Apricot Lavender Cake

At the blueberry farm we bought some apricots in addition to the blueberries. I had seen this recipe on a fellow food blogger's Instagram and wanted to make it right away. Lavender forever. I didn't have a springform pan, so I split the cake into 2 pans. The recipe is from Plenty More via The Baking Bird. I've been cooking my way through Plenty (the original book) now that it's summer and all the vegetables are in season. Our tomatoes are just ripening now. 

• ¾ cup plus 1 Tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2 Tablespoons coconut oil
• 1 cup plus 1½ Tablespoons white sugar
• 1¼ cups almond flour
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup pecans
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour
• 1/8 tsp sea salt 
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1½ teaspoons dried lavender buds
• 11 ripe apricots, halved and pitted
• Turbinado sugar 
• 
  
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease 2 8 inch pans.
• Process the pecans and lavender in a food processor until the mixture looks like coarse crumbs. In a large mixing bowls, combine The butter, oil, sugar, and almond flour until fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, whisking after each addition to incorporate fully. continuing to beat until well incorporated. Fold in pecans, lavender, flour, vanilla, lemon zest, and teaspoon salt.
• Fill pans with cake batter and arrange apricot halves cut side up. Push down slightly so they are securely in place in the cake. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar.
• Bake for 40 minutes until golden brown. 
• I served each slice with a dollop of mascarpone and a drizzle of honey.

Mochi Cake!

In the spirit of Lunar New Year (which was 2 weeks ago but who's counting?), I want to share an awesome cake with you all- mochi cake! I love mochi, especially with ice cream. Check out the mochi sold in the Trader Joe's freezer section. It's gooey and has a great crust. My mom makes a similar version but with yams somehow. I found the recipe on A Periodic Table's blog and she has a warning on eating the cake. I'm not going to post it here since this is a New Year's post and should only be positive! By the way, I am really sad to live in Pennsylvania right now (so much snow). I'm looking up flights to anywhere everyday and hopefully Laura and I will cement some exciting plans to share with everyone...

But first, the recipe:

2 cups sweet rice flour (found at your local Asian food store)

1 1/4 cups white sugar

1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 1/3 cups evaporated milk

1 1/4 cups coconut milk

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

5 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted at room temperature 

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a loaf pan (9x5) and a mini loaf pan (or some cupcake tins). Mix dry ingredients together in a small bowl including sugar. Whisk together liquid ingredients in a larger bowl. Stir ingredients together. 

Pour into loaf pans. Bake for 30 minutes. Check smaller one for readiness. A toothpick removed should just have a few crumbs stuck to it. Rotate larger pan and bake for another 30 minutes, checking after 15 to see if the cake is baked.

Let cool completely and serve with some vanilla ice cream. Also my cake collapsed just a bit but was still delicious.

French Yogurt Cake

Yesterday my sister and I went to Ikea planning on just looking around... and we left with a big new kitchen island and a heart-shaped silicon cake pan. I am equally satisfied with both purchases and made use of both while making this cake.

Gâteau au yaourt/Yogurt Cake

From Chocolate & Zucchini

2 eggs

1 cup plain yogurt (I used Greek)

3/4 cup + 1 tsp sugar

1/3 cup oil (original recipe calls for veg. oil but I used olive oil)

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

pinch salt

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tbsp dark rum

Green Tea Cake

The first time I made this cake was in high school. Surprisingly, a lot of my staples come from my high school baking days. I suppose running 5+ miles a day all year round made me want to bake year round too. Anyways, when my friends and I made this cake, one of the girls accidentally baked the teaspoon into the cake. While it was baking, we looked for it to no avail. Then while slicing our dessert, my knife hit something solid. Kind of like king cake, right? Anyways, it was pretty hilarious as we all figured out where the teaspoon ended up. The cake tasted, just fine by the way! It still continues to be my mom's favorite. I made this green tea cake to celebrate her birthday right after Christmas. We also got her a spa day, chocolates, and cleaned the house since she is one amazing momma. The recipe is from All Recipes.

