Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream: Classic Cakes

As my own birthday approached this past September I found my head, not unusually, filled with thoughts of cake. I wanted to try something different, but not so outlandish that I would risk ending up with a flavor I didn't dig. I started out thinking, "neopolitan cake." Then I thought, "No, those flavors are too simple, what about spumoni cake?" Lastly, I thought, "The pistachio part of the spumoni cake is probably the best, I wonder if I can find a good pistachio cake recipe??" And so go the thoughts of a cake obsessed lady with a knack for Internet searches.

This time around, the product of my Internet searching that piqued my interest the most was Baked's Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream and it resides on Oprah's website. Pistachio infused cake? Fluffy buttercream icing with a hint of honey? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, life got in the way, and I did not get to make this cake until October. I guess there was a bigger plan for it though, because instead of my 34th birthday cake, it became a gift for my Grandmother's 80th birthday; which is, as far as birthdays go, a much bigger deal!

As it turns out, this pistachio cake was chosen as one of 10 "sweet creations" in celebration of "O" Magazine's tenth birthday. Also, when I posted about making this cake on the KT Kakes Facebook page Josie over at Pink Parsley mentioned she had made this cake for her birthday a while back. She also blogged it and her write up on it is, as usual dead on. Her observations were also similar to my own. I agree that the cake is delicious but the frosting recipe is the real find here. It is not too sweet and comes together so silky, smooth, and is really SO good! So, I won't re-invent the wheel any further, if you want the details on making this cake you can head over to Josie's blog post.

I linked to the recipe above, but for simplicity's sake, I will also paste it in below. The only change I made was to the number and size of pans I used to bake the cake. The recipe is for a traditional layer cake with 3 8 inch layers, but I only had two 8 inch pans. So instead, I went for two tiers of one 2 layered 8 inch cake and one 2 layered 6 inch cake. I don't think it changed the texture at all and it made for a nice looking 80th birthday cake.

Oh, one quick note on the fondant roses: I used this youtube tutorial to make them. I worked with pre-made Satin Ice fondant that was already tinted red and the roses came together SO quickly! It took me about 20 minutes to make the four roses on the top of this cake. As a bonus, it just so happens that red roses are my Grandma's favorite flower.


Baked's Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream via Oprah.com

Servings: Serves 12–16

Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups shelled pistachio
2 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising)
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 Tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking soda
8 Tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter , softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs , at room temperature
1 1/2 cups ice cold water
3 large egg whites , at room temperature
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
24 Tbsp. (3 sticks) unsalted butter , softened
3 Tbsp. honey
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Classic Cakes: Carrot Cake Cupcakes

After a blistering hot summer in Atlanta, we have recently had a bit of relief with some 65-70 degree temperatures. The cooler weather feels like a signal to blog my favorite Carrot Cake recipe.

For years I made the Carrot Cake recipe my Mom had given me. I believe it originated from her Betty Crocker cookbook. The recipe called for baby food carrots. I made it many times before I finally admitted it was a bit dry and not very good.  A girl cannot be without a go-to carrot cake recipe, so off I went in search of the moist and delicious recipe that gave carrot cake it's famously good name. I found a true winner in Ina Garten's Carrot Cake Cupcake recipe.

Her recipe calls for grated carrots instead of the baby food, and vegetable oil, which I believe is the secret to this cake's moist and fluffy texture. I like my carrot cake plain, I know that may be blasphemy to some; however, I omit the nuts and raisins. I have also baked this recipe many, many times divided evenly into two 8 or 9 inch round cake pans and it has come out wonderfully every single time.

The cream cheese frosting recipe I use is my Mom's. It is wonderful! Plenty of cream cheese taste and not overly sweet. I believe I doubled the recipe to have enough to ice all the cupcakes.

I made this particular batch of cupcakes for a bake sale at John's office. I wanted to go with something classic, that had mass appeal, to help raise as much money as possible for the cause: the Kaiser Permanente Corporate Run/Walk & Fitness Program. All the cupcakes I sent in sold, and the extra ones I made for us disappeared pretty quickly too. John is burning off the extra calories tonight as he completes the run. As for me, I have to admit, I couldn't resist eating one, or two..and a half of these. They were so worth it though, and I'm sure I burnt off the calories running around after the kids :)

Carrot Cake Cupcakes

2 cups sugar

1 1/3 cups vegetable oil
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 extra-large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
3 cups grated carrots (less than 1 pound)

Directions


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Beat the sugar, oil, and vanilla together in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed, add 1/2 of the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the grated carrots, raisins, and walnuts to the remaining flour, mix well, and add to the batter. Mix until just combined.

Line muffin pans with paper liners. Scoop the batter into 22 muffin cups until each is 3/4 full. Bake at 400 degrees F for 10 minutes then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees F and cook for a further 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool on a rack.

For the frosting, cream the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Add the sugar and beat until smooth.

When the cupcakes are cool, frost them generously and serve.

