boiling water

Salted Caramel Sheet Cake

April 11, 2020 by Dana

Sheet Cakes are my new thing! I used to think they were boring, however lately I have realized that is just not so. This Salted Caramel Sheet Cake is anything but boring, and the perfect treat for a Birthday or special occasion.

Yesterday was my husband’s Birthday. It started as just “one of those days” where everything goes wrong all at one time. We started the day with no power due to a bad storm the night before. We figured by the time we woke up that the power would be restored, however it wasn’t. Next I decided I would go out to the grocery store to pick up a couple things we needed and our van wouldn’t start. When it rains it pours! Finally at about 5 Pm we had power and I thought great, I need to at least bake him a cake.

Totally on the fly I thought, Salted Caramel! He loves peanut butter but we didn’t have any on hand so this was the next best thing I could think of. I used my favorite Vanilla Sheet Cake base. Then I made some American Style buttercream with a hint of cream cheese while the cake was baking. At the end I boiled some sugar and made a homemade caramel sauce to put in the buttercream and top the cake. We had vanilla ice cream on hand as well, which was a perfect addition. At the end of the day we got to sing Happy Birthday to him and he got to enjoy a big piece of cake despite not having power most of the day.

Salted Caramel Sheet Cake Tips and Tricks

For the Vanilla Sheet Cake base, I use my favorite cake mixing and baking method. This calls for a cup of boiling water at the end. Do not fear, the boiling water will not cook your eggs. This helps yield a super moist cake.
I always use Watkin’s brand Vanilla Extract. You guys, trust me when I say this is the best vanilla extract I have found.
American style buttercream is basically butter and powered sugar. I always add a hint of cream cheese to my icing to add flavor. This will take your desserts from fine to amazing! I also added 2 Tablespoons of the homemade caramel sauce to the icing and it gives just a hint of caramel which is what I was looking for.
Cooking homemade caramel sauce is not as hard as you would think. You just boil sugar (without stirring) until you see it starting to turn an amber color. Then you add your heavy cream and butter and you are done. If you have never made homemade caramel sauce before my best advice is do not walk away from it. It can go from good to burnt very quickly. I was mixing my buttercream while my caramel sauce was cooking, however once I saw some color I stopped my buttercream and focused all of my attention on my caramel sauce.
I always use parchment paper to line the bottom of my sheet cake pan. This makes it easy to lift the cake out once it cools to icing and cut. I put my parchment paper right on a cutting board and use a large chef knife to cut the cake. After each cut, I wipe the knife off to ensure the next cut is clean and pretty.

Homemade Caramel Sauce

1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
3/4 cup heavy cream
2 Tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions: Add sugar to a heavy bottomed pot. Add water to pot and mix to combine sugar and water. Place over medium heat and bring to a boil, do not stir. When sugar is completely dissolved and clear, raise heat to medium high. Cook until sugar starts to turn from clear to amber in color, about 10 minutes. Remove from heat immediately. Stir in heavy cream, butter, and vanilla extract. Your mixture will bubble up when you add these ingredients, just keep stirring. When the caramel is cool enough to give it a try, stir in a dash of salt at a time until you’ve reached your desired taste. If your caramel is lumpy, give it some heat and stir until it is smooth.

Recipe adapted from Fifteen Spatulas. For a full caramel tutorial with pictures, go check out Fifteen Spatulas recipe!

Salted Caramel Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter
1 (8 ounce) block cream cheese
2-3 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 Tablespoons homemade caramel sauce
dash of salt to taste

Directions: Place room temperature butter and cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cream on medium speed until smooth. Do not use cold butter and do not microwave your butter. Microwaving will cause hot spots that could cause your buttercream to become lumpy. Add powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. Add vanilla extract and homemade caramel sauce.

Ultimate Red Velvet Cupcakes

April 8, 2020 by Dana

The Ultimate Red Velvet Cupcake recipe is right here, you guys! I’ve seen a ton of complicated Red Velvet cake recipes but here is the truth: When I am baking I like to keep things simple. This Red Velvet recipe is just that, SIMPLE. No random mixing techniques or weird ingredients. A straight to the point and easy recipe that yields a delicate, flavorful cake. This is what we are all after when we bake, right?

