Glazed Almond Butter Cake

What time is it?!  It's Cake Slice Bakers time! 
*imagine the lights swooping back and forth and the trumpets sounding off*


Sounding a bit enthusiastic this month, you are thinking huh?
Well I am going to spoil the ending for you now - we really liked this cake!
With that out of the way let's get down to business.

The Cake Slice Bakers bake from one cake cookbook each year.  Each month we are offered three or four choices from the book.  The current cookbook is Great Cakes by Carole Walter.   Our choices this month were Glazed Almond Butter Cake, Burnished Sugar layer cake, Pineapple cheese squares and Black Forest Cherry Torte.  I really wanted to make the BFCT but ran out of time.  I do have the key ingredients and still plan to make it in the future.  But this month's cake choice is the Glazed Almond Butter Cake.

Started off by lining my pan and melting the butter so it has a chance to cool just a bit.

Thought I was being so smart lining the bottom.  Ummm.... yeah.  Getting the slices off later was a pain.  Just spray or butter the bottom if using a springform for this cake.

One thing you need to do when a recipe calls for your eggs to get a good beating is to make sure you beat them enough.  They should be a pale yellow and no longer look soupy.  They should be bright and shiny and look so good you want to run your finger through them and lick you finger - I wouldn't advise that though.  No really, don't.  Just beat them that much.  You need those eggs to hold that air and create a silky texture for your cake.

Ms. Walter really wants us to sprinkle in that sugar a teaspoon at a time and frankly I love the rebellious feeling I get each time I dump in that sugar and turn the mixer to medium to get the same result.... sugar the is thoroughly beaten into the eggs and no longer grainy.

Alrighty then... got the eggs and sugar all silky smooth then put together my dry ingredients.

Drizzled in half of the butter, added half of the dry ingredients, more butter and the rest of the dry.
Got the batter into my -well- lined pan and into the oven it went.

Once the cake was mostly baked it was time to put together the topping.  Butter, brown sugar and almonds are a great combination.

As soon as I mixed it up I questioned if it was enough topping.

Then when I was spreading the topping on the cake I knew it wasn't enough.  I felt that half again as much would have been the perfect amount ~ next time we will know huh?

Back into the oven for another ten minutes to finish it off.

We let the cake cool for a couple of hours then out of the pan and ready to be served.

The cake cut so nicely and the texture was smooth with a velvety crumb.  We had my parents over for dinner that night and everyone enjoyed the cake.

This one will go into the keep folder. Yay!

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An InLinkz Link-up

Enjoy!

:)

Old-Fashioned Pound Cake

Happy New Year!  Hope y'all are doing well so far this year.  This year is looking to be one of exciting things for my family.

Time for the Cake Slice Bakers to reveal the cake baked for January!  We are baking from Great Cakes by Carole Walter.  The cake for January is the Old-Fashioned Pound Cake.  There are several variations given in the cookbook and I decided to go the 'Spirited' route with our pound cake.  I also added a butter vanilla glaze to the pound cake.

My sous-chef Nick is joining me on this bake.  I always love to have my boys help out in the kitchen.

The cookbook calls for a parchment lined pan but I seem to be even more old-fashioned... my pound cakes need to have that sugar crust on the outside.  So Nick buttered the pan and then coated with sugar.

I don't usually sift my flour.  One f the main reasons for sifting in the old days was to make sure there were no foreign objects in the flour.  With today's standards we should be pretty safe from finding odd things in our dry goods.  

Since Nick was helping I had him "sift" the dry ingredients.  It's good practice.

Cream together the butter and sugar, beating until the color has lightened.

Since we chose the "Spirited" cake we added half milk and half bourbon.

Added in half our dry ingredients then the milk/bourbon, followed by the rest of the dry.

This batter comes out very velvety smooth.

Into the prepared pan and baked in a low oven for just over an hour.  Out comes a perfectly golden brown cake.

As it sits on the counter and cools can you smell the buttery goodness with a back note of bourbon?

Now prepare the glaze.

Butter Vanilla Glaze ~ melt 1/4 cup salted butter, whisk in 1 cup confectioners' sugar until smooth.  Add in 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and 1 to 2 tablespoons milk, depending on how thick or thin you want it.  Drizzle over your cake a little while before serving.

We found this cake to be quite tasty but did not feel that it was a pound cake.  It was light and fluffy with a soft crumb, which is nice but that is not what a pound cake is.  I may make this again knowing what it is like but not expecting a pound cake.

Check out all of The Cake Slice Bakers @ the blogroll & like us on Facebook.

I'll just leave you with this...

Enjoy!

:)

*I didn't publish the recipe because it comes from a copyrighted cookbook. 

A Treat & Crispy Treats

One of the Cake Slice Bakers ~ Monica of the blog Lick The Bowl Good ~ has a new cookbook!!  It is called "Lick the Bowl Good: Classic Home-Style Desserts with a Twist"... Grab a copy of it!!  I couldn't wait to get it and it just arrived and it is fabulous! She loaded up this cookbook with awesome pictures and yummy recipes.

