Archive for the 'cake' Category
I brought a cake to the office this week. (I don’t usually work in an office, as most of you know, but out of our spare room. But sometimes I get to hang out in a cubicle outside the studio when I’m taking over traffic at CBC, and feel very Mary Tyler Moore-ish.) I happened to be subbing in on David‘s birthday, and so I baked a cake. Peanut butter, because he loves it and so do I. I’ve rarely met a person who doesn’t practically jump up and down with glee at the sight of a peanut butter cake, especially when the layers are sandwiched with chocolate ganache and the whole thing is topped with creamy peanut butter frosting, made with cream cheese. Not that I’ve ever actually made a peanut butter cake, that I can remember, but that was the unanimous reaction I got to this one.
Because I didn’t plan ahead and made ganache just a few hours before I had to be at work, it wasn’t set enough. So I had to tote all the elements of the cake with me and assemble it at the little strip of countertop by the microwaves that could be loosely described as a kitchen. But then again not really.
(I must apologize here for the florescent lights, which make food look about as appetizing as they make me look.)
A friend was in the studio that day as well, and told me that peanut butter cake was a very east coast thing, and it made her feel like she was back home, which was a very nice thing to know.
I burnt their bottoms – or one and a half of them – partly because I left them in the oven too long, partly because my oven is old and overworked and uneven. 20 minutes should about do it.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
adapted from Bon Appétit, March 2005
Filling:
2 cups whipping cream
1/3 cup brown sugar
12 oz bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (or 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup smooth or chunky peanut butter
Cake:
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup smooth or chunky peanut butter
1 1/2 cups packed golden brown sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
Frosting:
1 8 oz package cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
2-3 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla
To make the filling: Bring cream and sugar to simmer in a saucepan, whisking to dissolve sugar. Remove from heat, stir in the peanut butter and chocolate, let stand a minute or two and then whisk until smooth. Chill for several hours or overnight.
To make the cake: Preheat oven to 350°F and spray three 9″ cake pans with nonstick spray (or butter them). In a large bowl, beat the butter, peanut butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, and the vanilla.
In a small bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add it to the butter mixture in three additions, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, beating on low speed just until mixed each time.
Divide batter among pans and spread evenly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the cakes are golden and springy to the touch. Let cool for a few minutes before turning out on a wire rack to cool completely.
To make the frosting, beat the cream cheese and peanut butter until smooth; beat in a cup of the icing sugar, then another cup along with the vanilla. Add more sugar, beating until you have something spreadable. If you need to, add a tablespoon of water or milk – the moisture content of peanut butters will vary.
To assemble the cake, place one layer on a serving plate or cake plate and spread with half the chocolate ganache; top with another cake layer and the rest of the ganache. Top with the third cake layer and if you like, refrigerate to allow the ganache to firm up a bit (this will keep it from melting into the frosting).
Frost the cake with peanut butter frosting and serve immediately. Serves 16.
August 27 2011 | cake | 11 Comments »
Yesterday was our last day in Tofino, and still I hadn’t really made anything summery, except maybe one huckleberry crumble. No plum butter cake or crostata or pie. I had been waiting to do something with the summer apricots and cherries abundant at Beaches grocery when I was not at risk of passing on my phlegmy flu. It’s still hanging on – in fact, it turned around and took another run at me.
There were 12 people in the house, most of them kids, and only one of those kids not a boy 8 or under. Everyone kept buying cherries. There were bags everywhere, and stray cherries left on plates at almost every meal. This was made like most any upside-down cake, with butter and brown sugar in the bottom of the pan, this time with a wee splash of balsamic vinegar – a hit of acid makes a big difference, but feel free to use lemon juice instead. (In fact, feel free to swap the cherries for thickly sliced apricots or peaches or plums.) The cherries go almost as dark as prunes.
The fruit starts to cook down as you mix up the cornmeal batter, which you then pour over the fruit and bake. What else can you do when it feels like your brain is trying to escape from your head through your face?
