HCB - Coffee Chiffon Cake

First, I would like to congratulate Rose Levy Beranbaum on winning two IACP awards for her book, Rose's Heavenly Cakes!! I'm not surprised she won because the book is wonderful. It's full of reliable recipes that are tested over and over. And then you have the beautiful color photos. I very much enjoy baking from this book!

Now back to HCB business. This week's recipe for the Heavenly Cake Bakers, is the Coffee Chiffonlets with Dulce de Leche Whipped Cream. I don't even like coffee and yet I was super excited about making this recipe. Why? Because I've never made a chiffon cake before. I didn't have mini Angel Food Cake pans required for this recipe, so I decided to make it into a layer cake. Well, that was easier said than done. After reading through the Orange Glow Chiffon Cake recipe in Rose's Heavenly Cakes, I learned that as long as I used unbleached flour and a flower nail, I should be fine. And so the adventure started...

Looks can be sooooo deceiving... :o)

SMS - Sweet Potato Bread (sans rum glaze)

My apologies for the late post. This week's Sweet Melissa Sundays recipe, Sweet Potato Bread, was chosen by Lorelei of Mermaid Sweets. She is the founder of this wonderful baking group. Although this recipe is called a bread, I think it's more like a cake, especially since it's baked in a Bundt pan. If it wasn't for me straining the sweet potato puree to remove all the strings, this cake would go on the Quick-and-Easy list. I also omitted the pecans and reduced the sugar to 1 2/3 cup because 2 cups seemed too much. Instead of the orange rum glaze, I used up some lemon/lime glaze I had in the fridge. I took the cake to a bake sale at work today and people liked it.

The cake turned out fluffy, moist and tender, and not too sweet. I love spices in this sort of cake so I increased the cinnamon to 2 tsp, and added a dash of cloves, allspice and freshly ground nutmeg. I expected it to taste like pumpkin cake but oddly enough, found it to taste more like a gingerbread cake. My husband said that it could be a tad sweeter but he definitely liked the soft texture. He gave it a 7.5 out of 10.

Thank you, Lorelei, for choosing another SMS winner. If you would like to try this cake, you can find the recipe HERE. Don't forget to check out the other SMS bakers.

HCB - Banana Refrigerator Cake

This week's recipe for the Heavenly Cake Bakers is the Banana Refrigerator Cake, chosen by Saira of Baked and Caked. This cake was very easy and quick to put together. Although the recipes states to use a food processor and a mixer, I was stubborn and used the mixer only. I like my bananas to have a little bit of texture so I always mash them with a fork only. Other than substituting orange zest for the lemon zest, I pretty much stuck to the recipe. Since I'll be taking this cake to a potluck at work, I thought it would be easier to cut into bars if I baked it in a 8" square pan. I have no doubt this cake would be wonderful and delicious with the prescribed White Chocolate and Cream Cheese Frosting, however, I will be frosting mine with Caramel Whipped Cream instead because that's what I have in my fridge already. Besides, who doesn't like caramel + anything banana? :o)

 8" square cake + 1 cupcake (for quality control purpose only!)

Final thoughts/tips:

• Hubby and I shared the cupcake/muffin. It's very moist and tender with a wonderful banana flavor. The orange zest worked very well with the banana. Hubby's rating for this one: 8 out of 10.
• Although I was a bit skeptical about the lack of spices in the recipe, I went ahead and made as-is, sans the usual spices. I have to admit it was a nice change from the usual.

SMS - Chocolate Malted Cupcakes

This week's recipe for Sweet Melissa Sundays was the Chocolate Malted Layer Cake. A big thanks to Nicole of Sweet Tooth for picking another great recipe from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book. Instead of a layer cake, I baked cupcakes; 33 of them to be exact. We ate two and the rest went into the freezer for next week's bake sale at work, benefiting the Breast Cancer Society.

ABC - Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

It's that time of the month again; first Tuesday of April to be exact, and that means it's time for the ABC of the Month. As some of you might know, in this new monthly baking group that I started with my friend Wafae, we bake a few recipes from Flo Braker's book Baking for all Occasions. This month's recipe, Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake, was chosen by yours truly. I'm slightly fearful of yeast dough and decided to pick this recipe to confront my fear head on. You start by making a sweet yeast dough made with a little bit of sugar, butter, milk and eggs; very brioche-like. Then you roll it out and brush it with melted butter. Before stacking strips of dough on top of one another, you sprinkle each layer generously with a paste-like mixture of sugar and citrus zest. After it comes out of the oven, you brush it liberally with a tangy cream cheese icing. The end result is a delicious, soft, tender, not overly sweet, coffee cake with a wonderful citrus aroma and flavor. The cream cheese icing with that splash of lemon juice, couldn't have complemented this coffee cake better.