Week Five (almost a week late): Maple Bundt Cake (and a BONUS!)

My current feeling about this challenge is so indicative of my life and personality type. 

I am fascinated by personality and learning style quizzes; and also those Buzzfeed gems like "Which pop singer should you listen to based on your favorite Lay's potato chips?"(Apparently, I need more Adele in my life..also, more chips). 

But I haven't really invested much time in them other than taking the ones required by various leadership courses. However, I have a friend who knows her type and is firmly entrinched in her Myers Briggs personality description; so I did some more research a few weeks ago (because I honestly couldn't remember mine -- EN what?). After multiple tests, I kept coming up as ESFJ (T) or what 16Personalities calls "The Counsel." This person is Extroverted, obServant, Feeling, and Judging. All this means we ESFJs enjoy being around people, we love throwing parties and making people happy through "participat(ion) in a meaningful way." 

But that little (T) add-on to the personality is an identity of Turbulence. 

And here we are. I'm determined to work 40 hours a week, be a good mom and wife, do a zillion errands, explode Christmas cheer onto everything and make a cake every week. The cakes are being made but the writing about said cakes is lacking and/or lagging. 

But luckily for this T, my turbulence has chilled out some in motherhood. I'm still self-conscious and sensitve to stress, and my range of emotions has not diminshed. However, my push to be perfect, incredilby well liked (I mean, a couple folks could like me..)  and desire to always improve at everything I do has gone the way of the dinosaur. Sorry folks, park's closed; moose outside should've told you. 

And that just might mean that the blogs aren't written while the cake's still hot or even still in existence. But I'm trying. And I'm determined to complete this challenge, with a wide range of T emotions thrown in!  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anyway, poor attitude aside, here we are: Week Five! Fifty percent completion! 

To recap:

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake 

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting 

Week 3: Orange Chiffon Cake with Candied Zest 

Week 4: Upside Down Banana Toffee Cake 

For Week 5 I made a Maple Bundt cake, another gem from Martha's cookbook, for a work Thanksgiving meal. (P.S. we've made over a dozen recipes from that book in the last month and I will sing its praises forever! Maybe in a blog post later.)

This recipe (like this week's blog post) was incredibly simple - no complicated ingredients, weird preparation, or difficult techniques. And to my great excitement, it looked JUST LIKE the picture! 

I was seeking an autumnal cake for this gathering and maple is such a comforting, warm flavor it saddled up nicely beside other dishes featuring cinnamon and nutmeg. The cake was delicious, but I must say it was very understated and simple. It really is a no-frills pound cake with a hint of maple; the flavor and sweetness of which didn't shine unless you included the suggested topping of whipped cream and a tiny drizzle of extra syrup. Which makes me feel that this is more of a casual dessert, like you might have around for with ladies while drinking tea; it's not a head turning dessert. But as my cousin pointed out today "not everything has to be a showstopper;" if that's not some great bumper sticker life wisdom, I don't know what is. 

Click HERE for Martha's recipe for Maple Bundt Cake

ALSO - despite my current battle with laziness and insane schedule, we managed to make TWO "cakes" last week. I use quotations because despite "cake" being in the name, I don't consider cheesecake to be cake. I think they're pies. I'm sure this is a much contested question, not unlike "is a hot dog a sandwich?" I'm strongly of the opinion that a pie has crust and a filling, while a cake should have an element of bread-iness. Cheesecake is blatantly a pie, but I digress. J made a quick and easy Butter Pecan Cheesecake from Kraft's Food and Family publication for one of our family luncheons over the holiday. It was so pretty and tasted darn good too, especially if you enjoy less-sweet desserts. 

Click HERE for the Butter Pecan Cheesecake Recipe

Thank you dear readers for sticking with me this long. And since I've procrastinated on writing, it's already time to make the cake(s?!) for Week Six. See you again soon!

Week Four: Upside Down - no, not THAT upside down - Banana Toffee Cake

We aren't venturing into The Upside Down a la Stranger Things, but rather, this week's cake was upside down! 

