Zucchini Pineapple Spice Cake with Brown Butter Buttercream

Zucchini and pineapple is not a combination of ingredients that I normally would have thought of putting together, but let me tell you, they work wonderfully together.  This cake is one of the most moist and delicious cakes that I have ever made.  I considered making my famous carrot cake for this occasion (and by famous, I mean it's my family's favorite) but I wanted to try something new, and since it was zucchini season, I started looking for zucchini cake recipe ideas.  Usually when I think about baking with zucchini I tend towards making a quick bread, but I figured it could work in cake, just like carrots do.  While I was browsing I saw a few recipes that included pineapple on the ingredient list. Like I said, at first I wasn't too sure about the combo, but I use pineapple in my carrot cake recipe, so I went with me foodie instincts and the cake turned out great!

The cake is moist, flavorful, and full of wonderful textures, especially from the pineapple pieces and the coconut.  I didn't add any raisins or nuts, even though I think they would be the perfect compliment to this spice cake.  Certain family members... *cough*myhusband*cough* dislike these additions to cakes.  The other nice thing about this cake is that it moderately healthy, as far as cakes go.  There is only a small amount of fat from oil, so the eggs and yogurt really make the cake rich instead of a large amount of oil or butter.  There isn't a ton of regular sugar added either, since a lot of the sweetness is introduced through the pineapple and coconut instead.  That being said, cake is still cake and the ridiculously delicious buttercream cancels out any "healthiness" the cake may or may not have had.

You could make the cake and serve it without any frosting but in my opinion, if you make this cake, you absolutely must make the brown butter buttercream to go with it.  I wish I could do a better job of explaining how well this cake and this frosting go together, but I am at a loss for words.  If you have never tried using brown butter before, this is the perfect recipe to start with because the lovely spiced cake perfectly highlights the deep, rich, not too sweet flavor of this brown butter buttercream.  I hope you give this recipe a try even if it seems a little bit out there for you; it truly is a fantastic spice cake.  

Zucchini Pineapple Cake

1 cup white sugar
3 tbsp vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vanilla or plain greek yogurt
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup sweetened flaked coconut
2 cups grated zucchini
1 (20 oz can) crushed pineapple in juice, drained
1/4 to 1/2 cup reserved juice from pineapple, if needed
1/2 cup raisins and/or chopped pecans or walnuts, optional

Preheat the oven to 350F and grease two 9" cake pans.  Combine the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, greek yogurt, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until well combined.  In a separate bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt and then add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and stir until just barely combined. Stir in the zucchini, pineapple, and coconut.  Also add the raisins and/or nuts, if desired.  Add enough of the reserved pineapple juice, if needed.  The batter should be somewhat on the thin side, but not totally soupy. Evenly divide the batter between the two cake pans and bake for 30 to 35 minutes.  Remove from the oven and let cool for about 20 minutes in the pans and the remove from the pans and cool completely on wire racks.

Inspired by Taste & Tell

Brown Butter Buttercream

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, divided
3-4 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
2-3 tbsp milk or cream

Place 1 stick (1/2 cup) butter in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat and cook until the butter is lightly browned, stirring frequently, about 3-5 minutes.  See my brown butter chocolate chip cookie post for more details on browning butter.  Let the butter cool completely to room temperature.  Mix the other stick (1/2 cup) of softened butter and brown butter together and then incorporate the powdered sugar until you reach the consistency and sweetness of your liking.  Add the vanilla, cinnamon, and enough milk to make the frosting just a bit creamy. You may have leftover buttercream, depending on how you choose to frost your cake.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Funfetti Cookies

So after a long week of the 'I wake up five minutes after going to bed and want to play for another hour' nonsense performed by the little K-man, I was finally able to get all the photos done for this post and am going to try to squeeze in some writing while he naps this morning...which I'm sure will be all of 20 whole minutes.  Teething is fun.