Before we just into the recipe, I’ve been sharing quarantine updates so here we go!

We are in our third week in quarantine. This is honestly the longest I’ve been in the same house with my husband for as long as I can remember. I’m always with the kids all day because I am a stay at home Mom, so this isn’t entirely different then my normal life with them except we aren’t doing school drop offs and pick ups. My husband normally works long hours and goes to bed early so our new schedule is so different than our normal lives.

Today was the first day we literally could not figure out what day it was. For some reason I was thinking it was Friday. He was thinking it was Tuesday. It is in fact, Wednesday. He wins for being closer but we definitely had a good 5 minute discussion about what day it actually was. HAHA If that doesn’t sum up the third week of quarantine I don’t know what does!

The kids are completing their first week of at home learning today. Apparently they are still getting an Easter vacation from Thursday to Monday. How nice of the school, right?!? At home learning has been pretty good this week. Nothing too scary to report. I will admit, I do miss packing lunches a little bit and keeping on top of homework when they get home from school. I do also wish on these beautiful days we are having that we would be taking them to baseball practice and getting some fresh air at the park! I guess it is the little things I am missing the most. There are so many positives of this whole experience though and I feel they out weigh the negatives for sure. We are keeping a positive outlook over here!

Ultimate Red Velvet Cupcake Tips and Tricks

I am again, using a cup of boiling water at the end of this recipe. This makes for a very moist and delicate cake. The boiling water will not cook your eggs, I promise. I also use this technique in my Vanilla Sheet Cake recipe.
You need a whole heck of a lot of red food coloring to get these cupcakes to the right color. Do not freak when you see that you will be using almost an entire bottle of red food coloring, this is not a typo! When you are mixing, you will see exactly why you need so much.
The buttermilk in this recipe not only develops extra flavor, but also makes the texture nice and light. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, regular milk will work just fine.
The cake flour (also known as pastry flour) can be found in the baking isle near all the other flour options. I use Wegman’s brand pastry flour. I also suggest King Arthur’s Brand Cake Flour (sold in a box).
I do not like a sickeningly sweet cream cheese icing. I used about 3 and a half cups of powdered sugar in my recipe, however you can add more depending on your own taste.

Cream Cheese Icing Recipe

1 stick unsalted butter (room temperature)
2 (8 ounce) blocks of cream cheese (room temperature)
3-4 cups powdered sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I use Watkin’s brand)

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment add your butter and cream cheese. Make sure these ingredients are room temperature! Cold cream cheese will yield a lumpy icing. I do not suggest microwaving these ingredients to soften.
Mix butter and cream cheese until smooth, scraping down your bowl several times to avoid any lumps.
Add 3-4 cups powdered sugar (or more to taste). Add vanilla extract.
Place cream cheese icing in a piping bag and pipe icing on top of cupcakes. I used a Wilton #307 tip for piping.

Recipe adapted from Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Cake Recipe.

Vanilla Sheet Cake

April 3, 2020 by Dana

We are in unprecedented times people. What am I doing to take my mind off of all the scary things going on in the world, you ask?

I am cooking and baking! I have been lucky enough to keep a stock of flour, sugar, butter, and other baking items on hand. I know some grocery stores are not able to stock these items, so if you have them consider yourself lucky! Cooking and baking (and photographing food) is something that I have always loved, but these past couple of weeks it has kept me sane and moving. I’ve absolutely loved spending time in the kitchen.

My hope is to continue posting recipes I have made in quarantine and talk about what my family is experiencing and the things we have been doing to keep ourselves busy. 🙂

Let’s Talk Vanilla Sheet Cake!

Ok, I’ll admit that I am not a huge fan of icing round layer cakes. The Instagram videos make it look really easy, however in my experience, it can be frustrating. We have all seen the Pinterest and Instagram fails and I have been there.

