Live Every Week Like It's Cake Week

I have a weakness for everyday cakes. They aren’t fancy, they aren’t iced and decorated, they’re just simple and sweet and ready to be sliced up for guests or, as is often the case at Chateaû Amanda, sliced up for breakfast, dinner, and midday snacks. Not that you can’t do that with the fancier versions. Birthday cake for breakfast? Awesome.

Anyway, this is the second buttermilk recipe. The original fruit used in this cake was raspberries, which is actually my favorite fruit to bake with, but the grocery store, being lame, had nothing but blueberries. No matter, it worked just as well, though I’m definitely going to try raspberries.

Blueberry Buttermilk Cake

Via Smitten Kitchen

1 cup (130 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking powder
1/2 teaspoon (2 grams) baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 stick (56 grams) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup (146 grams) plus 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar, divided
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 large (57 grams) egg
1/2 cup well-shaken buttermilk
1 cup fresh blueberries (about 5 oz)

Preheat oven to 400°F with rack in middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch round cake pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. In a larger bowl, beat butter and 2/3 cup (146 grams) sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about two minutes, then beat in vanilla and zest, if using. Add egg and beat well.

At low speed, mix in flour mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, and mixing until just combined.Spoon batter into cake pan, smoothing top. Scatter blueberries evenly over top and sprinkle with remaining 1 1/2 tablespoons (22 grams) sugar.

Bake until cake is golden and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then turn out onto a rack and cool to warm, 10 to 15 minutes more.

Red Velvet is (apparently) my girlfriend’s favorite cake, and I would love to say that I made it for her, but in reality she lives 3000 miles away in California – where the weather is currently much, much nicer – so this batch of cupcakes is all for me.

Which is probably not really all that great for my thighs.

This recipe is from Bakerella, and is incredibly, incredibly moist with an almost runny batter that made my stovetop look like the site of a massacre.  They bake up deep red and soft, and look perfect with a huge dollop of cream cheese frosting on top. If this was actually for Valentine’s Day – when I started thinking about these – I might have tinted the frosting pink, but as February ends tomorrow, it stayed white. Regardless, the cupcakes look so good that I’ve already had two.

I halved the recipe, but the whole thing is posted here. I made a dozen cupcakes, a full batch would make twenty-four.

Red Velvet Cupcakes
Courtesy of Bakerella

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 Tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 oz. red food coloring

Preheat oven to 350F and line muffin tins with paper liners. Set aside.

Mix together flour, salt, baking soda and cocoa with a wire whisk and set aside.

In a separate bowl, mix eggs, sugar, oil, buttermilk, vinegar, vanilla, and food coloring until completely combined. Add wet ingredients to dry, and beat until blended and smooth.

Pour into prepared muffin tins and bake for twenty minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool, and prepare cream cheese frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting

1/2 C butter, at room temperature
8 oz of cream cheese, at room temperature
1 t almond extract
2-3 C confectioner’s sugar

Beat butter and cream cheese together until thoroughly blended. Add extract and blend again. Add sugar until you reach your desired consistency and sweetness.

Spread or pipe onto cupcakes.

Perfect for a special occasion. Also perfect for a Saturday night when you’re not in the mood to do anything productive. Which is most Saturday nights at my place.

Today is that Hallmark holiday known as Valentine’s Day, and if I were keeping with the theme, I would post something sinfully chocolatey – brownies, or Devil’s Food cake, or the Chocolate Bourbon cake – or maybe red velvet cupcakes, which I haven’t actually ever made and should try one of these days. But no. You’re getting an orange cake, because I love oranges, and I’m spending Valentine’s Day with my cat and the season premiere of The Amazing Race, so I’m not baking chocolate if I don’t want to, dammit.

This is not to say that I have anything against chocolate – it’s actually mostly to say that I don’t have enough Ghirardelli to pull off devil’s food today.

This is one of my more frequently repeated desserts, honestly; sometimes I make the whole thing in a 9×13, sometimes I make cupcakes, theoretically I could do the layer cake thing at some point, but today I’ll be halving the recipe and doing one 9″, single layer cake. The recipe posted is the whole thing, though.

The cake is from Allen at Eating Out Loud, and the frosting is from…the 1976 edition of the Betty Crocker cookbook, and is the only buttercream recipe I will ever, ever use. Ever. Don’t fix what ain’t broke, people, and this buttercream is perfect.

Orange Sour Cream Cake

Via Eating Out Loud

3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. orange extract
8 oz. butter
1 1/2 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup fresh orange juice

Preheat oven to 350F and grease and flour pan(s) (or line muffin tins with papers if going the cupcake route).

Cream together butter and sugar, and then stir in sour cream, vanilla, orange extract, and eggs until thoroughly combined. In a separate bowl, sift flour, baking soda and salt, and then slowly add to wet ingredients, mixing until smooth. Pour in orange juice and again mix until smooth.

