Poppy Seed Cake.

Recipe 31.

Poppy Seed Cake (from Taste of Home). 

Ingredients:

1/3 cup poppy seeds

1 cup 2% milk

4 egg whites

3/4 cup shortening

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

Cream Cheese Frosting:

8 oz Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups confectioners' sugar

Prep: Soak the poppy seeds in milk for 30 minutes. Place egg whites in a large bowl and let stand at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Cream shortening and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, then add into mix alternately with poppy seed mixture, beating well after each addition. Beat egg whites until soft peaks form; fold into batter.

Pour into a greased 9x13. Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

For frosting, beat the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until smooth, and then gradually beat in confectioners' sugar. Spread over cake. Store in refrigerator. 

Orange Yogurt Loaf Cake.

Recipe 31.

Orange Yogurt Loaf Cake (from Sprinkle Bakes).

This loaf cake was so fun to make.  Zesting oranges, making glaze, quick and easy. What else could you ask for? Well, I guess I'd ask for more cake, but I have a relentless sweet tooth.

Glaze instructions are ridiculously easy. I don't understand why so many times my glazes are too runny or too thick or too not-delicious. But this is the first time I got glaze perfectly right!!! I was so excited that I think I made two or three batches of glaze just to prove that it actually happened! So, it happened. Breanna is a glaze maker. She didn't mess it up. Be proud.

Ingredients:
Cake:
1 1/2 cups flour
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup yogurt (I used plain greek yogurt)
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
zest of 2 large oranges (about 2 tbsp)
1/2 cup oil (I used extra light olive oil)

Glaze:
1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350. Grease a loaf pan and set aside

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together yogurt, sugar, eggs, orange zest, vanilla, and oil. Gradually whisk in dry ingredients until well blended. Transfer batter to prepared loaf pan. Bake for about 50 minutes (or until tester comes out clean). Let the cake cool slightly, remove it from the loaf pan and then immediately return it to the pan. This helps is not stick but keep its shape.

In a medium bowl, whisk together orange juice and powdered sugar. Pour over the loaf cake and let stand until the glaze soaks into the cake. Slice and serve!

This recipe is a keeper! Definitely going into my favorites list.

America Cake.

Recipe 28.

America Cake (from Ina Garten).

Contessa calls it flag cake if you want to look it up. 

I call it America Cake.

Want to know why? Even if you don't, I'm telling you. I call it America Cake because it's delicious and perfect and amazing and awesome and I had three pieces and didn't even feel bad about it. In America you can have your cake and eat it too.

This is going at the top of my list with that really good focaccia bread I made once. Yes, I'm keeping tabs on my favorites. Yes, I'll be making my favorites for the rest of my life.

Make. This. Cake. Before. You. Die.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 sticks unsalted butter at room temp

3 cups sugar

6 eggs at room temp

1 cup sour cream at room temp

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

3 cups flour

1/3 cup cornstarch

1 tsp kosher salt

1 tsp baking soda

Icing Ingredients:

4 sticks unsalted butter at room temp

1 1/2 pounds cream cheese at room temp

1 pound confectioners' sugar

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Toppings:

Lots of strawberries and blueberries

Are you excited yet?? 

If you aren't go back and read through how much butter and cream cheese you'll be using.

If you aren't excited now, you need to run to the doctor to get your vitals checked.

Heat oven to 350. Grease and flour an 18 x 13 x 1 1/2-inch sheet pan.

Cream the butter and sugar in your electric mixer, on high, until light and fluffy. With your stand mixer on medium speed, add eggs, sour cream, and vanilla. Stir until smooth.

Sift together flour, cornstarch, salt, and baking soda. With the mixer on low speed, add this dry mixture to the butter mixture until just combined. Pour into pan, smooth the top, and baking for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool to room temperature!!

For the icing, combine the butter, cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer, just until smooth. Spread across cooled sheet cake. Create the field of stars with blueberries. Cut strawberries (or use raspberries) for the stripes.

Cut the cake into pieces, open your apartment window, post a picture on a social networking site, and watch it disappear in twenty minutes. Flag day was a month ago and people are still talking about it!

Cinnamon Roll Cake.

Recipe 25.

Cinnamon Roll Cake (from Heat Oven to 350).

