Tag: cake
Summer Baking
Summer fruit, summer dessert. Berries, nectarines, plums, grapes. Shortcake, pie, upside down cake, jam and jelly.
Fruit cannot be compromised by ingredients in any way, but flavors must be enhanced.
The focal point is fruit. Spices, juices, textures, subtle flavors all add to the experience. Ultimately, simplicity seems to be the best.
The problem is, most desserts are laden with fats, such as butter, and too much sugar. Where to compromise? What to make?
Upside down cake! Simple and easy, and with the right ingredients, neither too sweet, nor loaded with the “wrong” fats. Solution, then? An olive oil cake.
Summer Fruit Upside Down Cake
Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease and flour 9 inch circular cake pan. Fresh seasonal fruit – your choice! I used red plums, some ripe, some toward the green side – great sweet and sour combination. You could also do berries, strawberry-rhubarb combo, peaches, nectarines. In winter, go for apples and pears. Maybe add some chopped nuts or raisins in winter.
2-3 c. fresh fruit
2 T. white sugar
1 tsp. orange extract (I used Penzey’s)
Mix all of the above together, set aside. Stir occasionally, while creating the cake batter, if you think about it.
1.5 c. white or whole wheat flour
1/3 c. corn meal (yellow or white)
2 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
Mix together in a bowl. Set aside.
2/3 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. orange extract
3 large eggs
3/4 c. light brown sugar
Whisk all liquid, eggs, and sugar together till thoroughly blended.
Add 1/3 flour to oil-egg mixture, mixing thoroughly, but do not over mix. Continue adding 1/3 flour to mixture until all flour mixed in.
Spread fruit over bottom of pan. Spread cake batter over fruit. Bake in oven 20 minutes, check, turn pan if necessary. Bake another 20 – 30 minutes until toothpick inserted in cake comes out clean.
Remove baked cake from oven. Run knife around edge of cake in pan. Jiggle pan to loosen fruit at bottom. Place large plate over top of pan and invert. Knock on bottom of cake pan to loosen cake – I used a wooden spoon. Remove the pan and scoop anything sticking to the pan back onto the cake – don’t be shy, make sure to taste it, too!
Cool. Serve with whipped cream, creme fraiche, or yogurt.
Lemon Verbena Cake
I have a beautiful lemon verbena bush in a pot on the patio, and each time it blooms I think I need to do something with it. For some reason, lemon verbena pound cake struck a cord, and over the past several days I have been looking for something that sounds good. Nothing really did, so with a few web recipes, and some cook books, I made up a recipe. I dragged out the big grey monster (a.k.a. the Kitchenaid Mixer), bowls, pans, and assembled myself a cake with fresh lemons from the neighbor’s tree, lemon verbena from my bush, and a bit of elbow grease.
Lemon Verbena Cake
2 sticks (l c.) sweet butter
2 c. white sugar
4 eggs
2-4 T. fresh lemon verbena leaves, rinsed and chopped fine
Lemon zest from 1 or 2 lemons
Juice of 1-2 lemons, placed in measuring cup
Half-and-half to make one cup, added to measuring cup with lemon juice
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
3 c. King Arthur’s unbleached white flour
Method
Preheat oven to 325 F for convection oven, or 350 F for regular oven. Place rack in middle of oven.
With about a tablespoon of soft butter and some waxed paper, thoroughly grease a 10-inch bundt pan. Make sure to get every crevasse and nook filled up. Dust with a generous amount of flour, and tap out remainder. Set aside. (I took my butter and pan outdoors to hasten the process – hot sun, melty butter!)
In mixing bowl, beat together butter and sugar until light and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating in thoroughly. Add chopped lemon verbena leaves and lemon zest, beat some more.
In another mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt, powder, and soda. Alternately add the half-and-half with lemon juice (it will be curdled by now) and a third of the flour. Liquid-flour-liquid-flour-liquid-flour. Beat very thoroughly after each addition, scraping down the sides as necessary. Be sure to really beat the batter a lot – the more the beating, the finer the crumb.
Bake for 60 to 75 minutes (1 hour to 1 1/4 hours). Test by inserting toothpick into cake – if it comes out dry, cake is done. Also, check to make sure that the cake is pulling away from the pan edge a bit.
Pray to the cake-baking gods!
Cool cake on rack 5 – 10 minutes. With small knife, gently pry away cake edges from pan; tap on pan multiple times to loosen. I banged on the bundt pan with a wooden spoon after I took the cake out from the oven, and used a filet knife around the center tube and around the edges of the cake. After this, I placed a plate under the cake, tapped some more, and it came out very nicely.
My cake took about 1 1/4 hrs. to bake; I let it cool 15 minutes before inverting it onto a plate. While the cake was still warm, and I wanted to flatten the bottom a bit, I pushed on the cake with a towel until I was happy. Also, I think my generous buttering of the pan, along with a proper cake-god dance, did the trick. I finally just dusted the cake with a bit of powdered sugar, through a sieve, because I do not care much for glazes.
Altogether, I am rather pleased with myself!
Ink, Yarn & Beer 