Four Layer Pumpkin Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

I made this cake for Thanksgiving last year. Not only is it a real show stopper, it was much easier to make and assemble than I anticipated and could be made a day or two ahead of time.

Since I work in a library, I have an abundance of cooking magazines at my finger tips every day (as well as several I get at home) which I can peruse during my lunch or dinner breaks. This recipe was from the November edition of Bon Appetit, a magazine that has yet to fail me when trying to make any of it's wonderful recipes. This cake caught my eye while I was looking for Thanksgiving recipes. It's one time of year I usually like to pull out all the stops when it comes to the menu. Everything from using the good china to the table decor to the menu. And dessert is where I really like to show what I'm made of. Although I also made a lamb appetizer that was pretty killer but that's another post.
And I think I did a pretty good job of making my cake look nearly as good as the one in the
magazine.

My Cake (left) Bon Appetit Cake (right)
Four-Layer Pumpkin Cake with Orange-Cream Cheese Frosting
3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp Chinese five-spice powder*
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups (packed) golden brown sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 (15-ounce can) pure pumpkin
1/3 cup whole milk
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 (8-ounce packages) cream cheese, room temperature
1 Tbs finely grated orange peel
1/4 cup orange juice
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
Chopped walnuts or walnut halves, toasted

For cake:
Position rack in bottom third of oven; preheat to 350°F. Spray two 9-inch cake pans with 1 1/2" sides with nonstick spray. Line bottoms with parchment; spray parchment.

Whisk flour and next 4 ingredients in large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in another large bowl until smooth. Beat in brown sugar. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating to blend between additions. Beat in pumpkin. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in 3 additions alternately with milk in 2 additions, beating to blend between additions. Divide batter between pans.

Bake cakes until tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Cool in pans on rack 15 minutes. Run knife around cakes to loosen. Invert cakes onto racks. Remove parchment. Using tart pan bottom as aid, turn cakes over onto racks, top sides up, and cool completely.

DO AHEAD: Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap cakes in plastic and store at room temperature.

For frosting:
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add cream cheese and orange peel; beat until smooth. Add powdered sugar and beat on low speed until smooth.

Trim rounded tops from cakes. Using long serrated knife, cut each cake horizontally in half. Place 1 cake layer, cut side up, on large platter. Spoon 2/3 cup frosting atop cake in dollops; spread to edges. Repeat 2 more times with cake and frosting; top with remaining cake layer, cut side down. Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake (layer will be thin).

DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover with cake dome; chill. Let stand at room temperature 1 hour before serving.

Decorate cake with walnuts and serve.

Servings: 16

Happy Easter & Blood Orange Cake

Don't be alarmed, I know I've been gone for a while but I am going to try to post more this year. I let life and work get me bogged down to the point that I didn't think I had time for this. Turns out, I really missed it. And what better time to start anew than Easter!

A few things to bring some of you up to date. Sophie is all done with her cancer treatments and has a clean bill of health! Work has been crazy. Budget cuts dominate our lives in the library system and for four branches we get the added bonus of going through major renovations. The renovation at my library is nearly complete. We hope to be moved back and re-opened in a few months.

And, of course, my post today also involves food. A trip to Costco a few weeks ago and an impulse buy of a bag of blood oranges. We brought them home, tucked them away in the fridge and forgot about them! Thankfully they were still good so I scoured the internet and my cookbooks for some recipes. I decided on two, Blood Orange Cake and Blood Orange Bars. Jim got the final pick and chose the cake.

I tweaked the recipe a bit and have my revision below. It was fairly easy to make and a taste of the various parts left me optimistic that when assembled they would be great. The cake in the pictures is a mini cake made with left over batter. Using an 8-inch cake pan was too small so I upped it to a 9-inch pan in the recipe below. And since the mini cake was thicker than the bigger one, I cut it into thirds.
*UPDATE*
We had left over syrup and frosting so I bought a pound cake, sliced it, added syrup and frosting and it was fabulous! We liked it better than the cake in the recipe.

Blood Orange Cake (adapted from Cooking Light)
Cake:
Cooking spray
4 large eggs
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour, sifted

Filling:
1 (16-ounce) carton sour cream
2 tablespoons honey
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup sifted powdered sugar
5 cups blood orange sections (about 5 blood oranges)

Syrup:
1 cup blood orange juice (about 4-6 blood oranges)
1/4 cup granulated sugar

Garnish:
Mint sprigs (optional)

Preheat oven to 375°.

