Tag: Cake

A Sugary-Sweet Afternoon Treat: Root Beer Layer Cake

Root Beer Layer Cake

Print Recipe
Prep Time 40 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Cooling Time 2 hours
Total Time 3 hours
Course Dessert
Servings 1 layer cake

Ingredients
  

Cake

  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp kosher salt
  • 1 + 1/3 cups butter
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup Root Beer Syrup (concentrated syrup for making drinks, like Soda Stream)
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup whole milk

Frosting

  • 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
  • 4 cups icing sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 3 Tbsp boiling water
  • 1/4 cup Root Beer Syrup
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Instructions
 

Cake

  • Cream butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the root beer syrup and blend well. Add eggs one at a time, blending fully between each egg.
  • Mix flour, baking powder and salt together. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk into the butter mixture, in approximately three separate parts. Mix until the batter is just mixed.
  • Split the batter into prepared cake tins (2 or 3, 9" cake rounds) and bake at 350ºF/175ºC until toothpick comes out clean (18-20 minutes if split into 3 tins, 22-25 minutes if split into 2 tins). Let cool 5 minutes, then remove from tins and allow to cool fully.

Frosting

  • Beat butter until pale and fluffy. Add 1 cup of icing sugar, vanilla and salt and beat well. Add remaining icing sugar, mixing until mostly mixed. Will be dry. Add boiling water one tablespoon at a time, mixing in between additions. Add the root beer syrup and mix well. Once mixed, turn the speed up to high and beat until smooth and fluffy.
  • Frost the cake, adding a generous amount of frosting between each layer of cake.
  • Serve.
Keyword Cake, Dessert, Layer Cake, Root Beer

And now for the details…

I love root beer. Always have. It is probably my favourite of the sodas. Having a frothy, cold root beer in a frosty mug (tip of the hat to you, A&W) is such a treat, between the candy-like taste and the slushy, frozen bits of the drink formed from hitting the cold glass and floating in the icy liquid. It is very sweet? You bet it is. It it rich and satisfying? Heck yes.

And those descriptors of very sweet, rich and satisfying are definitely applicable to this cake as well. Particularly the sweet. For serious, this one is not for the faint of heart; if you like really sweet sweets, then this is the cake for you!

Root beer is very much a North American invention. The “root” part of root beer is literal. The drink was originally made with a selection of roots, bark and other flavours which were brewed and then fermented into either an alcoholic and soft beverage.

The predominant flavour is sassafras, which, honestly, I just like because it’s super fun to say. C’mon. Say it with me now: sassafras. But root beer was not the first drink to use sassafras. Indigenous nations had been using the entire sassafras tree long before the colonists came through, in everything from teas to tinctures to poultices. The tree is thought to have medicinal properties, but the oil from the roots, safrole, is on the list of the FDA as a mild carcinogen, which has resulted in a number of producers to use artificial flavours to mimic the sassafras taste.

But enough about the origins of this tasty drink, let’s get to turning it into a delicious, sweet dessert!

We start out by making the cake. We are going to be essentially making a plain butter cake, cutting down a wee bit on the sugar, and adding the already sweet root beer syrup to give our flavour.

Now, you could always make your favourite butter cake recipe and add a root beer extract instead. But I wanted to create something that used an ingredient that seems to be much more prevalent right now, and since I seem to see Soda Stream, or similar, syrups all over the place, it only made sense to go with one of these.

To start us off, we will be beating the hell out of… I mean… creaming… the butter and sugar. I am not sure if everyone is aware of the #buttergate fiasco that happened up in Canada recently, but I have to agree with Julie Van Rosendaal on this one, we do not seem to get the creaminess one expects out of butter. Even softened, the butter was a bit on the waxy side, and I needed to put in a bit more elbow grease to get the result I wanted. For this recipe, it meant a lot of stopping, scraping and beating to try and get the butter and sugar to mesh in a fluffy way. Once it appears a pale yellow and is nice and fluffy, blend in the root beer syrup, then add the eggs, one at a time, mixing each in completely before adding the next.

