Fool-proof High Altitude Birthday Cake

If you've ever baked at altitude you are probably a little sick of tinkering with recipes, and just a bit afraid every time you bake that your cake will sink. When you need to make a perfect cake at altitude and nothing less will do, I suggest making an ice cream cake. It's guaranteed to not lose it's shape until it melts.

Here's what you need:
Plastic wrap
waxed paper (optional)
9-inch cake pan
1/2 gallon ice cream
spatula or large flat spoon
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
3/4 cup heavy cream

METHOD:
Set your ice cream out to soften, about 15-20 minutes. You can speed up the process a bit by mixing it in the bowl of a stand mixer, but still let it soften for a good ten minutes first.

Set out your cake pan and plastico. Roll out two 30-inch (apx) pieces of plastico and set one in the pan, pressing it into the bottom and sides and hanging off evenly. Set the other piece in the same fashion, only with the overlap hanging out perpendicular to the first piece (meaning, if the first piece is set longitudinally, set the second latitudinally). It should look like this:


When the ice cream is nice and soft, spoon it out and press it into the cake pan. Don't worry too much about pockets, just try to fill it evenly. When all the ice cream is in the pan, smooth off the top with an offset spatula or the best spready-tool you've got. Cover with waxed paper (or another piece of plastic wrap if you don't have waxed paper) and press down to pack in the ice cream and eliminate air pockets. If you have another cake pan you can use it to press down on the filled ice cream cake. Fold the overhanging plastic wrap up and over the top and stick the pan in the freezer to set, for at least 3 hours. I like to give it a full 24 hours.

Next, make the frosting.

I like ganache for ice cream cakes. Finely chop your chocolate and transfer it to a glass or stainless steel mixing bowl.

Heat the cream, watching it carefully as it makes a colossal mess if it boils over. You can add flavorings to the cream like vanilla extract (a teaspoon), or liquors (about a tablespoon).

Once the cream comes to a boil, pour it over the chocolate and stir gently until smooth. Cool for about 15-20 minutes.

Remove the ice cream cake from the freezer. Unwrap the plastic from the top. I often leave the waxed paper on as a base, but you run the risk of serving it, so it's maybe a smarter idea to remove that too. You want to work quickly, but don't get stressed - it's not going to melt all over the table on you. Invert the cake onto a serving plate or a work plate the plastic sticking out the sides. Wet a dishcloth or dishtowel with hot water and press it onto all sides of the cake. It should only take a moment before the ice cream cake releases itself from the pan. If not, keep the towel hot and pull gently on the plastic wrap. If the cake looks a little melty from the heat exposure, stick it back in the freezer for 30-45 minutes.

When ready to frost, scoop about three-quarters of the ganache onto the top of the cake and spread it evenly over the top of the cake, allowing it to flow down the sides. Use more ganache as needed to frost the sides. Using a thin coat of ganache will work better as it will set quickly and freeze onto the cake. When it's all covered and smooth (using an offset spatula for frosting will make spreading and smoothing much easier) return it to the freezer. Another trick for smoothing is to heat the spatula. Do this once the entire cake is frosted and it will give the cake a clean finish.

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Mascarpone Mousse Cake

I make, I think, five frostings: buttercream, whipped cream, cream cheese, and chocolate. The thing about buttercream is that it's just sort of heavy. I really only use it to frost wedding cakes, where a perfectly smooth finish is requisite and fondant isn't on the menu. When making a really simple cake, I often just used lightly sweetened whipped cream, which really is so delightful especially when fresh berries are involved. But it has to be frosted and eaten pretty quickly, as whipped cream is really only glorious when freshly whipped. I've got no complaints about the chocolate frosting or the cream cheese - only they don't go with every cake.

Something that goes with practically every cake is this: mascarpone mousse. It's more dense and fluffy than plain whipped cream and has a longer staying power. It handles added fruit well, but also holds its own. I made a sponge cake for a child's birthday recently and filled and frosted it with this mousse and kids loved it (kids really like simple cakes - and it didn't hurt that I decorated it with chocolate swirls and M&Ms).

