Feelin saucy

Have we recovered from our Thanksglutting Day food comas? Pretty sure I ate the better part of a pie by my lonesome. Let’s make something a bit less damaging, yes?

Because this applesauce snack cake is unremarkable, but I think that is its intent. It’s not here to wow or awe or in any way bowl you over. Not everyone can be a 4 layer cake of things that will be the death of me. But you know, it’s mildly spiced and not terrifically bad for you and it contains apples. It begs for cream cheese frosting but I didn’t have any and, to quote my roommate, “withholding really gets you off, doesn’t it?” So I’m making this cake suffer, because apparently I’m somewhat of a sado-masochist. You know, in the good way.

But really this cake came about because I had all this homemade applesauce, which I made a week or so-ish ago but didn’t photograph because it was EXTREMELY rushed. I was all out of sorts because it was the same day I donated my car, and I had a soccer game to attend, but I had all these half-rotting apples, and I knew if I didn’t make it right that moment those apples would’ve gone to the great compost heap in the sky. So I literally banged out applesauce in like 30 minutes. I have never peeled apples so fast in my life. Anyway.

I’ve eaten my heart’s content in applesauce of late and the idea of an applesauce cake really spoke to me. But you know what I missed in this cake? Chunks of apple. Don’t get me wrong, my applesauce was a chunky applesauce, but with the initial cooking down, and then on top of that the baking inside the cake, the chunks essentially disappear. And although it’s nice to have a smooth, moist cake, I am just one of those people who is always searching for bursts of fruit. So, noted for the future, applesauce cake sounds really cute but if you’re chunky peanut butter type, creamy is never going to get your rocks off. Also, next time, would double the spices AT LEAST. And add allspice. Which I did. But double it.

I improv’d (and thusly, improved [ooh yeah that was a good word play]) a quick sour-cream-swirled-with-honey topping, which was INCREDIBLY GOOD, and everything was ok. Everything is ok. You hear that? Everything is fine. We’re fiiine. We’re fine.

Spiced Applesauce Snack Cake
adapted from eat make read

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (about 13 ounces or 365 grams) unsweetened applesauce

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Butter an 8- or 9-inch square cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.
Beat butter, brown sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes.
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in applesauce.
At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just combined, then stir in walnuts (if using). The batter will look a little curdly and uneven but don’t worry, it will all bake up perfectly in the end.
Spread batter evenly in pan and bake until golden-brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes.
Cool in pan 15 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake to loosen, then invert onto a plate. Reinvert cake onto a rack to cool completely.

OH YEAH HAPPY THANKSGIVING

EAT PIE. This one, specifically. Or this one. OR BOTH.

LOVE YOU, SMOOCHES! MINI PIE, PEACE OUT.

Sweet&spicy

Just thought I’d keep the theme going because some days there is not enough coffee in existence to make it possible for my brain to come up with a simple thing like a blog post title. If you’re wondering if today is one such day IT REALLY IS IN A BAD WAY.

Anyway, my sister came to visit the other week and bought all the supplies for making chai but never actually made it. So I took advantage, because this Sunday morning I was feeling particularly lifeless and I needed some warm beverage to convince me I was, in fact, still a human being. I had the feeling some spicy chai would awake my dormant soul. At least it would make my mouth tingle a little bit, which is allegedly a sensation that human beings experience. So I embarked on a homemade chai journey. Which is like super easy, if a bit of a time suck.

The only thing you really have to DO is slice some ginger, which is a pretty simple task. Then you just chuck everything in some boiling water and let it do what it does.

There are about a million variations on chai, and this one I just sorta wung. As long as you have ginger, cardamom, and peppercorns I think you are golden. This recipe didn’t call for cinnamon but recently I have been desperately hot for cinnamon and I needed some in there. I think it’s because San Francisco decided to cannonball into fall this week, dropping about 30 degrees and adding like a really fucking unnecessary amount of drear and gloom. But also a thunderstorm, which pleased me greatly.

