Carried on the Wind

Feb. 24, 2007 - Chocolate Cherry Cake

The following post is an entry into the Loveliness of Baking blog carnival. Enjoy!

Peregrine likes baking too!

I have many happy memories of baking with my mom as a little girl. Since getting married I've enjoyed creating baked goods for my own family. My husband has a sensitivity to wheat, so I've had to learn to use alternate flours when baking for him. The following Chocolate Cherry Cake recipe is a blend of my mom's Dark Chocolate Cake and the Cherry Chocolate Cake Erik's mom always made for his birthdays. (And that won him a ribbon in a county fair when he was ten!) I had fun combining the two recipes and making this decadent, yet simple, gluten free chocolate cake for him. You can, of course, make it with regular flour and it's just as good!

Chocolate Cherry Cake

2 cups all purpose Flour (or 1 Cup Rice Flour, 1/2 cup Tapioca Flour and 1/2 Cup Potato Starch)
1 cup cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup cooking oil
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk or sour milk
3/4 cup strong coffee
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 can (21oz) cherry pie filling, 1/4 cup reserved
1 package (8oz) cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
12 oz chocolate chips
1 C whipping cream

CAKE
1. Heat oven to 350F. Grease and lightly flour two 9 x 1 1/2-inch round pans; set pans aside. Allow cream cheese to soften at room temperature while you prepare the batter.
2. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.
3. In a large mixing bowl combine oil, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, coffee, and almond extract. Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until well combined, about two minutes.
4. Reserve 1/4 cup cherry pie filling. Mix remaining pie filling into wet ingredients. Add dry mixture and beat on low speed until just combined. Divide batter into prepared pans.
5. Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes or until a wooden toothpick comes out clean. Prepare filling. Cool cakes on wire racks for 10 minutes before turning out of pans. Cool thoroughly on racks.

FILLING
1. In a small bowl mix reserved 1/4 cup pie filling, cream cheese, and vanilla.

GANACHE FROSTING
1. Heat cream in a saucepan until it begins to simmer. Remove from heat.
2. Pour chocolate chips into the cream and let stand five minutes.
3. Stir until cream and chocolate are thoroughly mixed and smooth.

To assemble cakes spread filling in between the layers and frost top and sides with Ganache. The above photo is a slight variation on the usual layers I do with this cake!
16 Servings

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Jul. 5, 2006 - What's for Breakfast?

    At our house this is one question that's pretty easy to answer. A while back, while trying to get more raw foods into our diet, I began to make muesli for breakfast. Muesli is an oat based cereal that originated in 1900 with a Swiss doctor. He came up with it as a healthy food for patients in his hospital. In it's most basic form it's a mixture of oats, nuts and/or seeds and fresh or dried fruit. Because it's made from whole grains it gives lots of energy that we and our kids need to start the day. In fact, it's one of the only things I feel really keeps me going until lunchtime. It's high in fiber, low in fat and sugar, inexpensive, easy to prepare, and it tastes great! I make a batch about every two weeks and store it in a gallon jar.
    We eat this most weekdays. Once a week I will make pancakes or muffins with the kids for a little variety. On Saturdays we have waffles made from scratch, and Sundays vary. Depending on the time sometimes I will make eggs or we eat cold cereal.
    I make it a little differently each time, depending on what we have around. I try to buy raw nuts and seeds, as they retain more nutrition. You can use whatever kind of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit that your family likes, or add fresh fruit when you serve it. An Austrian woman once made this for me and she mixed it with yogurt the night before and let it soften. There's no one right way to make or eat it, so even though we eat the same basic breakfast most days we still have lots of variety!
    This is a great recipe for the kids to help with. Peregrine loves to help measure and pour and stir, and since the amounts aren't so important he can have a little more freedom than with some other recipes.
    Here's our basic recipe:

Muesli
7 C. Oats
4 C. Oat Bran
1-2 C. Seeds (sunflower, pumpkin, sesame, etc.)
1 1/2 C. Nuts
1-2 C. dried fruit (any combination of raisins, cranberries, blueberries, apples, etc.)
1 T. Cinnamom
1 t. Cardamom (optional, but good for digestion and tastes yummy)

Mix all ingredients in a large bowl then transfer to an airtight container. This makes enough to fill a gallon jar. To serve, scoop out 1/3 to 1/2 cup into each bowl. We like to add 1 teaspoon of pure maple syrup and then mix it with either plain yogurt or kefir. You could also also sweeten it with honey or applesauce. Fresh or frozen berries or chopped apple are a nice addition, but not necessary.

What do you do for breakfast?

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