Heat Oven to 350 is obviously becoming one of my favorite blogs to pull recipes from, I would definitely recommend following it if you want to try some new things! They've got plenty of things to bake, but also amazing recipes to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Anyway, when I saw their cinnamon roll cake it was beautiful! Perfectly swirled and glazed. I knew I could never reach that perfection, not on my first try. And I knew I was only going to try once, because let's get real people, I still have 75 recipes to make! I don't have time to piddle paddle! I sound like my mom.

So mine's not perfect, but I'd say it looks pretty dang good for my resources and time limits! And it was muy delicioso! Don't tell anyone, but I ate it for breakfast one day. It brought a whole new meaning to my morning.

Ingredients:

filling:

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbs cinnamon

1 large egg

cake:

3 large eggs

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/3 cup water

1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Filling:

Preheat the oven to 375. Line a 15x10 jelly roll pin with parchment paper. PLEASE don't skip this step. Spray pan.

Use an electric mixer to beat cream cheese, sugar, and cinnamon until smooth. Beat in egg. Pour filling into pan and spread evenly. Stick in the fridge.

Cake:

Beat three eggs until light and fluffy, gradually add sugar and beat with electric mixer for about 2 minutes. Combine flour and baking soda in a separate bowl. Gradually blend into egg mixture, and water and vanilla. Beat until well combined. Pour batter evenly over the refrigerated filling. Bake for about 20 minutes.

Before the cake cools, invert it onto a flat surface,  peel off the parchment paper. Cut the cake into 5 lengthwise strips (long strips). I used a pizza cutter. Roll up one strip jelly-roll fashion. Shape the rest of the strips around the first to form one large spiral. Let cool.

Mine fell apart a little bit so I kept holding the pieces together and eventually forced them to stand up. I know, far from perfect.

You can be awesome and try a glaze. I was awesome and failed. Seriously, can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? My glazes are ALWAYS too watery.

I gave up, melted some white chocolate, and poured it over to create the cinnamon roll effect.
Love it!

Honey Cakes.

Recipe 24.

Honey Cakes (adapted from smitten kitchen).

As one of my graduation gifts, my mom bought me the cutest beehive cupcake tin from the Deseret Book store. I was so excited to use it, and what better to make than honey flavored cakes! Now I'll warn you, I tried out a glaze and failed, so I used some powdered sugar to cover up the mess. It worked! You can always disguise a little mistake.

Ingredients:
3 1/2 cups flour
1 tbs baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp kosher salt
4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla




Preheat oven to 350. Grease pans. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice. Make a hole in the center of this mix and add the vegetable oil, honey, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Stir together well to make  thick batter. Make sure nothing is stuck on the bottom of the bowl! Spoon the batter into the pans.


It took these pans about 35 minutes to cook all the way through. If you are using angel or tube cake pans, it will take about an hour. Regular loaf pans will take about 45-55 minutes.

Don't you just want to go around and call everyone "honey cakes" now?

I'm going to start.

Later, honey cakes.

Swiss Chocolate Mousse Cake.

Recipe 23.

Swiss Chocolate Mousse Cake.

One of my favorite people at my school is a sweet German lady who pulls my students and does interventions with them. She got a glimpse of my baking blog while she was in my classroom, and offered me a family recipe. She told me she doesn't give it to everyone, but she knew I would use it well. I asked her permission to share it with all of you and she said, "Of course!" She gave the recipe to me in gram measurements, so I took some time converting it into customary units and perfecting the amounts to make it easier for us Americans. My friends raved over this cake, and you will too!

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cup butter

1 1/3 cup sugar

9 eggs, separated

11.5 oz chocolate chips, melted

1 1/3 cup flour

The steps are simple. Beat the separated egg whites in a bowl. In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar, chocolate, and flour until well mixed. Then fold in the egg whites. Bake for 30-45 minutes at 300 degrees. The middle of the cake should be almost solid, but not fully cooked. It is mousse cake, so you want it to be soft and gooey in the middle. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Eat your heart out.

This is a recipe that I plan on using time and time again. It is beautiful, classy, and still a crowd pleaser. It's going in my all-life-time favorites. Which is saying a lot!

Ice Cream Cake.

Recipe 20.

Ice Cream Cake (from my little brain).

One of my good friends turned 24 in April, and I was determined to celebrate with cake (hello, this is me we are talking about). Usually I ask the birthday person what they want, but he said "make whatever you want." He mentioned ice cream cake and confetti cake but never gave me a solid answer, so I just decided to combine them! Now I know it's not the most beautiful thing you've ever seen, but it was my first shot at molding ice cream and I was secretly really proud of it.

