Serious Eats’ Bolognese

While visiting Julie and Sergio in Canada, Sergio put me to work making Serious Eats’ Best Slow-Cooked Bolognese Sauce. I followed the recipe pretty closely but used 6 sheets of gelatin because Canada (not sure what the sheet-packet equivalency is), didn’t have any chicken livers or sage, and was a little short on parsley. One recipe makes a hefty amount of sauce – enough to feed 4 people for 3-4 days – and even though it was good I’m not sure it was worth the amount of time and effort that went into it. I also found it surprisingly un-tomato-y and thought it could have used at least a small can of tomato paste on top of the pureed whole peeled tomatoes.

Thomas Keller’s Devil’s Food Cake

Julie’s annual chocolate birthday cake!

recipe: devil’s food cake and chocolate cream from Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery cookbook

I skipped the chocolate glaze which would have made it the full palet d’or in the book. I doubled the cake recipe and baked it in 2 round cake pans (can’t remember if they were 8″ or 9″) instead of a sheet pan. Halving the chocolate cream recipe was just sufficient to thinly frost a 2-layered cake, but the cream was pretty dense so I would incorporate some extra whipped cream to lighten it up. The cake was tasty and very moist (it has a healthy amount of mayonnaise in it, which might sound weird but has no impact on the flavor) and even held up well to refrigeration for a few days. This is a solid cake recipe, but in typical Thomas Keller fashion, definitely requires a stand mixer and the chocolate cream was a pain to make.

Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes

cupcake: Ina Garten’s Beatty’s Chocolate Cake – I think this adaptation, which looks mostly the same except for a slightly different amount of baking soda and lower baking temp/shorter baking time for cupcakes
frosting: the usual (Savory Sweet Life’s chocolate buttercream)

The cupcake batter was very liquidy, most likely because of the coffee, but baked up fine. I was not a huge fan of the cupcake on its own, which I sampled while they were still warm; however, it tasted pretty good with frosting the next day.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Leftover Chocolate Frosting

I made a tiny batch of 6 cupcakes to use up the chocolate buttercream left over from the last post. I quartered the Taste of Home White Cake recipe as reviewed by Laura’s Sweet Spot in her vanilla cupcake comparison.

Overall, this cupcake was super light and fluffy, almost like a chiffon cake. I liked it a lot but wouldn’t recommend it if you prefer your cupcakes on the cakey/dense side. It was not too sweet which made it perfect with the frosting, but if you plan on eating them without any frosting, increase the amount of sugar and/or vanilla.

Small-Batch Vanilla Cupcakes
Adapted from Taste of Home/Laura’s Sweet Spot
Makes 6 cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 1/4 stick (1 oz/2 tbsp) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/8 cups sugar
• 1 egg white, room temperature
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/8 tsp baking soda
• 1/16 tsp salt
• 1/3 cups buttermilk, room temperature (or if you don’t have buttermilk, measure 1/3 tbsp vinegar into a measuring cup and dilute up to 1/3 cup with regular milk)

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°F and line 6 cups of a regular muffin tin with paper baking cups.
• Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.
• Add egg white and beat well.
• Stir in vanilla extract.
• In a small bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk to combine.
• Alternate adding the flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter/sugar mixture, mixing well after each addition – add flour in 3 additions total and buttermilk in 2 additions total.
• Distribute the batter evenly among the baking cups. Bake cupcakes for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.

Devil’s Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

cake: Devil’s Food Cake Cockaigne from the Joy of Cooking book
frosting: Savory Sweet Life’s chocolate buttercream

The cake came out looking a little weird. The outside of the cake was a lighter color than the inside of the cake for some reason. If I were to make this recipe again I would use something better than Baker’s unsweetened chocolate. It was saved by the frosting which is my go-to recipe for chocolate buttercream.