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 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. 

Fat Kid Friday: Classic Yellow Cake

For our second installment of Fat Kid Friday, I'm bringing you the delicious, ridiculously tall and rich yellow cake I made for J's birthday.

J's family loves birthdays - they get together for EVERY family member's birthday and there's store bought cake and ice cream and chips every time. I have always been a cake person, but this new, almost monthly serving of birthday cake has increased my love of cakes. This year, I started asking J what kind of cake he wanted early on and while leafing through my "Martha's American Food" cookbook he pointed to a beautiful yellow four-layer cake with chocolate buttercream.

This cake was an undertaking - not because the recipe was hard but it was such an exquisite cake to live up to. And it was a whole hell of a lot butter. But - despite it being a messy, butter-filled endeavor - this cake tastes like childhood. It tastes like the cakes mom and grandma used to make. My grandma makes the best yellow cake with a thick fudge icing. I remember peeling off the fudge and either shoveling it down as fast as I could or saving it for the very last bite (this patience came with age). This cake is a close second to that with a creamy smooth frosting and a sweet, buttery (duh!) cake.

And this recipe makes more than enough icing. I saved some in the fridge and it's an exact replica of Ice Cube candies (if you've never tried one, hit up your local retro candy store, like Mast General Store).

I highly suggest you stocking up on butter and whipping this up for your next special occasion!

Fun Tip: LEGO minifigures make the perfect candle holders!
Just sit them on a little piece of tinfoil so they don't get icing in their legs. 

Yellow Layer Cake with Chocolate Icing

Cake Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, plus more for pans
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
1 1/2 c cake flour (not self rising, I used Swan's Down)
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 3/4 c sugar
4 large eggs
2 t pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 c milk

Method:

Pre-heat oven to 350. Butter two 8x2" cake pans, line bottoms with parchment. Butter parchment and dust with flour, tap out excess (TIP: if you're making a chocolate cake use cocoa powder to dust your pans).

Sift together flours, baking powder and salt into a medium bowl.

With an electric mixer on medium speed, cream butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, then beat in vanilla. With the mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk and beginning and ending with the flour, beat until combined after each addition.

Divide the batter between the pans and smooth with a spatula. Bake, rotating pans halfway through until tops are tender and a toothpick comes out clean (this is a delicate cake that's easy to over-cook, watch them closely) - about 30 minutes. Let cool in pans on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges and flip onto rack. Let cool completely, top sides up.

Using a serrated knife or bakers garrote trip tops of the cake to make level. Split each cake horizontally to make four layers. Place bottom layer on a serving platter and spread with frosting. Place another cake layer on top, spread with frosting. Repeat twice. Spread a thin - crumb coat - on the entire cake, refrigerate until firm. Spread with a final layer of frosting. Refrigerate cake at least 1 hour until slicing. (Cake can be made up to 3 days ahead. Cover and refrigerate; let sit at room temperature before slicing and serving).

Icing Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 c plus 1 T unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 c plus 1 T boiling water (great use of the Keurig!)
1 lb plus 4 T (4 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 c powdered sugar
pinch of salt

Method:

Heat chocolate in a double boiler, stirring occasionally until completely melted - about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature, 25-30 minutes. Meanwhile combine cocoa and boiling water, stir until cocoa is dissolved.

With an electric mixer on med-high speed, beat butter, sugar and salt until light and fluffy. Add melted chocolate, beat on low speed until combined - 1 or 2 minutes. Beat in cocoa mixture.

Fat Kid Friday: Pound (of butter) Cake

"I love you like a fat kid loves cake" - 50 Cent, "21 Questions" 

I'm (belatedly) starting a feature of decadent, rich and calorie-filled dishes for Fat Kid Friday. I try to offer a variety of healthy, quick-and-easy meals here but this feature will give you wonderful ways to treat yourselves with uber-delicious and sinfully satisfying dishes - a lot of these will be desserts since we both have big sweet tooths but I've got a few luxurious entrees.

Here's our first installment with a wonderful, traditional Southern pound cake recipe from Martha Stewart's "Martha's American Food" (a new cookbook favorite of mine).

The best recipes are on the dirty, sticky pages! 

According to my dad, one of the best things I've ever cooked was pound cake. I started making them using an ancient church cookbook (those are always the best!) and even got confident enough to start making my own twists on the classic recipes. Dad loved when I'd mix in Hershey's syrup to make a yummy, dense marbled cake.