Oh baking brings such joy.

This is THE Kendra. Her beauty makes this picture worth posting.

Alright, so here's how I did it:

White cake:
1 1/2 cups softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
6 large egg whites
3/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla
SPRINKLES

Beat butter and sugar for about five minutes. Separately, stir together flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine egg whites, milk, and vanilla. Gradually, back and forth, add parts of the flour mixture and milk mixture to the butter mixture while mixing well. Pour in some SPRINKLES! When cake is entirely mixed, pour into two greased 8' round pans and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

After cakes cool for about 5 minutes, turn them out onto a cooling rack. Remove a tub of ice cream from the freezer. I only needed a 1/2 gallon, and I used french vanilla. By the time the cake is completely cooled, the ice cream should be soft enough to work with. You don't want it melted, but just soft enough to spread like a frosting.

Now, if you are afraid of getting messy, stop making this recipe now and go take a nap. The ice cream is hard to work with but totally worth it in the end. Just like frosting, spread a layer of ice cream on the top of one cake, and place the other cake on top.  Use a spatula to "frost" the whole cake with the ice cream. I wouldn't try cleaning up the platter now, because the ice cream will only continue to melt. If you are going to decorate the cake with sprinkles, however, do that now or they will just roll off the frozen cake in the end.

Place ice cream cake in freezer for a few hours, until hardened. If you have a tiny freezer like me, be sure to place the cake closer to the back where the cold is actually coming from, or it won't refreeze until after its all melted off the cake.

When the cake is hard enough, clean off the melted ice cream around the sides with a warm, wet paper towel. Soaking your knife in hot water will make cutting the cake much easier. Bon appetit!

Basic Yellow Cake

Recipe 13.

Basic Yellow Cake

(from my own head, with the inspiration from 4 or 5 different recipes)

I once again apologize for the lack of quantity and quality of pictures.

This cake was for the same rushed party.

Ingredients:

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 1/4 cups of sugar

2 eggs

3/4 cup milk

2 tsp vanilla

Grease two 9" round cake pans. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt in a mixing bowl. In your stand mixer or using a hand mixer, beat butter and sugar at medium speed until pale and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.  Add eggs, one at a time. And flour mixture in parts until each addition is well blended. I have a confession.  My cake didn't look very yellow, so I actually added a few tablespoons of buttermilk and then a few drops of yellow food coloring. No one ever knew. Pour batter into pans, and bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Please don't overcook them like I did. I was devestated because I didn't have time for a redo. Cool for 15 minutes before layering and frosting.

Are you starting to see the correlation between mistakes and rushing? I have an issue. Take your time, people. Enjoy the process of baking, and don't decide last minute to throw a birthday party for someone. But look how happy the cake made everyone!

Except Mr. Lead Singer in the window. He doesn't look too happy for some reason. Perhaps my overdone cake offends some. But Ee Chien is definitely thrilled about the cake.

Texas Sheet Cake

Recipe 12.

Texas Sheet Cake

(from my mom from my aunt)

It's funny how anything with the word "Texas" in it is incredibly appealing and must be had/bought/made by a Texan girl. 

My favorite part of this cake was telling people, "It's Texas sheet cake," and watching their faces when they connect my home country with my creation.  Then they tease me.  In the same way people (who decided on their own to come to college in Utah) complain about Utah, they try to resist Texan pride by mocking it.  But they were weak arguments, they couldn't stop eating the cake anyway. Texas will always win. You'll agree once you have a slice.

Cake:

1/2 cup butter

1/2 cup shortening

4 tbsp cocoa

1 cup water

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1 tsp soda

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

Icing:

1/2 cup butter

3 tbsp cocoa

6 tbs milk

1 lb powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Sorry about the pictures, I had two hours to make three cakes for a last-minute birthday party. So I pretty much forgot about my camera until the party was about to start, snapped some shots, and regretted it later.

Many Texas sheet cakes are sweeter than this one.  I loved this one because the balance between the cake and frosting was perfect. And it was so easy to make! It was a hit; both sheet cakes were gone by the end of the night.

Boil the butter, shortening, cocoa, and water for the cake. Sift the dry ingredients. Pour the mixture over all the dry ingredients. Add the buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Beat well and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

While baking, boil the butter, cocoa, and milk for the icing.  Add in a whole pound of powdered sugar (celebrate!) and the teaspoon of vanilla.  Mix it up and pour it over cake as soon as the cake comes out of the oven. Let set for about 20 minutes before serving.