Also my apartment is cold as a witch’s teat. Seriously, during the “hot days” it is an absolute blessing. But so far this “fall” we have experienced some wretchedly miserable evenings. It’s the kind of cold that just makes you ever-so-slightly uncomfortable and cranky all the time (which, shockingly, is not my neutral state, despite how i may come off on this here blog). It’s not cold enough to be teeth-chattering, but like, everything is the worst, and you live under a pile of blankets on the couch, and doing anything is impossible and why am I alive. I just want to be a bear and hibernate forever.

Chai
adapted from Moosewood New Classics

3 cups boiling water
5 to 6 whole cloves (i used a bit more, love me some fucking cloves dudes)
6 to 8 whole peppercorns
1″ piece of ginger, sliced
1/2 tsp cardamom seeds (i used cardamom pods)
2″ of cinnamon stick (optional)
2 heaping teaspoonfuls or 2 teabags black tea

milk and honey to taste

Boil the water and add all the spices & ginger. Let boil until liquid is reduced to 2 cups, 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and add tea, let steep 5-6 minutes. Strain and put liquid back into pot. Add honey & milk to your liking.

Sweet&savory

Yeahhhhhh seriously you’re going to have to make these scones.

I’m not one of those people who likes apple pies with cheese on top. I don’t know, it feels gimmicky to me, even though I’m obviously an emphatic cheese lover. And it’s not that I’m afraid of the apple-cheese combo. I grew up eating apple slices and cheddar cheese as a special treat snack. My grandmother would cut the apples with a ruffling knife and it was pretty much the best thing in the entire universe.

It wasn’t my idea to make these scones, so I can’t take credit for their existence in my apartment on this exceptionally chilly San Francisco Sunday. I’ll even admit that I had my doubts. They were mostly cheese-on-apple-pie related doubts, and they were strong enough to keep me from exploring this recipe on my own.

But holy moly, I am SO glad someone else saw something in these that I didn’t. Because they are downright phenomenal. They are perfect. They taste like cold thunderstorms and pacific air. They taste like a new fleece. They taste like wet decaying leaves. But like, damn gina, in the best way possible.

I used Pink Lady apples, cuz I’ma lady. They weren’t Macintoshes but they were crisp and sweet and perfect for this recipe. Roasting them makes them wonderfully soft and slightly caramel-y.

So. You know. Yeah. Ummm. Ok, what is UP with me today? I am speaking in relatively comprehensible sentences and I haven’t cursed yet this whole post! Nor have I talked about sex, nor have I mentioned spilling something on my shirt. So ok how about just: oh my fucking god guys these scones are so bitchin good like a million orgasms dirty shirt!!

That should about cover it.

Apple and Cheddar Scones
yoinked from SK who found it in The Perfect Finish

Makes 6 generous scones

2 firm tart apples (1 pound or 2 454 grams)
1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces or 195 grams) all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar plus 1 1/2 tablespoons for sprinkling (total of 2.2 ounces or 63 grams)
1/2 tablespoon (7 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt (3 grams) plus additional for egg wash
6 tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams)unsalted butter, chilled and cut into 1/2-inch cubes plus additional for baking sheet if not lining it with parchment
1/2 cup (2.25 ounces or 65 grams) sharp cheddar, shredded (white is recommended, I assume for aesthetics)
1/4 cup (2 ounces) heavy cream
2 large eggs

Position a rack at the center of oven and preheat oven to 375 °F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Peel and core apples, then cut them into one-sixteenths. (I assumed this meant chunks, not slivers.) Placed them in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake them until they take on a little color and feel dry to the touch, about 20 minutes. They will be about half-baked. Let them cool completely. (You can speed this up in the fridge, as I did.) Leave oven on.

Sift or whisk flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Set aside. Place butter in the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, along with cooled apple chunks, cheese, cream and one egg. Sprinkle flour mixture over the top and mix on low speed until the dough just comes together. Do not overmix.

[Don't have a stand or hand mixer? I'd rub the cold butter into the flour mixture with my fingertips or with a pastry blender, hand-chop the apples coarsely and mix the rest together with a wooden spoon until combined. It might feel awkward, but it should all come together. Again, don't overmix it though it will be harder to do this by hand.]

