I love having a reason to bake a cake. I don’t bake cakes as an after-school treat (cookies rule!), as we just don’t want that much of a tempting sweet around unless it’s easy to parcel out and freeze. But for birthdays, I’m all about baking a cake!
This weekend we celebrated several January birthdays in our family, and I was tasked with bringing a pareve, or non-dairy, cake. My mom keeps a kosher home, and she and my dad were serving deli for our lunch gathering, so I had to find recipes without butter and milk.
The night before our event, I baked two rounds of Black Chocolate Cake, using dark cocoa powder and Earth Balance butter sticks for the shortening. It was gorgeous and moist — truly more black than dark brown.
Since buttercream frosting wasn’t an option, I decided to try my hand at White Meringue Frosting. Egg whites are whisked with lots of sugar and a little vanilla extra over a double-boiler, until the eggs reach a temperature of 160°F and all the sugar is dissolved. Although the recipe cautions about thoroughly dissolving the sugar to avoid a grainy end product, I wasn’t totally successful. I did whisk that mixture by hand, on the stove, for 20 minutes though! The cooked mixture felt and tasted smooth to me, but once it was whipped in the KitchenAid the graininess became more pronounced. Regardless, the frosting was tasty and my father-in-law actually thought the sugar granules were an on-purpose, delicious feature. A. did not — upon tasting it, he immediately asked why there were “crumbs” in the frosting.
The cake was a big success, and I am sure I can do a better job on the frosting next time. If you need a non-dairy frosted cake for allergy or kashrut reasons, I can definitely recommend this one. And here’s the evidence:
I was attracted to 101 Cookbooks’ Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookies Recipe for two reasons: it uses whole wheat flour exclusively, instead of a blend of AP and whole wheat; and the novelty of baking the cookie in a cast iron skillet.
I simplified the recipe a bit, creaming the butter and sugar in my mixer and then just dumping the rest of the ingredients along with it. (I wasn’t about to use multiple bowls for a chocolate chip cookie — I’m lazy like that.) I also used a 12 oz. bag of semisweet chocolate chunks instead of cut up a bar of chocolate myself.
The boys thought this “cookie cake” was very cool. It reminded me of my high school afternoons, working at the Nanuet Mall. There was a Great American Cookie Co. across the aisle from my store, and their cookie cakes were all the rage in early 90s. The boys wanted to cut this cookie up into pizza wedges, but even though I cut the slices thin they still felt very large because of the diameter of the pan.
The cookie is a bit dense because of the whole wheat flour, but my kids definitely did not realize it was any different than a sweet made with all-purpose flour. I wound up freezing half the cookie, and it still tasted fresh once defrosted. While we enjoyed the novelty of this skillet cookie, we’ll probably stick to our tried-and-true drop cookies in the future.
The boys are suddenly very interested in my menu planning, asking to be part of the process and wanting to look up what’s for dinner online rather than just talking to me about it. It’s very cute, and makes me feel happy that I put in the work to plan.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more about me and CITK, and keep in touch:
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Cheesy Kale Crisps: We rarely eat kale now that our farm share is over, and I want to fix that. I've wanted to try using nutritional yeast, and this recipe looks like a tasty way to do it.
I'm Dara, the Chick in the Kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two school-aged boys and husband. Feeding my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Read more 
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