Tag Archive for: layer cake

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.

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.

Mountain Molasses Stack Cake! Yes!

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I am completely in love with the idea of having a celebration where each guest brings a single layer for a cake. The collection of layers would then be assembled into a magnificent cake for all to share. It seems that this folktale-like custom is something that actually exists in the South, where a deep sense of community and family combined with an enormous appreciation for food is the norm.

…I am also in love with the recipe you’ll find below for Mountain Molasses Stack Cake from a new cookbook “Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly” – a collection of southern Appalachian recipes:

Mountain Molasses Stack Cake

This is a cake that is easy to make with an apple filling.

— This dense, rich cake from Joan Aller’s forthcoming cookbook, “Cider Beans, Wild Greens and Dandelion Jelly” (a collection of recipes from southern Appalachia due out in June), is remarkably easy to make, but incredibly flavorful.

She says it is based on cakes assembled at family reunions and other celebrations in the region. She says each family would bring a single layer. The collection of layers then would be assembled into a single cake at the event.

For most of us, the two layers in this recipe probably will be plenty.

Mountain Molasses Stack Cake…

For the recipe and complete article please click here.

Festiveness, Stacked Up Southern Style

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Just looking at the photo of this layer cake makes me salivate. I wonder If I have the patience to create something with this many layers! If I do, trust me, I’ll post about it…right after I eat it!

THREE LAYERS? WHY BOTHER? Martha Meadows of Slocomb, Ala., with her little layer cake with boiled chocolate icing. She will make 10 of them this year.

Festiveness, Stacked Up Southern Style

IN this corner of the country, where cotton and peanuts pay the bills and the Florida border is a morning’s walk away, the worth of a cook can be measured in cake layers.

All across the South at Christmas, layer cakes parade across virtually every sideboard. But in the small towns of southeast Alabama, they are more than holiday tradition.

They’re currency, comfort and status. Everyone knows whose cakes are tender and whose consistently reach 12 layers or more.

“Three or four weren’t nothing to brag about,” said Franklin Peacock, who has been eating layer cake here since the 1930s. “Five or six is about where you’d want to start talking about your cake.”

Martha Meadows, 77, learned to bake 15-layer cakes from her mother, who cooked each layer one at a time in a cast-iron hoe-cake pan…

For the complete article from The New York Times, please click here.