Chocolate Caramel Pecan Souffle Cake

You know I'm very picky about chocolate cake, right? It's a chocoholic's duty. In our family there is a recipe for chocolate cake that is so delicious and loved by everyone who tries it, that my aunt has decided she is no longer sharing the recipe. It's a family secret, so to say. So imagine my surprise when I made a chocolate cake that my mom declared as good as the secret family chocolate cake! That's the ultimate compliment! And this one is definitely not a secret so I'm sharing it with you.

Chocolate Caramel Pecan Souffle Cake by bake or break
And here is my pin with comments: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/264727284318018499/ as usual, found in my Food - Sweet Tried and Tasted Recipes board.

I didn't take pictures of the whole process, nor did I take pictures of the final product, but just check out the link and you'll see the deliciousness there.

I omitted the bourbon and used walnuts instead of pecans, but neither affected the excellent outcome. It didn't look very pretty but the caramel on top helped cover some of that. One thing to note is that the caramel instructions in the recipe are completely wrong. Luckily I have a sister who is highly-skilled and professionally-trained in making caramel, so I called her to the rescue after my first failed attempt. Here is how you do it: (my changes are in bold and italics or crossed out text)

Combine sugar, water, and cream of tartar in a large, heavy saucepan. Cook over high heat, without stirring, until sugar has dissolved and starts to change color. Increase heat to high. Boil mixture 4-5 minutes, or until it turns a deep amber color. Be careful not to burn the mixture.
Remove pan from heat and stir in pecans, cream, and salt. Be very careful when you add the cream as it will steam and bubble up. Place pan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, 3-4 minutes, or until caramel thickens. Remove from heat. Stir in bourbon. Set aside and keep warm if not using immediately.

The cake was also very messy to cut, but it was so delicious that it didn't matter. I highly recommend this recipe! 

Final result: (photo from bake or break)

Enjoy!

hazelnut... it does a body good

A few years ago, I thought I might be lactose-intolerant. I haven't figured out if I really am or not, but I have never gone back to cow's milk. Instead I went to soy, then lately was on an almond kick, but a week ago, I found hazelnut!!! YUM! I highly recommend it. The best of the milk substitutes that I have tried.

The facts:

It's so good. It's thick and hazelnutty... delicious! Adds a ton of flavor to my morning cereal.

Speaking of cereal, I have overcome my laziness a few times this week and made oatmeal on the stove. I managed to cut out additional sugar between the hazelnut "milk" and the berries or peaches I add in.

Here it is with blackberries:

I ate out a lot this weekend, but I attempted to balance that out with a healthy soup on Saturday night. I steamed asparagus, then threw it in the blender with a tiny bit of light cream, some water, and a bit of chicken broth powder. And voila!

In other news, I tried to make a clementine cake this weekend... I had a bad feeling when the clementines were boiling for 2 hours (yes, 2 hours!!!). I didn't like the smell, but thought maybe it would still turn out okay. But then the recipe called for ground almonds, which I did not find, so I ground them myself in my new 3-cup food processor. Of course, they weren't fine enough, but again, I thought it might do. I should also mention that the recipe called for this batter being prepared in a food processor - well my new little 3-cup one wasn't going to cut it so I used the blender. Definitely not meant for that. But despite all of this, I persevered, ever optimistic! As you may have guessed by now, it didn't work out. The texture was off, the taste wasn't very good, and the middle seemed undercooked. I was so disheartened that I couldn't even take a picture. It went straight into the trash, not even completely cooled yet. I really rarely mess up cakes - strange that I have now had to throw 2 cakes out in less than one month. What was my last post? Oh yes, listen to your gut! Ha! Well now I have that reminder every time I walk into my house: the boiling clementine smell that I didn't like is lingering. Perhaps the other lesson here is, make sure you have the right ingredients and tools before you embark on a recipe journey.

But let's end on a high note. To make up for the clementine cake, I made quatre quarts (or pound cake, or literally four fourths). I figured that the chances were low that something would go wrong with such a classic. Did you know that there is a very easy way to make one? This is how it's done in France: weigh your eggs, however many you want to use. The guideline is 2 eggs for 4 people. Then, use the same weight in sugar, butter, and flour. Add 1 teaspoon of baking powder and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (or both extracts, as I did). I also threw in some quality French chocolate that I had finely chopped with my fantastic Wusthof knife. If you bake it as one cake, it will take about 45 minutes at 350 degrees. I made cupcakes and they were in for about 25 minutes.

missing in action

Yes, I've been MIA. I was in Orlando last week and had absolutely no time to blog. However, I did have plenty of time to eat. One fine dining experience included eating Greek food at Cat Cora's restaurant, Kouzzina, and sitting near Morimoto.

