S'mores cake

I've read the book, "Finding WInnie..." approximately thirty five times. It would be the period in my life when I managed a district school library, serving as its librarian. The book was/still should be a hidden gem on a generally overlooked nonfiction shelf. Reading it to crews of young readers brought the publication to top the check-out inventory for subsequent weeks, keeping it off shelves for a greater a part of the year. I don't think there could be a better example of total job satisfaction than that. 

Indeed, the love affair with Pooh bear has been as long as I'd learned to read, ca, Mrs. England's 1st grade class. It's a pretty good feel when you come to the realization the childhood favorite you once knew is not mere figment, yet stems from a true life version.

Moving along to other, more recent blissful experiences,  I made a s'mores cake in such an exceptional way that I think you'd benefit from knowing how I did it too. 

The recipe I combed from will be deemed as "the original" malty, involving higher "s'more" elements. Adversely, mine would then be the knock-off, albeit,  I must say, a definite keeper and a classic unto itself.

 

I went rogue here, swapping traditional graham crackers for almond flour and pulverized Oreos to bulk the insides. I believe I've done justice to the campfire melty-cookie roast in a turn-around sort of way. Seldom do we understand that it's ok to have a variant of a beloved prototype, ie, if it remains collaterally unified in delivering flavors specific to its name.

Although, no one is stopping you to go for a more standard approach, I ask you to consider the adjustments I made ⬇️, after which you're free to decide:

* replacing graham cracker with almond flour as part of my flour base

* marshmallow flavored buttercream instead of blazed meringue, resulting in a stable spreadable cover

* crushed Oreos to fill up the insides, just because.

As a result, the combination of balance, texture, feel, taste is on point here and, at the moment, it's my favorite thing to eat.

The benefits of having almond flour in cake is multifold. Nut flour amplifies the pillow depth of crumb, making it moister and unbearably hard to settle at just one slice. Moreover, it lends an almost "healthy-ish" quality to what might have been 100% gluten laden cake( not that the latter is a bad thing).

Marshmallow frosting is comparable to a less complicated Swiss meringue. The silky feel of whipped fluff and butter creates perfect harmony with the crumbled cookies.

To summarize, as we pass the one year mark of the mask-clad virus that caught us all by surprise, a melody of bests, from great confections to great characters, may send out the light from a soon ending tunnel.

So, keep in mind, this could be the finest cake you'll ever know. 

Alas, when beseeching hands reach out for s'more, please, the dessert becomes true to its name.

Ingredients:

(Cake recipe adapted, with variations, from livforcake's Smores Cake)

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ cups almond flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp salt
• 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup light brown sugar
• ½ cup sugar
• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F. Prepare and grease cake pans.
• Add all dry ingredients to a large bowl and whisk together.
• Using a stand mixer, beat butter until smooth.  
• Add sugars and and eggs and continue to beat on medium until pale.
• Alternate adding flour mixture and buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour (3 additions of flour and 2 of milk), fully incorporating after each addition. Do not overmix.
• Divide batter evenly between cakes pans and bake for 30-33 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.
• Remove cakes from oven. Cool in pans for 5 minutes, then turn out onto racks to cool completely.

Marshmallow frosting:

(Adapted from Broma Bakery's marshmallow frosting):

• ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• ¾ cup *marshmallow fluff

Directions:

• Beat softened butter until smooth. Mix in sugar and vanilla until creamy.
• Add marshmallow fluff to the mixture and beat until combined and smooth.

Chocolate frosting recipe, right here.

For the Oreo crumble (optional):

• 1 sleeve Oreo cookies or chocolate sandwich cookies
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature
• pinch salt

Combine in a food processor and pulse until combined into a crumble consistency, like wet sand.

Assembly:

Spread the first layer of cake with a round of frosting. Sprinkle with Oreo crumble.

Stack the next cake layer on and repeat frosting/crumble process with the remaining layers. 

Cover entire cake with marshmallow frosting, ***"striping" the chocolate frosting.

Alternatively, frost with marshmallow frosting first, chill, then top with chocolate frosting or vice versa.

Garnish/adorn to heart's desire.

For the best tutorial on striped icing, go to British Girl Bakes.

Notes:

Double the batch of frosting for larger cakes

I made my own marshmallow fluff. You can too→→livforcake.

"I always get to where I'm going by walking away from where I have been." _Winnie the Pooh

March~

2020 : soft sugar cookies

2019 : pineapple sponge cake with cream and cashew praline

2018 : date almond cake

2017 : jalapeño cheese bread

2016 : Converse shoe cake

2015 : Indian Sloppy Joe sliders

2014 : banana chikoo shake

2013 : flatbread

2012 : chili chicken and noodles

******

"Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3: 12-14

Vanilla cake with rasgulla filling

With the innumerable cake stories told here, and throngs, in cue, waiting to be published, whipping up a cake on impulse, is quite genuinely, a piece of cake for me (yes, I'm having fun, please)).

