Coconut Bundt Cake by Rachel

Summer is here!  Hooray!!

One of my favorite types of desserts for the summer is anything with coconut.  I recently bought a brand-spanking-new bundt pan and I was so eager to test it out.  So I combined my love for coconut desserts with the bundt cake pan and decided to make a coconut bundt!  It was delicious.

The recipe is a little more complicated and requires ingredients to be combined in separate bowls, but I promise you that the result is a fluffy and moist coconut cake that is a real crowd-pleaser!

Ingredients
Bowl 1:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt

Bowl Two
1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1 can of un sweetened coconut milk
1 cup sweetened shredded coconut
1 tsp vanilla extract

Bowl 3:
2 egg whites
1/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp cream of tartar

Toasted coconut topping:
1/2 cup of sweetened coconut
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp water

Apricot Upside Down Olive Oil Cake by Rachel

My parents are in town and when they came to visit my apartment they brought over some beautiful smelling apricots with them.  I'm not a big fan of eating plain apricots- I personally prefer peaches when it comes to eating straight fruit, but apricots are great for baking.  They become a little more tart and tangy after some time in the oven which makes them great for cakes and pies!

I've never made an upside down cake before, but I love how moist fresh fruit can be on top of those cakes so that's what brought me here!

The story with the olive oil is an interesting one.  Recently a little bakery opened near my apartment and the lady that owns the bakery had lived in Italy for some time.  She's imported the olive oil from that little town into her bakery and my fiance brought a liter home.  It smells amazing and has a slight spicy flavor. I thought it would be great with my apricots.  I hope you do, too!  See the recipe below.

Ingredients

Topping
3 tbsp unsalted butter
2-3 fresh apricots, washed, dried and cut into wedges
1/4 cup light brown sugar

Cake
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3 tbsp good, strong olive oil
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract

Lemon Cheese Crumb Cake by Rachel

Well, I made a mistake and ordered way too many lemons from Fresh Direct.  So, with all those lemons staring me in the face and the snow keeping me inside, I decided to do something about them.  I wanted a moist cake with plenty of lemony punch and this crumb cake did the trick.

Ingredients

For the Cheese filling

8 oz of Cream Cheese, softened

1 tbsp lemon juice

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 egg

For the Cake

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter

1 egg

2/3 cup buttermilk

2 tbsp lemon juice

zest of 1 lemon

For the Crumble

2/3 cup flour

2 tbsp butter, softened, not melted

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

zest of half a lemon

Olive oil for your pan

Earl Grey Tea Cake with Lemon Buttercream by Rachel

Another week, another cake!

I went down to DC to visit family this weekend and we were invited to a birthday party.  Not wanting to go empty handed, I decided to give the gift of food, so I baked a cake.

I wanted to make a cake with a unique and delicate flavor and I didn't want to just make vanilla cake (though nothing is wrong with a good, vanilla cake).  I remembered having earl grey ice cream for the first time this summer for the Van Leewen Ice Cream Truck and I loved the flavor.  It was gentle, but not flowery.  So I settled on flavoring my cake with the tea.

Ingredients for the cake
5 teabags of early grey tea
3/4 cup whole milk
2 tbsp sugar

1 stick of butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp lemon juice, fresh squeezed
1 tbsp lemon zest (about half a lemon)

1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup sugar
pinch of salt

Faux Cream Cheese Frosting and Salted Caramel by Rachel

If you've embarked on making the Spiced Apple Cake and want to fancy it up, you can definitely frost it with your standard buttercream frosting.  I frosted mine with a slightly healthier faux cream cheese frosting and homemade salted caramel.

From this boring cake...

To this yummy creation!

The faux cream cheese frosting is a little lighter and fluffier than your average frosting because I didn't want to weigh down the spiced apple cake since it's a denser type of cake.  It's "faux" because it doesn't actually use any cream cheese.  It uses Greek yogurt and tastes so good with this cake.

Spiced Apple Cake by Rachel

Growing up, I really enjoyed making apple pies.  Even today, I still love making apple pies.  But on this particular day, I was lazy and didn't feel like making a pie crust.  So there.

That's what brought me to making a spiced apple cake.  With apples being so deliciously in season right now, I made my way to a farmer's market and scooped up some Newton Pippon apples, which are perfect for an apple cake.  They're tart just like a Granny Smith, but a little sweeter on the finish.  Perfect for my cake recipe.

Ingredients
2 large Newton Pippon apples, peeled, cored, and cut into large bits
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into cubes
1/4 tsp cinnamon
pinch of nutmeg

1 stick of unsalted butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
3 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1pinch of allspice
1 tbsp superfine sugar
7 oz of 2% Greek yogurt (I used Fage)
1 tbsp olive oil