Saturday, March 26, 2011

Cake Fail

Well a couple people had been giving me some grief about how my blog is called Keck's Cakes, but that I don't actually make cake.
Today, I was on a cooking website, and best friend noticed a picture of a pound cake and asked if I could make him one.  We had been in bed all morning ... and most of the afternoon watching TV, so I figured it would probably be good for us to get out of bed, and get some fresh air walking to Homeland to grab some butter and chocolate chips to put in the cake.

Here is the recipe that I used:

2 sticks of butter, softened
1/2 cup of vegetable shortening
1 cup milk
3 cups flour
3 cups sugar
1/2 teasp of vanilla
5 eggs
1/2 teasp of baking powder

First, cream the butter an shortening together.  Then add the sugar a little bit at a time, mixing well after each addition.  After the sugar is added, mix in the eggs and vanilla.  Then mix together the flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.  Rotate adding the milk and the flour mixture to the cake mixture, making sure that you finish up the rotation with the flour.

Add chocolate chips if you like them in your cake - trust me, it's good!  Cook in a bunt cake pan at 350 degrees for 1 hour to 1 1/2 hours.

Ok ... now to explain the title of this blog.
Something I did ... didn't work.  Maybe the fact I didn't notice that the recipe called for milk until I was pretty much done mixing the cake ... so therefore I pretty much skipped over the whole rotating flour and milk thing ... I have no idea.
Anyways, I poked a toothpick into the center after about an hour and fifteen minutes, and the toothpick came out clean.  So I let the cake cool for awhile, and then flipped it over onto a plate.  Well ... only the top half came out of the pan.  I KNOW that it's not because the cake pan wasn't greased well enough.  I floured the pan to make sure that the cake wouldn't stick! Also, it was pretty obvious that most of the cake wasn't cooked all the way through.
So best friend and I tried to "reconstruct" the cake and put it back in the oven for about another 20-25 minutes.  We took it out again, and flipped it onto a plate, and the cake was cooked all the way through, but still only half of the cake came out of the pan.  So ... we scraped the rest of the cake out of the pan and came up with this ....

Yeah ... it's not pretty, but we covered it up with cocoa, powdered sugar, and milky goodness (aka chocolate frosting.)

I decided that if I actually want to make this a legit baking blog, that I would go ahead and put my mistakes up here as well.

So, I'm going to sit back on my brand new couch, eat my cakey blob, and just thank my lucky stars that I didn't offer to bring it to my brother-in-law's wedding shower at church tomorrow .... which I was VERY close to doing.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Cookie dough stuffed brownies

First, you should know that this is not my own recipe; I got it from a recipe blog called The Picky Palate.

Ok, on to the recipe.

You will need:
A box of brownie mix
A batch of your favorite cookie dough (you can find my favorite cookie dough recipe here.  You could even use the mint chocolate chips like I did in that recipe, or use semi-sweet.
A mini-muffin tin
Cooking spray.

`First, prepare the brownie mix according to the package directions.  We used caramel swirl brownies because we already had some in the cabinet.



Then whip up a batch of cookie dough:
(or if you are lucky and your best friend is helping you, have them make one, and you can make the other in order to save time.)


Once you have both of those made, generously spray the muffin tin with cooking spray.  Put a small spoonful of brownie mix in each muffin cup, and then put a small pinch of cookie dough in the middle of  the brownie batter.


Then cook at 350 degrees for 18 minutes.
Let cool for 10-15 minutes before taking them out of the pan.


Enjoy the amazing goodness.

Side note: these are perfect for a 9pm snack while you and your best friend are watching Better Off Ted in the fort you just made in your living room ... :)