Coffee Chiffonlets

Some of the recipes in Rose's Heavenly Cakes are a little difficult to make not because they're technically tricky, but because I have to have an event or gathering to justify making something that only creates four-six servings.  The Coffee Chiffonlets recipe only makes four cakes, so it definitely falls into this category.

 The cakes required the mini-angelfood cake pan, which I haven't really used since, but totally plan to use more in the future.

It was a little difficult to get the cakes out of the pan after they had baked and cooled.  The really stuck in there and don't look terribly awesome.

But it didn't really matter what they looked like, since I just covered them in coffee-whipped cream anyway.  They were VERY tasty and now I have a giant bottle of kahlua in my liquor cabinet.  At least it never goes bad.

 And the same day we ate those cakes, we saw a bunch of ducks just strolling down the sidewalk outside my friend's house.  There isn't even a pond or anything around there.  Just ducks.  Chilling.

Coconut Cheesecake

I've had... mixed results with cheesecake in the past.  I hate over-baking it, but at the same time, I run the risk of it coming out gooey and under-done.  It's a weird balancing act.

I love coconut!  And that tasty coconut milk is sooooo good.  Sadly, I always end up with lots of leftover coconut milk and it's just too sweet and thick to just drink alone.

I get an even bottom crust by smoothing the crumbs to the edge of the pan with a smaller cake pan covered in plastic wrap.  It has the distinct advantage of being extremely easy to clean up.  I just throw away the plastic!

Part of my problem with getting the perfect cheesecake may be that my process involves a complicated water-bath procedure, which seems really alien to most people.  I find that this works maybe 70% of the time.  The other 30% is just runny cheesecake.

But this was one of those times where everything came together.  A little toasted coconut on top made this cake so pretty.  And it was dangerously delicious! P=

Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake and ... Naan?

So obviously, I'm super-lazy about updating, but I haven't been super-lazy about baking!  I recently finished baking every cake in Rose's Heavenly Cakes aside from the wedding cakes or the ones that required special equipment and I've moved on to The Pie and Pastry Bible.  There's a ton of variety in this book and I love it to pieces.  BUT before I can post any pie and pastry pictures, I gotta work through the TWO-YEAR backlog of cake pictures that I need to put up!  Here we go!

This is the Chocolate Velvet Fudge Cake from Rose's Heavenly Cakes.  It's a quick and easy one, so I'm not gonna write much, just give you the pictures.

And after I finished the cake, I decided to try something different and made some naan using this recipe from Allrecipes.com.

It was super-tasty, but made way more naan than I could eat in even a week.  Unfortunately, the naan was really best fresh.  I had to throw out more than a few pieces at the end.  :(