Cake:

1 cup all-purpose flour 

1 cup cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda 

1 teaspoon salt 

1/4 cup matcha powder latte mix (I use trader joe's)

1 cup white sugar 

1 cup vegetable oil 

3 eggs 

1 cup plain yogurt 

1 vanilla bean

Lavender Coffee Cake

This a a recipe I haven't made in years. Just this weekend my friend Kate came to visit in Philly which meant brunch!! This cake is great because it can be made the night before. It's really moist and the crumb topping is fantastic. There's just enough lavender flavor so the cake is not overpowered. I bet substituting 2 tablespoons of fresh herbs would work too (Rosemary, perhaps?). I know Laura would like that! 

Recipe from The Joys of Lavender

Topping:

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup brown sugar

3 tsp. cinnamon

Mix together and set aside in a small bowl.

Hershey's Deep Dark Chocolate Cake

I've been making this cake ever since high school. It was a standard birthday cake among my cross-country friends. The first time I had it, I couldn't believe how good it was! Occasionally I make different variations such as adding in some almond extract or lavender flowers. This time, I fancied it up even more since the cake was made for my dad and Nick's birthdays. Browned butter frosting, coffee, and real vanilla bean made this cake extra special.

For the cake:
2 cups sugar
1 3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup Hershey's special dark cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 eggs
1/2 cup whole milk or almond milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 vanilla beans, split and scraped
1 cup strong, hot coffee

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2-9 inch cake pans or 1 -9x13 inch baking pan. These make great cupcakes too. Just take them out a little earlier.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a large mixing bowl. Make a well and add eggs, milk, yogurt, vegetable oil, and vanilla bean goo. Whisk together until everything is incorporated. While whisking, slowly pour in the hot coffee until the batter is smooth.
Pour into pans and bake for 30 minutes until a toothpick can be removed cleanly from the center of the cake. Let cool completely before unfolding and icing, preferably overnight. The flavors of this cake really develop after a day or so.

For the frosting:
1 stick butter
2/3 cup Hershey's cocoa
3 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup whole milk
1 whole vanilla bean, scraped

Brown the butter! In a small saucepan, melt the butter over medium low heat. Stir constantly until the butter foams up twice and you can see reddish brown particles on the bottom. The butter will smell nutty and toasted. Immediately take off heat and whisk in cocoa powder. Add the vanilla bean insides. Then add the powdered sugar alternating with the milk, whisking until smooth.
I have to say, the frosting is the best part and this recipe makes a lot! All the better for eating right off the whisk!!

Rum Cake

This rum cake is tough for me to post about - I made it about two weeks ago and it's been gone for so long. And I want a slice NOW. I guess that's my payback for not posting it earlier. I'm dreaming about the butter rum glaze...

Disclaimer: I totally failed at getting this out of the bundt pan. You can tell. I buttered the pan, but I should have sprayed it with some cooking oil since there's all that brown sugar stickiness involved.

One more thing:

Twilly Flashback - This is the puppy in March 2012!

Pioneer Woman's Rum Cake

From her blog

So this Pioneer Woman recipe is a cake mix AND pudding mix combo, which I think is great because it made it really really fast and easy. However, I usually don't have boxed cake mixes so I would normally just whipone up.

FOR THE CAKE

1 box (about 18 Oz.) Yellow Cake Mix

1 package (3.5 Oz.) INSTANT Vanilla Pudding Mix

4 whole Eggs

1/2 cup Cold Water

1/2 cup Canola Oil

1/2 cup Rum (dark or light Is Fine) (I used dark, Gosling's Black Seal.)

1 cup Chopped Pecans (I used almonds)

Brown Sugar (optional)

 GLAZE

1-1/2 stick Butter

1/4 cup Water

1-1/2 cup Sugar

3/4 cups Rum

Ricotta Cake

This is a lot like a normal pound cake but with a delicious secret ingredient - ricotta! The ricotta flavor is definitely noticeable but it's hard to guess what you're tasting. I made this loaf to bring to a morning meeting at work, and it was all gone by the end of the meeting. I love pound cake, and this is a surprisingly great variation.

