Marble Birthday Cake

 

Last  night, we celebrated the birthday of Pam, one of my very best friends.   Before I tell you about her cake, I want to tell you about why I adore her.  Pam and I met when we lived in the same dorm in our freshman year at UCLA.  She was a bad ass New Yorker with a tattoo and an attitude.  I was gawky and insecure, blushing when a stranger talked to me.  But we had the same razor-shag blonde haircut, she was always nice to me, and we became unlikely pals.  After freshman year, Pam moved into the best apartment in Westwood.  All of our friends took turns living in the second bedroom, and I spent a summer there.  Pam had every episode of Friends on her computer, and she always let me borrow her fancy ceramic flat iron.  It didn't hurt that she had a hunky neighbor who was literally an Abercrombie and Fitch model.  Yum...  I digress.

                           

Eight years later, we have the kind of friendship that only exists with someone who's seen you through the ridiculousness of your early 20's.  The party nights, spray tans, random boys and vacations, along with the hard stuff, fighting, breakups, and messes.  She's the first one to take you to a four-star dinner on your birthday, or let you borrow her coziest sweats during a marathon session of So You Think You Can Dance.  She has a sick shoe collection, and she'll tell you if have something in your teeth, and she'll tell you when you look beautiful.  And her kitchen is always stocked with cheese, crackers, and a chilled bottle of chard.  Friends like that don't come along every day. 

Pam wears a lot of black and white, so I thought a marble cake would be a clever choice.  Marble cake has an amazing "easy to fancy ratio".  I just made that term up, maybe I'll put it in my Food Network tape.  Anyway, instead of making two different batters, you make a vanilla batter, then take out a small amount and mix in some cocoa powder.  Then spoon the batters into the pan in a checkerboard pattern, and swirl away with a butter knife.  Look how fancy you are!

When I want a cake to look really pretty, I cover it in fondant.  Fondant is a lot like pie dough in that many of us are afraid of it (as an aside, are we just afraid of using rolling pins?  Someone research this.).  I'm no pro at this.  My fondant cakes are usually lumpy, with some cracks, fingerprints, and weirdness.  But it's the effort that counts, and people are always impressed when they see a gorgeous fondant-covered cake.  It really helps to cover the surface with powdered sugar or cornstarch, and use a bench scraper to make sure that it doesn't stick.

I am artistically challenged, so rather than try to pipe a decoration, I used a damask stencil to cut out pieces of black fondant.  With just a bit of water, the decorative pieces easily stick to the cake.  I did this during The Bachelorette finale.  I liked Roberto from day 1, I hope that he and Ali make it and live happily ever after.

A "happy birthday" in buttercream, and you're done!  Happy birthday Pammy!

A few notes on the cake and the subsequent birthday party:

My favorite fondant- Pettinice rolled fondant in ivory

Black food coloring- Americolor soft gel paste in Super Black

Birthday dinner- Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica Canyon (a splurge that's worth every penny)

Cocktails- Copa d'Oro in Santa Monica.  Choose a fruit/herb/booze combo, and their mixologists will make you something amazing!

Pam's favorite wine- Rombauer Chardonnay

Accessory of the night- Silly Bandz

Marble Cake
From Martha Stewart Weddings

Makes 3 8" rounds

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened, plus more for pans
3 1/2 cups cake flour (not self-rising), plus more for dusting
4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup milk, room temperature
2/3 cup heavy cream, room temperature
2 cups sugar
6 large eggs
2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2/3 cup best-quality unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup boiling water
1/4 cup instant espresso powder, for mocha layers

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Butter pans and line with parchment paper. Butter lining; dust with flour, tapping out excess. Set aside. Sift together cake flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside.


Combine milk and cream in a small bowl; set aside. Cream butter and sugar on medium speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time; mix well after each addition. Mix in vanilla. Add flour mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with flour.

Combine cocoa and the boiling water in a medium bowl; for mocha cake, add espresso powder. Stir in 2 cups cake batter.

Fill prepared pans with spoonfuls of vanilla and chocolate batter to form a checkerboard pattern. Run the tip of a paring knife or a wooden skewer through batter in a figure-eight motion to make swirls. Bake until tops are golden, and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cakes cool completely in pans on wire racks.  Flip the layers out of the pans, and chill them in the freezer for 30 minutes (until the outside is hard).

