Tag Archives: cake

Lemon, Almond, and Cornmeal Cake

23 Apr

For a while there, we were eating a lot of cake.  I brought this up a few weeks ago, but it bears repeating because, after I brought it up the first time, we continued to eat cake, and lots of it.  It’s not like we were just sitting around while stuffing cake in our mouths (at least, we mostly weren’t doing that).  There were dinner parties and birthdays and then, um, Cake Tuesdays, which is not a real thing but now that I’ve mentioned it right here, I sort of want to make it a real thing.  The point is, a lot of cake was made, and a lot of cake was enjoyed.

Most of the cakes I made over the past few weeks were old favorites.  This dark chocolate zucchini cake and this butter cake made appearances (the butter cake is an old standby of mine, but that blood orange curd was a new addition and, boy howdy, was it a fantastic one), as did a newly conceived cupcake.  Another new addition to my baking repertoire was this lovely number from Nigella Lawson and, though I hesitate to play favorites when it comes to cake, I think I might have found a new best friend.  Not Lawson (lovely as she is).  The cake.

With a base of both almond meal and cornmeal, this cake’s structure is just a delight.  It’s crumbly but moist, and the slight bite of the cornmeal adds a little something special.  Once the entire thing is soaked, whilst still warm, with an intensely lemony syrup, that little something special magically becomes a whole lot of something special, and I’d be lying if I told you that I wasn’t totally consumed by this cake (while I simultaneously consumed it, as it were).  Like I said, I don’t want to hurt any other cake’s feelings by declaring favorites, but this is a cake you definitely want to get to know.  Perhaps with a few friends, a pot of coffee, and a lazy afternoon of chit chat, because if you truly love your friends, you’re going to want to get them in on this cake as well.

Last year: Yeasted Buttermilk Biscuits

Lemon, Almond, and Cornmeal Cake Recipe

Adapted from Nigella Kitchen, by Nigella Lawson

I’ve made a few changes to this cake in both ingredients and process, mostly notably in the form of reducing the sugar in both the cake and the syrup. By reducing the sugar in the syrup topping, but not reducing the lemon juice (and then adding a bit of zest to the mix), you get a clearer, brisker lemon topping that just makes this cake a total showstopper. There are a couple more tweaks here and there, but I’d still say this cake is definitely Nigella Lawson’s and not mine.

2/3 cup granulated sugar

zest of 2 large lemons

1 ¾ sticks (14 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature (plus a tad more for greasing the pan)

2 cups almond meal or almond flour

¾ cup finely ground cornmeal

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

3 large eggs, at room temperature

For the Syrup:

Juice of 2 lemons

1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

2/3 cup confectioner’s sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Lightly grease the bottom and sides of a 9-inch springform pan, then line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.

In the bowl of a food processor, combine the sugar and lemon zest and process until the sugar is finely ground and the lemon zest is incorporated.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, combine the sugar and lemon zest with the butter.  Beat together until pale and whipped.

In a medium bowl, combine the almond meal, cornmeal, and baking powder.  With the mixer still mixing, add 1/3 of the almond mixture to the butter, followed by 1 egg.  Continue beating in the remaining almond mixture and eggs in this fashion, adding one after the other.  When the last egg has been added, beat the batter until everything is fully incorporated, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes.  The cake will be done when the edges begin to shrink away from the sides of the pan.  The middle of the cake will appear a bit underdone, but a cake tester inserted into the middle should come out marginally clean with several moist crumbs still attached.  Remove the cake from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool, leaving the cake in the pan.

To make the syrup, gently boil together the lemon juice, lemon zest, confectioner’s sugar, stirring all the while, until the sugar has completely dissolved into the juice.  Prick the top of the still-warm cake all over with a toothpick or cake tester, then spoon the warm syrup all over the cake.  Allow the cake to cool almost completely before taking it out of its pan.  (Lawson recommends allowing the cake to cool completely, but I found this cake to be even more fabulous when served just barely warm.  You definitely don’t want to serve this cake while it is hot, but anything just a few degrees warmer than room temperature is perfect, I think.)

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Butter Cake with Blood Orange Curd

20 Feb

There has been a lot of cake-making around these parts lately.  Over the holidays, I made several cakes for a Kickstarter campaign, and then came the holidays themselves, a time when all things cake flour and butter-laden are welcomed with open arms.  Since then, birthdays have come and gone, and, as per usual, there was cake-making involved.  So far I have already made four cakes during the month of February, and the month is only two-thirds over.

