All the Buzz- Caramel Cake

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I read the book, “The Help” when it first came out and absolutely loved it!  I have not had a chance to see the movie, but it is on the long long to do list.  However, I have had a chance to sample the actual Caramel Cake that was featured in the movie which is clearly the most important part!  The cakes in the movie were provided by Caroline’s Cakes in Annapolis, MD.  She is a native of Charleston, SC and will hopefully be opening a shop here soon!  Her bakery is centered around her Caramel Cakes, and they are phenomenal!!  She has over 120,000 people on her list that order them every year!  She obviously keeps this recipe pretty well guarded, so I am going to post another and quite tasty recipe for a Caramel Cake that comes from Eudora Garrison’s Favorite Carolina Recipes.   Eduora Garrison was food critic and editor for the Charlotte Observer.

Caramel Cake

1/3 cup plus 1-1/4 cups granulated sugar, divide and use
1/3 cup boiling water
3/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3 cups sifted cake flour
3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Melt the one-third cup of sugar in a heavy skillet, stirring constantly until a deep-brown syrup is formed- a process called caramelization.
Remove from heat and slowly stir in boiling water, being careful that steam does not burn your hand. Set the syrup aside to cool.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, place parchement paper in the bottoms, then grease and flour the cottoms and sides.
Cream butter in bowl with electric mixer. Add 1 and 1/4 cups sugar and continue to beat until light and fluffy.
Add eggs one at a time, beating until each is well incorporated.
Stir in 4 tablespoons of the reserved syrup.
Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
Combine milk and vanilla.
Add flour mixture to the batter alternately with the milk mixter, beginning and endin with the four mixture. Beat until smooth.
Divide batter evenly among the two prepared pans and bake for 25 minutes, or until wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Remove pans from oven and let stand about 10 minutes, then turn out cakes onto wire rack, peel off paper and cool completely.

Caramel Frosting

3 cups (light) brown sugar, firmly packed
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 stick of butter (4 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Mix sugar and half and half in a heavy saucepan and cook, stirring over low heat until syrup reaches the soft-ball stage,
235 degrees on a candy thermometer. If lacking a thermometer, check doneness by dropping a tiny bit of syrup into a cup of cold water. When the syrup can be gathered up in fingers and will almost hold its shape, it has reached the soft-ball stage.
Remove pan from heat.
Stir in butter, then let syrup cool.
Add vanilla and beat until frosting reaches spreading consistency. A little cream (or half and half) may be add if mixture is too thick.

Cheerwine Cake- who knew cooking with soda could be so good!!

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This past week was the first week of third grade for my 8 year old son, Walker.  As a, “yay school is back in session” celebration, I decided to try a new recipe I was sent by The 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant in Valle Crusis, NC.  They just added this cake to the menu and were so generous to share the recipe with us!!  It is a Cheerwine Cake, and it is amazing!!  My mother has a recipe for a Sprite pound cake, and I have a recipe for apple fritters using Mountain Dew, but this was the first I had heard of baking with Cheerwine.  Needless to say, I think the people at the 1861 Farmhouse Restaurant are incredibly smart.  For more of their yummy goodness, go check out their restaurant at www.1861farmhouse.com.   Here is the recipe and a picture of how it turned out.  I didn’t use the nuts in the icing because I don’t like them, but I would think that if you did, it would be delicious.

Cheerwine Cake

1 box chocolate cake mix
1 cup Cheerwine
1 tsp. almond extract

Icing:
1/3 cup Cheerwine
21/2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup margarine
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup chopped nuts
1/4 cup cocoa

Directions

Prepare cake as directed on box, except substitute the water for the Cheerwine. Add almond extract, mix well. Pour into greased bundt pan.

Icing: 

Heat Cheerwine, margarine and cocoa until it comes to a boil. Pour mixture over powdered sugar, blend til smooth. Stir in almond extract and mix in nuts. Let cool, pour over cake.

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

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We used to have blueberry bushes on the hill at my grandmother’s mountain house, and it was so marvelous to have blueberry pie, blueberry pancakes, blueberry muffins etc. all from blueberries that we had picked that morning.  The bushes have unfortunately gone away, but I still have kept my love for blueberry treats.  I came across an old recipe for a Sour Cream Blueberry Cake that is delectable.  If you decide to make it, please let me know what you think!!

Sour Cream Blueberry Cake

1 stick butter
1 cup of sugar
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup blueberries

Directions

Beat the butter, sugar and eggs together until the sugar is dissolved, and it is a light creamy mixture.
Then add the vanilla.  Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
Add half of the dry ingredients to the mix then half of the sour cream and stir.
Then add the remaining dry ingredients and sour cream and stir.
Pour half of the batter into a large greased and floured pan.
Cover with blueberries and top with remaining batter.
Bake at 350 for 40 minutes.  Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and enjoy!!

Bourbon Panna Cotta. Run, don’t walk.

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I don’t know what sounds more Southern than Bourbon Panna Cotta, do you?

Mmmmm, ramekins. 🙂

Therefore, since I can’t seem to keep my hands off anything from A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen (a delicious little blog by Kim Morgan), here’s a recipe I found there for this delight, which came originally from Frank Stitt’s Southern Table:

 

Bourbon Panna Cotta

1 cup plus ½ cup sugar
½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice
2 tablespoons water
4 cups heavy cream
½ cup pecans, toasted and chopped
3 tablespoons good bourbon
2 cups whole milk
2 envelops unflavored gelatin

Directions

Set aside eight or ten – 8-ounce custard cups or ramekins.
Combine the ½ cup sugar, lemon juice, and water in a small heavy saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, boiling until the sugar dissolves. Reduce the heat to medium, brushing down the sides with a wet pastry brush to remove any sugar crystals, and cook, shaking the pan to swirl the caramel, until the caramel is a mahogany in color 10-20 minutes. Do not stir the caramel mixture.