K and I got married five years ago today, on a beautiful mountainside with lovely autumn flowers blooming and the trees just beginning to change color.  Our bouquets were full of bright yellow sunflowers, orange roses, and a mixture of reds, purples, and greens.  My ivory dress was embroidered with maroon swirls and flowers and we couldn't have asked for more beautiful weather.  I have been thinking back to that wonderful, warm and breezy day all morning long.  I'm not really one for sappy public displays of affection, although I did write a fairly mushy facebook post about it earlier, so instead, I thought I would share some of the...more humorous parts of the day.  They weren't so funny then, but at least we look back and have some interesting stories to tell.

We got married about an hour away from home, so our close family and the wedding party stayed in the hotel the night before.  We had our rehearsal dinner and then the group sort of split up into the boys and the girls and we had a pseudo 'last night out' before the big day.  The boys were a bit wild and one of them decided it would be fun to romp around and do some donuts in his new car.  Well it turned out there was a big ditch in the middle of the "field" he thought would be a good place to show off.  So K and two of the groomsmen had fun ride into said ditch and ended up completely covered in mud attempting to rescue the car.  We had to make a pit stop at the mall to buy K new sneakers before our honeymoon...
 

The next morning, my mom brought me and my two bridesmaids over to the salon to get our hair done and she went back to help get some stuff set up.  Our hair appointments finished and yet she wasn't back yet.  So we sat around waiting a few minutes and then called over to the hotel to figure out what was going on.  Finally she comes back and says "ok don't freak out" or something to that effect.....Ahhhh.  Apparently the entire hotel had lost power and everyone there was running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get it back up and running.  Poor K was freaking out and saying things like, well I guess we can just roast hotdogs over a campfire or something, hahah.  Fortunately the kitchen was equipped with gas stoves and kept preparing for our reception and the power was back on with enough time for everyone to shower and get themselves ready for the ceremony to start on time.

There were a few other bumps in the road and some major bridesmaid drama that happened a few weeks before the wedding, but in the end it all worked out and now we have a wonderful, albeit crazy experience to look back on and cherish forever.  I love you K, happy wedding anniversary!

Now that I have babbled on and on, you probably are wondering about these cookies that have nothing to do with my wedding at all.  They are just realllllly good cookies that I made for absolutely no reason other than to be a piggies and eat the whole batch ourselves. The brown butter absolutely makes these cookies amazing. I decided to put dark chocolate chips, M&Ms, and sprinkles in this batch because I was in the mood for bright and colorful cookies, but you could make these with any combo of add-ins that you want.  Basically just make this cookie dough base and jazz it up however you like.  The cookies are perfectly soft and chewy with the slight crisp right around the edges and the depth of flavor from the brown butter is unbeatable.

Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Funfetti Cookies

2 sticks (1 cup) butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup M&Ms
1/4 cup rainbow sprinkles

Melt 1 stick (1/2 cup) of the butter in a small skillet over medium heat.  Stir the butter frequently.  It will foam up and then when the foam starts to subside you will see the butter beginning to turn brown.  Don't let it get too brown because it can burn really easily, so as soon as it is lightly brown, removed from the skillet into another bowl.  Let the butter cool to room temperature.  Combine the browned butter with the other stick of softened butter and the sugars in the large bowl.  Cream the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs one at a time and the vanilla and incorporate well.  Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, salt and flour and just mix until everything is barely combined.  Stir in the chocolate chips, M&Ms and sprinkles.  Reserve some sprinkles to put on the top of each cookie before baking.  Optional:  let the dough rest in the fridge overnight.  This is suppose to really help the flavors develop and the chilled dough bakes a little more evenly than if you bake it right away.  When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350°F and scoop tablespoon size balls of dough onto cookie sheets, about 2 inches apart. Sprinkle each cookie with a few extra sprinkles.  Bake for 10-12 minutes and let the cookies cool completely on wire racks.  These cookies store well for 3-5 days in an air tight container, assuming they last that long!

Enjoy!    