Generously flour your counter top and place the scone dough on top of it. Sprinkle with flour. Use a rolling pin to gently roll (or use your hands to pat) the dough into a 1 1/4-inch thick, 6-inch circle. Cut circle into 6 wedges. Transfer them to a baking sheet that has either been buttered or lined with a fresh sheet of parchment paper. Leave at least 2 inches between each scone.

Beat remaining egg in a small bowl with a pinch of salt. Brush the scones with egg wash and sprinkle them with remaining tablespoon of sugar. Bake until firm and golden, about 30 minutes. With a spatula, lift them to a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes. Before you eat one, make sure you realize how addictive they might be. Once you’ve got that down, go for it anyway.

Sweet&salty

Continuing our theme of things-that-Katrina-can’t-physically-be-around, enter Sweet & Salty cake from the Baked cookbook. Those fucking cute bearded hipsters. Those tricky bastards. They made me do this.

Because I’m going to play this one straight with you: this is probably the unhealthiest cake I’ve ever made, ever. 2 batches of caramel, one salted. AN ENTIRE POUND of dark chocolate. And you know what those skinny-jeans wearing assholes told me to put in the frosting?? 4 sticks of butter. 4 unholy sticks of butter. That is just. I don’t even know what that is. It’s murderous.

So you know what I did? I cut that shit in half. That’s right. I took 2 entire sticks of butter out of the frosting. Because I got to the point where I’d put in 2 sticks, and I tasted it, and it was already pretty much straight butter. I love butter, scouts honor I do, but jesus and the technicolor dreamcoat, this was a LOT of butter. Ain’t nobody fitting into their skinny jeans after this cake.

The conclusion is that the frosting was still insanely decadent. Nobody noticed my admittedly bold omission. Alright, while we’re confessing…I didn’t add the entire pound of dark chocolate. Do you have any idea how much chocolate that is? I mean, christ. This cake is fucking ridiculous. I can’t even take it seriously.

Oh but then you taste the dark chocolatey cake, the fleur-de-sel-salted caramel, and the caramel-chocolate-ganache-buttercream hybrid frosting. And then things get Real. This cake is like, yow tssssss. It is fucking adjective-transcendent. It’s gggggggggggggg.

Let’s not talk about my horrendous frosting job, (please, I’m embarrassed, cue excuses:) because I did a cursory job the night before and shoved it in the fridge so I could get the fuck to bed, it being 1am and all. And then I had like 20 minutes before work to try to fix it, and it didn’t de-fridge enough, and there were air bubbles, and at some point I was like, oh eff it all. It didn’t end up mattering, because this cake traveled 3 hours up the coast in the back of my car (RIP little red honda civic btw) in a box, and its shoulders got all slouchy and the frosting essentially melted. Soooo. Wah wah wah, something else to complain about.

My hunch is that you’re not going to make this cake, but you’re going to maybe dream about it. It WILL haunt you. It’s ok though. It beats dreaming about being involved in a underage-prostitution sting but getting caught because apparently you are not cut out for law enforcement work, and being driven away on a golf cart, and then stuck in a white room with someone else who had been caught, and then a lot of gunfire, and then getting lost in a forest of ferns. I mean, slightly better than that.

Sweet & Salty cake
from Baked: New Frontiers in Baking (btw is this not a terrifically arrogant title? just sayin.)

3/4 cup cocoa powder
2/3 cup sour cream
2 2/3 cups cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (omitted this, added a bit of oil and a few more tbsps of butter, everything was fine)
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
3 large eggs (at room temperature)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla

1/2 cup Salted Caramel

Whipped Caramel Ganache Icing
Fleur de sel, for garnish

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Butter three 8-by-2-inch round cake pans. Line each pan with a parchment paper round, butter parchment paper and flour; set aside.

2. In a large bowl, whisk together cocoa, 1 1/4 cups hot water, and sour cream; set aside to cool, about 10 minutes.

3. In another large bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and shortening together until smooth and it appears to create strings inside the bowl, about 7 minutes. Add both sugars and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 7 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat until well incorporated. Add vanilla, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, and mix again for 30 seconds. Add flour mixture alternating with cocoa mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

5. Divide batter evenly among the three prepared pans. Bake until cake is just firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, 35 to 40 minutes. Let cool completely.