Ricotta Cake

Slightly adapted from Sweet Bites

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2½  teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

¾ cup (1 1/2  sticks) unsalted butter, softened

1½  cups fresh whole-milk ricotta

1½  cups granulated sugar

3 large eggs (at room temperature)

1 vanilla bean

1½  teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Cookies and Cream Cake

This is a seriously late post, but I seemingly misplaced my recipe somewhere in the Highland Park house. Things are a little slow nowadays in the pharmacy, so I had time to dig up a recipe from online. The photo credit goes to Kate, who took great pictures at the wedding. They're the only documentation I have of the cakes! My sister and I made about 7 cakes total, most of them vegan. I will be posting more cake recipes from the wedding in the future.
Anyways, my duties have been shifting to English teacher here! Lots of people want to talk to me to practice and I've taken on 2 students so far. I don't feel I'm qualified to teach although I'm perfectly willing to chat. In exchange for my time, I get fed. The ladies here cook me lots of food (vegan!) and pick up fruit for me from the market. I'm really grateful because lately I haven't been into eating meat. The hospitality here is phenomenol. Today I got coconut water and some apple-like fruit. Nick also gets food just because he's my husband and the ladies think he's cute. In fact, everyone that we have met has decided Nick is the nicest person ever. Our co-workers infer this via his mannerisms as he can't actually speak to anyone. As for me, everyone has decided I'm nuts which is about right. I get a pass because of my Vietnamese blood, though. Haha.

This recipe is from the book Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. I used the basic vanilla cupcake recipe and made it twice. Then I added oreos to the batter. Can you believe I could not find a single vegan vanilla oreo cake on the internet?

	1	cup almond milk
	1	tsp. apple cider vinegar
	1¼	cups all-purpose flour
	2	Tbsp. cornstarch
	¾	tsp. baking powder
	½	tsp. baking soda
	½	tsp. sea salt
	⅓	cup canola oil
	¾	cup pure cane sugar
	2	tsp. vanilla extract

10 Chocolate Newman-O's

Directions

Prepare 2-8 inch round baking pans by greasing them, lining the bottoms with parchment paper, and greasing again. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Measure out the almond milk in a liquid measuring cup. Stir in the apple cider vinegar and let sit for 5 minutes to curdle whle measuring other ingredients.
Place the Newman-O's in a large freezer bag and go to town crushing the cookies. You don't want them to turn into crumbs, more like small to medium chunks depending on what you like.
Whisk the dry ingredients together in a small mixing bowl. Mix the wet ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until uniform. Then fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until no streaks of flour remain. Do not overmix! Then fold in the crushed cookies.
Pour the batter into one of the prepared baking pan. Bake for about 20 minutes until a toothpick can be removed from the center cleanly.
While the first cake was baking, I made the batter for the second cake. I did this instead of doubling the recipe because the cake was on the smaller side so I decided to turn it into a layer cake. Bake the second cake and let both cool completely. Then remove them from the pan by turning onto a cooling rack and removing parchment paper.
While the cakes are cooling, make the frosting. There's really no exact recipe. I think I used vegan margarine (you can also use flavor neutral coconut oil), powdered sugar, vanilla, and almond milk. My sister was in charge of the frosting. We were trying to re-create that sugary Oreo filling. She just played around with the ingredients until they reached a perfect consistency.
After frosting and layering the cake, we froze them on little cardboard circles covered in aluminum foil. After 20 minutes or so, we wrapped the cake with plastic wrap and foil until the day before the wedding. It was a lot of work and without my sister I couldn't have done it!

Cranberry Upside Down Cake

This is Alice Water's recipe that I got from the blog Lottie + Doof. I first had this at my friend, Rachel's house and have been wanting to make it ever since. The beauty of this dish is that you can make it in a cast iron skillet. It's also really easy to make adjustments to this cake, say, to make it gluten free.
This post will be about the Tet holiday (or the Lunar New Year) in Vietnam. We got a 2 week break from work to spend with my family. This is the time when you go home to visit your family if you live far away. A good chunk of the population of Saigon is from the countryside. It's a calmer time for the city since pretty much all the shops are closed. Tet lasts for 5 days officially and during this time, people are going in and out of each other's houses to visit and best of all, eat. We've been eating so much these last few weeks. I've met so many cousins that I didn't even know I had. There's an incredible sense of community here that is refreshing. So many people have invited us into their homes and shared food with us. I would say about 100+ people have come to my grandparent's house to wish them good health and bring them gifts. By the way, they market oreos and ritz crackers as luxury goods here so those were some gifts that I ate. We handed out lucky money in red envelopes to the little kiddies. They have to wish us a happy and prosperous year before they get the dollars though.
The last 3 days, we got to spend at the beach in my dad's old hometown (Mui Ne). It's a beautiful fishing village that is filled with Russian tourists. We stayed at a resort with some cousins and friends and had a blast. Lots of seafood, sunshine, and playing with my little cousins. Now, back to the recipe!

