Tag: cake

Quiznos Chocolate Bundt Cake

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

I think the sandwich may be one of my favorite food groups (so tidy and yet delicious). And, after I helped Mike move out on Monday, he invited me out for lunch (he’s moving in with his fiancee in College Station). We went for Quiznos and that was just the meaty elixir I needed.

I selected a small Turkey-Bacon-Guacamole sandwich, with double meat. And, as I neared the checkout, I spied a stack of mini chocolate bundt cakes in a cooler. They’re no more than 4” in diameter and, well, in the shape of a bundt cake. I had tried one before, years ago, and it was a bit dry at the time. But, I decided to give Quiznos the benefit of the doubt that maybe the prior cake was just a fluke.

In any case, after eating my sandwich, I opened the plastic dome enclosing the bundt cake. I offered some to both Mike and Annette, but they declined citing shrunken stomaches on account of skipping breakfast that morning (yeah, I don’t understand it either). So, I broke off a piece and indulged.

To my pleasant surprise, it was distinctly better than the last one. While the last one was dry and almost airy, this one was properly moist and seemingly denser. And, the chocolate icing (about 1/8” thick) was chocolaty enough and smothered the top half of the cake. As a bonus, the icing pooled slightly in the hole of cake to form a chocolate nugget.

The chocolate cake was better than I expected and just what I needed after moving furniture all morning. And, judging by the unscheduled carbohydrate-induced coma nap later that afternoon, it had plenty of sugar in it (though Quiznos’ nutrition information is remarkably sparse in this area). I don’t think it’s something that I’d pick up with every Quiznos trip, but I might just grab one of their bundt cakes again sometime.

Recipe: Carrot Cake

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

Someone brought in some carrot cake to work the other day. It was moist and savory with a rich cream cheese frosting — it was some of the best carrot cake I’ve ever had. I was a bit sad that I wouldn’t be able to ask for the recipe, as it just appeared anonymously in the break area.

Luckily, the cake came up in some water-cooler conversation and just I happened to be talking with the person who baked it. She happily agreed to e-mail the recipe to me:

Carrot Cake

Ingredients:

  • 3 cups grated carrots
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 1 1/4 cups oil
  • 1 tsp. vanilla

Preparation:

Cook at 350 for 30 min — if you do it in a cake pan — I end up cooking it for at least 45 minutes, but check it at 30 min, then every 10 min afterwards. [Yeah, that’s exactly how she wrote it. As you’ll notice, she doesn’t specify a pan-size, but I recall that it may have been 13 x 9 (?)]

Frosting:

  • 1 package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 stick butter, softened
  • 1 16 oz box of powdered sugar
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and cream cheese together, add vanilla, slowly add powdered sugar.

Peanut Butter Oreo Cheesecake Recipe

Ashley Bischoff6 Comments

If you’re looking for a peanut butter cheesecake recipe, I’ve found that this one works quite well:

Oreo® Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Ingredients

  • 1 pkg. (15 oz.) Oreo Double Delight Peanut Butter ’n Chocolate Creme Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, divided
  • 3 Tbsp. butter or margarine, melted
  • 3 pkg. (8 oz. each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 container (16 oz.) Sour Cream
  • 1 cup creamy peanut butter
  • 3 eggs

Preparation

  1. Finely crush 16 of the cookies. Coarsely chop remaining 14 cookies; set aside.
  2. Mix finely crushed cookies and butter. Press firmly onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan; set aside.
  3. Beat cream cheese and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add sour cream and peanut butter; mix well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing on low speed after each addition just until blended. Gently stir in chopped cookies. Pour over crust.
  4. Bake at 350°F for 50 to 60 minutes or until center is almost set. Run knife or metal spatula around side of pan to loosen cake; cool before removing side of pan. Refrigerate 4 hours or overnight. Store leftover cheesecake in refrigerator.

I wouldn’t recommend attempting a low-fat cheesecake, but the recipe can be otherwise made slightly more healthy with few modifications. You could switch from “regular” peanut butter to natural peanut butter, and that eliminates much of the trans fat (except for those intrinsic to the Oreos).

And, you can swap out Splenda for the sugar — with this modification, each 1/12 slice has only 28g carbs, which isn’t bad considering that it’s cake. I’ve tried both approaches (substituting both the peanut butter and the sugar), and the cake still turned out well.

