This one is a doozy. Do people even say that anymore? Well it's true. She's got a few steps to her, but she's so worth it. The good ones always are. This is a graham cracker sponge, homemade marshmallow fluff filling, smothered in a chocolate buttercream, and doused with chocolate ganache.
This makes a three layer 9-inch round cake or you could do about 2.5 dozen cupcakes.
For the cake:
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c unsalted butter, room temp
1 c brown sugar
1 c honey
4 egg whites
1 tsp vanilla
2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 c whole wheat flour
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c sour cream
1/2 c buttermilk
1. Preheat oven to 350F and prep three 9-inch cake pans with goop.
2. In a bowl, combine all dry ingredients (flours, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon) and set aside.
3. In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together oil, butter, honey, and brown sugar.
4. Add in egg whites and vanilla and beat for a minute or so to incorporate.
5. Add in 1/3 of the dry ingredients and beat to combine.
6. Add in the sour cream, beat to combine.
7. Repeat with 1/3 dry ingredients.
8. Add buttermilk.
9. End on last 1/3 dry ingredients.
10. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
For the marshmallow fluff: *This is my normal marshmallow recipe, just tweaked to make it looser. You don't need all of this, but I mean, who's gonna be mad about some extra fluff? But, feel free to 1/2 this recipe if you don't want extra happiness.
1/3 c powdered sugar
1 ½ tbsp unflavored gelatin
½ c cold water
1 ½ c granulated sugar
1 c corn syrup
¼ tsp salt
½ c water *yeah, separate from the other ½ c water.
1. In the bowl of a stand mixer, sprinkle gelatin over ½ c cold water to soften; set aside.
2. In a saucepan, heat granulated sugar, corn syrup, salt, and ½ c water *you see, the second water* over low heat, stirring constantly until sugar is dissolved. Heat to boiling; cook without stirring until it reaches 240F on a candy thermometer or until a small amount of mixture dropped into a cup of ice water forms a ball that holds its shape but is pliable. Remove from heat. *I always do both the thermometer AND the water test. I don't trust my thermometer fully, but it's a good guide to know when to start trying the softball water test.
3. Slowly pour syrup into softened gelatin while beating on low speed *I used the whisk attachment*. Increase speed to high; beat 8 to 10 minutes or until mixture is white and has almost tripled in volume. Add in salt and vanilla and mix to incorporate.
4. Put in a piping bag until assembly.
For the buttercream:
4 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature *yes, this is pretty butter-heavy; trust me, it's delicious 1 c cocoa powder 4 c powdered sugar 1/4 tsp salt 1 tsp vanilla
1. Put butter into stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment.
2. Sift cocoa powder and powdered sugar together.
3. Pour sugar mixture into butter a little at a time until incorporated. Add salt and vanilla to taste.
4. Continue to beat for a few minutes until fluffy. If it feels too tight, add a splash of milk or cream.
5. Place about 1/3 of the frosting in a piping bag and set aside.
For the ganache:
1 c heavy cream 12 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips 4 tbsp (half a stick) unsalted butter, room temp - I almost ALWAYS don't do room temp because I forget to pull the butter out for this; it's fine; just takes a few more mins to melt Pinch of salt 1 tsp vanilla extract
1. Place the heavy cream in a small pan on the stove and heat until just at a simmer. You don't want this to boil.
2. While the cream is heating, put your chocolate and butter chopped into small cubes into a heat safe bowl.
3. Once the cream has heated, pour over the chocolate and butter and cover bowl with plastic wrap for about 5 minutes. *This just ensures that your chocolate will melt and be easier to incorporate.
4. Stir the ingredients together. At first it will look like they aren't coming together. They will. Once it's smooth, I add some salt and vanilla to taste, and make sure to fully incorporate it.
5. You will want this to sit for a while so that it is pourable but will not fall off the cake. We want drips.
Assembly:
1. Place a dollop of frosting onto board or cake stand and put down first layer of cake (feel free to level off the tops of cakes if they're domed).
2. Take the piping bag of buttercream and pipe a thick rim around the top of the cake to make a dam for the marshmallow fluff.