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, divided
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 3/4 cups fresh cranberries
1/4 cup apple cider
2 eggs, at room temperature, separated
1/2 cup almond milk
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350° F. Make sure everything is at room temperature!
In an 9-inch cast-iron skillet, cook 4 tablespoons butter and brown sugar over medium heat, stirring occasionally until mixture starts to bubble and is fragrant. This doesn't take long. Turn off heat and let skillet cool down.
In a separate saucepan, cook the cranberries and apple cider until the cranberries just start to pop for about 5 minutes. You will notice the skin of the cranberries splitting and the insides literally popping out. Pour the mixture over the cooled caramel.
In a mixing bowl add the flour, baking powder, and salt and whisk to combine.
In a bowl, beat the remaining 8 tablespoons butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the two egg yolks, one at a time. Stir in vanilla extract. When mixed well. add the flour mixture alternately with the almond milk, starting and ending with one third of the flour. Stir just until no streaks of flour can be seen. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Fold one third of the egg whites into the batter with a rubber spatula, and then gently fold in the rest.
Pour the batter over the cranberries in the pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes or until the top is really golden brown and the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. You want a toothpick to be able to be removed from the center cleanly. Remove from the oven and allow the cake to cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the pan and invert the cake onto a serving plate.
This cake is great served by itself.

Orange & Cranberry Pound Cake

This is another example of how I can have really good intentions of making something for a particular reason or to give to someone, but then time after time what actually happens is I start eating it right away. I was going to save this for Thanksgiving, but instead we'll probably eat all of it by Thursday.

ORANGE & CRANBERRY POUND CAKE

Adapted from Joy the Baker's Chocolate Orange Cream Cheese Pound Cake

2 cups flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup sugar

2 tbsp orange zest (I used the zest from 1 large orange)

8 oz cream cheese (1 package), softened

3/4 cup butter (1 1/2 sticks), room temp

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh cranberries

Ground Cherry Coffee Cake

Ground cherries are related to tomatoes and tomatillos (all of them are in the nightshade family). They have a husk that surrounds them much like tomatillos, and they taste like a sweet tropical fruit with the texture of a tomato.

They are ready to harvest when they fall to the ground and will stay good for 2-3 weeks if you keep the husks on them. Laura has 2 plants at the house and we have a whole row growing at the Pittsburgh project. These are best fresh, but when there is such an abundance what can I do but bake them into a cake? This recipe is from The Kitchn and I made this cake while my family was in town.

2 cups white whole-wheat flour
1 cup cane sugar
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
10 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cubed
1 ¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup buttermilk (or regular milk with 1 tsp vinegar)
1 large egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups ground cherries, husks removed
1/2 cup chopped raw walnuts
1/3 cup packed dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 10 inch springform pan.
Mix together the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Add the cubed butter and pulse until the butter chunks are the size of peas. Remove 1 cup of flour & butter mixture into a second bowl and set aside to use as topping later.
Add in baking powder and soda to base flour mixture and whisk gently. Add buttermilk and egg fold in until incorporated.
Pour flour mixture into cake pan. Pour the ground cherries evenly over the batter. Next, mix the nuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon to the reserved flour mixture. Stir and sprinkle over the top.

Bake for 60 minutes until a toothpick comes out crumby, but clean. It's hard to tell if the cake is done becasue the crumb topping covers it, but I just take it out after an hour. Serve with ice cream!

Doughnut Cake

This cake literally tastes like a large cake doughnut. So delicous. Oh and did I mention it's both vegan and gluten-free (recipe courtesy of Manifest Vegan)? My advice is to make it now! Some friends and I ate this right after yoga and a wonderful dinner of roasted eggplant with tahini dressing. The cake (with some hot tea) was the perfect end to the night.