Next, in a separate bowl, sift together the flour and baking powder, then stir in the salt. With the mixer set on low speed, alternate adding the powder mix with adding the milk, in about three parts. When everything is mixed, it is time to split the batter between prepared cake tins. I used three 9″ round tins, but you could use two, it will just require a slightly longer cooking time. The batter will be fairly thick, so smooth and even it out in the cake tins, because it will not settle the same way as thinner batters. Place the tins in a preheated 350ºF/175ºC oven, in the middle of the oven, and bake for 18-20 minutes if you have used three tins. Or 22-25 minutes if you have used two tins. Bake them until a toothpick comes out clean from the cake centre.

Once baked, remove the cakes from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Then run a knife around the edges, and turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and allow to cool completely.

Once the cakes are cooled, it’s time to frost!

To make the frosting, mix the butter with one cup of icing sugar, salt and vanilla until fully mixed, then beat on high speed until the mix becomes fluffy. Mix in the remaining icing sugar under low speed. The mix will be quite dry, so do not worry about fully mixing, just mostly brought together. Add the boiling water, one tablespoon at a time, mixing each in before adding the next. Finally, add the root beer syrup and mix in completely. The icing should be a little too liquidy at this point. This is right where you want it to be. Bring the speed up to high and beat for several minutes until the frosting is light and fluffy.

Finally, frost the cake, with a generous amount of frosting between each cake layer, then frosting the outside, smoothing the frosting across the surface. Decorate to your heart’s desire! I went with maraschino cherries and chocolate sprinkles 🙂 Serve immediately.

Happy eating

The Drool-Inducing Hazelnut Nutella Cake You Will Love

Nutella Hazelnut Cake

A chocolate, hazelnut confection, perfect for a birthday or a snowy Sunday afternoon
Print Recipe
Prep Time 45 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Cooling Time 1 hour
Total Time 2 hours 10 minutes
Course Dessert
Servings 1 Cake (2-layer)

Ingredients
  

Cake

  • 3 cups Flour (All-purpose or cake flour)
  • 1/2 cup cocoa
  • 2 cups water (hot)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp kosher salt
  • 1.5 cups sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp hazelnut extract (or 1 Tbsp hazelnut liqueur)
  • 2 tbsp white vinegar
  • 3/4 cup vegetable oil (canola, corn, avocado, etc.)
  • 0.5 tsp instant espresso powder (or instant coffee)

Frosting

  • 1 cup butter (softened to room temperature)
  • 1/4 cup Nutella (plus a few extra tablespoons for optional garnish)
  • 5 cups icing sugar
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 5 tbsp heavy cream
  • 1/4 cup cocoa
  • 2-5 tbsps hot water
  • 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, roughly chopped (optional for garnish)

Instructions
 

Cake

  • Sift together the flour and baking soda, and stir in the salt and sugar. Mix the 1/2 cup cocoa powder and espresso powder into the 2 cups hot water. Form a well into the dry ingredients and add the cocoa-water mixture, the vanilla, hazelnut extract, and vegetable oil. Stir together just until the batter has formed, do not overmix. Pour into two prepared, round, 9" cake pans. Bake at 375ºF/190ºC for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes, then remove from pans and allow to cool completely before frosting.

Frosting

  • Beat together butter and Nutella until fluffy and light. Add one cup of icing sugar and cocoa, beating at high speed until icing starts to form up. Add the salt, cream and the rest of the icing sugar and mix at low speed until mostly mixed. Add hot water 1 tablespoon at a time, beating at medium to high speed until desired consistency is reached. Frost cooled cakes, adding swirls of Nutella from a piping bag and toasted hazelnuts as garnish.
Keyword Cake, Chocolate, Hazelnut, Nutella

And now for the details…

Howdy folks! Sorry for the delay; I have been away for the last little while. (From the blog, not from home… where am I supposed to go during a pandemic? ha!) The main reason is because I am making some changes to the blog on the technical side of things and that has been eating up (pun intended) a lot of my time. You might notice some changes coming through in the next little while, starting with this blog post! (check out that fancy new recipe set-up at the top… pretty fresh, right? Ooooooh! Aaaaaaah!)