When I got this new cookbook, I decided to try another traditional pound cake recipe and this one is certainly a winner. It's so traditional that it still sticks very closely to the "pound" recipe - calling for a pound of sugar, a pound of flour and of course, an entire POUND of butter and nine large eggs. This is certainly no recipe for those counting calories, trying to lower their cholesterol or avoid diabetes.

Pound cakes are incredibly versatile and come in many varieties. The old-school recipes are heavy on extracts - extra vanilla, lemon, orange or even the mythical "five flavor pound cake." I, myself, love plain, run-of-the mill pound cakes. Our local supermarket chain, Ingles, makes the best original version. It's dense and soft - like a heavy duty angel food cake - and is incredibly delicious warm and smeared with peanut butter. I grew up calling it choke butter cake because without a glass of milk, you literally struggle to swallow the sweet bites.

The basic version of this recipe is delicious and very lightly flavored. You can taste the subtle vanilla, but what stands out the most to me is the hint of salt. The tablespoon of coarse salt really adds a great contrasting flavor. Pound cake straddles the line between bread-y, almost muffin-like texture and that of cake-cake. This recipe is more on the bread-like side, with a good bite and mouth-feel. And yes, it is still delicious with peanut butter (or Nutella or Biscoff cookie butter). It is also the perfect base for macerated berries (with vanilla sugar!) or a warm sundae.

And the variations are just as good, if not better! So far, I've made it with fresh blue berries and a blackberry jam swirl (below) - and both are gone in a flash!

All of the recipies - original and variations - are incredibly easy. The hardest parts are waiting for the butter and eggs to get to room temperature and dividing the batter evenly - you could use a kitchen scale here, I suppose, but I just wing it (for better or worse).

Pour yourself a glass of milk and put on your stretchy pants to enjoy this wonderful Fat Kid Friday pound cake!

Pound Cake

Ingredients:

1 pound (4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened*
3 1/4 c all-purpose flour
1 T coarse salt
2 c sugar
1 t pure vanilla extract
9 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten*

* It is CRITICAL that the butter and eggs be at room temperature, if not the batter will look curdled and will the cake will be far too dense and won't rise properly.

Method:

Preaheat oven to 325. Lightly butter two 5x9" loaf pans.

In a medium bowl, whisk together salt and flour.

With an electric mixer on high speed, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Cream them thoroughly for the best volume. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Reduce speed to medium and add vanilla.

Add the eggs in four batches, mixing thoroughly and scraping the bowl after each addition. Reduce speed to low and add flour mixture in four batches. Mix until just incorporated.

Divide batter between pans. Tap pans on the counter twice to distribute evenly. Bake until a toothpick entered into the center comes out clean - about 1 hour. Allow to rest on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the edges of cakes, then turn out cakes onto racks to cool completely.

Variations:

Blueberry-Sour Cream -  Use 1/2 c sour cream in place of 1 stick of butter. Toss 2 c fresh blueberries w. 2 T flour (this keeps them from sinking to the bottom of the loaf); fold into finished batter. Before baking, sprinkle 2 T sanding sugar (I use demerara - raw- sugar) over each cake.

Jam - Fold 1 c jam into the finished batter.

Recipe Resources - books, magazines and more!

I've mentioned time and again that I'm not the best improvisational cook but I do love and excel at following recipes. I love to perusing periodicals to find good-looking recipes to test out.

This may be a genetic affliction because my mother is a first-class cookbook hoarder. She loves looking at all of the beautiful pictures, imagining the dishes and making a to-do list of recipes for my dad to make;  every year we have to sort through them to clear space on the bookcase.

Right now, I've only commandeered one shelf (of our 5+ bookcases) for cookbooks, but I also subscribe to two cooking/food magazines, listen to culinary podcasts and regularly review a foodie website. Here are a few recommendations of my favorite recipe resources that provide relevant, interesting and delicious information on cooking (and eating)!


- From Julia Child's Kitchen & Mastering the Art of French Cooking: I've read two books about Julia Child's life and adventures in becoming one of the forefront starts of cooking and one of the first famous female chefs and I've come to idolize her and her cookbooks. Her recipes are timeless and reading the biographies of her that I have, I know how much work - including tinkering, testing and reformulating - she puts into her cookbooks to make sure the recipes are precise and work perfectly. I do find her recipes hard to read sometimes because they are so detailed (partly because of the nature of French cooking itself) but the results are nothing short of remarkable. Her cookbooks inspired how I present recipes here, with a list of ingredients followed by a detailed "method" timeline.

