Archive for the 'cake' Category
I may be done with banana bread. For a little while, anyway. We just need a break from each other. I may just be tired of the avalanche of bananas each time I try to locate something in the freezer. And in the fall, I do love the idea of baking with squash and sweet potatoes. And I always get this sense that I’m somehow taking care of everybody when I have a loaf baking in the oven.
Let’s keep that illusion going.
This is – yes – more of a cake. It’s dense and moist, and crackly on top. Somehow baking it in a loaf pan makes it seem more suitable for breakfast and snacking, but if you baked it in layers and slathered it with cream cheese frosting, you’d have yourself a pretty substantial cake. I cut back on the sugar, but it’s still pretty sweet. I’m quite sure, however, that most coffee shop baking is loaded with the good stuff – butter, sugar, oil – ignorance is bliss, right?
Oh hey! You can totally make this with grated raw winter squash – like butternut or pumpkin – in place of the sweet potato, too.
Zucchini & Sweet Potato Loaf
adapted from Bon Appétit, November 1992
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup canola or mild vegetable oil (or half oil, half applesauce or pumpkin puree)
3 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups grated zucchini
1 1/2 cups grated peeled sweet potato
1 cup chopped walnuts, toasted
Preheat oven to 350°F and spray a 9×5-inch loaf pan with nonstick spray. In a large bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, stir together the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla and add to the dry ingredients along with the zucchini and sweet potato. Add walnuts and stir just until combined.
Transfer batter to prepared pan. Bake for about 1 hour 20 minutes, until golden and the top is springy to the touch. Cool bread in pan on rack 15 minutes. Cut around bread to loosen. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Wrap in foil and let stand at room temperature.)
Makes 1 big, hefty loaf.
November 17 2011 | breakfast and cake | 4 Comments »
It’s birthday week around here – mine, Mike’s, my sister’s and my nephew’s, all within 6 days. Today we got together for dinner. On the menu: 21 day aged roast beef, Yorkshire pud, roasted veg and all that. For dessert, I dug up something that had jumped out as something Mike would love – apple cheesecake. The plain cheesecake from Canadian Living was his birthday cake of choice for years, and his favourite special-day breakfast has always been puffed apple pancakes or crepes with sautéed apples. This seemed like the perfect marriage of the two.
It had a simple press-in crust made with flour, sugar, butter and egg yolk. Mixed with my fingers and pressed into the bottom and a little up the sides of a springform pan, all rustic-like.
The cheesecake filling is easily mixed and poured overtop.
Then you thinly slice tart apples (I used Ambrosia) and toss them with sugar and cinnamon and spread them over the unbaked filling. Then bake the lot of it.
When it’s done it’ll be puffed and golden, but still a bit jiggly; it will firm up as it cools.
It needs some time to chill out, so make it in the morning if it’s destined for dinner.
Apple Pie Cheesecake
Adapted from Dainty Chef, with thanks to her cheesecake source, Pat Ryer
Crust:
1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg yolk (save the white)
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
Filling:
2 – 8 oz pkg. cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
Topping:
1 large or 2 medium apples, thinly sliced (about 2 cups or so)
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
To make the crust, combine all of the ingredients in a small bowl and blend with a fork, pastry cutter or your fingers until well blended – it will look like big, soft crumbs. Press into the bottom and about an inch up the sides of a buttered or sprayed springform pan.
To make the filling, beat the cream cheese and sugar until smooth and lump-free; add the eggs, one at a time, then the reserved egg white and vanilla. Pour into the pastry lined pan. Preheat the oven to 400F.
Thinly slice the apple(s) and toss with sugar and cinnamon to coat; scatter over the top of the cheesecake. Bake for 12 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F and bake for another 30-35 minutes, until puffed and golden but slightly jiggly – it will firm up as it cools. Let cool in the pan, then refrigerate for a few hours, or overnight. Serves 12.
October 30 2011 | cake and dessert | 24 Comments »
I realized far too late that I would be away for Mike’s birthday on Tuesday. I caught the date in time, and stumbled upon a caramel apple cheesecake I decided to make for a pre-birthday dinner. I even had the foresight to pick up cream cheese. I was on the ball. It happens sometimes.
And then this morning I made an enormous apple pancake for elevenses, and didn’t notice until 3:30 that the cheesecake had to chill for a few hours, preferably overnight. D’oh.