Enough about that, let’s talk cake! I made this for a friend’s birthday, but let’s be honest, when is NOT a good time for Nutella cake? No time. No time is not a good time for Nutella cake. I.e. All times are a good time for Nutella cake. I am making as assumption here that you, dear reader, are familiar with Nutella. If you’re not… oh boy. Prepare to have your mind BLOWN. Nutella is a sweet chocolate hazelnut spread. It originates from Italy from the Ferrero company (fun fact: did you know that Ferrero also created and owns the Kinder chocolate brand as well?) and it’s origin dates back to 1946. Whether you’re smearing it on toast, drizzling it over crêpes, dipping strawberries into it, or, in this case, incorporating it in a cake, it is a delicious sweet treat worth enjoying.

Something to be aware of on this recipe: it is SWEEEEEEEEEET. Seriously. I actually think I could feel cavities forming on my first bite. The cake itself seems even sweeter than a normal chocolate cake thanks to the addition of the hazelnut extract. The frosting is an American-style buttercream, so it definitely has that thick, sugary texture. This is the frosting style I grew up with, not getting introduced to Swiss Meringue or Italian buttercream until later in life. And the American-style buttercream, with its thin, crystalline crust of sugar that forms on the outside, combined with the fluffy, rich sweetness of the rest of the frosting is what I crave when I am wanting a rich, toothy cake. And since Nutella forms the base of the frosting, it is rich sweet, and totally sweet-tooth satisfying.

Let’s get to baking.

We are going to start with the cake. For our cake today, we are going real simple. I am using an offshoot of a recipe my grandma used for chocolate cake. The cake itself it nice and simple.

We sift together the flour and baking soda, then whisk in the sugar and salt. Next, mix together some hot water (hot out of the tap is just fine) with the cocoa and espresso powder until the powders are mostly dissolved. If you are worried about the cake having a mocha flavour and aren’t a fan of coffee, fret not. That small amount of coffee powder will barely be detectable. The reason for adding it is the depth of flavour that this tiny bit of coffee adds by emphasizing the chocolate in the cake. Long story short: what to do if you want your chocolate cake to taste more chocolatey? Add a tiny bit of instant espresso powder (or instant coffee if you can’t find espresso).

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients (use a spoon, or get your hands right in there), and add the coffee/cocoa liquid mixture, the oil, and the vanilla and hazelnut extracts. The hazelnut extract might be a bit hard to find. If you can’t find it, you can use a hazelnut liqueur (like Frangelico) instead, but since the liqueurs aren’t flavoured as strongly as the extract, you’ll like need to use more, about 1-2 tablespoons. Mix all these ingredients together just enough to fully mix, then pour the batter into two prepared, round, 9-inch cake tins. Not sure what a prepare cake tin looks like? The good news is I went to it in detail in my Lemon Bumbleberry Cake recipe, check it out to get details on how to prepare your tins for cakes 😉

Bake those cakes up for 20-25 minutes in a 375ºF/190ºC, or until a toothpick comes out clean when being inserted in the centre of the cake. Take the cakes out of the oven and let them cool for 5-10 minutes, then run a knife around the edges, and turn the cake out of the tins onto a cooling rack and allow the cakes to fully cool. (Don’t forget to peel the waxed or parchment paper off if you’re using my suggestion for how to prepare the pan!)

Once fully cooled, we move to the final step and get ready to frost the cake. Start by beating the room-temperature butter with the Nutella at a high speed until smooth and fluffy. Starting on low speed, mix in 1 cup of the icing sugar and cocoa into the Nutella/butter, then whip on high speed until fully mixed. Bring the speed back down to low and add the salt and cream, then mix the rest of the icing sugar, one cup at a time. Once there isn’t a bunch of loose powder and everything has mixed in, add the hot water 1 Tbsp at a time, allowing it to mix in completely, until you have the frosting just a LITTLE looser than your desired consistency. Blitz it one more time for a minute or two on high speed to push air into icing, getting it nice and fluffy. It will also stiffen a little in this last bit of beating, which is why we went with the frosting being a little looser than desired before it. If you go too far and it’s way too loose, add a bit more icing sugar. Too stiff? Add a tiny bit more water. If you go back and forth a bit with the icing sugar and water additions, yep, that’s pretty typical for the first few times making frosting! I had occasions when I was starting out that I almost doubled the amount of frosting that I meant to make! *whoops* (but… was it really a problem to have too much frosting? ;P)

