Although I have been running three to four times a week for the last two months, I had never run in a timed race prior to last weekend. For my first race, I signed up for a 5K just to see how things would go, but the results were posted tonight and I was so excited to see that I ended up placing 7th for women in my age group and 21st out of 259 women... wooooo!! My average pace was 9.35 minutes per mile, or about 6.4 mph.
I thought running with a huge group of people was a lot of fun, definitely a lot more exciting than running solo in a park full of territorial geese and navigating around goose poop, which is how I normally roll.
In the photo below, on the left you'll see the obligatory Runner Crosses Finish Line photo, and on the right you'll see the many hands attacking me shortly after I finished as evidence of how efficiently the race was coordinated:
This printable coupon expires July 12, 2009 for buy one get one free smoothies at Jamba Juice.
[via techbargains.com. And my aunt, who asked me to look it up... haha]
Of the 35 cake recipes you will find in Baking Illustrated (not including variations), roughly a third are chocolate cakes.
Varying in the intensity of chocolate flavor, richness, texture, presentation and ease of preparation, they include: Chocolate Sheet Cake, Old-Fashioned Chocolate Layer Cake, German Chocolate Cake, Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake, Devil's Food Cake, Génoise, Black Forest Cake, Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate-Hazelnut Cake, Fallen Chocolate Cakes, and Hot-Fudge Pudding Cake.
Deciding what kind of cake to make was difficult, but I knew I wanted a moist, fudgy cake that was easy to prepare. When I read the description for Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake I was sold:
"Sour cream gives this cake its smooth, rich chocolate taste with a dense yet melting texture, almost like fudge. An equally intense chocolate icing stands up to the rich cake."
...but what if this cake is baked in Estes Park, Colorado... at 7,500 feet?
Now I had a harder problem to tackle: baking a successful chocolate cake at high altitude.
After consulting the three pages (18-20) in Baking Illustrated devoted to high-altitude baking, as well a sour cream-based chocolate cake recipe in High Altitude Baking from Colorado State University, I settled on some modifications to make for my high-altitude version of Baking Illustrated's Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake. They were:
- adding 3 Tbsp. flour
- adding 1/4 cup sour cream
- subtracting 1/4 cup sugar
- adding 1 egg
- subtracting 1/4 tsp. baking soda
- adding 25 degrees to the original baking temperature
- using a 9x13 baking pan instead of two circular 9-inch pans
While researching how to bake cakes at high altitude, I saw that most references suggest to make a recipe first before changing the amount of certain ingredients one by one. I didn't have the patience, money, or appetite to eat chocolate cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I decided to implement all of the above and crossed my fingers.
Here is what my batter looked like before the pan went into the oven:
While baking, the cake puffed up quite a bit and the top cracked, but as it cooled, it sank back down to the right height. I think this is due to having too high of an oven temperature, but I didn't notice any change in the taste or texture of the cake in the middle, so I'm fine with this. When it came out:
I decided to try two different toppings: a cream cheese frosting and the chocolate butter icing the book paired with this cake. The finished presentation:
The verdict on taste? Exactly the way I had hoped. After 15 minutes of cooling after being taken out of the oven, it was warm, gooey enough to melt in your mouth, yet retained the texture of a soft and moist cake. It also had an intense chocolate flavor that wasn't too sweet. I preferred the cake with the chocolate butter icing, but my friends liked the cream cheese frosting better.
The next day, after spending a night in the refrigerator, the cake tasted exactly like a moist, chewy brownie. However, after spending 15 seconds in the microwave, it became an awesome fudgey cake again. Looks like you can have your cake and eat your brownie too!
The recipe for this cake at 7,500 feet is as follows:
Sour Cream Fudge Layer Cake (from Baking Illustrated, pg. 362) - High altitude version for 7,500 ft. - SERVES 12
SOUR CREAM FUDGE CAKE
1 ¼ cups + 3 Tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting pans
1 cup nonalkalized cocoa, such as Hershey’s
2 teaspoons instant espresso or coffee powder
1 cup boiling water
¾ cup sour cream
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still cool
1 ½ cups sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
CHOCOLATE BUTTER ICING
9 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1. FOR THE CAKE: Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375 degrees. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans and cover the pan bottoms with rounds of parchment paper or waxed paper. Grease the parchment paper and dust the pans with flour, tapping out the excess.
2. Mix the cocoa and instant espresso powder in a small bowl; add the boiling water and mix until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then stir in the sour cream and vanilla.
3. Beat the butter in the bowl of a standing mixer at medium-high speed until smooth and shiny, about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in the sugar; beat until the mixture is fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the eggs 1 at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition.
4. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. With the mixer at the lowest speed, add about a third of the dry ingredients to the batter, followed immediately by about a third of the cocoa mixture; mix until the ingredients are almost incorporated into the batter. Repeat the process twice more. When the batter appears blended, stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Return the mixer to low speed; beat until the batter looks satiny, about 15 seconds longer.
