SCRATCH BAKERS: Post your BEST recipes!!!!!!!!!! - Page 5

one thing I like about the cake bible is that her recipe is so easy to adapt to different mold sizes, has someone double or cut the recipe they are posting successfully? I think this is a very important thing to ad when you post your scratch recipe

I started out using Swans Down, after I tried Softasilk that's all I will use now unless I go to the cake supply store. Then I will buy High Ratio cake flour.

I can't wait til they add the feature of being able to add comments to recipes here on CC. The stars aren't super helpful especially since its only an average, and it would be nice to see why someone only gave it 2 stars...what didn't they like that someone else did and may have given it 5? Was it the flavor, texture, usability? How many times did you try to make it? What if someone had a fabulous recipe but tried it and forgot to add eggs or something and it flopped and then they gave it a bad star-ing and no one else tried it because of? It would be nice to know these things.

My ideal setup would be to see what EACH person rated the recipe and then comments why.

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THIS!! I've always wondered.

Thank you all!!!

I'm currently a box baker for the staples (white, yellow, and chocolate)with intentions of going all scratch once the little ones (9months, 2.5 and 6) give me a litte more free time, but these cakes, for me, HAVE to be scratch:

Here is another carrot cake, that I've made for my carrot cake lovin' dad for years:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Best-Carrot-Cake-Ever/Detail.aspx

Then he went South Beach on me, so I started making him this whole-wheat one, which is very good:

http://www.bobsredmill.com/recipe/detail.php?rid=931

These next three are from Cooking Light, but are easily the most requested and raved about:

Lemonade Layer Cake
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=249959

Orange Marmalade Layer Cake
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=549967

Pumpkin-Orange Cake (the most popular of the bunch)
http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=701058

Before I started my business I did a cake tasting for friends and neighbors to get a recipe for white cake, yellow cake, and chocolate cake. The WBH white cake won and Toba Garretts chocolate Fudge cake won. Can't remember who's yellow cake won but will look when I get a chance. The only problem I have is that the chocolate Fudge Cake by Toba always sinks in the middle. Anyone know what I am doing wrong? It is cooked all the way and tastes great but is sunken.

I love, love, love this recipe!! It tastes great and makes the house smell great when it is baking. The only problem I had with it was the frosting recipe makes way too much, it needs scaled down to about 1/3 of what is called for, and when I made it I must had done something wrong because it was slightly soupy but soooo yummy that I just "smeared" in over the cake.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Buttercream:
500 milliliters egg whites
800 grams granulated sugar
900 grams unsalted butter, room temperature
250 grams white chocolate, melted and cooled
250 grams dark chocolate, melted and cooled
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons sweet ancho chile pepper
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Cinnamon Vanilla Cake:
2 sticks butter
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract


Mexican Hot Chocolate Buttercream:
Combine the egg whites and sugar in a stand mixer bowl and whisk to combine. Place bowl over simmering water while whisking regularly until the mixture reaches 140 degrees F on an instant-read thermometer and the sugar is completely dissolved. Remove bowl from heat and whip the mixture at medium to high speed until the meringue has cooled almost completely.
Slowly add the room temperature butter piece by piece until the buttercream takes on a cottage cheese consistency. Add the melted cooled chocolates, spices, and vanilla until incorporated and smooth.

Cinnamon Vanilla Cake:
Cream the butter in a stand mixer until smooth and light. Add sugar and continue to mix until fully incorporated and fluffy.

Add 1 egg at a time, beating well after each addition. In a medium bowl sift together flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine milk and vanilla. Add portions of the flour mixture and milk mixture to the electric mixer, alternating, starting and ending with flour. Pour evenly into 2 buttered and floured 9-inch cake pans.

Bake for 40 minutes or until golden - cake should pull away from the side and spring back to the touch.

Frost cake and decorate as desired.


This recipe was provided by professional chefs and has been scaled down from a bulk recipe provided by a restaurant. The Food Network Kitchens chefs have not tested this recipe, in the proportions indicated, and therefore, we cannot make any representation as to the results.

Val

Softassilk cake flour in my opinion is superior. It's made by pillsbury. It doesn't have to be sifted because it is a fine flour, But I still sift it. A big problem with doing scratch cakes for some is that they don't sift their flour first. Sift first, then measure.

Here is my aunt's Apple Cake

3 cups unsifted flour
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp mace
2 cups sugar (can use less to cut the sweetness)
1 cup oil
3 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp vanilla
3 cups peeled and diced Granny Smiths (or other tart baking apple)
1 cup coarsly chopped walnuts (sprinkled with a bit of lemon juice)
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat ove to 325

Mix everything together by hand, adding the apple, raisins, and nuts last. An electric mixture ruins the texture (so says the recipe, I've been to afraid to go against her instructions ).

Pour batter into a prepared Bundt pan.

Bake for one hour, or until insterted toothpick comes out clean.


And my grandmother's Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup sugar
3 eggs, separated
6-7 tbsp pineapple juice
1/8 - 1/4 cup melted butter
1/4 - 1/3 cup brown sugar
1 small can pineapple slices (saving the juice for above)
marachino cherries

Preheat oven to 350.

Beat egg yolks until lemon colored. Mix in 3/4 cup sugar. Sift together baking powder and flour. Alternately add flour and juice into egg yolk mixture, starting and ending with the flour. Mix until smooth.

Beat egg white and slowly add the remaining 1/4 sugar, beat until stiff peaks.

Gently fold egg whites into batter. Pour melted butter into a 10 - 12" round pan. Sprinkle brown sugar over the butter. Arrange pineapple and cherries in the pan. Pour batter in, bake for 45 minutes, or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

I love all of these scratch recipes. Does anyone have a good milk chocolate buttercream recipe? All of the ones I've tried are too chocolatey. I just want a good milk chocolate taste that is thick enough to decorate with.

I'm at work right now so I can write it out for you, but I like Kahala's chocolate frosting from www.cooks.com

Ooooooo vrmcc1 that Mexican Hot Chocolate Buttercream sounds AMAZING!

I do hope a couple good German Chocolate Cake recipes get posted here. I've been searching for a good one ever since a local place here that had the most heavenly GCC ever closed down. Anyone here from El Paso that used to sell their cakes to The Eatery on the eastside? (Can't blame a girl for trying) But I've tried a couple scratch, and none have come close, and DH still prefers the box mix to those I've tried thus far.

very interesting topic! Thank you for thinking of it.

There are some great sounding recipes here! I'm going to give them a go one by one. I don't have any cake orders coming up but since I always want to play I will use this time to try these cakes and do some decorating that I've been wanting to try.

Thanks to the posters.