Baking in the Dorm Kitchen

Wow. Sooo. Here's where I got to bake these past two semesters.

Baking in a college dorm has its ups and downs. One, people come by and compliment the smell, tell you it looks good, etc. On the other hand, they make you feel bad for not offering them cake or cookies, and sometimes you want to keep it a secret from your friends so you can surprise them but really can't because as soon as they smell something baking they come to check what's up. Two, it's a cute kitchen and the appliances work just great. But it's a little too tiny and cramped: hard to work with other people trying to use the stove or microwave, wash their dishes, and of course there are always the people who just kinda stand there watching you when you really want to invest in some quality time baking alone. Three, if I don't have a fork or bowl on hand and need one fast, usually people have them left around (note: none of those bowls, cups, peanut butter jar, etc are mine) that you can grab and use. Unfortunately, usually they're not clean. In fact, the sink is usually full of dirty dishes that make it impossible for you to wash your own dishes and clean up after baking. Why can't people clean up after themselves? Argh. But it's fine.

Next year I'm getting an apartment with my friend Lucy, and that should be better because we picked an apartment with a bigger kitchen. Just for me. Yay!

Plus, I'll get a bigger fridge. Look at what I've had to use this year (since I definitely don't like risking putting things in the public fridge):

Oh yeah, not to mention, all my room-temperature ingredients were stored between an armchair and my friends' fridge in our common room...

Double Peanut Butter Chip Cookies

Okay, here are the cookies Marrisa requested for her birthday! She really tried to avoid giving me any trouble. She knows I kind of (okay, more than just kind of) stress out every time I make people birthday cakes, so she told me to "just make peanut butter cookies like the ones in the dining hall". Now, I didn't know how to mimic the ones in the dining hall exactly. The peanut butter cookies in the dining hall can actually be pretty good. The only peanut butter cookies I've made before are the extremely simple ones with the criss-cross fork thing, I don't know, but super easy. The ones in the dining halls were like peanut butter versions of chocolate chip cookies, with peanut butter chips instead of chocolate chips...I don't know, all I know is that when I searched for peanut butter chip cookie recipes online, I only came up with one.

These are pretty good cookies. Not exactly like the ones in my dining hall, but they're better than any other peanut butter cookie I've baked before. I've never made a cookie that had powdered sugar over granulated sugar, and maybe that's why they had a smoother texture and sweeter taste. I pressed the cookies with my palms instead of using the criss-cross fork pattern like the recipe called for. Overall, a pretty easy cookie to make.

Double Peanut Butter Chip Cookies Yield 3 dozen (mine had over 4 dozen)
Adapted by Evil Shenanigans from The Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition

1/4 cup canola oil
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter (chunky also works)
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 bag Reese’s peanut butter chips (1 2/3 cups)

Heat your oven to 350 F and prepare to sheet pans with parchment.

In a mixer with the paddle attachment cream the oil, butter, peanut butter, powdered sugar, and brown sugar until light and fluffy.

Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix until well incorporated.

In a medium bowl sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add to the peanut butter mixture and mix on low speed until most of the flour is incorporated.

Add the peanut butter chips and mix until well distributed. (You may want to do this step by hand.) Scoop onto the prepared baking sheet by the rounded tablespoon about two inches apart. Use a fork to flatten the cookie by pressing a criss-cross pattern on the top of the cookie.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown. Cool on the pan for three minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Pie

My friend Marrisa's birthday was yesterday. She didn't want me to go all out for her and make a cake, and requested cookies which I'll post on Tuesday...but I just couldn't let her celebrate her birthday without something to cut into! So I searched for an easy, tasty recipe so that I could make both the cookies AND the "cake"...or in this case, a pie.

Again, having no hand-mixer was a problem because this pie had the whipped egg-whites on top, but instead of killing my own arm I had the lovely help of David. Hooray! This was my first time making any sort of pie, so I was kind of intimidated. Still, it turned out great!

This cake was very thick and chocolatey--VERYYY chocolatey. But it was also very, very easy.

First, I made the crust. I've always thought that making the crust was the hardest part. Maybe it was...and it probably usually is, but I chose the simple crust by the blogger who posted this pie recipe originally, Homesick Texan.