The delicious dessert - warm molten chocolate cake with sweet cream - it was clearly quality chocolate: (A+ for presentation, too)

Others had the doughnuts, which I didn't try, but were supposedly delicious:

Fun open kitchen:

Just before I left and just after I came home, I also made myself some healthy and satisfying meals, see for yourself.

Chicken and spinach with strong Maille mustard:

Egg (+ paprika) with pearled couscous and broccoli:

I hope to be back with more regularity now. Just stay tuned to see if it happens!

PS: I'm on a quest for a new blender. Now that I don't have one, I see smoothie opportunities everywhere!!

think before you throw out

Note to self: Find another way to get rid of chocolate cake. The trash can was a bad idea. Now every time I throw something away, I get a whiff of chocolate cake and the matching craving to go with it. Good thing there is now dirt and other trash on top of the cake or else I would have been fully capable of digging in there for a piece.

Well I did make a smoothie on Saturday morning:

But... I didn't get the chance to blend it all the way before my blender decided to crap out. Also, it had too much liquid. So between the noticeable chunks of clementine fibers and the unpleasant texture, it wasn't very satisfying.

The dead blender:

There was some rubber part that made the blender go, and every time I used it, it would leave me some nice droppings:

Good riddance, I guess.

I complemented this mediocre breakfast with a slice of bread with some peanut butter and honey. I don't get what the big deal is with that combo - didn't think it was anything spectacular.

Needless to say, I was looking forward to some better food throughout the day. I had a delicious salad out with my friend. It included: spinach, chicken, avocado, gorgonzola, bacon (which I did not eat), and a yummy dressing. Dinner was Pad Thai - always a winner!

Food-wise, Sunday is turning out okay. Breakfast wins the best-bang-for-your-buck(/Points) award: oatmeal, milk, brown sugar, and berries. So delicious and really sticks to your belly! Perhaps I should buy a microwave to be able to make some myself. Yes, I know, it is possible to make oatmeal in a saucepan, however, it requires too much effort. Yes, that's right, too much effort. I'm lazy.

Lunch was nothing spectacular: an egg, pasta, and fresh mozzarella. I added lots of paprika for flavor. The trash can smell forced me to have 2... well okay 3... well actually, 4 pieces of chocolate. And I defrosted a blondie brownie that I made a few weeks ago. But come on, how can you possibly expect me to smell chocolate every time I throw something out and not give in to my chocolate craving? Just be thankful I didn't dig through the garbage can, mmmkay?!

I will leave you with this hilarious video. It is completely unrelated to food, but absolutely worth sharing. Enjoy!

back on the wagon

Tomorrow, I'm back on the wagon. What wagon, you ask? Oh, right, I haven't told you. Well, that's because I don't like to tell people. But luckily, no people read this, so I can say it: I'm on a diet. More specifically, on Weight Watchers. And the reason I don't like to tell people is because I usually get this reaction: "but why?" Because I want to learn how to juggle, of course! (For anyone who didn't catch it, that's sarcasm.) I want to lose weight. I don't feel well at my current weight and I know that I can be smaller and feel better. However, getting to this point is hard. No one ever said it wasn't.

I haven't done well all week, but yesterday was the kicker. With those mini cupcakes shown in my last post came a lot of batter-tasting, then frosting-tasting, and followed, of course, by final-product-tasting. And there is a whole other cake that you don't even know about... well, until now. I still had a lot of coffee left so I tried another recipe. It didn't make it on yesterday's post because it was a disaster. I had no cocoa left so I substituted melted chocolate, which meant I had to reduce the shortening. (Just saying, that's a lot of tweaking...) But melted chocolate doesn't do well with cold milk because it hardens. No biggie though - I figured tiny chunks of chocolate in the batter could actually enhance the cake. What did not enhance the cake, however, were the chunks of flour that never blended in the batter. I saw them, I did, but I decided to ignore them. Laziness is not forgiven in baking and so, the cake is gross. It's not appetizing and it doesn't taste very good. Not exactly the result I was going for. The biggest problem in all of this isn't only the result of the cake, but the fact that I have actually been secretly eating it!!! *Sigh* I think this right there disqualifies me from being a "foodie." Who eats an unappetizing and not-very-good cake just because it's there!? Not a foodie! Oooh, foodie-in-me, you are too well hidden.