Update 2/5: If you’re going to try making a cheesecake, you may also find these cheesecake tips helpful. Among them, they recommend serving the cheesecake at room temperature, which would take about 30 mins out of the fridge (I didn’t know about that one).

Slashdot Meetup – December

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

This evening, I’ll be going to the Slashdot Meetup for Dallas. Like last month, it’s at Cafe Brazil this evening (the venues are chosen through voting, and it so happened that Cafe Brazil won both times).

I often order a make-your-own omelette, and I’m tempted to do so again. My favorite combination is sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, and chorizo sausage. The problem I run into — every time — is that I’m never sure how to pronounce “chorizo” ;). Is it SHOR-zio? CHORE-zio? SHOR-see-oh? shor-SEE-oh?

I’m also looking forward to the dessert options available. With a dessert menu like theirs, I don’t think I could resist ;). I’m a big fan of chocolate-enhanced baked goods (chocolate cake, brownies, and so on) so I decided last time that I would have chocolate cake.

Of course, Cafe Brazil has about half a dozen varieties of chocolate cake, so I asked our waitress, “Which of your cakes is the most chocolaty?“ I could almost visualize the gears slowly turning in her head as she attempted to deduce the correct answer. After a moment, she replied “Well, I think triple-chocolate layer cake would be.“ (apparently using the line of reasoning that, if “one-chocolate” is a baseline, then “triple-chocolate” must be super-chocolaty indeed).

The cake was delicious — don’t get me wrong — but it was a bit of a chocolate disappointment. The icing was chocolate-flavored, but not intensely so. And, the cake-portion of the slice was almost sponge-like instead of a more preferable soft-and-moist texture.

So, this time around, I may still venture for a slice of chocolaty goodness. But, I’ll either decide on my own or decide after consulting with my dining companions (though not with the wait staff, natch).

Super Breakfast

Ashley BischoffLeave a comment

A couple weeks ago, Julie and I came up with the idea of a “Super Breakfast“ — like a potluck dinner, but with breakfast instead. Someone would bring pancakes, someone would bring sausages, and so on.

Since Julie and Leia were having a slumber party Friday night, they figured that the following morning could be a good opportunity for a Super Breakfast. Though the slumber party was girls-only, the Super Breakfast would be co-ed. In her invitation for Saturday morning, Julie phrased it that the scummy-boys would be making breakfast for the girls — I realize that she only meant it in jest, but I thought that was a bit odd. I would have preferred if the plan was for everyone to help with breakfast (and in practice, it worked out that way anyhow).

Since he’s car-less, I gave Bryan a ride to the house. He brought along his waffle iron and I brought along pancake-mix and a ladle (so that we could make waffles and pancakes, respectively).

Once at the house, everyone began making the breakfast. I combined the ingredients for the pancake mix, and began preparing those. Meanwhile, croissants and biscuits (the “with gravy” kind) warmed in the oven, someone made scrambled eggs, and someone else made bacon and sausage links. It was a very busy kitchen ;).

It worked out to be a very thorough breakfast. I had a couple pancakes, a waffle, some sausage links, and a croissant. I enjoyed the pancakes and the croissant with some butter-spread and sugar free blackberry jam. I also tried some blackberry (?) sauce with the waffle. It was very convenient in sauce-form (as opposed to a jam) as it nicely filled the square crevices of the waffle.

After breakfast (brunch?), I discovered some double-chocolate bundt cake in the fridge, which I quickly put to use. The chocolate icing was thin in texture and melted easily, so it was full of flavor. And, the cake itself was moist and chocolately. It was very tasty, and I always enjoy a good chocolate cake.

Earlier in the morning, I had placed the package of Ding-Dongs in the freezer, as I had read somewhere that they become even more tasty once frozen. And, post-bundt, I was ready to try one. At that point, it had been several hours since I had put them in the freezer, so they were mostly chilled.

Sure enough, they were pretty good. The cake-portion of the Ding Dong changed little from the freezing process. However, the chocolate coating gathered a pleasantly crispy texture. Best of all, the creme center of the Ding Dong took on a semi-solid state such that it almost resembled a fluffy version of the ice cream found in an ice cream sandwich. Hopefully, someone will bring Twinkies to the next Super Breakfast, as I imagine that those too may improve with the freezing process.

In all, I had a great time, and I really look forward to the next one.