Italian Cream Cake Trifle

Okay last post of the day.

I have been wanting to use these glasses to make a layered dessert for a while now and this recipe gave me the opportunity to do so: http://www.bakeorbreak.com/2013/06/individual-italian-cream-cake-trifles/

The cake itself is delicious so if you don't want to make a trifle, I recommend you just making the cake and possibly the frosting as well.

Beautiful. Tasty too.

Ma Ti Gao (Water Chestnut Cake)

You can usually find this dessert at dim sum restaurants and they pan-sear it before serving. I didn't think the extra oil was necessary so I just served them after they were steamed.

You can find the recipe here: http://en.christinesrecipes.com/2013/01/water-chestnut-cake.html

I used canned chestnuts and one small can had about 16 chestnuts so I ended up making 3 batches!

Note: the tan/brown color comes from the sugar used

Medovik (Russian Honey Cake)

This cake requires some time and effort to make but it is definitely worth your time. You can find the recipe here: http://www.grabandgorecipes.com/cake-rijik/

For the topping, I sprinkled some cocoa powder and crushed cookie (I just rolled out the remaining dough, baked, and crushed it). 

After you let the cake sit in the refrigerator for some time, the cookie layers get soft and has a cake-like consistency, but still kind of maintains a cookie-like texture. Does that make sense? 

Well, try it out and you'll see what I mean. 

Look how beautiful the cake is when you cut into it:

I'll definitely double the recipe and make more layers next time. 

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! 

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.