I've tinkered with different variations on this filling but have settled on just one that is the easiest to prepare with the best texture and flavor. The cake shown above is a sponge cake, soaked with sweetened espresso (hence the Tiramisu appellation), filled with mascarpone mousse, frosted with whipped cream, dusted with Dutched cocoa and decorated with gently toasted sliced almonds. Here's the mousse recipe. Follow the Tiramisu cake link for that recipe.

Mascarpone Mousse
Tirmisu Cake recipe
Makes enough to fill one 9-inch, three layer cake

INGREDIENTS
8 ounces mascarpone
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
2-3 T powdered sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 T dark rum

METHOD
Measure all the ingredients into a mixing bowl (or bowl of a stand mixer) and whisk with an electric mixer for about 5 minutes, until thick and fluffy. Resist the temptation to consume the mousse wolf mode.

Use it with fresh berries layered between any yellow or chocolate cake. In an pinch, use it to fill those grocery store individual chocolate cookie crusts, and then top with berries.

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On Cupcakes and Cooking School

I don't make cupcakes unless I really have to. And they don't look anything like the ones pictured here (it's a good time to give the fine folks at Viking a photo credit). I don't make it a habit of buying them either. I live down the street from a nice enough looking shop that hawks cupcakes that are easy on the eyes and hard on the wallet, waist and palate. They consist of dense, flavorless cake and heavy buttercream. Buttercream is just not right for a cupcake.

Just west of me is a different sort of shop, a purveyor of more simple sweets. Their cupcakes look like something you might have made at home and taste like a good version of a basic supermarket cake with a shortening-based icing and a loud shout-out to food coloring. I find their cupcakes more appealing, mostly because, even with the shortening they simply taste better (though the actual cake part is nearly as flavorless).

Seems with all these opinions I should be able to make a decent looking cupcake myself, but the sad truth is that my decorating skills have never been my strong suit (tho I will say that at least my cupcakes taste fantastic!). So I'm considering a little tutelage (cupcake class, anyone?!?) in that department, either through The Chopping Block or the Viking Cooking School up in Glenview (thanks, Yvonne, for the tip on the latter).

How do you judge a cupcake?

Further reading: Not So Guilty Pleasure (or, If only somebody could get the cupcake right) in The Atlantic.

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Spring Strawberry Shortcake in 5 Steps

This cake is great for the baker who wants to make something beautiful but isn't quite comfortable with frosting and an offset spatula. I love the open sides on fruit cakes - it's so enticing to see a colorful berry peeking out between layers of cake and cream.

#1 Bake a cake
Any yellow cake will do, but I often use a Hot Milk Sponge cake or the Kentucky Butter cake. Bake it in 8 or 9-inch rounds (if you only have one cake pan, just bake it in one pan, but you'll have to slice it in half, or thirds, crosswise. Just make sure the cake is good and cold - refrigerating overnite is optimal - before attempting to slice into layers.

#2 Make sugar syrup
This is how to guarantee a moist cake. Make a sugar syrup by boiling 3/4 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar. Add liqueur/flavoring as you like. Using a pastry brush or squeeze bottle, soak cake layers with hot syrup.

#3 Slice and macerate strawberries
Buy at least 2 pint containers (those apx 5x7x3 boxes) of strawberries, remove the greens and slice. Transfer to a mixing bowl and toss with 2 T or so of sugar. Let sit for 5 minutes or so to macerate.


#4 Whip Cream
Whip a pint (more like 3 cups, to be on the safe side) of heavy cream with a spoonful of powdered sugar and a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract.

#5 Assemble the cake - but no more than 4 hours before serving
Set the bottom cake layer on a plate and soak with warm/hot sugar syrup.

Spoon a large dollop (about a cup) of whipped cream on the center of the bottom cake layer. Smooth out, close to the edges but with a 1-cm space of exposed cake. Top with an even layer of berries. Use a slotted spoon with the berries. You don't want them to put too much of the macerating liquid on the cream.