Cherry Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake
Adapted from Bon Appétit
1/2 cup butter, divided
1/4 cup canola or other mild vegetable oil
1/4 cup (packed) dark brown sugar
2 tsp balsamic vinegar
3 cups halved, pitted fresh Bing cherries or other dark sweet cherries
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar (or half sugar, half brown sugar)
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place 1/4 cup butter with brown sugar and vinegar in a 9-inch cake pan or cast iron skillet; set in the oven until melted, then stir until smooth and add the cherries. Return to the oven while you mix up the cake batter – the cherries will start to soften and release their juices.
In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, beat the remaining 1/4 cup butter, oil and sugar for a minute or two, until starting to get pale and fluffy; beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Add the flour in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions, beating just until incorporated after each. Spoon batter over the cherries in the pan or skillet, and spread to cover the cherries.
Bake cake until top is golden and springy to the touch, about 45 minutes. Cool for about 5 minutes, then run spatula around the edges of the cake to loosen. Invert onto a serving plate while it’s still warm.
August 08 2011 | cake | 13 Comments »
Yes, I got sucked into all the hooplah a little bit. Despite the ridiculousness of it all – $454,000 for a dress – more than our house cost – for someone who would look completely stunning in something from Old Navy? Oy.
But I saw this cake somewhere – it’s everywhere today – and loved that it was so… lowbrow. A big chocolate truffle filled with crunchy chunks of digestive biscuits that looks like stained glass or chocolate salami when sliced. If you love those chocolate covered digestive biscuits, multiply that by a thousand or so and you have this no-bake, no-cake cake. It takes about five minutes to assemble, then sets up in the fridge. If you can’t have the 10,000 ? wedding cake (more craziness!) you can easily have the groom’s cake. Considering the wedding cake itself was a fancy fruitcake covered with fondant, I’d choose the latter, anyway.
(Note: this is somewhat thinner than it would otherwise be – I dropped a dozen spoonfuls of the mixture into paper-lined mini muffin tins to bring on a three-tiered plate to BT this morning. The bite-sized versions were a hit, too.)
Chocolate Biscuit Cake – Prince William’s Groom Cake
Each click took me to a new version of this cake. This is how I did it. I’m tempted to replace the butter with peanut butter next time…
1 cup heavy (whipping) cream
1/3 cup butter
2 1/2 cups chopped semi-sweet chocolate or chocolate chips
8 oz. McVities Digestive cookies or tea biscuits, broken into pieces
Dark cocoa or powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)
Line an 8” round springform (or regular) pan with a piece of parchment in the bottom.
In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and butter over medium heat; once the butter has melted, stir in the chocolate and set aside for a few minutes. Stir until smooth.
Stir in the broken cookies and spread in the prepared pan. Refrigerate until firm.
If you like, dust with cocoa or icing sugar before cutting into thin wedges. Serves lots.
April 29 2011 | cake and dessert | 18 Comments »
Everyone seems to love chocolate Guinness cake, and so I made Black and Tan cupcakes.
As someone who is not a fan of beer, I can say without bias that these are divine.
A classic black & tan is made with dark stout or porter (traditionally Guinness, but a Wild Rose Oatmeal Stout or Big Rock Espresso Stout would be just fab) and pale ale, the contrast creates a light bottomed, dark topped pint; the layering of the Guinness on top of the ale or lager is possible because the relative density of the stout is less than that of the ale.
These cupcakes are the reverse – dark on the bottom and golden on top. The Guinness chocolate cupcakes are dense and moist, and the frosting, also spiked with stout, doesn’t taste of beer but has a buttery, caramelly flavor that I found completely addictive – I couldn’t get enough of it. It’s probably a good thing actual beer doesn’t taste like this. The butter and sugar probably helps.
To get swirly-topped cupcakes like these, spoon the frosting into a zip-lock bag, seal, snip off a corner and pipe it out. Easy – and no clean up!