6. Using a serrated knife, trim tops of cakes to make level. Place four strips of parchment paper around perimeter of a serving plate or lazy Susan. Place the first layer on the cake plate. Using about 1/4 cup of the caramel, spread a thin layer on the cake, allowing some of the caramel to soak into the cake.  Follow the caramel layer with a layer of about 1 cup of the ganache icing. Place the second layer on top and repeat process with another layer of caramel followed by a layer of ganache icing. Place the remaining layer on top of the second layer bottom side up. Spread entire cake with remaining ganache icing. Sprinkle with fleur de sel.

Salted Caramel

1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon fleur de sel
1/4 cup sour cream

1. Combine 1/4 cup water, sugar, and corn syrup in a medium saucepan; stir to combine. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the mixture reaches 350 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in another small saucepan, mix together cream and salt. Bring cream to a boil and cook until salt has dissolved, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. When the caramel mixture has reached 350 degrees, remove from heat and allow to cool for 1 minute. Carefully add the hot cream to the caramel; stir to combine. Whisk in sour cream. Cool, and store in an airtight container, refrigerated, for up to 3 days.

Whipped Chocolate Caramel Ganache

1 pound dark chocolate, chopped (OH FOR REALIOS???)
1 cup sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 pound (4 sticks) butter, cut into tablespoon-sized pieces, softened but still cool (HOLY MOLY)

1. Combine 1/4 cup water, sugar, and corn syrup in a medium saucepan; stir to combine. Bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until the mixture reaches 350 degrees on a candy thermometer, about 10 minutes.

2. In another small saucepan add cream and bring to a boil. Remove from heat and set aside.

3. When the caramel mixture has reached 350 degrees, remove from heat and allow to rest for 1 minute. Add the hot cream to the caramel; stir to combine. Let cool 5 minutes. Place chocolate in the bowl of an electric mixer and pour caramel sauce over chocolate. Let sit 1 minute before stirring from the center until chocolate is melted.

4. Attach bowl to electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low until the bowl feels cool to the touch. Add butter and increase speed to medium-high until mixture is well combined, thickened, and slightly whipped, about 2 minutes.

Get these away from me.

God, fucking fuck saltines all covered in caramel and chocolate and nuts and baked to a crispy perfection.

That’s all I really have to say. Their existence is decimating my soul, because they rail so hard against my willpower. I might as well not have the ability to make my own decisions. That’s it, guys. I’m handing over the control board of this ill-fated ship to chocolate caramel crackers. I think we all might agree I’ll be better off this way anyway. Oh, you turned bright red when that cute guy in the grocery line tried to make conversation about the weather? And then by the time you recovered you made some sort of snarky off-putting comment? Be easy on yourself, baby. That’s just the motherboard of chocolate caramel crackers short-circuiting. Don’t worry about it. They’ve got everything under control now.

Oh wait you parked your car in a driveway overnight and thought it wouldn’t get towed? And then it did? And it cost almost $500 to get it back? Crackers’ fault.

Shoot, you lost your friend’s dog for 3 hours and forced your roommate and other friend to search for it the day after Halloween when most of you were still in costume/extremely hungover/morally bereft? Crackers!! While we’re at it, everything that happened Halloween night? CRACKERS.

Broke 2 pairs of sunglasses? And your waterbottle? Got bit by a spider? Tried to bake chocolate pudding cake in a silicone pan and spilled hot water all over yourself and the oven? Hate your job? Expired car registration? Late fee on your credit card? Crackers, crackers, crackers, crackers, crackers.

Well shit, all of a sudden I feel a great weight lifted. Oh no wait. The opposite. A great weight ingested. Against my will. God damn you. Crackers.

Chocolate Caramel Crackers
from Smitten Kitchen (all notes below are Deb’s)

4 to 6 sheets matzo or approximately 40 Saltine crackers or crackers of your choice
1 cup (2 sticks or 8 ounces) unsalted butter, cut into a few large pieces
1 cup packed light brown sugar
A big pinch of sea salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips (or chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate)
1 cup toasted chopped almonds, pecans, walnuts or a nut of your choice (optional)
Extra sea salt for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 11-by-17-inch baking sheet completely with foil, and then line the base of the foil with parchment paper, cut to fit.