5. Divide the batter evenly between the pans. With a rubber spatula, spread the batter to the pan sides and smooth the tops. Bake the cakes until they feel firm in the center when lightly pressed and a toothpick or thin skewer comes out clean or with just a crumb or two adhering, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pans to wire racks; cool for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the perimeter of each pan, invert the cakes on to the racks, and peel off the paper liners. Reinvert the cakes onto additional racks; cool completely before frosting.
6. FOR THE ICING: Melt the chocolate and butter in a medium bowl set over a pan of almost simmering water. Stir in the corn syrup. Set the bowl of chocolate mixture over a larger bowl of ice water, stirring occasionally, until the icing is just thick enough to spread.
If you're unemployed like me (best of luck to you), you've probably changed your coffee-drinking habits from fancy to frugal. I used to LOVE going to coffee shops for blended drinks, but lately I'm all for avoiding Starbucks and making my own at home. Here's a tasty solution that's a better friend to your wallet than your waistline, but a friend nonetheless. Here is how you make such a friend.
For about $10, I think I could make at least 20 drinks and still have leftover ingredients. I'd peg the cost of each drink I make to be in the range of 30-40 cents, which means you're getting charged 900% more for a similar beverage at Starbucks.
Here is what you'll need to make one 8 oz. caramel iced coffee drink:
• Instant coffee - 1 packet (as shown above) OR 1 heaping teaspoon (+ more, if you like your drink stronger)
• Vanilla ice cream - Approximately 1 small scoop
• Milk - 2 parts ice cream to 1 part milk for a shake-like consistency, or 1:1 for something more liquidy
• Caramel sauce - One tablespoonful works for me, but if you like it sweet, don't hold back!
Stir the first three together in a cup, drizzle the caramel on top, and you'll get something like this:
I downed mine in less than 30 seconds (but I mixed the caramel sauce in first). It was that good.
Note: here is the source of inspiration for my iced coffee drink I stumbled upon through TasteSpotting. If you love extra toppings on drinks and are looking to make multiple servings, it's worth checking out. My desire to make a new recipe arose from the fact that I wanted one serving and also found the sugar, ice, whipped cream
and extra caramel sauce unnecessary. I'm also not one for using (and
cleaning) a blender if I don't have to :)
Grab a free Krispy Kreme donut today, June 5, 2009, in celebration of National Doughnut Day. Never mind that bikini season is either quickly approaching or already here, depending on where you live...
I made these today using Baking Illustrated's Cream Scone recipe and threw in an egg (minus some butter, and minus some cream) to make the scones more cake-like, as per their instructions for 'Cakey Scones'.
At my friend Emily's recommendation, I purchased Baking Illustrated recently and am in love with the book.
I love how they explain what kind of consistency or taste they are trying to go for, what they did to try achieving that, and how it turned out. After reading the preamble for each recipe you can be sure of what to do in order to get the taste you want. For example:
We made four batches of pastry cream, using 3 or 4 tablespoons of cornstarch or flour in each one. Four tablespoons of either starch made gummy, chewy, gluey messes of the pastry creams. Three tablespoons was the correct amount; any less would have resulted in soup. In equal amounts, cornstarch and flour were extremely close in flavor and texture, but cornstarch inched out in front with a slightly lighter, more ethereal texture and a cleaner and purer flavor; flour gave the pastry cream a trace of graininess and gumminess.
Yesterday, I made a Fresh Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream (pg. 225), which turned out fantastic although hard to serve (the pastry cream would be EXCELLENT for something like a cream puff, however) because the cream didn't hold its shape and I ended up with strawberry and kiwi slices drowning in blobs of pudding atop a barely visible golden brown crust. In short, it tasted better than it looked. But boy did it look awesome before I broke into it!
One more note: it was necessary to blind bake the crust for this tart, which is the process of baking the crust before a pie or tart is filled and involves lining the dough with some sort of weight while in the oven to prevent the sides from sliding to the bottom before it has had time to become crisp. The book recommended using pie weights in a bag or pennies on top of aluminum foil, but I had neither and used aluminum foil filled with a few cups of rice instead. FYI, this works just fine!
Not that you care what I am reading. But if you do, I have read (but am too lazy to review):
For the past month, I have been diligently running every other day. It goes something like this:
- Run until tired.
- Walk while catching breath.
- Repeat until pooped out, or until an hour has passed.
It took me 14 weeks to progress from a mere 3 minutes (about a quarter of a mile) to a whopping 57 minutes (5.3 miles) yesterday, although as you can see, I hardly ran in March and April.
Because I am an engineer at heart, I had to celebrate this milestone by making a chart of dates and times that I so meticulously documented since the middle of February. The colored bars represent times where I was running nonstop. If you need any encouragement to start running regularly and the chart below is not enough, let me tell you that I also lost 3-5 pounds* in the process!
Graduating at the wrong time sucks. All you can do is play your cards as best as you can.
Thanks to Emily for the link.