It’s a good thing I like making cakes.

It is also a good thing there is an abundance of citrus available at the market right now, since there are few things I enjoy as much as a nice, tart citrus fruit.  As luck would have it, this month’s most recent cake was a freestyle sort of affair, meaning that after I was recruited to make the cake, I was then told that I could make whatever sort of cake I pleased, so long as it somehow incorporated citrus and cream.  Well, ladies and gentlemen, done and done.

A fortuitous discovery of this great recipe for orange curd via The Kitchn made me all the more excited to dress up this cake of choice.  The fact that blood oranges are so wonderfully in season made me giddy with anticipation.  In my mind, I was envisioning a bright orangey-red filling, a sweet and tart balance to the rich and buttery layers of cake nestled above and below.  As you can see, my vision was not entirely fulfilled.  Yes, the blood orange curd was delicious—as tart and creamy as I could ever hope for—but, clearly, what you see before you is not so much bright or intense in hue, but rather what I can only brand as being “Barbie-worthy.”  Entirely by accident, I managed to construct a pink princess cake.  Pardon me, a delicious pink princess cake.

I am, of course, perfectly fine with this.  In fact, I now feel as though, if ever called upon to make a birthday cake for a small child who favors princesses—or perhaps even an adult who is a proponent of pink—I will have a top-notch cake in my arsenal of offerings.

Butter Cake with Blood Orange Curd

Adapted from the long-departed Caprial’s Restaurant

This cake recipe defies all cake-making logic by having you beat the batter extremely well as you add in the dry and liquid ingredients. Your cake-making instincts may tell you to only mix this batter lightly until things start to come together, but ignore those instincts and just keep beating things together really well until the batter is smooth and mostly lump-free. I know it might feel wrong, but just do it. The smooth texture of the batter really works wonders in this cake, strange as it may seem.

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¾ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 cups cake flour

1 cup whole milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease two 9-inch cake pans and line the bottoms with rounds of parchment paper.

Place the butter and sugar in a large bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.  Beat together on high speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, until the butter and sugar are light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Turn the mixer speed down to low and add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl and mixing well after each addition.  Add the vanilla and mix well, again scraping down the sides of the bowl.

Sift together the salt, baking powder, and cake flour.

Add about one half of the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, then beat on low speed until well blended.  Add about one half of the milk and beat well.  Add the rest of the flour mixture and beat until mixed well.  Add the rest of the milk and continue to beat well until the mixture is completely combined.

Divide the matter between the prepared pans and bake until the cakes spring back when touched lightly in the center, 25 to 35 minutes. Allow cake to cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks to continue to cool completely.

Blood Orange Curd

Adapted from The Kitchn

1/2 to 3/4 cups orange juice from 2 blood oranges

zest from one orange

1 tablespoon lemon juice

1 large egg

2 large egg yolks

1/4 cup granulated sugar

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened

pinch of salt

Pour the orange juice into a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring the juice to a rapid simmer and let it reduce down to approximately 1/4 cup. This should take 2 to 4 minutes.

Transfer the orange juice to a bowl or cup to cool. Stir in the zest and lemon juice.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg, yolks, and sugar. When the orange juice has cooled to room temperature, whisk it into the egg mixture in a steady stream.

Place a clean bowl with a strainer over the top next to the stove.

Pour the egg and juice mixture back into your small sauce pan and set it over medium-low heat. Stir slowly but constantly until the mixture has thickened to a pudding-like consistency, about 4-6 minutes or until the mixture is just under 180 degrees F.

Immediately remove from heat and strain the mixture into the clean bowl to remove the zest and any bits of cooked egg. (Alternatively, you can leave the zest in the curd for a chunkier texture.) Whisk in the butter and the pinch of salt while the curd is still warm. Continue to whisk until mixture is completely smooth.

Remove orange curd to a small bowl. Lay a sheet of plastic wrap over the surface of the curd (to prevent a skin from forming), and refrigerate until cool, at least one hour.

Makes roughly 1 cup of orange curd.

To assemble the cake:

When the cakes have fully cooled, brush off any loose crumbs and lay 1 cake on a large plate. Spoon all of the orange curd in the center of the cake then, using a spoon or a small offset spatula, gently spread the curd on top of the cake, leaving a 1 to 1 ½-inch border around the edge. Lay the second cake layer on top of the lemon curd, pressing down very lightly to ease the curd over the perimeter of the bottom layer. The lemon curd will eventually drip down the edges very artfully. Just go with it.

