Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese or Ermine Icing

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I'm still testing Red Velvet Cake recipes. I must be more of a purist than I think myself to be, because I still find it off-putting to add food coloring to a dessert. I'm apparently in the majority because there are scads of folks who love the cake, red dye or no. Tonight's experiment uses the recipe that comes from the McCormick test kitchen, and I must admit it makes a nice cake. I do think the icing that comes with the recipe is too sweet, so I'm including a recipe for Ermine icing at the end of this post. The original red velvet cake got its color from beets and was frosted with a cooked icing that was called Ermine Frosting. This is a lovely moist cake with a velvet crumb and I know you will appreciate the ease with which the cake comes together. The recipe is simple and easy to follow, and required adjustments for cooking time, relative to pan size, are included in the cook's notes below. If you like Red Velvet cake, I urge you to give this recipe a try, though I suggest you use the less sweet Ermine icing to frost your cake. Here is how the cake is made.

Banana Cake with Walnut and Cream Cheese Icing

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Banana cake can be ho-hum affair, so please accept what follows as my attempt to make bananas and banana cake a bit more interesting. Buried in the annuls of music history is a song called "Yes, We Have No Bananas". It was popular in the 1920's and the phrase was used on signs posted by British grocers decades later to let patrons know they were in compliance with bans that prohibited the importation of the fruit during WWII. It's generally thought that the song was inspired by a banana blight in Brazil, but it is harder to identify who originated the phrase. Some credit Jimmy Costas, a Long Island grocer, for the catch phrase. Others believe the honor should be given to the cartoonist, Thomas Dorgan. Whatever the case may be, the song became the theme of the Outdoor Relief protests that took place in Belfast, Ireland in 1932. Ironically, it was one of the few secular songs that both the Protestants and Catholics knew and could sing together. Over the years, the song has lent its title to a book about the depression in Belfast and been mentioned or heard in the movies "Sabrina" and "The English Patient." I'm told the phrase was used as late as 2006 in Australia, when a large portion of the country's banana crop was destroyed by a cyclone and caused a shortage for most of the year. Now, as it happens, my family of banana lovers have assured that I have bananas aplenty these days. This moist and flavorful cake is one of my favorite ways to use them. If you like banana cake, I hope you'll give this version a try. The frosting is especially nice. Yes, we do have bananas, we do have bananas today. Here is a lovely way to use them.

Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Icing

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...When the scent of apples and spice start wafting through my kitchen, I'm reminded of just how alluring I find this time of year to be. The other seasons have their charms, to be sure, but for those of us who love to cook, the promise of fall bounty lures us to the fields and orchards and ultimately back into kitchens that have been on hiatus for the summer. My favorite apples are now ripe and ready for the picking, so we spent some time today picking apples and plotting what to do with them once we had them home. I have a real weakness for apple desserts and this applesauce cake came to mind. It is pleasing to both the eye and the palate and it is not difficult to make. I'll go on record as saying this is my all-time favorite applesauce cake, at least for tonight. The cake was developed Andrea Albin for Gourmet magazine and it is a fantastic fall creation. The cake is moist, spicy and topped with a layer of a cream cheese icing so good that it's been known to make grown men weep. This is the kind of cake that, once tried, you'll make over and over again. It really will be love at first bite. The cake is easy to make and, on the odd chance you have leftovers, you'll be happy to know it is a great keeper. Do make sure the spices you are using are still at the peak of flavor. While spices can't go bad, they can lose their oomph and fall is a great time to replace them. I really hope you'll give this recipe a try. Here's how this cake and its icing are made.

