Pineapple Upside Down Cake

This is pretty old school and pretty amazingly delicious. I've made it twice now and you can vary the amount of cherries on top to suit your needs. The cast iron skillet is also not a requirement, but I think it adds some charm. You can also use a package of cake mix if you're lazy. You can also slice your own pineapple. Basically, make this as complex as you want.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1 1/2 cups brown sugar
• 1 Tbsp innamon
• 1 (20 ounce) can sliced pineapple (save the juice)
• 12-ish maraschino cherries
Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pineapple juice from above and any extra pineapple

Directions

Prepping:

1. In a 12 inch cast iron skillet, melt the butter over medium heat.
2. Remove from heat and add in brown sugar evenly over skillet bottom.
3. Sprinkle cinnamon on brown sugar
4. Lay out pineapple rings in desired pattern. If you have extra rings, you can chop them and add them as well.
5. Add cherries as desired. (Inside rings, around rings, whatever)

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
2. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and baking soda.
3. Make a well in the center and add the eggs, vanilla, and pineapple and juice.
4. Mix well to blend. 
5. Pour cake evenly into skillet over the brown sugar and fruit.
6. Place into over and cook for 45-50minutes, checking frequently towards the end.
7. Cool for 10 minutes, then flip over onto a serving plate or cooling rack. Don't wait too long or stuff will start to stick.

Thoughts:
It came out seriously delicious. I'm going to definitely add this to my roster of cakes.

Next Time:

• Add more pineapple to the cake mix
• Use fresh pineapple
• Add more cinnamon.

Eggnog Cake

I found this recipe online and it makes a pretty amazing cake, even if the recipe is a tad labor intensive. Especially the frosting. I made it twice over the holidays for various company parties and plan to make it again. The cake is pretty white, so is the frosting, so you can obviously color it to suit your needs.

Ingredients

Cake:

• 4 eggs, at room temperature

• 1/2 cup eggnog, room temperature

• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 
1 3/4 cups cake flour
• 
1 1/2 cups sugar

• 2 tsp baking powder
• 
3/4 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature, cut into 16 pieces  

Frosting:

• 5 egg whites
• 
1 cup sugar
• 
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

• pinch of salt

• 2 cups unsalted butter, at room temperature

• 1-2 Tbsp eggnog
• 
1 tsp vanilla extract 

Directions

Cake:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Spray 2 9-inch cake pans with non-stick cooking spray and line the bottom with parchment paper
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, eggnog, and vanilla.
4. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. 
5. With a mixer on medium low, add the butter one piece at a time to the dry ingredients until the mixture looks sandy, and just start to come together. 
6. Add half of the wet mixture and mix on low until it just comes together. 
7. Increase the speed to medium high speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. 
8. Reduce mixer speed to medium, and add the remaining egg mixture in a slow, steady stream.
9. Continue mixing until thoroughly combined, scraping the bowl, as needed.
10. Pour batter evenly into the pans and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with a few crumbs clinging to it.
11. Cool for a few minutes, the run a knife around the edges of the pans and flip cakes onto a cooling rack.

Frosting:

1. In a medium bowl set over a pot of simmering water, combine the egg whites, sugar, nutmeg, and salt. 
2. Heat the mixture, whisking often, until it reaches 160 degrees and the sugar is dissolved. Be careful, the mixture temp rises quickly.
3. Pour into a large bowl and whisk on medium high speed until stiff peaks form, about 8-10 minutes. The mixture should also be room temperature, at this point.
4. With the mixer on medium speed, add the butter, 1 piece at a time, and beat until incorporated before adding another piece. 
5. Continue to beat until thick and smooth (if it looks curdled or soupy, just keep beating it until smooth again, another 3 minutes or so).
6. Stir in the vanilla and eggnog until incorporated and tint with food coloring, as desired.

Thoughts:
This cake is like the holidays in cake form to me. I might try upping the eggnog flavor in the cake next time I do this.

Next Time:

• Maybe some allspice?
• Add more eggnog to the cake

Icebox Cake

So this is something I have wanted to try for a while, and kept putting off. I'm glad I made it, it was the most positively reviewed thing I have done yet. The great thing about it is that it is really easy to make and low stress and you can do so many changes to the recipe, but still come out with something delicious. The original recipe called for strawberries, but you could probably do this with any fruit, within reason.

Once everything congeals, it tastes amazing and moist, and it can last in the fridge for over two days (I've heard reports they last up to 5 days) without going bad as long as you keep it cold and don't leave it out for too long.

Edit: Made another one with bananas and it came out pretty nice. Added the photo.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fresh strawberries, washed
• 3 + 1/4 cups whipping cream, divided
• 1/3 cup confectioners sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon rosewater (optional) 
• 4 sleeves (about 19 ounces, or 24 to 28 whole crackers) graham crackers
• 2 ounces dark chocolate, finely chopped

Directions

1. Take out a few of the best-looking strawberries and set them aside for the garnish. Hull the remainder of the strawberries and slice each berry into thin slices.
2. With a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, whip 3 cups of cream until it just holds stiff peaks. A really good tip for whipping cream is to put the bowl (typically metal), the cream, and the mixers into the freezer for 20-30min to get them nice and cold before you start whipping. 
3. Add the confectioners sugar, vanilla, and rosewater (if using) and whip to combine.
4. Spread a thin layer of whipped cream on the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan. 
5. Lay down six graham crackers. Cover the top of the graham crackers with more whipped cream, and then a single layer of strawberries. 
6. Repeat three times, until you have four layers of graham crackers. 
7. Spread the last of the whipped cream over the top and add a few more strawberries.
8. To make the ganache, heat the cream until bubbles form around the edges, then pour the chocolate into the pan to melt.
9. Let it stand for a minute, then whisk until the mixture is thick and glossy. Drizzle this over the layered dessert with a spoon.
10. Refrigerate for at least four hours,  until the crackers have softened completely, or over night for best results. 

Thoughts: 
Overall everything came out great. I tried adding a little color with some graham cracker crumbs, but I don't think they were really necessary. Maybe to improve the aesthetics, the top layer of whip cream could be applied with a bag with a hole in it to make everything look fancier.

For Next Time:

• The recipe calls for 2 lbs of strawberries, but I used only about 1.5 lbs, and my strawberries were densely layered. I think to save time on hulling and slicing, far fewer berries could be used next time.
• I want to try this with bananas instead of strawberries and see how that turns out. Maybe a mix of both?
• Potentially any and all fruits could be used in any combination, as long as the fruit mass is essentially the same, consider adding blueberries to the mix.
• I've heard good things about Nilla wafers instead of graham crackers, and those could be interesting to try.
• The ganache originally called to sit for a few minutes before mixing. For me, this lead to the whole thing cooling down too much and not spreading smoothly and coming out in big clumps, which looked ugly. - Update: Put chocolate into the pan to melt, as opposed to the cream onto the chocolate in a bowl.