Top with a generous layer of whipped cream.

Note: The orange curd does not supply the most stable of bases for the top cake layer, so I suggest you shore up the cake’s structure by sinking two or three skewers, cut to just higher than the height of the assembled cake, into the cake to keep it from sliding apart.

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Butternut Squash Cake with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

14 Nov

Isn’t it fantastic how some foods just seem to match a certain season?  Though I would be loathe to turn down a slice of spice cake when it was hot and sunny outside, somehow that very same spice cake ends up feeling so much more right if offered up on a chilly fall afternoon.  Perhaps it is because we have been trained since birth to accept the familiarity of certain foods and flavors during specific seasons and holidays, developing the unwavering sense that gingerbread eaten during the summer is somehow less fitting than gingerbread eaten during the cold and wet months of fall and winter.

I have a different theory, though.  I think our predilection for eating certain types of foods during certain types of the year is based not on seasonal availability or a lifelong development of preference, but rather on something more obvious: color.

Just as the crimson fire of a ripe strawberry signals summer, the mellow orange of a squash speaks of autumn leaves turning and the sun setting low in the sky.  It’s ingrained within us, I think.  When the weather turns cold and the colors around us transform into amber and rust, we reach for ripened apples, golden pears, and the saffron-colored flesh of autumn squash.  Dark clouds call for deeply chocolaty cakes and spicy gingerbread.  The coolness of snow makes us crave a dollop of whipped cream on top of a cup of rich, warm cocoa.  Is it possible that nature is telling us what to eat?  Would nature ever really tell us to eat whipped cream?  I should hope so.

In keeping with my theory of seasonal color eating, I was struck last week by the desire to make a very autumnal cake.  Though most people would think to make a cake of pumpkin when looking for a perfect fall dessert, it just so happened that I had a bit of leftover butternut squash sitting in my refrigerator, courtesy of this dalliance with butternut squash for Portland Farmers Market.  Butternut squash and pumpkin are remarkably similar, and I had a hunch that, spiced up and sweetened, they would behave in a very similar manner.

As it turned out, I think butternut squash turns out even better in a cake than pumpkin, more well-rounded somehow, and with a fuller texture.  Lightly spread with this unbelievably creamy, gently gingery frosting, it’s a fitting dessert for any fall day, as evidenced (in keeping with my theory) not only by its color, but also (somewhat unrelated to my theory, but equally as important), by the fact that it lasted approximately two days in our house before we managed to eat the whole thing.  (We shared a little.  Emphasis on little.)

Butternut Squash Cake with Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

Butternut Squash Cake

1 ½ cups cake flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground powdered ginger

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/3 cup buttermilk or soured milk

½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup white sugar

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 cup butternut squash puree (here I have outlined a shortcut to cooking butternut squash in the microwave)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Grease and flour the bottoms and sides of a 9-inch round cake pan.  Line the bottom of the pan with a round of parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the cake flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.  Whisk to combine, then set aside.

In a small bowl or measuring cup, combine buttermilk or soured milk with the vanilla.  Mix to combine, and set aside.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter until creamy, about 30-60 seconds.  Gradually add in both the white sugar and dark brown sugar, beating at high speed until the mixture is light and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes.  One at a time, beat in the eggs, mixing well after each addition.  Reduce the mixer speed to low, and add in the butternut squash puree.

Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl.  With the mixer on low speed, add in 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter mixture, mixing until just combined.  Add in ½ of the milk mixture, and mix until just combined.  Continue adding the flour, then milk, in this manner, mixing after each addition until just combined.

Gently stir the batter one last time by hand, making sure to stir in the contents at the very bottom of the bowl.  Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan.  Bake in the center of the oven for 30-35 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean, with just a few moist crumbs attached.

Cool the cake in its pan for 5 minutes, then invert onto a cooling rack to continue cooling completely.

Ginger Cream Cheese Frosting

3 ounces cream cheese (about 4 tablespoons), at room temperature

6 tablespoons powdered sugar

2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tablespoons milk or heavy cream

¼ teaspoon grated fresh ginger

pinch of salt

In a small bowl, whisk together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, lemon juice, and milk or heavy cream.  Whisk continually, until the mixture is smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes.  Add in the fresh ginger and pinch of salt, then continue whisking until incorporated, about 30 seconds.

When cake has cooled completely, spread frosting over the top of the cake, coaxing the frosting ever-so-slightly down the sides of the cake.

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