heARTfest Blog Hop Day 5 Chocolate Peppermint Cream Heart Cakes

Chocolate Peppermint Cream Heart Cakes

Zucchini Chocolate Cake

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda           

1/2 tsp salt

3 cups shredded zucchini

1 cup semisweet chocolate baking chips

1 cup salad oil

4 large eggs

In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir in zucchini, and chocolate chips. In a small bowl, beat oil to mix with eggs; add to dry mixture and stir to moisten well.

Line two large jelly roll pans with parchment paper, crease corners to fit and spread half the batter in each pan. Bake in a 325° oven until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 15-20 minutes.

While cake is cooling make peppermint cream filling.

Peppermint Cream

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup whole milk

1/4 cup sifted all-purpose flour

1 teaspoons vanilla extract

1  1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

red food coloring

Cream the butter with a mixer on medium speed until soft about 30 seconds. Add the sugar and beat on high speed until light and fluffy, 5 to 7 minutes.

In a small saucepan, combine 1/4 cup of the milk, the flour, and the vanilla extract, and whisk until there are no lumps. Over medium heat, slowly add the remaining 3/4 cup milk, whisking constantly, and cook until the mixture comes to a low boil. Then reduce the heat to low and keep whisking for a few more minutes, until the mixture starts to thicken.

Immediately remove the pan from the heat, but keep stirring and cool to room temperature. If necessary, place the pan over a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and allow the mixture to cool.

With the mixer on low speed, slowly pour the milk mixture into the butter-sugar mixture. Increase the speed to medium and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add peppermint to combine.

After cake has cooled use a heart shaped cookie cutter and cut out cake hearts and place on a clean piece of parchment. One pan had thicker hearts so I made those the bottoms and the thinner hearts the tops.

Place peppermint cream in a large ziplock bag, snip corner and squeeze out cream onto half the hearts and place a second heart on top.

Now you could stop here or you could keep going by cutting some heart stencils and and dusting the hearts with powdered sugar.

 What can I say, Indigo and I were doing this together, lol

Indigo perfected the dusting process by finding if you brush the remaining powder sugar off the stencil before lifting it you get a cleaner design.

Here's some of the stencils we made

 Enjoy!

Check out all these LOVE infused tutorials
Jane LaFazio's Sketchbook page to Valentine Card (& envelope too)

Traci Bunkers, Printed Heart Ice Cube Trays: Quick Printed Backgrounds, Part 1
Diana Trout's, Woven Heart Valentines Card
Lyric Kinard's,  Lovin' my Thermofax Screens
Judy Coates Perez  Chocolate Peppermint Cream Heart Cakes

Kelli Nina Perkins, Monday, Jan 30 Heart shaped felted soap

Melanie Testa, Tuesday, Jan 31

Tracie Lynn Huskamp, Wednesday February 1 Valentines Message Pillows 

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Happy New Year!

Indigo and I took in the new year at a tavern in the neighborhood that hosted a wig themed new years party. What fun we had! One thing I'll really miss about living in Chicago is being able to go out for a night of fun and walk home or just hop in a cab.

I wanted to start the new year off with a great meal. I came across a recipe for an apricot stuffed roast pork loin that sounded fantastic but I decided to make a few changes by using dried apricots and cherries and roasting it over a bed of root vegetables. 

I went to one of the butchers in the neighborhood, and asked for a boneless pork loin, so he pulled out a whole side of pork about two and a half feet long with ribs attached and cut a gorgeous roast for me, cutting it away from the ribs and tossing them on top before wrapping it up. 

January first was a day of howling icy cold winds and I was so glad I didn't have to go anywhere, but relax and cook a fine meal.

Roast Pork with Apricot, Cherry and Shallot Stuffing with mustard sauce and Root Vegetables

1 cup cubed bread, toasted in oven or skillet

1/2 cup chopped shallots

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 C dried apricots, quartered

1/4 dried cherries

2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon black pepper

1 (3- to 3 1/2-lb) center-cut boneless pork loin roast (3 - 4 inches in diameter)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 cup chicken stock

1/2 cup white wine

1/2 tablespoon of whole grain Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon flour

6-8 whole garlic cloves

4 chopped carrots

2 red potatoes 1/2" cubed

1/2 large onion rough chopped

Preheat oven to 375°F.

Make stuffing:

Cook shallots in butter over moderately low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened. Add dried apricots, cherries and 1/3 cup chicken stock and cook, stirring until fruits are slightly softened and stock is reduced, about 3 minutes. 

Remove from heat and stir in bread, parsley, salt, and pepper.

Chop vegetables and toss with olive oil, spread in bottom of roasting pan, salt and pepper to taste.

Stuff and roast pork:

With a long knife, make a hole for stuffing that runs lengthwise through pork loin about 1 ½ - 2" wide.

Pack with stuffing from both ends, pushing it toward the center.

Pat pork dry, rub with olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

Heat heavy skillet over high heat until very hot and brown pork on all sides.

Transfer to the roasting pan on top of chopped vegetables (I tossed the ribs on top of the veggies along the side for more flavor) and roast in middle of oven until a meat thermometer (avoid stuffing) registers 158-160°F, 45 to 50 minutes. Transfer to a cutting board and let stand 20 minutes. 