Frost the cake, including a generous amount of icing between the two layers. If you are a great cake decorator and want to go down the path of cutting the cake to be perfectly flat, or even cut it into multiple layers, feel free! I love cake… but I am not the greatest cake decorator *eep* I am open to suggestions or ideas though! I finished mine off with some crushed roasted hazelnuts and a drizzling of straight Nutella. In order to get it to a drizzle-worth consistency, I heated it up for a short amount of time (about 10 seconds) in the microwave and then transferred it to a piping bag with a fine tip to drizzle it over the cake.

Finally, cut and enjoy!

Happy eating.

Cake Fit for the King (Banana Cake with PB Frosting and Candied Bacon)

Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting and Candied Bacon

Print Recipe
Prep Time 1 hour
Cook Time 1 hour
Course Dessert
Servings 1 cake (2-layer)

Ingredients
  

Banana Cake

  • 5 bananas (peeled and mashed)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup butter (room temperature)
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1 tsp ground nutmeg
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 eggs
  • 2 tsps vanilla

Peanut Butter Frosting

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 5 cups icing sugar
  • 3-5 Tbsps milk

Candied Bacon

  • 6 slices thick-cut bacon
  • 1/4-1/2 cup brown sugar

Instructions
 

Cake

  • Prepare two 9" round cake tins and preheat oven to 325ºF/165ºC. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy. Mix in eggs, mashed bananas, nutmeg and vanilla. In a separate bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and combine until just mixed (don't over-mix). Split between two two cake tins. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until cake is set. Let cool and remove from tins. 

Frosting

  • Whip butter and peanut butter together until fluffy. Add vanilla. Mix in icing sugar 1 cup at a time. Add milk and whip until fluffy and smooth.

Candied Bacon

  • Preheat oven to 375ºF/190ºC. Place a wire rack on top of a cookie sheet. Lay bacon out onto wire rack. Sprinkle bacon generously with half the sugar. Bake for 10 minutes. Take out, flip the bacon slices, sprinkle with the remaining sugar, bake for 10-15 minutes or until bacon starts to brown and the sugar has melted and caramelized. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Assembly

  • Chop candied bacon into small pieces. Assemble cake layers with frosting, adding a third of the candied bacon between the layers. Finish frosting the cake, and sprinkle remaining bacon pieces on top. Serve.
Keyword Bacon, Banana, Cake, Frosting, Icing, Layer Cake, Peanut Butter

And now for the details…

With a bunch of ripe bananas that needed something done with them, and having reached my fill of banana muffins and loaves, I figured I needed to do something different. But I’d made a banana layer cake a few months ago with cream cheese icing and figured that was a little too… predictable. So when thinking of what goes well with banana, my mind immediately went to peanut butter! Which then got me thinking of the story I’d heard about Elvis Presley’s favourite sandwich: peanut butter, banana and bacon. Why not add candied bacon to this mix? And thus: the Cake Fit for The King was born.

I was originally going to call it the Elvis, and then after doing some quick eu-Googling, I found out there already is a cake named after Elvis, since it was a favourite of his. It involves yellow cake mix, crushed pineapple, cream cheese and a whole lotta sugar. It sounds horrible for you and pretty damned delicious, so it probably needs to be made at some point… but for now, here we are with the banana cake with PB frosting and candied bacon!

Lets start by making our cake. First step that I almost always forget about and delays my process almost always is letting the butter come to room temperature. I enjoy baking, but I don’t bake that often, and somehow I manage to miss this step every time… Ah well, I get it eventually. Make sure that butter has stayed out of the fridge at least overnight so it’s nice an pliable for making our batter.

Before we move on, preheat your oven to 325ºF/165ºC. Next, we start our cake batter by creaming the butter with our sugar until the mixture is fully mixed, and light and fluffy. Next, add your eggs, one at a time, mixing the previous in completely before adding the next. Finally, mix in the mashed bananas and vanilla. This is our “wet” mixture.

Next, we mix together our dry ingredients in a separate bowl: flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg. I sifted everything together into the bowl, and then gave it a quick mix with a whisk.

