cake 20 rhubarb filling, cream cheese frosting, cinnamon

the cake happened in avoidance of making pastry; meant to be practicing my hand pies.

since we were blessed with rhubarb at the farmers’ market, we had to make something. At the end of the day, scrubbing and slicing a pound and a half of rhubarb sounds like far more work than it is. As the cakes baked, cooked the pie plant down in a saucepan with a pat of butter and about a quarter cup of sugar, raw sugar that had been hanging out with a split vanilla bean, to be specific.  As the cakes cooled, turn the flame off the now sludge of fruit and stirred in about 3 tablespoons of butter, tempered an egg yolk with some of the warm sludge and whisked it back into the whole. Almost a proper rhubarb curd but not quite.

buttermilk cake promised a bit of tang to face off with the rhubarb. It is also my lazy cake, coming together right out of the cupboard in the standing mixer. The most work is cutting the parchment paper liner to fit the heart pans. Coming out of the oven, the smell like pancakes. Transported to ethereal breakfast, I get crazy and stir some cinnamon into the rhubarb.

cream cheese frosting seemed a cool, assertive match for the cake and fruit, and some of it had to be straight up, in direct contrast with the rhubarb compote.  Half got decked out with cinnamon and blood orange peel and vanilla bean. Ran out of powdered sugar and not a bodega in a two block radius has it, so blitz demerra sugar with cornstarch in the food processor: stick of butter, two packages of cream cheese, one cup of powdered sugar, and one cup of makeshift powdered sugar, which made a marked, delicious difference in flavor.

the plain got piped along the outer edge of the bottom layer, a lip to hold in the brimming fruit filling, and a thin layer spread across the surface of the cake. Cooled and set rhubarb poured and spread from the center outward. Top layer gently placed. Then, in interlocking spirals made of stars, plain and cinnamon orange cream cheese frosting piped all over the top. Pink glitter.

there is a lot of rhubarb sludge left over. Thinking, perfect for pancakes…

cake 19 whiskey spiked chocolate cake, the wicked and the damned

posted a preview photo of the wicked and the damned cake on facebook, where it quickly earned a following.

the clever name was a mis-typing. The blogger at Poires au Chocolat, where this cake originates, created her gorgeous version of this grown-up cake for an art competition themed The Beautiful and the Damned. She entered a cake—brilliant, brilliant—inspired by 20s era America. As she writes:

“Do not be fooled by the innocent exterior of this cake: underneath the chocolate Art Nouveau design and the cloud of all-American vanilla buttercream lies a dark, dense chocolate cake soaked with whisky and sandwiched with an intense chocolate and thick cream ganache spiked with more whisky. It is a cake for the prohibition, a wicked core hidden underneath a respectable façade.”

and quotes:

“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Nick’s thoughts, while drunk on whisky)

love anyone who works out a cake around a narrative and her nouveau styled chocolate décor glamorizes the potent interior; hidden evil and all that.

in the radical muffin kitchen, however, we were making 3 sets of cake and did not, at this time, pipe out intricate chocolate designs. We went for a more blatantly slatternly look, with whiskey saturated ganache oozing wantonly out the sides, and buttercream piped in starbursts glittering on top. Given this and the comments on facebook—Lawd-a-mercy!; You are my soulmate.; That’s like five of the seven deadly sins baked into one cake! (if you eat it while having sex, maybe you can get up to six?)—the wicked and the damned seems to suit this version.

the cake is genoise-ish European style, dry for soaking with syrup. Heat the oven to 350° and line cake pans with parchment paper and butter them. We used three small heart pans, trimming the tops off two cakes for the bottom layers. The top slices to be repurposed.

melt 300 grams of dark chocolate. This is a lot of chocolate, and we admit to dashing up to the neighbor’s kitchen to use the microwave rather than our typical bowl on a pan of water method. If you take the slow road, chop your chocolate up to make it go a bit quicker.  Let rest and cool while making the rest of the batter.

cream together 1 cup/2 sticks of soft butter with a cup and a half of sugar; we used ½ white and ½ turbinado sugars. Beat in 5 eggs (room temperature) one at a time then beat the lot until creamy and golden. Sift in 1 ¼ teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of salt, and 1 ½ cups of flour—we used 1 cup of all purpose and ½ cup of cake flour and snuck in 2 tablespoons of dutch processed cocoa. Stir in the melted and cooled chocolate.

pour the batter into the awaiting cake pans and bake for about half an hour, checking at 21 minutes and depending on the size of your cake pans. Let cool in the pans a few minutes and turn out to cool completely.

