Orange Cheesecake Gateau

You voted and chose Orange Cheesecake Gateau! Last week I this and brought it to my swim practice. Everybody, of course, got a small piece, for, this was only meant to serve 10 people and it served 20! This  calls for the regular recipe and also:

The Mix:

• 1 tsp of orange extract/orange flower water (this is in substitution of vanilla extract)
• 2 tbsp of orange juice (in place of milk)

The Frosting:

• 2 2/3 cup of mascarpone cheese
• finely grated rind of 1 orange
• 4 tbsp of orange juice
• 1/2 cup of confectioners' sugar
• 1 tsp of orange extract

The Topping:

• Maple Syrup for brushing
• 1 orange peeled and sliced

I greased the pans and pre-heated the oven to 350 degrees. I made the mix and filled the pans. To my surprise, the mix only came up halfway in the pans. I put them in the oven anyway. While they were baking I measured out the mascarpone, orange juice, confectioners' sugar, orange extract and grated the orange. I beat them all in a big bowl and spooned it into my piping bag and put the star tip on it. The consistency of the frosting was very runny and didn't look like it did in the photo. To test out my newly bought piping bag I piped the in between and around. I brushed with maple syrup with a pastry brush and, put my chopped orange on top.  After letting sit in the fridge over night, the fridge the frosting miraculously hardened. I brought it to swim practice in a cake carrier, that didn't make it shift while in tow. There was more than enough to go around, so of course I ate more than more share. It was delicious! Another amazing cake! Next up a mysterious guest baker will help me create cupcakes.

Side View of Cake

The picture in the book

Bird's Eye View of Cake

Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes

Greetings.

Sorry if this is a late posting, I've been really busy and I usually upload on Sunday, but I did these late Monday night. I've had a very busy week and I apologize for not posting sooner. Last week I made Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. I had to make two batches, because a mix up in the ingredients. I brought these into school, and everybody loved them! This recipe calls for the basic cake mix (see previous post.)
For the Mix:

• Instead of 1 tsp. of vanilla extract it calls for peppermint extract
• 1/2 cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

For the Sauce:

• 3 1/2 oz of semisweet chocolate, melted (I used dark)
• 10 mint chocolate sticks broken into short lengths (I couldn't find them, so I used Andes)

This recipe comes from the book: 1 Mix, 100 Cakes by, Christine France  I do not own the publishing copyrights to this book. This recipe was very delicious, but it is not correct. It says it serves 32, but it really only serves 24, so if you make this recipe it will only make 2 dozen. I set the oven to 350, put the cupcake liners in the muffin pan and set to work on the mixing. I made the basic cake mix, except substituting the vanilla extract for peppermint extract. After mixing with my mixer I stirred the chocolate chips and set to work filling the liners. I assumed they would rise a lot, so I filled them about 1/5 of the way up, so each cupcake had an equal amount of batter. I put them in the oven and started the timer for 15 minutes. While they were baking I melted the chocolate in a heavily buttered pan. When I took them out I realized A) Some were very small and B) The ones I put on the bottom rack the bottoms burned :(. I picked out the reasonable sized ones and dribbled the chocolate on them and then finished each one off with an Andes. I had to throw out the burned ones and the small ones I kept for my family. I made another batch and they turned out perfectly. (However, I only filled 24 cupcake liners.) Thanks for reading, everybody!

My [very bad] photo of a cupcake.

Carrot Cake with Orange Frosting

Hello, I am on a baking roll! This is my last day of vacation, so I'll only be baking cakes weekly. This recipe was very easy, but took longer than the others. It used the basic cake mix except substituting the tbsp  of milk for orange juice. It also included:
Mix

• 1tsp of ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• scant 1 1/2 cups of grated carrots
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (I used walnuts)
• pecan halves, to decorate (I used full walnuts)

Frosting

• 1/4 cup whole-fat cream cheese
• 2 1/4 cups confections' sugar
• finely grated rind of 1 orange
• 1 tbsp orange juice, plus extra if needed