Top with next cake layer(s) and repeat.

Refrigerate until serving. And beware - this cake is a big mess to cut and serve. But it's scrumptious.

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Celebrating Pinch's First Birthday with a Cakewalk

1. Chocolate Layer Birthday Cake

Before Pinch made its debut one year ago today I was in a funky place with my cooking skills. I wasn't using them in a manner that was satisfying. Since my training was almost exclusively in the pastry kitchen I found myself spreading a lot of sugar, butter and white flour love (death?) and not nearly enough about the healthier foods I served at home. It wasn’t a dramatic Lady Macbeth moment with me racked with guilt over the butter on my hands, but it was close. “What, will these hands ne'er be clean?”

2. Classic Yellow Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Coconut

3. Chocolate Layer Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream

A year has passed and the exercise of blogging about the foods I love and writing recipes for the meals I serve has rekindled my appreciation for the skills I amassed in the sweet kitchen. In celebration of Pinch’s first birthday, twelve birthday/celebration cakes are pictured. Since knowledge and cake are meant to be shared, the first commenter to correctly guess the oldest cake wins a chocolate torte from the Pinch kitchen. And yes, I will ship outside of Chicago. :)

4. Chocolate Layer Cake with Strawberries and Whipped Cream and Chocolate Frosting

5. Banana Cake with Whipped Cream

Getting to write and think about the things in our kitchens and markets that make life simpler and more healthy has been its own reward. It pleases me to no end to be a resource for healthy, family friendly meals and the occasional celebration cake. Thanks so much for reading this past year.

6. Mocha Layer Cake

7. Almond Amarena Cake with Mascarpone Mousse

8. Classic Yellow Cake with Chocolate Frosting

9. Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

10. Chocolate Cake with Blackberries and Cream

11. Baby Shower Cake: Sponge Cake layered with Mascarpone Mousse and Amarena Cherries

12. Flourless Chocolate Torte -- Could be yours!

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Epiphany! Galette des Rois

This recipe was shared with me by the generous Nathalie P. The French parents at my children's culturally diverse public school make galettes each year around January 6, the Epiphany. For ye not versed in Christian history, Epiphany is the 12th day of Christmas and commemorates the arrival of the wise men in Bethlehem to meet the newborn Jesus.

I'm not sure how the galette came to be served on this occasion. Can anyone answer? The custom is to hide a fève, fava bean, in the cake before it is baked. At service, the youngest child goes beneath the table and decides who gets each piece of cake. The person who finds the fève in his piece of cake is crowned King or Queen.

Galette des Rois
Print recipe only here

INGREDIENTS
100g sugar
100g almond meal (or fine ground almonds)
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 T rum
1 t almond extract
2 sheets puff pastry (enough for two 10-inch circles)

METHOD

Frangipane
Cream butter until it softens a bit. Add sugar and cream until light and fluffy.

Add the egg (just the whole egg, the yolk comes later). Mix until incorporated.

Add the rum and almond extract.

Add the almond meal, mixing well until incorporated.

Assembling the Galette
Preheat oven to 375°

Unfold thawed puff pastries and using a pie pan as a template cut into two circles (if using homemade puff pastry, roll it out to a thickness of 3mm and about 10 inches in diameter). Make a few cuts in the middle of one of the circles to allow steam to escape while baking.

Lay one circle on parchment paper and spread frangipane in the middle – Leave one inch around the edges of the dough.

Place a dried fava bean or ceramic figure in the frangipane.

Using the egg yolk, brush the edges of the dough.

Place the other dough circle on top and seal the edges very tight

Make a quick egg wash with the remaining egg yolk and 2-3 T milk. Brush top with egg wash, being careful not to let egg wash run over the sides or it will disrupt the puff pastry from showcasing its trademark laminations.

Bake for about 30 min or until the top and edges are nicely browned

Allow to rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting into it.

Enjoy with champagne, sparkling apple cider or a sweet white wine.