Quick Vanilla Buttercream
by Gale Gand
Note:  I owe Gale Gand my first born for this recipe.  This is the only buttercream recipe you will ever need.  It is aaaahhhmazing.

6 cups confectioners' sugar
2 cups butter
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 to 4 tablespoons whipping cream

In a standing mixer fitted with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended and then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes.


Add vanilla and cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed for spreading consistency. 

To assemble:
Remove cake layers from the freezer.  If they are rounded in the center, use a serrated bread knife to cut the round top off the layer (you want the flattest surface possible)  Place parchment strips around the base of the cake to keep your cake plate clean.  Frost the flat surface of the first layer, then place the second layer on top.  Slice the top off the next layer, ice, and repeat.  Cover the whole cake in buttercream using an offset spatula, and decorate as you wish.

Plum Blueberry Upside Down Cake

After two crazy weeks filled with engagement and 4th of July festivities, John and I were very excited to spend this weekend putzing around the house putting photos in frames and clearing out the DVR.  The best part of the weekend was when I got to cozy up in my chair with this beauty, freshly plucked from my library's shelves...

If you don't read David Lebovitz's blog, go give it a looksee.  Mr. Lebovitz is an incredible pastry chef and writer.  I want him to move next door and be my sassy gay man-friend.  However, seeing that he lives in Paris, I don't think he'll be packing up and moving to Culver City any time soon.  Ready for Dessert is his "greatest hits" of sorts, a collection of the most popular recipes from his early cookbooks that are now out of print.  Many are very European and complicated and fancy, but on a lazy Sunday after a trip to the farmers' market, this simple upside down cake was the perfect way to end the weekend.

Lemon Drizzle Cake

It may sound a little cheesy, but this cake will always hold a special place in my heart. Not necessarily because it was one of the first cake recipes that I truly made from scratch that actually turned out a success. Or because it was also the first recipe I ever saved, clipping it out from some long-forgotten magazine, pasting it on a piece of paper and adding it to a binder I entitled “My Favorite Recipes”. That was about ten years ago, and while those things do make this cake special, there’s another reason why it’s so important to me. You see, this is my Dad’s favorite cake.
It’s nothing too fancy, just a single layer lemon cake with a simple powdered sugar lemon glaze that gets sprinkled with lemon zest. But it has appealed to my Dad from the very first bite. Ever since that first bite he has requested it for his birthday, for special occasions and sometimes just because it’s a Tuesday. It’s my go-to cake when I want to make him something special or show him how much I appreciate him.
And believe me, I definitely have many occasions to show how much I appreciate him. Because my dad is not just my father, he’s my best friend, my confidant, and my moral compass. If I’ve got a problem, a nagging issue, or some sort of decision to make, he’s always there to hear about it. Frankly, I’m not sure how he hasn’t gotten sick of me after all these years. He listens to me babble on and on, offers advice when it’s needed, and does all this without making me feel as if I’m being a nuisance. And by doing this, he makes me feel loved and secure, which as I grow older I’m realizing are two very important ways to feel.

Lemon Meringue Cake

A few weekends ago we celebrated my Mom's Birthday with a surprise party. I'm not going to tell you which birthday we were celebrating, because I know better than that, but I will let you know that it was a big one, one that required some fanfare and attention. My Mom however, is the kind of person who hates attention. She loathes the idea of all eyes being on her, and she would rather someone else be in the center of it all. These were all things that she told me explicitly about a month before her birthday, when she expressly said that we were not allowed to have a surprise birthday party for her. She swore to me that she would never forgive us if we threw her one. I tried to reason with her, but she would not budge in her thinking.

So when my father approached me asking me to help him plan a surprise party for her, I very adamantly told him everything that my mother had said. I explained that she would be mortified if we had one, and that she would be very upset with us. To which he quickly replied, "I don't care." Apparently my Dad can be just as stubborn as my Mom.And wouldn't you know, but my Dad was right to not care? The party was a huge success, and my Mom had the time of her life. It truly was one of those magical evenings where everyone seemed to have a great experience. I'm just happy that the guest of honor didn't pass out or start swearing at us, because either reaction might have put a damper on the whole event.

