Let Them Eat Cake!

Okay, 'fess up!  Cake or pie?  Cookie or cobbler? Pudding or pastry?  Or some other decadent dessert?  Whether I'm playing in the kitchen or taking a peek at the dessert menu of a favorite restaurant, I am bound to gravitate toward cake.  Not just any cake. GOOD cake. Moist and flavorful cake. Preferably cake with frosting. So let's talk about frosting at the outset. Remember the saying, "Always a bridesmaid, never a bride?"  I was occasionally a bridesmaid, but more likely to be the one who served wedding cake!  Do you know what happens to the knife after you have served 5 or 6 pieces of wedding cake?  A "scum" of sorts builds up on the knife, an intriguing mixture of cake crumbs and frosting residue. Well, I'm the gal who's going to drag her finger across the flat side of the knife, making sure not one morsel of scum goes to waste.  Oh, I'll wait until no one's looking, but sure as shootin' that frosting is going to be mine!

When I'm not scarfing down the remnants of a good cake, I greatly enjoy the craft of baking, sifting lightness into the dry ingredients, combining softened butter and sugar, so distinctly different in color and texture, yet merging into a silky, creamy mass.  Hearing each egg plop into the batter, dragging a sunny golden trail behind as it slowly disappears. Adding alternating scoops of flour and milk, beginning and ending with the flour, creating a billowy voluminous batter. Cutting wax paper to fit the pans, taking a pat of silky softened butter and rubbing it delicately around the pan and gently sliding the wax paper into place. Walking gingerly around the kitchen to protect precious layers incubating in the oven as the aroma begins to permeate the house.  Preparing the frosting, assembling the layers and using an offset spatula to swish and swirl the frosting decoratively over the layers and around the cake. Standing back and admiring my work, some strange part of me wishing never to cut into and disturb what I have created--at the same time, crazy to grab a knife and fork and dive in RIGHT NOW!

I began to experiment in earnest in the kitchen right out of college, shacked up with three of my best girlfriends from UGA.  I am foggy now on some of the details, but one of my roommates discovered a recipe (Craig Claiborne, I believe) for a genoise cake with coconut frosting, spongy layers laced with some kind of liqueur (I think we used whatever we had; I seem to remember drizzling the genoise with Bailey's Irish Cream.) I learned to make clarified butter while baking this cake and remember the distinct feeling of accomplishment  I had as I, yes, ADMIRED the completed product.  Part of the fun of baking a cake is the self congratulatory moment you experience when you wipe the last dregs of frosting from the cake plate and display it in a prominent location, hoping fervently someone will come through the kitchen soon and join you as you fixate on your accomplishment.

I have dogeared my recipe books over the years searching for the best cake recipes.  You can absolutely tell whether or not a recipe is successful by looking for the drips and stains on the page.  Obscure regional cookbooks have the very best tried and true desserts--cakes, cookies, pies--the kinds of things little grandmothers learned from their mothers and pass down from generation to generation.  And if you are ever served a really good cake by a friend or relative, GET THAT RECIPE IMMEDIATELY.  My Dixie Delights cookbook was a gift from my mother when she traveled to Memphis to visit my sister, oh, 20 years ago.  It was published by the St. Francis Hospital Auxiliary and gives me recipes for Red Velvet Cake (two cups of oil--what's not to love) and Italian Cream Cake (shoe leather would be good with cream cheese frosting.)  Blue Ribbon Carrot Cake came from my co-worker, Nelle, from the late eighties.  My cousin, Marybeth, shared her Caramel Pound Cake recipe, which is to die for.  My friend Jenny gave me a recipe for a Strawberry Cake I changed up with--you guessed it--cream cheese frosting laced with strawberry bits and juice.  A friend from church shared her oh-so-easy Pumpkin Cake recipe with me, a sheet cake I now make in layers with, again, cream cheese frosting.    My mother has mastered the Pound Cake in a way that keeps a constant stream of friends and relatives dropping by just in case there is a warm offering right out of the oven.  You have to be her beloved oldest daughter to get THAT recipe!  (Little sister has probably talked her out of it, too.)

Cakes are festive and seasonal!  I'd never bring my pumpkin cake to Easter lunch, but the Strawberry Cake is perfect.  Red Velvet Cake is ALWAYS a part of my Christmas repertoire.  And now that the cupcake craze has hit, most all my recipes can easily make a welcome appearance morphed into this latest culinary sensation.  But when you want to impress and give the impression you have been slaving over a hot stove and oven the better part of a day (you will have) the Chocolate Little Layer Cake is the way to go.  There is nothing LITTLE about it.  The layers are very thin, but there are twelve of them.  My husband nosed this recipe out of the New York Times, but according to the article, the cake originates from Martha Meadows, a home baker in southeast Alabama.

