Swedish Chocolate Cake

Dark, rich, gooey, crispy, cakey, fudgey- this cake is alllllll of those things. Even more exciting, the batter comes together in a matter of minutes and bakes for less than half an hour. You can even eat it warm right out of the pan if you don't want to wait for it to cool completely! It goes without saying I'm not the most patient baker.

Anyways, another reason this cake is wonderful is because if you do decide to wait for it to cool, it is very forgiving and will look beautiful no matter what. I had some disasters minor issues myself but when I served it, no one could tell the difference. If you're still not convinced that this cake is worth your time, maybe this picture of the dense, chocolatey, barely done insides will change your mind.

Ingredients: 

10 tablespoons of salted butter (if you use unsalted, just add in a big pinch of salt)
1/2 cup of cocoa powder
1 3/4 cup of sugar 

2 teaspoons of vanilla extract
1 cup of flour

3 eggs

Recipe:

-Preheat your oven to 350 degrees 

-Butter and flour a deep, round cake pan (6-8 inches wide)

-In a pot, melt all of your butter

-Add the rest of the ingredients and stir well until completely combined



-Pour the batter into your floured pan

-Bake for 30 minutes, but check on it at the 20 minute mark just in case- you want the cake to be firm on the edges but jiggly in the middle

-Let the cake cool (unless you want a sad, broken cake like mine)

(I warned you it was a disaster- but don't worry, I pushed everything back together! The crispy edges were perfect for holding in the gooey center)

-Use a thin knife to loosen the cake around the edges, and invert onto a cake plate
-Douse in powdered sugar 

-Finally, eat a slice (preferably a warm slice with ice cream or whipped cream)

(http://www.topwithcinnamon.com/2012/08/swedish-chocolate-cake-revisited-5.html)

Two Ingredient Apple Cinnamon Peanut Butter Pancakes

I'm not sure who decided to make national holidays for every food in the world, but I owe whoever did a huge thank you because they're my favorite holidays. Sadly, I have been unable to celebrate most of these food holidays because Purchase, New York has no decent restaurants and cooking in my dorm room is tricky. But when I found out that today was National Pancake Day, I NEEDED to find a way to cut into a stack of pancakes. I've been wanting to try two ingredient pancakes for a while now, so I took a chance by microwaving them rather than cooking them on a griddle and they came out pretty great! I layered each pancake with cinnamon applesauce and then drizzled the entire stack with some melted peanut butter. It sounds like a strange combination but the sweet and spicy applesauce paired so well with the mild banana flavor in the pancakes, and the peanut butter added the perfect amount of richness. Happy National Pancake Day! 

Ingredients:

1 & 1/2 bananas

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp of baking powder

1/3 cup of cinnamon applesauce

nut butter, cookie butter, for drizzling

Recipe:

-Mash up bananas

-Add in egg whites and baking powder and mix really well

-Spoon a thin layer of batter onto a lipped plate or into a bowl

-Microwave for two minutes, or until pancake is firm (it looks pretty hideous)

-Keep spooning and microwaving until you have a nice stack of them

-Fill each layer with a thin layer of applesauce

-Drizzle on your nut or cookie butter (at first I didn't drizzle enough)

-Then I drizzled too much

-Slice into that stack and enjoy!