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