Tag: Layer 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.