Kitchen Adventures 8.3

Once again, I have a backlog of recipes. This happens often, I know. Fortunately, nature threw me a big excuse to blog with a massive winter storm yesterday and today. We had thundersleet last night, regular sleet, snow, crazy winds, and blizzard conditions. I went outside to take pictures and could only stay out a few minutes before my fingers got cold, and I was wearing good gloves! Suffice it to say, it's reaaallly cold here. I saw someone posted that it's colder in Oklahoma than some parts of Alaska. Now that just seems wrong to me, but so it is. On the positive side, I did not have to go to work today and I have the day off again tomorrow. The roads are nowhere close to clear, and I live right by the university, so hopefully they will be able to make progress tomorrow. It's been a great blessing for me, though, as I had things I needed to work on and now I have a weekend in the middle of my week to get them done! I also came down with a cold yesterday, so recovering at home is much better than being miserable at work or taking sick days.

The first recipe I'll share in my "weekend in the middle of the week" posting is a delicious cake I made for my friend Sally's going away party. I have known Sally almost three years and she just left last weekend (good timing on her part!) to join her boyfriend in Seattle. We will miss her here, but we know she'll have a wonderful life in Seattle! Anyway, I saw this recipe as a highlighted item in my Mixingbowl.com newsletter and decided it was just too delicious to pass up. It also helped that I had several of the necessary ingredients on hand that I would normally have had to buy as specialty items. I took the leftovers to work and one of my students said it was the best cake she has ever had. I don't know that I would go THAT far, but it's pretty close. :)

As a note, this is a pretty rich cake. Small slices will definitely be enough!

One-Bowl Chocolate Cake with Espresso Cream

Ingredients:

Cake--
1 c. buttermilk
1 c. water
2/3 c. oil
2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 c. flour
3/4 c. cocoa powder

Cream Filling--
1 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese, softened
1/4 c. sugar
1 tsp. instant espresso powder

Chocolate Glaze--
1/2 c. whipping cream
4 oz. semisweet chocolate, chopped

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans. (My mom always cuts out wax paper and puts it in the bottom instead. I should have done this as my layers stuck to the bottom.) In a very large bowl, whisk together the first seven ingredients for the cake until well combined. Add the flour and cocoa powder, and whisk until smooth. Divide batter between your prepared pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, baking until the top springs back at the touch. Cool on wire racks in pans for 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely on racks. I had to let mine sit longer than 10 minutes, so remove them whenever they seem ready to come out of the pans.
For the espresso cream: In a medium bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, sugar and espresso powder until blended.
Place one cake layer on a plate, then spread the espresso cream over that layer. Place the other layer on top of the cream mixture.
For the glaze: Bring the whipping cream to boiling in a saucepan over medium heat. Immediately remove from heat. Add the chocolate, but do not stir it in. Let it sit for 5 minutes, then stir it until it is smooth. Let it cool for 15 minutes, then pour over the top cake layer when thickened. Chill the cake for at least 30 minutes, then serve.

This may seem like a tricky recipe, but it is actually very easy. The results will be worth the effort!