Mama’s butter cake

Jennifer from G.I Crockpot and I began a short exchange recently, and  she commented on my blog’s header photograph. So I suggested a recipe swap. I said I would share the recipe for the cakes in the header. She offered to share her mom’s pie recipe. I’m looking forward to trying your mom’s recipe, Jennifer!

This is a very special recipe. My mother-in-law had years of cooking and baking for her family so that when I finally got her recipe, it was very terse–more like a set of reminders to herself. So I’ve filled in the gaps.  For instance, there was no mention of cake pan sizes or how to prepare the pans. I have also added a few tips, especially for folding the batter–that always means to fold by hand–which is a key step to the success of the butter cake. The resulting cakes domed and cracked on top which is typical of butter cakes. If you are going to frost them, trim the domes with a large serrated knife–but don’t throw away the scraps! Eating the leftovers is a true guilty pleasure.

Ingredients :
8   oz.  shortening or butter
1  teaspoon vanilla extract
2  1/4  cups  all purpose flour
5 large eggs [original recipe 6 small eggs]
1  1/2  cup castor or superfine sugar
2   teaspoons baking powder

Preparation :

1. Preheat oven 325˚F. Grease and flour one 9×3 inch round cake pan. Line the bottom of the pan with a parchment or wax paper circle. In the photograph above, I used three 6×3 inch cake pans.
2. Beat butter or shortening and  vanilla in a large mixing bowl, gradually adding sugar and eggs one by one. Cake Baker’s Tip: The texture should be smooth; rub a bit of batter  between your fingers. If you feel grit from the sugar, mix it again until smooth.
3. In another large bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Gently mix flour mixture into butter mixture by folding carefully. Cake Baker’s Tip: To fold batter, use a flat rubber spatula and cut down the center of the batter. Scrape along the bottom of the bowl, bringing the batter towards the side then flip the spatula over. Turn the bowl one quarter turn. Repeat until the flour is blended into the butter mixture. Don’t over mix.
4. Scrape batter into prepared pan. Tap the pan a few times on the counter top to eliminate air bubbles. Bake for 35 minutes. For the smaller pans, I baked them for 25-30 minutes. Cake Baker’s Tip: Test for doneness after the shortest length of time by examining the crack in the top. If it looks wet, it’s not ready, so give it 5 more minutes. If it looks dry, poke it with a toothpick. The toothpick should come out dry.
5. Cool 10 minutes on a wire rack then unmold. To unmold, turn the pan upside down and shake gently. Remove the parchment or waxed paper circle. Turn the cake upright to cool completely before frosting. Frost if desired or simply sprinkle with powdered sugar.

graduation day at fondant and royal icing

Tonight’s class was not only our last time to put the finishing touches on our three-tier cakes, it was also our last chance to learn more about swags, bows, and roses all made of fondant, and “string decorating” with royal icing. For my cake,  I started out with a blue and white rope around the second tier but Chef Tai thought an all-white rope would be prettier. You decide!

Sandwiched between the dummies was a six-inch real cake. We could take the whole creation home but there is really no room in the Teeny Tiny Apartment for it. I decided to leave it and be content with pictures. After we cleaned up the kitchen, we toasted our success with champagne (or sparkling apple cider). Chef Tai handed out our certificates. Here’s our cake gallery.

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I enjoyed the weekly classes at the French Culinary Institute. At least three of the women there were professionals who owned their own bakeries or cafés and were taking the course to learn more about cake decorating. Me, the neophyte, didn’t even own a Kitchenaid stand mixer and didn’t know how to operate one the first day! Cake decorating is like sculpturing. You are faced with the limitations of your medium; you can make neither stone nor cake fly but you can make a representation! However, there are no limits to what you can imagine.

The chefs at the Institute were very generous and helpful, sharing their tips for success as well as their expertise. They came right to your side to consult, whether it is a design issue or the truly tragic, such as why my fondant mixture failed. That’s why store-bought fondant is such a time-saver. The ingredients are not expensive but the equipment investment can be substantial. Should I invest in a stand mixer? Do I really need a $40 extruder? That answer depends on how seriously I want to get into cake decorating.  It was expensive, just under $1000 for 25 hours, but I found out that if I take another course it will be discounted. And I already have the uniform.

week 4 fondant and royal icing

Five hours of standing on my feet. I must be getting used to it. Not!

Today we covered 9 inch and 3 inch dummies with fondant as a prelude to making a three tiered wedding cake. Last week we made the middle tier and covered it with a crumb coating. It has been sitting in the French Culinary Institute’s freezers ever since. Today we learned how to make ropes with a clay extruder–that was fun. And how to make bows and ribbons–not terribly interesting, I thought, too fussy.

This is my cake.  I used the extruder with a three hole disc to make a rope that I twisted slightly. I made the daisies from a marguerite plunger that I got at New York Cake and Bake. I used a little royal icing to make the daisy centers. Simple and easy! Here are some of the cakes the class decorated tonight:

week 3 of fondant and royal icing

It’s the halfway point of the course. The fact that a major snowstorm hit the city yesterday didn’t help dispel that feeling of dread, “what am I doing here?” The assignment: to make a white cake and cover it in a crumb coating. My cake’s texture was dense. No doubt because the egg whites didn’t get foamy enough before I added the sugar. <sigh>

We also made our own royal icing and Italian Meringue Buttercream. Now, those were more successful. The buttercream was a delicate balance between meringue and sugar syrup arriving at the same point ready to be joined together. Sounds like a marriage! In fact, after two pounds of  butter had been added it still looked like the consistency of cream soup. (This stuff isn’t heart healthy, that’s for sure.)

Chef Tai said to just put the buttercream in the bowl in the fridge for a while. But Chef Joseph showed me a really neat trick instead. He put the bowl back on the mixer stand. Instead of raising the bowl, he let the whip just touch an inch beneath the surface. Then he switched on the machine and let it go round until the mixture began to look vaguely like cottage cheese. Then he raised the bowl to immerse the whip and continued whipping until a smooth buttercream emerged. A miraculous save!

We were dismissed an hour early on account of the weather. It was still sleeting. I brought back the royal icing and the buttercream to practice making borders at home. I reviewed the white cake recipe afterwards to see where I went wrong. I noticed that the vanilla was missing and the sugar amounts in the ingredients were different from the procedure. Aw nuts. Chef Tai had said it was Martha Stewart’s White Buttercake recipe so I looked it up online and got the correct measurements. That’s my next recipe post!