Red Velvet Cupcakes November 23, 2008
Posted by Dorothy in cake, chocolate, cupcakes, video.Tags: chocolate, cream cheese frosting, cupcake, frosting, magnolia bakery, red velvet, red velvet recipe, smittenkitchen, southern, sprinkles
11 comments
Everyone loves Red Velvet. I don’t get it! Personally, I’ve never found it that mesmerizing before. Most red velvet cakes don’t have that much taste by themselves; the frosting completely makes the cake. I don’t even really like the cake unless it has cream cheese frosting on it!
I’ve made the cake a couple times before, but its never made a lasting impression on me. I don’t even really like making it either! Its like doing a science experiment – all that food coloring and all those acids… my batter always starts bubbling like crazy when I add the vinegar to the rest of the batter – is that even supposed to happen??!
But no matter what the occassion, people always go gaga over Red Velvet. If I don’t know what kind of cake someone likes or what kind of cake to bring, I always default to making a red velvet cake. And am always rewarded with gasps, oohs, ahhhs, and once, even applause.
I made this cake three times this past week – One for a friend’s birthday, another one for a movie night, and cupcakes to bring in to work. And the red cake was excitedly welcomed every time. Funny how well the same cake worked for all the different settings. See, everyone loves red velvet!
Most red velvet cakes are some variation of a sponge cake or a buttermilk cake with the barest hint of cocoa. I like mine with a lot of cocoa. I like to use the recipe from SmittenKitchen (best website ever!!!), because it has a half cup of cocoa and gives the cake the perfect taste of chocolate. And the site has tons of gorgeously inspiring photos that just make you want to bake everything ever posted on there. Here’s the recipe. There’s also a recipe for the cream cheese frosting.
Oh, and check out this helpful video tutorial on how to frost your cupcakes Magnolia Bakery style (I tried recreate the look in the first picture above)!
Divino – really, its divine November 19, 2008
Posted by Dorothy in sweet eats.Tags: apple tart, brentwood, caramel, cheese, europe, goat cheese, italian, james bond, los angeles, pinkberry, restaurant, salad, salmon, tiramisu, tomato, vanilla
3 comments
Divino is a little piece of hidden heaven tucked away in a corner of Brentwood. And I’m so glad I found it!
Now, I don’t usually give restaurant reviews unless the dessert is fantastic, or there’s something really interesting, but this place was so fantastic, I have to share with everyone (for those of you who don’t live near LA, I’m sorry, you’re just going to have to salivate over my photos)!
This restaurant is not the easiest to find unless you know where it is or are specifically looking for it. Its hidden inside a little alcove inside another alcove in a corner of Sunset and Barrington in Brentwood, Los Angeles. Its in a festively cozy dining area surrounded by other little known delicious eats; it almost looks like a piece of Europe in the middle of Brentwood. Divino is located next to a bright, futuristic-looking Pinkberry, which looks ridiculously out of place among the other nostalgic homey eateries in the plaza. The restaurant is cozily fancy, atmospheric-ly candlelit, and reminded me of Diane Lane’s “Under the Tuscan Sun” (I’ve never been to Europe, so I always have to compare to movies!).
Divino specializes in Italian cuisine, and is as authentic as it gets (according to my European international student friends). The owners are an impeccably dressed, gorgeous couple from Italy. They are the nicest and so charming! I wish I had taken a picture with them, because they look like they just stepped out of a James Bond film. My Croatian friend and I had a fabulous, lazy, European-style-drawn-out, delicious, satisfying (a little too satisfying) dinner there. Every dish was incredibly fresh and perfectly portioned.
One of my favorite parts about Divino (other than the food, the charming owners, and everything else, hahaha) is the menu. There is a dinner menu, but we barely touched ours. Like in Europe, Divino has a person who walks around to every table and announces the (numerous) specials of the night; basically, a live menu. The owners also walk around with recommendations from the menu and the specials. Everything we had that night were specials or recommendations.
We started off with a cheese-based salad. The salad was made up of spring greens and roasted bell peppers on top of a bed of young cheese (similar to goat cheese) with a generous slice of proscuitto. The salad was dressed up with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Look how gorgeous it is!!!
proscuitto salad
For appetizers, we had a chutneyish tomato and young cheese soup. I really liked this! It went really well with the foccacia bread they bring you.
tomato tip
Our first entree of the night was spinach rigatoni with chicken and porcini mushrooms. The flavorful spinach pasta sauce was absolutely delicious, and the most beautiful forest green color.
spinach pasta with chicken and porcini mushrooms
After the delicious pasta, we were still salivating over the menu and specials, so we ordered another entree. For our second entree, we had salmon and capers with a side of greens and tomatos (the salmon that comes with your order is usually twice the size of my salmon pictured; I specifically asked for half a salmon fillet because I wanted to save room for dessert!). The salmon was perfection, and I really wish I had ordered an entire fillet.
salmon with capers
And then dessert! My favorite part!! We had the tiramisu and the apple tart (pictured above) with vanilla caramel sauce. I was in LOVE with that vanilla caramel sauce. It was the perfect combination of the caramel and vanilla flavors; neither one overpowered the other. I could drown in that sauce. And the tiramisu was fantastic, too. The mascarpone filling was the lightest and fluffiest ever. The tiramisu just melted in my mouth.
tiramisu
This place really is divine.
