Tag Archives: cake

Lemon and Almond Streamliner Cake

I first learned about this cake on Hummingbird High. Michelle, the blogger, started the post off with “You know, some cakes just don’t photograph well…” and she’s right. Lemon and almond streamliner cake doesn’t photo well. it’s beige glop on top of a beige disk. (Though Michelle’s a fabulous food photographer and manages to make it look good anyway.) The frosting looks so goopy in the picture because it’s actually custard. Custard? Used to frost a cake? Cool! The recipe was so unusual-sounding I wanted to try it out. The result? The cake tastes way better than it looks. It’s dense, sweet, and saturated with almond flavor, which contrasts well with the lemon custard on top. So don’t judge this cake by its photos. The following recipe is for what I actually baked, because in some cases I couldn’t get the real ingredients and in other cases I was lazy. Check out Hummingbird High or Google for the real recipe. The Custard

zest of 2 lemons
3/4 cup 2% milk (original recipe called for whole milk, my store doesn’t sell whole milk in anything less than a quart.)
1/2 cup sugar, divided into two 1/4 cup portions
4 egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon salt (original recipe called for fine sea salt. To hell with that.)
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup lemon juice (that’s about two lemons’ worth)
1/2 cup butter, cut into cubes and cold

The Almond Cake

1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (recipe called for cake flour, didn’t want to buy cake flour just for this)
1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 ounces almond paste (recipe called for six ounces, the tube is seven ounces, why not?)
10 tablespoons butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 tablespoons canola oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract (recipe called for 2 teaspoons, I like vanilla)
3 eggs
2/3 cup buttermilk

To make the custard The custard recipe looked tricky, so I got more or less mise en place before I started:
Combine lemon zest, 3/4 cup milk, and 1/4 cup sugar in a saucepan and put on low heat:
While it’s heating, whisk together the 4 egg yolks, the other 1/2 cup sugar, and the 1/2 teaspoon salt. Once they’re mixed, whisk in the 2 tablespoons cornstarch and 1/2 cup lemon juice. The milk mixture should be just barely hot. Carefully mix one third of the milk mixture into the egg mixture. Keep stirring; don’t let the eggs curdle. Return the pan to the heat and pour the egg mixture into the pan, stirring continuously. Keep stirring and cooking on medium-low heat until the custard thickens and bubbles.
At this point, you’re supposed to strain the hot custard to get the lemon zest out of it. I forgot to and I’m glad that I did. The lemon zest adds a nice texture to the final product. Pour the hot custard over the cold butter and stir until the butter melts in. Then chill the custard. It’ll take a couple of hours before it’s ready to frost the cake. To make the cake Preheat an oven to 350ºF. Grease a nine-inch cake pan. Mix together the 1 and 1/4 cups flour, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. In another bowl, mix the 7 ounces almond paste, 10 tablespoons butter, 2/3 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons canola oil and 1 tablespoon vanilla. Use an electric mixer if you have one. Mix until it it’s light and fluffy. Mix in the three eggs one at a time. Set the electric mixer aside and use a spoon. Carefully add some of the flour mixture to the almond-egg-butter mixture, then some of the buttermilk. Alternate flour and buttermilk until everything is mixed together. (I see instructions to alternate mixing in ingredients in recipes sometimes. I usually ignore those instructions and the recipe comes out fine. This time I followed the directions. If you want to add all the flour, then all the buttermilk, proceed at your own risk.) Pour the batter in the pan and bake at 350ºF for 37 minutes. (The original recipe calls for 45 minutes. It lies.)
Even then, the cake came out darker than I expected. But it came out great when I took it out of the pan and frosted it:
And it was delicious.

Coconut Cake

Traditionally, coconut cake is lighter than air and sweeter than a marshmallow, which is not what I’m looking for in a cake. I’m looking for a cake that’s got a nice, firm texture, tastes like cake, and also has an intense coconut flavor. After the umpteenth online recipe told me to use boxed white cake mix to make the coconut cake fluffier, I Frankensteined this recipe together out of a couple of non-coconut sources.

Ingredients for the cake:

9″ round cake pan
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, room temperature
1 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup coconut milk
1 cup sweet flaked coconut (did I mention it’s supposed to be coconutty?)

Ingredients for the frosting:

3 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1/2 stick butter, room temp
pinch salt
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoons coconut milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon rum

For the topping, lots more sweet flaked coconut!

Set oven to 350° F.

Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. Set aside. Cream together the butter and sugar. Then, beat the eggs into the butter/sugar mixture. Add part of the flour mixture, stir it in, add part of the coconut mixture, stir, and go on until it’s all combined. Finally add the vanilla and sweet flaked coconut.

Grease the baking pan and pour the batter in. Bake for about 30 minutes, but check on it early! The cake is done when a knife stuck in the middle comes out without chunks of batter on it.

Let the cake cool completely. Meanwhile, making the frosting couldn’t be simpler: put all the ingredients into a bowl and beat the heck out of them.