 

When in doubt, bake some Cuttaloosa Carrot Cupcakes

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“A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen” is a sweet, homegrown blog filled with amazing recipes that are easy to follow and produce ridiculously fine results. Let’s hear it for this one:

 

Cuttaloosa Carrot Cupcakes!

1 3/4 cups finely grated carrots
1 cup crushed, drained pineapple (save liquid)
1 1/2 cups finely chopped walnuts or pecans- optional
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1 cup corn oil
2 teaspoons cinnamon
Mix above ingredients together till well mixed.
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda

Mix above ingredients together till well mixed, then add to carrot mixture mixing well. Divide into 3-8″ cake rounds that have been well greased or 18-24 well greased muffin tins.

Bake cake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or till knife comes out clean. 20 minutes for cupcakes.  Cool on rack for 10 minutes then remove from pan.

For the entire post and the butter cream icing for these beauties, click here to go to “A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen”

Profiteroles. Enough said.

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Yep, more from the mistress of the delectable Southern Coconut Cake (The Cake Slice)

Profiteroles

Recipe here

“…Pate a choux, the basis for these profiteroles, cream puffs, eclairs, and gougères, is a dough that is first cooked on the stove, then piped on a baking sheet. Once in the oven, this magical dough transforms into light and airy pastry puffs that are just slightly crisp on the outside and almost hollow in the middle…”

For the complete and totally amazing recipe for making your own profiteroles that will blow everyone you know away and cause them to worship you wholeheartedly and for all eternity, please click here.

(How, you may ask, are profiteroles Southern? Well, let’s just say that they’ve been makin’ them down South since the 1800’s.)

Benne Wafers with Blueberries and Cream

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I can’t keep my surfing fingers off of “A Yankee in a Southern Kitchen” – here’s yet another recipe hot off that delicious spot in the bloggosphere:

I think you may agree that benne wafers with blueberries and cream sounds like the most delicious summer treat ever conceived. Also, benne wafers are extremely Southern!

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By Kim Morgan

A “Benne” seed is the old Southern name for “sesame” seeds. They were brought to the Lowcountry in 1769 by African slaves. They are still called Benne seeds to this day in the South, and frankly I would be surprised if that ever changes. It is part of the charm of the South. Southerners hold fast to traditions, refusing to budge, especially when it comes to food and entertaining. This is something we all can be grateful for, especially if you have the chance to try these wonderful buttery morsels.

Legend says that eating Benne seeds will bring you luck and good fortune. I am not one who subscribes to the notion of luck. Instead I prefer to hold to the belief that, “there are no coincidences” and that Benne seeds and the good fortune from eating them, are simply another of God’s great blessings.

There are countless ways to make Benne wafers and you will find that no two recipes are alike…

 

Southern Coconut Cake. It’s Worth It.

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I feel lucky to have randomly found Tender Crumb, a well-named baking blog with recipes and photos so compelling it makes one want to rush to the kitchen to preheat the oven. The mistress of Tender Crumb, Linda, is involved in a wonderful mass-baking-hysteria called The Cake Slice. This month’s installment of The Cake Slice features Southern Coconut Cake.

From Linda/Tender Crumb:

So far, every recipe that I’ve made out of Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes has exceeded my expectations, and I highly recommend that you go out and treat yourself to this cookbook.

Impossibly moist white cake layers are subtly flavored with unsweetened coconut milk, enveloped by a cream cheese buttercream frosting (I gained 5 pounds just typing those words) and covered with sweetened flaked coconut (oops, another 5 pounds).

With all of the cake-making happening in my kitchen this month, I cut the recipe in half and baked the cake layers in two 6″ round pans. The instructions for the cake were pretty straightforward, and the layers were baked without a hitch.

For the coconut cake recipe and a whole lot more, please visit Tender Crumb here.

Banana Pudding Tart (on a porch, in summer…)

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Something about banana pudding tart seems so supremely summery. I think this sort of fruit tart should be eaten in the twilight of evening while sitting on a porch with a tall glass of very cold milk. I can hear the crickets already…

Southern Banana Pudding Tart

Banana pudding is a classic, homestyle Southern dessert made with layers of vanilla wafer cookies (Nilla Wafers), sliced bananas, and pudding or custard. Sometimes the dish is also topped with meringue or whipped cream to finish it off, as well. The dessert has actually been around for quite a while, as cooks around the turn of the 20th century looked for ways to use the then-exotic bananas in desserts and other dishes. Creamy bananas worked well with creamy custards. The Nilla Wafers were added somewhere along the line, probably to contribute a bit of extra texture to the dessert, and the recipe was made even more popular once it was printed as a standard recipe idea on boxes of the cookies…

For the recipe and the complete post from Baking Bites, please click here.

Lavender and Vanilla a Go Go!

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A Southern Peach Cobbler Recipe with a Lavender and Vanilla Twist

Cobbler and the South are like bread and butter, peas and carrots, hook ‘em and horns, and other natural combination. This is not to say that they don’t have cobbler in the North, but when I think of the many ubiquitous foods in my Southern heritage, cobbler is a stand out. When I was growing up our family would visit Tennessee and South Carolina with stops along the way in Georgia to acquire bushels (or maybe pecks) of peaches that we’d take home to El Paso to peel and freeze. And while those carefully stored peaches would find their way into other dishes, their main reason for finding their way half way across the country was as filling for cobbler. There’s just nothing quite like a peach cobbler overflowing with juicy, ripe peaches, particularly when the preaches are so sweet they don’t even need more than a pinch of sugar. Of course Texas isn’t too shabby in the peach department either…

For the recipe and complete post from Fete & Feast (and for their food blogger’s guide to Austin!) please click here.