Devils Food with a little less sin.

I never knew just how much I loved Chocolate cake until recently when I began experimenting with devil’s food cake.  I have been playing with different cake recipes and I have enjoyed every bite of it.  I have yet to be disappointed with these heavenly desserts.  What’s ever better is that I have been working on making them a little less sinful- swapping applesauce for oil, reduced fat sour cream for original, that sort of thing, with wondrous results. 

There are two recipes that are fairly similar, the biggest differences being the sour cream and oil ratios as well as the size of dry pudding mix used.  I have baked them both within the last few weeks and found that I couldn’t really see the difference.  This cake was perhaps the moister of the two however, so I am posting it first. 

The original recipes that I found using Devils Food cake mix called for either boiling water, strong brewed coffee or coffee liquor.  With this cake I went with Irish Cream Liquor.  Why?  Well mainly because I bought a bottle at Christmas for my friends and family to partake in Irish Cream Coffee and then never got around to actually making the hot dessert beverage.  Maybe next year.  But alas, a whole bottle of Irish Cream, I thought it couldn’t hurt.  It didn’t.

When making this cake I did use a lot of reduced fat or less fat options, however those were to suite my preferences.  I have also made this cake using the ingredients in parenthesis with just as amazing results only with a little more fat.

Heavenly Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

1 package Devils Food cake mix

1 (5.9 oz) package Instant Chocolate pudding mix

1 cup reduced fat sour cream

1 cup applesauce (or oil)

1 cup eggbeaters (or 4 large eggs)

1/2 cup Irish cream liquor

2 cups (1 package) mini chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350* degrees.  Spray a 10 inch Bundt pan with cooking spray.
2. In a large bowl (or using your electric stand mixer bowl) mix cake mix, pudding mix, sour cream, applesauce, eggs and liquor with an electric mixer for 30 seconds.  Mix on medium speed for two minutes.
3. Stir in chocolate chips and pour cake mix into prepared pan.  Bake for 60 minutes.
4. Cool on wire rack for 10 minutes.  Remove cake from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

Nutty Pancakes

In January, probably when we were snowed in, I made a Nut and Grain Pancake reminiscent of the delicious ones the folks at IHOP make.  Since then I have made these pancakes no less than six times.  I prefer them to any box pancake I’ve ever had but I’ve also been testing out buttermilk pancakes and I keep coming back to these.  They don’t seem to keep as well in the fridge as your run of the mill buttermilk batter but my kids love them so much that we never have any leftovers.

I have altered them a tad since first making them to include three types of nuts and Canola Oil in lieu of vegetable oil.  I also have designated several two-cup Ziploc containers for storing the different ground up nuts and oatmeal so that these are an even quicker breakfast to throw together for the kids.  Don’t let the list of ingredients deter you, these really do go together quickly and make for a hearty and delicious breakfast. 

Nutty pancakes

ingredients

3/4 cup ground Oatmeal

3/4 cup whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 1/2 cups fat free buttermilk

1/4 cup canola oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar

2 tablespoons ground almonds

2 tablespoons ground pecans

2 tablespoons ground walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat griddle to medium (roughly 350*) and spray with a cooking spray such as Pam or Baker’s Joy.  Spray between each batch of pancakes.
2. Grind outs in food processor thoroughly.
3. Combine oats, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon in medium bowl.
4. With an electric mixer combine buttermilk, oil, vanilla, egg and sugar. Stir in dry ingredients followed by ground nuts.
5. Ladle 1/4 cup batter onto griddle and cook approximately 3 minutes on each side.

Note: You can use any combination of nuts but I wouldn’t add more than 6 tablespoons as it will dry out the batter too much making these pancakes dry and crumbly.

Orange Rolls

Ever since I was a young girl I have been a Pillsbury Orange Roll fanatic. No kidding, I can finish off an entire package of those rolls by myself and the strange thing is I don’t even like oranges or orange juice. Now that we have children who also love orange rolls, one package is just not enough. That fact coupled with several snow days and a gift of Hale Oranges from my grandmother had my curiosity peaked, and I spent last Saturday night looking up Orange Rolls.

There were not as many recipes as I would have thought but I did find a recipe with stellar ratings and went for it. Many sweet rolls take so much time due to prep work and rising that I altered this recipe to include the first rising the night before and then let the second rising happen over night in the fridge.

The result? A seriously surprising sweet for Sunday morning’s breakfast. The recipe said you would get 30 rolls but I barely got 24.

I made three different icings for the rolls. One was the original icing called for in the recipe which I did not care for at all and I scrapped it after making it but before covering the rolls with it. It tasted of nothing but butter. The second icing was a confectioner’s sugar, milk and freshly squeezed orange juice icing which is what we had on the first batch that morning for breakfast. However, I whipped up an even simpler confectioner’s sugar and milk icing for the second batch that I found just as pleasing. Where as the rolls themselves were a total success I think I may keep looking for an icing that really completes these rolls. If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them.

Orange Rolls

(borrowed from MizzNess from this wonderful site here)

Ingredients

(for rolls)

1 package yeast (2 1/4 tsp Rapidrise Yeast)

1/4 cup water (~110*)

1 cup warm milk (~110*)

1/4 cup shortening

1 tsp salt

1 egg, lightly beaten

~3 3/4 cup all purpose flour

(for filling)

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter softened

2 tablespoons orange zest

(glaze)

1 cup confectioner’s sugar

4 tsp milk

2 tsp orange juice

directions

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water in small bowl for about 5 minutes.
2. In a large bowl combine milk, shortening, sugar, salt and egg. Add yeast.
3. Stir in enough flour to make a soft dough and knead on floured surface for 8-10 minutes or with a dough hook in an electric mixer.
4. Grease a large bowl and place dough inside turning to cover dough with oil.
5. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
6. Punch dough down and divide in half. Roll each half out on a floured surface to 15x10 or there abouts.
7. Mix filling until smooth and spread evenly on each rectangle.
8. Roll up starting with long end and cut each into 12 rolls. Place rolls into 2 greased pans. Cover and let rise until doubled about 45 minutes or cover and refrigerate overnight. If refrigerating overnight take out the next morning long enough to take the chill off the dough.
9. Bake at 375* for 20 minutes or until golden brown.
10. Mix glaze ingredients and spread over warm rolls.

Note : Remove these rolls from the pan almost immediately as they can stick to your pan and make clean-up more trouble than the rolls themselves.

I went to be anxious about waking up the next morning and eating these rolls. I’m crazy like that.