Marble Cake

Since it snowed today (on Boxing day) I didn’t do my usual Boxing day shopping. Since I’m not working today either, I had a lot of extra time on my hands. So I decided to bake a cake. I made a family favorite; our traditional marble cake. This recipe can also be made with bananas (a modified version). The banana version is featured in this post; http://lisaopolis.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/banana-marble-cake/

The original recipe can be found in Oetkar German Home Baking page 15. Here is my slightly modified version. Enjoy.

Marble Cake

9 oz (250 g) butter or margarine

9 oz (250 g) sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tsp rum extract (or real rum)

4 large eggs

A pinch of salt

1 1/8 pound (500 g) flour

3 tsp baking powder

About 1 cup skim milk

3 level tbsp coco powder

A heaped tbsp sugar

2-3 tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Cream the margarine and add the sugar, eggs, rum extract, and vanilla extract. Beat until smooth. Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix together before combining with other mixture. Now combine (beat) the mixtures together. Now gradually add the milk. Alternate adding milk with beating in the flour mixture. mixture should look the like photo below.

Now place half of the mixture in a round cake pan. Add the coco powder, 1 tbsp sugar, and 2-3 tbsp milk to the remaining white mixture. Blend until smooth. Now add the dark mixture to the light. With a spatula blend the two mixtures together (to make an abstract design). Bake in your preheated oven for about 55 minutes. Enjoy.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Tonight I was in the mood for cheesecake, so I decided to make some. I chose to make pumpkin cheese cake since we have a lot of pumpkin in the freezer (from Halloween).

The original recipe I used (and greatly morphed) came from this website: http://recipegal.com/pumpkincheesecake/Bon-Appetit-Pumpkin-Cheesecake.htm

The cheesecake turned out divine. The flavor is exquisite. Not too sweet, but sweet enough, and nice and smooth. The crust is also very flavorful. The only recommendation I would make would be to add more margarine to the crust (maybe double) because the crust was a bit crumbly. Other then that, this is a must try cheese cake recipe.

Here is my morphed version.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust

1 ½ cups graham crumbs

1 ½ cups ground pecan

¼ cup of brown sugar (not packed)

¼ cup olive oil margarine (melted)

Filling

13 oz light cream cheese

1 ¼ cup no fat cottage cheese

1 cup brown sugar

1 ½ cups pumpkin pieces

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground allspice

¼ tsp nutmeg

4 large eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup sour cream

For the crust:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place the graham crumbs, ground pecan, and brown sugar in a bowl. Mix well. Add the melted margarine. Press into baking pan. Bake for 5 minutes. Set aside. (makes one crust). Two crust recommended for this recipe.

For the filling:

In a blender place the pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla extract. Blend until smooth. In a large bowl add the cream cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg. Beat with an electric mixture until combined. Now add the pumpkin mixture to the cheese mixture and blend until smooth. Pour over crust. Bake in your preheated oven at 350 degrees F for about 45 minutes to an hour (depending on your pan(s) and oven). Cool. Refrigerate overnight. Serve.

Carrot Cake

This evening I was in the mood to bake so I found a carrot cake recipe and modified it greatly. The original recipe is from allrecipes.com and is called Carrot Cake III. This is my own carrot cake recipe, I only used the other recipe as a guideline.

Carrot Cake

 

4 eggs

1 ½ cup white sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp rum extract

½ cup olive oil

2 cups all purpose white four

½ cup brown (whole wheat) flour

2 tsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

A few shakes of salt

3 tsp ground cinnamon

1 cup skim milk

2 cups chopped carrots

1 cup chopped pecan pieces

Preheat over to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9X13 pan.

In a bowl combine flour (brown and white), baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and sugar. Mix well. Stir in pecan pieces.

In a blender add the chopped carrots, eggs, milk, vanilla and rum extracts, and oil. Blend until smooth. Add the blended liquid mixture to the dry mixture. Mix until smooth.

Pour the mixture into the pan. Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Test with a tooth pick (when the tooth pick comes out clean the cake is done). Enjoy.

I chose not to make an icing for this cake because I thought it didn’t need it, and I don’t need the extra calories.

This cake tastes very homemade and healthy for a dessert. I give this recipe two thumbs up!

Below is an image of the cake.

Banana Marble Cake

 Last night I was in the mood to bake, so I decided to make a cake. Since we had some bananas in the house that were getting over ripe I thought it was time to use them up.
I decided to use one of my favourite recipes and change it to fit my desire to use up the bananas.  The origional recipe can be found in Oetker German Home Baking on page 15 it is titled Marbled Cake.

 Here is my new and madeover version

 Banana Marble Cake

 9 oz (250 g) butter or margerine
 9 oz (250 g) white sugar
 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
 3 teaspoons of imitation rum extract (or real rum)
 4 med-large eggs
 500 g of plain white flour
 3 teaspoons of baking powder
 1 cup of milk
 3 medium-large bananas
 3 level tbsp coco

 In a blender place the banana (in pieces), eggs, rum, vanilla, milk, margerine, and sugar. Blend until smoothe. In a bowl mix together the flour and baking powder.
 Add the liquid mixture (from the blender) to the bowl. Mix until well blended together. Place in a round cake pan, and bake at 350F until a tooth pick comes out clean when
 poked in the cake. Enjoy.