80 Cakes Book Update

UPDATE: My first eBook, Cakes without Borders, is now available, and contains many of the recipes listed below. It is the first installment of the series, and I plan to donate a portion of the proceeds from each book to a global children’s humanitarian organization. Order your copy today!

I’ve been very quiet as far as posting things on my blog, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy! At the beginning of this year I opened my Etsy shop and I’ve been getting a steady stream of orders from that, which is great!

As for the book progress I’ve been testing a ton of new recipes. I’ve included some pictures and descriptions of the cakes below. I’ve also been taking a writing course to improve my general writing skills. As part of the course I learned how to use Adobe InDesign which is a really cool layout program. It has really helped me start to build a vision for how I would want the layout of the book to look. It will also come in handy if I decide to self publish.

I’m almost done with an entire chapters worth of recipes. Once that’s complete I plan to resubmit my book proposal to a number of literary agents. Here are the recipes I’ve been working on. All have been taste-tested and approved!

 Vatrushka:

Upon doing some research on Russian cuisine I came across a tasty looking  pastry called a Vatrushka (pronounced vat-roo-shka). It is a small ring of sweet yeast dough baked with a cottage or quark cheese center, sometimes with the addition of raisins or apricots. For my take on the Vatrushka I used a thick cake vanilla batter swimming with raisins and apricots, then baked it with a cottage cheese center. It is not overly sweet so it makes a great breakfast cake or a light afternoon snack with a cup of tea.

Kanelbulle Cake (Cinnamon Bun)

This cake is my tribute to the Swedish cinnamon bun. Cinnamon and brown sugar are swirled into the batter then the cake is layered with cream cheese buttercream and topped with a cinnamon brown sugar swirl. Since the cream cheese buttercream is pretty sweet I opted to leave the sides of the cake bare for a more rustic look. If you want to frost the sides as well be sure to make double batch of buttercream.

Guinness Cake

Guinness is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803) at St. James’s Gate, Dublin. To this day it is the best-selling drink in Ireland.  Guinness is very dark and rich in color and it often has a coffee-like taste. Its rich characteristics pair beautifully with the chocolate in this delicious pound cake. The taste of the Guinness is very subtle since all of the alcohol bakes off during the cooking process. It is an exceptionally moist cake that has an added depth of flavor making it unique from other chocolate cakes.

Baklava Cake

I love Greek/Mediterranean food. I’m always trying new recipes, and one day I decided to try making my own Baklava. I had always heard phyllo dough was tough to work with, so I was a little nervous, but I didn’t have any trouble at all. The Baklava came out great and I loved the flavor combination of the nuts, cinnamon and honey with just a hint of lemon, so I immediately decided to try making it into a cake of course!

To replicate the famous dessert I made an olive oil cake batter, since phyllo dough is typically made with olive oil. The cake batter is then layered with a cinnamon walnut mixture, just like the layers found in Baklava, and topped off with a similar honey-lemon syrup.