Chocolate cake with salted caramel sauce

I came home from work yesterday afternoon absolutely craving chocolate. My daughter was coming over a half hour after I got home and I decided to splurge and make cake for when she arrived. I was making the frosting when she walked in the door. Got the butter softened, went to measure the icing sugar then cursed under my breath, I only had half the amount needed. With half the frosting I wouldn't have enough to cover the whole cake. Then I had the brilliant idea of making a caramel sauce to drizzle on the cake as well. As you can see from the picture above, it worked really well and the kids and I  have pretty much demolished it.

The recipes come from a variety of sources. The cake itself came from a member of an online forum I frequent. I don't think she's been on the forum in a year, but I got the recipe a year ago and have used it frequently since then. Here it is... Pixie Holly's cake recipe in her own words:

Pixie Holly’s Cake Recipe

My go-to is the old family recipe... it's more of a method than a recipe, really, since it's so scalable. Equal amounts of butter, sugar and self-raising flour, and an egg for every 2oz of the other ingredients. So for a small batch of cupcakes it would be 6oz of flour, 6oz sugar, 6oz butter, 3 eggs. For a double layered cake I'd do 8oz and 4 eggs.

The equal parts + eggs thing is BASICALLY just a pound cake (the name of which comes from using a pound of each ingredient) but that would make a FUCKOFF GIANT CAKE so I tend to go a bit smaller. ;)

You cream together the butter and sugar, then add the flour and eggs alternately a little at a time until all of the eggs are in and there's a little flour left. Fold in the remaining flour and then stick it in the oven @350 until it passes the toothpick test. If you have milk or cream, adding a splash of that is even better.

You can alter it up by replacing some of the flour with cocoa or putting in lemon or coconut or chocolate chips or WHATEVER YOUR GREEDY LITTLE HEART DESIRES.

I love this recipe because it has 4 basic ingredients as opposed to the 50 fucking things they put in a box mix and they're ingredients you can have on hand whenever you need them. Also, you get to say "I baked it from scratch" and look all smug even though it isn't ANY more difficult than making one out of a box. ;)

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My only advice if you add chocolate chips, toss them in some flour first before adding them to the mix. I made my daughter a vanilla cake with chocolate chips for her 16th birthday and all the chips fell to the bottom of the pan while baking. I also find the cake makes very small layers. When I make the cake as a double layer cake I use 8 inch instead of 9 inch pans. Yesterday I poured the whole double layer version into one 9 inch pan and it worked well.

Next comes my Nana's Butter Frosting recipe, again in her words:

Butter Frosting

1/4 cup butter
2 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp cream or milk

Cream butter till fluffy. Add half the sugar gradually and beat. Add flavouring and cream and beat. Add remaining sugar and beat.

1) Butter can read margarine.
2) Beat with a spoon or an electric beater. Make sure your bowl is not too big.
3) Cream/milk - I sometimes use hot water
4) If it's too runny, add more sugar
5) If it's too stiff, add more liquid - carefully, a little goes a long way.
6) Half this recipe will frost an 8 inch single layer cake

Variations for butter icing

Chocolate - add 2 or 3 tbsp dark cocoa or 2 squares melted

Orange or lemon - use 1 1/2 tbsp grated rind and 3 tbsp orange or lemon juice in place of vanilla and cream

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As for the salted caramel recipe, I found it on a website called Alli 'n Sons while looking for a chocolate and salted caramel ice cream recipe. I didn't need the ice cream part for this recipe but the caramel sauce came in quite nicely:


Sea Salt Caramel Sauce

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/4 cup)
• 1 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup half-and-half
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, mix together the butter, brown sugar, half and half, and sea salt. Cook while whisking gently for 5 to 7 minutes, until thicker. Add the vanilla extract and cook another minute to thicken further. Turn off heat and pour sauce into a jar. Refrigerate until cold. Caramel will continue to thicken as it cools.

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I didn't have any unsalted butter so I skipped the teaspoon of sea salt, sprinkling a little over the top of the sauce to taste.

So there you have it, a symphony for your mouth. Enjoy!

Easy Vanilla Ice Cream

I promised yesterday that I'd post my vanilla ice cream recipe on here today, and here it is. It came in the booklet with my ice cream maker but I've modified it a bit.

Easy Vanilla Ice Cream

1 cup sugar
2 tsp lemon juice
3 cups 18% cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Combine all ingredients, mixing well. Pour mixture into ice cream machine.

I keep it in the machine for about an hour then put it in the freezer for a day to let it set. If you don't have a machine I'd recommend mixing it well then stirring about every 10 minutes for at least an hour to let it set well. I stir it every couple of hours until it's fully set.

