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Rum Cake

12 Dec

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A moist sour cream cake, fortified with rum, rich with butter, then glazed with a heavy hand of even yet more rum and butter. It’s reminiscent of an old-fashioned doughnut, but still in possession of cake-like qualities. Also, it’s got booze in it. Which means that if you are going to celebrate a person or an event, you’ll get a good jump on things by introducing this cake into the celebration.

Rum Cake

2 ¼ cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

½ cup dark rum

1 cup sour cream

Rum Glaze:

4 tablespoons (½ stick) unsalted butter

2 tablespoons water

½ cup granulated sugar

¼ cup dark rum

pinch of sea salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Place an oven rack in the middle position.  Thoroughly butter and flour a 10 or 12-cup bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, or in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter on high speed until light and creamy.  Add the sugar, and beat on medium-high speed until well blended, about 2 minutes.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the eggs, one at a time, blending well after each addition.  Add the vanilla and rum and beat until combined.

Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add one third of the flour mixture and beat on low speed until just combined.  Add half of the sour cream, and beat until just combined.  Add half of the remaining flour mixture, beat until just combined, then add the remaining sour cream, mixing only until just combined.  Add the last of the flour mixture and beat until just combined.

Spoon the batter into the prepared bundt pan, and bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until a cake tester inserted into the middle of the cake emerges with just a few moist crumbs attached, and the top of the cake is golden brown.  Cool the cake in its pan for 15 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool.

To make rum glaze, melt the butter in a small or medium saucepan. Stir in the water and sugar until the sugar is dissolved, then, over medium-high heat, bring to a gentle boil. Allow mixture to simmer for 5 minutes, swirling the pan occasionally, then remove from heat and stir in the rum and pinch of sea salt.

While cake is still slightly warm, brush all over with rum glaze. Allow the first coat of glaze to cool a bit, then glaze again. Repeat until all of the glaze has been brushed onto the cake. Layering the glaze applications will result in a fantastic coating with a really great, toothsome bite.

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Apricot Brown Butter Cookies

10 Dec

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I just reverse engineered a cookie that I ate four months ago and had to recreate based entirely on memory.

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One of my favorite cookies is the apricot brown butter cookie from Bi-Rite Market, in San Francisco. The cookies are thick and chewy, rich with brown butter, and topped with a spoonful of sticky apricot preserves. I do not live in San Francisco, however, so I only get to meet up with the cookies whenever I travel to them.

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After while, I got tired of pining for the cookies, and decided that I had to figure out how to make them myself. I started with brown butter, deeply cooked so its toffee notes stood front and center, then, looking to create a cookie with a nice, chewy finish, paired it with brown sugar. Since the cookie I was looking to make was essentially a souped-up butter cookie, I followed the pattern of butter cookie know-how, creaming the lightly firmed brown butter with sugar and flour, then chilling the dough to allow it to hydrate and set up. When baked up with a spoonful of apricot preserves, the cookies were a dream. With a pronounced brown butter flavor, a sticky lid of apricot preserves, and a delectably crisp-yet-chewy bite, they are just like my long lost cookie friend.

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Last Year: Ginger Almond Toffee

Apricot Brown Butter Cookies

I first made these cookies much larger than the ones pictured here (in the interest of recreating Bi-Rite Market’s cookie as closely as possible). The tiny cookies seen here were made for a holiday cookie swap, so a small size seemed like a reasonable idea. If you want to make the cookies more like Bi-Rite Creamery’s, triple the scoop size, multiply the apricot topping by the same factor, then bake the cookies for 2 to 4 minutes longer, checking the cookies every couple of minutes to reach the proper level of doneness. When made larger, the cookies will end up much chewier than a tiny cookie.

1 ½ cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup dark brown sugar

½ cup granulated sugar

2 large egg yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon salt

1/2 cup to 1 cup apricot preserves

In a medium skillet or pan, melt 2 sticks (1 cup) of the butter over medium heat. When browning butter, it is always best to do so in a light-colored pan so you can closely gauge the changing of the butter’s color. Slowly cook the butter, swirling the pan around every few seconds so the butter cooks evenly. The butter will begin to foam, then spatter a bit, and then you’ll see the little dots of milk solids begin to turn brown at the bottom of the pan. This can take anywhere from 5 to 8 minutes, so be sure to watch the butter very carefully to keep it from burning, and stir the butter every now and then to keep the milk solids from sticking to the bottom of the pan.

When the dots of butter solids have turned dark brown and the butter begins to emit a lovely nutty aroma, pour the butter into a medium bowl. Immediately place the bowl in the refrigerator or freezer. Allow the butter to cool, stirring every few minutes, until it is the spreadable consistency of softened butter (you basically want it to be the same texture as the remaining stick of butter that has been left to soften at room temperature). Getting the browned butter to this texture can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on whether you place it in the refrigerator or freezer, how often you stir it, etc.