in a small saucepan, simmer together a cup and a half of whiskey and ½ a cup of sugar until the liquid reduces in half and thickens. Pour into a measuring cup and let cool completely. Stir in another ¾ cup of whiskey. We used a really beautiful golden honey whiskey.

drizzle the boozy syrup over the cakes (trimmed as you like). Thus soaked, the cakes can be wrapped and stashed in the freezer or fridge until wanted. Or forge right ahead.

melt 10 ounces dark chocolate with ½ a cup of heavy cream over low heat, stirring until smooth. Let cool just a bit and splash in some whiskey – about ¼ cup.  Slowly pour and spread over the bottom layer. Let set a moment and top with middle cake. Pour and spread the remaining ganache over this layer. Let set a moment and top with the final layer.

in a big glass bowl over a saucepan of simmering water, whisk together one egg white with a ½ cup of white sugar until shiny white and warm to the touch. Remove from the stovetop. Scrape in the innards of a vanilla bean and beat in ¾ a stick of butter. Add confectioners sugar if needed to reach a thick, pipe-able consistency.

frost the top as pleases you. We made these little starry puffballs one by one, beginning at the center and working our way to the edges. Had just enough frosting, which is a nice change of having a whole container of left over frosting.

serve to seduce.

 

cake 18 orange upside down cake eleganza*

caramelizing fruit and baking in a cast iron skillet, to make an upside down cake is a perfect fit for radical muffin sensibilities. Pineapple is classic, of course, but the possibilities are vast. In the winter markets, citrus is reigning, so we piled perfect blood oranges, pink oranges and baby oranges still dressed in their leaves into the basket to carry home to become cake.

when we were in high school, the vending machine outside the cafeteria held shiny wrapped rolls of Daily-C. Someone from our table would buy a roll—an offering— bring it back to the table, and pass it round: “Don’t get scurvy,” we’d say, like a blessing. Spin-off humor from some horror story in history class; popping the vitamins like candy.

if it’s oranges it must be good for you—not to be confused with food group orange, comprised of the orange things like Doritos, nacho cheese and Crush—so we recommend this cake for breakfast. Mimosas or Bellinis at brunch elevate it to eleganza, yes?

five small oranges provided enough rounds for an 8-inch skillet. Slice the peel from the fruit and reserve it for something else like hot toddies or mulled wine; throw them in a bag in the freezer if not using right away. With a long serrated bread knife, slice the oranges into thin wheels.

separate 4 cold eggs and let them hang out to warm up.

melt 4 tablespoons of butter with ¾ cup of light brown sugar in a cast iron skillet and bubble away for about 3 minutes. If you have them, a few crushed cardamom seeds added now and picked out later are lovely. Allow to rest a few minutes then lay the fruit in concentric circles in the pan. Heat the oven to 350°.

the cake recipe we used called for a 10-inch skillet. We meant to pour off some of the batter as cupcakes but forgot. The utterly full pan baked up just fine, and although the cake to fruit ratio was greater, the cake is delicious and no one is complaining.

sift together 1 ½ cups of all purpose flour, 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder and ¼ teaspoon salt. Cream together a stick of soft butter and ½ cup white and ½ cup turbinado sugar. Beat in the egg yolks. Grate in the zest of an orange and a lime.  Beat in the sifted flour along with 3 tablespoons of cornmeal and 2/3 cup of milk.

clean your beaters scrupulously, and whip the egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold half of the egg whites into the batter then carefully fold in the other half. Pour the batter over the fruit, smooth and bake for about 45 minutes, until the cake is golden and set.

let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a plate. You want to flip it while it is still a bit warm or all that gooey, caramel fruit will stick to the pan. Boooooooo….

with a successful flip—cake self decorated with gloriously sugared fruit. Relax and enjoy.

*in nod to the new season of RuPaul’s Drag Race xoxo

cake 17 first cake of 2013 – caramel

when buttermilk cake is not the thing to do then caramel cake generally is. Unless, of course, you want chocolate, but we’ll get to that.

straight forward cake made with brown sugar; simplicity belies the complexity of awesomeness of the final dessert. Adopted from Moosewood Restaurant new classics (2001). We’ve made this as cupcakes, layer cake filled with chocolate ganaché, and, most often, an elegant single layer with satiny perfect icing dusted with sea salt and glitter.

preheat the oven to 350°. Line the bottom with parchment paper and butter two pans equivalent of 9-inch rounds.

cream together 1 cup of soft unsalted butter and 2 cups of brown sugar in any combination: light, dark, turbinado, golden bakers. Beat in 5 eggs one at a time, breaking each egg into a small bowl to ensure its fresh and shell free before adding to the batter. Measure out ¾ cup of milk with vanilla if you like. Add to the batter and sift in 2 ½ cups of flour, 2 teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt. Just combine and pour into your waiting pans.