Now it’s time to bring them together. Make a little well in the middle of the dry ingredients, then pour the wet ingredients into that well. Stir to combine until just mixed; try to avoid over-mixing. Then split the batter evenly between two prepared 9″ round cake tins. Like I said in my Lemon Bumbleberry Cake recipe, I learned to prepare the tins by buttering the tin, then laying a cut piece of waxed or parchment paper at the bottom of the tin, but you do you, and prepare the tins however you feel comfortable.

Next, of course, is to bake those cakes! Place the cakes into your preheated oven, and bake for 25-30 minutes, until the tops have turned golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Let the cakes cool and remove them from their tins (don’t forget to peel off the waxed or parchment paper if you used it!)

While the cakes are cooling, lets make that candied bacon! Increase the temperature of the oven to 375ºC/190ºC. Lay the bacon out on a wire rack placed over a cookie sheet. Sprinkle the bacon with half of the brown sugar, and then place in the oven for 10 minutes.

Once ten minutes is up, remove the bacon from the oven, turn the pieces over, and sprinkle the other sides with the remaining brown sugar, and place back in the oven. Bake for another 10 minutes, or until the bacon has caramelized and become crispy on the edges. Let them cool, then chop into little pieces.

Once the cakes have cooled, it’s time to ice the cake! We’re making that peanut butter frosting next. Start by whipping the butter until its light and fluffy. Then, add your peanut butter and whip the two together until fully mixed and so fluffy you’re gonna die. Next, add the icing sugar in gradually, about 1 cup at a time, mixing the sugar in almost completely until you add the next cup. At this point, the icing will probably be a bit on the dry side. Add the milk to the mix, starting with 3 tablespoons. If you’re using unsalted butter, add a couple pinches of salt to the mix, and the vanilla. Whip these ingredients into the icing, and if you find the icing is still a bit too stiff, add more milk, one tablespoon at a time, until you have your desired consistency. As far as what peanut butter to use, I will leave that up to you. I used a natural, crunchy peanut butter, because I wanted the little bites of peanuts.

Finally, let’s assemble that cake! Place your cake on your serving dish, flat side down. If you want to get fancy, you could slice the puffed part off your cake to make it nice and flat, but to be honest, I’m a little lazy (not mention, what do you do with the cut piece of cake??) and leave the cutting part out and just assemble the cakes as-is. Put the frosting on top of the first layer, sprinkle with about half of the bacon pieces, then place the second layer down, flat-side-up. Because I didn’t cut off the puffed piece, you’ll need to use a little extra icing to fill the edges between the two layers, but are we really going to complain about a little extra icing? I sure won’t. Finish frosting the entire cake, and sprinkle with the candied bacon piece on top. Then it’s time to cut and serve!

Happy eating.

A Killer Lemon Layer Cake with Creamy Bumbleberry Frosting

2 Comments

Lemon Cake with Bumbleberry Frosting

Print Recipe
Prep Time 1 hour 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Course Dessert
Servings 1 Cake (2 Layer)

Ingredients
  

Cake

  • 2 cups flour (pastry or all-purpose)
  • 1 Tbsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1+1/3 cups butter
  • 1+1/3 cups sugar
  • 1+1/2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 tsp lemon extract
  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup whole milk

Lemon Curd

  • 5 egg yolks
  • 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice (approximately 2 lemons)
  • 2 Tbsps lemon zest
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup butter

Frosting

  • 5 egg whites
  • 2 cups sugar
  • large pinch salt
  • 2 cups unsalted butter (room temperature)
  • 1 cup bumbleberry purée

Instructions
 

Cake

  • Whisk or sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt in a medium sized bowl. In a stand mixer, cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar, 1/3 cup at a time, then add the vanilla. Blend the eggs into the butter mixture, one at a time. Add the dry ingredients slowly, alternating with the milk, until fully mixed. Pour the batter into greased and papered cake tin(s). Bake at 350ºF/177ºC until toothpick comes out clean (30-35min for 6" cake tins). Cool fully.

Lemon Curd

  • Add all the ingredients except the butter in a saucepan and blend together. Place over low heat and cook, stirring continuously, until thickened, remove from heat. Add the butter slowly, stirring in completely. Cool.