For the cake:

3/4 cup sorghum flour

3/4 cup potato starch
1/2 tapioca flour
1/2 cup brown rice flour
1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups vegan granulated sugar
1/3 cup sunflower seed oil
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup almond milk
2 tbsp vinegar
2-3 tsp cinnamon

For the icing:

1 tbsp coconut oil

1 cup confectioner’s sugar
3 tbsp almond milk

Directions:

Lightly grease a bundt pan and set aside.
In large bowl, mix together sorghum flour, potato starch, tapioca flour, brown rice flour, cornstarch, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. In mixing bowl, whisk together the sunflower seed oil, vanilla and sugar.
Mix the almond milk and vinegar together and add to the wet ingredients. Add flour mixture a little bit at a time into the wet ingredients, whisking gently.
Spread batter evenly into prepared cake pan.
Bake at 325 degrees about 55 minutes, or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.
Let cake cool and make icing by combining all icing ingredients until very smooth.  Drizzle, slather and spread onto cake. Sprinkle with a touch more cinnamon.

Vegan Funfetti Cake

I made this cake for my friend Vanly's bachlorette party weekend. It was in Ocean City Maryland. We spent all day at the beach and then went out later that night. It was a perfect balance of relaxing and debauchery. This recipe is originally from the cookbook, vegan cupcakes take over the world. I found it via the blog girl who bakes. I have to say this recipe is so much better than boxed funfetti cake. It has a lot more flavor and depth from the vanilla and almond extracts. Plus you can make the cake as colorful as you want. I went overboard on the sprinkles which was awesome!

Ingredients:

2 cups vanilla almond milk
2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons cornstarch
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup sunflower seed oil
1 1/2 cups cane sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
1 small container large, rainbow sprinkles (about 4-5 tablespoons)

Stir the vinegar into the almond and let sit to curdle while getting the rest of the ingredients together. Mix the dry ingredients together and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, mix the vegetable oil, sugar, and extracts together. Then stir in the curdled almond milk. Fold in the dry ingredients. Then fold in the sprinkles until evenly distributed.

Bake at 350 degrees for about half and hour in a bundt pan. The times will be less for cupcakes and more for a normal cake pan. Just bake until lightly golden brown and a toothpick can be removed cleanly from the center. Let cool and then frost. (I used my usual coconut vanilla frosting by blending coconut oil, vanilla paste, powdered sugar, and coconut milk together until I got a good consistency.

Apricot Cake

In Bon Appetit these are little apricot cakes, but I made a big apricot cake. Apricots were on sale at Giant Eagle!

BIG OR LITTLE APRICOT CAKE

From Bon Appetit 

Nonstick vegetable oil spray or butter 

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/3 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup whole milk

2 apricots, halved, pitted, cut into 1/4-inch wedges

2 tablespoons raw sugar

Vietnamese Honeycomb Cake

This cake is called Banh Bo Nuong in Vietnamese. It is definitely tricky to make, so I would follow the directions carefully. I used a combination from 2 different recipes. It's gluten free and dairy free. The taste is subtle and it has a unique texture- kind of gelatinous. It personally reminds me of home and my mother's cooking. The original recipe calls for pandan leaves which I didn't have on hand so I used vanilla instead.

200 ml coconut cream (1/2 can)
150 g sugar (1 cup)
6 eggs, at room temperature
200 grams tapioca starch/flour (2 cups)
2 1/2 tsp SINGLE ACTING baking powder (see below)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

To make single acting baking powder:
2 tbsp cream of tartar
1 tbsp cornstarch
1 tbsp baking soda
Mix and put in a sealed container.

For the cake:
Weigh out the tapioca flour and baking powder and mix together.
Mix the coconut cream with the sugar until the sugar is dissolved. You may have to heat up the coconut cream a bit to accomplish this. Let cool if it needs to be heated and then add the vanilla extract into the mixture.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a bundt pan generously and place in the oven to heat.
Stir the eggs in a separate bowl gently to mix them together. Make sure the whisk is always touching the bottom of the bowl to minimize air bubbles.
Gently stir the cooled coconut mixture into the eggs. Then working in parts, sift the flour into the wet ingredients a little bit at a time while stirring. Stir gently until there are just a few lumps left. The key is not to over mix the ingredients.
Pull the hot bundt pan out of the oven and pour the batter in quickly. Then bake for 35-40 minutes until nicely golden brown. Let cool for 15 minutes and then unmold.

Ideally you want the cake to rise with all the striations from the air bubbles! This is the correct texture to aim for.

Chocolate Stout Cake

I made this cake for a 4th of July cookout using a beer that an awesome friend brewed for my wedding! You can't really taste the beer but it adds more depth to the cake. This would also be great with a chocolate stout. The recipe is from 101 Cookbooks. I skipped the frosting and instead topped the cake with some blueberry lavender jam. I'll be posting that recipe soon!

