Tag Archives: food

Devil’s Food Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

2 Jan

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Nearly every birthday party features cake, and this cake–a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting– is no exception. There are two points I need to make about this cake. The first point is that the person who chose this cake as his birthday cake happens to be English. I have to point this out only because I found it utterly delightful that an Englishman would choose for himself a cake whose presence is so deeply rooted in the American South. The second point about this cake is that, much as I tried, I did not end up making it a typical red velvet cake. The cake I knew I wanted to make (because it is one of the best cakes I’ve ever had, and it pairs beautifully with cream cheese frosting) is technically a chocolate cake, but it does contain shredded beets, so, really, it might count as being sort of a red velvet cake, right? It’s more of a devil’s food cake, which is sort of similar because…the devil…is red?

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Last Year: Hazelnut Orange Pesto, and a confession about how I am consistently 3 issues behind on the New Yorker.

Devil’s Food Cake

Adapted from Cooking School Secrets for Real-World Cooks, by Linda Carucci

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ cups granulated sugar

1 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 large eggs, room temperature

2 cups buttermilk

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2/3 cup packed finely shredded raw beets

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Position a rack in the lower middle position.

Butter and flour the sides and bottoms of 3 8-inch round cake pans with 2-inch sides. Line the bottoms with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl. Stir to combine, then make a well in the center and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the eggs to combine. Whisk in the buttermilk. Add to the dry ingredients all at once, and stir to combine completely. Slowly whisk in the butter. Add the vanilla and stir to combine. Stir in the beets. Transfer to the prepared cake pans and spread evenly, using a rubber spatula to pull the batter away from the center of the pans and out along the sides.

Bake until the center of each cake springs back when lightly touched and the sides of each cake just begin to pull away from the pan, 30 to 35 minutes.

Allow cakes to cool on a wire rack, still in their pans, for 10 minutes. Invert each cake onto another rack and remove pans. Carefully peel off the parchment paper and cool the cakes completely, upside down. Make sure your cake layers are completely and totally cooled before frosting, lest your frosted cake end up a dripping, melted mess.

Cream Cheese Frosting

From The America’s Test Kitchen Family Baking Book

16 ounces cream cheese, softened at room temperature

10 tablespoons (1 ¼ sticks) unsalted butter, cut into chunks and softened at room temperature

2 tablespoons sour cream

1 ½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

2 cups confectioner’s sugar

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the cream cheese, butter, sour cream, vanilla, and salt by beating on medium-high speed until smooth, about 2 to 4 minutes.

Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low, slowing add the confectioner’s sugar, and beat until smooth, 4 to 6 minutes. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and beat until the frosting is light and fluffy, 4 to 6 minutes.

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Orange Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache

26 Dec

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Featuring my favorite butter cake as the building block, this is a celebratory stack of orange-scented cake and deeply creamy, chocolaty ganache. Though I was, sadly, not able to get a photo of the final iteration of the cake (all of my daylight was gone, and my kitchen’s lighting is not at all suitable for taking pictures at night), just try and picture this cake with a towering top hat of snowy whipped cream, and you’ll get an idea of its official presentation. A real showstopper.

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Last Year: Smoked Salmon Canapés on Potato Crisps

Orange Butter Cake with Chocolate Ganache

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 ½ cups sugar

4 eggs

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

¼ cup finely grated orange zest

¾ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon baking powder

3 cups cake flour

1 cup half-and-half or 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 orange zest 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 batter between the prepared pans and bake until the cakes spring back when touched lightly in the center, and a cake tested inserted in the middle of the cakes emerges with just a few moist crumbs attached, 25 to 35 minutes. Allow cakes to cool in pans for 10 minutes before inverting onto cooling racks to continue to cool completely.

Chocolate Ganache

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, roughly chopped

½ cup heavy whipping cream

In a double boiler or large, heat-safe bowl set over a pan of simmering water, slowly melt the chocolate, stirring frequently, until it is just melted. Remove double boiler from heat, then whisk in the heavy cream until the mixture is smooth, thick, and shiny.

When cakes have cooled completely, set one cake on a serving plate. Slowly pour half of the ganache over the cake, concentrating the ganache in the middle of the cake. The ganache will pool out towards the edges of the cake on its own, but, if you want, you can help coax it to the edges by gently spreading it with a spoon or an offset spatula until it just reaches the tipping point. Place the second layer of cake over the ganache, very gently pushing it in place, just to secure it a bit. Pour the rest of the ganache over the top of the cake, again gently spreading the ganache towards the edges.

You can serve the cake as is, or you can top the whole affair with a mountain of freshly whipped cream.

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Gingerbread Apple Pancakes

23 Dec

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With the pleasant bite of molasses paired with cinnamon and ginger, these are definitely a treat of a breakfast, perfect for a special morning or a holiday brunch with family. But these are also a somewhat virtuous breakfast offering, boasting the heartiness of whole wheat flour combined with the rather demure additions of applesauce and shredded fresh apple. If you are one to drench your pancakes in maple syrup, these can no doubt make for a breakfast of supreme indulgence. If you are like me, however, and can no longer tolerate the joys of unadulterated maple syrup consumption, a dollop of plain or lemon yogurt will make these pancakes shine in a slightly more responsible manner. Either way, they are a joy to eat, and a wonderful treat on a cold winter morning.

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Last Year: No-Knead Apple Bread

Gingerbread Apple Pancakes

2 cups whole wheat flour

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

pinch of allspice

¼ teaspoon salt

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 ½ cups milk

1/3 cup molasses

¼ cup unsweetened applesauce

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 small apple, peeled (if the skin is tough—my apple had a very thin skin, so I left it on) and grated, then squeezed in your hands a bit to remove any excess moisture (I ended up with about ½ heaping cup of shredded apple)

¼ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

In a large bowl, whisk together both flours, the baking powder, spices, and salt. In a medium bowl, or in a very large measuring cup, whisk together the remaining ingredients.  Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients, and stir or whisk to combine. Use a gentle hand when mixing, since over-mixing the batter will result in some very tough pancakes.

Heat a large skillet or griddle over low heat. Spoon batter onto hot griddle and cook until the pancakes appear a bit dry along the edges and bubbles begin to form and barely pop on the surface of the pancake (this can take anywhere from 2 to 5 minutes). Gently flip the pancakes over and cook for an additional 2 to 5 minutes (again, depending on the heat of your griddle), until the pancakes are brown and somewhat firm. This is a thick pancake batter, so low and slow is the best cooking method here.

Keep cooked pancakes warm in a 200 degree oven while you cook the remaining batter. Serve pancakes with maple syrup, applesauce, or yogurt. Serves 4 to 6 people.

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