Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze

Ok, so things have been pretty quiet around here lately. I guess having a kid will do that. I have less time to cook and bake, but really it's the time to type up the recipes that has kept me from posting. For better or worse I guess it seems like I should do the laundry and all that instead of keep up my blog. Here's a recipe I actually made a few months ago, but just stumbled across again...

It seems like maybe there is too much going on in this cake, and maybe there is for some people, but I thought it was good. I adapted it from Bon Appetit as a birthday cake for my husband, though I think it would be better as a coffee cake. The glaze makes it pair well with the right coffee.

The first time I baked this, I must not have greased the pan enough. The sides stuck and the whole thing was ruined. I made it again, being extra careful to butter the bundt pan thoroughly. It turned out fine after that. All's well that ends well, right?

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake with Maple-Espresso Glaze

~Print Recipe~

Cake

• 1 12-ounce package semisweet chocolate chips
• 3 cups all purpose flour, divided, plus more more pan
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for greasing pan
• 1 1/2 cups (packed) brown sugar
• 2 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk

Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons pure maple syrup
• 2 tablespoons (or more) whipping cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Generously butter a 12-cup Bundt pan. Dust pan lightly with flour and tap out the excess. 
2. Mix chocolate chips and 2 tablespoons flour in medium bowl. Sift remaining flour with baking soda, baking powder, and salt into another medium bowl. 
3. Using electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar in large bowl until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla extract and maple extract. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in flour mixture in 3 additions, alternating with buttermilk in 2 additions. Fold in chocolate chip mixture. Transfer batter to prepared pan, spreading evenly.
4. Bake cake until tester comes out clean and cake begins to separate from the sides of the pan, about 1 hour. Cook cake in pan on rack 30 minutes before inverting onto a rack to cool completely.
5. Combine powdered sugar, maple syrup, 2 tablespoons cream, and espresso powder in medium bowl. Whisk until smooth, adding more cream by 1/2 teaspoonfuls if glaze is too thick. Spoon glaze over top of cake. Let stand at room temperature until glaze sets, about 1 hour. 

Serves 12

Stout Chocolate Bundt Cake

Chocolate...Cake...Stout... It's the best of so many worlds! I am constantly looking for cake recipes that are simple, but have the wow factor (in this case the chocolate and stout combination). Something easy to bake, and delicious for a special event like a birthday. I cut this recipe out of Real Simple magazine's holiday edition, 2010. Today I had the excuse of Lauren's birthday to bake it. Perfect to bring to The Mallard for everyone to have paired with their beverage of choice for the evening. Everyone loved the cake, it was a huge hit. Oh, and it was DELICIOUS!!!!!!

What's in it

Butter and unsweetened cocoa powder for the pan

1 C (2 sticks) butter

2 1/2 C flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp kosher salt

3/4 C stout beer (like Guinness)

12 oz semi sweet chocolate chips

3 eggs

1 C sugar

1 C brown sugar

1/2 C sour cream

1/2 C heavy cream

How it's made

Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 12 cup bundt pan (be sure to butter thoroughly and to the rim) and dust with cocoa, tapping out the excess.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda and salt. Set aside.

In a small saucepan melt the butter with the stout over medium heat, stirring. Remove from heat and add 8 ounces of the chocolate, whisking until smooth. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream eggs and sugars together with an electric mixer. Beat on medium high until fluffy. Add sour cream and chocolate stout mixture and cream together. Gradually mix in flour mixture a little at a time, and mix until just combined. Do not over mix.

Pour batter into prepared bundt pan, and bake on lower rack in oven 45-55 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out with just a few crumbs. Let the cake cool in the pan a half hour, then invert onto a rack to cool completely. If the cake seems over cooked (dry) on top, you can trim off the top, which will also allow it to sit flat on the plate when inverted.

While cake is cooling on rack, make the ganache. In a small sauce pan heat the heavy cream just until it boils. Add the remaining 4 ounces chocolate chips and let sit for 5 minutes. After 5 minutes whisk mixture until smooth (about 1-2 minutes). Pour over cake to glaze, using a spatula to smooth and distribute the glaze. Allow glaze to set before serving.