It takes a level of skill and understanding to make a layer cake look perfect. For most home bakers, we haven’t spent the time perfecting those skills because we aren’t making dozens of cakes a day.

Here is where the sheet cake comes in! You can practically put icing on a sheet cake with your eyes closed and it looks wonderful. Add some sprinkles and perhaps a few rosettes, and you have a semi-professional looking cake without all the hassle and tools it takes to put together a layer cake.

This particular recipe is a home run! I adapted this recipe using my favorite chocolate cake recipe (coming soon) and I had no idea how it was going to turn out. The results were one of the best cakes I have ever made. This vanilla cake tastes VERY similar to something that comes out of a box, I would argue way better. It is moist and not lacking flavor. That is exactly what I am looking for with any cake recipe.

Vanilla Sheet Cake Tips and Tricks

Ingredients. I know I just explained that some grocery store shelves in the baking isle are empty but I would NOT use old ingredients. Have you ever tasted a baked good and thought you could taste “something else” in it too? It was probably because ingredients were sitting next to spices and were OLD. If you don’t remember when it was purchased, then toss it and get some fresh ingredients.
Using Pastry Flour (cake flour) will give you a delicate, moist cake. I used Wegman’s brand pastry flour because King Arthur was not stocked. My top pick is always King Arthur though.
Good quality Vanilla extract is also very important. I have a brand, Watkins, that I 100% recommend over any other brand for taste alone.
I always use butter over oil in baking recipes. Oil is lacking flavor and although it can make the texture of some baked goods better, it does not add flavor so I avoid it all together. The original recipe I adapted from suggested 1/2 cup oil so I replaced it with 1 stick of unsalted butter.
When you line your sheet cake pan with parchment paper, don’t worry if it isn’t perfect. When your cake is cooled and you remove it from the pan, you can always trim the edges. Simply place your cake on a large cutting board and use a large chef knife to trim any edges that are uneven.
POURING IN THE HOT WATER: What sets this cake apart from most all other vanilla cake recipes is the use of boiling water at the very end. This yields an extremely moist cake. The first time I made a cake like this I kept imagining the boiling water cooking the eggs in the batter, however that did not happen.
ICING THE CAKE: Do not try to ice a cake that is still warm. I have been tempted many times myself, but don’t do it! Your icing will melt all over the place creating a huge mess. I plopped all of my icing right in the middle of the cake and used an offset spatula to move the icing around. When getting close to the edges, don’t worry if you aren’t right at the edge with your icing. Nobody will notice and it can become a hassle trying to get it perfect.
CUTTING THE CAKE: One thing that will also make your sheet cake look beautiful is cutting it properly. Put away the butter knives! You will get a nice and precise cut from a large chef knife. I also avoid “running my knife though” the cake. You want to insert the knife and press down instead of running it sideways. When you run it sideways you will grab cake crumbs and tear up your cake, making it look ugly. We eat with our eyes first so cutting it nicely is important. After each cut wipe off your knife. This also ensures with your next cut you will not tear up your cake.
DECORATING THE CAKE: I used a mix of rainbow sprinkles and flat round Wilton Sprinkles. I could not find a link to the flat sprinkles I used. I also used a piping bag with a large star tip to make the rosettes.

Vanilla Icing Recipe

I will start by saying, I love using cream cheese in icing. It will set apart your cake from all others and create a deeper flavor. By mixing butter and cream cheese, you develop a beautiful American style buttercream with a hint of cream cheese to make it really pop. It doesn’t stand out as cream cheese icing, however it doesn’t taste like sickeningly sweet American style buttercream using powdered sugar to sweeten it. It is the perfect balance and will not disappoint.

Recipe:

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter
8 ounces cream cheese (I prefer Philadelphia brand)
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (more to taste)

Directions: Soften cream cheese and butter ahead of time. Temperature of these items matters as you do not want lumps in your icing. Once the lumps are there, they are hard to get out.

Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add vanilla extract, and powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time. As I mentioned, I am not a fan of sickeningly sweet American style buttercream, so you may want to add an additional cup or two of powered sugar depending on your taste.