I had a few minutes this afternoon and DJ has been asking for rice crispy treats.  So I decided to try one of LTBG's recipes...

... yes you are reading that right.  Rice crispy treats elevated to a whole new tasty using browned butter and cozy spices.

These are a snap to make.  Butter your 9" x 13" pan, measure out your ingredients and away you go!
A quicky tip ~ if the spices in the recipe are all going in at the same time, just measure into a small bowl and then when they are called for just dump and keep moving.

That's ooey gooey goodness you seeing going on there... browned butter bits and spices floating in melting marshmallow.

Once all melted mix with the rice crispies.  

Smoosh it down with buttered hands or something like a silicone spatula.

Once cooled cut and nom nom nom!

A winning recipe.  I look forward to making more goodies from this wonderful book.  I raise my whisk to Monica!  Congrats!!

: )

Enjoy!

Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake

Happy August to y'all!

This month has been a busy one that includes my oldest son turning 22 just a few days ago.  Crazy to think that he is that old... that I am that old ha!  You don't want to hear about my oldness - you came to see what cake the Cake Slice bakers whipped up this month so let's get going....

The August choice for the Cake Slice Bakers is the Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing from Vintage Cakes.   What is the Cake Slice Bakers you ask?  Well we are a group of blogging bakers that are baking a cake each month out of a specific cookbook.  This year of baking is being done from  Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  It is a great group of gals to bake with!  Be sure to check out all of their yummy blogs.  

This cake is supposed to be baked in a tube pan or angel food cake pan.  Since I can't seem to leave well enough alone I choose to bake it in a sheet pan.  I also decided that since it is just the boys and me home right now - Hubster is working extra shifts... well someone has to pay for my extra cooking essentials and Jeep parts!  Oh did that actually get typed?  Oh... where were we?  Since it is just the boys and me home I decided to make a half recipe.  Plus it gave me a good excuse to use my new shiny quarter sheet pans.  ;)

First I made the icing.  BB icing can be tricky sometimes.  One thing I have found that really helps with consistent results is allowing the browned butter to cool before whipping it up with the sugar.

The recipe called for unsalted butter.  I have found that I prefer to use salted butter and forgo the pinch of salt at the end.  I also like to use the browned bits that are sitting in the bottom of the pan.  They give the icing such a nice flavor and homey touch to the icing.  If you refrigerate your icing you will need to let it sit out for about 15 minutes before use.  You will also want to fluff it.

To make the chiffon cake you will want to butter and parchment the bottom only of your cake pan.  With chiffon or egg white cakes you should not grease the sides of your pan.  The cake actually uses the ungreased sides to grab onto and hold for rising while baking.

Don't forget the trick of buttering your pan, lay in your paper then flip your paper over so both sides are coated with butter.

This cake has four components ~ dry, wet, whipped whites and nuts.  If you read your recipe and mise-en-place your cake will come together nicely.

Start with your dry ingredients.  Sift together your flour, salt and baking powder, then whisk in the brown sugar. The recipe calls for light brown sugar but I choose to use dark brown sugar.

In another bowl whisk together the egg yolks, oil, maple syrup, water and vanilla.  A tip for you - the recipe called for the same amount of oil and syrup so I measured the oil first then the syrup.  Since the measure had the oil into it first the syrup slid right out down to the last drop!

Get your egg whites whipping.  First on medium until foamy, add in the cream of tarter.  Then get them to a nice soft peak and slowly add in your sugar.  Crank up the mixer and within just a minute your egg whites will be shiny and luscious looking.   

With as few strokes as possible combine the dry and wet ingredients.  Now it is time to fold the mixture with the egg whites.  Place about half of the whites in with your mixture and fold them together.

Now add the lightened mixture back to the whites and finish folding until just combined and you don't see any large streaks of white.  Now add your toasted nuts and finish combining all together.

I ended up diving the batter between two sheet pans.  Smoothed out the tops and popped them into the oven.

This way of baking the cake took much less time... only about 20 minutes.  Gee can you tell where the nuts are in the cake?  ha!

I didn't want them to sink too far so I inverted them on top of a cooling rack and let them cool completely.

The cakes both fell out of the pans but held up very well.  Time to build my cake.  I decided to cut it into four pieces.  I am not good at the eyeballing thing so out comes the ruler.

Peel the first layer off of the paper and place onto the plate.  

Tip alert - yep I am full of them today.  Place the blade of your off set spatula into a glass of hot water.  When you are ready to frost your cake wipe it off and frost until your frosting starts to stick a bit.  Place it back in the water to reheat, dry and back to frosting.

Continue to stack and frost all of the layers.

Once you have all of it frosted put your cake into the refrigerator for at least half an hour before slicing and serving.

We found the cake to be light and tasty.  I do think that without using the dark brown sugar the flavor may have been a bit too understated.  The BB frosting really helped boost the cake flavor.  I don't think I would make this cake as a full sized cake but as thin layers it worked out.