bake for half an hour or so, until golden and well set in the center. Let cool in the pan for a few minutes before turning out on a rack to cool completely.

for the icing, melt together 3 tablespoons of butter, 2 cups of brown sugar, 1 cup cream or half-and-half and a shot of vanilla or scraping of a bean. Cover and bring to a rolling boil, stirring often, then let it be for 3 minutes or so. Uncover and cook, stirring, until the caramel thickens up, about 5 minutes.

pour into a large bowl and beat beat beat until thick and creamy, cool and spreadable. Settle in and be patient; this takes about 10 minutes. Pour slowly and smooth over the cool cakes.

to welcome the new year, we just piped on chocolate melted and thinned with whiskey.

cake 16 last cupcakes of the year

weird sugar. that’s all – to practice weird sugar, I made cupcakes. A two-day commitment, including dinner in the workshop – that’s a chili of three white beans there – to form the birds (!) and hearts and stars in royal icing and let them harden. Then the cakes…

buttermilk cake is the thing to do most of the time.

see fondant is fabulous and Viking cake.

for these little buggers, I subbed in greek yogurt and fresh cream, about ½ cup yogurt and ¼ cup of cream, for the buttermilk. thus no longer buttermilk cake technically but it is the same recipe ever changing. love it.

pre-heat the oven to 375° and line muffin tins with papers. We used one regular sized muffin pan and one mini-muffin pan, each holding a dozen muffins.

cream a stick of soft butter with 1 cup of white sugar until really light and fluffy. Beat in 2 large eggs and the yogurt-cream. Scrape in the seeds of a vanilla bean and the zest of two small oranges and a lemon. We used blood oranges, squeezing in just a bit of juice too. Sift in 1 ½ cups of cake flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, and ¼ teaspoon baking soda and salt.

spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling each ¾ way . Bake for approximately 15 minutes for mini-muffins and 20 minutes for the larger size.

let cool completely.

whip up buttercream, simple: one stick of soft butter, two cups sifted powdered sugar, vanilla bean seeds and orange zest, adding a bit of orange juice to thin as needed.

The blood orange juice turns the icing a pale sunset peach color, fairy cake pretty with the flecks of vanilla and finished later with glitter. Beat beat beat until fluffy as a kitten.

the large cupcakes are piped with buttercream in a spiral through a star tip. Some of the small cakes are piped with tiny buttecream starbursts, and some are dipped in thin royal icing.

it was only in the photo shoot that I realized these are the cupcakes bidding adieu to this year. i am grateful for the exceptional gifts it has brought me. thank you for gracing my virtual kitchen with your reading.

may you eat well, with much joy.

cake 15 pear up-side down cake

caramelize: to convert or be converted into caramel.

i expected, somehow, the definition to be as powerful as the act, and laughed how I felt disappointed in the meager description.

to caramelize – to transform raw sugars into deep, crackle-crusted, butter-rich, glistening gorgeousness; to bring sugar to the brink of burnt, revealing its richest expression of sweetness.

when you roast veggies, the sugars caramelize, delivering fuller flavor of the vegetable itself and crisped, browned edges.

when you make caramel for desserts, you bring simple syrup through a gentle boiling from clear to amber darker and darker as you please.

for this pear up-side down cake—a local, seasonal iteration of the more salient pineapple; not unreminiscent of tarte tatin—whisk together 2 tablespoons of water and ¼ cup of sugar in a small saucepan.  Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and swirl the pan once in awhile for 8 -10 minutes. Now is a moment for kitchen mindfulness. Don’t wander away and let the syrup burn: you will have to start over and your pan will be a mess. when the sugar is a deep amber, turn off the heat and swirl in a tablespoon of butter.

heat the oven to 350˚. Line a 9-inch round baking pan with a circle of parchment paper and butter the lot. Pour the caramel into the pan and swirl to coat the bottom.

slice 4 or 5 Seckel pears (or 2 or 3 large pears like Bartlett) thinly; easily done on a mandoline. Lay pears slices in a pretty overlapping pattern in the caramel.

whisk together ¾ cup plus 3 tablespoons of flour, 3 heaping tablespoons of hazelnut meal, 1 ½ teaspoons of baking powder and ¼ teaspoon of salt.

separate two eggs: the whites into a big bowl and the yolks into a smaller one. Beat the egg whites until frothy all the way through.

cream together a softened stick of butter and ¾ cup of sugar. Beat in the egg yolks. Grate in an inch or so of fresh ginger. Beat in the dry ingredients alternately with ½ cup of whole milk. Gently fold in the egg whites. Scoop and scrape the batter over the pears, smoothing the top. Pop in the oven for 45 minutes to an hour, until the cake is golden brown and springy.

let cool for half an hour or so before attempting to remove from the pan. Cut around the sides with a knife and flip onto a plate. Serve with ice cream or whipped cream to be fancy; eat for breakfast as is.