Divino
11714 Barrington Ct.
Brentwood, CA 90049
(310) 472-0886
Tips for diners: Even though this is a neighborhood restaurant, the place is always packed! Divino’s has many loyal regulars, as the prices are low for the quality you get. I would definitely recommend making reservations.
Post Halloween – Chocolate Peanut Butter Leftover Candy Cake November 15, 2008
Posted by Dorothy in cake, chocolate.Tags: butterfinger, cake, candy, chocolate, fudge, halloween, hannah montana, leftover, lola, party, peanut butter, puppy, reese's, snow white
10 comments
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Its kind of late to be posting about Halloween, but I just haven’t had a chance to blog!!! I made this cake a couple days after Halloween with my trick-or-treating candy. Halloween was Supersuper this year!
I had two Halloweens this year – one was the basic Halloween with miniature goblins and ghouls and the other one was the college version of Halloween. I went trick-or-treating with some 5-year-old darlings, and then after they got tired, I went trick-or-treating with the double digits crowd. Then came the usual Halloween party (college apartment plus chocolate). This year I was Lola Luftnagle, Hannah Montana’s best friend! Ace was Hannah Montana!
Lola and Hannah:
Halloween was great this year, because I got a ton of candy! I didn’t weigh my bag, but it was heavy and made my arm hurt, which is enough candy for me! I definitely cashed out in the chocolate sector, as the majority of candy I got were Reeses, Snickers, or Milky Ways. Yay!
Here’s my adorable neighbor, Snow White:
I noticed that people were less generous this year (most houses only gave out 1 or 2 fun sized candies – and I was trick or treating in Bel Air!) but a lot more houses left candy outside their doors instead of answering the door themselves.
Two days after Halloween, I’d eaten through probably half of my stash and was craving real dessert. So I combined Halloween and dessert and made some Chocolate Peanut Butter Leftover Candy Cake! This is a great (and SUPERdelicious) chocolate cake with the addition of my leftover Reese’s and Butterfinger candies. If you have any left…
Chocolate Peanut Butter Leftover Candy Cake (chocolate cake recipe from Martha Stewart)
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 c Reese’s, chopped
5 fun-sized Butterfingers, crushed
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray a 9×13 in. pan with cooking spray. In a large mixing bowl, sift together cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla; mix batter until smooth, about 3 minutes. Fold in the Reese’s and Butterfinger candies. Pour into pan and bake for 25 – 30 minutes.
Chocolate Frosting
8 ounces dark chocolate, chopped
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
Microwave cream on high in a medium bowl for 45 seconds. Pour over chocolate and whisk together until melted. Add peanut butter and whisk until smooth.
Frost cake and enjoy!
Pumpkin Brownie Bars November 2, 2008
Posted by Dorothy in bars, chocolate.Tags: bar, brownies, cheesecake, chocolate, cream cheese, fall, halloween, pumpkin, recipe, yogurt
12 comments
I have so much pumpkin left! I opened a 64 oz. can of pumpkin puree, used 1/3 c of the pumpkin, and now I have all this pumpkin puree and I don’t know what to do with it. I’ve been searching blogs and sites all day, looking at pumpkin recipes. And these gorgeous Pumpkin Brownie Bars, from Recipe Girl, looked the yummiest! And I actually had the majority of the ingredients! (The worst part of being swamped with midterms is that there is absolutely no time to run to the market to get baking ingredients)! I ended up substituting for some of the ingredients, but the bars still turned out super! I didn’t have cream cheese on hand, so I ended up using fat free Greek yogurt, which worked amazingly well. And I guess it makes it healthier too! I was quite surprised. I must try making cheesecake with Greek yogurt someday!!
Pumpkin Brownie Bars (adapted from here)
Pumpkin Batter:
1 Tbsp butter, softened
1/3 c Greek yogurt
1/3 c granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/3 c pumpkin puree
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbsp all-purpose flour (which I accidentally left out, but the bars still came out great!)
For the brownies:
5 oz. semisweet chocolate
1 1/4 stick butter, cut into cubes
1 1/2 c granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/3 c all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a 13×9 baking pan with cooking spray. Prepare pumpkin batter: In a small bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter with cream cheese until smooth. Beat in sugar, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, then add pumpkin puree, vanilla, cinnamon and ginger. Stir in flour. For the chocolate batter: melt the chocolate in the microwave, stirring at 30 second intervals for 1 minute. In a separate bowl, combine eggs with sugar, vanilla and salt. Beat at low speed until light and fluffy- about 4 minutes. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in melted chocolate. Sift flour over the batter and fold it in just until combined. Spread chocolate batter evenly in prepared pan. Using a Tablespoon, drop dollops of the pumpkin batter all over the top. Using the back of a butter knife, swirl the pumpkin batter slightly into the chocolate. Bake for 40 – 45 minutes. Let them cool before enjoying!!
And I still have a ton of pumpkin puree left! Do you have any yummy pumpkin recipe suggestions??