Frosting

  • Place the egg whites and sugar in a stand mixer metal bowl, and place over a pot of simmering water. Cook until the temperature reaches 71ºC (160ºF). Remove from the heat, place on the stand mixer with a whisk attachment and whip until stiff peaks form. Beat in the salt, then add the butter 1 tablespoon at a time. Fold in the bumbleberry purée.
Keyword Berries, Cake, Icing, Layer Cake, Lemon

And now for the details…

Cake is my favourite dessert. I can say that, because it’s such a wide variety of options that I get to include in this category. Ice cream cake? Of course. Coffee cake? Absolutely. Angel food cake? Yum. Layer cake? Without a doubt. Cheesecake? *drool* Pancake? You monster.

(Admission time: I hate pancakes. Yes, I am weird, I get it, what kind of person doesn’t like pancakes? Maybe I’m the monster here. And no, I’m sorry, the “but these pancakes” that you will want me to try, because they are “different” and I will “definitely like them”, will not make me change my mind. Are they moist, slightly soggy flaps of cooked batter meant to be drenched in butter and syrup? *shudder* nope, mind is made up here.)

Of all these different cake types, though, if I had to choose, a good layer cake is probably my most preferred type of cake. I am terrible at decorating them, but as long as the result is tasty cake, I’m will to look past the lopsided-ness or borderline looks-like-it-belongs-on-a-“cake fail”-post, and just enjoy the sweet, sweet tastiness.

The first part of a great cake is, of course, the cake itself. This cake is a butter cake, scented with a bit of lemon extract to amp up the lemony-ness. We start out by creaming our butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Then add your eggs one-by-one, allowing the first one to completed mix in before adding the next. Then add in your vanilla and lemon extract.

Next step is to either whisk or sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together. Whisking or sifting will help to break apart chunks in the powder, getting a better mix when we add the dry ingredient to our wet ingredients.

Speaking of, let’s add our dry ingredients. We do this in steps, so add about 1/3 of the dry ingredient, then 1/3 of the milk. Continue alternating until you have added everything to the bowl.

Only mix until everything is mixed in, then STOP! Mixing for too long starts activating the gluten in our flour, and can result in a “chewy” or “rubbery” cake. We do have a heck of a lot of butter in our cake, which does help hinder the gluten formation, but mixing for too long will affect your final texture. You can also use cake or pastry flour to help keep a nice crumby texture to your cake, but I find I do not bake often enough to keep multiple flours in my pantry and I rely on good ol’ all-purpose.

The cake batter is now going to go into some prepared pans. Do this however you feel is best. The way I learned from my mom is to butter the pan first, paying particular attention to the sides of the pan, then cut some parchment or waxed paper to the size of the bottom of the pan, and line the bottom with the paper. For this recipe, the batter will fit nicely into two 9″ round pans.

Add the batter to the pans, splitting it somewhat evenly between the two prepared pans. This batter is fairly thick, so you will need to spread it out in the pan and smooth out the top.

Then place in the oven for 30-35 minutes, or until the cake springs back up from pushing lightly in the middle.

Coming up next is the lemon curd and bumbleberry purée. For the lemon curd, separate 5 eggs, setting the whites aside into a metal bowl to make the butter cream later. In a saucepan, whisk the yolks together with the sugar until pale yellow, then add the lemon juice and zest, mixing in completely. Place on LOW heat and stir for about 15-20 minutes, until the sauce has thickened fairly significantly, and coats the back of a wooden spoon. The low heat is very important, otherwise you may end up with scrambled eggs instead of lemon. Patience is key. (It’s worth it!!) Stay with the curd, and stir is continuously while it is on the heat. Next, add the butter about a tablespoon at a time, allowing it to melt and mix into the curd completely before adding the next amount. As you add the butter, the curd will thicken.

The curd after cooking, before adding the butter.

While the curd is cooking, you can be getting the bumbleberry purée ready at the same time. Are bumbleberries a real berry? Ummmm… well, I would love to believe this website because they sound like a magical berry from Utah! But.. bumbleberry is basically a mix of numerous different kinds of berries. In my mix, we are using blackberries, raspberries and blueberries (about 3 cups all together). Mix them together in a saucepan and add them at medium heat until they cook down and get jammy-looking. From here, you can strain them using a regular strainer, but I find a food mill is a great way to get rid of the pips and be left with a nice, non-grainy purée.