Cream Cheese Frosting  (double)

2 cups confectioner's sugar
3 oz. cream cheese (softened)
1 tsp vanilla
4 tbsps butter (softened)
Beat until smooth

Classic Cakes: Strawberry Cake

Many of the cooking blogs I frequent talk about cooking "seasonal meals". There is less opportunity to be seasonal in baking. After all, chocolate, vanilla and even carrot cake are good pretty much all year round, right?

With berry season upon us, I thought this strawberry cake was the perfect way to use delicious, sweet, in-seasaon strawberries in a cake recipe. It was a bit difficult to find a strawberry cake recipe that read like it would turn out well. None of my tried and true sources (The Cake Bible , America's Test Kitchen) had one. So, I turned to an internet search, and this time it yielded a beauty!

A conversation on chowhound.com pointed me to this recipe on The Baking Pan website. This recipe incorporates a strawberry puree into a light and fluffy vanilla cake. The cake is accented by a light strawberry cream frosting. The combination creates a cake that just melts in your mouth. Just to reassure you that I am not exaggerating, I will tell you that I brought this cake into the office to share with my co-workers, and more than one person used an expletive to describe how good it was!

I followed the recipe pretty much as it is published here. The only change I made was to the frosting. I found it a bit sweet for my taste so I increased the amount of softened butter to about 1 1/2 cups to up the creaminess quotient a bit.

If you love cake, and you love strawberries, this cake is a must make while the berries are at peak season freshness!

Classic Cakes: Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

What I am about to post here today is an amazing discovery that I should most likely file away in my personal secret recipe box. However, because I am feeling generous, and because the search that finally brought me to this Mecca of chocolate cake took the better part of a decade, I would like to share.

There are a few die-hard chocolate cake lovers among my group of friends. I have often wanted to surprise them with a great chocolate cake on their birthdays but all the chocolate cake recipes I tried in the past have left me disappointed. Most scratch chocolate cakes come out dense and lack that moist choclately goodness that true chocolate lovers crave. So, to prevent the passing on of my disappointment to my chocolate afficiando friends, I have avoided making them chocolate cakes.

I tried this particular recipe for my brother and father-in-laws birthdays and was astounded at how great it turned out. The cake has a rich chocolate flavor, but is still light and moist. The frosting is a devine fluffy chocolate buttercream. Both recipes are adapted from America's Test Kitchen. The cake recipe called for unsweetened chocolate and I substituted bittersweet. I recommend using the Ghiradelli baking bars. Also, America's Test Kitchen published a different frosting recipe with this cake, but it was more complicated to make. To be honest, I like the melt-in-your-mouth quality of this chocolate buttercream a bit better anyway.

I was talking with my Grandma about this cake and she said her mother handed her down an excellent recipe for chocolate cake. She thought it was peculiar that the recipe called for soured milk. This makes me believe the buttermilk is the secret ingredient in this cake. Unfortunately, my Grandma can't find her mother's recipe, but this one turns out quite well too.

I liked this so well that I made a second cake as a late birthday surprise for my friend Rahul. He enjoyed it, and I hope you do too!

Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

1 3/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped coarse
1/4 cup cocoa powder (recipe calls for Dutch processed but it came out fine with regular Hershey's)
1/2 cup hot water
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt
1 cup buttermilk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 large eggs plus 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
12 tablespoons unsalted butter, very soft

Frosting

(I tripled the original recipe and it makes enough to generously frost the cake with a bit leftover)

3 3/4 sticks unsalted butter, softened
3 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
Pinch of table salt
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
8 ounces of semisweet chocolate
4 ounces of bittersweet chocolate

For the Cake:

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare 2 9 inch cake pans by lining with a circle of wax or parchment paper and spraying with Baker's Joy spray.

Combine the chocolate, cocoa powder, and hot water in a medium heatproof bowl set over a saucepan filled with 1 inch of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Add 1/2 cup of the sugar to the chocolate mixture and stir until thick and glossy, about 1 to 2 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat and set aside to cool.

Whisk the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Combine the buttermilk and vanilla in a small bowl. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whisk the eggs and yolks on medium-low seed until combined, about 10 seconds. Add the remaining 1 1/4 cups sugar, increase the speed to high, and whisk until fluffy and lightened in color, 2 to 3 minutes. Replace the whisk with the paddle attachment. Add the cooled chocolate mixture to the egg-sugar mixture and mix on medium speed until thouroughly incorporated, 30 to 45 seconds, pausing to scrape down the bowl as needed. Add the softened butter 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing about 10 seconds after each addition. Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture followed by half of the buttermilk mixture, mixing until incorporated after each addition. Repeat using half of the remaining flour mixture and all of the remaining buttermilk mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the remaining flour mixture; mix at medium-low speed until the batter is thouroughly combined. Divide the batter evenly between prepared pans.

Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with a few crumbs attached 25 to 30 minutes.

For the Frosting:

In a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the butter at medium-high speed until smooth, about 20 seconds. Add the confectioners' sugar and salt and beat at medium-low speed until most of the sugar is moistened, about 45 seconds. Scrape down the bowl and beat at medium speed until the mixture is fully combined, about 15 seconds. Scrape down the bowl, add the vanilla extractm and beat at medium speed until incorporated, about 10 seconds. Reduce the speed to low and gradually beat in the melted and cooled chocolate. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl once or twice.