Three kinds of cakes

Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake Bars

This is one from the Hershey, Pennsylvania Cookbook and appears on the front cover, upper left:  "tasty" peanut butter chocolate bars.  Yes, the quotation marks around "tasty" appear in the original, which is very weird to me, but the recipe looked good anyway.


Basically it's yellow cake, baked in a jelly roll pan, then covered with peanut butter while it's still warm.  My cake kind of baked oddly, in that it has a huge mountain on one side and a deep, semi-burnt valley on the other side.  Still, spreading peanut butter on the warm cake was no trouble, and it didn't pool up like I feared it would.


After you have spread the jar of peanut butter on there, you put it in the fridge to harden for about an hour.  When the hour is almost up, melt about a pound of Hershey bars and spread that on top, too.  It needs to be chilled again (although you'll really want to eat it at this point) and then it'll be ready for slicing.

You can see the little layers on there.  These are really tasty, if a little messy, and they make me want to cook through this book from cover to cover.

Chocolate Ginger Spice Cupcakes

This one comes from Martha Stewart Cupcakes and is one I've been wanting to make for a long time.

The cake is made with spices, chocolate, and ground ginger.  There was a really weird step where I had to boil water, mix in baking soda, and then put that mixture into the cake batter (and I think it was something to do with a chemical reaction with the Dutch-process cocoa powder, sort of like in red velvet cakes).

The batter was like a strong coffee; anytime you put molasses into any batter, it kind of tastes and smells awful.  But when they bake up, they are just fine.

They get topped with a chocolate ganache frosting and candied ginger.

And they're very cute.  I made them for a coworker's last day at the bar exam prep company where I'm working at the moment.  They were a hit!

Ina's Chocolate Buttercream Cake

Ina's chocolate buttercream cake comes from her first cookbook, The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook.  I've been drooling over this one for years, and I am making it for a friend's birthday party today.


The batter is simple enough:  butter, sugar, brown sugar, eggs, cocoa powder, flour, sour cream, buttermilk, and coffee.  (OK, maybe kind of weird.) 

Licking the spoon on this one was one of the best culinary experiences of my life.


I let the cake sit out over night to cool and I made the buttercream this morning.  

Honestly, I'm pretty darn excited to try this one.


And now I have to go to the party with the cake (and some of our home-brewed pale ale, which is now ready), although I have to stop at the DMV first because my license expires on my birthday (tomorrow) and I always like to do things at the last minute!