Slab Cakes - Chocolate Chip

 

Long time no blog! Haha. Time flies and stands still when you’re in the middle of a pandemic. And for some reason there is so much to do. I have been on a bit of a break from work and am trying out a ton of slab cake recipes that I found. The first one is a chocolate one and boy was it delicious and so moist and fluffy!

Ingredients for the Cake…

1/2 cup of margarine, melted and cooled

1 1/3 cups flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup sour cream

Ingredients for the Chocolate Icing…

1 cup of margarine, softened

2 cups icing sugar

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/4 cup milk

2 tbsp. or more of mini chocolate chips or sprinkles for topping 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9x13 inch pan. Line with parchment, leaving a 2 inch overhang on long sides. Grease parchment.

                                                        

Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt.

Combine eggs and granulated sugar in the bowl and beat on high speed until thick and pale, about 4 minutes.

Add flour mixture; beat just to combine.

Add butter and vanilla; beat to combine.

Add sour cream; beat until smooth.

Scrape batter into prepared pan.

Bake until top springs back when lightly touched and a toothpick comes out clean and batter free about 30 to 35 minutes.

Let cool in pan for about 10 minutes.

Using parchment overhangs, lift out of pan and let cool completely on rack.

For the frosting…

Beat together margarine, icing sugar, cocoa, and milk on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

Spread over top of cake.

Decorate with chocolate sprinkles or I used mini chocolate chips which were so delicious.

 

Coffee Cake

Another week, another recipe to try! With things still be as they are and trying to stick close to home as much as possible, I have found baking to be one of the things to look forward each week. Today I have for you a basic coffee cake. This is great with afternoon tea and to include in a brunch (when you can finally have one again). It’s simple and plain but very moist. One recipe makes a lot so luckily it’s easy to freeze!

Ingredients

For the cake:

3 cups of flour

1 tbsp. of baking powder

1 tsp. of baking soda

1 tsp. of ground cinnamon

¼ tsp. of salt

1 ¾ cups of plain yogurt or sour cream

1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup of granulated sugar

3 eggs

7 tbsp. of melted and cooled butter

For the topping:

1/3 cup of brown sugar

1/3 cup of granulated sugar

1/3 cup of flour

4 tbsp. of softened butter

1 tbs. of ground cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Butter two round 9 inch cake pans.

I like to mix my topping first and set aside. In a medium mixing bowl, add all of the topping ingredients and then squish with your hands until you’ve got a chunky sand consistency.

In another mixing bowl, add all of your dry ingredients and whisk.

In another bowl, add the sugars, eggs, yogurt/sour cream, and butter and whisk up until all combined.

Slowly add the dry mixture into the wet and stir until all incorporated. Distribute evenly into both the prepared pans and top with your “sandy” topping. Divide the topping between the two cakes. It may look like a little much but it’ll be fine. 

These cakes puff up when cooking so it might be a good idea to put them on a cookie sheet just in cake of overflow which I have had and then the smoke and burning begins! Allow to cool and then slice. I like to keep the cakes in the pans to store and slice if I'm not freezing them otherwise it can get messy. Enjoy. 

Big Fluffy Muffins

 

As the Fall settles in, I have been wanting to try out some new recipes while we are all hibernating inside again. I felt like having some muffins, so I found a muffin base recipe. It is a nice, fluffy, moist base that you can add so many flavour combinations to. I tried a basic blueberry muffin, but you can really try anything. Some suggestions are blueberry lemon, raspberry orange, mocha chip, apple cinnamon, banana chip, banana nut, lemon poppy seed, orange, or banana blueberry and those are just a few ideas I came up with. Now I made these muffins thinking that they would be just an average muffin and to use up some of my frozen blueberries that were going to expire so I didn't think to take pictures as I went along. However, they were so good so I'll make them again and make sure to take pictures. 

Basic Fluffy Muffin Recipe:

3 cups of flour

1 cup of sugar

½ tsp. of baking soda

1 tbsp. of baking powder

½ tsp. of salt

1 ½ cups of plain Greek yogurt

2 eggs

8 tbsp. of melted butter

1 ½-2 cups of fresh or frozen blueberries

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

Prepare your muffin tins with liners. I did all my muffins big as opposed to mini muffins. It made just over 24.

Whisk the flour, soda, powder, salt, and sugar.

Melt the butter in a glass measuring cup. Cool slightly.

In another bowl, whisk up the yogurt and eggs until smooth and then fold into the dry mix.

Then fold in the butter.

Lastly, stir in the blueberries.

Now it’s time to scoop. Usually I use spoons and scoop my muffins that way but these are supposed to be big fluffy muffins so I used a 1/3 cup and filled those muffin tins up. They may look full but they won’t overflow or cause a mess while baking, I promise.

Put into the oven for about 25 minutes; they may need a few minutes longer. You want them to be golden looking and to be able to insert a toothpick and it to come out clean.

Cool the muffin slightly on a wire rack and enjoy!

These were so delicious. One of the best muffins I ever had. They were so moist and not overly sweet or heavy. I will definitely be using this as my go to muffin base and try adding different things in the future.