Watermelon Granita

Tomorrow little K will be 5 months old!  I can't believe he is already but at the same time, only five months old.  Last weekend we took a day trip to the beach and had an absolute blast.  Little K has a cousin who is 2.5 months older than him and they were both completely fascinated by the sand, waves, ocean breeze, etc.  We had lots of fun trying to keep as much sand out of their mouths as possible!  This was also their older cousin/sibling, D's (I've mentioned him here before) first real experience at the ocean.  We could not get him out of the waves, despite the chilly 62° temperature. Little K enjoyed a tiny taste of watermelon, in one of those mesh feeders, for the first time at the beach.  He made a lot of confused faces at first, but in the end he was a happy boy, enjoying the sweet watermelon juice.   

This granita is a fantastic way to enjoy the beautiful, summery sweetness of watermelon.  There is a hint of tart, acidic lime juice that kicks the level of deliciousness up a few notches.  The texture of the granita resembles italian ice and melts just perfectly in your mouth.  Granita will keep for months in your freezer, so you can preserve the wonderful, ripe watermelon flavor for the colder months coming soon.  It does take a few hours to make/set but the amount of actual time involved is very little.  My aunt sent me a link to this cool watermelon cutting trick video if you are interested in learning a new way to cube your melon.  I actually had decent success doing this, so it is worth a try!

Here are a few pictures of little K from the past month or so.  All of the long, dark brown hair that he was born with has slowly been falling out and beautiful, blonde hair is growing in.  He looks like a whole new baby, sometimes, just overnight!  He is such a happy boy.  I love watching him discover and experience new things.  He is such a little sponge already, soaking in everything new around him!

Watermelon Granita

1/2 large seedless watermelon (about 6 cups)
Juice of 3 limes
1/4 to 1/3 cup white sugar
Pinch of salt
Additional lime for garnish, optional

Cut up the watermelon into large cubes and discard the rind.  Squeeze the juice of the limes into a blender or food processor and then add as much of the watermelon as you can.  You may have to work in batches. Give the watermelon a few pulses to get started and then add the sugar and salt.  The amount of sugar you add depends on how sweet your watermelon is on its own. Blend this until as smooth as possible.  Pour the liquid into a 9x13 casserole dish or other large, shallow container, preferably with a lid.  If you have to blend the watermelon in batches, be sure to give everything a good stir once it is all combined.  Cover and place the container in the freezer and let freeze for about an hour.  Remove the container from the freezer and use a fork to scrape and stir the mixture, which is probably still fairly liquid at this point.  The edges will be more firm, so scrape everything with the tines of the fork until well combined and little ice crystals are beginning to form.  Repeat this process 2-3 more times, about every hour, until the entire mixture is small crystals of ice. As the granita starts to form, this process gets more difficult, so take your time and really make sure to break it up into tiny little pieces. The granita will keep this texture once complete, so just store in the freezer until you are ready to enjoy.

Strawberry Ice Cream

This recipe actually started out as a bit of a flop for me, but I was able to save it and I adjusted the recipe below for how you should actually prepare the ice cream. Don't be like me!

I really, really, really love ice cream, especially homemade, but store-bought is delicious too  I am pretty much impartial when it comes to flavor, I have yet to meet an ice cream flavor that I don't like, and I don't think I could possibly choose a favorite. So, when strawberry season was here, I decided it was time to try making homemade strawberry ice cream.

I really like the texture of frozen berry chunks in ice cream, so I thought, let's try making the ice cream with a vanilla base and stir in some soft, juicy chunks of strawberry as the ice cream finishes blending.  I thought this would be good because the juices would nicely flavor the vanilla base and there would be lots of frozen berry texture goodness.  Yea, well, that didn't really turn out so great. For some reason, even though the berries tasted delicious fresh, once they were frozen they tasted like frozen chunks of nothing/water stirred into super flavorful, sweet ice cream. I don't know if this was caused by something in my technique or what happened exactly.

