One of my kids recently requested (verbatim) chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and sprinkles for his birthday treat. After doing a quick recipe search, I decided to make him a Chocolate Sour Cream Cake. The very moist, very chocolatey and very delicious cake was a hit with the Birthday Boy! Is there anything better than that?

I chose to make my own frosting so I can’t vouch for that part of the recipe. I can, however, vouch for the cake! In fact, I’m having a piece right now as I’m writing this post…Mmmmmm. 

Chocolate Sour Cream Cake
-recipe from Hershey’s.com

Makes 12 to 15 servings.

1-3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1-3/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 container (16 oz.) dairy sour cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
FUDGE FROSTING(recipe follows)
 
Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan.

Stir together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add butter, sour cream, eggs and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 3 minutes. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack. Frost with FUDGE FROSTING.

FUDGE FROSTING

Makes about 1 cup frosting.

3 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/3 cup HERSHEY’S Cocoa
1-1/3 cups powdered sugar
2 to 3 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter in small saucepan over low heat. Add cocoa; cook, stirring constantly, just until mixture begins to boil. Pour mixture into medium bowl; cool completely. Add powdered sugar alternately with milk to cocoa mixture, beating to spreading consistency. Stir in vanilla.

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Tags: birthday cake, chocolate, chocolate cake, chocolate sour cream cake, sour cream

There’s nothing like a good, homemade pound cake served with fresh berries.  This recipe for Sour Cream and Lemon Pound Cake is easy to make, moist and velvety, and has a light lemony flavor. It’s a great dessert for Spring and Summer celebrations and gatherings.

The first time I made the cake, it seemed a bit “eggy” to me so this time I used 5 eggs instead of 6. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla to the batter. After I took the cake out of the oven, I went for a run, which meant the cake cooled in the pan on a rack for about an hour. When I tried to turn out the cake, it stuck in a few places. I’m not sure if I didn’t grease the pan good enough or if it sat too long in the pan. Anyway, I didn’t sweat it…I just made a quick glaze with lemon juice and powdered sugar to drizzle on the cake. Not only did the glaze add more lemony flavor but it did a nice job of covering the holes. Serve with fresh berries.

Sour Cream and Lemon Pound Cake
-recipe from Bon Appétit Magazine

Yield: Serves 12

3 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
1 cup sour cream

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease 16-cup tube pan. Dust pan with cake flour; tap out excess flour.

Sift flour, baking soda and salt into medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl at medium speed until fluffy. Gradually add sugar and beat 5 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating just until combined after each addition. Beat in lemon juice and peel. Using rubber spatula, mix in dry ingredients. Mix in sour cream. Transfer batter to prepared pan.

Bake cake until tester inserted near center comes out clean, about 1 hour 30 minutes. Let cake cool in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around cake in pan. Turn out cake.

Carefully turn cake right side up on rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature.)

Tags: butter, Dessert, lemon, pound cake, sour cream, sugar

These orange-scented muffins are moist, not too sweet and studded with chocolate chips. I’m eating one now between sips of freshly brewed French roast coffee…Yumm! I got the recipe out of the Fresh Every Day Cookbook by Sara Foster. She calls the muffins Orange Chocolate Muffins, but I renamed them Orange Chocolate Chip Muffins since they’re not really chocolate muffins (other than the chocolate chips).

I followed the recipe as written, using Trader Joe’s High Fiber cereal in place of All Bran or bran flakes. The addition of the fiber cereal means you’re getting some roughage along with your chocolate. See…chocolate can be healthy! Next time I make them, I’ll definitely add dried cranberries, too, since I love the flavor combo of chocolate, orange and cranberry.

Orange Chocolate Muffins
-recipe from Fresh Every Day: More Great Recipes From Foster’s Market by Sara Foster

These are best served warm, fresh from the oven. Makes 12 large muffins.

1/2 cup bran flakes or All Bran cereal
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream
Grated zest of 2 oranges and 1/2 cup of their juice
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 375F degrees. Line 12 large muffin cups with liners and spray the top of the pan with vegetable oil spray or grease lightly.

Stir the bran flakes, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon together in a large bowl.

In a separate large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer on high speed until fluffy, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally. Add the egg and mix to combine. Add the sour cream, orange zest and juice, and vanilla and mix until incorporated.

Add the bran-flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, stirring with a wooden spoon or the paddle attachment of an electric mixer until the dry ingredients are just moistened. Stir in the chocolate chips to combine. Do not mix any more than necessary.

