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Week 39: Pumpkin Bundt Cake
Pumpkin spice, and everything nice… that’s what week 39’s bundt cake is made of. Cheeky poems aside, I am majorly lagging on cakes for the last two months! Part of me is afraid to even pull out the calendar and figure out how many weeks I have left when I’m four cakes in the red.
Week 38: Cardamom-Pear Almond Cake
There’s nothing I love more than opening up my pantry and having everything I need to make a cake. Of course, this is easily the case when you start from a box mix; however, the mix I used isn’t your ordinary box mix. Simple Mills cake mixes are gluten free, almond flour based and when baked up would make any Betty Crocker mix pale in comparison.
Week 37: Walnut Plum Chocolate Chunk Cake
Some weeks I have a recipe in mind, something cooking up in my brain before I make it in the kitchen; however, I’m usually forced to pivot once I get to the grocery store. Such was the case with this week’s cake.
Weeks 35 and 36: Virgo Birthday Cake
There’s no sugar coating it, or maybe there is given the nature of the challenge, but I’ve fallen behind. Not in actually baking the cakes, but in sharing with the interwebs my progress and commitment to insanity.
Week 34: Eat Your Veggies Cake
In the beginning of the challenge, I knew I was crazy. 52 cakes in a year? Ambitious, yes. Certifiable, after this week… maybe. I say this because my inspiration for week 34’s recipe and cake was vegetables. Early in the week, I got it in my mind that I wanted to make a zucchini cake, reminiscent of everyones favorite speckled green tea cake. To my disappointment, a recipe didn’t exist!
Several days of recipe research later, I decided I would adapt the ingredients for carrot cake to emulate soft, moist and carmely sweet zucchini bread in the form of a sheet cake. The recipe creation ended up being simpler than I thought (shared below) and I swapped out carrot shreds for zucchini and removed the typical nuts and dried fruit as well as spicy flavors.
Because zucchini bread is usually made sweeter with the addition of chocolate chips, I decided to top it with creamy thick chocolate frosting featuring an unlikely main ingredient. Sweet potatoes!
After using this frosting for the chocolate vegan cake I made during week 12, I knew it needed to make another appearance during the challenge. When I was developing the recipe for the zucchini cake, I immediately thought to top it with this frosting to up the vegetable ante. I ended up bringing the cake into work and having people guess what was in the frosting. Few had good luck, but everyone was shocked to find out it was only two ingredients, one of them being a vegetable! It’s that good. Creamy, rich, chocolatey, decadent, if you’re feeling sneaky, no one will ever know.
I’m telling you, this frosting is the best kept secret for those who enjoy alternative less refined baking methods. The only ingredients are chocolate chips and sweet potatoes and if you have a high power blender or food process it’s easy to make. I first saw it made on Food52, but I’ve shared the recipe below.
Eat your Veggies Cake
Ingredients For Cake:
- 2 2/3 c. all purpose flour (I like King Arthur)
- 1 1/4 tsp. salt
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 1/2 c. flavorless oil (I use vegetable oil)
- 2 2/3 c. sugar
- 5 eggs
- 4 cups of grated zucchini
Ingredients For Frosting:
- 1 sweet potato
- 1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 and line and grease a rectangular sheet cake pan with parchment paper. Prick your sweet potato with a fork (keep the skin on), wrap in foil and place in oven to roast.
Sift or whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Set aside. If using a food processor, attach the grating blade and run your zucchini through the processor. If you have a Cuisinart, use it. If you don’t, get one. Save the grated zucchini to fold in as the final step.
In a separate large bowl, mix the sugar and oil together with a hand mixer on medium speed. Once combined, turn the speed down, and add the eggs one at a time. Then add the vanilla and continue beating until combined.
Fold the dry ingredients to the wet until no streaks show. I ended up using the hand mixer to help combine the mixture. Once the dry and wet are thoroughly mixed, fold in the zucchini, ensuring equal distribution through out the batter.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 45-50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Transfer to a cooling rack.
At this point the sweet potato should be soft and cooked through. Remove from oven, carefully peal off skin and save until the cake has cooled. Once the cake is cooled, puree the sweet potato flesh in the food processor. Transfer the puree to a sauce pan to reheat. Add the chocolate chips. Once melted, return to the food processor and puree until thick and creamy. Spread the frosting all over the cooled cake, using an offset spatula to create swirl patterns.
Final thoughts on Eat your Veggies Cake:
- Vegetables as a dessert ingredient…
- Highly underrated.
Week 33: Cashew Cheese Cake (with a side of personal thoughts)
I’ve never been much of a journaler, and I’m responsible for more than my fair share of abandoned notebooks with 1 to 2 pages of my personal thoughts and/or travel details; however, now that I’m over half way through the project I’ve come to notice that each week’s post has offered a quick glimpse into my personal life and thoughts during the given week.
Week 32: Ice-Cream Cake
I believe the saying goes, “When life gives you a pile of crumbs, make ice-cream cake.”
Because this is exactly what I did with last week’s disaster. If you’ve been following along, you would know that my plans to make Smitten Kitchen‘s triple berry summer buttermilk bundt cake did not go exactly as planned. I moved to a new kitchen a few weeks ago, so I’m still getting used to the subtleties of my less than professional oven.
Week 31: Summer Berry Something
Have you ever approached a situation in life with a pit in your stomach, a feeling like something bad is about to happen? That’s probably how I should have felt before making this week’s cake.
Week 30: Chocolate Chip Cookie Cake
It’s been a minute since I’ve been on here talking about cake. Why? My absence on the blog is on account of a handful of reasons. While I wish I could blame my delayed post entirely on the gorgeous weather outside, time spent with friends, eating on patios, playing with my pup Martha and decorating my new space, I’d be omitting some of the truth.