Last, but definitely not least, is our icing. I used a Swiss meringue buttercream for this recipe, but feel free to use the buttercream of your choice. I am still learning about buttercreams, and this website provides a fantastic comparison of buttercreams, and provides links to recipes for each. Does this recipe look familiar? It should!! Big thanks to Baker Bettie for providing such amazing information for us amateur bakers!

Start by mixing your egg whites with your sugar, and placing them over a water bath (remember that metal bowl we discussed for the egg whites? Place it on a pot filled with simmering water, making sure the bowl does not touch the water, and you’ve got your water bath!) Heat until they have reached a temperature of 71ºC (160ºF), then remove from the heat. Place them in your stand mixer, and using the whisk attachment, whisk until fluffy and they form stiff peaks.

Great! Ready for the butter? I am! It needs to be fully room temperature, but not too warm. Add the butter about 1-2 tablespoons at a time, allowing the previous addition to mix completely into the icing before adding the next bit. Then, add 1 cup of your purée to the mix (save the rest for decorating the cake later) and mix in thoroughly.

And finally? Assemble your cake! We are going to cut each layer in half, and in the middle of each cut half, place your lemon curd. The buttercream goes between the two layers. If you are able to do this while maintaining a nice, even set of layering, good for you! I am jealous! But most importantly, enjoy the berrylicious, tart, sweet, creamy, crumby, deliciousness!

Happy eating.

My Favourite Carrot Cake, with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

5 Comments

Carrot Cake with White Chocolate Cream Cheese Icing

Print Recipe
Prep Time 35 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Cooling Time 1 hour
Course Dessert
Servings 1 Cake (2 layer)

Ingredients
  

Cake

  • 2 cups flour (cake or all-purpose)
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground cloves
  • 1/4 tsp nutmeg
  • 2 cups carrots (peeled and shredded)
  • 1 cup coconut (unsweetened, shredded or flaked)
  • 1 cup walnuts (chopped)
  • 398 ml canned crushed pineapple (with juice, 13 oz)
  • 1 cup sultana raisins
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup buttermilk (whole fat)
  • 3/4 cup canola oil (can use other veg oil like corn, safflower, peanut, or soy)
  • 1 + 1/2 cups granulated sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Icing

  • 340 g plain cream cheese (softened, 12 oz)
  • 1 cup butter (softened)
  • 290 g white chocolate (10 oz)
  • 4-5 cups icing sugar
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions
 

  • Whisk or sift together the top six ingredients (dry ingredients) in a large bowl. Mix together the next five ingredients (carrots, coconut, walnuts, pineapple, raisins) in a medium bowl. Mix together the final five ingredients (wet ingredients) in a small to medium bowl. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix lightly until the dry ingredients have just moistened. Fold the carrot mixture into the batter and until consistently mixed. Pour the batter into greased and papered cake tin(s). Bake at 350ºF/177ºC until toothpick comes out clean (~25min for 6" cake tins. Cool fully.
  • Whip cream cheese and butter together add 1/2 cup icing sugar, whip. Melt white chocolate, pour slowly into icing while whipping. Add vanilla. Add remaining icing sugar cup by cup until desired consistency.
Keyword Cake, Carrot, Cream Cheese, Icing, Layer Cake

And now for the details…

Okaaaaay, so it seems super biased and a bit self-absorbed to call this my favourite carrot cake when… I’m… writing about it. Okay, so I swear I’m not that much of a narcissist. I did not create the recipe for this carrot cake. In fact, I found it online over a decade ago when I was looking for a carrot cake recipe that had ALL THE STUFF. Not just some light cake with a tad bit of cinnamon and carrots, but a toothy, rich, almost-worthy-of-a-meal concoction. And there it was. “Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake“. *heavenly sounds, rays of light, rainbows, and unicorns* And it is, in fact, still there to this day, as you can see by the hyperlink. Before even attempting to make it for the first time, I was already in love. Carrots. And pineapple. And coconut. And walnuts. And raisins. Seriously, I am drooling just listing this off. How can one even begin to enjoy a carrot cake that is simply carrots and cake??? Not when you can have this divine panoply that is… *royal trumpets sound* Sam’s Famous Carrot Cake.