Once the cake is cool, turn it out onto the plate and frost. Sprinkle flaked coconut on top. Enjoy.

Here’s some photos of the process:

The batter.

Frosting the cake.

Place frosting in the middle of the cake and spread outward with a circular motion.

My boyfriend asked for please no coconut flakes on his slice, so that’s why the cake is half-flaked.

A portion of the cake the next morning. This is what it looks like when it's not under crappy artificial light.

A portion of the cake the next morning. This is what it looks like when it’s under natural light.

Grown-up Gingerbread

I always thought I didn’t like gingerbread. Just the word conjures up images of those his-and-hers bathroom signs that you stamp out of dough in kindergarten and slather in royal icing. They’d do a better job as hockey pucks than food items. Then last December, I went to a holiday potluck that opened my eyes. The gingerbread at the dessert table wasn’t a bread or a hockey puck cookie but a cake, rich, dark, and spicy. I tried to find out who’d brought that cake so I could get the recipe, but with no success. So since then, I’ve been searching for a recipe I could use to recreate real gingerbread at home.

The following recipe is a simplification of a recipe I found in an old cookbook at my folks’ house. It’s different from the potluck gingerbread, but just as good.

Grown-up Gingerbread

1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
3/4 cup sour cream
1/2 cup molasses
1 cup raisins
3 tablespoons rum
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg, 1/2 teaspoon allspice, 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ginger or some fresh grated ginger
1/2 cup apple jelly

Grease a 9″ square baking pan and preheat oven to 350°F.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs. Mix in the sour cream, molasses, and 1 tablespoon of the rum.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, spices, and salt.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet, then add the raisins to the whole thing. Scoop the whole thing into the 9″ pan. Bake for 45 minutes in a water bath (see picture below.)

Once the cake’s done, let it cool for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, melt together the apple jelly and the rest of the rum. Once the cake has cooled, poke holes in it and pour the rum jelly glaze on top.

Enjoy!

Pictures:

It’ll make a really stiff dough.

This is a water bath for baking. Put your pan inside of a bigger pan and add enough water to come about 1/4 inch up the sides.

The finished cake.

Just poke holes all over it and pour the glaze on top.

Check out that squidgy cross section!

Plum Upside-Down Cake

It’s midsummer and plums are cheap right now, so I decided to do a baking experiment.

This is plum upside-down cake, which is pretty much pineapple upside-down cake but with plums. The principle seemed like it would be the same: lay some fruit in the bottom of the pan, pour cake batter on top, cook then flip, so I decided to take James Beard’s general recipe for upside-down cake and play around with it. Oh, yes, the experiment was a success. This cake didn’t last very long in my apartment.

Plum Upside-Down Cake (Adapted from James Beard)

Fruit part:

Four medium-sized plums
2 tablespoons butter
1/8 cup brown sugar

Cake batter:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 cup flour (JB calls for cake flour, but mine turned out fine with all purpose)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon allspice and 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (or use cinnamon or ginger or whatever spices you like)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
just over 1/3 cup of milk

Preheat the oven to 350º. Wash the plums and slice into wedges. Remove pits. Put the 2 tablespoons of butter in the bottom of a 9-inch round baking pan, then put the pan in the oven just long enough for the butter to melt. Take the pan back out, then sprinkle the brown sugar over the bottom. Lay the plum wedges in the bottom of the pan (you can do it decoratively if you want).

Cream together butter and sugar until fluffy, then beat in the egg, then mix in vanilla. In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt, spices. Add part of the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture and mix, then the milk, then the rest of the flour mixture. Mix only just enough so that everything is combined.

Pour the cake batter into the pan, over the plum wedges. Gently press the batter into the edges of the pan so it’s well-distributed. Bake for 30 minutes or when cake in the center of the pan is springy and not wet. Take the cake out of the over and let it cool before you try to flip it out of the pan!

Once the cake is quite cool, put a dinner plate on top of the pan and hold the edges of pan and plate together firmly. Flip. Once it’s upside-down, if the cake’s not coming out of the pan, you can whack it against a countertop. If all goes well, you will have a cake with lovely wedges of plum laid into the top. Enjoy!

Yellow Cake and Beefless Stroganoff

Just a couple of new culinary experiments. Four-egg yellow cake is from Allrecipes.com with pretty much no modification. I tried sprinkling M&Ms on top 10 minutes into the baking time, but they still sank to the bottom. They still tasted good, though. The cake has an excellent texture, bland, but you want that in a cake.

Beefless stroganoff I made up.

Beefless Stroganoff

Whole-wheat pasta
1 can pinto beans
1 can navy beans
1 large onion
Plenty of garlic
Dash of half & half
Dash of white wine

Chop the onion so the slices are going to be in long strips. Sauté that with the garlic in butter until caramelized. While it’s going, boil pasta. Stir beans into onion mixture, then cooked pasta, then salt & pepper. Add half & half until texture is the way you like it, then add white wine to taste.

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