14 cake: bake to basics

for the spring opening act of the great cake adventure, i wanted to dig my hands in. Like one wants to do with soil this time of year; mary mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?

bypassing that ladies’ mag favorite – the dirt cake – as too literal, I went back to basics: buttermilk scone. Scone is not cake, you say? Keep an open mind. A tart is as she dresses, after all.

This is a lazy recipe: lazy sought and lazy made. Straight from google “buttermilk scones” to the Food Network to a neat line up of few ingredients, one big bowl and a wooden spoon. Voila –a scone is born!

heat your oven to 400° and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

right into your big beloved bowl, sift together 3 cups flour (giving in to recipe deviation, i subbed in ¼ cup of almond meal), 2 teaspoons baking powder and ½ teaspoon baking soda. Dump in ¼ cup of sugar- half white, half light brown. Slice in a stick and a half of cold butter.

by hand, work the butter, flour and sugar together, smoodging the butter pats with the grains of sugar and flour between your fingertips. Smoodge is the official culinary term.  Sources typically say, “until it resembles course cornmeal.” In my humble opinion, going all the way to “cornmeal” stage undermines the layered flakiness of biscuits and the potentially luxe texture of this here scone.

if you agree, aim to create sheets of butter by rubbing the pats between your thumb and fingertips and occasionally mixing the lot with your hands.

toss in 1 teaspoon salt; tradition calls for fine table salt, Brooklyn foodie palate for salty bursts calls for coarse sea salt. Stir in 1 cup of buttermilk.

if you are making these for some fancy brunch then roll them out and cut them with a biscuit cutter or glass rim (may want a bit more flour). for quick homeliness, just scoop ice cream scoop sized wads of dough into your hands, pull them in half, place one half on the baking sheet and top it with the other, craggy side up.

bake for 10 minutes, drizzle with honey and bake for about 5 minutes more, until golden.

dress as you please.

with greek lemon yogurt, blackberries & basil

13 cake: Bûche de Noël

this Bûche de Noël turned out more log-like than imagined, though the woodiness is obscured by the fantabulous mushrooms and holiday slugs. Decorating meringue mushrooms is fun for the whole crazy family! Remnant stems became holiday slugs; holiday only in that they are on the holiday cake. That’s mom’s micro-handiwork in the placement of the teeny eyes.

the Bûche is a French tradition, and today versions are made in countries of franco-influence (and colonization) from Canada to Viet Nam. And by seasonally intrepid home bakers everywhere. Designed in myriad stumpy forms for Christmas, the log cake is typically génoise, sometimes chocolate, almost always has chocolate frosting yielding a simple bark effect. Traditionally filled with the same chocolate frosting, today’s Bûche coils around everything from chocolate mousse to chestnut brandy cream to nothing at all (Scrooge).

this rendition is a roll of vanilla génoise (glorious! as always) with filling of fig preserves, crushed toasted hazelnuts and a drizzled web of honey.

like any tree at yuletide, the dessert log begs to be decked. Meringue mushrooms are standard; ours took a bit of a Suessian bend. Inventive bakers worldwide decorate with fleets of wintery stuffs: marshmellow snow people; plastic santas, reindeer, elves, et al; filigreed white chocolate; glacé fruits; fake holly and sugared rosemary branches & cranberries. Julia Child dresses hers in a spun caramel veil. Mom questioned what that gold web represents. The magic of Christmas? She was unconvinced, and our broom handle remained free of sticky hanging caramel strands and log unveiled. The mushroom painting got a little involved as it turned out anyway.

powdered sugar often makes a snowing; we skipped in favor of the arty high-gloss of the frosting alone. This chocolate frosting is of butter and semisweet chocolate melted in hot instant espresso folded into the vanilla meringue left over from the mushrooms.

happy holidays. Eat well; be merry.