To prepare cake, coat an 9-inch round cake pan with cooking spray; line bottom of pan with parchment paper. Coat wax paper with cooking spray.

Combine eggs, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla, and salt in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at high speed 2 minutes. Gradually add 1/2 cup granulated sugar, beating until egg mixture is thick and pale (about 3 minutes). Gently fold flour into egg mixture, 1/4 cup at a time. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

Bake at 375° for 20 minutes or until cake springs back when touched lightly in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.

To prepare filling, Spoon sour cream into a large bowl. Add honey and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla to yogurt, stirring well with a whisk.

Combine cream and powdered sugar in a medium bowl, and beat with a mixer at high speed until soft peaks form. Gently stir one-fourth of the cream mixture into yogurt mixture; gently fold in remaining cream mixture. Cover and chill 15 minutes.

Arrange blood orange sections in a single layer on several layers of paper towels, and let stand 5 minutes. Reserve half of the sections; roughly chop remaining sections. Cover and chill.

To prepare syrup, combine juice and 1/4 cup granulated sugar in a small saucepan; bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat; simmer until reduced to 1/4 cup (about 15 minutes). Remove from heat; cool.

Split cake in half horizontally using a serrated knife; place bottom layer, cut side up, on a plate. Brush with 2 tablespoons syrup. Spread with half of yogurt mixture, leaving a 1/4-inch border. Sprinkle chopped blood orange. Repeat with the top layer. Garnish with remaining orange segments and mint (if using). Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

Serves 12.

Daring Bakers May Challenge - Opera Cake

When I first saw the challenge for this month I thought there's no way I can do this, it's way too complicated. Then I realized that this is what the Daring Bakers is all about, pushing yourself to try something you may not have tried otherwise, to try baking techniques and recipes that you otherwise thought you could not do. So with that in mind I was onboard. The main thing with this cake was that it had to be light in flavor as well as color so using flavors like milk or dark chocolate, coffee, ect were out. The cake itself was almond flavored and we had the option to make the butter cream plain or flavored. I chose to make it orange as it would pair well with the almond in the cake. The mousse topping flavor I chose was almond.

The recipe was quite lengthy but I managed to get it down to 5 pages. I won't post it here due to the length but will be more than happy to e-mail you a copy if you like. You could also check the other Daring Bakers as well to see if anyone posted it. And as a bonus you'll get to see all the other beautiful cakes that were made.

I started the cake the weekend before I intended to serve it. Most of the fillings and glazes could be made ahead and stored in the fridge which was a huge help seeing as this cake was a time consuming project.

Perhaps the part of the recipe that had me the most nervous was making the buttercream. I've heard so many people say they try and try and can never make a buttercream that actually turns out right and tastes good. So I read and re-read this part of the recipe several time to assure I knew what to do. A fellow DB also posted a video on how to make buttercream that was super helpful.

While the water and sugar heated to the proper temperature, I whisked an egg white and a whole egg until it was light and fluffy.
Once the sugar and water reached the proper temperature I slowly added it to the eggs while the mixer was on the slowest speed.
Here is an overhead shot of me adding the sugar mixture. You have to let it run down the sides of the bowl so there is less splattering as it blends into the eggs.Once all the sugar mixture was added I raised the speed on the mixer to medium and beat it for about 5 minutes until the mixture looked satiny and the bowl was cooler to the touch. Then I added chunks of softened butter (1-3/4 cups) a little at a time until it was fully incorporated.Then I turned the mixer on high and beat the butter cream until it was thick and shiny. I also added some orange flavoring at this part of the process. And this is the finished product. At first the butter was the most prominent flavor and I was a little concerned that the orange flavor would be lost but after it mellowed out in the fridge a few days the flavors were much more balanced and the orange was certainly noticed.

I baked the cake itself the night before I planned to serve it. The house smelled so good, toasted almond and butter filled the air. Once the cake was cooled I carefully wrapped it in plastic wrap so it would be ready for assembly the next day.
I had a very full day planned so I got up early and started to get the last part of the cake prepared, the white chocolate mousse topping. One slight mishap with reading the recipe sent Jim to the store at the last minute to buy some more heavy cream but aside from that it all went together very easily. One thing I'd note is that I had almost twice as much buttercream, mousse and glaze than I actually needed. And while most of the other DB's sliced the sides off the cake to reveal the cake and its layers, I left mine as is to help keep in the moisture. I wouldn't be served until late that night and I didn't want it to be dry.