Furthermore, if you're like me and give in to the fact that every day of life warrants a cause for such treats, you can never really hold back from delivering. In addition, when your eyes and ears are open to diverse methods, modes, and means on how you can achieve this goal, with evenly matched fortitude and fervor, nirvana takes on a whole new meaning.

Cake and rasgulla should definitely be an essential part of fusion food conversation. It's an intriguing combination of two potent forces in dessert culture, one of world renown, the other making its way to it from the Indian subcontinent. The one does not exalt itself over the other. As a young taster explained, "there could not be a more necessary pairing."

Three ingredients is all it takes to create fancy mithai from soured milk, and save you one less grocery commitment.

Insert Tisa's master tip here: make the rasgullas at least a day in advance of cake baking. It solves major stress issues stemming from way too many tasks and no time to do them, despite the fact that these days you have all the time in the world. 

For assembly purposes, any complementing flavor of cake would do. The idea of a fluffy, yellow cake saturated with the juice of the gulla is highly appealing to me. Moreover, subtle, vanilla scented layers responsibly housing gobs of moist confection to enliven its crumb is unbeatably epic. 

Mind you, this is not a rasgulla flavored cake See it as the grandest calling for cake, in gateau- ish frame, with a bevy of paneer meat gutting it's soul.

Subsequently, it takes well to a spritz of syrup and rum and serves substantially tasty as a leftover staple.

Let it speak to you...as one that guts your soul could only and invariably do. 

 Ingredients:

• 3 cups all purpose flour
• ¾ tbsp baking powder
• ½ cup salted butter
• ½ cup canola oil
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup plain yoghurt 
• ¼ cup water
• about 15-20 rasgullas, separated from syrup
• ½ cup rasgulla syrup
• 2 tsp rum
• 1 batch vanilla frosting

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350° F. Butter and flour two 8" round cake pans and line the bottom with parchment paper. Butter and flour parchment.
• Whisk flour and baking powder in a large bowl. 
• In a stand mixer, on medium- high speed,  beat, butter, oil and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Reduce mixer speed, add eggs, one at a time, scraping down the bowl as needed. Beat in vanilla.
• In a large measuring cup, whisk together yoghurt and water until combined.
• Beat the flour mixture into the batter, alternating with the yoghurt mixture, in three batches, beginning and ending with flour.
• Divide the batter between the prepared pans. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until lightly golden on top and toothpick inserted in centers come out clean.
• Allow cakes to cool in pans for 10 minutes, then turn cakes out onto racks to cool completely.
• In the meantime, cut about 7 rasgullas into halves or thirds.
• Stir together syrup and rum. Lightly drizzle the syrup mixture over the tops of both cakes.
• Allow the syrup to fully seep through before spooning on more.
• Frost the top of one cake with buttercream. Place 6-8 halved rasgullas on top of the frosted cake. Top with the second cake.
• Fully frost sides of stacked cake. Decorate as desired. Garnish with remaining rasgullas.

Vanilla buttercream: 
Ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) salted butter, softened
• 3-5 cups confectioner's powdered sugar, sifted (depending on stiffness and consistency)
• 1 tbsp vanilla extract
• 3-4 tbsp heavy cream

Vanilla buttercream:

Directions:

• Place butter in a bowl. Beat on high until softened and pale in color.
• On lowest speed, gradually add your powdered sugar, until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter.
• Increase to medium speed again and add vanilla extract.
• Pour in cream, one tablespoon at a time until frosting reaches desired consistency.

 Notes~
I do not add the cardamom when I make the rasgullas for this purpose, because I don't like its flavor in cake.

There are a variety of cakes that would work in this dessert on dessert scheme. Look here, here, here, here, and here. Or just click on the recipe index tab on my home page and scroll through the "Cakes, Cupcakes, Cake Pops" section.

Roses, using Wilton 2d. The recipe for the the cashew praline( crushed and glass) right here.

2019: Caramel fudge filled cake
2018: Easy butter chicken
2017: Coconut ice cream
2016: Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
2015: Like Hostess chocolate-cream cupcakes
2014: Homemade pastry tarts
2013: Upside down sticky toffee pudding
2012 : Fish pie

******

"Does not wisdom call out? Does not understanding raise her voice? 

At the highest point along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand" Proverbs 8:1-2

Pineapple sponge cake with cream and cashew praline

There's some excitement when I am beginning to share with you hidden treasures and untold secrets of lifelong loves. Today might be deep. Perhaps even scandalous. Do I have your attention, please?

Remember those first stories that gave you peeks of my obsessiveness for baked cups of caramel fudge, and an ever consuming penchant for tarts. Fruit-mimicking mithai, pudding that toffees onto the mouth as well as the heart, have become staple constants throughout life. Just like some other BESTS

For more than a few years, I've known two imminent truths; 1) with my love of recipe writing-forget the wide shadows between- confessing my weaknesses on the WWW for posterity will always be a certainty. 2) the adoration for lovely, sugar bound things would increase exponentially with age and, of course, subsequent waistline- both of which have reached digits that totally freak me out. Add to this, that, if I were were thrown a choice for my last meal on earth,  no doubt, I would take cake. 

