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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Enjoy!

:)

Coconut (not a) Layer Cake

It's time! It's time! 
The Cake Slice Bakers voted to bake the Coconut Layer Cake for April! 

 We are baking from Great Cakes by Carole Walter. 

As usual I didn't make it by the book. My layer cake turned into cupcakes because I wanted to serve them with our Easter dinner. I also didn't use the recommended frosting because I had not made a frosting as the book listed and chose to use a tried and true swiss buttercream instead.

This coconut cake was a bit different because it called for the coconut to be steeped in scaled milk for half an hour.  Then you put the milk and coconut into a food processor and blitzed until the coconut was broken down.  

I used coconut milk hoping for a stronger coconut flavor in the cake...*

The cake mixed up in the usual fashion - cream together the butter and sugar, add in the eggs then add in the dry ingredients alternating with the coconut milk.

Scooped the batter into the cupcake liners and into the 350 degree oven they went.  For reference ~ the recipe made 22 cupcakes and they were done in about 13 minutes.

Working in a leveled oven has sure been nice!  Ha!  The cupcakes rose with a nice round dome.

I let the cupcakes cool over night then went to work on them with the buttercream, which I flavored with just a hint of coconut flavoring.

And then topped with toasted coconut.

These cupcakes turn out nicely and we got good reviews of them at Easter dinner.  They have a nice airy texture and baked up well as cupcakes.

*I personally thought they could have used much more coconut flavor.  Since I added the coconut milk I am guessing that a small amount of good coconut flavoring would help boost the flavor.

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Enjoy!

:)

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

Lemon Velvet Squares

'Tis that time again!  Time for the Cake Slice Bakers to reveal the cake baked for February!  We are baking from Great Cakes by Carole Walter.  The cake for February is the Lemon Velvet Squares.  Mine aren't going to be very square since I elected to bake my cake in a new mini bundt pan.

This cake starts out on the right note...

Fresh citrus zest is usually a good thing and then add in butter - ok yum!

Get your sugar, eggs, liquids and dry ingredients incorporated and you get a silky smooth batter.

Even though my mini bundt pan is new and a non-stick I chose to spray (which I hardly ever do) and sugar the pan.  Put my batter into the pan and had some left over so I sprayed and sugared a nine inch round pan also.

The cakes baked up nicely with a bit of golden brown to the edges.

Let the cakes cool for about ten minutes and then it was time to unmold them.... 

Screeeeeech!!!!

Well that was not part of the plan.

Ok no problem!  The glaze will cover up the "specialness" of these minis.

Time to whip up the glaze.

Well ok, that is not a glaze consistency in my mind.  Glaze should be pour-able.  This is more like a frosting.  Spreadable, which would be fine if I had made the 9"x13" cake the recipe specifies.  But I didn't so...  time to thin it down a bit.

I added about one tablespoon of additional lemon juice and it broke.  As long as you kept stirring the glaze it was fine but as soon as you stopped it started to separate.

The glaze tasted fine and since these were served to my family I just went for it.

Still not glaze thin + not spreadable cake surface  = a quite unattractive dessert.  Well that's a bummer!

This cake and glaze combination was pretty tasty if you like citrus.  The cake crumb texture was light and soft but does need the extra kick of the glaze.

The cake would be best baked in and served from the same pan.  Spread the glaze on while still warm and enjoy!

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Enjoy!

:)

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

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.

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I'll just leave you with this...

Enjoy!

:)

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

Butterscotch Cream Roll-Up

It's fall y'all!  Well it is now but not when this cake was due for The Cake Slice baker bloggers. Ha!

Me lately...

The September choice for the Cake Slice Bakers is the Butterscotch Cream Roll-Up from Vintage Cakes.   What is the Cake Slice you ask?  Well we are a group of blogging bakers that bake a cake each month out of a specific cookbook.  This year of baking is being done from  Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  We only have one more cake to bake from this book and then we start on a new book for the next year of baking.  If you are interested in joining The Cake Slice group please send an email to Paloma at love.for.coffee @ gmail.com for information. It is a great group of gals to bake with!  Be sure to check out all of their yummy blogs.

First thing you make for this cake is the butterscotch that will be used for the filling.  When making something like this be sure to have all your ingredients ready to go, don't get squirreled and be very attentive.  If you don't pay attention your sauce will go from delicious to disastrous in just seconds.  When done right the sauce will have a rich dark color and will smell sweet.

I would suggest making the butterscotch first thing in the morning and allow it to chill until cool.

The cake is a pretty standard sponge cake that you bake in a lined, greased and floured sheet pan.

The recipe calls for the cake to cool in the pan.  I did not do that because most of the time if you do let a cake cool in the pan the bottom will get soggy.  So I took the cake out of the pan and let it cool in a rack.  The down side of this is the edges got a bit dry.

As your cake cools take out the butterscotch and allow it to come up to room temperature. one the cake is cool it is time for the filling to be made.  Using the stand mixer on low mix together (most of) the butterscotch and cream until combined then you turn it up and whip them into a fluffy soft peaked cream.

Now for the fun... Cut the cake into four even pieces.  I removed the parchment from the pieces now rather than later.  Spread each piece with a dollop of filling then sprinkle with almond slices.

Now it is time to roll.  This is not the typical way of rolling a cake.  Roll your first piece on the pan/rack then stand it up on your plate.

Next pick up one of the pieces and wrap it around your center piece.  Start your second piece edge where the first piece edge finished off.

Add your third and fourth pieces the same way.  I did not figure out how to get a clean finished edge but I figured the cream covering will hide it.  ;)

And it did quite nicely!

Taste-wise this was probably one of our favorite cakes from this book.  The cake was light but had a good taste and the butterscotch cream was so yummyrific!  I will make this one agin but most likely will do a more traditional roll.  It was rather difficult to cut thinner pieces and didn't plate well... but every plate came back empty!

The Butterscotch Cream Roll-Up recipe can be found in Vintage Cakes by Julie Richardson.  (I have no association with her or her cookbook sales.)


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Enjoy!

:)