HCB - ChocolateTomato Cake with Mystery Ganache

This week's recipe for the Heavenly Cake Bakers, Chocolate Tomato Cake with Mystery Ganache, brought about lots of hesitation. Yes, you read the title correctly. There's tomato soup in this week's cake and frosting. Rose devised a chocolate cake recipe as well as a frosting recipe that incorporated canned Campbell's condensed tomato soup. Knowing Rose, this cake couldn't possibly be a stinker, so I went ahead and made it (although I did make just half the recipe). The batter came together quickly, using the usual two-stage mixing method. The ganache, which had some tomato soup in it as well, was a breeze too. Although, I ran out of patience after waiting 3 hours and it still wasn't at frosting consistency. So at 11pm, I gave up and did what I've done before which is to make a whipped ganache instead. You can find instructions for that in a previous post. I decided to spruce the cake up a little so I adorned the top with a chocolate drizzle and some homemade cocoa truffles.

There it is in full glory :o)

I served this cake at a dinner party tonight and it was a big hit. Everybody loved how chocolatey it was. Although I didn't tell them about the tomato, they didn't taste anything "funny". I was going to tell them afterwards, but I forgot. Will let them know when I see them again.

For step-by-step pictures and my final thoughts and tips, please continue reading.

SMS - Plum Raspberry Preserves

Margot of Effort to Deliciousness picked Plum Raspberry Preserves for this week's Sweet Melissa Sundays challenge. The master preserves recipe happens to be one of my favorite recipes in the book. I use it throughout the year to make small batches of jam, without having to do any canning. This way you don't have to eat the same thing all the time. At the moment, I have lots of summer fruit in my freezer, so I can make more jam come winter time.

Plum jam, homemade plain yogurt (I love my Salton yogurt maker), and a fresh plum

One of the many things I like about this recipe is that it scales well (you can make as little as a 1/4 batch) in about half an hour, from start to finish. If you're fruit is sweet, just cut down on the sugar, and if it's not sweet enough, just add more sugar. The best part about this recipe is that it uses apples as its natural source of pectin. This helps "gel" the jam.

The plum jam is ready to be swirled into my yogurt

I was able to get a really good deal on plums so I made an all-plum jam. The sweet and sour notes in the plums is what made this jam interesting to me. I enjoyed that aspect a lot (my husband, not so much; he would have preferred it sweeter). The beautiful red color of the jam is striking. And whether it's served on toast, or swirled through some homemade plain yogurt, like I did, this jam will start a party in your mouth, at the very first bite. You can find the recipe on Margot's blog. Thanks again for a great pick!

The perfect breakfast. Bon appetit!

HCB - Spice Cake with Whipped Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting

The Heavenly Cake Bakers got to choose from a list of recipes that Marie, the group's organizer, had made in the past. Although it was hard to pick a recipe (all of them sound good), I decided to pick something that I could take to work for today's bake sale (benefiting the flood victims in Pakistan). My choice: Spice Cake. Rose suggests frosting it with a Peanut Buttercream Frosting but since I can't eat peanut butter, I opted to use my standby Whipped Molasses Cream Cheese Frosting instead. My main concern with the PB frosting was of course quality control: how can you sell something you haven't tasted yourself? :o)

Frosted, decorated and ready for the bake sale

ABC - All-American Chocolate Cake with Divinity Frosting and Milk Chocolate Paint

This month's ABC of the Month recipe was chosen by Shandy of Pastry Heaven. Normally I pick the recipes but when Shandy joined, I was so happy to have her on board that I asked her to select the September recipe as a (small) token of my appreciation. She picked what was already one of my favorites from Flo Braker's "Baking for all Occasions": All-American Choc Cake with Divinity Frosting and Milk Choc Paint. The chocolate cake I have made about half a dozen times already. The divinity frosting and the milk chocolate paint were a new addition. Btw, I apologize to the ABC bakers because I forgot to mention that the book is missing instructions on *when* to add the melted chocolate. When I made this cake the first time, I added it right after incorporating the eggs to the batter. Later I found out, that's exactly when you're supposed to add it. A big thanks to Rachelino (a Heavenly Cake Baker) for posting the updated recipe on her blog. Rachelino actually met Flo Braker at a book signing and Flo hand wrote the instructions to her copy of the book. Apparently, Flo was a bit irritated that the error occurred. No worries, Flo. Your cake is still awesome!!

When I checked with hubby on how he'd like the divinity frosting, I quickly realized he wouldn't go for it. What to do? I guess I had to come up with something creative :o)

Chocolate Cake with Divinity Other Frosting and Chocolate Paint

SMS - Crêpes

It's been a while since baked along other SMS-ers but now I'm back. On this week's menu: Mom's French Pancakes (aka crêpes), chosen by Jaime of Good Eats 'n Sweet Treats. What a perfect choice to ease back into SMS baking. It's easy, no oven required, and it's delicious. Thank you, Jaime, for such a wonderful pick.

Growing up, my sisters and I used to eat crêpes a lot. In Dutch they're called "pannekoeken". Made either from scratch or from a mix. We would fill them with jam, or drizzle them with honey or "stroop" which is a dark sugar-based syrup (darker and thicker than the pancake syrup here), or... (don't laugh) brown sugar. Guess which one was my favorite filling? :o)

I made the batter last night using my immersion blender (quarter recipe). When I got up in the morning around 4:30am, I made 4 crêpes. I ate 2: one filled with homemade Plum Preserves and the other filled with... I'll let you guess that one :o) I'm fully prepared to be ridiculed :o)

A quarter recipe gave me 4 beautiful crêpes

Perfect breakfast: a Plum Jam filled crêpe, a brown sugar filled crêpe and some grapes! Bon appetit!

Final thoughts/tips:

• I made a couple changes to the recipe: I added a bit of vanilla and I used 1% milk without any problems.
• When you flip the crêpe over, I like to lightly press and continuously rotate it so it gets browned evenly all over.
• My go-to recipe for crêpes has a lower egg-to-milk/flour ratio which I prefer, but Melissa's crêpes were very tasty too.
• A big thanks to Jaime for a wonderful pick. You can find the recipe HERE.
• Don't forget to check out the other SMS bakers.