cooking ala mel

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

January 31, 2012

On a whim, the last time I was grocery shopping, I grabbed an eggplant. I’ve never cooked eggplant before, and I really didn’t know what to do with it other than make eggplant parmesan. With the cold, snowy weather we’ve had here in Buffalo the past few days, nothing sounded better than some baked eggplant parmesan overtop some whole wheat spaghetti. Warm and comforting.

Over the weekend, I picked up a few daylight lightbulbs to put onto the ceiling fan light in our dining room so that I could take pictures at night without the lighting being absolutely horrible. This was my first time trying it out! I’m really happy with how bright it is, without the horrible yellow tinge.

This recipe took me about an hour to make start to finish, which was totally cool with me; I squeezed an hour nap in before I started, and I had it done not too long after Alex got home from class. There’s a lot of eggplant left over, too, so I’m really excited. Alex wants to make eggplant parmesan pizza later in the week.

I like how the eggplant didn’t end up extremely mushy like I’m used to with eggplant dishes. It’s nice and soft with a bit of a bite, so there’s no weird texture going on.

I used inspiration for this recipe from Ezra Poundcake and Martha Stewart – I knew it’d be delicious coming from them!

Baked Eggplant Parmesan

serves 4

1 large eggplant, cut lengthwise into 1/2″ thick pieces

1 egg

1 1/2 cups panko breadcrumbs

1/2 cup grated parmesan

1/2 cup shredded romano

1 t oregano

1/2 t basil

1/2 t sea salt

1/4 t garlic powder

1 24-oz jar marinara sauce (or your favorite pasta sauce)

1 cup mozzarella

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Beat the egg with 1 T cold water in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, mix together the breadcrumbs, 1/4 cup parmesan, 1/4 cup romano, oregano, basil, sea salt, and garlic powder. Dip the eggplant into the egg mixture and then into the crumb mixture. Place on a baking sheet sprayed with oil. Repeat with the remaining eggplant pieces.

Bake for 15 minutes, flip the eggplant pieces over, and bake for another 15 minutes, until lightly browned on each side. Remove from the oven and spoon a bit of the marinara sauce on each eggplant pieces. Top with mozzarella and the remaining 1/4 cup romano and 1/4 cup parmesan. Place back into the oven, and bake until the cheese is melted, about 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and serve by itself or over top whole wheat spaghetti. Enjoy!

Six-Layer Malted Chocolate and Toasted Marshmallow Chocolate Cake

January 29, 2012

My friend, Jaclyn, had her 21st birthday on Thursday. We had a party for her Friday night, so of course I had to make a cake to celebrate! I immediately went to one of my favorite blogs, Sweetapolita, and went through all of Rosie’s delicious cake recipes to find one that sounded delicious and not too intimidating. Jaclyn’s only request for her cake was that it be some kind of chocolate, so I immediately honed in on the Campfire Delight cake. Dark chocolate cake with malted chocolate frosting and toasted marshmallow frosting? With six layers? Oh goodness.

At first, I planned on just making a three layer cake because the thought of splitting a cake to make six layers sort of terrified me, but then I decided to go all out and have some fun with it. How can you go wrong with six layers of pure heaven (as everyone has called it)?

I couldn’t believe how tall it ended up; six layers sure is a lot of cake!

So that I could take pictures of the cake and slice into it before the party, I made a little cake for myself using mini tart pans in addition to the birthday cake. This was a lot of fun to do! I was able to test out my cake building skills on the one that didn’t matter so much (other than for the blog – which I suppose does make it a BIT important), so that was nice. Let’s pretend that I made the little cake early for the blog’s first birthday, which will be February 5; I’m sure I won’t be ready for cake again by then, so this’ll do just fine. 😉

I ended up doubling the recipe for the cake and making 1.5 times the amount of each frosting recipe to ensure that I had enough to make both cakes. With the scraps of cake that I cut to level off the layers and the bit of extra frosting I had left over, I mixed them together to make cake balls that I then dipped in chocolate and took along to the party. They were a huge hit, and so so easy to make!

When I was decorating the cakes, I decided to use the marshmallow frosting to pipe the writing, and that started out as a lovely idea, as you’ll notice from the ‘happy’ and ‘birthday.’ Since there are bits of toasted marshmallow in it, though, every once in a while the marshmallow would get stuck in the decorating tip and shoot out globs when I unknowingly squeezed harder to get it out. The writing was a little bit rough, but overall, not too bad.

I didn’t actually eat this piece when I first cut it since I’d be having some at the party that night, but Jaclyn ended up being down for the count before we actually got to sing Happy Birthday and cut the cake (turning 21 and having 4 shots in the span of 10 minutes will do that to you..). We ended up having birthday cake for breakfast, which was deliciously indulgent and a perfect cure for anybody that had a hangover from the night before.

Once we finally had the cake, it was all sorts of delicious. The toasted marshmallow frosting was nice and sweet, the malted chocolate frosting was light in texture and rich in flavor, and the cake was moist and wonderful tying all the flavors together. I ended up having another piece from the little cake after dinner, straight out of the fridge, and it was like having marshmallows sandwiched between cake that was covered in truffle filling. YUM.

And of course the kitty had to have a part in this. He was sprinting around the apartment the entire time I was taking pictures; he almost did a nosedive into the cake several times, but the cakes both managed to make it out unscathed, much to Tesla’s chagrin.

Recipe can be found at Sweetapolita, here. I followed it almost exactly (I used Lindt’s chili dark chocolate for the malted chocolate frosting in combination with regular dark chocolate for an extra little boost in flavor).

While you’re over there, check out Rosie’s asparagus cake! How amazing is that?!

German Chocolate Cookies

January 21, 2012

Lately, I’ve been really craving some chocolate chip cookies. Classic chocolate chip cookies. With a glass of milk. Instead, I saw these on pinterest from Bake or Break. I had to make them. They have chocolate chips in them, so it should totally satisfy my craving, right? Wrong.. but they were still delicious and I’m glad I made them. Chocolate chip cookies another day!

I definitely lightened up and changed the recipe from Bake or Break pretty thoroughly, but these cookies are so good if you’re a fan of german chocolate cake. I absolutely love german chocolate cake, but my favorite part is mostly the coconut pecan frosting. These cookies don’t have frosting or anything, but the coconut and pecans are mixed into the batter. SO GOOD. To make the cookies slightly more cake like, I replaced half the butter with applesauce, just to make them a little bit fluffier.

These cookies are really good with a glass of milk or a cup of tea. I’m wondering how amazing they’d be if I frosted the next batch? I don’t want to think about it. Yum.

German Chocolate Cookies

yields 2 dozen cookies

1 cup + 2 T white whole wheat flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1/2 t baking soda

1/8 t salt

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup agave nectar

1/4 cup molasses

1 egg

1 t vanilla

1/2 cup chocolate chips

1/2 cup unsweetened coconut

1/2 cup chopped pecans

In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream the butter until fluffy. Add in the applesauce, agave and molasses. Mix in the egg and vanilla. Slowly add in the flour mixer. Stir until just incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips, coconut and pecans.

Drop dough by the tablespoon onto parchment or silicone lined baking sheets. Bake 12-15 minutes at 350ºF. Cool on wire racks. Store in airtight container.