The other part of my day was taken up by a library program. A close friend and collegue, Ted, writes murder mysteries set in libraries. He's written six so far and they are so much fun! We were premiering his latest that night, Mesa Verde Murder. I played Kat L. Russler, a widowed ranch owner and mother to seven sons. The library hosting this program was less than 5 miles from my house so I decided to invite the cast and crew over afterwards to help unwind, have a bite to eat and have some opera cake.Jim did such a great job helping put this all together. He made couscous paella with chicken and chorizo sausage that was very, very tasty (even as leftovers the next day). He also got everything set up while we were still at the library. We had sliced roast beef and rolls, fresh veggies, grapes, cheese and crackers, nuts, and olives. Plus a cooler full of wine, beer and soft drinks.

Once we all had our fill of the food, I brought out the cake. There were lots of ooh's and ah's especially after I sliced it. More nummy noises were heard while we all tried the cake. It was really, really good. I was so happy that it turned out well and that I rose to the challenge and no longer fear making buttercream.

My sister bakes too!

Looks like I wasn't the only one busy in the kitchen this weekend. My sister sent me some pictures to show off her baking skills. This one caught my eye, a pistachio coffee cake. Doesn't it look good?

PISTACHIO NUT SWIRL CAKE
Cake:
1 package (2 layer cake size) yellow cake mix
1 package Pistachio Instant Pudding
4 eggs
1 Cup sour cream (the real stuff, not light)
1/2 Cup oil
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 Cup sugar
1/2 Cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 Cup chopped pistachio
1/2 Cup chopped walnuts

Topping:
Powder sugar (optional)
1/4 cup finely chopped pistachio

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine cake mix, pudding, 4 eggs, sour cream, oil and the almond extract in large mixing bowl. Blend just enough with spoon to get it lightly mixed. Beat at medium speed with electric mixer for 2 minutes. Batter will be very thick. Combine sugars, cinnamon, and nuts in a bowl.

Pour 1/3 of batter into a greased and floured 10" bunt pan; sprinkle with of sugar mixture and top with remaining batter.

Bake in 350 oven for 40 minutes or until cake test come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes before removing from pan. When completely cooled dust with powder sugar & finely chopped pistachios.

Peach Upsidedown Cake - revisited

Way back in the early days of my blog, I made a wonderful peach upsidedown cake. Two years later I find myself lusting over another batch of farm fresh peaches. Several recipes looked interesting but it was the same cake from July 2005 that spoke to me. This time I halved the peaches whereas last time I sliced them. Both ways work well and are equally delicious.

Peach Upside Down Cake
¼ cup butter
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
5 fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and halved
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup white sugar
1 egg
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk

Melt ¼ cup butter or margarine in an 8 inch square pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and nutmeg. Arrange peach halves, cut side down, in pan.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Spread batter over peaches.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned on top. Remove cake from oven, and let stand in pan for 5 minutes; invert onto serving platter. Serve with whipped cream.

Pistachio Cake

Another staff meeting, another wonderful lunch. Last month I posted about the lunches we have at our monthly staff meetings. It's something that we started years ago with soup during the cold winter months and over the years has expanded to every month on the day of our staff meeting.

This month to celebrate Spring, we chose to have salads as our theme. Some were sweet and some were savory and all of them were wonderful! I tried to sneak in a take a picture of the spread before it was completely devoured! Luckily, those who were still in line, stepped aside (but just barely) to let me snap one quick picture. Starting at the bottom of the picture we have taco salad in the red bowl, tuna salad to the left of the taco salad with potato salad just above it followed by hot sauce, chips and cheese sauce (for the taco salad). Just above the chips is Wurst salad with a basket of fresh bread just above it (if you look to the upper left of the cheese sauce there is a tub of fresh Amish butter for the bread). To the left of the bread is a fresh mozzarella a tomato salad. To the left above that is a tossed salad with balsamic dressing and to that right is jello salad and finally at the top of the table on the left is a fruit salad and to the right is a pear-pecan salad. Yes, we eat well at these meetings....very well.