Spiced Applesauce Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Andrea Albin and Gourmet

Ingredients:
Cake
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1-1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce
1/2 cup walnuts (optional), toasted (see Tips), cooled, and chopped
Frosting
5-oz. cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
1) Move rack to center of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8 or 9-inch square cake pan.
2) To make cake: Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Beat butter, brown sugar, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until pale and fluffy, 2 to 3 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in applesauce. At low speed, mix in flour mixture until just combined, then stir in walnuts (if using). Spread batter evenly in pan and bake until golden-brown and a wooden pick inserted into center comes out clean, 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in pan 15 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake to loosen, then invert onto a plate. Reinvert cake onto a rack to cool completely.
3) To make frosting: Beat cream cheese, butter, and vanilla with an electric mixer at high speed until fluffy. Sift confectioners sugar and cinnamon over cream cheese mixture, then beat at medium speed until incorporated.
4) Spread frosting over top of cooled cake. Yield: 6 to 9 servings.

One Year Ago Today: Chicken Thighs with Garlic and Lime

Two Years Ago Today: Clam Chowder

Three Years Ago Today: Kobe Kiwi Wings with Japanese Relish

Hazelnut Cake

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Oregonians love hazelnuts. The nuts, also known as filberts, are a major crop in Oregon and, while they are expensive in other areas, that is not a problem for those of us who live here. We are close to the orchards where they are grown and manage to avoid the transportation cost that are factored into their market price. I've come to love hazelnuts and use them a great deal in my cooking. Their flavor is more subtle than that of a walnut or pecan and that makes them wonderful to use in desserts and sweet breads. I am always open to new recipes that use them and the one for this cake grabbed my attention when I stumbled on it. I found the recipe in an dog-eared copy of Food Editors' Hometown Favorites Cookbook and decided to give it a try. Before I get into particulars, I must tell you that while I think the cake is lovely, I found the frosting in this recipe to be cloyingly sweet. If you have a sweet tooth, I suspect you'll love it. If your tastes are more like mine, I think you'll find a less sweet icing more to your liking. The cake is light and fragrant and has a lovely crumb. The hazelnuts give it remarkable flavor that is heightened by using hazelnut, rather than vanilla, extract. This is not an easy cake to make and I would not attempt it without the assistance of a heavy-duty stand mixer. Is it worth the time and effort? The cake is nice, but I would take a pass on the icing. Speaking of which, the base recipe produces a cream colored frosting. I added some cocoa powder to it to make it more photogenic. When I first began this blog, I posted a recipe for a much simpler hazelnut cake that was finished with a nutella glaze. You can find that cake, here. I actually prefer it to the one I'm featuring tonight, but I'll let you be the judge.  Here's how the cake is made.

Hazelnut Cake...from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite courtesy of Food Editor's Hometown Favorites Cookbook

Ingredients:
Cake
2 cups sifted flour (sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 eggs, separated
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup regular or butter flavored shortening
2 cups granulated sugar
1 teaspoon hazelnut or vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup coconut (more if desired)
1 cup finely chopped toasted hazelnuts
Cream Cheese Icing
12 ounces  cream cheese, softened
6 ounces  butter, room temperature
6 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons hazelnut or  vanilla extract

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degree F. Spray three 9-inch round cake pans with flour-added cooking spray. If using dark cake pans, preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2) Combine already-sifted flour with baking soda and sift again. Stir in salt and set aside.
3) Beat egg whites in a mixing bowl until stiff. Set aside.
4) Cream butter and shortening in a large mixing bowl. Add sugar and beat for 3 to 5 minutes. Add hazelnut or vanilla extract, then add egg yolks, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
5) Turn mixer speed to low. Add flour and buttermilk alternately, starting and ending with flour. When batter is uniform, fold in the egg whites in three parts (this helps keep the batter airy). Stir in the coconut and hazelnuts.
6) Divide batter among all three pans and bake for 25 minutes or until a skewer inserted in cakes comes out clean. Cakes will not dome. That is not a problem.
7) Prepare icing. Stir cream cheese, butter and some of the sugar together, then beat until smooth. Slowly add remaining sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy. Beat in vanilla. Spread icing between cake layers and on top of cake. Yield: 10 servings.

One Year Ago Today: Lemon Glazed Walnut Bars

Two Years Ago Today: Corn Soup a la Patricia Wells

Three Years Ago Today: Indian Dosas