Summer is coming to an end and it’s starting to cool off, at least on the east coast. We also just had an earthquake and might be getting hit by a hurricane so who knows, the heat might pick back up. In case it does, be prepared with this recipe for icebox cake.

An icebox cake is a cake made of whipped cream and graham crackers. It’s not baked at all, it’s place in the fridge to allow the moisture from the whipped cream to soak into the graham crackers to create a cake-like consistency. Some people achieve this with cool whip and graham crackers, I, however, am strongly against any kind of whipped toppings. It’s just as easy to whip up your own cream, especially if you have a stand mixer, and it tastes a ton better. Plus, you can toss in other flavorings with ease. I used lemon to flavor this whipped cream to pair with the chocolate graham crackers and topped it off with homemade candied lemon slices. All that deliciousness without ever having to turn on your oven.
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We’re deep in summer right now, July is ending and the heat index here in Philadelphia is still breaking 100. I’m tired of it but complaining won’t do anything to fix it so I’ll just keep dreaming of those cold winter nights where my home is filled with the warming scents of cinnamon and ginger.

Summer does have it’s shining food flavors though, like refreshing citrus and a favorite of mine: s’mores.

This is a two layer graham cracker cake with marshmallow fluff filling and a dark chocolate fudge frosting. The cake manages to stay moist even though it replaces most of the flour with graham cracker crumbs. The filling is straight up marshmallow fluff from a jar but you could get adventurous and make your own fluff or use the fluff to make marshmallow buttercream. On top is a two-ingredient fudge frosting garnished with vegan marshmallows (since marshmallows have gelatin, they aren’t vegetarian/vegan friendly, but a few brands, like Dandies, make them without gelatin. They taste even better without gelatin in my opinion).
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Two weeks ago I baked this cake for my birthday but I was saving it to post until today because it’s my blog’s first birthday!

I’ve been blogging here a year now and a lot has happened. I’ve progressed a bit with baking, I have solid recipes I can always turn to, and I’m still trying new things and learning with every post. I feel like I’ve been a bit stagnant lately though, posting the same things (cakes, cupcakes, doughnuts) and I want to push a little further. I want to get more yeast work under my belt, bake a few batches of macarons, and try a tiered cake maybe.

I want to also extend a thank you to all my readers. Thank you for your support, your kind emails, the comments, the pictures you send of the things you bake, and all the recipe recommendations. I enjoy hearing from you all and checking out all of your blogs and creations. Thank you!
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I love lemon, it’s been great on these cool rainy days that have been happening. I put my last lemon to work and baked it into a delicious, moist pound cake with lemon glaze (the same glaze I used on my vegan doughnuts). I may actually make another loaf of it today, it’s so good!

Print Recipe
Lemon Pound Cake
Adapted from Music City Foodie

3 eggs
3 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups cake flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/3 cup granulated sugar
Zest from one lemon
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temperature

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9×5″ loaf pan and set aside.

Combine eggs, egg yolks, and vanilla in a small bowl. Set aside.

Sift and whisk flour and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl and rub together with your fingers until combined and fragrant.

Cream butter on medium high speed with electric mixer or stand mixer for 20 seconds. Add lemon sugar and beat until mixture is light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. Turn the mixer down to medium and add flour mixture alternating with the egg mixture. Add slowly and gently, overmixing will produce a dry cake. If adding more than two additions, hand mix additions with a rubber spatula.

Add batter to prepared pan and back about 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for five minutes in pan before unmolding. Sometimes I have to bake up to 70-75 minutes, just keep an eye on it after the 60 minute mark until the top of the cake looks and feels completely cooked and springs back when touched.

Lemon Glaze

Juice from one lemon
1 cup powdered sugar

Combine lemon juice and powdered sugar and stir until a glaze forms. Pour over slightly warm or cooled pound cake.

Last weekend was a friend’s birthday and as someone who bakes a lot that couldn’t really afford a nice gift, I offered to bake his birthday cake.