Vanilla Bean Bundt Cake with Vanilla Glaze and Strawberries

I made this for Easter Dinner, it's from Bon Appetite Magazine, and it was so delicious. A beautiful hybrid between Angel Food Cake, Meringue, and Bundt Cake all mixed in one. The key is to use real vanilla bean, and use an actual bundt pan. It's the first bundt cake I've ever made, and it was super fun! Keep it in mind for Mother's Day coming up in May.

What's in it

1 vanilla bean

1 tsp bourbon

1 1/2 C flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 C + 6 Tbl butter, room temperature

3/4 C sugar

1/4 C brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1 egg yolk

1/2 C buttermilk

How it's made

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter and flour standard bundt pan, and spray with nonstick spray.

Pour bourbon into a small bowl, and scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into it. Keep the vanilla pod for another use. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.

In a large bowl, cream with mixer butter and sugars. Add eggs and yolk one at a time (mixing in between). Mix in vanilla/bourbon mixture.

Add one at a time, mixing in between until just blended: 1/2 of flour mixture, buttermilk, rest of flour mixture.

Transfer the batter to the pan, smoothing out the top. Bake 55 minutes until tester comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack 15 minutes, then invert onto wire rack to cool completely.

For the glaze

Whisk together 2/3 C powdered sugar, 4 tsp or more whole milk, 1 tsp vanilla extract. When cake is cool, drizzle over cake in zigzag pattern using a spoon. Let set 15 minutes.

For strawberries

Wash and slice 1 1/2 lbs fresh strawberries. Mix 3 Tbl or more sugar in and let set 40 minutes until juices form. Toss occasionally.

Serve slices of cake with strawberries on the side.

Iced Very Lemony Pound Cake

A recent dinner with friends had a theme: home. I used to always request lemon pound cake for my birthday when I was a child, so it was an easy choice for this gathering. I found the recipe my mom used in her original Moosewood Cookbook--and found out why it's called a pound cake. I looked at the ingredients list and decided I didn't actually want a pound of butter in my cake, thankyouverymuch. So, I turned to the internet. Recipes abound. Some use lemon extract or shortening--YUCK! I found this recipe on the Martha Stewart website, and since I feel like I can pretty much trust Martha at this point, I decided to give it a try. With a twist, of course.

The Cake:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pan
• 3 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled), plus more for pan
• 3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk
• Zest of 2 lemons, finely grated
• 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (about 2 lemons)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 cups sugar
• 5 large eggs

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, with rack in lowest position. Butter and flour a bundt pan or two loaf pans.
2. In a small bowl, combine buttermilk with lemon zest and lemon juice. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda.
3. With an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in three parts alternately with the buttermilk mixture in two parts, beginning and ending with flour; beat just until smooth (do not overmix).
5. Pour batter into the pan and smooth the top. Bake until a toothpick inserted in centers comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes (tent with foil if browning too quickly).
   

The Sauce:

• 1/3 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup sugar

1. Leave the cake in the pan and set it on a wire cooling rack. As soon as you take the cake out of the oven, poke small holes in the top with a toothpick. Drizzle half of the lemon sauce over the top, letting it soak into the cake.
   
2. After the cake has cooled for 10 minutes, turn it out onto the cooling rack. Poke more holes in the top and drizzle the remaining lemon sauce over the top.
3. Let the cake cool completely before icing.

The Icing:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons lemon juice
  

1. Whisk the powdered sugar to remove clumps. Stir in lemon juice in small quantities until all of the sugar is dissolved and desired consistency is reached. I used 3 tablespoons and still found it to be slightly runnier than I'd have liked.
   
2. Set the cake's cooling rack over a baking sheet lined with waxed paper. Pour glaze over cakes, letting it run down the sides. Let dry, about 30 minutes--if you can wait that long. This cake is good warm, as well as cold the next day.