Is there any way to boost this recipe even more? How about amping up the spices, and adding white chocolate cream cheese frosting to the mix? That sounds about right to me. So let’s do it.

We are going to start by mixing all our dry ingredients together. I use a wire strainer to do my sifting, and sift together the flour and baking soda into a large bowl, then whisk in the salt and spices until evenly mixed.

Next, shred your carrots and add them to a separate bowl. To that bowl, add in the coconut, walnuts, pineapple (do not drain!), and raisins. Stir these ingredients together until it is evenly blended.

Next, mix together all the wet ingredients (eggs, buttermilk, oil, sugar and vanilla) in a third, smaller bowl. Now is also a good time to preheat the oven to 350ºF so it is ready to go when the cake tins are filled.

Mix the dry and wet ingredients together until the dry ingredients are just moistened. This will ensure we do not “overwork” the batter.

Next, stir in the carrot mixture, just until all the ingredients are fairly evenly blended.

Before we pour the batter into the cake tins, we need to prepare the tins for baking. Some people will just butter the tins. Others will butter, then flour the base. For me, my mom passed on how she baked cakes, which is to bake them with the tins buttered and a piece of waxed or parchment paper cut to just the right size to fit the bottom of the pan. I have tried the other methods, but this one has been the only tried and true to avoid chunks of cake falling out when I am removing the baked cake from its tin. The tins I used for this cake were three 6″ tins, but two 9″ tins would work fine, or if you are interested in a pan, a 9″x13″ pan should work as well. Baking time, of course, will need to be adjusted for the different kinds of tins.

Bake the cakes until a toothpick inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean. Run a knife around the edges of the tines, then turn the cakes out onto a cooling rack and remove the waxed or parchment paper. Let them cool completely before frosting.

Next, we make the frosting. The cream cheese and butter need to be room temperature and soft in order to blend well. When they are soft, whip the two together until smooth. I add a bit of the icing sugar (about 1/2 cup) to them, as it seems to help cut through the cream cheese and the two blend more easily together.

Before adding the rest of the icing sugar, we will add the white chocolate. The white chocolate I used for this recipe is from Choklat, a chocolatier… sorry: chocolate maker (there is a difference! Did you know that most of the chocolatiers you know do not actually make their own chocolate?) in my city, whose chocolate I have become a bit obsessed with since they opened around the same time I first moved here. The smell of the store as you walk in to make your purchase is understated if its called mouth-watering. And the chocolate… oh, the chocolate. When they moved their store to a new location, it was a bit out of the way for me. But luckily, I recently discovered that my local grocery store is stocking a few choice offerings, score! For this recipe, I am using their white chocolate, which is actually a bit of a beige colour. They actually explain this on their label: white chocolate should not be purely white. Good quality cocoa butter is not white. Good quality vanilla is not white. Therefore, the resulting mix the creates white chocolate should be a luscious, melting, delicious off-white.

So maybe the entire bar did not make it into the recipe… I had to taste for quality, right?

We will use a bain-marie, to melt the chocolate more consistently and avoid scorching or burning it while melting. I used a metal bowl on a small pot of simmering water (the bowl should sit over the water, not touching it), stirring constantly as the chocolate melted all the way through. I added this to my cream cheese and butter, and mixed it in completely.

Finally, whip in the vanilla, then the remaining icing sugar, adding a bit of sugar (about 1 cup) at a time until you get your desired consistency (slowing the mixer speed in between each additions, of course; I prefer to not have my entire kitchen dusted in powdered sugar.)

Finally, it is time to frost the cake. Because I put the cake into 6″ tins, they cakes ended up quite thick. So I cut each of them in half, ending up with two cakes: one a two-layer and the other a four-layer. A local bakery has provided the amazing idea of garnishing the frosted carrot cakes with pumpkin seeds, dried apricots, and raisins, resulting in an added crunch and bite to the cake that is beyond… just… beyond.

Finally, cut and enjoy.

Happy eating.