Also, if you want a yummy chocolate sauce to go on top, try this recipe.

Decadent, delicious low-fat frozen chocolate yogourt

I think the title pretty much says it all. I'd been looking for a yummy chocolate treat that wasn't too rich but still tasted good. Something that warranted the word "treat". And I found it here. Unfortunately the recipe calls for low-fat evaporated milk and I couldn't find a can that wasn't processed (mmm... dipotassium phosphate). But one of the comments had alternate instructions and they were even yummier than the original.

Home-made frozen chocolate yogourt

1 can low-fat sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup dark chocolate (either chips or a broken chocolate bar)
3 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup fat free plain Greek yogourt

Stir chocolate chips and condensed milk in a sauce pan over medium heat until chips are melted and blended in with the milk. Remove from heat and add cocoa and vanilla. Stir until blended then mix in yogourt. Cool.

At this point I spoon it into my ice cream machine (it's very thick) and let it mix for about an hour before putting it in the freezer. If you don't have an ice cream machine, just put it in the freezer immediately and remove to stir about every 10 to 15 minutes for the first hour. I find it needs to freeze for about 24 hours before it's thick enough so make it a day in advance.

If you're making this for a family, you might want to double it as it only makes about two or three bowls. I make this and plain vanilla ice cream so the kids have some choice with their treat (I will post that recipe tomorrow). Enjoy!

What am I eating?

Last week I bought myself a frozen raspberry lemonade. It tasted good; a sweet, lemony slushie. But as I sipped it, I wondered what on earth I was drinking. The raspberry flavour was completely artificial while the lemon had "lemon flavouring" (along with other unspecified natural flavours and a host of other ingredients). The slushie mixture was made of water and a sugar syrup with even more ingredients. I thought how much better that lemonade would have been with real raspberries, lemon juice, a bit of sugar, and ice.

A few days later I got my daughter a can of iced tea. The front of the can bragged about how it's made from "the best stuff on earth" with real tea and natural flavours. As we were walking along, she turned the can around and started reading the ingredients.

"Sodium hexametaphosphate?" she read with some confusion. "I know sodium is salt but what is hexametaphosphate?"

I had to admit I had no idea. Google has subsequently informed me it's used primarily in laboratories, detergents, paints, and photography applications to keep particles from clumping or settling. Why is it in her tea? Is it that hard to shake the can before drinking?

A hundred years ago, if someone had a glass of iced tea, they had tea, cold water, and sugar with maybe some mint or lemon thrown in for flavour. My daughter's can had 11 ingredients (including water) and six of them were not identifiable as food (mmm... calcium disodium edta anyone?). Even though it was lemon iced tea, there was no mention of lemon in the ingredient list.

The following day I was on a forum where someone asked for healthy meal ideas. One person offered a dessert suggestion that consisted of a ready made pie crust, filled with instant pudding and topped with artificial whipped topping. That was when it hit me. We can go all day, eating food, and manage to eat nothing that isn't crammed full of additives and modified ingredients. And many people do. Why does a package of muffins contain xanthan gum and monoglycerides? Why is the milk in my cream cheese modified? How is it modified?


We move in just under a week. Right now our cupboards are almost empty and most of my cooking supplies have been packed. When I restock our fridge and cupboards in our new home, I am restocking with real foods. If I don't recognize an ingredient, that food is not coming into our house. If the ingredients are modified, same thing.

Right now, what I've been doing is finding recipes for the basic ingredients I usually buy ready made. Things like gravy mix and soup stock. I've also been reading ingredient lists at the grocery store. Next Friday I'll be picking up a paper wrapped package of cream cheese, for example, instead of a tub.

This is how I explained our upcoming diet change to my son. "Remember the time I was tired and didn't feel like chopping the potatoes for poutine and we just went out and bought a package of frozen fries? It was a bit quicker but it didn't taste as good as when we usually make it. Now, instead of using powdered gravy mix, I'm going to make my own and it'll taste even better."

I'm wracking my brains for a conclusion but am too tired. I got kept up last night by a bunch of kids skateboarding under my bedroom window. Then, when I tried to take a small nap this afternoon, people outside my building started operating a power washer, a jack hammer, and some piece of heavy machinery that alternated between ramming into something metal and backing up while beeping. Oh, and someone's car horn got stuck and was constantly honking. ALL AT ONCE! That nap didn't happen. My son's due home in 10 minutes. It's totally quiet now. So, in conclusion, here's a gratuitous shot of the teeny bit of the solar eclipse I saw this weekend (taken from a friend's van window)...