Vanilla, Brown Sugar, and Praline Cake

So my birthday's coming up.

Naturally, I had to do a test-run of the birthday cake that I want to make (yes, for myself) this year.

Because no one likes a sucky birthday cake.

I saw a recipe on the interwebs for a chocolate praline cake, and another for cupcakes with brown sugar buttercream frosting. Well, I don't like chocolate cake, and both frostings sound good... so here's my ever-logical solution:

Vanilla, Brown Sugar, and Praline Cake
adapted from a recipe found on loveandoliveoil.com and on Tasty Kitchen
First, make my cake recipe (but ignore the frosting recipe!).
While it's cooling...

ingredients
for the brown sugar buttercream:
4 large egg whites
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1.5 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature, and cut into 2-3 tablespoon chunks

for the praline frosting:
3/8 cup salted butter
1.5 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
1.5 cup powdered (confectioner's) sugar
1.5 teaspoon vanilla
1.5 cup chopped pecans

directions
For the buttercream, set a heatproof bowl over (but not touching the water) a pan of simmering water. Continuously whisk together the egg whites, brown sugar, and salt, until the mixture is warm. Take the bowl off the pan. Using an electric hand mixer, beat on medium speed for 15 minutes. Raise the speed to high, and beat until stiff peaks form. Reduce speed to medium-low and add the chucks of butter, one chunk at a time, until fulling combined. Spread generously in between the layers of the cakes.

For the praline topping, put the butter, brown sugar, and whipping cream in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, and then let boil for one minute. Remove from stove and pour in the powdered sugar, vanilla and pecans. Stir for 5 minutes. Evenly pour the thickened mixture on top of the cake, and let it drip over the sides. Let the topping set before serving.

My family brought the end result to a dinner party, and I'm told it was a hit. I can't wait to try it out myself!

Mirror Lake Inn Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ever heard of the Mirror Lake Inn?

It's pretty fancy.
But the absolute best part of the couple of days I spent there were the chocolate chip cookies... they were seriously delicious. After we checked out, we were lucky enough to get the recipe! The cookies are great, but the only thing is, they come out really... flat. Delicious, no doubt, but flat, nonetheless.
Still, it's really very great if you like gooey cookies. And eating the dough raw is just as good.
I'm not sure what to do about the flatness, except maybe use all shortening next time instead of half butter and half shortening, like I did here. But I've never felt the need to change it, because I love it just so much!

Mirror Lake Inn Chocolate Chip Cookies (yields 3 dozen)
adapted from a recipe given by The Mirror Lake Inn
ingredients
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups flour
1.5 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups chocolate chips

directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease the cookie sheets.

Combine the butter, shortening, sugar, brown sugar, eggs and vanilla with an electric mixer until fluffy.

Blend the flour, salt, and baking soda. Combine the dry mixture with the sugar mixture. Add the chocolate chips.

Drop about 1 tablespoon-sized balls of cookie dough onto the cookie sheets, and bake for 8 minutes. Remove the cookies and let cool on a cooling rack for 10 minutes.

Any Flavor Cake With Chocolate Fudge Frosting

I love baking. Love it. The first food I ever made by myself was a batch of chocolate chip cookies (and that recipe is still my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe to this day!) but right now, I'm going to tell you about my favorite cake.
What's great about this is that it can be any flavor. Chocolate? Check. Butter recipe yellow cake (my favorite!) check. Funfetti? Yeah, you can do that too. It starts with a base of any box cake mix of your choice, and then you add some ingredients to make it super moist and extra yummy. Basically, I'm the cake boss of my family (giving Buddy a run for his money).
I like to top it with homemade chocolate fudge frosting, but really any frosting will do.

Any Flavor Cake With Chocolate Fudge Frosting
adapted from Bride&Groom First and Forever Cookbook 
ingredients
for the cake:
1 box of cake mix (I used Butter Recipe Yellow... for this one only, add the same amount of butter as it says on the instructions on the back of the box)
1 cup of water
3 eggs
1/3 cup of oil (vegetable, corn, whatever you have... but I wouldn't recommend olive oil)
1/3 cup of sour cream
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon of salt

for the frosting:
12 oz or 2 cups of semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 cups sugar
2/3 cups milk
1 cup unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

directions
Put the rack at the bottom of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F. Grease 3 nonstick 8-inch cake pans with 1.5 inch sides.

Combine all cake ingredients with an electric hand mixer until well blended. Pour into the pans and bake for about 25 minutes, or until you can stick a knife in the cake and it comes out clean. Let cool on wire racks completely.

While the cakes are cooling, put chocolate chips into a mixing bowl. Set aside. Combine all other ingredients except the vanilla extract in a medium pan over high heat and bring to a boil, letting it boil for 1 minute. Pour over the chocolate chips, and add the vanilla. Combine with and electric hand mixer for about 15 minutes (it'll give your arms a workout!).

Assemble the cake by cutting the very top off 2 of the 3 layers (in order to make the top level and flat). Spread about 3/4 cup of frosting in between each layer, and then the rest on the top and sides of the cake. Decorate as you please, and enjoy.