Martha Stewart

Gingerbread Snacking Cake w/ Cream Cheese Frosting

December 27, 2012 by Wendy Cohen 2 Comments

This is one of the best tasting cakes for the holidays…I pair the cake with Paula Deen Cream Cheese Frosting and it is heaven!

The cake recipe comes from the Martha Stewart Holiday cookbook and can be found here on line. I only took one picture of these as this was a last minute addition to my baking plans.

Cake Ingredients

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup boiling water
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 cup unsulfured molasses
1 tablespoon ginger
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten

Cake Directions

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour a 8×8-inch cake pan; set aside. In a bowl, combine boiling water and baking soda; set aside. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground spices, salt, and baking powder; set aside.

In an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream butter until light. Beat in brown sugar until fluffy. Beat in molasses and grated ginger, baking-soda mixture, and flour mixture. Beat in eggs.
Pour batter into prepared pan; bake until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. Cut into squares; dust with confectioners’ sugar.

The recipe for the cream cheese frosting is one you should just have handy all the time because it can make anything taste heavenly.

You can find the frosting recipe here.

Frosting Ingredients

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, at room temperature

1/2 cup butter (1 stick), at room temperature

1 pound confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Frosting Directions

In a bowl, blend together the cream cheese and butter. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Stir in the pecans, or reserve them to sprinkle over the frosted cake. Fill and frost the cake when it is completely cool.

Many thanks to Martha & Paula for the fantastic recipes above! One of our favorite combinations!

Filed Under: baking, cakes, entertaining, Holiday, martha stewart Tagged With: Baking, cake, cream cheese frosting, gingerbread cake, gingerbread cake with cream cheese frosting, gingerbread snack cake, holiday baking, Martha Stewart, paula dean, paula dean cream cheese frosting, paula deen

2 Comments

Marble Cake…Being Martha

December 27, 2012 by Wendy Cohen 2 Comments

This recipe is a cross between a pound cake and a regular cake. It makes one 9×5 inch loaf and is made with cake flour. It has a great taste that is super moist and in my opinion, does NOT need any glaze or frosting. You can find this recipe on Page 65 of Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook or online here.

This recipe calls for Cake Flour…here’s a brand that you can find at most stores. It is much lighter than all purpose flour.

Here’s the white portion of the batter ready to go…notice the consistency.

Here’s where I would do something slightly different….you add cocoa powder to boiling water and then mix with the white batter to create the chocolate batter.

I would have let the chocolate mixture cool up a bit before I used it.

Why? Because the consistency of the white batter and the brown batter were significantly different because of the temperature differences. If the brown batter had some time to cool, it would have been easier to work with and to marble.

I will make sure and tell Martha so she can add this to her next book!

Regardless…it turned out looking just fine and tasted heavenly!

This is a great moist cake that could either be served along with coffee for breakfast or as a dessert. I opted not to add the white chocolate glaze to this per the recipe as I thought it was simply not needed.

Filed Under: baking, cakes, Holiday Tagged With: Baking, cakes, chocolate cake, marble cake, Martha Stewart, martha stewart baking handbook

2 Comments

Gingerbread Men (and Women)….Being Martha

December 26, 2012 by Wendy Cohen 4 Comments

As usual, the holidays flew by. It was quite a whirlwind in the last few days where I tried to cram in as much baking as possible. Not because I have to, but because it makes my heart sing. Yes, sing! It wasn’t quite as planned since we were supposed to be in Chicago, but a blizzard changed all that. The gift in return of the cancelled flight was some extra time to bake. Ahhh….

This is classic gingerbread cookies….love this recipe. Just the right amount of spice! You can find it on Page 81 of Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook or you can find it here on line. Funny thing is the on line recipe is called “Gingerbread People”. Hilarious…

For this recipe, make sure you give yourself time to refrigerate the dough multiple times and to roll out and decorate. Maybe a few days.

The key to this cookie is the spices and the ROBUST molasses!

Here’s what the mix looks like before adding in the flour. Gradually add the flour mixture and do NOT over blend. Mix until just incorporated.

Turn dough out onto a work surface. Divid into two and pat into two discs. Place in plastic wrap in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour…maybe overnight!

Remove the dough and let sit for a while so that it is easy to work with but NOT completely room temperature yet. I roll my dough out to about 1/4″. I do not have the fancy rolling pin with the measuring rings (YET), so I just wing it really.

Here are what they look like all cut out and ready for the oven. I used parchment paper to line the pan…this happens to be parchment paper on one side and foil on the other side. At first, I really like it because it is heavier than just plain parchment paper. However, the challenge is that you must cut the paper perfectly for the pan or it will curl up while in the oven and touch your cookies. Kind of a bummer. I think I will stick to regular parchment paper.

Here they are out of the oven and ready for decorating. I show you this photos to demonstrate how similar they look before and after baking. That is because they dough is chilled which keeps things from spreading and distorting too much in the oven.

To decorate the cookies, I used royal icing. It can be found on Page 389 of the book or here. I also tried a new technique for piping on frosting that I found here at Karen’s Cookies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxE-pnqmsE0&feature=player_embedded

Here’s a link to the video…it is fantastic. I tried to embed the video with no luck!