Now, when it comes to cakes, I’m really simple. I like to make them taste really good and look like cakes, I respect the talent of people who make sculpted cakes and over the top designs, but I enjoy simple and delicious.

His only request was that the cake have stripes, so they could match his shoes. Sadly, I couldn’t really figure out a not ugly way to incorporate stripes onto the frosting that would match the pattern of his shoes, especially since I’m not the world’s best cake decorator (maybe this is the reason I like simple cakes?)

However, as this unfortunately slightly out of focus photo shows, I incorporated stripes in the center. I didn’t tell him though, I let it be a surprise when he sliced into it and everybody was impressed by it.

This cake takes a bit of work but it is totally worth it for the wow factor. The basic steps are baking four cake layers (two of each color), freezing, cutting, assembling, binding, freezing again, and frosting. I don’t think I could explain it nearly as well Amanda over on I Am Baker, so click here for the full tutorial.

I used my go-to yellow cake recipe multiplied by four and baked into 8″ rounds and frosted with my classic supersweet buttercream doubled (by request, if it was my choice I would’ve gone with chocolate).

I don’t really have any additional tips on this cake to offer because Amanda covers it so well on her blog except to remind you that every step is important. Don’t skip over the simple syrup or the binding with a rag (or rope). Also, if the two cakes didn’t bake up to an even layer, it’s fine because you can fill in the grooves with frosting.

Enjoy!

I was conflicted about these: should I call them truffles or cake balls? They are balls of cake, sure, but when I think of cake balls I think coated in chocolate or some other kind of candy coating, and these are coated in a mixture of powdered sugar and cocoa powder, like chocolate truffles.

I decided to go with chocolate cake truffles.

This isn’t so much a recipe as something you can do with leftover cake and frosting (from things like leveling a cake, leftover cake, if you break a cake because part of it gets stuck in the pan, etc) or you could just bake a cake solely to make these.
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The other day I made french vanilla ice cream, it was delicious but it used 12 egg yolks. That’s a lot, and it didn’t give me a use for all those egg whites, so I did some hunting and found this white cake recipe that uses 8 egg whites. The other four are still in the fridge waiting for a use, they may just become an egg white omelette, but 4 isn’t as overwhelming of an amount as 12.

What I’m trying to say is…make this cake and also make this ice cream, or at least make this cake.

It’s a two layer white cake, soft and light, which a homemade lemon curd filling and covered in a fluffy egg white frosting that tastes a lot like marshmallow fluff.
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Bite sized cheesecakes with an Oreo cookie crust and chocolate ganache on top.

My contribution to a party I went to this past weekend. I needed something that was small, something I could bring a lot of, and something that would impress. I also wasn’t in the mood to bake cupcakes. I decided since I rarely make cheesecake, today would be perfect. I went into my heatless kitchen, beat some cream cheese into complete submission, and came up with these little guys.
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Well…this is embarrassing.

That cake isn’t the Sweet And Salty Cake.

It’s the actual cake recipe, the chocolate cake, but it doesn’t have the salted caramel filling or the whipped caramel ganache icing. I didn’t want to not post the recipe though, because it’s a good recipe, and I have a good excuse. I burnt the caramel.

I wasn’t paying attention and let the caramel cook a little too long and I burnt it and it got stuck to my pan and I couldn’t get it off and I got discouraged and wanted to go to bed, so I just threw on a coat of vanilla frosting so it wasn’t a wasted effort (although, looking back, I could have just covered the layers and tried again tomorrow. Oh well!) and it was still good.

I will, however, give you the recipe for the real Sweet And Salty Cake.
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I’ve never once tried to conceal my love of butterscotch.

Butterscotch cream pudding to this butterscotch chip cookie cake and everywhere in between, I love butterscotch.

I also love cookie cake, so I made this in the shape of a heart.

The cookie dough comes together quickly and it only takes about 10 minutes to bake, it’s a great last minute thing or a quick treat to whip up, if you don’t have the pan (which you can buy here, on amazon) then you could just drop these on a pan and bake them as cookies.
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