I know this blog is about Sunday Dinner but you can’t have dinner in my South without dessert. So, for this new blog, we’ll start with the end.
I’m from the deep South, where it seems like we are constantly thinking of cakes to make for our families and for company. I can tell you that over the many years that I have been alive, there have been a lot of cakes on my sideboard.
In the early years of cooking, I had only one cookbook to use and that was my grandmother’s ancient Auburn cookbook. It certainly had the basic cake recipes but time has expanded that repertoire of books and now there are even more lovely cake cookbooks.
As for me, I love a good cake with the hint of Almond, and I especially love cake iced with caramel. I used to make a chocolate cake with caramel icing from the old Auburn cookbook, so below, you will find a new twist on that version.
Every time I think of caramel cake, I think of my dad and our cousin, Sybil Rogers who made an old fashioned, sugar-cooked caramel cake (recipe coming soon). That means NO brown sugar. Sybil always made one caramel cake for the family reunion. As soon as we started to eat dinner, daddy would ask me to get him a slice of Sybil’s cake and put it next to his plate. He loved caramel cake and he knew that would be the first dessert to go.
When I created the caramel icing for the two cake recipes below, that old timey icing from Alabama was on my mind. But, unlike the sugary texture of the pure caramel icing, this one is a little more modern with the addition of cream cheese.
There are three cake books that I love using. My friend, Nancie McDermott’s Southern Cakes, which I use often, Brown Betty Cookbook , and Cook’s tiny little cake book, How to Make an American Layer Cake. I’ve used a recipe from Brown Betty and one from Cook’s to hold that wonderful icing (I guess I should add the proverbial saying, “wonderful, if I do say so myself”) I hope you won’t just enjoy the two recipes that I’ve included, I hope you will love them enough to use them again.
Let’s get right to that gorgeous, delicious, Caramel Cream Cheese Icing.
The first thing you need to do is make some cooked sugar. You’ll need a heavy skillet or saucepan. Add one cup of sugar to the pan set on medium high heat. Stir until the sugar melts completely. It will turn a deep golden brown. Add 1/2 cup heavy cream while the melted sugar is still on the heat, and stir, stir, stir being careful not to burn yourself. It will boil, hiss, and lump, but keep stirring and it will become like fine silk, and very smooth. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool. When you remove it from the heat, if there are any small pieces of hard sugar, just strain it right away. Make sure that it has cooled completely before adding to the other ingredients, so that you won’t melt the butter. When it’s completely cooled, it will be thick and gooey. There is a photo of the caramel cream below. To a stand mixer bowl, with a wire whisk attachment, add 2 stick of room temperature unsalted butter, one room temperature,(8-ounce) package of cream cheese, 1 teaspoon vanilla and the cooled caramel mixture. Beat until fluffy. Add one pound of sifted confectioners sugar and beat the heck out of the icing. When thoroughly mixed, it will be enough icing for a 3 layer cake.
Almond Pound Cake or Alice’s Two-Step
(used with permission)
A luscious recipe, this almond pound cake is perfect to make in layers and ice with my version of Caramel Cream Cheese Icing. In Brown Betty, you will see their own caramel icing for this cake and it is out of this world delicious too.
Non-stick cooking spray with flour
4 cups cake flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon regular salt
4 sticks (2 cups) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 cups superfine sugar
8 large eggs, at room temperature
3/4 cup whole milk
2 teaspoons pure almond extract
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 recipe Caramel Buttercream (you’ll need to buy the book for Brown Betty’s amazing recipe)
Salted pretzel pieces (I didn’t use these, but yum, would be delish on the cake)
1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line three 9-inch round cake pans with parchment paper and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter until light and fluffy and then add the sugar on low speed until smooth, about 3 minutes. Increase the mixer speed to medium and add the eggs, one at a time, beating until blended and scraping the bowl occasionally.
4. In a small bowl, mix the milk, almond extract, and vanilla extract together. Reduce the mixer speed to low and alternately add the flour mixture and the milk mixture to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing just until incorporated.
5. Divide the batter equally among the prepared pans and bake until a wooden pick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. let the cakes cool in the pans for 10 minutes before turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Remove the parchment paper from the cakes.
6. To assemble and frost the cakes, place 1 cake layer, bottom side up, on a plate. Use an offset spatula to spread 1 cup of the buttercream on top. Add the second cake layer, bottom side down, and spread 1 cup of the buttercream on top. Top with the third cake layer, bottom side up. Frost the top and sides of the cake.*((LRW note: the frosting recipe that I used is the one I made and not the one that Brown Betty used on the cake, so follow directions for assembly but divide the frosting between layers, top and sides of cake).
Chocolate Velvet Cake
1 tablespoon solid vegetable shortening
1 1/4 cups (61/4 ounces) bleached all-purpose flour
plus 2 tablespoons for flouring pans
1/2 cup nonalkalinized cocoa
2 teaspoons instant espresso or instant coffee
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still firm
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1. Set oven in middle position. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat bottom and side of two 8-inch by-11/2-inch or 2-inch round cake pans with 1/2 tablespoon shortening each. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon flour into each pan, roll pans in all directions to coat. Invert pans and rap sharply to remove excess flour.
2. Mix cocoa and espresso or coffee in small bowl; add 1 cup boiling water and mix until smooth. Cool to room temperature, then stir in vanilla; set aside.
3. Beat butter in bowl of electric mixer at medium-high speed until smooth, about 30 seconds. Gradually sprinkle in sugar; beat until mixture is fluffy and almost white, 3 to 5 minutes. Add eggs, one at a time, beating 1 full minute after each addition. Stop mixer and scrape down sides of bowl as needed.
4. Whisk remaining flour, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl. With mixer on lowest speed, add one-third of dry ingredients, followed immediately by one-third of cocoa mixture; mix until ingredients are almost incorporated into batter. Repeat process twice more. When batter appears blended, stop mixer and scrape down sides of bowl. Return mixer to low speed; beat until batter looks satiny; about 15 seconds.
5. Divide batter evenly between two prepared cake pans; using rubber spatula, spread batter to pan walls and smooth tops. Arrange pans at least 3 inches from oven walls and 3 inches apart. Bake until firm in center when lightly pressed and cake needle or toothpick comes out clean or with just a crumb or two adhering, 23 to 30 minutes.
6. Cool cakes in pans set on rack for 10 minutes. Loosen from sides of pans with knife, if necessary, and invert onto greased cake racks. Reinvert onto additional greased racks. Let cool completely about an hour. (I don’t do anything but invert onto tea towels or onto wire racks that have parchment on them. Let cool and ice with caramel icing).