We held the party at my place, and it was the perfect day for it.
The weather was absolutely gorgeous, sunny and clear, with just enough warmth for dining outside on the deck.

Buttermilk Spice Cake

This is a story about a proposal.  No, not that proposal.  Last week, my fiance submitted his dissertation proposal.  What does that mean?  It means that he got to spend many loooong days writing a paper, which, if successful, will enable him to write a much longer paper of the same topic.  Oh and then he gets a PhD.  My point with all of this is that sometimes, a boy just needs some cake.

I've been known to unintentionally stockpile ingredients, and this cake came about because I had a whole lotta buttermilk that needed to get used.  I saw this recipe in the March Bon Appetit, and I was intrigued by the combo of spices, which included none other than black pepper.  My man loves black pepper on nearly everything, so I figured putting it in a cake wasn't too far off.  Frankly, I was surprised by how much I liked it.  While it may look like just another white cake, this bad boy packs some flavor.  The spices, citrus zest, and vanilla bean all meld together into a harmonious combo, and the buttermilk yields a fluffy moist texture.  Serve it warm with some jam and whipped cream, and you're in business.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

 

Hello!  Mary here...  It's been a while!  I missed you all, and I want to say muchas gracias to Allison, who kept the ship running last week when I was MIA.  Her Cinco de Mayo posts were awesome, and I will be ordering one of those tres leches cakes when she comes to visit next weekend.  I have a lot of things to tell you, so I'm going to enumerate in the interest of not blathering on too long.

1.  I got engaged!  John popped the question on a drive to Big Sur.  We're getting married next summer, and I'm trying to hatch a plan to bake my own wedding cake.  Here's a picture of a very euphoric us:

2.  This week, in an attempt to recreate the Tartine morning bun that I ate on the morning that John proposed, I set my oven on fire.  Like with flames and everything.  Hey home bakers:  buy a fire extinguisher!  I have never been so grateful for one in my life.

 

3.  I'm in love.  With the flash that John's dad is letting me use until I buy my own.  Here in Casa Butter we have a serious natural light issue, which leads to frantic weekends in which I try to get home in time to snap photos in the tiny window in which the light is decent.  I've decided to stop fighting with the elements and just roll with what I have.  All of the photos in the post below were taken in my kitchen after dark with my new favorite camera accessory.

Ok enough about me.  It's Mother's Day.  I want to talk about my mom.

My mom loves baking.  When I was in elementary school, she would get up at the crack of dawn to bake cupcakes for my class on my birthday.  Other moms called her "the cupcake machine".  Is it surprising that I turned out the way I did?

Along with baking, mom loves John Mayer, Starbucks double-shots, velour sweatsuits, labradors, cleaning, and a good slow wake-up.  In my 26 years, my mom has taught me what it means to give.  She's the first one to offer a home-cooked meal, a ride to the airport, or solid advice when you need it.   When she came down to help with my neighbors' wedding cakes, she brought along her favorite pineapple upside down cake.  In honor of my mama, I suggest you make this cake and then give it to someone who's not expecting it.  Make their day.  It's what Mama Butter would do.

Pastel de Tres Leches

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! Hopefully your day today is filled with margaritas, chips and salsa, and possibly a slice of muy delicioso tres leches cake. The tres leches cake has become one of my all-time favorite cakes over the past few years. The first time I tried one was also the first time I made one, and I stared in disbelief as the recipe called for me to pour what seemed like an endless amount of a milk mixture over the top of the cake. So much that I thought “There’s no way this cake is going to be anything other than a big pile of mush.” But I took that first bite, and I was hooked. This was no mush; this was a big ol’ bite of heaven.
Moister than any cake you could ever imagine, cool and creamy with delicious hints of cinnamon; a tres leches is no ordinary cake. The name comes from the fact that the cake uses three different milks, usually condensed, evaporated, and good old fashioned whole milk. The cake itself is traditionally a sponge cake, which gets holes poked all along the top of it, and a milk mixture is poured over the top, saturating every crumb. It’s usually topped with some sort of whipped cream frosting. There's a whole lot of dairy going on in this cake, and it's all a good thing.
When I’ve made tres leches cake in the past I've always used the same recipe, which follows the more traditional version of a tres leches. There’s one twist in that the three milks that get poured over the top of the cake get heated up so that they become rich and intense, with flavors similar to that of dulce de leche. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that recipe, but when I decided to bake a cake for Cinco de Mayo this year, I wanted to try something a little different.

