Tangerine and Olive Oil Cake

Heavenly Housewife had a great idea to make a citrus/olive oil cake. I used tangerines instead of clementines - and liked how juicy they were. The visual of the cake (which i hope to upload when i get home) - is too close to a pound cake in my opinion. I look at a "loaf cake" - and i think rich, with a thick hearty crumb. Instead, it's super moist and delicate. No complaints - it's just messing with my visual taste buds - like a tease!

Tasty - for sure. With 1 cup of juice and the zest - it's just slightly tangy and sweet. I think this would be GREAT in a 8" round - single layer - with a sprinkling of powder sugar. That - or just make a citrus pound cake!

Gotta love trying new recipes!

January Desserts: Tres Leches Cake

Alton's finished version

picture/recipe credit: Alton Brown's Tres Leche Cake
January is all about cold - without the holidays. There still seem to be plenty of post-holiday gatherings where you cannot get away with pulling out the holiday cookies because everyone knows that they are at least 2 weeks old (and probably much older!) - so you need a fun alternative. This is great because it is (deceptively) light in this health-concious month.

Happy Birthday! White chocolate and raspberry cake

Cakes drove me to a love of baking and finding a wonderful life partner in The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. I'm no expert on decorating - I'm more concerned with the taste and texture of the cake and frosting.

This was the Golden Luxury Butter Cake (p. 48) made with a bit of white chocolate in the cake batter to help increase that "melt in your mouth" feature. I made the classic buttercream (p. 230) from the cookbook - and followed the chocolate directions using white chocolate again instead of dark. I then followed the recipe for a raspberry puree and sauce (p. 337) for a filling.


The raspberry puree was the most fun - and newest attempt - for me. It started with frozen raspberries sitting in a mesh colander overnight to thaw and drip the juices into a bowl. I set a small shotglass under the colander to ensure that the berries were not sitting in their juices - but that there was room for it to drip. The juice that dripped out makes about 1.25 cups and is cooked down to about .25 cups. Then, the berries are smashed through the mesh colander to extract the berries while leaving the seeds behind. This took some time and elbow grease - but wasn't difficult. I was able to extract the prescribed cup of puree.

The cooked-down juice and puree were combined with a bit of sugar and lemon juice - and was ready to go.

To ensure that the puree didn't leek into the cake - I covered the bottom layer with a crumb coat of buttercream and made a bit of a buttercream dam around the edge to help keep the puree inside. Once that was firmed up (15 minutes in the fridge) - I spooned on half of my raspberry puree and finished frosting the cake.

Happy 84th Birthday Grandpa! (Lemon Curd Cake)

Oh, how I love Rose. Author of the great Cake Bible and sharing a name with my grandmother. These two women have had more influence on me through their baking passion and expertise than either will ever know.

I was given the opportunity to bake a cake for my husband's grandfather whom we call "Captain" (retired Navy Captain.) This cake had to be special - and a lemon cake was requested.

So - I dug into the Cake Bible for inspiration. From the index - I found reference to lemon curd. There was a note to mix it into a certain buttercream for added flavor. I settled on the Golden Luxury cake (made with white chocolate for extra melt-in-your-mouth taste), lemon curd (double batch made with Meyer Lemons), and the Mousseline Buttercream.

For the buttercream - I stirred in the recommended lemon curd and had about half of the double-batch left over. I really wanted a 4 layer cake - and true "lemon" filling somewhere without being too tart. I split the 2 8" cake layers in half and filled with the lemon curd. I then used the lemon buttercream to frost the outside and middle of the cake. This was a great way to keep the overall taste balanced between rich butter and tart lemon. Very tasty!

The Captain enjoyed the cake. We sent leftovers home with him - and the report came back that it was better the next day.
Thoughts for next time: I think the Golden Luxury Cake would have been more impressive if I had remained "whole" - meaning not cutting the layers in half. It was delicate - but absolutely melting and tasty. Next time - I would let everyone enjoy a real bite of cake before hitting a filling like the lemon curd to overwhelm the taste. Maybe a layer of lemon curd directly underneath the buttercream would do the trick...