When I look at my pile of "to try" cake recipes, some themes certainly emerge: chocolate, old-fashioned pound cakes, quirky (giant chili dog cake, anyone?) and upside down/skillet, so this week, I tried my hand at a new upside down cake recipe made in our handy cast iron skillet. 

Homemade pineapple upside down cake was one of the desserts I mastered (thank you, 11th grade Foods & Nutrition class) and is likely one of the fastest cakes to throw together. If I got a call that friends were coming over, I could easily make a pineapple upside down cake within half an hour with pantry staples. 

Since I'm confident with the classic, I decided to mix it up a little with an Upside Down Banana Toffee Cake recipe that I pinned a zillion pre-baby years ago. 

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Week Four! We're closing in on the half-way point of my bake-till-2018 countdown!


To recap:

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake 

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Week 3: Orange Chiffon Cake with Candied Zest

Week 4: Upside Down Banana Toffee Cake 

This cake was pretty darn delicious right out of the oven; but really, what cake isn't? And because the recipe suggests that "The cake is really at its best on the first day" we did our darnedest to eat as much as we could and what was left actually served as Sunday night's dinner. Isn't adulthood great? 

The author complained her 12-inch pan made for a very thin cake, but our 10-inch skillet brought us a beautifully thick and fluffy cake beneath the sticky bananas. However, her instructions to cut the bananas lengthwise, halve and cut into 1.5" slices made for a cake that 1. didn't match her beautiful photos and 2. made for clunky slicing.  

The real beautiful thing though, is the flavor of this cake. I used almost an entire airplane bottle of Bacardi in the toffee and batter and I was seriously worried it would come off as too boozy. I imagine everyone who drank (underage) for drinking's sake has at least one liquor/cocktail/punch that was ruined by a night of overdoing it. Just the thought of Parrot Bay coconut rum makes my skin crawl, so I was nervous. But I had faith in the flavors of bananas foster and wasn't disappointed. Bananas and rum pair together so beautifully, and the nutmeg and cinnamon in the cake batter were a perfect fit. The rum didn't stand out, it only enhanced the warm spices and tropical banana flavor. Praise the Lord. 

I will say though, that the preparation was a little more daunting than my traditional pineapple upside down cake and I may have been a bit meek in my execution. I normally make my pineapple cake in a cake pan without actively cooking the topping (I just mix the sugar, butter and *pro tip: pineapple juice* in the pan itself before arranging the fruit). The distinction here (as you can see in her photos) is that this is supposed to be more reminiscent of a toffee/caramel on top. Caramel is basically burnt sugar, however, there is a fine line between burnt, beautiful, smooth caramel that coats fruit but slides gently out of the pan and burnt, stringy, forever-stuck-to-the-pan gunk. I live in fear of that distinction and likely under-cooked my "toffee." It was still fairly blonde and I could still recognize some sugar crystals instead of pure smoothness. But it came out of the pan perfectly; again, praise the Lord. 

And that darn toffee and upside-downness brings me to two important points about upside down cakes, and this one in particular. 

Clunky 'naners and a pitiful "platter"

First, everyone needs to invest in a big platter or heavy-duty cake stand/carrier for upside down cakes. We have a zillion tools, appliances and do-dads in our kitchen that make our culinary lives so much easier. But some of the simplest things, like having a flat surface big enough to flip a cake onto and then serve from, escape us. So pardon the tackiness of my cake on a neon green cutting board. 

Secondly, everyone needs to invest some time into lining their oven and cleaning it regularly. Apparently my toffee bubbled and sizzled and oozed its way right out of my skillet and onto the bottom of my oven. Of course I didn't notice until I began preheating the oven to make dinner last night and our kitchen filled with billowy dark smoke. My holiday break is going to be spent with some heavy-duty chemicals and a Brillo pad. I highly recommend a product like this that you can use in your oven and remove to clean, instead of breaking your back scraping burnt toffee (maybe someday I'll listen to my own advice). And/or consider putting your skillet (or God bless you, a springform pan) on a baking sheet. 

So grab yourself a big ass plate, a huge can of oven cleaner and an industrial fan (ventilation is important), a pint of vanilla ice cream, and dive into the project of making (and cleaning up after) a delicious banana upside down cake. 