Pour into prepared pan(s) and bake. If you’re doing this in a 9×13, bake for an hour. Make it 30-35 minutes for 8″-9″ pans, and 20-25 minutes for cupcakes. Set aside and let cool.

Orange Butter Frosting

Via Betty Crocker’s Cookbook, 1976 edition

1/3 C butter, softened
3 C confectioner’s sugar
1 1/2 t orange extract
2 T orange juice

Blend butter and sugar. Stir in extract and orange juice, beat until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody!

Procrastination is an art form, dear almost nonexistent readers. Procrastination is why I’ve put off baking this coffeecake for almost two weeks now, and procrastination is why it’s being baked right now, at 10 pm. Because the other option is working on the writing project I’ve been putting off for a month, and heavens, we wouldn’t want to that, would we?

Of course not.

This recipe is basically Kitchen Brother’s Cranberry Buckle, with one important, essential, imperative addition: orange extract. Unnecessary, you say, when there’s already zest? Please, there can never be enough orange, especially in combination with cranberry.

That’s your lesson for today.

Cranberry Buckle

Streusel
1/2 C unbleached AP flour
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
2 T granulated sugar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
Pinch table salt
4  T unsalted butter (1/2 stick), cut into 8 pieces, softened but still cool
Cake
1 1/2 C AP flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
10 T unsalted butter, softened but still cool
2/3 C granulated sugar
1/2 t table salt
1/2 t grated orange zest
1 t orange extract
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
2  large eggs , room temperature
4  C fresh cranberries

Mix dry streusel ingredients, add softened butter, chopped, and rub between your fingers until the consistency of wet sand. Set aside.

Preheat oven to 350F and grease a 9″ cake pan.

Whisk together flour and baking powder, set aside.

Cream butter, sugar, salt, and orange zest. Add eggs and vanilla and orange extracts. Mix until smooth, and then add dry ingredients, mixing until the flour is thoroughly combined.

Fold in cranberries. I highly recommend you do this with a wooden spoon rather than a spatula, lest your spatula snap in two. As mine did approximately half an hour ago.

Transfer dough to pan, pressing it into corners until it is even. Gather streusel in your hand and form a large clump before sprinkling it over the cake.  Repeat until the cake is coated and the streusel is gone. Bake for 55 minutes.

I can’t vouch for its taste, but it smells fabulous.

Battle Two in my ongoing and unsuccessful war against my Bundt pan, I baked this cake for National Bundt Day. Which was two weeks ago. And had so many plans to bring it into work and wow the four other employees with my cake prowess, but again, I was defeated by a bundt pan that doesn’t want to release cakes.

Possibly I should stick with sheet cakes and round cakes and cupcakes, but I refuse to be vanquished by a Calphalon pan. But I digress.

This cake, other than the pan disaster, also heralded me realizing that my microwave had a minor smoking problem, required the purchase of alcohol and espresso powder, and had one of the most spatter-y batters ever, but it was incredible. When I dug into the broken quarter directly after it came out of the pan, I thought it was possible that I could actually get drunk on this cake. I don’t consider this a bad thing.

From the New York Times via Elise at Simply Recipes, it takes an entire cup of whiskey. Trust me on this: use it all. It makes for an immensely flavorful, immensely moist cake that, yes, you may be able to get drunk on.

Chocolate Bourbon Cake

1 C unsalted butter, softened

2 C AP flour

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

1/4 C instant espresso

2 T unsweetened cocoa powder

1 C bourbon whiskey

1/2 t kosher salt

2 C granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 T vanilla extract

1 t baking soda

1/4 powdered sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 325F and grease and flour a 10-cup bundt. Set aside. Melt chocolate in microwave or over a double boiler. Let cool.

Place espresso powder and cocoa in a 2-cup glass measuring cup. Add enough boiling water to make 1 C. Add 1 C of bourbon. Stir until cocoa and espresso has dissolved. Set aside.

Beat softened butter until fluffy (2-3 minutes on high). Add sugar and beat until well combined. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well between each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract, baking soda and melted chocolate, scraping down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula.

With the mixer on the lowest speed, beat in a third of the whiskey espresso cocoa mixture. When liquid is absorbed, beat in 1 cup flour. Repeat additions, ending with whiskey mixture. Scrape batter into prepared pan and smooth top. Bake until a cake tester inserted into center of cake comes out clean, about 1 hour 10 minutes for Bundt pan (loaf pans will take less time, start checking them after 55 minutes).

Transfer cake to a rack. Unmold after 15 minutes and sprinkle warm cake with more whiskey. Let cool. Sprinkle powdered sugar through a mesh sieve over the cake before serving.

Everything went well until the unmolding part. Also, I didn’t bother sprinkling with more whiskey – it didn’t need it, but your mileage may vary here.