2 cups black IPA (1 glass bottle)
8 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup cocoa powder
2 cups white whole wheat flour
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
3 large eggs
1 1/2 plain whole yogurt (or sour cream)
3/4 cup pure maple syrup
2 tsp dried lavender flowers (if desired)
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease and flour a bundt pan.
In a saucepan simmer the beer down to 1 cup. Watch closely. Remove from heat, add the butter and whisk until melted. Stir in the cocoa powder, mixing until smooth, then set aside to cool.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. 
In a separate, large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, yogurt, and maple syrup. Whisk well, until nicely blended and uniform in appearance. Slowly add the cooled stout mixture, stirring. Stir until well blended. Add the flour mixture, folding until just blended. The batter will be liquidy.
Transfer the batter to the prepared bundt pan and bake for 35 - 45 minutes. Let cool before frosting and serving.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

There are many recipes for rhubarb cakes out there. This one caught my eye since there is an abundance of rhubarb in the recipe, and it is vegan. It's from C'est la Vegan (such a cute name!!!).
The brunch spread:

I made this cake the night before a big brunch I had for the people that were coming to help the day before the wedding. There were so many people helping that I am immensely grateful for- My family, Brittany (even with her tonsils out), Laura, Kate, Michelle, Lacey, Chris, and Angela were just a few! It was a freezing cold day, which means that it was also a perfect day for a hearty brunch.

Rhubarb Coffee Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup vanilla almond milk milk
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup coconut oil, melted
1 cup raw cane sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups fresh, diced rhubarb (about 7 stalks)

topping!

2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix the vinegar with the almond milk in a liquid measuring cup and set aside (think of it as making buttermilk).  Add the flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl and whisk to combine.  

In another mixing bowl, mix together the coconut oil and sugar. Then beat in the egg and vanilla. Pour in the curdled almond milk and whisk to combine.

Add the flour mixture gradually, and mix gently until just combined.  If you’re using an electric or stand mixer, fold the rhubarb in by hand.

Pour the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan.  Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the topping together and sprinkle evenly over the batter.  Bake for 30 minutes until a toothpick can be removed cleanly from the middle. Let cool completely (ideally overnight) before removing from bundt pan. I'll admit, I cracked the cake while unmolding it! Still tasted delicious though : )

This cake tastes great by itself but if you must, a dab of butter would be good too!

Molten Lava Cakes

These cakes were made for Mother's Day. I have been making these for years from a recipe I found in a magazine, I believe. I found it online here. It's so simple to make and the ingredients are ones that I readily have on hand. There is a strange ingredient (mayo!) that recipe substitutes for butter which is used in the traditional French recipe. Keep the extra ones (if there are any) because they make a great snack for the next day. They continue to bake if you don't eat them right away, so they turn into perfect fudgy cakes :)

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/2 cup sugar
6 tablespoons flour
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 pinch salt

Line a cupcake pan with either paper liners or silicone liners. Melt the chocolate in the microwave, stirring every 30 seconds until mostly melted. Stir in the mayonaise gradually until fully incorporated. Then mix in the flour and the sugar. Lastly, mix in the eggs, salt, and the vanilla gently. Spoon the batter into the cups. (This recipe makes about 8-9 little cakes.)
Refrigerate for 1 hour (I kept them at room temperature for an hour and it was fine). Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Bake for 5 minutes. Then check every 30 seconds to 1 minute to see if the surface of the center of the cakes is just set. When the cakes reach this point, take the pan out of the oven and set on a cooling rack for 5 minutes. Then unmold and serve with vanilla ice cream.

Strawberry Cake

At least the way mine turned out, this is like a delicious fruity pie/cake. I think the strawberries are supposed to sink into the cake, but mine just hung out on top, pie-like, which is fine with me. The vanilla cake is so simple and perfect, and with strawberries and whipped cream on top, it's a whole cake of strawberry shortcake. Also, it's not too crazy sweet so I'll definitely be having a piece for breakfast.

---

STRAWBERRY CAKE
From Two Peas & Their Pod (originally from Martha Stewart)

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk (I used greek yogurt)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 pound strawberries, hulled and sliced (I used 1/2 lb)
2 tablespoons turbinado (or normal) sugar, for sprinkling on top of cake