Please note: this recipe is from the book: 1 Mix, 100 Cakes By Christine France. I do not own the copyright to this.
First I made the frosting and it turned out perfectly, but it looked like there was more orange zest in the picture then there was in the photo. The frosting was magnifique! Once again I would recommend mixing with a wooden spoon to get the cream cheese lumps out. The cake was also a piece of cake (sorry, bad pun) I just put all the ingredients in and beated and whollah! It looked delicious, the cinnamon and carrot were very noticeable, but not so much the walnuts. I brought this to a party and everybody loved it. There was some mix-up with the oven being 350 instead of 325, but I took it out at 40 minutes (as opposed to an hour) and it was  fine. Because of that I was worried about not being to moist, but it turned out perfectly. Next up, I will be baking Peppermint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. Thanks for reading, bye!

Cake from bird's eye view

Cake from side 

Vanilla Sponge Layer Cake

Vanilla Sponge Layer Cake
This cake like all the others in the book I'm using, 1 Mix 100 Cakes, builds off of the cake mix I chronicled in my last blog post. One thing that left me flustered, once again, it looked exactly like it was pictured. Even with my little experience in baking my mother's ever occasional cake never turns out how it does on the box. OK, now to the baking! The actual cake was just the cake mix with a filling and jam in between. In addition to the regular ingredients this also included:

• 1/4 cup of unsalted butter
• 1 cup of confectioners' sugar (plus extra for dusting)
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 tbsp strawberry jelly (I used marionberry, and it turned out fine)

After baking in the oven at 350˚F for 25 minutes I pulled out the golden cakes and let them cool for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, I was doing the filling which consisted of all of the above not including the jelly. It says to beat, but I recommend smushing with a wooden spoon to get all the lumps out. Then, I beated it with my beater, but I was using a small bowl and drops of butter went everywhere! I transferred the small amount of ingredients to a bowl too big for them. It worked, but the beater still flicked the filling into my hair and all over my apron.

After that I just spread it across the top of one cake and spread the jelly on the bottom of the other cake. I put them together and violá! A miracle! It looked so beautiful, I almost doubted eating it. I sprinkled a little powdered sugar before serving and it was picture perfect. The cake was very easy to make, only took about 1 hour 15 minutes (including cooking time and cooling time) 8 out of 8 people found the cake more delicious than the boxed Christmas cake we made. Here's the final result (sorry for the bad images, they will improve soon. The pictures also don't do the cake justice):

Unfortunately, the night we ate the cake a cat got into the house (we're still in Puerto Rico) and ate the final two pieces of cake :(

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Sophia

Basic Cake Mix

This cake mix is from the book 1 Mix, 100 Cakes by, Christine France. The ingredients are:

• oil or melted butter, for greasing
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp of baking powder
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• generous 3/4 cup of superfine sugar
• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp of vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp milk

Occasionally it may substitute some of the ingredients for some things close to substituted food item depending on the recipe. The great thing about the book is that, every recipe uses that basic cake mix, so it's easy always have the ingredients at your home. Another thing that amazed me about this recipe was that it looked exactly like it was shown in the photo. Thanks for reading!

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Sophia

Christmas Cake

Hello, this is the first cake, this Christmas cake, that really got me inspired to bake all these cakes. My grandma and I decided to make from a mix a thing we did only because we were in Puerto Rico and we couldn't some of the ingredients to make the home made mix. One half of the cake was yellow cake and the other half was chocolate cake. In between and on top was a thin layer of vanilla frosting. and on top of all that was white fondant. We decorated the fondant covered cake with red, green, and yellow fondant cutouts of Christmas characters. We also made pudding filled cupcakes from the remainder of the mix. My family thought the cake was super moist (When the Betty Crocker says super moist they really mean it) and the handmade marshmallow fondant was delicious. (credit to allrecipes.com for the recipe) All in all I thought it turned out pretty good being my first cake.

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Sophia and in Christmas 2011 I received a book titled: 100 Cakes, 1 Mix. By: Christine France. Over a period of two years I will try my best to make every cake in the book. My blog posts will include pictures and reviews from friends and family. I will also include other things I didn't bake from the book. I will try my best to fulfill any requests people want me to bake in the comment. Thanks for reading!