So to fix my problem, I let the ice cream soften a bit, blended everything up in my blender, and let the mixture refreeze.  This new, improved, re-blended ice cream tastes amazzzzing. When making homemade ice cream, I am a huge fan of Philadelphia style ice cream, which is basically just cream, milk, sugar and flavorings instead of a custard based mix (which is more common).  Especially with fruit ice creams, I find the flavor to be more pure and the texture to be a bit smoother on the palette.  The ice cream is so fruity and creamy with just enough richness without feeling too heavy.  The flavor and texture of this ice cream as it melts, is actually a really wonderful accompaniment to a warm piece of cobbler, crisp, brownies, cake, etc. If you would put whipped cream on it, you want to put this ice cream on it!

I know strawberry season has passed by for the year, but if you find a good deal on decent tasting strawberries, give this recipe a try or save it for next June when the berries are really worth it again! Oh and just for comparison, the top picture is before fixing the ice cream and the bottom picture is what it looked like after.

Strawberry Ice Cream

2 cups heavy cream
1 cup whole milk
1 cup strawberries, hulled and quartered
3/4 cup white sugar
1 vanilla bean (optional)
1 tbsp vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and sugar over medium heat just until the sugar dissolves, about 2 minutes.  You do not need to even simmer the cream, just dissolve the sugar.  Stir in the milk, vanilla extract and seeds of the vanilla bean, if using.  Use a blender or food processor to blend the strawberries until about 90% pureed.  I like to keep a few small chunks of strawberry pieces in the ice cream, but you can fully blend and strain the mixture if you want the ice cream completely smooth. Add the strawberry puree to the ice cream mixture and stir well.  Let this mixture chill in the fridge for about 1 hour and then prepare in your ice cream machine according to the manufacturer's instructions.  The ice cream will be soft serve consistency, so transfer to a freezer safe container and freeze for at least 2 hours before serving.

Enjoy!

Inspired by Foodwishes

Milk Chocolate Marshmallow Stuffed S'mores Cupcakes

If people started adding quirky, fun pieces of information to their resumes, I would list "Marshmallow Roasting Perfectionist" to my set of skills.  Seriously, ever since I was a little kid, camping with my family or having backyard fires, I have been fine tuning my marshmallow roasting abilities.  There is nothing better than a perfectly golden crisp outside bursting with ooey-gooey melted marshmallow inside. I will never understand those of you who enjoy, as I like to call it, the 'quick and dirty' method of catching the marshmallow on fire and then rushing to blow it out before the whole thing turns to dust!

My summer job during college was working as a counselor at a Girl Scout camp, where we were required to build campfires the "all-natural" way, using birch bark and teeny tiny twig tee-pees to get our campfires started.  At least we got to use matches!  Although, there was usually a contest amongst the staff to see who could have the most "one match only" fires each summer. The camp ran for six weeks each summer with a lunch cookout every Wednesday and then an optional overnight for older girls on Thursdays that included another cookout.  So twice a week, the staff was building fires and cooking over them for the campers.  We made lots of the typical burgers and hotdogs, english muffin pizzas, and even quesadillas over the fires, but dessert was always the favorite.  Banana boats (bananas cut in half, loaded up with marshmallow and chocolate chips wrapped in foil and set on the coals to get melty), or cinnamon roll sticks (Pillsbury crescent roll dough dipped in butter and cinnamon sugar, wrapped around a foil lined stick and roasted) were pretty well liked by the campers, but nothing beat the good old fashioned s'mores!  Just the thought of s'mores at the weekly cookout was enough to keep any camper crankiness at bay :)  I spent a lot of time working with 5-7 year olds and many of them unintentionally fell into the 'quick and dirty' category of roasting marshmallows which usually led to very unhappy campers.  I can't tell you how many times I heard another counselor say "go ask Luna (I'll explain in a minute) to roast you another marshmallow."