Week Three: All the Cusswords AKA Orange Chiffon Cake

This has been a doozy of a week. I've had a work conference for three days which has meant being at work at 6 a.m. (pitch black) and returning to campus after 6 p.m. (also, pitch black). Plus, I'm trying to get a 16-month-old to understand Daylight Saving Time. I was just starting to relax on Tuesday night when I remembered I had to make this week's cake. Commence all the cusswords. 

Then I realized how many eggs I had to separate. Cuss. 
Then I remembered how much zesting I needed to do. Cuss. 
Then I struggled to differentiate soft peaks and stiff peaks. Cuss. 

Thank goodness we don't use a Swear Jar. If we did, Mama's bank account would be overdrawn. 

But all the cussing certainly made for a damn good cake (another quarter to the Swear Jar). 

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Hello, Week Three! We are approaching one-third completion of the cake-a-week journey to 2018. 

To recap: 

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

Week 3: Orange Chiffon Cake with Candied Zest, also from Martha Stewart's Martha's American Food

When I started this challenge, I created very limited, yet important, criteria and this recipe fit the bill. 

First, I want to try a variety of new recipes that cover a litany of dessert categories; "they can't all be chocolate or pound cakes or include cream cheese icing." I have never made a chiffon/angel food cake before and I distinctly remember being very young and asking my dad about them, he sucked his teeth and said "Ohh, those are hard." So, yeah, let's make one after a 12-hour work day. Great idea.

Secondly, I want to find reliable, tasty recipes for both unique and traditional cakes. Angel food cake is such a classic "dinner on the grounds" (church picnic for y'all Yankees) cake, I just had to give it a shot. Now, I'm equipped for any potluck or ladies' luncheon.

Third, I need to share as much cake as possible. Thankfully, the gals at my monthly book club are more than happy to take on this responsibility.

Turns out this cake wasn't particularly difficult to make; however, you do need to do a fair amount of prep work and there is some serious detail work.

Mise en place is critical here. Have all your zesting, juicing, and egg separating done and organized before you get down to the real work. I was scattered and it made things that much more difficult, but could've been disastrous for the cake, too. #MomBrain

Pro tip from my 11-grade Foods and Nutrition class: separate your eggs one at a time over a cup or bowl, then pour into their respective containers. That way, if a yolk breaks, you're only out one egg, instead of the whole shebang. Yolks and oils are MURDER to a good meringue. I mention this only because I forgot my own #@!$ advice and spent 5 minutes carefully spooning yolk out of my five-white bowl. 

And, if you're like me (read: a nervous wannabe perfectionist) pull up some images of soft and stiff peaks on your tablet/phone ahead of time to gauge your progress. And of course, once you perfect those peaks, fold in your batter gently, but thoroughly. I found a couple places that were more egg-y and less cake-y where I'd under-folded; you want the batter/egg to be blended well, but not deflated. 

No Instagram filter can top Christmas lights. 

Scattered prep and peak-induced anxiety aside, making the cake was fairly easy and turned out beautifully. Martha's version cooked longer than ours (we have an overly hot oven and I'm careful with over-cooking), so hers had a thin crust around all the edges not just the bottom; but it still turned out wonderfully fluffy and light. 

And y'all - it doesn't look orange, and you can't see the zest flecks, but this is the most terrifically fragrant and perfectly flavored cake. This would be a great for a spring tea party or a summer picnic, but I also think the winter holidays scream citrus. This would be perfect beside a hot cup of mulled cider or after a heavy Christmas meal (a reduced cranberry sauce, no not that kind of cranberry sauce, would be an excellent garnish). 

Speaking of excellent garnishes, the candied zest is a MUST. I'll just leave my explanation here, with the note I left inside my cookbook. 

Week Two: Heavyweight Carrot Cake

I realize I was just whining about our culture's overzealous focus on nutrition, calories and general fun-sucking from delicious food. But, I have to at least provide a warning about my second cake: it's not for the faint of heart or atrophied arm muscles. Actual nutrition facts aside (a tiny bit of extrapolation will tell you how healthy it is) this cake is downright HEAVY. Not dense, but physically heavy. 

