Mom's Cherry Cake

Mom's Cherry Cake
3 large eggs
3/4 cup oil
1 1/4 cups granulated (white) sugar
1-2 teaspoons almond extract
2 1/4 cups all-purpose (plain) flour
1 package (four serving size) instant vanilla pudding mix
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 - 11/2 cups red and green maraschino cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 350◦F. Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs. Beat in the oil and sugar. Beat in the almond extract. Stir in the flour, pudding, baking powder, and salt. Fold in the cherries. Bake for 45-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. 

My  mother found this idea for a cherry cake that used a white cake mix, but she made her own recipe that is from scratch. This cake is really moist and sweet with chunks of plump cherries. It doesn't even need a frosting. I bet the addition of some chopped nuts would be welcome as well!

Cream Cheese Frosting

Yesterday I told you about the Pumpkin Carrot Cake that turned out amazing! However, I was not at all a fan of the cream cheese frosting. I am not sure what went wrong; if something was done wrong, or if the recipe was just plain wrong. Because the recipe yielded enough to thickly fully frost, fill, and decorate two bundt cakes, and I only required a thin coat of frosting for one, I scaled down the large recipe by 1/4 for a reasonable size. Could this have made any difference in the final result? Also, time did not permit to allow the cream cheese and butter to fully come to room temperature beforehand, so the microwave was used as a little cheat. 
The proportions of cream cheese, butter, icing sugar, and vanilla seemed right, and real butter and vanilla were used. But in the end, the icing turned out way too thin. Even after doubling the amount of icing sugar, it was still too thin. This frosting should be thick and spreadable, and not drip from a spoon at all when held up. Yet it was thin and runny, which made for poor presentation on the cake as well. Upon tasting, the addition of extra icing sugar certainly did not make the frosting too sweet, as it tasted too sour with a strong taste of cream cheese. Yes, cream cheese frosting should taste like cream cheese, but it should have a smooth, delicate, and sweet taste,which I did not find.
After looking up other cream cheese frosting recipes, I discovered that this recipe is very typical. Actually, most recipes used the same amount I made, so cutting the recipe down did not cause poor results. Maybe it was the combination of the too-small bowl, the overheated butter and cream cheese, the still warm cake, and the spoon in place of the electric mixer. Usually, I don't try to make things in a rush, I allow plenty of time for proper results. With this cake however, I did not have much time, and I had to have it ready by a certain time, so the results were not as good. Lesson learner: don't rush, slow and steady wins the race, and yields the best results.  

Pumpkin Carrot Cake

I came across this recipe recently and both my mother and I were delighted to give it a try! It sounded like such a heavenly fall delight. Delicious, moist spice cake with soft pumpkin flavour and the added benefit of grated carrot for taste and moistness. Add a simple cream cheese frosting, and you're all set! Baking in a bundt pan makes for an attractive-looking cake. After tasting this creation, you may never use a boxed cake mix again! The combination of pumpkin, carrot, spice, and cream cheese is utterly divine, and the cake is so tender, sweet, and moist. Delicious!

Because this is a bundt cake, it really doesn't require much decoration. Just spread the frosting on as best you can, and make a little swirl pattern with the back of a spoon, if desired. However, the recipe also gives a suggestion for feeding a large Halloween crowd. Make two of these cakes, tint the frosting orange, stack the two cakes together and frost to resemble a pumpkin. For the finishing touch, coat a flat-bottomed ice cream goblet with green frosting for the pumpkin stem. It makes a very cute-looking cake.

Chocolate Fudge Swirl Cake

Here is the finished cake! It is a marble cake smothered in a thick vanilla glaze with cherry piping details. The marble cake batter was enriched with yogurt, which I thought would make it extra-moist, and although it certainly wasn't dry, it wasn't outstandingly moist either. Oh well, it is still a pretty good cake with no unneccesary steps, or separating eggs or anything. Just a straight-forward cake batter baked in a bundt pan. Bundt cakes eliminate the tough work of filling and stacking two round cakes, but bundt cakes are a bit more troublesome to frost. I prefer to use a glaze on bundt cakes, and just let it slip down the sides of the cake. Whatever you do, make sure you grease and flour the bundt pan very well (since bundt pans are impossible to line), otherwise you will be stuck with a broken cake!

“Fudge Marble Swirl Cake.” http://www.simplyhomemade.ca/recipes/recipe-details.aspx?rid=4493. Simply Homemade, n.d. Friday, August 19, 2011.