3. Fill in the layer with the marshmallow fluff. Repeat with the second layer.
4. Cover the whole cake in the buttercream.
5. Slowly spoon the ganache on top and guide it down the side of the cake in drips- some people use a squeeze bottle for this. I just give it a little nudge occasionally with my spoon to force it to gently fall down the side of the cake.
6. Decorate with teddy grahams, mini marshmallows, and chocolate pieces.
7. Sit next to a fire and mock it because you got your s'mores dream without any of its help.
On my continued journey of macaron-ing beloved flavors, here are the red velvets. Slightly chocolately, chewy shells with tangy cream cheese frosting in the middle. And they're just so cute, that it makes me want to sing she's a lady, woah woah woah, she's a lady. They're fancy and down to party.
Just a reminder that you will need a food scale for this- you really do want to make sure that your measurements are based on the egg weight. This recipe makes about 2 dozen small macarons.
For the shells:
2 egg whites (for this one, it was 71g - this is my base weight)
106.5 g powdered sugar (1.5 x egg white)
106.5 g almond flour (1.5 x egg white)
12 g cocoa powder (.18 x egg white)
56.8 g granulated sugar (0.8 x egg white)
1/8 tsp cream of tartar
red food coloring *I am not putting a measurement here; I used liquid; I think if you used gel, you may be able to add more and have a more vibrant red, but just be careful if you're using liquid to not use too much- it can mess with the consistency of the batter
1/3 c white chocolate chips for drizzling (optional)
1. Prepare a piping bag with a large round tip and set aside. Line two baking sheets with silpat mat and/or parchment. *You will want to draw a circle template to pipe your macarons on to if you're just using parchment. Even if you have the silpats, I also use the parchment over top because it tends to stick less, but the circles on the silpat are perfect guides for piping.
2. In a stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, start mixing egg whites. Don't mix them on too high of a speed (no higher than 6 on a kitchenaid). While this starts out, move to the next step.
3. Sift together almond flour, powdered sugar, and cocoa powder in a bowl. *I just put my bowl on my food scale and poured through my sifter until the right weight because I'm lazy.* Put aside until the egg whites are finished.
4. After the egg whites have started to foam up, add cream of tartar. *this is just to help stabilize the merengue, so you can leave it out if you want, but macarons can be finicky bitches, so I use it.
5. Start adding in the granulated sugar to the foamy egg whites a bit at a time. Let mixer keep whipping until you get to stiff peaks, like you see in the picture.
6. Pour in about half of your dry ingredients and the red food coloring into the egg whites. You'd think you have to be gentle here because it's egg whites and you don't want to lose all that air. Nah. You can mix the shit of out of this; it's okay.
7. Pour the second half of dry ingredients in and keep mixing. Here I was a bit more gentle. You want to keep mixing until it looks glossy and it ribbons back on itself.
8. Pour into piping bag and pipe into small circles. Bang on the counter several times to get the air bubbles out. Again, they are delicate, but they also like it a bit rough.
9. Allow to cure until they are matte (not shiny) and are not sticky when you gently touch your finger to it- this can be 30 - 60 minutes depending on the humidity.
10. Preheat oven to 350; before putting in the macarons, turn down to 325F. **You want to bake each tray by itself. If you put in both at the same time, the air doesn't circulate properly.
11. Bake for 10-12 minutes. When lightly tapped, it shouldn't move on its base.
12. Allow to cool completely. Once cool, melt white chocolate in microwave in 15 second intervals. Once melted, put in a piping bag and pipe lines on half of the shells (this feels ambiguous- pipe half of the shells halfway with lines, so half of them will not have chocolate). Allow to solidify before assembly.
For the filling:
2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp
2 tbsp cream cheese, room temp
1 1/2 c powdered sugar (ish)
Dash of salt
Splash of vanilla
1. In a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment, cream together the butter and cream cheese.
2. Slowly add powdered sugar, salt, and vanilla.
3. If it feels too thick, you can add a splash of milk or heavy cream as well.
4. Put the filling in a piping bag and cut the corner off. Pipe a small amount of the buttercream onto the center of half of the shells- you will be putting together one non-white chocolated side with one white chocolated side. You will need less filling in each of them than you think. I would suggest fully assembling a few first to see what your ratio should be before filling the rest.