Black and Tan Cupcakes
1/2 cup butter
1 cup Guinness or other dark stout
1 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup cocoa
1 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
Guinness frosting:
1/2 cup butter, softened
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4-1/3 cup Guinness
In a small saucepan, melt the butter with the Guinness over medium heat; remove from heat, pour into a bowl and whisk in sugar and cocoa. Whisk in the sour cream, eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking soda and salt just until blended. Divide the batter between paper-lined cupcake tins and bake in a preheated 350°F oven for 20-25 minutes, until tops are springy to the touch.
To make the frosting, beat the butter, confectioners’ sugar and Guinness until you have a spreadable frosting. Wait until the cupcakes have cooled completely before frosting.
March 13 2011 | cake | 18 Comments »
When we managed to light all the drippy birthday candles on almost two dozen of these, we sang: happy birthday dear MomandAnneandBenandRoryandHugo! Happy birthday to yooouuuuuu! Between our immediate family, marrieds and offspring, January has become almost as celebratory a month as December.
My mom and sister share the same birthday, and sometime longer ago than I can remember it was decided that spice cake with penuche icing would be their birthday cake. None of the rest of us have a particular cake we must have from year to year, and to be honest I don’t even know if a spice cake could be called their favourite kind of cake anymore, but it gets rolled out annually without question. Usually it comes in layers, with money in between, but I thought we’d streamline things this year, as they’d be served at the second birthday party of the day, with 5 boys 8 and under in the house.
At Party 1, Ben’s 8th, we had a grilled cheese bar (just marble cheddar, white and grainy bread and ketchup, but can you imagine a grilled cheese free-for-all with caramelized onion, crispy bacon, sundried tomatoes, pesto, different cheeses and interesting breads? I can suddenly not wait for my next birthday) and a lemon sheet cake decorated like a hockey rink, complete with strategically placed gummi bears. (Which, my sister calculated, was her 40th homemade birthday cake, when you count the birthdays of all three of her kids. How does one celebrate that? With a cake?) At dinner we ordered Indian/Pakistani food from Mirchi, which was spicy but delicious, and a good price – 8 grown ups and 5 kids ate for under $100.
And the cupcakes. I’m not sure what the technical difference is, but when I think of frosting it’s more of a billowy, Martha-esque cake topping, whereas icing is the more dense, sweet stuff we had on our childhood birthday cakes and cookies and licked off beaters. Penuche is a brown sugar icing that’s traditionally cooked, a method that opens the door to the possibility of overcooking it into a sort of a fudge that while delicious, can easily rip the top off a delicate cupcake as you try to spread it. This time, I dissolved the brown sugar into water, making a sort of syrup which I added to the butter-icing sugar mixture as I beat it, and it worked just fine. I’d venture to call it a foolproof penuche.
Or you could just call it brown sugar icing.
Spice Cupcakes with Brown Sugar Icing
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. nutmeg and/or allspice
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup canola or mild vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups packed brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk
Preheat the oven to 350°F.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. In a larger bowl, beat the butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs and vanilla.
Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and stir it in by hand or with the electric mixer on low speed, just until it’s combined. Add about half the milk in the same manner, then another third of the flour, the rest of the milk, and the rest of the flour, mixing just until the batter is blended.
Divide the batter between paper-lined muffin tins and bake for 25 minutes, or until the tops are springy to the touch. Let them cool tipped in their cups to allow steam to escape. Let cool completely before frosting. Makes about 20 cupcakes.
Brown Sugar Icing
I confess: I didn’t measure the icing sugar, but dumped in the bottom half of the bag. I’d guess it was about 3 cups, but use your judgment – you may need more or less to make it spreadable.
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla (optional)
1/3 cup butter, softened
3 cups (ish) icing sugar
In a small bowl or pot, stir together the brown sugar, water and vanilla. If you like, heat to a simmer to dissolve the sugar, or let it sit for a bit, stirring occasionally until the sugar is more or less dissolved. (It doesn’t much matter if there’s still some graininess in the bottom.)
In a medium bowl, beat the butter until creamy; add the icing sugar and about 3/4 of the brown sugar syrup and beat until smooth. Add more sugar or syrup as needed until you have a soft, spreadable icing.
January 22 2011 | cake | 15 Comments »
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