Pictures for the benefit of full disclosure. Look at those flour chunks, people!

I had to end the mindless cake-eating. The cake's final resting place:

I have a plan. Tomorrow morning, I am making myself a smoothie with those clementines I'm trying to finish up (yep, still working on that crate). I'll have a salad at our lunch outing, and be careful at dinner. I need to psych myself up because this week is going to be hard: I'll be on a business trip all week - in ORLANDO! Perhaps the possibility of getting into a bathing suit will scare me into a little healthy eating!? Stay tuned!

coffee anyone?

Yesterday's weather prediction of 4-6" of snow, ice, and rain turned out to be 16" of snow!! It was gorgeous and enabled me to work from home today. Which leads me to the food story of the day... bear with me, please.

I have noticed that at around 10 AM on snow mornings, the plow guy clears my parking lot. And the best way to use this knowledge is to go outside, clear off my car, and move it to a spot he has already cleared so he can fully clear "my" parking space. Everyone wins! Well there was so much snow today that I couldn't just back out of my spot but actually had to clear some of the snow behind my car and tires. Not so easy without a shovel, but I dug in with my hands. Seeing this, the nice plow man stopped his truck and proceeded to dig me out with his shovel. So nice! We started chatting and he told me that he had been working since 9 PM the previous night. Ouch! I thanked him and moved my car to a cleared spot.

Once inside, I felt that my simple thank you just wasn't enough. I decided to bring him some snacks and coffee. I brought out my coffee machine and started brewing. (I need to remind you here that I don't drink coffee. Ever. So I don't know how to brew it.) So once it was done and looked pitch black, I figured that I may have put slightly too much coffee. I added more water to the coffee machine, but that went through the filter again and it still looked really dark. I ended up adding plain water directly to the coffee, thinking to myself that this is probably taboo to a coffee drinker. I took a tiny sip to make sure it didn't taste awful, but really, it did, which is how coffee always tastes to me. I couldn't tell if there was a difference from the "normal" awful.

As I brewed the coffee, I pondered how to get it to him. A mug? This could be problematic: I pictured much splashing and scalding as he maneuvered back and forth in the parking lot. Plus, then he'd have to get the mug back to me. I didn't want to make him waste any more time than needed - I was sure he was just dying to get home. I searched my cupboards for something suitable, but found nothing. Finally, I decided to use a big, plastic water bottle. I folded up a paper towel, then taped it around the middle so he wouldn't burn his hands.

With the coffee situation now under control, I scrounged up some snacks. I grabbed a banana, two clementines that looked like they might still be tasty (ever try to get through a whole crate by yourself? It's tough), and then I heated up two pieces of blondie brownies that I made last week and froze in single portions. To my goodie bag, I added a little baggie of sugar, a little baggie of almond milk, a bottle of water, a small can of pineapple juice, and a napkin.

Feeling satisfied with my offering of thanks, I set out for the parking lot in search of the nice plow man. But to my dismay, he wasn't there! I walked to the next street, then the next one, then the next one, and after walking through the whole neighborhood, I had to admit to myself that he was truly gone. Oh, what a disappointment! Nice plow man, I know you're not reading this because no one is, but I am sending a big thank you out to universe and I hope you will catch wind of my gratefulness. I know you must have been exhausted after working for so long, and I want you to know that I really appreciate you digging me out so efficiently and nicely. Next time it snows, I'll be ready for you.

Which brings me to the food part. (I told you to bear with me... thanks for doing so!) Now I was home with a huge pot of coffee and no one to drink it. I decided to do something with it - I couldn't just throw it out! I searched allrecipes.com for recipes that called for brewed coffee and settled on Simple 'N' Delicious Chocolate Cake with Coffee Butter Frosting. I was quite excited about the chocolate cake actually, because our family recipe for decadent chocolate cake has the secret ingredient of coffee. Instant and not brewed, though, so I couldn't make that recipe. Both the cake and frosting turned out pretty tasty, although neither has a strong coffee flavor, which is fine by me. I made the cake into mini cupcakes to easily bring to work tomorrow - it's someone's last day so it's the perfect excuse!

Funny how my first post talked about my quest for healthier eating and my second post is about baking! Aaah, my sweet tooth (teeth, really) will never stay hidden for long.