink than red. I don't usually dye my food, so have not perfected getting the right colors.

This recipe is super easy and has few ingredients. I still need to perfect getting the cheesecakes more flat after cooling (mine were inflated like muffins immediately after baking, then had a pretty sunken center after cooling and refridgerating). But they still taste delicious! They were a hit! And it's definitely hard to have just one...... <( ^^ )>

Ingredients

Step 2

Step 3

Step 4

Step 5