We were recently invited to be guests at friends' supper club, a dine-around group who meet to enjoy good food and generous libations several times a year progressive dinner style.  Given the opportunity to contribute to the dessert course, it seemed as good occasion as any to drag out the Chocolate Little Layer Cake recipe, which I did gladly and happily.  I have now made this cake three times and will give you the recipe as printed in the New York Times with italicized notes added that will help you jump up the learning curve for this particular cake.  As any cook/baker knows, every recipe has its idiosyncrasies that only practice will help you to conquer.  DON'T BE AFRAID!!  This cake has turned out beautifully every time I have made it, but with distinct vagaries that at times have left me a bit flummoxed.

Chocolate Little Layer Cake
Adapted from Martha Meadows, printed in the New York Times, December 16, 2009


FOR THE CAKE:
2 sticks butter, more to grease pans
2 -1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup shortening
5 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
5 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
5 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups milk

FOR THE ICING:
5 cups sugar
1/3 cup cocoa
1 stick butter, cut into pieces
1 15-ounce can evaporated milk (1-1/3 cups)
1/2 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons vanilla

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease three 9-inch cake pans and line with rounds of parchment or waxed paper.
I begin with 12 rounds of waxed paper.  After the first batch of layers, there is no need to clean or add grease to the pans.  There will be plenty of residual to cook subsequent layers.  Just add your waxed paper to the already warm and greased pan and pour in your batter.

2.  In a mixer, cream together butter, sugar and shortening until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Beat in eggs one at a time and continue to mix on medium until eggs are well incorporated.  Stir in vanilla.

3.  Sift flour, then add salt, baking soda and baking powder.  Sift a second time.  With mixer on low, alternately add flour mixture and milk in about 4 additions, then increase speed to medium.  Beat until smooth, about 4-5 minutes, scraping down sides of bowl.
Recipe calls for  one 15 ounce can of evaporated milk.  I found 12 ounce cans and 5 ounce cans, bought one of each and then measured milk to 1-1/3 cups.  This batter gets VERY thick, almost like a pound cake batter.  If you are using a hand mixer instead of a stand mixer, make sure you have a very powerful motor!  I burned out one hand mixer with this batter.  Traditionally cake mixing calls for beginning and ending with flour when you are adding the flour and milk, which is what I did.  

4.  Spread 3/4 cup batter in each pan.  Bake 6-8 minutes, or until cake springs lightly when pressed with a finger.  Flip cake out of pan onto paper towels or cake rack while still very warm.  Repeat with second set of layers.
The first time I made this cake, I ended up with only 11 layers.  It is hard to get the "3/4 cup" right because the batter is so thick, it clings to whatever you are using to pour it.  This last time I made it, for each three layers I baked, I filled my two cup measuring "pitcher" with a heaping amount of the batter, enough to equal about 2-1/4 cups, and used the little pitcher to divide the batter evenly between 3 pans.  This was a great help!

5.  When first layers go into oven, start to make icing.  Put sugar and cocoa in a deep, heavy bottomed saucepan and mix well.  Turn heat to medium-high and add butter and milks, bringing to a boil.  Boil for about 4 minutes, stirring continually, careful to watch that it does not boil over.  Lower heat to simmer, add vanilla and stir occasionally for another 7 to 10 minutes.  If using a candy thermometer, cook to the point just before soft ball stage or about 230 degrees.

The icing is the trickiest part of this cake.  Indeed, make sure you have a LARGE DEEP saucepan as the icing just about triples in volume when it begins to boil.  It takes me longer than 4 minutes to get to 230 degrees.  The first time I made this, the icing turned out great.  The second time, it began to set up very quickly.  The last time I made it, it didn't seem to set up enough.  I completely frosted the cake, frosting dripping down the sides, and just left it for about an hour, went out for lunch and PRAYED FOR A MIRACLE, all the time trying to figure out how to start from scratch and make another in the time I had left before the event.  When I came back, it had started to set up enough that I could scrape up all the frosting that had run onto the plate, and finish frosting it.  It ended up being the prettiest cake I have made yet!

6.  Begin icing first layers, still warm, when second batch is in the oven.  Flip layers over so that top side faces up.  Use about 4 tablespoons of icing per layer.  Icing will be thin but will firm up as it cools.  Stack layers, then continue icing and stacking as layers are baked.

Starting at about the 4th layer, the cake will begin to get a bit catawampus.  I have found it helpful to press firmly and evenly with both hands on top of each layer after you put it in place, starting at about the 4th or 5th layer.  This helps to flatten out and even up the layers as you go.

This layer cracked when I picked it up.
But no worries, the icing will hold it together!

7.  When all layers are iced and stacked, glaze top and sides of cake.  Contours of layers will be visible through icing.  If icing hardens too much while frosting cake, set back on low heat and stir until it is spreadable.

The first time I made this cake I had JUST enough icing.  The second time it was very thick and I almost ran out.  The third time I had about 1/2 cup left over.  GO FIGURE!!  It is much better to have icing left over, though, because eating it out of the bowl with a spoon is an extremely pleasurable benefit of baking this cake.