This is my mommy’s birthday cake.  I guess technically it was both of my parents’ birthday cakes, since their birthdays are only a few days apart, but it was made with my mom in mind.  She has this thing about mice.  Not real  mice, mind you (I think she’d scream and run away if she ever saw a real one in her proximity) but fake, collectible mice.  I made her a cheese cake.

Well, not a cheesecake.  Actually, it’s a yellow buttermilk cake with chocolate pastry cream and buttercream icing.  (Can we use the words butter or cream any more, possibly?)  It was delicious, but best of all, it was adorable, and that’s what I was going for.

I followed the directions here for making chocolate covered cherry mice.  They were not as easy as they sound, although I’m sure some have mastered it.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take pictures of them (and all of their mutant relatives) so you’re just going to have to figure it out on your own.

The cake and it’s innards come from “Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From My Home to Yours” cookbook of Tuesdays with Dorie fame.  First, let’s make the pastry cream so it has some time to cool down before we need it.

• 2 c. whole milk
• 4 egg yolks
• 6 Tbs sugar
• 3 Tbs cornstarch, sifted
• 7 oz. bittersweet chocolate, melted
• 2 1/2 Tbs butter, cut into 4 pieces, at room temperature

Bring milk to a boil (in the microwave, if you like.)  In a large saucepan, mix egg yolk s with sugar and cornstarch until thick and well blended.  Continue whisking as you add 1/4 c. of hot milk.  If you add it all at once, you’ll cook the egg yolks to make egg drop soup.  Then, while whisking constantly, add the remaining milk.  Bring to a boil, whisking continuously.  Boil for 2 minutes.  Remove pan from heat, and whisk in chocolate.  Let stand 5 minutes, then whisk in butter one piece at a time.  Press plastic wrap to the surface and refrigerate about 2 hours, or until ready to use.

For the cake:

• 2 c. cake flour
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/4 sticks (10 Tbs) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 c. sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 c. buttermilk

Butter two 9″ round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper.

Sift together cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Mix butter on medium speed until soft and fluffy.  Add sugar and beat for 3 minuts.  Add eggs and then yolk one at a time, beating 1 minute after each addition.  Beat in vanilla.  Reduce speed to low, and alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk (beginning and and ending with flour, 3 additions of flour and 2 of buttermilk.)  Divide batter between cake pans and smooth tops.  Bake 28-30 minutes at 350 or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool 5 minutes in pans, then invert, remove parchment paper, and turn right side up to cool completely.

To assemble:

Using a long serrated knife, cut each cake layer in half so you have four layers.  Place one on a serving platter lined with wax paper and use 1/3 of your chocolate pastry cream.  Spread evenly.  Repeat until layers and cake are done, trying not to get too close to the edges.

Now, here is where Dorie and I differ.  She used a white chocolate whipped cream for the center layer and the outside frosting.  Wanting to make this look like cheese, I had to go a different route.  So I cut out a big wedge of cake and “taste tested.”   And then I made super yellow icing.

• 1 stick butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 c. vegetable shortening (Crisco)
• 1/2 Tbs vanilla extract (if you want white frosting, you’ll have to get clear, but I was dying mine yellow, so I didn’t care)
• 1 lb powdered sugar
• 3-4 Tbs very cold whole milk

Beat butter and shortening together.  Add vanilla.  Slowly add sugar, mixing well before adding more.  When sugar is fully incorporated, add milk until the mixture is the consistency you want.  (If it gets too runny, add in a little more sugar.)  Color with gel food colors.

Then, frost your cake with insane amounts of yellow frosting.  I used fondant cutters to make tiny circles so it looked like cheese, and then I topped it with those cute chocolate mice.  Happy Birthday mamasita

• 1/4 c. cocoa powder
• 1/2 c. boiling water
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 4 Tbs butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2/3 c. flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Mix cocoa powder and boiling water together until smooth.  Set aside and cool to room temperature.  In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla and egg, beat 1 minute.  Add flour, baking powder, and salt, mix until just incorporated.  Add cooled cocoa/water, stir until smooth.  Pour into 8 greased or lined muffin tins.  Bake 16-20 minutes at 375, or until a tooth pick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Let cool 10 minutes in pan, then remove and cool to room temperature.