I would guess that I roasted several hundred marshmallows over the three summers that I worked at the camp, so needless-to-say, my marshmallow roasting skills are pretty much perfect to this day!  The secret is all in the placement and rotation.  Hold the marshmallow down near the super hot coals, out of the flames and rotate a quarter turn ever few seconds.  With just a little patience, you have a perfect marshmallow every time. Oh and if you were curious about the name "Luna", all of the counselors had to choose "camp names" for themselves as part of the camp's traditions.  It was always fun for the campers to guess what our real names were, but we never revealed them.  I have always been fascinated by the moon, so I chose the name Luna.  Working at that camp has so many wonderful memories. Every summer since then, I think fondly about what a great summer job it was!

These cupcakes taste exactly like a s'more, just in cake form.  The sweet, rich, tender cupcakes are bursting with the creamy marshmallow filling.  I'm sorry that I don't have a picture of one of the cupcakes cut in half so you could see how delicious they looked!  Since the buttercream is made with Hershey's candy bars, it has the perfect milk chocolate flavor that duplicates the melty chocolate in a s'more.  You get a little bit of crunch from the graham cracker crumbs and of course, the star of the cupcake: the sticky, gooey, yet crispy toasted marshmallows puts these s'mores cupcakes over the top!  Make these beautiful, delicious cupcakes before the, alreadyflyingbyIcan'tbelieveitisalreadyAugust, summer is over!

Milk Chocolate Marshmallow Stuffed S'mores Cupcakes

Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup vegetable or canola oil
1 cup white sugar
1 cup brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk*

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line 2 cupcake trays (24 cupcakes) with liners. In a medium bowl whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.  In a separate large bowl whisk together the oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla until well combined.  Pour 1/2 of the dry ingredients and 1/2 of the buttermilk into the wet ingredients and whisk briefly until barely combined. Repeat with the remaining dry ingredients and buttermilk.  The batter will be fairly thin.  Divide evenly into the lined trays, filling each one just under 3/4 full.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.  Let sit for 10 minutes and then remove from the trays to cool completely on a wire rack.

*Buttermilk can be substituted with regular milk and 1 tbsp of white vinegar

Marshmallow filling
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups marshmallow creme (Fluff)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Cream together the butter and marshmallow creme until smooth and fluffy.  Add in the vanilla and powdered sugar and mix well.  The filling should be not be too thin or too stiff, so adjust the powdered sugar amount, if necessary.

Milk Chocolate Buttercream
1 cup butter, room temperature
4 Hershey's milk chocolate bars
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk or heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate bars in the microwave on medium power, 30 seconds at a time, stirring in between until completely smooth and melted.  Let the chocolate cool to room temperature.  Cream together the butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.  Slowly pour in the cream and vanilla and mix until combined.  Beat in the melted, cooled chocolate and whip on medium-high speed for about 3 minutes.

Topping & Assembly
24 marshmallows (I used the "Jet-Puffed Stacker" variety)
2 graham crackers, crushed

Spoon the marshmallow filling into a piping bag or zipper baggie with a small corner cut off.  Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a large star tip (or other tip of your choosing).  Using a small, sharp paring knife, cut a small circular wedge out of the top of each cupcake and set the wedge aside.  Pipe about a large teaspoon sized dollop into the hole and place the piece of cutout cupcake back on top of the filling. You could also just spoon some filling in but I find piping it is much less messy.  Pipe a swirl of the milk chocolate buttercream onto each cupcake and sprinkle with some graham cracker crumbs.  Place your marshmallows onto a silpat or parchment paper lined baking sheet and toast them under the broiler.  Make sure to watch closely because they toast pretty fast.  You probably will need to work in batches for this step. Use a greased turner or spatula to remove from the baking sheet and place onto of the cupcakes.  These cupcakes are best served within a few hours of assembling so if you make the cupcakes ahead of time, make sure to wait to assemble until shortly before serving!

Enjoy!

Inspired by Sally's Baking Addiction & Comfortably Domestic