We stopped midway for a quick break which is when I cut the cake. It went quickly. Some folks even went back for seconds. Jim was lucky that I was able to save him a bite.
I'll try to get as many of the recipes for the salads as I can then post them. The Pistachio cake was found in the March Issue of Family Circle. I first saw it while visiting family in Tennessee last month but didn't write it down. Thankfully mom still had it and sent the recipe via e-mail. Here it is:

PISTACHIO CAKE

Cake:
1 box (18.25 ounces) White Cake Mix
1 Package (3.4 ounces) instant Pistachio Pudding Mix
3 Eggs
1 Cup Vegetable Oil
1 can (12 ounces) Lemon/Lime Soda (such as 7 Up)

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat two 9"round cake pans with non stick cooking spray.
Line bottoms with parchment paper and spray again.
In a large bowl, beat cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, vegetable oil and soda on medium-high for 4 minutes. Scrape down sides of bowl after 2 minutes.
Equally divide batter between prepared cake pans. Bake @ 350 for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool layers in pans for 15 minutes on a wire rack. Turn layers out on to rack and cool completely.

Frosting
1 Package (3.4 ounces) Instant Pistachio Pudding mix
1 1/2 cups Milk
1 Container ( 8 ounces) Frozen Whipped Topping thawed
1/2 Cup Pistachio Nuts Chopped for Garnish

In a large bowl, beat pudding mix and milk for 2 minutes on medium-high speed. Fold in whipped topping.

Place 1 cake layer on a serving plate and frost top with 1 cup of frosting. Place remaining layer on top and frost top and sides. Garnish with chopped nuts. Refrigerate for at least one hour before serving. Store in refrigerator. 16 Servings

Tres Leches Cake

I get to kill three birds with one stone or in this case, cake.

Bird #1: Our staff knitting group. Every other Friday after work, a bunch of us get together to knit. Except me, I cross stitch but they let me join in anyway. Part of the get together is dinner. It usually rotates between each of us with one person bringing an entree, someone bringing a salad and of course a dessert. We met yesterday and I offered to bring dessert.

Bird #2: The Virtual Recipe Club - Most Requested Recipe Edition
Alysha from The Savory Notebook will be collecting our most popular recipes, the ones you always get asked to make, the ones that you have to write down because everyone wants to make themselves.

Bird #3: Sugar High Friday.
Chandra from Lick the Spoon is hosting this event for April. The twist to this edition.....Booze. She's lookin' for drunken desserts. And while she asked that we try to stay away from the ever popular rum cake, mine entry is a cake, it has rum in it but it ain't no rum cake. Rum is a player in the recipe but it's not the star of the show.

So what is my amazing bird killing dessert? Tres Leches Cake. A rich, succulent, decadent, outragously good dessert. Translated, tres leches means three milks. These milks are sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk and heavy cream. The milks are mixed together with some rum to add a nice kick to the cake. You slowly pour the milk mixture over the top of the baked cake and let is soak in. Yum. I said is was rich, didn't I?You can see a little bit of the milk mixture pooling around the edge of the platter. It eventually will soak up into the cake.

Some people like to frost the cake with a thin meringue like topping while others pour caramel sauce over slices of this little gem. Some do both. Me, I prefer mine au natural, naked. It's so rich and tastes so good all by itself that I can't imagine adding more decadence to the party. But who am I to argue....eat it anyway you like, just leave me a piece.

Tres Leches Cake
2 cups cake flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 large eggs, separated
2 cups granulated sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup whole milk
1 (12 to 14 ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 1/4 cups heavy cream
1 (12-14 ounce) can evaporated milk
4 tablespoons light rum

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and lightly flour a 9 x 13 baking dish. Sift flour, baking powder, and salt together. Separate the egg yolks and whites. Beat the whites until very foamy and frothy. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream the sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla extract with an electric mixer. Continue mixing and slowly add the milk. Then start adding the flour mixture, a little at a time, until all the flour is incorporated and the batter is smooth. Finally, use a spatula to gently fold in the beaten egg whites until completely mixed.

Pour batter into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean. Allow cake to cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Invert the cake onto a jelly roll pan or a baking tray with a raised edge on it . Use a fork to repeatedly pierce the top of the cake.

Make the milk syrup by whisking together the sweetened condensed milk, evaporated milk, heavy cream and rum in a mixing bowl, until well blended. Pour syrup over the cake a little at a time, until it soaks through. Keep doing this until most of the milk syrup is absorbed. You may have a pool of syrup around the bottom of the cake, that's ok as it will gradually soak in. Cover the cake in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least three hours before frosting.

If you want to make the meringue frosting, here's the recipe:

Frosting
4 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup light corn syrup

Beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar in a large bowl until they form stiff peaks. Set aside. In a separate pan, mix the water, sugar, and corn syrup. Cook over a high heat, stirring constantly until a candy thermometer reads 230°F.