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Biblically Good Gingerbread

Soft gingerbread cake, looking very much like it was Photoshopped in, but it wasn't.

A guy I knew in college surprised us all, as we peeled back the layers and got to know him better, to be a bit of a downer. Like Eeyore - always thinking it was going to rain and don't-you-feel-so-sorry-for-me-because-of-it, kind of a person. Everyone knows someone like this. Recently, I surprised myself as a downer when I found myself telling my sister how awful her freshly baked gingerbread was going to be (we were on the phone as she was pulling it out of the oven).

I’ve been tinkering with my gingerbread recipe for years. At one point it was perfect. But when I rewrote it for high altitude I misplaced the original recipe. When I spoke with my sister I was still working out kinks in my recipe and had recently made a gingerbread using the exact recipe she used*. It was really disappointing - not that it in any way excuses my big mouth. Beth seems to have forgiven my pessimism. Today's post is an olive branch, a promise to never rain on inferior gingerbread. Oops! I did it again...Well, at least I'm offering the recipe for what is, in my estimation, the best gingerbread, ever.


I’m so pleased to have Gingerbread back in my baking rotation, and to offer it here. It is the best thing, ever. It’s a fabulous tea cake, and a wonderful light dessert served with low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt.

Gingerbread Bundt Cake
Print recipe only here

Makes one 12-cup bundt cake
METHOD
Preheat oven to 350°

Spray a 12-cup bundt pan with canola spray.

Sift and add to the bowl of a stand mixer (fitted with paddle attachment):
3 1/3 cups flour
2 ½ t baking powder
1 ½ t salt
1 T ginger
1 ½ t cinnamon
1 cup sugar

Add:
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 cup molasses
Slowly add:
¾ cup plus 2 T canola oil
1 cup boiling water

Mix thoroughly, scraping sides and bottom.

Transfer batter to the prepared pan and bake about 40-50 minutes. The cake will be darker, firm and pull from the sides when it is done. Let cool in the pan for about 10 minutes, then invert onto a serving plate.

Keeps well, covered, at room temperature, for 4-5 days.

* For the curious, the *bad gingerbread recipe* was the Soft Gingerbread from the otherwise praise-worthy Fannie Farmer Baking Book.

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To Hell with Healthy Cheesecake

I borrowed the headline to my Dessert menu from Caitlin Flanagan. I enjoyed her essay collection/book To Hell With All That and it seemed a fitting title for a menu that completely breaks from the nutritional goals of the previous courses.

There are several desserts I make my family that fit into the Pinch eating guidelines (which limit saturated and other unhealthy fats): Vanilla Poached Pears, Chewy Ginger Cookies, Blackberry Cobbler, and Amaretti Cookies, to name a few. Others simply do not fit. They earn a spot on the menu because life includes feasts. Not daily feasts, perhaps not even weekly or monthly ones. But each year brings cause for celebration and I don't think it's possible to adequately celebrate without dessert.

Which brings us to Cheesecake. When I told my sister the ingredients on my favorite cheesecake recipe she couldn't believe I even made it. One pound of cream cheese, one pound of ricotta cheese, one pound of sour cream! Mercy.

We're entering a season of feasting. Enjoy it.

Cheesecake
Print recipe only here

INGREDIENTS
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
3 T flour
3 T cornstarch
2 eight-ounce packages Philadelphia cream cheese
15-ounces ricotta cheese
1 pint sour cream
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 eggs
Juice of one lemon
Zest of one lemon
1 T vanilla extract

For the crust:
10 graham crackers or 1 1/2 cups crumbs
2 T sugar
1/3 cup melted unsalted butter

METHOD
Preheat oven to 325°

Make the crust:
Butter a 9-inch springform pan.

Process graham crackers in a food processor until they are fine crumbs. Add sugar and pulse to combine. Add melted butter and pulse just to blend.

Empty crumbs into prepared pan and press onto bottom and up along sides. I use a measuring cup to press the crumbs into the edge of the pan. Refrigerate crust until ready to fill.