• 1 stick (8 Tbs) butter, at room temperature
• 2 – 2 1/2 c. powdered sugar
• 4 Tbs Bailey’s Irish Cream liquor
• 5 drops green food coloring, 2 drops yellow food coloring

Beat butter until light and fluffy.  Add powdered sugar 1/2 c. at a time, mixing well after each addition until it clumps together and is thick.  Add liquor, and beat until smooth.  (If you need to, you can add more sugar or Bailey’s at this point to make it a spreadable consistency.)  Add food coloring and mix until color is uniform.  Spread over cooled cupcakes.  This will make more frosting than you need for 8 cupcakes.

Although the title of these is fudge brownies, even following the “make it as fudgey as possible” instructions leaves me with something resembling mousse when it goes into the pan, and tasting a little bit like this amazing chocolate pound cake my grandmother used to make when it comes out.  (And, as a side note to my mother who will probably be VERY interested, I think I’ve found *the* recipe and I’ll be testing it soon.  I imagine you want to do a taste test, yes?)

Regardless of all of the issues with titling, these are, quite simply, my favorite brownies.  The middle is gooey and crumbly all at the same time, and the top gets a little bit (okay, a lot) flakey like icing that’s been sitting out for a bit.  They whip up quickly, and I love the satisfaction of making brownies from scratch instead of a mix.

• 5 oz. unsweened chocolate (baking chocolate)
• 1/2 lb. butter at room temperature (2 sticks)
• 1 3/4 c. sugar (brown or white is fine, I typically use white)
• 5 eggs (!!)
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 3/4 c. flour

Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9×13 inch pan with cooking spray.  Melt the chocolate (I melt mine in the microwave – 30 seconds, stir, 30 seconds, stir, repeat until melted) and let stand while you prepare the rest of the batter so it cools a bit.

Beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat eggs in one at a time, beating for about a mnute after each egg.  Mix in vanilla.  Letting the mixer run on low (it helps to have a hand here if you’re not using a stand mixer) drizzle in the chocolate slowly.    Stir flour in until just incorporated.  Spread into pan and smooth top.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife/toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  (The top will start to crack before they’re cooked all the way through.)

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry, thawed
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 Tbs melted butter
• 2 Tbs cinnamon

Unfold puff pastry, and spread melted butter over it.  Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.  Roll tightly, and cut into 9 pieces (a little more than an inch each.)  Place into a sprayed/greased 8×8 baking pan, and bake at 400 for 20 minutes.

For topping/center:

• 4 Tbs flour
• 4 Tbs brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 3 Tbs butter

Combine first three ingredients, and cut in butter until mixture resembles sand/crumbs.  Set aside

For muffins:

• 1 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 c. butter
• 1 egg
• 3/4 c. milk

Mix dry ingredients together, and cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir egg and milk in all at once, stir until just combined.  Mixture will be lumpy.

Preheat oven to 400, and line 12 muffin cups.  Divide batter in half.  Divide half the batter among the 12 cups.  Sprinkle each cup with about a teaspoon of the topping mixture.  Top with remaining batter, and then again with the topping.  Bake for 15-18 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

I made my cheesecake following a few of the variations listed mixed together.  I started with a chocolate cookie crust.  The filling was made as directed, and then I added orange juice, zest, and orange extract.  I took out about a third of the filling, and mixed it with some melted semi-sweet chocolate.  Then, my friend John who runs BlogCanoe, and who also happens to be a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, performed some marvelous marbeling action for me.  So, we had a chocolate orange cheesecake.  Everyone doubted me, but I reminded them of what I call the “thwacky oranges” – the kind you smash and are made of orange flavored chocolate.  This was a great cheesecake – amazingly textured.  I used all whipping cream, when the recipe says to choose between that and a combination of sour cream and whipping cream, or all sour cream.  I’m not a fan of the tang that sour cream gives to cheesecake, and didn’t think it would go well with the orange flavor.

And that is what this cake tastes like.  It is amazing.  The funny thing about it is that there is this glaze, and it dripped on EVERYTHING as my husband transported it to my parents’ house for Christmas dinner.  It was on his pants (looking suspiciously like something else, but I SWEAR it was glaze) and his coat, and my car, and my pants, and my uncle’s shirt (before he even ate any of it, who even knows how that happened…)

But anyway!  This cake is easy, and wonderful, and full of gooey rummy goodness.