Wedding Cake!

Remember Kenny and Dorien?  Well today I can introduce them as husband and wife.  So meet them again!  This is Kenny's wife Dorien.  This is Dorien's husband Kenny.  Their wedding was beautiful in a thousand ways, from the scenery to the music to the vows that turned me into a teary sniffling toddler.

I made their cake.  And it was an honor.  I could babble on and on about the process and the baking and the white-knuckled drive to Pala, but instead, I'll just say this.  I would do it again a thousand times over.  And I am eternally grateful to the 200 guests who demolished the cake.  You made me feel like a million bucks, so thanks for that.

Lots o' pictures after the jump.

Freezer Snapshot

This is what my freezer looks like right now.  My friends' wedding is 5 days away, and so far all is going well!  You're looking at double chocolate cake, everyone's favorite carrot cake, red velvet cupcakes, and some coconut cupcakes that I had never tried before, but blew my mind.  My reinforcement (i.e. Mom) is driving down on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll have some more fun photos to share throughout the week!  Hope you had a sweet weekend as well!

Everyone's Favorite Carrot Cake

 

 I am of the belief that every home cook should have a signature dish.  Like Allison's apple spice cake, your signature is the dish you can turn to when you're feeling less than spectacular, a dish that comes out perfect every time.  This carrot cake is my mom's signature.  And everyone loses their shit over it.  It's a perfect mix of cinnamon, carrot, sweetness, nuttiness, and a tart cream cheese frosting sends it right over the edge.  I've eaten it a bajillion times, and I truly believe I could pick it out of a blindfolded lineup.  And in my humble home baker's opinion, it's the only carrot cake recipe you'll ever need. 

What I'm Doing in March

 

Meet Kenny and Dorien!  They're our neighbors on our Culver City hippie duplex compound, where we all live in peace and harmony.

 

Even our dogs are harmonious!

Dorien and Kenny are talented.  And generous.  And warm.  And hilarious.  So they've made the very wise choice to live happily ever after.

Gorgeous photo by the very talented Avi Rothman!

I adore weddings, but this one will forever hold a unique place in my heart.   Because...  Drumroll...  I'm making the wedding cake!!!  That's right!  A cake to be served at a real wedding!  Watch out Martha Stewart.

Apple Spice Cake with Caramel Sauce

It seems like I have a never-ending supply of recipes. With every new magazine and cookbook I receive, with every cooking blog and website I visit, there are what seem like thousands of new dishes that look delicious and I can’t wait to make. So I rip out pages from the magazines, tag the books, and bookmark all those great creations I see online. I think I’ve compiled a list of so many recipes that I wouldn’t be able to make all of them in this lifetime. And the number of cake recipes is extremely plentiful. There’s just something about them that I can’t say no to.

However, for all of these cake creations that I hold on to, and for all of the cakes that I do bake, the number of recipes that I actually keep in my list of “favorite recipes” is relatively short. A handful at most. Because I only keep the ones that are really good.
And when I say good, what I really mean is amazing. Because there will always be the next new recipe out there to try that’s just good, but only once in a while will one come along that’s amazing. One that’s worth being willing to make again. This cake, is in the amazing category. It is hands down, one of my absolute favorite cakes.

Hot Chocolate Layer Cake with Homemade Marshmallows

Sometimes, you just gotta bake a cake. At least that's how I was feeling last weekend. I had absolutely no reason to bake a gigantic cake, but I did it anyways. You know why? Because I felt like it. And that's just one of the joys of being an adult. You can bake a cake just for the hell of it.

And this was one hell of a cake. I had my eye on making it ever since I saw it in the October issue of Fine Cooking magazine. I loved the idea of a hot cocoa flavored cake with the quintessential marshmallow topping, made even more special by making the marshmallows from scratch.