The Maple Pecan Chiffon Cake with Brown Butter Icing recipe can be found in Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  (I have no association with her or her cookbook sales.)

Check out all of The Cake Slice Bakers @ the blogroll & like us on Facebook.

Enjoy!

:)

The Pink Cake

Happy May cake to y'all!

The May choice for the Cake Slice Bakers is the Pink Cake from Vintage Cakes.   In case you don't know about Cake Slice Bakers... We are a group of bakers that are baking a cake each month out of a specific cookbook.  This year of baking is being done from  Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  It is a great group of gals to bake with!  Be sure to check out all of their yummy blogs.

Well the Pink Cake isn't very pink, in fact it is brown... a nice chocolate brown.  But the luscious frosting that you pair with this chocolate cake is pink.  The combination is striking and makes for a great presentation.

I chose to make cupcakes because tonight is Meet & Greet for our Jeep club.  Yesterday the Hubster and I were hanging out with some Jeeperpeeps, enjoying the sunshine and a Jamba Juice.  I was telling them how I was behind in my baking for CSBs.  I try to time my baking so that I have somewhere for the goodies to go - I don't want them sitting around my house!  They were just looking at me.... what did I mean I need somewhere for the goodies to go.... "call us we will take them off of your hands"!!  They also reminded me that we were getting together tonight and they strongly suggested I make the cake for tonight.  Alrighty-then! I aim to please!  And this cake should definitely please them.

The recipe directions call for you to pour boiling water over cocoa and chopped unsweetened chocolate, allow to stand then whisk.  I would first measure out the dry ingredients*, whisk them and set aside.  Tap off the whisk and then use the same one for the chocolate... a small change but hey it saves me from having to wash one more item. ;)

Cream together the sugars and butter.  Separate your eggs and be sure to save your extra egg whites for the frosting.  Add in the oil and eggs.  

Whisk sour cream and vanilla into the chocolate mixture.  I licked the whisk.... you think chocolate and well it is but totally unsweetened and even unsweeter with the addition of the sour cream.  LOL!  I licked it and made a face and my son laughed at me!

Alternate adding the chocolate mixture and the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

I was able to get 24 cupcakes and a mini loaf pan filled with this recipe.  I think next time I will fill the cups just a bit more so not to have left over.

Baked these little chocolate gems up in about 17 minutes.  While they were cooling I whipped up the frosting.  The recipe is a basic Swiss Buttercream with the addition of raspberry puree.  I chose to use a jar of my Very Berry Jam in place of the raspberry puree.

To make a SB put your egg white, sugar and cream of tartar in your mixer bowl.  Place the bowl over - not touching - simmering water.  Whisk constantly, not vigorously  until the mixture comes to 130 degrees.  And instant read or candy thermometer works great for this.

Take your bowl off the pan, wipe off the bottom, attach it to your mixer with the whisk attachment and beat at medium high for about 4 minutes until the mixture turns glossy white and holds a stiff peak.  Once it reaches stiff peaks turn the mixer down to medium slow and let it run for a couple more minutes until the bottom of the bowl is just about room temperature.

While the whites are whipping prepare your puree.  As I said before I used a jar of my jam.  Put it into the food processor and let it have at if for a minute.

Put the puree through the sieve to get rid of seeds and any larger pieces that may have escaped the blades o' choppage.  You will want to use one spatula for the top side and one for the bottom side... if you use the same one, most likely you will transfer way more seeds than you want.

Once your whites are cooled down it is time to add the butter.  Yes a full pound of butter added in a tablespoon at a time.  Most recipes call for you to start with the butter already cubed and all the mise en plas peeps say be ready with your butter.  But I will say don't have it cut up just at room temperature.  Because you should let each piece of butter incorporate before adding the next.  A lot of people will add the butter in too quickly and that can cause your frosting to break and well that is so not pretty.  

Instead take the time to cut each piece then add it, cut, add, cut, add.... You will get a good rhythm and your frosting will turn out nice and smooth.

Add in your salt, vanilla and the puree.  Ohhhhh... makes me think that Halloween is just a few months away hahaha!  Ok back to work!

This frosting comes out so tasty and smells wonderful!

Once the cupcakes are completely cooled it is time to frost them.

I chose to pipe them and just have some fun with designs.

This chocolate cake is keeper and I just know that my Jeeperpeeps will enjoy these tonight!

The Pink Cake recipe can be found in  Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson or on Epicurious.  (I have no association with her or her cookbook sales.)

Visit the other Cake Slice Bakers here.

The CSBs are now on Facebook ~ check them out here and be sure to 'like' the page.

*The published recipe calls for 2 cups (10 ounces) all purpose flour.  This is incorrect.  If you measure by the spoon method use two cups but if you weigh out your flour it should be 8.5 ounces.   1 cup of all purpose flour = 4.25 ounces.

Enjoy!

:)