Line the bottom of the baking sheet with matzo or crackers, covering all parts. [If using matzo, you'll need to break pieces to fit any extra spaces, which will be annoying because despite being perforated, it does not actually break in straight lines. I have some luck pressing a serrated knife straight down along a sectionbetween perforations, if that (hopefully) makes sense.]

In a medium heavy-duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and stir it over medium heat until it begins to boil. Once it has begun boiling, let it bubble for three more minutes, stirring it well. It will thicken a bit as it cooks. Remove from the heat and add the salt and vanilla, and then quickly pour it over the matzo or crackers. You’ll want to spread it quickly, as it will begin to set as soon as it is poured.

Bake the caramel-covered crackers for 15 minutes, watching carefully as it will bubble and the corners might darken too quickly and/or burn. You can reduce the heat if you see this happening.

Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand five minutes, and then spread them evenly across the caramel. An offset spatula works great here. If you’re using them, sprinkle the chocolate with toasted chopped nuts and/or sea salt. (The sea salt is great on matzo. On Saltines, it’s really not necessary.)

Once completely cool — I sometimes speed this process up in the fridge, impatient as should be expected in the face of caramel crack(ers) — break it into pieces and store it in a container. It should keep for a week but I’ve never seen it last that long.

2 things

So there exists cake and there exists pudding and then someone came up with the idea to like, COMBINE them. Because, I don’t know? Because someone knew my roommate would crave chocolate today and ask me to make something real quick-like and I didn’t have eggs and this is the only recipe I found that didn’t require eggs and then it came out of the oven and it was like so fucking lovely? because the top is all crispy? and then right underneath it’s like pudding and cake are really in love and have a lot of kids and host dinner parties and are really HAPPY TOGETHER?!?!?!?

I don’t know, guys. It’s like so hard to exist in this world sometimes, firstly because chocolate pudding cake is a thing that also exists, but also because I tried to change the lightbulbs in our bathroom but they are apparently really fucking particular lightbulbs, the kind you don’t just screw out like normal, and our landlord installed them himself and did a really god damned incomplete job, and now when you try to push the new ones in all that happens is that the whole thing pops out and you get frustrated because it is not something you were prepared to deal with and you like to think of yourself as a handy type (once you fixed a toilet!!!! you went to home depot and found the right parts and you fixed it!!!!!!!!) and this does NOT fit into that definition because the story ends with only 1 of 4 lightbulbs being replaced and IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO GET THE LADDER UP THE STAIRS FROM THE BASEMENT.

And apparently daylight savings time ended, which is nice-ish because my Sunday was an hour longer, but now it’s inching closer to Monday, which is so bad, and also it got dark at like 4 and so I ate dinner at like 5:30 because it had been dark for so long and it felt like I should be eating dinner? but then there was so much TIME left after that where I was sitting on the couch and I was so confused, like, it wasn’t bedtime, but I’d already eaten dinner, and so the only logical thing was to go back to the kitchen and eat more pudding cake, obviously, and also it was raining out and that pudding cake was still WARM and LOVELY, because someone at some point decided to create a recipe that combined pudding and cake in anticipation of me not being able to handle how incredibly wonderful that is on this particular day in November in the year 2010. Because!

Because it is so hard to exist, sometimes, in this world!!! It really is!

Black and White Chocolate Pudding Cake
adapted from The Family Baker (from somewhere, I can’t remember, don’t be mad at me)

butter for preparing pan
1 cup unsifted all-purpose flour
1⅓ cups granulated sugar, divided (⅔ cup and ⅔ cup)
½ cup sifted unsweetened cocoa, preferably dutch-processed, divided (¼ cup and ¼ cup)
2 tsp baking powder
pinch of ground cinnamon
¼ tsp salt
½ cup milk
¼ cup canola or other mild vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
½-⅔ cup white chocolate, very coarsely chopped
1 cup boiling water

Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350˚F. Butter a 9″x9″ baking pan and set aside.

In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, ⅔ cup of sugar, ¼ cup of cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Stir to blend, then mix in the milk, oil, vanilla, and white chocolate. The batter will feel quite stiff. Spread it in the baking pan.