- Taste of Home magazine: TOH is a great magazine for beginners or those who need to make quick, inexpensive, crowd-pleasing meals (don't we all?). The majority, if not all, of the featured recipes are submitted by readers (who can win competitions for cash!) and are tested by their staff and editors. I love the personal quality of the recipes - each reader-submitted one includes a 1-2 line intro from the home cook - that shows someone out there actually makes this recipe for people they care about! This mag relies heavily on Crock Pots, make ahead and easy-to-freeze meals. 

- The Hungry Girl series of cookbooks and website: I've found this product line to be the most accessible and successful series of healthy, diet recipes. Unlike other lines, such as the super witty but overdone Skinny Bitch In the Kitch books, Hungry Girl uses common, inexpensive ingredients to create figure-friendly recipes that taste as good, if not better than the full-fat, high calorie versions. For example, the recipe for rich, pumpkin chocolate muffins  is amazing and is so customizable. The website offers weekly updates about new grocery products and helpful suggestions so users can make informed, healthy choices at home, at the store or in restaurants. 

- Food Network Magazine: I didn't buy this subscription myself, but my mother got so tired of me stealing her back editions that she opted to make sure I had my own copies. I love this magazine. After working on a newspaper for my whole college career, I have an eye for good layout and engaging content - this magazine pulls you in. The food artistry is great, they have stories about current trends in kitchen supplies and menus, and great features like "He Made She Made" which pits two Food Network cooks against each other making a simple dish. Unlike Taste of Home, Food Network seems to assume its readers aren't novices, but are at least watching Food Network shows and know the basics. They include more complicated and exotic recipes with less common ingredients; but it's all do-able. This might be right between Taste of Home and Bon Appetit. 

- The Salt: This is the quirkiest of my recommendations. It doesn't offer a regular, standardized product but is merely the grouping of all food-related NPR material. That includes audio clips (and transcripts) of their stories from shows like All Things Considered, Fresh Air and Morning Edition, infographics and a "For Foodies" section that includes weekly features like "Sandwich Monday" where staff members of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me try random meals that could loosely be described as sandwiches and provide a satirical play-by-play. It often features recipes (usually in "Found Recipes"), but I appreciate the up-to-date news about food issues including issues of hunger, climate change affecting produce, diet trends etc. 

- Top Secret Restaurant Recipes 2: I don't know how this happened but my family ended up with two copies of this cookbook and no one has the first. However, judging by the recipes in the sequel, I imagine TSRR 1 is pretty good too. This book if full of restaurant secrets - either ripped off by former employees or tested and tweaked to be mirrored meals of franchise favorites. I can attest that some of these recipes are just as good as you'd get in a brick-and-mortar location, including the Red Robin fry seasoning that we now use on a number of things. For me, it's also helpful for figuring out "what is that flavor?" in restaurant dishes and gives a good starting point for improving on your favorite dishes. My only complaint is the organization of the book. All recipes are grouped according to original restaurant (Chilis, PF Changs etc.) which is helpful if you know an exact dish you want to duplicate (like Chili's molten lava cake) however, if you just know you want to make chicken salad you have to do some searching. 

- Better Homes and Gardens' New Cookbook: According to the Amazon description, the New Cookbook (now on its 15th edition) has been a staple in American households since 1930. I know that the red-and-white plaid book has been a constant feature of our home since the early 80s (but our ragged copy looks even older than that). Like Mastering the Art of French Cooking, the recipes in New aren't actually new - they're classic dishes that teach you basic techniques and meals that are always enjoyable. We had a children's version that I used when I first learned to cook and I was so proud when I could graduate to the big three ring copy. This is a great cookbook to get started with - you're making fancy dishes but it talks you through it as a learner.

- The Splendid Table: A staple of public radio, TST is a wonderful hour-long show hosted by Lynne Rosetto Kasper who has a voice made for NPR - soft and quiet with a descriptive vocabulary that brings the food to your own home. They feature great stories from journalists around the world, interviews with chefs and an awesome segment where callers name a few items in their fridge and Lynne suggests a recipe. Lynne makes food accessible and callers are able to get a personable answer to their most pressing cooking queries. The show airs weekly but podcasts and recipes are available online.

- Service Included: Four-Star Secrets of an Eavesdropping Waiter : This book isn't a cookbook, doesn't include any recipes or many helpful cooking tips. However, it is a non-fiction book about the adventures of working in Thomas Keller's uber-fancy Per Se restaurant. I learned so much about working in kitchens, and how I should be acting as a diner from this book. I highly recommend it to anyone with an interest in food.