Crust
Recipe adapted from Homesick Texan

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup oil
1/8 cup milk

Mix flour and salt. Mix oil and milk. Pour oil and milk into flour and salt and stir until combined into a dough. Can add more milk if dry. Roll crust out between two sheets of wax paper, line a buttered pie pan with crust.

Chocolate Pie
Recipe from Homesick Texan

Filling ingredients:
4 tablespoons of cocoa or 1 1/2 squares of baking chocolate
3/4 cups of sugar
5 tablespoons of flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1 1/2 cups of milk
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
2 egg yolks, beaten slightly
1 tablespoon of butter

Meringue ingredients:
2 egg whites
1/8 teaspoon of salt
4 tablespoons of sugar

Any pie crust (recipe above)

Method:
Mix your sugar, flour, salt, cocoa, eggs and milk (all except vanilla and butter) with a whisk.
Cook while stirring on medium until it bubbles and thickens, about five to 10 minutes. If it becomes lumpy, just beat out the lumps.
Remove from heat and stir in your vanilla and butter.
Meanwhile, poke holes in your pie crust with a fork and bake it at 350 until it’s brown, about 20 minutes.
Beat your egg whites with salt and when they start to get fluffy add the sugar.
Pour the chocolate custard into the baked pie shell and top with the beaten egg whites.
Add 2 T of sugar for every egg white. Bake it until it the peaks on the meringue are lightly browned, about 10 minutes.

Dorie Greenspan's Devil's Food White-Out Cake

I'd been dying to try out this recipe for a while: the cake on the cover of Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I got the perfect opportunity for my friend David's birthday in early April.

This cake was dense and chocolaty with a very light frosting (which was coated with more cake crumbs). The frosting was hard for me to make, because it called for the use of a hand-mixer to whip the eggs...and since I didn't have a hand mixer, I had to beat the eggs by hand for a long time. Also, when I mixed the egg whites with the syrup mixture for the frosting, the frosting turned a light brown color which I was afraid wouldn't go away. It did, and I was left with that light frosting that made Lucy inform me she prefered this cake to her own. So I guess I'll be baking this cake again next year.

Instead of making a 3-layer cake with 8-inch round cake pans, I just made a 2-layer cake with the only cake pans I had, 9-inch. It turned out great, but I wish it was taller. It might have looked prettier. Anyway, I covered the whole thing with cake crumbs because I had a lot of extra, but the cake looked better when I didn't cover the top, since it was so short:


Overall this cake turned out great and was a big hit! It didn't last very long. You can find the recipe in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours. I'll have some more recent baked goods to share by the end of the week!

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Frosting

I was going to post a bit about where I baked these past two semesters, but I'll save that for a later day: I figure I should probably put some more recipes up first.

This one I baked in January. It's an easy, cake-mix-cake recipe with additions to make it more special...additions that ended up taking me longer than I expected, but that's okay. I made this for my best friend at college, Lucy: she's not a frosting lover so the frosting was a little too thick for her, but everyone else loved it.

I had to look everywhere to find frozen strawberries, and ended up buying fresh out-of-season strawberries instead because that's all I could find from the local supermarket. Luckily the cost of this cake still didn't amount to the $25 ice cream cake Lucy requested last year:

Just a heads up on the frosting, I had to make 1.5 batches of it to cover the whole cake, inside and out.

Strawberry Cake
Recipes from Niki

1 package white cake mix
1 package (3 ounces) strawberry-flavored gelatin powder
3/4 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs, lightly beaten
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup mashed strawberries or sweetened frozen strawberries

Combine cake mix and gelatin powder in a large bowl. Beat in oil, eggs, water, and strawberries. Pour into 2 9-inch round greased and floured cake pans. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Cool completely before icing.

Strawberry Frosting (I had to make 1.5 batches)

1/4 cup butter
dash of salt
1/4 cup shortening
1 pound confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup mashed strawberries or remaining sweetened frozen strawberries (drain juice)

Beat the butter/shortening and confectioners' sugar together until smooth and fluffy. Add strawberries. Spread between cake layers, then frost top and sides.

Top off with decorations!

This cake was kind of crumbly. I guess I'd recommend sticking it in the fridge for a bit before serving.

