Pumpkin Layered Cake

A few days ago, I made a mini-coffee Swiss roll cake for my uncle and since then, I've tried to make 2 more roll cakes and I still have not found a recipe that will yield a perfect, regular-sized roll cake. You would think that if rolling a mini-sized roll cake is easy, then a regular-sized one wouldn't be much more difficult. Wrong. The past two cakes have cracked when I rolled the cake, even when I rolled it when the cake was warm... Oh well, one of these days I'll find a recipe or figure out the secret to assembling a Swiss roll... Since the roll was unsuccessful, I just stacked the cakes to make a layered cake. Here's the recipe to the pumpkin roll cake I mentioned in the previous post: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/pumpkin-roulade-with-ginger-buttercream-recipe/index.html 

And here's a picture of my pumpkin layered cake: 

The cake itself is very good though, fluffy and moist. I just whipped up some heavy cream with sugar for the filling/topping instead of making the filling in the original recipe. Since the spices are so strong in the cake already, I thought a simple cream would be a nice touch. But of course, it all depends on your tastes! 

Pumpkin Bread

Okay, last post of the day: I made pumpkin bread and pumpkin cake today. Somehow, my family amassed 5 small/medium-sized pumpkins randomly. We were supposedly going to make pumpkin soup with them but that plan never worked out and in the end, I was given the task of using them before they began to rot. I just cut the pumpkins into small pieces/wedges and roasted them without any seasoning in a 350°F oven for around 45 minutes. When I could use a fork to mash the pumpkin, I took them out and puréed all of it in a food processor. The result: pure pumpkin purée. I used about 2 cups of the purée to slather on top of cooked pizza dough to make a pumpkin "pizza" and that was dinner for one night. Today, I used the rest of the purée and the recipe for the pumpkin bread can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pumpkin-bread-recipe/index.html

I cut the original recipe in half to make one loaf and used about 1 cup of sugar instead of the original 1 1/2 cups. In addition, I used 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1/2 tsp cinnamon, and 1/2 tsp ginger powder in place of the spices used in the recipe. The resulting pumpkin bread had a flavor similar to pumpkin pie so I was quite satisfied.

More on the pumpkin cake will be posted tomorrow or later! 

Pecan and Blueberry Coffee Cake

In addition to eating bánh mì, I made pecan and blueberry coffee cake. The recipe can be found here: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ellie-krieger/blueberry-coffee-cake-recipe/index.html

These were a big hit among my family! The cake was perfect in terms of sweetness for my tastes although to some it may not be sweet enough. My favorite part was the pecan and sugar topping: it gave a slightly crunchy crust on the cake.

If you wanted to make a slight variation to the cake, I would definitely add a streusal topping. Maybe not the healthiest option since it will require some butter but I think a crunchier addition to the cake would be worth exercising a bit more for.

Bánh Mì

Now these sandwiches I did not make. My family bought them for dinner yesterday and they were quite delicious. Everything was really fresh and I definitely want more in the future. Here's a photo to make you drool and crave a bánh mì:

Do you want one now? Because I do...

Coconut and Peanut Tapioca/Mochi Bread

So here's another variation of the tapioca bread I talked about in my last post. The version with just coconut will be posted soon when I stop making these variations and go back to the "basics". Anyways, did you know that peanuts and coconut go really well together? Well, if not, you do now. I just used the same recipe for sesame tapioca bread and filled each tin/cup of the cupcake tin a quarter full, so not even halfway full. Then added a tablespoon of a peanut, coconut, and sugar mixture and poured the rest of the batter to cover the filling. The end result is a bread that's not only delicious but incredibly fragrant. You can omit the sesame seeds and just add in the filling but I liked the extra fragrance the sesame seeds provided. I kind of eyed the amount of mixture to use but here are my estimates for the filling (keep in mind that these measurements are not in any way exact):

8 Tbsps ground roasted peanut*
6 Tbsps sweetened shredded coconut
3 Tbsps sugar (add more or less to your taste)

*I just used a food processor to grind them until they resembled course breadcrumbs. And you can buy peanuts that are already roasted or you can roast them yourself: just put them in a 350°F oven for a few minutes. Be careful not to let them burn!)