But I had a chocolate cake tucked away in my mental file – Belle Foley’s chocolate cake, which had spurred a goosebump-inspiring comment string, reuniting long lost family members over at Food52. It was one of those stir-together cakes made with baking soda stirred into boiling water, the kind Mike’s mom used to make way back when she made the occasional cake. These types of cake are also typically low in fat – only 3 tablespoons of butter in this one, yet it’s very moist. I used to find them in old cookbooks and make them for my dad.
I made it, quick. I planned to serve it in warm wedges topped with whipped cream – easy. No need to decorate. I love wedges of dark, damp chocolate cake that aren’t too sweet, especially when they get me off the decorating hook. The result was plain, not as deep and chocolatey as I envisioned (next time I’ll go for 1/2 cup cocoa) but very moist – my mom asked if it was a zucchini cake.
It occurred to me that this whole scenario could be improved upon with chocolate mousse. Yes – chocolate mousse dolloped on chocolate cake wedges. Why have I not thought of this before?
The mousse is from the brand new Essential Pépin – over 700 recipes from his life in food. Which I have decided I must own now that I’ve met him in person. Of course I name-drop that one at every possible opportunity. Then there was that time I was chatting with Dorie Greenspan and Jacques came over to say hi…
Although Jacques may disagree, the cognac is optional – I left it out.
Jacques Pépin’s Chocolate Mousse
Made with a warm emulsion of egg yolks and sugar, and finished with cream, this is the most classic of chocolate mousses. Cognac works well with chocolate, but it can be replaced by dark rum or Grand Marnier for a different flavour. From Essential Pépin.
1/3 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
10 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, melted
2 cups heavy cream
2 teaspoons cognac
Reserve 2 tablespoons of the sugar, and combine the rest of the sugar with the egg yolks in a stainless steel bowl. Place the bowl in a skillet of hot tap water (or use a double boiler), and whisk the mixture for 3 minutes, or until it is fluffy, smooth, and at least doubled in volume.
Beat the reserved sugar with the cream in a large chilled bowl for a few minutes, or until soft peaks form; do not overwhip. Transfer about 3/4 cup of the whipped cream to another bowl to use as a decoration, and refrigerate.
Using a rubber spatula, combine the melted chocolate with the yolk mixture and the cognac. If the mixture starts to seize or break down, immediately stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of the whipped cream to smooth out the mixture. Gently fold in the remaining whipped cream until incorporated. Transfer the mousse to a decorative bowl, cover, and refrigerate until set, at least 2 hours.
At serving time, whip the reserved 3/4 cup whipped cream until stiff peaks form. Spoon the cream into a pastry bag fitted with a star tip and decorate the top of the mousse with the cream, or spoon dollops of the cream onto the top of the mousse. Serve.
Serves 6.
(Or 2 if one of them is me.)
October 23 2011 | cake | 12 Comments »
How’s that for use of yummy cake adjectives?
I met three young girls a couple Saturday mornings ago, at Sidewalk Citizen Bakery (you must really go one Saturday morning at around 10:30 am) and I wrote their names down, in case I forgot. And then I did, and I’ve spent the past half hour going through the mountain of papers on my desk, and I can’t find it, and I so wanted to say hi! But girls, you know who you are, if you were at Aviv’s two Saturdays ago and you made raspberry buttermilk cake for the first day of school.
I’ve been thinking of raspberry buttermilk cake since they reminded me of it. Well, not the whole time, but almost.
And I never did manage to get raspberries. But I did get a flat of blueberries – bloobs, as W calls them – and I managed to rescue enough from him to freeze for future muffins and to make a cake.
Rather than mix them into the batter or scatter them on top, which is what I’d normally do, W requested an upside down cake, which was delicious even though blueberries are a bit fragile to hold their own on the bottom of an upside down cake. It did turn into a soft maple-y goo, so if you don’t mind scraping the ones that stick on the bottom of the pan (it’s OK, they’re nice and soft, not at all sticky or hard to retrieve) and replacing them on top of your cake, you should make this. Otherwise just do the batter, scatter the berries overtop and bake.
How could you resist something so appealingly purple, that says I love you in a totally not-Barney sort of a way? Thanks for the reminder girls!
Maple Blueberry Upside Down Buttermilk Cake
Topping:
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
1-2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
Cake:
1/4 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk or thin plain yogurt
Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter an 8″ or 9″ round cake pan and put the brown sugar, butter and maple syrup in it – put it into the oven as it preheats and then stir with a fork until smooth and scatter with the berries.
In a largish bowl, beat the butter and sugar for a few minutes, until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
By hand or with the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in 3 batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, mixing each time just until combined. Spread the batter over the blueberries the pan, smoothing the top.