Here is a link to The Pioneer Woman’s step by step instructions with photos.

• 1 box yellow cake mix
• 1 small package INSTANT vanilla pudding mix
• 4 eggs
• 1/2 cup cold water
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup rum (dark or light is fine)
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• Brown sugar

Preheat oven to 325.  Spray a Bundt pan with non-stick cooking spray (or do a happy dance because you have a silicone one.)  Sprinkle nuts into top of pan, and sprinkle a little brown sugar on top of that.  Mix all remaining cake ingredients together, and smooth out top.  Bake for about an hour (mine took a little longer to have a tester come out clean.)

When your cake has roughly ten minutes left, make the glaze.  (This is the full recipe for the glaze, I could have easily halved it and still had enough left over to go all over my pants.)

• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 1/2 c. sugar
• 3/4 c. rum

Melt butter in a small saucepan.  Add sugar and water, and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Let boil for 5 minutes, stirring the whole time.  Add rum (take your pan off the stove if you have a gas stove!) and let cook for another 30 seconds.

When cake comes out of the oven, pour about 1/3 of the glaze over the cake as it sits in the pan.  Let rest ten minutes, and then invert onto a serving platter.  Prick the cake with a fork (gently!) a bunch of times, then slowly (and with great patience) get as much glaze as possible in/on the cake.  Let cool to room temperature.  Eat, and dream of cruises you never took.

Anyway!  I hope she doesn’t mind me sharing this recipe for the only requested baked item this year in my house.  I was happy to oblige.  Ignore the three sticks of butter in the recipe – well, don’t ignore them, just realize they don’t count because they’re “Christmas cookies” and all sins are forgiven, no matter what time of the year you eat these.

For cake:

• 1 c. flour
• 1 c. sugar
• 1/2 c. butter
• 4 eggs
• 1 1/2 c. Hershey’s syrup

Cream butter and sugar.  Add eggs one at a time, beating slightly after each addition.  Add flour, and stir in Hershey’s syrup until just blended.  Pour into a greased 9×13″ baking sheet, and bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes, checking at the early mark (mine were a little brown this time.)  Let cool completely in the pan.

For mint layer:

• 2 c. powdered sugar
• 1/2 c. butter, at room temperature
• 1 tsp mint extract (plus a little more, if you’re a fiend like me)
• 1 Tbs water
• 3-4 drops green food coloring

Cream sugar and butter together.  Add remaining ingredients, and beat until smooth, adding a little more water if necessary.  Spread over cake layer.

For chocolate topping

• 1/2 c. butter
• 1 c. chocolate chips

Melt butter and chocolate together in a saucepan or in the microwave.  Let cool a few minutes, then pour over mint layer, smoothing the top.  Place in fridge until chocolate has hardened.

Anyway, this is another adventure in candy thermometers.  I’m sure you could do it without one, but as a child, whenever I attempted to make anything from Betty Crocker that needed a candy thermometer, I always failed miserably and ended up with pans of hot sugar water.

• 2 c. white sugar
• 1/2 c. cocoa
• 1 c. milk
• 4 Tbs butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Combine sugar, cocoa, and milk in large saucepan.  Heat over medium high heat until boiling, stirring constantly.  After it starts boiling, don’t stir anymore.  Reduce heat and simmer until temperature on candy thermometer reaches 238 degrees.  Remove from heat and let stand until temperature drops to about 110 (this might take as long as 20 minutes.)  Whisk in butter until mixture starts to thicken.  Pour into well greased 8×8 pan, and let cool.

I made these sugar cookies for a bake sale fundraiser that my school’s Relay for Life team was having.  Although I can’t say these are my favorite sugar cookies, they were very easy to make, and the texture was good.  I may have cut mine too thick (as I went the slice and bake route) so bear that in mind if you choose to make them.  I added orange zest to mine (and beat it with the sugar, as suggested, to let the orange flavor really permiate the cookies.)

And then I frosted with a simple mixture of confectioner’s sugar, orange juice, butter, and a few drops of food coloring.

Here they are, all wrapped up for the bake sale.  Cute!

My next TWD tackle will be Butterscotch Pudding.  Mmm…  I just made fudge today though, so that will have to wait until the fudge is gone.  For Christmas, a TWD Orange Chocolate Cheesecake!