Cream cheese

[magid]

Sunday I had a somewhat last-minute family brunch. The menu featured the staples: bagels, cream cheese, and lox (and a few other things: goat cheese (plain and herbed), garlic hummus, homemade rolls, onion pockets (note to self: next time, get more of these and the whole wheat sesame bagels), crustless vegetable pie, capers, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, raspberries, grapes (fruit courtesy of my mom), tangerine juice, and tea). The thing is, I don't really like cream cheese, even on bagels, so when much of it was left over, it was a challenge to figure out what to do with it.

First thought was to make more bread and bring it and the cheese into work. Which gets it out of the house, but my preference is to feed me, if possible. Then I thought of cream cheese frosting, which I've only ever had on carrot cake. Which (a) I have never made, and (b) I don't currently have any carrots in the house. Both of which could be remedied, but suddenly I started thinking of putting cream cheese frosting on chocolate cake. I've read about chocolate and cheese together before, so why not? Which brought the leap to chocolate cream cheese frosting, and that sounded both do-able (without shopping further), and pretty yummy.

Last night I made a vegan chocolate cake (my current default chocolate cake; obviously, with a cheese frosting, I wasn't needing the vegan-ness of it), then started on the frosting. I Googled, and there were recipes, but most of them had cream cheese mixed with butter, which didn't appeal. So. I melted some chocolate chips in the microwave, put in the rest of the cream cheese, a bit of soy milk (I don't tend to have liquid cow milk about), and powdered sugar. As an afterthought, I added some sweetened cocoa powder, to get the frosting chocolatier (I suspect I should've used a bunch more chocolate chips).

Once the cake was cool, I frosted it. The verdict: decent. There's something not quite rounded enough about the flavor, but that could be because I skipped adding vanilla in the cake.

Comments

[mayica.livejournal.com]

For the record? A vanilla cream cheese frosting (cream cheese, just enough powdered sugar to make it sweet but not too sweet -- I put in lots less than most recipes -- a generous splash of vanilla, and a squirt of fresh lemon juice) is a fantastic frosting for a fudgy chocolate cake. I first had it at a bakery in Berkeley, and now use it routinely for frosting birthday cakes and the like. (I like the constrast between the tangy vanilla-y frosting and the rich cake.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Good to know, especially the less sugar part.

Right now, I have no vanilla (though I could certainly use some other useful-for-flavoring booze).

I found that the thing I like least about the frosting is the still-present hint of cream cheese taste; I hadn't realized before that it was taste as well as mouthfeel that I didn't care for.

[fetteredwolf.livejournal.com]

I make it like mayica does. The last birthday cake I made was actually chocolate with white cream cheese frosting. I decorated with chocolate-dipped strawberries and swirls of melted chocolate.
Mmm, if I may say so myself.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

Chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting is my favorite cake. And if you have leftovers it's good for breakfast!

[magid.livejournal.com]

Your favorite cake? *makes note*
You should be here, then :-).

I have had many unlikely things for breakfast, but strangely, chocolate cake (with any kind of frosting, or even frosting-free) hasn't yet made the list :-).

(I think I tend to allow myself sweets much more easily the later in the day it is. I suppose it's typical.)