Bake for 25-30 minutes, until golden and springy to the touch. Let cool for 10 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack or plate, or eat warm, straight from the pan.
September 18 2011 | cake | 20 Comments »
Let me just say off the bat that I’m fundamentally against red velvet cake. Yes, it’s because it’s just barely chocolate (a couple tablespoons of cocoa powder, typically, so as to not overwhelm the colour) and somewhere around a bottle’s worth of red food colouring. That’s what makes it red. Give me a big ol’ chocolate cake – taste over aesthetics – any day.
(By the way, I’ve tried it with beets – it does lend the palest of reddish hues, but once cooked the beets never have the same intensity of traditional red velvet cakes made with food colouring.)
But I appreciate that other people are enamoured with it, and that’s all that matters when you’re making a birthday cake for someone. And when a that someone tweets that he will be very disappointed if no one makes him a 15 tier red velvet cake (joking, yes), you make one, right? Right? Just for kicks?
I’ve always meant to make one of those cakes that look almost like a stack of crepes, with uber-thin layers – I think mostly I love the idea of the cake:frosting ratio. You don’t slice the cake layers crosswise in halves or thirds (too tricky and crumby); you spread small quantities of batter into baking pans and bake them for a short time, so you wind up with thin cake layers that are sturdier than you might think, almost like big cakey cookies. These didn’t crumble. I wouldn’t expect a mix to produce the same results.
So last night I got it in my head that it might be a good idea to attempt such a cake. If you are like me, you will attempt this in your stand mixer and make an enormous mess, simply due to the quantity of ingredients and their proximity to the rim of the bowl. If you’re like me you’ll give up at the end and stir by hand until everything looks like cake batter.
So we put on The Fantastic Mr Fox and then I made Mike pause it approximately every 12 minutes to rotate the thin cake layers in and out of the oven. I used three 9″ pans. It wasn’t a big deal, really-they cook quickly. Flip them out, wipe out the pan and spread in some more batter. Just make sure you have the counter space. I cooled them on racks and then kept them with a piece of parchment between each layer to frost the next day.
I used cream cheese frosting, but didn’t quite make enough – this is enough to spread a peanut butter thickness on each layer, but as you can see the sides are a little stripey – I didn’t anticipate the sides needing as much frosting as it did, on account of all the space between each layer. It sucked up a lot. Next time I’d make half again as much icing, or double it, even. Yes, that’s a lot of icing – but I think next time (next time??) I’d prefer the frosting a little thicker between layers. They stripey effect would be more dramatic when you cut into it. But I did kind of like the stripey effect on the outside, even though it was unintentional.
Happy birthday Dan!
Twelve Layer Red Velvet Cake
Cake:
1 1/2 cups butter, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups sugar
6 large eggs, at room temperature
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups milk
2 Tbsp red food colouring
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Frosting:
1 cup butter, at room temperature
1 8 oz (250 mL) pkg cream cheese, at room temperature
1 bag icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2-3 Tbsp water
Preheat the oven to 350F. To make the cake, beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of a large bowl – if possible in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle blade – on high speed for about 3 minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla, scraping down the bowl as you need to.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, stir together the buttermilk, milk and red food colouring. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt. On low speed, add the flour in 3 additions, alternating with the milk mixture in 2 additions, beginning and ending with the flour. You’ll have to scrape down the bowl a lot, and I covered the top of the mixer with a tea towel to prevent ingredient spray all over the kitchen walls.
Spray three 8″ or 9″ round cake pans with nonstick spray, and spread between 3/4 and 1 cup of batter evenly over the bottom of each. Bake for about 12 minutes, until springy to the touch and the sides are starting to pull away from the sides of the pan.
Let them cook for a minute or two before inverting the cakes out onto your hand and then onto a wire rack to cool. Wipe out the pans with paper towels, re-spray and repeat. I got 4 batches, for 12 layers.
To make the frosting, beat the butter and cream cheese until fluffy and smooth; add about a third of the icing sugar, the vanilla and a splash of the water and beat until smooth. On low speed, add another third of the icing sugar, and then the rest, adding more water as you need it to achieve a soft, spreadable frosting. (Ensure it’s not so soft as to squish out the sides of the layers, though.)
Once the cake layers are completely cooled, start stacking them, frosting in between. I used not quite as much frosting as I would between traditional cake layers – go for peanut butter thickness to the thickness of the cakes themselves. Once you stack them all, frost the outside of the cake. Voila!
Serves lots – people will take thin pieces because it’s so high.
September 04 2011 | cake | 20 Comments »
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