Chocolate Cake should be illegal.

Beatty's Chocolate Cake

Cook time: 35 minutes

Ingredients

* Butter, for greasing the pans
* 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
* 2 cups sugar
* 3/4 cups good cocoa powder (I use Penzey's Dutch Cocoa)
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 teaspoon kosher salt
* 1 cup buttermilk, shaken
* 1/2 cup vegetable oil
* 2 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
* 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
* 1 cup freshly brewed hot coffee
Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter 2 (8-inch) round cake pans. Line with parchment paper, then butter and flour the pans.

Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment and mix on low speed until combined. In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, oil, eggs, and vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the wet ingredients to the dry. With mixer still on low, add the coffee and stir just to combine, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Pour the batter into the prepared pans and bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 30 minutes, then turn them out onto a cooling rack and cool completely.

Source: Ina Garten aka Barefoot Contessa

I HATE mosquitos!

I went over to take family photos for some good friends of mine. It was baby E's 1st birthday session as well. Unfortunately, we only lasted about 10 minutes because the mosquitos were SSSOOOOOOO bad! Oh well, we got a few good shots...

One More Zucchini Post: cupcakes...mmmmmmm

These are AMAZING!!! I omitted the all spice because I didn't have any and replaced w/ 1/2 tsp of instant espresso powder just for funsies. I also find that a good quality cocoa powder really makes a difference. This time I used Penzey's dutch cocoa powder and they came out so much better than the regular grocery store stuff (even better than Ghirardelli). One last thing...I shortened the baking time quite a bit. My minis only took about 20 minutes and the regular sized cupcakes took about 25. Make them. You will not be disappointed. I promise.

Chocolate Zucchini Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups (360 mL) brown sugar
1/4 cup (60 mL) melted butter
3/4 cup (180 mL) vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla
1/2 cup (120 mL) buttermilk
2 cups (480 mL) grated zucchini
1 cup (240 mL) chocolate chips
2 cups (480 mL) unbleached flour
1 cup (240 mL) cocoa, sifted
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) salt
2 tsp (10 mL) baking soda
1 tsp (5 mL) allspice
1 1/2 tsp (7.5 mL) cinnamon

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease large muffin pans and line with muffin cups.

In a medium bowl mix together the sugar, butter and oil. Beat in eggs, one at a time until well Incorporated. Stir in vanilla, buttermilk, zucchini and chocolate chips.

In a separate bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients. Add the liquid ingredients and mix until well combined. Spoon batter into large muffin pans.

Bake in the center of the oven for about 35 minutes. Don't overcook them or you will lose all the moist goodness - you want them to look almost done in the oven - they will continue to cook for a few minutes after you pull them from the oven from the residual heat). Cool on a wire rack. Icing is optional. I used this recipe for Cream cheese Frosting.

Yields 9 large cupcakes or 20 standard cupcakes.

Adapted from: 101 Cookbooks

And originally from Rebar: Modern Food Cookbook by Audrey Alsterburg & Wanda Urbanowicz (Big Ideas Publishing, 2001) - reprinted with permission

Print this recipe

Congratulations and Thank You

Congratulations to the Miller's on the birth of their beautiful baby boy. And also, a big thanks for letting me practice my photography skilz on them! Here are a few of my favorites from the shoot. Enjoy!

















And the beautiful big sister :)

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

It's that time of year again! The gardens are producing lots of yummy veggies and there almost too much of it to go around. This was a great recipe. I added about 3/4 of a cup of mini chocolate chips. If that wasn't enough to make it nice and fattening, I also added a crumb topping. (recipe to follow).

Blueberry Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• 3 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup vegetable oil
• 3 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 cups shredded zucchini
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon (I used less...maybe a teaspoon)
  
• 1 pint fresh blueberries
• optional chopped nuts and/or mini chocolate chips
  

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease 4 mini-loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar. Fold in the zucchini. Beat in the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini-loaf pans.
3. Bake 50 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a knife inserted in the center of a loaf comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans, then turn out onto wire racks to cool completely.

Source: adapted from Allrecipes.com

Crumb Topping

Ingredients

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup butter, diced

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, mix together the sugar and flour. Mix in butter with a fork or stand mixer just until the topping is crumbly. Top your pie before baking.

Source: Allrecipes.com

Independence Day Tartlets

This recipe came from my aunt Susie and was titled Fruit Pizza. I thought it would be fun to make it into individual tartlets and do a red white and blue theme. Really, you can use any kind of fruit (pineapple, kiwi, blackberries, mandarin oranges, strawberries, etc.).


Independence Day Tartlets

Ingredients:

1/2 c sugar
1 pkg cream cheese at room temperature
1 batch of sugar cookie dough (store bought is fine)
raspberries
blueberries


Preheat oven to 350. Grease tartlet pans well. Divide dough into 24 balls (depending on the size of your pans. Mine are 2 1/2 inches wide on top and 1 1/2 inches at the base). Squish dough into mini pans.

Bake for approx. 10 minutes or until cookie dough is lightly golden at edges. Allow to cool and then remove cookie shells from pans.

Puree cream cheese and sugar. Put in piping bag. Pipe into cooled shells. Add fruit. Chill.

Happy Birthday Baby Part I

This little guy belongs to my friend Teather. He is such a beautiful baby. I remember walking in to Teather's family's children's store (apostrophes are probably all wrong) to tell her that I was pg w/ little N. She bounced back with the same news! Baby E ended up being born at the same hospital as my little guy, and not even a whole day apart! Here are a few snapshots from his birthday party...