De Baking Psychopath

Mayonnaise = eggs and oil and some random emulsifiers. Therefore, its basic components are not only normal components of any cake, but probably some of the emulsifiers help make this type of cake even plusher and moister than making the cake mix as according to manufacturer's instructions. For some magical reason, it also eliminates the characteristic cake-mix-aftertaste.  Easy to make, tasty to eat, good way to get rid of the dregs of your jar of mayo in the fridge! A good pantry recipe to have on hand. Cake Mix Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake (adapted from Food.com ) Ingredients : 1 box chocolate or devil's food cake mix 2 large eggs 1 & 1/3 cups water (or milk) 1 cup mayonnaise 1 cup chocolate chips (optional) 1 recipe of favorite frosting recipe (optional) Instructions : Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and line a 9x13 inch cake pan (you can use a bundt pan too). In a large mixing bowl, pour in the cake mix (I like to sift it to...

It's official: birthday cakes on this blog have gone 3D. I'm starting to go into unexplored waters with this inaugural cake, the suitably epic Death Star Cake. A friend's new bride threw a party in honor of his birthday, and in the early stages of planning for the party, I proposed a collaboration on the making of the cake. She proposed a Star Wars-themed cake since he loves Star Wars (like any respectable nerdy young man of our generation), and after a couple of weeks of research, we put our plan into action. The day before the party, we got together to bake two cake recipes: a yummy yellow cake in regular 9 inch round cake pans, and a chocolate whiskey cake in Wilton's Sports Ball Pan Set . The day of, we stacked and frosted the cakes with Creamy Vanilla Frosting (note: I made this frosting the night before using it and would discourage everyone from doing the same. It tends to curdle up when you defrost it, even if you whip it with a mixer again. It keeps the te...

I'm back with a doozy! Although the circumstances for which this cake was made was unfortunate--the leaving of one of my co-workers--we more than adequately celebrated her moving on to bigger-and-better things with a meal out to a favorite lab lunch destination and this chocolate-y liqueur-soaked cake with some vanilla bean ice cream. This, my friends, is the Kahlua Cake. The moistest cake-mix-doctoring you will ever lay a fork on. Soaked with a liquored-up glaze while the cake is still warm from the oven. Then covered with a boozy dark chocolate "ganache" icing that just floods over and puddles the cake. (You might have to card guests before serving this cake. My co-workers gave me grief over serving this to a summer student in our lab because you can really taste the alcohol in the icing.) Serve with ice cream (especially vanilla bean ice cream, yum). There really is not that much more to say. Make it soon. Kahlua Cake (adapted from David W.) Ingredients : CAKE: 1 packa...

...allow me to introduce: chocolate square cupcakes! For whatever reason, this year I've been doing a lot of birthday related activities for myself. I don't know if it's because my mother's been reminding me for months that my birthday is coming up, or if this is a special birthday to me because the age I am turning is my childhood favorite number...but from an objective standpoint, I'm not sure why I am anticipating my birthday more this year than in the last two years where I've had my zodiac year as well as significant-fraction-of-a-century birthdays. But in any case, I've already made birthday cupcakes for a joint birthday lunch at lab, almost two weeks before my actual birthday, and I'm making grandiose plans to make a fancy celebration cake from my recently-acquired copy of Baking: From my home to yours for my upcoming birthday party. For the birthday cupcakes, I called up my fancy-cake-making little sister and asked her what she'd recommen...

Hi everyone, sorry for the lack of posts lately. I have been baking but not really taking pictures and labwork has been happily productive so I've been a bit short on time to sit down and crank out the posts. But here are the pictures of the finished pizza using the No-Knead bread dough recipe I promised. After a few days in the fridge, the dough was so flavorful and chewy, and it smelled almost like we put beer in it! The last picture shows the beautiful bubble structure we got in the dough. Yum. It may be the best tasting pizza dough we've made at home EVER. Otherwise I've been baking some "healthy" things, although the ulterior motive is to get rid of some ingredients in the fridge/freezer. 1) Lemon Angel Food Cake Cupcakes. I am too lazy and cheap to go out to buy an angel food cake pan, but I wanted to get rid of the egg whites in my freezer from all those times I made chocolate chip cookies that called for one yolk. Finding this recipe that used muffin...

This may be one of the ugliest Bundt cakes with icing I've seen or made, but at the same time, it is one of the tastiest-looking cakes I've seen as well. Cursed fast-drying icing!! *shakes fist at imaginary pot of icing* GRR!! You will not defeat me next time!! Happily, this cake will grace many more events in my lifetime because of how delicious it was, and so I will have more chances to make the appearance look presentable! Mid-November is a time for whiskey. Not because of some arcane cultural tradition, but because one of my classmates, who is particularly fond of the stuff, has his birthday in mid-November (celebrated belatedly in early December this year). For the last couple of years I have tried to find cake recipes in honor of the occasion, and this recipe outdid my offering for last year, I think. I started out with the Chocolate Whiskey Cake as found on My Baking Adventures and pretty much made the cake as according to the recipe verbatim. Half a cup of whisk...

This week, Michael found out that he passed the PA Bar and is now a licensed attorney!! Yay! It was high time I made him a cake he could keep (almost) all to himself. In the past, I've not made cakes for our birthdays or special occasions unless there was a large crowd to help eat most of it. After all, an entire two-layer, 9-inch cake to yourself may be a delicious and greedy prospect, but in the end, as we get older, we start to notice that our metabolism is just not up to the task of efficiently dispatching of the extra calories. But this time he gets most of the cake to himself, as we only had a couple of people to share the cake with--the surprise party planners! A good friend of Michael's who graduated the year before him suddenly e-mailed me out of the blue on Tuesday, asking if we had plans to celebrate the imminent Bar results (they were estimated to come out on Friday of this week) and if not, if he and his wife could come over and surprise Michael with a bottle of ...

A third goodbye in the lab within the last 8 months, and the heralding of the end of summer. At least there's cake to make it a little better. I have a love affair with the pairing of orange and chocolate (amongst other things), and I have exploited this well-matched flavor combo on more than one occasion, usually in a drunken cake of some sort, often involving Grand Marnier. I always forget how strong this orange-flavored liquor is (40% alcohol, can you believe it?!) and add too generously, resulting in a chocolate cake with an orange punch in the face. So I made the same mistake this time too, but I tried to remedy it by cooking the jam-liquor mixture on the stove a little bit to burn off a little alcohol. Whether the sugar melded with the liquor enough for me not to notice it as much, or if it really burned off, I can't tell, but in any case, it's already soaked into the cake, so too late! The cake comes from Nigella Lawson , the decadently sensuous Brit who makes her...