Tag: Anya

Anya’s 11th Birthday Cake: Orange Chocolate

This year, Anya wanted an orange cake decorated with pieces of orange … but she also wanted chocolate. So we made an orange chocolate cake with orange chocolate buttercream. Very tasty!

Chocolate Orange Cake

  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cup sugar
  • 3/4 cup cocoa powder
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 3/4 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • zest of two oranges
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1/2 cup vegetable oil
  • 1 cup decaffeinated coffee, cooled
  • 4 medium eggs

Preheat oven to 325F. Butter and flour two 8″ cake pans.
Whisk all dry ingredients (including orange zest) together.
Whisk all wet ingredients together.
Slowly stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
Pour batter into pans and bake for 35-40 minutes.
Remove from oven, allow pans to cool for approx 15 minutes, then turn cakes onto cooling rack to cool completely.

Chocolate Orange Buttercream Frosting

  • 2 cups unsalted butter
  • 1 Tbsp orange emulsion
  • 1/8 tsp salt
  • 5 cups powdered sugar
  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 10 oz dark chocolate chips

Whip the butter in the blender until light and fluffy. Add orange emulsion and salt.
Heat the whipping cream, remove from heat, and stir in chocolate chips to melt.
Slowly sift powdered sugar into butter while continuing to blend on lowest speed.
Once powdered sugar has been incorporated, add melted chocolate a scoop at a time and continue to blend on lowest speed until it has all been incorporated.

Easter Hunt

Anya wanted to do an Easter egg hunt this year — so I designed a bracelet for her & made little bags with the components. The components were put into some of the eggs (candy was put into other eggs)

And we hid the eggs all around the property —

But I stood near each of the hiding places and marked a point on OSMAnd+ … then she took my cell phone & used the map to search for her eggs.

Important lessons learned — {1} bits to assemble a bracelet are a cool gift, but three green spheres in an egg? Not so awesome (and Anya’s gotten old enough to say “ugh, beads?” when she’s not thrilled with the contents of the egg) and {2} she should delete the marker once she gets the egg. She had ten eggs when she was done searching, but we don’t actually know which ten of the twelve that are hidden she’s found. So we’ve got to do the whole search again to mark off the “done” spots!

Anya’s Posting Challenge — Again — And Pie

Anya said I have too much “computer stuff” on my website again — not enough kittens and pie and fun stuff. So I am not allowed to post anything about computers for ALL OF FEBRUARY! And, if I do post about it, I get March added on. And another month for the next infraction, and so on. So  … umm … pie!

Anya made a peach pie — I had extra pie crust dough from making a quiche a few nights ago, and we had frozen sliced peaches over the summer when we picked up a big pile of fresh peaches. I made a maple sugar crumble (maple sugar instead of brown sugar in a crumble recipe) for the topping. Anya used cookie cutters to decorate the pie with maple leaves and a snowflake. It was very tasty!

Anya’s 10th Birthday Cake: Strawberry Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

  • 1 teaspoon unflavored gelatin powder
  • 4 teaspoons water
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1 Tablespoon maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup strawberry reduction

Method:

  • Place water in a heat-proof container and sprinkle gelatin on top. Allow to sit for at least five minutes to hydrate. Place container into a pot of water (water should not come too close to the top of the container — we just need a little bit in the pot to make a water bath). Simmer until gelatin is clear and liquid. Remove from heat and allow to slightly cool.
  • Add maple syrup to whipped cream and beat until soft peaks form.
  • Slowly drizzle gelatin into whipped cream (beating as you pour).
  • Slowly add in strawberry reduction and continue to beat until firm peaks form.

Anya’s 10th Birthday Cake: Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Whipped Cream

Strawberry Cake with Strawberry Whipped Cream

Recipe by LisaCourse: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium
Servings

12

servings
Prep time

1

hour 
Cooking time

40

minutes

Ingredients

  • 14 oz all-purpose Flour

  • 2 tsp baking powder

  • 1 tsp baking soda

  • 1 teaspoon baking soda

  • 1/2 teaspoon salt

  • 226 g unsalted butter, room temperature

  • 284 g sugar

  • 1 Tablespoon lemon juice

  • 170 g egg whites, room temperature

  • 125 g strawberry reduction, room temperature

  • 170 g heavy whipping cream

Method

  • Preheat oven to 350F. Flour three 8″ cake pans and set aside.
  • Whisk together the cream, strawberry reduction, and lemon juice.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
  • In the bowl of a stand mixer, place the room temperature butter and beat until smooth and shiny.
  • Gradually add in the sugar, beating until the mixture is fluffy and light colored.
  • Add the egg whites, one at a time, and beat at a medium speed.
  • On a low speed, add about 1/3 of the dry ingredients followed by 1/3 of the wet ingredients, mixing until mostly incorporated into the batter. Repeat until all ingredients have been added.
  • Divide the batter evenly between the three pans.
  • Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes (a cake tester should come out clean).
  • Place pans on a wire rack to cool for ten minutes, then turn the cakes out onto the rack and allow to cool.
  • To assemble, place a cake on the cake plate. Cover with strawberry reduction, and top with a second cake. Cover with strawberry reduction, then top with the third cake. Coat liberally with strawberry whipped cream and serve.

Commentary

  • This year, Anya chose a strawberry cake. We looked through a lot of recipes online and merged a couple into what we hoped would be a very strawberry flavored cake. It was — the strawberry whipped cream was specially tasty. I think it could have used more strawberry reduction between the layers, though the cake was already very moist.

Anya’s Posting Challenge

Because I made two not-permitted posts since Anya started the challenge, she’s extended it by ten days! October 7th is the last day of Anya’s rule about what I can post on my own website … the one I set up for myself, on my server, so I would have somewhere to store my stuff. Yeah.

Using Excel To Decrypt ROT

Anya has made us a scavenger hunt complete with clues — clues that are encrypted! While working out a ROT-1 or ROT-2 decryption isn’t terribly difficult, it was getting a little time consuming [especially when what was advertised as ROT-1 was actually ROT-(25) and I had to do it all over again!], so I made a quick spreadsheet to decrypt strings. The letter pairs are in the first two columns, then VLOOKUP is used to convert the printed character to the actual one. I found a trick card!