Make the cake filling:
Melt butter over low heat. Reserve.

Sift together flour and cornstarch and reserve.

Using a stand mixer with paddle attachment, cream the cream cheese for 2-3 minutes until softened. Add the ricotta and mix until smooth, about 3-4 minutes. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl to make sure the cream cheese is well-blended.

Add the sugar in three parts, over about a minute of mixing time. Stop mixer to scrape sides of bowl as necessary.

Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well between additions.

Add the flour/constarch, vanilla, lemon juice and zest and mix well.

Add the melted butter and sour cream and mix just to combine, about 30 seconds.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for one hour.

At the end of the hour, turn off the heat (without opening the oven door) and let cake sit another hour.

Remove from oven and cool to room temperature. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

An hour before serving, remove cake from fridge and disengage spring. Cake should release easily. If not, run a knife around the edge.

If you like, brush the surface with raspberry jam and top with raspberries or strawberries. You can make a light glaze for the berries by warming seedless jam with some sugar syrup and painting it on the tops of the berries.

**Read here for a good refresher on metabolism, energy imbalance and the relationship between muscle mass and weight loss.

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Kentucky Butter Cake: A great tea cake for tea season

I love cakes like this one - pretty easy to produce and when it's done baking it's ready to go. Pair it with afternoon tea and you'll make whoever happens to be in your house at teatime (today it was a gaggle of girls) very happy.

Everyone should own a good bundt pan. I've got a 12-cup and a 6-cup one and think I might add a 10-cup to the fleet. This recipe, incidentally, calls for a 10-cup pan. I like my heavyweight ones from Nordic Ware, but regularly use lighter weight cake pans so don't sweat what you've got. The most critical thing is to really take care to thoroughly grease and flour the pan. And make sure to bonk the pan on the counter a few times to knock out all the excess flour. You won't be pleased to present a splotchy cake, even if your guests are oblivious minors.

A final note concerns the recipe's origin. My recipe is minimally adapted from the Baker's Cafe Cookbook. (The Baker's Cafe, of Katonah, NY, has been closed for several years.) A recipe search for Kentucky Butter Cake yielded many nearly identical recipes. The reason: the recipe won the Pillsbury Bake-Off contest in 1963 whereupon it became an instant classic and worked its way into many a recipe box.

Kentucky Butter Cake
Print recipe only here

Preheat oven to 350°

Grease and flour a 10-cup bundt pan.

Soften for 3-4 minutes in a mixer with paddle attachment:
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

Add slowly (about 2-4 T at a time, over about 8 minutes, scraping sides and bottom of bowl at least once between additions):
• 2 cups sugar

Add one at a time, mixing thoroughly between additions and scraping the bowl midway between additions:
• 4 eggs

Add:
• 2 t vanilla extract

Sift together and reserve:
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt

Measure out and reserve:
• 1 cup buttermilk

Add the dry ingredients to the butter/eggs alternately with the liquid. (Scoop in about half the dry and mix on low speed until nearly incorporated, then pour in half the liquid, mixing in the same.) Repeat. Finish mixing by hand with a large spatula, carefully scraping up from the bottom of the mixing bowl and not over mixing.

Pour into prepared pan and bake about 50 minutes or until it pulls away from the sides of the pan and passes the toothpick test.

Toward the end of baking, prepare glaze (recipe below). When cake is done baking, pierce it all over with a long skewer (while the cake is still in the pan). Pour the hot glaze slowly over the top, allowing it to saturate the cake.

GLAZE
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unsalted butter
• 1-2 T Meyer's Dark rum
• 1T water

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over low-medium heat. Swirl until butter is melted, but do not allow to boil. Pour over warm cake. Allow cake to sit for 20-30 minutes to cool, then invert onto a plate. Alternately, you can use half the glaze while the cake is in the pan and the remainder once you've inverted it. Anther nice touch: use a mesh tea immerser to dust with powdered sugar just prior to presentation.

The cake keeps well, loosely covered at room temperature, for 3-4 days.

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