Pineapple gateau. It's gorgeous. And, I, to the day, am so very glad, that following one fateful chance encounter multiple decades ago( Ann's bakery, Kottayam, to be exact) this remained one of the absolute loves of my life- don't judge, I have several. 

It is stacked pastry, of cloud-like crumb, tossed with fruit to liven it up and and, ultimately, the catch-all of stellar desertdom. It's not as elaborate and fancy as it displays itself to be. Though, perhaps, after initial bites, you know for a fact, that the combination of components do such an A class job that it should have it's own pedestal.

In constructing your gateau, let's consider the like-ability of wet cake. I, for one, am a wet cake lover. The moist, melt-in-your-mouth feels of slightly drenched crumb is something indescribable, totally get-able and one you crave for, much of your existence.

That being said, splashing cake with liquid has its downfalls. No one wants glue-y, streaked cake. For this reason, moisteners should be sprayed or, lightly brushed on. I do the latter. For the fondant and marzipan coverings, slight dampening need to be mandate to keep any cake from getting grainy and totally dried out. 

Ideal moisteners are almost always simple sugar syrup,  maybe fruit juices and, if you're adventurous, possibly rum or brandy. You could use one or a combination of a few. Note of caution: go light on the alcohol- when eating dessert; a boozed out cake could mean a very boozed out you.

Pillowed up fresh cream takes to the show like the perfect long lost lover. It's in such situations, that a buttercream, Italian meringue, and eehhh, the gelatinous fluff in plastic tub could simply never suffice.

Golden sponge possesses a surprisingly, light interior, because - ahhh- there's not an ounce of butter in it! Health and fitness purists, are you listening?

My biggest testimony would be from The Two at home. With the stingiest appreciators on the planet, this is the most requested dessert in our home. 

Beautiful. Quite simple. Decadent enough to fancy up your life a couple notches forward. SO, then, don't you think it's worth the try?

Ingredients:
cake

• ¾cup plain flour
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• 1 ½ tbsp cornflour
• 4 eggs
• 1 ¼ cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp orange juice

 cashew praline:

• 1 cup sugar
• ¼ cup water
• ¼ cup chopped cashews
• 1 tbsp softened butter

whipping cream:

• 1 ½ cups heavy whipping cream
• 2 tbsp sugar

Directions:
cake:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• In a bowl, sift together flour, baking powder and cornflour.
• In a stand mixer, using whisk attachment, beat eggs on medium, until thick, glossy and voluminous, about 2-3 minutes, on medium.
• Into the egg mixture, beat sugar, vanilla, orange juice.
• With a wooden spoon, very gently, stir the flour mixture into the egg mixture, being careful not to overmix.
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, depending on depth of cake pan.

whipped cream frosting:

• Whip the cream in the bowl of an electric mixer (thoroughly cleaned and dried) fitted with a whisk attachment. 
• Once it starts to thicken, add the sugar, beating the cream until firm, stiff peaks form. 
• Don't overbeat. You may end up with homemade butter

 cashew praline:

• Line a 9 X 13 baking sheet with parchment paper
• On stovetop, over medium heat, place sugar and water in a deep sided saucepan. Melt sugar and cook stirring until the sugar has dissolved.
• Increase heat to medium-high, bring to boil, without stirring and allow sugar mixture to reach a deep golden brown.
• Remove from heat and swiftly mix in the cashews and the butter.
• Spread out evenly onto lined baking sheet. Cool completely until hard.
• Break or crush the now hardened sugar praline into small pieces.

cake assembly:

• Using a pastry brush, brush and moisten cakes with pineapple juice. If cutting into layers, spread frosting between each layer. Top one with pineapple, spread evenly, leaving a half inch off outer rim of cake. Sprinkle some of the crushed praline over this mix. Stack with next layer. Repeat. Cover entire cake with cream.
• Before it sets, sprinkle top with crushed praline, press on to sides.
• If you have leftover cream, pipe rosettes or swirls and decorate. 
• Garnish with pineapple.

notes: 
I chill my whisk and beater bowl in the freezer for 10 minutes before whipping cream. It prevents the mixture from becoming butter.
I made a double batch of whipped cream for 4 layers of cake.

******

What is strength? Often we limit the word strong to the physical or to be visibly bold, outspoken, sometimes, hurtfully so. In truth, strength can define you at your emotional, mental and physical weakest. It could mean facing your deepest fear with trembling knees. Attempting to get up. Every. Single. Morning. In the face of extreme pain, and adversity, with no glimpse of hope or human help. Yet still, the greatest show of strength is on trusting The One who knows us most. It's through that blinding valley walk, when we are at our weakest, God works in us His greatest.
Our frailty becomes ground for a limitless Almighty. Your broken becomes restored, the supernatural is more visible and viable, and your walk becomes straighter and bolder each moment, each step, each day.  You can be strong and courageous, despite where you are. You just have to know whose you are.  

"And He said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, most gladly, will I boast of my infirmities that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 
2 Corinthians 12:8-10