Remove from heat. While beating the egg whites with an electric mixer, immediately pour the hot syrup into the egg whites; continue beating for about five minutes. Let frosting cool in refrigerator. With a wet spatula, spread a thick layer of the frosting on the cake.

And if you REALLY want to be decadent, here's the caramel sauce recipe:

Caramel Sauce
5 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 vanilla bean, split
1 teaspoon baking soda

Place the milk in a large, heavy saucepan over medium-high heat. Bring to a boil and allow skin to form on top. Do not stir. The skin will thicken and puff up. Reduce heat to medium and remove the skin. Increase heat to medium-high and repeat the process 3 times.

Add the sugar and vanilla bean, and stir until the sugar has melted, about 2 minutes. Reduce heat to low and stir in the baking soda. Simmer milk, stirring often, but taking care not to break the film of cooked milk forming, on the inside of the pan. Simmer, skimming the foam (not skin) until reduced by half, about 1 hour.

Reduce the heat to very low and simmer for another 3 and 1/2 hours, stirring and skimming foam occasionally. The mixture will brown as it cooks.

Strain the completely cooked mixture through a sieve into a bowl, cover and refrigerate. Makes about 1 1/2 cups sauce.

Back to my roots

I found a cheap flight to Knoxville so I made a quick trip home to visit my family last weekend. It had been over a year since I was last home and the only family member I hadn't seen since then was my sister. The rest of the family had either been up here to visit or met us in Florida back in May. And I really missed my sister......so off I flew.

Now let me ask you...What family get-together would be complete without food? Not one involving my family. Mom made a huge pan of baked ziti and we all got together the first night. It was delish. No one makes better italian than my German-Irish mom. She actually learned to make her sauce from a neighbor in NY when I was a baby. Never have I gone home without a pot of sauce in the fridge....it's pretty much a staple in my mom's house.

The next night just us kids got together. We ate pizza and watched movies at my brothers new house.

Sunday morning, we had our traditional family breakfast. Even though it's been almost 30 years since my family moved to TN from NY, we still have roots in NY food. Mom made her usual trek to the bagel place and bought bagels, bialy's and kaiser rolls. Then we feasted on fried egg on roll with homemade NY crumb cake afterwards. Mmmm..... I may have lived in the south for most of my life but I still have a few roots from NY.

And speaking of crumb cake, mom sent me home with a big ol' slab. There's one peice left.....and Biscuit Boy just asked me if we had anything sweet in the house...... I lied and said no. I want that last piece of crumb cake for me.....

Peach Upsidedown Cake

My in-laws were up from Chattanooga last week and while here, my mother-in-law went to the Mt. Vernon Farmer's Market and bought some fresh peaches and corn on the cob. We ate a few of the peaches but still had about a half dozen that were ripen fast. Hmmm...What could I do with them? A peach cobbler first came to mind. Last summer I made several with peaches purchased at the Farmer's Market. But that would be too easy, I wanted something different. Aha! How about a Peach Upsidedown Cake? Biscuit Boy loves pineapple upsidedown cake so odds were in my favor that he would also like one made with peaches.

I got out our trusty, well seasoned iron skillet and got busy. I prepped the pan with butter and brown sugar and began slicing up the peaches. That's when I ran into a little snag......I had more peaches than I could fit into the skillet. The solution.....pull out a baking dish and make a second cake. Darn, two cakes. I could think of worse problems to have.

So I whipped up both cakes, popped them in the oven while Biscuit Boy cooked dinner. He fixed some really delicious sesame crusted pork chops. He cut the corn from the cob, cooked it in skillet with some olive oil and garlic. He also fixed some sliced zucchini and mushrooms. Dinner was sooooooo good. And now I'm eyeing one of those cakes with lust in my eyes. I think I'll go have a slice.

Peach Upside Down Cake

¼ cup butter
½ cup packed light brown sugar
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
5 fresh peaches - peeled, pitted and halved
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup white sugar
1 egg
1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk

Melt ¼ cup butter or margarine in an 8 inch square pan. Sprinkle with brown sugar and nutmeg. Arrange peach halves, cut side down, in pan.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg. Stir together flour, baking powder and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Spread batter over peaches.

Bake at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) for 35 to 40 minutes, or until lightly browned on top. Remove cake from oven, and let stand in pan for 5 minutes; invert onto serving platter. Serve with whipped cream.