In a small bowl, stir together the remaining ¼ cup cocoa with the remaining ⅔ cup sugar. Spread this evenly over the batter in the pan and pour the boiling water on top. DO NOT STIR. (also do not use a silicone pan because you will spill boiling water everywhere, you dummy)

Bake the cake 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top looks crisp and crackled and a cake tester inserted in a cakey area comes out clean. Cool the cake a few minutes, then serve warm, spooned directly from the pan.

Having my cake and putting my hands in it a 3am, too.

SO, I didn’t get any shots of the cake before it was demolished. That’s because I was too busy 1) getting chocolate frosting all over my boob in an incredibly unsexy way 2) playing drinking games and having dance parties 3) otherwise not acting my age in any way, shape, or form 4) there was a keg 5) seriously i’m 27. Have I mentioned that some people I know have BABIES? They created life, and I got drunk and ate cake with my hands at 3:30am.

Weeeeh. Can I just say the cake was beautiful? I mean, there’s no proof, but it was. Can I also say I made a lot of new friends because of it? I did. I knocked it out of the motherfucking PARK with this one. There’s no real reason for me to be so amped on myself today, but I don’t know. The Giants are in the World Series so there’s this excited buzz all over town, and everyone’s like high-fiving each other and thumbs-upping all over the place, and I’ve recently had a pretty awesome life win in my column (which makes the score like: life-65 million, kat-8). But whatever!! No bad vibes today, readers! No complaining about miserable coworkers, or the fact that I ate an entire day’s worth of calories exclusively in Moose Munch® form, or that I’m 85% sure I have shin splints, or any of that other meaningless bullshit! Let’s just fucking enjoy ourselves, because like 50 million years ago no one existed and cake hadn’t even been THOUGHT of yet and in another 50 million years I bet the same thing will be the case.

I mean, I want to be good. But not right now.

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate Buttercream and Dark Chocolate Ganache
adapted from Sky High (the cake), and Martha (the frosting), and I just fucking MADE UP the ganache, on account of just knowing how to do that shit, because I’ve done it before

Vanilla Buttermilk Cake

4 whole eggs
2 egg yolks
2 tsps vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
3 cups cake flour
2 cups sugar
4 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
8 oz (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cake pans or spray to coat with vegetable oil. Line the bottom of each pan with a round of parchment or waxed paper and grease the paper.
2. Put the eggs and yolks in a medium mixing bowl, add the vanilla and 1/4 cup of the buttermilk. Whisk to blend well.
3.. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in a large mixer bowl; whisk to blend. Add the butter and the remaining 1 cup buttermilk to these dry ingredients and with the mixer on low, blend together. Raise the mixer speed to medium and beat until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes.
4. Add the egg mixture in 3 additions, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing only until thoroughly incorporated. Divide the batter among the 3 prepared pans.
5. Bake the cake layers for 28-32 minutes, or until a cake tester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the cake begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Let the layers cool in the pans for 10 minutes; then carefully turn out onto wire racks, peel off the paper liners, and let cool completely.

Dark Chocolate Ganache

1 cup heavy cream
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp butter
8 oz dark chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp espresso powder

Place the chopped chocolate and espresso powder in a bowl. Heat the cream, butter, and sugar in a saucepan. Stir to dissolve the sugar and bring to a boil. Pour over  the chocolate and espresso. Let sit 10 minutes, then stir until smooth.

Bittersweet chocolate buttercream

8 oz semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 oz unsweetened chocolate, chopped
2 tsp cocoa powder
1 lb butter, room temp (this is 4 sticks. YEAH.)
5 egg whites
1 cup sugar

Melt the chocolate and cocoa in a double boiler (or a heatproof bowl over a saucepan of boiling water). Stir together the egg whites and sugar in the bowl of a mixer. Heat over a saucepan of simmering water until 140 degrees F. Remove from heat & whisk on medium until stiff peaks form. Turn speed down slightly & whip until cool to the touch (this will take a while–7ish minutes). Change to paddle and add butter tbsp by tbsp. Mix to emulsify. Fold in melted chocolate.