Take a peek at a couple of the ingredients:

• 1 pound carrots, shredded
• 1 pound cream cheese, softened
• 1 1/4 pounds butter, softened
• 2 pounds powdered sugar, sifted

We're already weighing in at 5.25 pounds without even including flour or eggs. Carrying this cake in to work today on my glass cake stand (which already weighs a metric ton) was a sheer feat of endurance. I'd like to add One-Handed Cake Carrying to the Olympics or at the very least, the Highland Games. 

So prepare yourself if you intend to bake this cake or tote your grocery bags in from the car. I recommend starting with some bench press reps today. 

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Welcome to Week Two - we are officially one-fifth of the way through my challenge to bake a cake a week through the end of the year. 

To recap: 

Week 1: Coconut Cream Poke Cake

Week 2: Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting from Martha Stewart's Martha's American Food

This week, I opted to make my boss' birthday cake. I moved into this position at work a year ago and one of my first observations about my new department was that these folks love birthdays and especially, birthday cake. My meticulous predecessor kept a birthday spreadsheet with each person's primary and secondary cake and icing preference. Y'all - if your office, friend circle, or other crowd of people who love each other and love eating, doesn't do this, you're missing out. 

My second observation about this crew was that 25% of them listed carrot cake as their favorite birthday cake. That's unheard of. Carrot cake is wonderful, and my go-to Easter dessert, but no one really requests it for their birthday, right? But I forgot to mention that my predecessor also apparently makes the world's best carrot cake. Excel skills and great recipes - no pressure, right?

So let it be said that I'm in no way trying to replicate her recipe or replace her - and Kathleen, if you're reading this, I miss you and will never be able to fill your shoes - but carrot cake is Boss' favorite, and it fits the bill for my challenge. 

Carrot cake is a classic, American comfort food and I'm hoping to use this challenge to find a couple of traditional, mainstay recipes for those occasions where I feel very June Cleaver. An interesting thing about carrot cake is that recipes vary so much from the incredibly simple to over-the-top ingredients like pineapple, raisins, and crystallized ginger. However, no matter how many add-ins you use, it is always a humble, warm and comforting spice cake with creamiest icing. And there's a 90% chance there'll at least one tacky piped carrot on top; this cake is in the class 10% minority. 

Available HERE on Amazon. This is a great cookbook with un-fussy recipes of the foods we love in the US. It's sorted by geographic area, so you'll likely be really familiar with your section (hello, peach cobbler and pimento cheese) and iconic dishes (think: NY cheesecake, Philly cheese steak or New England clam chowder), but will likely be surprised by other less famous recipes. Highly recommend!  

Also, J and I have been doing an extensive study of this particular cookbook and are determined to have made every recipe in it next year. 

Part of our effort to cook through this cookbook includes the attention to writing in the book, on the recipes as we cook and eat. We've both grown tired of sacred cookbooks that are for looking, not using. We are now committed to making notes in all our cookbooks. I want mine covered in crumbs and stains (the best recipes are always on the stickiest, crunchiest pages) and have notes all over them. How else will you remember things like "not four American portions, maybe 10 European, but not US #merika" or "sauce reduces quickly" or more importantly, things like "YAAAAS. THE BEST!" or "VOID THIS RECIPE. DO NOT MAKE AGAIN." 

Please note: this challenge has NOTHING to do with cake decorating skills. #fail

Here's what I intend to write on page 66 of American Food:

• Subtle spice; maybe add more ground ginger/cinnamon/nutmeg
• Cake has great texture
• Frosting is A+++
• Make frosting ahead! But leave out well in advance to be warm/pliable 
• Don't skimp on pecan garnish

All in all, this was a pretty good cake and the crowd at work seemed pleased. I'm not certain this is the best carrot cake in the land, but I LOVE the frosting. I will refer back to this recipe to frost other cakes and since it makes almost 5 cups of frosting (thank you, 2 lbs of sugar and 1 lb of cream cheese) it will make enough for a whole pile of cupcakes. 

Calorie-Free Cake -- just kidding

Consider yourself warned: I'm climbing on my soapbox for a little rant. 

