Two weeks ago, we had the last night of beginners cake decorating at the Cake and Wedding Cottage.

The evening was bittersweet. The class was fantastic, and I had so much fun. It was great to meet the folks in the class, and I learned so much more than I ever expected. Although I may not do the over-the-top fancy decorating that we did for many of the cakes in the class all of the time, I learned so many tips that will make me a better decorator, even for simple cakes. I think I will take the second course in the series, just not right away. My weeks were more than a little bit crazy the first two months of the year with all of the baking required for class–so I need a chance to catch my breath before I go at it again!

But the evening was also bittersweet because we were working with chocolate icing for the first time. Amazing, super chocolatey icing, done up as a basket full of flowers. And since the evening had a chocolate theme, I decided to go chocolate all the way, with a triple chocolate fudge cake from the Sky High Cookbook. It made for a fantastic chocolate evening, with a delicious day to follow.

But before we get to the recipe, a note about basket weave. Of all the techniques we learned in class, it is hands down my favorite. In fact, I would go as far as saying I’m a little bit in love with basket weave. It’s easy to put on, it looks FANTASTIC, you can use it to cover less than perfect icing or cake surfaces, and–the best part–you can use it to apply the so called *dessert* icings, real butter buttercream and cream cheese. Two of my favorites!

Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake
Adapted from Sky High

This recipe makes a seriously HUGE cake–three super tall 8 inch layers. Since I knew we were going to be piling a ton of beautiful roses on top of the cake, I decided to only do two layers and make some cupcakes with the rest of the layers. I ended up with about a dozen cupcakes and two big layers of cake. So when you make this, be ready for a big cake with an awesome flavor. The cinnamon and coffee give this cake a different and unexpected twist that will please the chocolate lovers in any crowd.

Ingredients:

• 2 ¼ cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 ¼ tsp baking soda
• 1 ¼ tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• 2 ½ ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 1 cup milk (I used skim)
• 1 ¼ cups hot, strongly brewed coffee
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup mayonnaise (I used low fat with no effect on the cake)
• 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
• 2 ¼ cups sugar

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 350. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8 or 9 inch round cake pans. Line the base of each pan with parchment.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

Put the chopped chocolate in a large heatproof bowl. Bring the milk to a simmer over medium heat. Pour the hot coffee and milk over the chocolate. Let stand for a minute, then whisk until smooth. Let the liquid cool slightly.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the eggs, mayonnaise and vanilla until well blended. Beat in the sugar. Add the dry ingredients and mocha liquid alternately in 2 or 3 additions, beating until smooth and well blended. Make sure you have the shield on your blender when you do this, because it really makes a mess! Divide the batter among the prepared pans.

Bake for 25 to 28 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out almost clean. You want those few crumbs to cling, so the cake still has a fudgey character. Let the cakes cool in their pans for 10-15 minutes before turning onto a wire rack and carefully peeling off the paper. Leave to cool completely before icing.

Ice with your favorite chocolate icing. This is a death by chocolate cake, so no chocolate is too much!

So in my office, we have this great thing called Weekly Snack Society. We are ruled by a benevolent dictator (The Director) who sets up a calendar givining all members of the society the responsibility of bringing snacks to work on a given Wednesday. When it’s your turn, you better show up with snacks, and they better be tasty.

Well this week was my turn. And since people at work have expectations since they’re often the recipients of my baking excess, I had to make sure my snack was extra special and extra tasty.

If I had to pick a theme for my snacks this time around, it would have to be brown sugar. Yum-hum BROWN SUGAR! Why you ask? Because the two recipes I made were both fantastic variations on pretty standard recipes, made into something a little bit better with the inclusion of more brown sugar than you would normally think to add to the recipes. But the extra brown sugar gives you a wonderful, complex caramely sweetness that you simply can’t get with white sugar alone.

The first item I took is something I make so often–mainly because they are ALWAYS so well received everywhere they go–that they’ve practically made me famous. Yes, people are always asking me to bring MY chocolate chip cookies, but really I can’t take credit for them, since they’re really the recipe out the awesome Baked cookbook. With a couple of minor tweaks, this recipe has become my go-to and makes simply the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had anywhere.

The second item was a variation on one of my favorite summer treats, zucchini muffins. I love this recipe, but I think I made it last summer when I had snack society about this time, so I wanted to try something new. And I didn’t have to look far to find the great recipe for Zucchini Spice Cupcakes from Martha Stewart cupcakes, via the Food Librarian and Erin’s Food Files.

So without further ado–here are the recipes, followed by the results:

Baked Chocolated Chip Cookies

• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
• I cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 bag semi sweet chips

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream butter and sugars until they are light and fluffy. Add each egg seperately, scraping down the sides after each addition. Mixture should still be light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and mix for 5 seconds. Add half of the flour mixture and beat for 15 seconds, then add the rest and beat until just combined. Add chocolate chips and mix until they are incorporated.

Remove cold dough, and place rounded spoonfulls (I use a 2 tablespoon cookie scoop) on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Place into oven preheated to 375 degrees and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from cookie sheet and let cool on racks. Store in airtight container for up to three days.

Beautiful, aren’t they? And they’re perfect–crispy on the outside and chewy in the center.

Martha Stewart’s Zucchini Spice Cupcakes
Yields: 24 cupcakes (I got 30)

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 cup vegetable oil (I used canola oil)
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups packed light brown sugar
• 3 cups packed grated zucchini

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In another bowl, whisk together oil, eggs, and vanilla until well blended; whisk in brown sugar until smooth. Stir in zucchini, then add flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Divide batter evenly among lined cups, filling each three quarters full. Bake, rotating tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer tins to wire racks to cool completely before removing cupcakes. Cupcakes can be stored overnight at room temperature or frozen up to 2 months, in airtight containers.

To finish, use an offset spatula to spread cupcakes with frosting. Refrigerate up to 3 days in airtight containers; bring to room temperature before serving.

Instead of using Martha’s cream cheese icing recipe–it just seemed like too much, plus I didn’t want to kill anyone before 10AM–I just glazed my cupcakes with a simple glaze like the Food Librarian did. The glaze was 1 cup powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons vanilla extract, and warm water until the icing was runny enough to spoon over the cupcakes.

Again, the results were beautiful, and these were all gone by 10AM, without heart attacks!

All in all, a very succesfull snack society, if I do say so myself. There were absolutely no leftovers, lots of compliments, and many happy coworkers.