German Chocolate Cake

Last week was my friend Jimmy's birthday. He is obsessed with everything German, and although I would have liked to find a more traditional German birthday cake recipe, according to my internet searches on that, apparently there is no real traditional cake served in Germany for birthdays. So I did the next best thing: German Chocolate Cake. Okay, okay: I know "German Chocolate Cake" isn't a German recipe, but as I said, it was the next best thing.

Only wanting to use ingredients I already had around, I put together three different pieces to create this cake and hoped for the best: I used David Lebovitz's German Chocolate Cake recipe for the cake layers, a chocolate buttercream frosting to coat the whole thing, and in order to make it as German-Chocolatey I could without going out and buying some traditional pecans and coconut, I was lucky and found some Coconut-Pecan ice cream at my university's convenience store.

I made the cake layers a day ahead, put them in the fridge overnight and froze the ice cream layer overnight, then assembled it and made the frosting the next day.

German Chocolate Cake

Adapted from David Levobitz

2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped (I used 6 tbsp unsweetened cocoa mixed with 2 tbsp melted butter)
6 tablespoons water
8 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/4 cup + 1/4 cup sugar
4 large eggs, separated
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

For the cake, preheat the oven to 350˚F. Butter the bottom and sides of two 9-inch cake pans. Line the bottoms with parchment paper and set aside.

Using a double boiler or a heat proof bowl over simmering water, melt the two chocolates together with the 6 Tablespoons of water. Stir until smooth, then set aside and cool to room temperature.

While waiting for the chocolate to cool, beat the butter and 1 1/4 cup of the sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment. Beat at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Stir in the melted chocolate. Add the egg yolks, one at a time.

In a medium size bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Combine half of the dry ingredients into the creamed butter mixture, then add the buttermilk and vanilla extract. Stir in the rest of the dry ingredients.

In a separate metal or glass bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold soft, droopy peaks. Beat in the 1/4 cup of sugar until stiff peaks form. To lighten the cake batter, gently fold in one-third of the beaten egg whites, using a rubber spatula. Fold in remaining egg whites until just combined.

Divide the batter evenly into the two cake pans. Lightly tap the bottom of pans on counter top to smooth the tops. Bake for about 45 minutes, until they pass the toothpick test.

Remove from oven and cool in the pans. After about 10 minutes, remove from pans and allow to cool the rest of the way on wire racks.

Center

I used 1-2 pints coconut-pecan ice cream. You can use any kind of ice cream for this.

Wait for ice cream to thaw for a while. Line the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan with parchment paper. Using a rubber spatula, remove the ice cream from the carton and flatten it in the cake pan. Chill until firm.

Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

Adapted from Recipezaar

1/2 cup butter, softened
2 2/3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1/3 cup half-and-half cream or milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted

Cream the butter in a small bowl.

Blend in the cocoa powder, vanilla, confectioners sugar, alternately with the cream.

Beat with an electric mixer, until the desired texture is achieved.

**NOTE** because of the additional cocoa powder more cream may have to be added in to reach desired consistency.

Assembly

Before removing the ice cream layer from the freezer, frost the top of one of the cake layers.

Take the ice cream layer out of the cake. Run a knife along the edges of the ice cream inside the pan and turn it over onto the layer of unfrosted cake. Remove the parchment paper from the top of the ice cream, and then place the frosted layer of cake on top. Using a rubber spatula, frost the sides of the cake, then chill until you're ready to serve.

Let the cake thaw for 15-30 minutes after being in the fridge before serving it, covered with plastic wrap.

Yum!!

First Post!!

Hey! I'm Katie, a 20-year-old college student with an obnoxious sweet tooth and a bunch of friends who love to eat baked goods. I've been dying to start my own food blog for over a year, but never thought I could do it, so this is a big step for me...since I'm a college student leading a busy life, I don't have a lot of time nor equipment to bake frequently. However, seeing as next year I'll be living offcampus, I'm no longer going to have to share a kitchen with a whole floor of students...and I'll have to be fending for myself in terms of finding what to eat. Although I prefer making cakes and cookies, I'll undoubtedly share other foods occasionally.

What I'm probably going to do is post a recipe a week, and then another post for another subject to do with my life as a college student, just because college life won't allow me to be frequently experimenting in the kitchen.