Remove roasted vegetables to a serving bowl and keep warm.

Mustard Sauce

Add flour to ½  cup chicken stock and stir until flour is dissolved. 

While loin is standing, straddle roasting pan across stove burner. Add 1/2 cup white wine and any juices that run off pork to pan, deglaze by boiling over moderate heat, scraping up brown bits and reduce by half. Add 1/2 cup chicken stock/flour and mustard stir until it begins to boil and thicken. Serve on side.

It came out heavenly. The perfect hearty winter meal to start the year off right!

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Cuban Dinner

Last night I prepared one of my favorite meals with friends; Cuban black beans, rice, roast pork and pickled red onions for garnish. My friend Alexa came over and made mojitos and brought a cabbage slaw with avocado and jalepeño and a mango sorbet for dessert. Everything was delicious, so I thought I would share a few recipes with you. My daughter Indigo took the photos.

Cuban Black Beans

1 pound black beans, washed

1/4 cup olive oil

1 large onion, chopped

1 medium green bell pepper, chopped

6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced

5 cups water

1 (6 ounce) can tomato paste

1 (4 ounce) jar diced pimentos, drained

1 tablespoon vinegar

2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon white sugar

1 teaspoon black pepper

1. Place beans in a large saucepan with enough water to cover, and soak 8 hours, or overnight; drain. Or do a quick soak method bring beans and water to a boil for 2 minutes, turn off heat, cover and sit for 1 hour.

  

 2. Heat oil in a dutch oven over medium heat, and saute onion, green bell pepper, and garlic until tender.

3. Into the onion mixture, stir the drained beans, water, tomato paste, pimentos, and vinegar. Season with salt, sugar, and pepper. Bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, until beans are tender.

The easiest way to tell if beans are done is lift a spoonful out of the pot and blow on them, if the skin splits and peel away from the beans they’re done.

Cuban Pork Roast

2 teaspoons cumin seeds
1/2 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
4 cloves garlic, chopped
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/3 cup orange juice
1/3 cup dry sherry
3 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons olive oil
4 pounds pork shoulder

I had a 7 1/2 pound bone in shoulder so I doubled the marinade.

Heat a small, heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and peppercorns to the pan; stir constantly until fragrant and beginning to brown, about 2 minutes. Cool.

Using a mortar and pestle, crush toasted spices with garlic, salt, and oregano to make a paste. You can also do this in a food processor. Add orange juice, lime juice, lemon juice, sherry, and olive oil.

With a sharp knife cut slits in the roast to help marinade penetrate the meat. Place the pork in a large resealable plastic bag. Pour citrus marinade over meat, and seal. Refrigerate for 12 to 24 hours, turning the bag over occasionally.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

Transfer pork to a roasting pan, and place in the oven. Baste pork with marinade every hour until meat is fork tender, about 4+ hours. I had a 7 1/2 pound shoulder and cooked it for just over 5 hours. It's possible you may need to loosely tent the roast with foil if the top starts to get too brown.

Transfer the pork to a carving board, cover loosely with foil, and let rest for 15 minutes. Carve, and serve. 

Pickled Red Onions
this recipe is from Gourmet 2006 and was adapted from 

Rick Bayless Authentic Mexican

2 red onions, sliced

1 cup cider vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

Blanch 2 sliced red onions in a small saucepan of boiling water to cover for 1 minute and drain in a colander. 

Then return them to the pan and add a cup of cider vinegar, a teaspoon of salt, and just enough cold water to barely cover the onions.

Bring to a boil over high heat and simmer the onions 1 minute.

Transfer the onions and brine to a glass jar and chill. The onions will turn the color of a pink piñata and will get crisp as they cool. They'll keep for weeks in the refrigerator.

And lastly the perfect accompaniment; a rum Mojito with lime juice, mint, cane sugar and club soda. You can find a recipe here.

Now, I am looking forward to making tacos with the leftovers, yum!

Homemade Whoopie Pies!!!!

It was pouring rain, nothing to do outside on a sunday afternoon, so Nina had the brilliant idea of trying to make whoopie pies. These are a treat that anyone growing up in New England would have fond memories of. It is like a chocolate cake sandwich with creamy filling.

A box cake mix would probably work just fine for making these, but I used my favorite Chocolate Zucchini cake recipe, omitting the cinnamon and baking the cake at 350°. The cake is very moist, so they can be a little sticky but oh so tasty! I was thinking of dusting them with a little cocoa or powdered sugar to help with that.

To make the individual "buns" we experimented by pouring big spoonfuls of batter on parchment lined baking sheets and baking them for about 6 minutes, but they spread too much and looked more like big pancakes. 

So we switched to pouring about half the batter straight onto a large baking sheet/jelly roll pan lined with parchment. See, there are other uses for parchment paper than fusing! The batter was about 1/4" thick and then I baked it for about 9-10 minutes, until it was springy to the touch. After the cake was cool, we used a biscuit cutter to cut out circles of cake.

For the cream filling I used a delicious recipe for a boiled butter cream frosting that has the perfect consistency, it's not too sweet and tastes a lot like whip cream. They came out perfect!

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