Use a 1/3-cup measure or ice cream scoop to scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them to just below the rim of the cup. Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, until a wooden skewer comes out clean when inserted in the center of a muffin and the muffins spring back when touched. Let the muffins rest for about 5 minutes before turning them out. Serve immediately or cool on a wire rack.

Tags: bran cereal, butter, chocolate chips, Muffins, orange, orange juice, orange zest, sour cream

This delicious, easy-to-make appetizer combines two great flavors: smoky bacon and caramelized onions. YUMM! 

The recipe calls for refrigerated pizza dough in a tube but I used Trader Joe’s fresh pizza dough instead. I had some trouble with the rolled-out dough sticking to itself when I tried to transfer it to the baking sheet, so I ended up rolling it out on parchment paper then transferring both parchment and dough to the baking sheet. Don’t worry if you don’t have caraway seeds or don’t want to buy them–the tart will still be great without them.

Onion and Bacon Tart
-recipe from Paumanok Vineyards
Bon Appétit Magazine, October 2005

Every visitor to Paumanok Vineyards enjoys a warm welcome from owners Ursula and Charles Massoud. She learned viticulture in her parents’ vineyards in Germany; he taught himself to make wine when his job with IBM took the family to the Middle East. Ursula, who is known for her outstanding comfort food, pairs Paumanok’s semi-dry Riesling with an onion tart she makes at harvest time. “It’s traditional in my hometown to serve it when the Riesling juice is still fermenting. The sweetness of the onions matches the sweetness of the new wine.”

Makes 6 servings.

8 bacon slices, chopped
5 cups sliced onions (about 3 large)

1 large egg
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Pinch of ground nutmeg

1 13.8-ounce tube refrigerated pizza dough
1/4 teaspoon caraway seeds 

Preheat oven to 375°F. Sauté bacon in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat until slightly crisp. Drain all but 1 tablespoon bacon drippings from skillet. Add onions to bacon and sauté over medium heat until onions are very tender but not brown, about 20 minutes. Cool.

Whisk egg, sour cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg in large bowl to blend. Stir in cooled onion mixture.

Roll pizza dough out on lightly floured surface to 13×10-inch rectangle. Transfer to baking sheet. Spread onion mixture over dough, leaving 1/2-inch plain border around edges. Sprinkle with caraway seeds.

Bake tart until onion custard is set and crust is golden brown around edges and brown on bottom, about 25 minutes.

Tags: bacon, caramelized onions, onion and bacon tart, pizza dough, sour cream

Pound cake is a perfect summertime dessert. This moist, velvety cake is delicious on its own but even better when served with fresh berries (or peaches or nectarines) and freshly whipped cream. And, it’s extremely versatile because you can change it up with different flavors each time you make it (lemon, orange, ginger, almond, poppy seed). Yumm!

Pound Cake
-recipe from williams-sonoma.com

A slice of pound cake is buttery, rich and delicious all by itself, but it takes well to additions, too. Vary this cake’s flavor by omitting the almond extract and stirring in 1 tsp. finely grated lemon zest, 2 Tbs. fresh lemon juice and 1 Tbs. poppy seeds, or 2 Tbs. minced crystallized ginger. If you like almond, add the optional almond extract and sprinkle sliced almonds on top before baking. You can also top the slices with fresh fruit.

1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour
1⁄4 tsp. baking soda
1⁄4 tsp. salt
12 Tbs. (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter,
  at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1⁄2 tsp. vanilla extract
1⁄4 tsp. almond extract (optional)
2 eggs, at room temperature
1⁄2 cup sour cream, at room temperature

Preheat an oven to 325°F. Lightly grease an 8 1⁄2-by-4 1⁄2-inch loaf pan, preferably glass, and dust with flour.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt until blended. In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat together the butter, sugar, vanilla and almond extract on medium to medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition until just blended. Sprinkle half of the flour mixture over the egg mixture and stir until both are just incorporated. Stir in the sour cream, then sprinkle with the remaining flour mixture and stir until evenly distributed.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and tap gently on the counter to even out and settle the ingredients. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 70 minutes, or longer if using a metal pan. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes.

Run a thin knife around the inside of the pan, invert the cake onto the rack and lift off the pan. Place the cake on one of its sides and continue cooling. Serve warm or at room temperature. Serves 8 to 10.

Tags: Dessert, pound cake, sour cream