Food and Beverage Blog

Baking can be fun especially if you know what you are doing and you have all the appropriate ingredients and tools available. Who said baking had to be hard? It can be just a piece of cake! Here are some simple cake recipes to get you started on the route to great baking.

#1 – Rich Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

Butter, to grease the cake pans, 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour, 2 cups sugar, 3/4 cup cocoa powder, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, 1 cup buttermilk, shaken, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 2 extra-large eggs, 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract, 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee

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Nowadays, there are no teenagers who can imagine themselves a view of an interesting movie without a pizza! In fact, for centuries the technology of pizza production has almost not changed – except that the furnace steel gas and electric. And everything else, including the mandatory manual preparation of the test, remained traditional. Real Italian pizza does not tolerate hack-work and, despite the rapidity of its preparation, does not like the hustle: all processes must take place clear and measured.

The main thing in pizza – tortilla. On the one hand, it serves only the basis for various fillers, and so should be fairly thin. On the other, unsuccessful tortilla spoil all impression of the pizza, which is simply inconvenient (tortilla, like hundreds of years ago, took place of a dish) and tasteless to eat. Cake should be crisp, but soft, so that it can be folded, not broken.

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Chocolate and strawberries! What could be better? There is just something about the two together that really can satisfy the human taste buds! The next time you are looking to try a new cake recipe, give this Chocolate Strawberry Layer Cake a try. Make it even better by dipping the strawberries about half-way up the side in melted chocolate and adding a whole dipped strawberry in the center. If that is too much of a chocolate look for you, dip the berries in white chocolate. Beautiful and yummy! This is a great cake for birthdays and other special occasions as well as an everyday dessert.

CHOCOLATE STRAWBERRY LAYER CAKE
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup strawberry preserves
1 pint fresh strawberries, hulled, halved

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and lightly flour two 9-inch cake pans; set aside. Beat eggs and sugar in a small mixing bowl until thick and light colored. In a large bowl, sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together. Add the vegetable oil, buttermilk, and vanilla extract to the flour mixture; mix until blended. Fold in the eggs and sugar mixture. Pour batter evenly into the two prepared pans. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool in the pans on wire racks for about 10 minutes. Remove the cakes to the wire racks and cool completely. Place one layer on a serving plate. Spread the top of that layer with the strawberry preserves; cover preserves with the second layer. Prepare frosting and frost top of cake. Garnish with the strawberries by placing berries in a circle, cut side down, around the top edge of the cake.

FROSTING:

1 cup whipping cream
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract

Beat the whipping cream with the cocoa powder, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract. Spread the frosting over the top of the cake; cover loosely and refrigerate until serving time. Garnish with the strawberries, as directed above, just before serving. Enjoy!