12 cake: génoise pour moi et tous

nested biscuit cutters were purchased to make shamelessly twee piles of three sizes of teeny round cakes each with a distinct filling and frosting pairing left nude for guests decorating to whim. along side tree decorating and mirror decorating and welcoming of the season of lights and sparkles and sprinkles as we all should be. Especially me, for my birthday, falls on Saint Lucia’s day, the bringer of light, which my great grandmother always said was lucky. I am lucky, with so many lovely radical muffins around me.

light does not bring time, however, and the non-cake (remember vegetables?) part of the evening’s spread needed serious attention, and work for the week (remember work?) had left less late nights than anticipated for concocting spreads and dips.

leisurely and lovingly made early in the morning, three sheets of génoise rested, waiting to serve, in the freezer. Two became four small rectangular layer cakes for the gathering, and one a larger one, layers sandwiched over lazy lady’s cranberry curd, for the ladies’ holiday luncheon at work.

the party cakes came in two flavors: lemon with vanilla frosting or fig filling with chocolate ganache. The youngest party guest had a fine time leading some of the others in decorating the four cakes.

my obsession with the cake itself is well established; with a spike of salt, it has evoked a quest for the golden filling to complement its sturdy, impetuous perfection. This meyer lemon curd nobly contends. A fine end for precious but unspoken for meyer lemons, greedily snatched from the Flatbush coop’s surprise offering which was meager— yet significant in showing up at all!

lemon curd is one of those lost simple kitchen concoctions that has become all mysterious and imagined to magically appear in jars from stores where food is born. Make such a thing from scratch, and to some, you too shine more magically, mysteriously.

for meyer lemon curd: whisk together 2 eggs and three egg yolks with 2 tablespoons of cream or milk. Grate in the zest of 3-4 meyer lemons. Juice the lemons for a generous half cup of juice.

turn the heat on low under a small sauce pan on the stovetop. Slice in 3 tablespoons of butter. Dump in ¼ cup of sugar (eureka lemons will want more sugar if you are working with those or Seville oranges, say). Stir in the eggs and lemon juice. Keep stirring and add 3 more tablespoons of butter. Cook, stirring, until the curd thickens enough to coat the spoon.  Pour the lemon curd into any glass container with a cover to store, or let it cool a bit then spread over the bottom layer of a cake.

lazy lady’s cranberry curd has no fussing with eggs—just butter, berries and turbinado sugar.

the chocolate ganache always has a lot going for it, the butter cream has been unbeatable on the génoise. The slim cake wants a topping juicier than thin chocolate. This butter cream made with fresh butter and vanilla seeds scraped from pods fat like plump raisins is luscious, a gift to both the cake and the tart fillings.

at this start of the winter season of lights in the cold, we all make a mirror together; here is part of this year’s mirror of collective creation:

11 cake: ménage à génoise

an experiment to bake my batter of obsession in a standard cake pan rather than a rimmed baking sheet as in a jelly roll and for mini-cakes.

mini-cakes themselves have become an obsession. One set sporting my virgin attempt at fondant. Photos are up on the facebook page; please like radical muffin to feast on bonus food porn. And i will try to catch up on the writing!

however—this is the brief season of quince, and quince insists upon a full sized cake. Most quince insist on a pavlova; these acquiesced to taking part in the great cake adventure.

the fruit, rock hard when raw and ripe, is apple-ish in shape, yellow as canary, and covered in a fine fuzz that every recipe recommends rubbing off even though you peel the skin off. The rubbing is meditative, a knowing of each fruit, and that has something to be said for it.

quarter and core the acerbic and hard orbs; halve or quarter the quarters. In a saucepan of appropriate size, bring to boil enough water to eventually cover the fruit slices. Sprinkle in a cup or so of sugar. Add a dash of salt if you are in the spirit of adding salt to everything. Maybe a squeeze of lemon. Add the fruit, cover and bring to a boil.

quince holds legend as the golden apple Paris awarded Helen and tempted Eve. A cake of quince from your kitchen is hopefully unlikely to end in war or expulsion from the Garden. The perfume of it will evoke this sort of divine allure. Quince are in the rose family, and smell like Arabian Nights.

lift the lid and inhale. Steam your face. Dream. As they poach they’ll blush pink. Cook until soft. Drain, set aside the fruit, and return the liquid to the pan and cook down until it is syrupy enough to suit your purposes.

in this cake, quince comes three ways: a layer each of smashed quince and quince curd in the filling and quince syrup in the pink butter cream.

the cake is génoise—the alluring vanilla speckled egg-voluptuous batter currently on call in the radical muffin kitchen. There were actually two quince cakes. The first a pile of quince slices in the center of a cake cooked in a single layer in a round cake pan for about 23 minutes. The custardy center worked with the fruit pile and the sides had a nice cake crust to frost with a thin ring of vanilla butter cream.

for this layer cake, each lawyer was baked in a heart shaped cake pan for about the same about of time creating a delightfully cakey cake.