When the browned butter has reached the proper consistency, place it in a large bowl, or in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, along with the remaining stick of softened butter. Cream the butters together until they are light and fluffy. Slowly add in both the brown sugar and granulated sugar, beating all the while, until everything is blended together. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla. With the mixer on medium low speed, slowly add in the flour and salt and mix until everything is well combined and the dough is relatively smooth. Cover the bowl of dough and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

When the dough has chilled, preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Using about 1 rounded teaspoon of dough at a time (or, for a much larger cookie, a couple of rounded tablespoons of dough), roll dough into a roughly 1-inch ball (or, obviously, larger). Place balls of dough about a inch or so apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Using the tip of your finger, make a small indentation in the center of each dough ball. Drop a small scoop of apricot preserves into the indentation (a small ball will handle about ¼ of a teaspoon of preserves, but a larger ball can take about three times that much).

Bake the cookies in the center of the oven for 12 to 14 minutes, until the edges are lightly golden. Remove cookies to a wire rack to cool.

If you make these cookies using rounded 1 teaspoon scoops, you will get around 6 dozen or more cookies.

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Raspberry Squares, Plus Baking with Kids

6 Dec

Bake Sale is the story of two friends, an eggplant and a cupcake, who work together to fund a dream trip to Turkey (which I just now realized is also the name of a food, which is a detail, intended or not, I now find totally hilarious). Cupcake owns and runs a small bakery, and while he is renowned amongst a small local following for his fantastic cakes and pastries, he is not exactly swimming in enough cash to fund his Turkish vacation. Through months of hard work and clever baking ideas, Cupcake eventually saves up enough money to accompany Eggplant on his trip. Cupcake’s fundraising bake sales are presented in lively detail, with one afternoon taking him to the Westminster Dog Show to sell homemade dog biscuits, and another to a farmers market to peddle his sweet offerings of vegetable-based baked goods.

At the end of the book lies a delightful treat: A ten-page spread of recipes based on the treats showcased in the story.

For months my son had been clamoring to make the raspberry squares featured in the book, so when we found ourselves with an open afternoon a few weeks ago, we open the book and dove right into the recipe. We had a great time. My son really wanted this project to be his, so I spent a fair amount of time out of the kitchen, purposefully keeping my prying mitts off of his work.

And then something completely unforeseen happened. The raspberry squares were terrible. I mean, they were just awful. The base was loose, greasy, and tasted of raw flour. The crunchy topping was so sweet, it almost made my teeth dance. You couldn’t cut a square without it melting into a pile of slick, separated ingredients. What a disappointment. We tried to pretend that the squares were at least somewhat salvageable, but, in the end, we had to toss them out. It was a total disappointment.

I couldn’t let things end that way. This was a recipe from Bake Sale, one of my son’s favorite books! We couldn’t let the recipe fail us like that. Determined to start anew, I took a look at the original recipe, located a number of red flags, made a number of intuitive changes, and rewrote a plan of baking action. Ever the trooper, my son agreed to give things another go. The second time, we knocked those raspberry squares out of the park. With a crisp, flaky crust, a crumbly, lightly sweetened topping, and a good balance of toothsome crunch and fruit filling, the raspberry bars were given a new, completely delicious life. Bake Sale will forever remain one of our most treasured books, and now, revised and edited, these raspberry squares just might make the cut as one of our favorite treats.

Last Year: Dutch Apple Pie and Chocolate-Dipped Lime Shortbread

Raspberry Squares Recipe

Very heavily adapted from Bake Sale, by Sara Varon

Crust:

1 ½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

½ cup unpacked light brown sugar

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

Filling:

1 cup low or reduced sugar raspberry preserves

Topping:

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 cup unpacked light brown sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 ½ sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into 1-inch pieces

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

To make the crust, combine butter, brown sugar, flour, and salt in a large bowl. Stir together with a sturdy spoon until the ingredients are incorporated with one another and no streaks of butter show through. Spread dough evenly into a 9’ by 13’ baking dish. Press down on the dough so it forms a flat and even layer of crust (you can use a piece of wax paper or the wrapper from a stick of butter to do this). Bake crust in center of oven for 17-20 minutes, until the edges are just starting to turn golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.

While the crust cools, prepare the topping. In a large bowl (you can even use the same bowl you used to mix the crust—I promise I won’t tell anyone), mix together the flour, brown sugar, and salt. Scatter the butter pieces over the top of the flour mixture. Using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter pieces into the flour mixture until the mixture takes on the appearance of coarse crumbs.

When the crust has cooled, spread the raspberry preserves over the crust, leaving a ¼-inch border around the edges of the crust (if the preserves touch the side of the pan, they will burn during baking). Scatter the crumbly topping evenly over the preserves.

Bake in center of oven for 20 to 25 minutes, until topping is light golden brown. Remove from oven and allow to cool significantly (at least 30 minutes, but preferably 1 hour) before cutting into squares.

Depending on how large you make your squares, you can get anywhere from 20 to 32 (or more) squares.

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