Blueberry Boy Bait

This recipe comes complete with an incredibly cute back-story. In 1954, a 15-year-old girl won second prize in the junior division of a Pillsbury baking contest. Her entry was a moist and tender blueberry cake that was named after the effect it had on teenage boys--one bite and they were hooked. Adorable right? I tell ya, I’m a sucker for cuteness.

I read about this recipe in 2006 in an issue of Cook’s Country and the story always stuck with me. When I saw the recipe on the Smitten Kitchen site last year I moved it towards the top of my to-bake list. That was way back in July, when the days were warm and blueberries were actually in season. I guess it speaks to the length of my to-bake list that I didn’t actually get to the recipe until now.

Anywhoo, the important thing is that I finally did get to bake this boy bait and boy was I glad I did. Get it? “Boy” was I glad I did? Ha, I crack myself up. You know who else cracks themselves up? My boyfriend; who seemed to think it was hilarious to continuously make remarks about how I was trying to attract other men by baking this boy bait. Luckily I had this delicious cake to shove in his mouth to quiet him down for a bit.

And it is delicious. A combination between a coffee cake and a blueberry muffin, it’s moist and filled with just enough blueberries to add a bit of tartness here and there. It’s definitely not the healthiest baked good, with a half a pound of butter and over a cup of two kinds of sugar, plus more sprinkled on top for good measure. But hey, when you’re baiting a boy, all bets are off.

Red Velvet Cheesecake

 

This weekend is Valentine's Day.  I must say that while I'm not vehemently opposed to the holiday, it does make restaurants more crowded and menus somewhat contrived, so it's one I prefer to spend at home with a movie, a bottle of wine, and a damn good home cooked meal.  Fitting with that theme, this red velvet cheesecake practically screams out for a place on your Valentine table.  It's rich, creamy, and red for heaven's sake!  Need I say more?

While I'd like to say that the inspiration for this cheesecake came from staring into my lover's eyes and looking into his soul for the perfect dessert, the truth is that Bethenny Frankel (of the Real Housewives of NY and the super awesome Skinnygirl book series) tweeted about the Cheesecake Factory's red velvet cheesecake, and I couldn't get it out of my head for three days.  Think about it.  Why do people love red velvet cake?  Two reasons:  the color and the cream cheese frosting.  The color is easily replicated, and a cheesecake is essentially a cream cheese frosting on steroids.  Some things just work, and this cake is one of those things.  

What's that?  You'd like me to stop rambling and tell you how to make it?  Ok, here goes.

Start with a bag of chocolate teddy grahams.  Take a moment and reminisce about elementary school, when teddy grahams were all the rage.

  

Aww...  So cute.  I love their little pot bellies.

  

Buzz your teddy grahams in a food processor until they're crumbly (if you don't have a processor, you could put them in a ziplock and whack them with a rolling pin or a meat tenderizer.  Or a hammer if you're feeling aggressive).

Lemon Cake!

Meet Rachel!  Rachel is adorable...  And effortless...  And British!  Rachel can wear hot pink tights and a feather in her hair, and look quirky and fashion forward (her cute accent doesn't hurt).  Rachel is getting married this weekend, and I got to partake in her Hen Night festivities.

I'll get to this perfect lemon cake momentarily, but first, we need to talk about the decor of this party.  I live on a happy little triplex compound, and my neighbor Dorien hosted Rachel's special afternoon.  Dorien informed me that the theme was "a pink 1920's opium den", so I scratched my head and offered to make a lemon cake, figuring that opium poppies would be hard to come by.

But a few days later, I audibly gasped when I entered the shower.  This is what a 1920's pink opium den themed party looks like...

 

 

 

Don't mind me, just futzing with my camera in my gorgeous outdoor living room!

Outrageous Coconut Cream Cake

Christmas time with my family is so special to me. There's my sister, watch as she measures the length of this cat!
And my Grandpa, festive and handsome in his holiday beret...
And my mama, so serious washing those dishes... She's probably thinking about the lyrics to a John Mayer song or something. My mom loves John Mayer. We listened to Heartbreak Warfare while I made this cake and she made fudge.
But do not even get me started on this one...
Be still my ovaries.

This special occasion deserves a special cake, and the Outrageous Coconut Cream Cake is as special as it gets.