When I began considering baking a cake per week until 2018, I pitched the idea to my ever-wise Facebook crew. And they were generally supportive - because, cake! - but were also, surprisingly, full of health advice - because, cake? - but it got me to thinking and actually aggravated me. Problem #1 with crowd-sourcing your dreams. 

There were suggestions about ways to share the cakes to keep from eating it all, tips on how to save calories/fats, and suggestions for healthier recipes. And I get it, 10 weeks of cake is a lot of cake, but my first thought when someone suggests a challenge like that is "ooh, how do I get on board" or "here's my recipe for at-home Baker's Joy" or my husband's initial reaction, "how can you afford that much butter and vanilla?" 

So, I'm kinda pissed that these suggestions about health, diet, and calorie counting clogged up my fun query and dampened my excitement. 

First, food is important. We need it to survive but in a privileged society where we aren't solely focused on nourishment, we also have the opportunity to really enjoy it. I have the great fortune to be able to spend money at grocery stores, to spend time cooking for myself and the ones I love, and to go out and enjoy the gift of other people's professional cooking. So why shouldn't I take the next two months to not only enjoy the fruits of my baking and the results of new experimental recipes, but also to reconnect with my love of cooking? 

Which makes me think this: is it because I proposed the challenge?

I recently watched a (ridiculous) Refinery 29 video about an employee who ate nothing but pizza (or the closest approximations thereof) four times a day for five days. 

Homegirl had breakfast pizza, homemade gluten-free pizza, fruit + Nutella pizza, classic $1 NYC slices etc. and she lived happily ever after, save for one stomachache. However, a Facebook comment stood out to me: how would this comment thread be different if she wasn't a cute, thin, white girl? 

What would your gut (no pun, intended) reaction be to seeing slovenly Kevin from accounting eating 10 slices of pizza a day for a week? Or that big girl at the gym who only lasts 5 minutes on the treadmill? "We" - the collective group of people with opinions and wifi - would not stand for it. Why? It's five days out of someone's life! They could be healthy. They could regularly exercise. They could be  are just damn fine without our concern for their well-being. 

I'm not skinny, but aside from some Smaug-worthy heartburn and allergies from hell, I'm pretty healthy. This barely muscular, doughy, and perfectly imperfect body gets through the day without too many complaints. It nourished and brought a wonderfully healthy baby boy into the world and it only gained 12 pounds to do so (7 of which were exclusively baby) and so far, it's nursed him for 15+ months while losing the baby weight + an additional 30 pounds. So I've had to ask myself a la Carrie Bradshaw: would a cake-a-week be a big deal if I looked like, say, Carrie Bradshaw? 

Now, these particular people who offered suggestions on Facebook and those who I've explained my cake calendar to since, aren't jerks dropping passive aggressive hints about my weight, sugar intake, or chins. These are all women whom I genuinely respect and who care about me. But that shows you how ingrained discussions of weight, calories and fat are in our culture. We're willing to tell the people we love, whose ideas we fully support, that they should be thinking about their diet...constantly and that they don't deserve to indulge. It's subtle and well-intended conversation, but it's coming from a place, deep within all of us that is paralyzed at the thought of being unattractive. This self-consciousness is such a part of who we are that we can't be held accountable for our own behavior. It's like a compulsion to share and defend ourselves at the same time; "I care about my health. I'm bettering myself! See? Now, you should too!" 

All that being said, I appreciate another element of the culture of my she-tribe, that we look out for each other. We only want the best for each other and I'm sure they'd be alarmed if I expressed an interest in anything dangerous or truly, immediately unhealthy. But I just hate how this observation speaks to all of our fears and panic. I want to take the time to be more thoughtful in my conversations with others, especially with other women, about their plans/dreams/challenges and not be dismissive. I need to reprogram my subconscious to ask more personal, positive questions and offer real, helpful thoughts instead of jumping to negativity. 

I need to be asking myself: is this something I would say if they were talking about or doing something "traditional" or "healthy" or "generous"? Can't their excitement over baking ten cakes warrant the same excitement I'd give someone trying a kale-of-the-month club? Shouldn't I be as proud of them taking up disc golf as I would be of their interest in Soul Cycle? Why am I not praising their decision to go out on a date without the kids as much as I do their macaroni art projects with the two toddlers?