Oh, and when you are making the frosting and it is looking super weird and not frosting-like, check the recipe. You forgot to add the pound of powdered sugar. Believe me, you can add it in still, it isn't picky.

"Texas does not, like any other region, simply have indigenous dishes. It proclaims them. It congratulates you, on your arrival, at having escaped from the slop pails of the other 49 states."

 - Alistair Cooke

Chocolate Fudge Cake.

Recipe 8.

In honor of my best friend's birthday:

Chocolate Fudge Cake

(from the Tasty Kitchen)

8 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 box chocolate cake mix
3.4 oz. instant chocolate pudding mix
4 eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup water
8 oz. frozen whipped topping
12 oz chocolate chips (yes, more)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease two round baking pans. Look at those ingredients, and don't worry about the grease. You know you need to fill out your love handles better anyway. Beat the cake mix, dry pudding mix, eggs, sour cream, oil, and water in a huge bowl just until moistened.  Beat for about 2 more minutes on medium speed. Stir in about 2 oz of chocolate chips. Seriously, it's that easy.

Pour the very thick batter into the greased pans and bake for about 30-35 minutes.  Cool for 10 minutes in the pans and then flip them out and let them cool completely.

Fudge frosting: Put about 6 oz of chocolate chips in a bowl with the frozen whipped topping and microwave for about 60 seconds, stir, and then nuke it for about 30 more seconds. Nuke is a much cooler word. Let it stand and thicken for about 15 minutes.  Frost in between the cakes and the top and sides until it is as beautiful as mine (just kidding, yours will be prettier).

If you are really awesome and can make chocolate curls (I failed miserably), go for it. If you are like me, just melt some more chocolate, spread it on a cookie sheet, let it cool, and use a knife to make chocolate shavings for the top of the cake! Then, don't forget your really cute candles when you leave to go to your best friends house, because you will be really upset about it and no one else will understand.

Happy Birthday Adrianne!

Fresh Apple Cake (with sauce)

Recipe 3.

Fresh Apple Cake
(from the ladies at The Sisters Cafe)

4 cups peeled, diced apples (I used four small galas)
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup canola oil (I used vegetable oil, no biggie)
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts instead, loved it)

Preheat oven to 350. In a large bowl, stir together apples and sugar.  Add dry ingredients and stir well.  In a separate bowl, beat eggs, oil and vanilla. Stir egg mixture into apple mixture, blending until thoroughly moistened. Stir in pecans (or walnuts) Pour into greased 9x13, and bake for 50 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly pressed. Serve with warm cream sauce.

Cream Sauce
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp vanilla

Place all ingredients in saucepan and stir.  Bring to a boil and cook on medium-high for a few minutes.  Drizzle over pieces of apple cake and serve warm!

 Bon appetit! This cake was delicious and beautiful.  I left my cake in the oven when I ran to pick up a friend (don't worry, I left a roommate home so I wasn't worried about burning down the apartment complex), but I overcooked it just a tad.  But this cake is indestructible! Even a little browned, it was DELICIOUS! Suggestion: Make this when you plan on serving the whole thing to everyone that day.  It was still good three days later, but nothing beats a FRESH apple cake.


Be careful where you leave your camera while you bake, or you'll upload little surprises like this:

Molten Chocolate Cake

Recipe 1.

We'll kick it off with Martha, of course. Just a little tweaked to my tasting.

Molten Chocolate Cake (or Lava Cake)
serves 6 (don't worry, I quadrupled it)

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
8 oz. semisweet chocolate, melted
powdered sugar or vanilla ice cream for serving

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Butter the muffin tins and evenly dust with sugar. Set aside.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy and add eggs one at a time while beating.  Beat in flour and salt until combined and then beat in ALL the chocolate. Pour into tin.

Bake 8-10 minutes, let stand 10 minutes. Flip cakes over onto a baking sheet and then serve with powdered sugar dusted on top (or vanilla ice cream, woo!).


Seriously, this was my first shot at molten cake and they turned out PERFECT! Good enough to share with boys. Some of them are the very boys I'm sitting with right now, watching the BYU basketball game. SHOUT OUT! Feel important Brandon, Zane, and of course my roommate Kendra who lets me borrow ingredients all the time.

Seeing as it was the beginning of my Project Bake and I didn't know I would be documenting it, I forgot to take pictures!! Here is Martha's version:

find her more perfect recipe here.