Banana cupcakes with chocolate sour cream ganache

Banana cucpakes with Chocolate Sour Cream Ganache. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Just a recipe today, a cupcake that I make from time to time to put in my daughter's lunchboxes. The banana cake on its own is very good, moist and fruity. But add the dark chocolate and it becomes a real treat. Bananas and dark chocolate kind of cry out for each other - the sometimes overwhelming sweetness of the fruit needs the tempering effect of dark chocolate. Don't let the word ganache scare you - it's just a fancy French way of saying unbelievably easy and delicious frosting. Once you make this frosting, you'll never be tempted by the canned stuff ever again.

Banana Cupcakes

2 large ripe bananas, mashed, yielding 1 cup
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 large eggs, at room temperature
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (1 stick + 2 tablespoons)
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt  

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare muffin tins with nonstick spray and/or cupcake liners. In a bowl, stir together bananas, sour cream and vanilla. 

2. In a mixing bowl, with an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until creamy and light-colored. Add eggs and mix for one minute. Scrape down sides of bowl, then mix for one additional minute.

3. In a small bowl, combine dry ingredients. Add one third of dry ingredients to batter, mixing until combined, then add half of the banana sour cream mixture, mixing and scraping again. Add half the remaining dry ingredients, mix and scrape. Add remaining banana sour cream, mix and scrape, and finish with the last of the dry ingredients. 

4. Divide mixture among muffin tins. Bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes. Begin checking at 25 minutes. Cupcakes are done when the centers bounce back when pressed with the tips of your fingers. Remove from oven and cool on wire rack. When cool, frost with sour cream ganache.       

Chocolate Sour Cream Ganache

4 (3 oz) bars semi-sweet chocolate, broken up
1 2/3 cups sour cream, low-fat is fine

1. Place chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and zap at 50 percent power for 30 seconds. Stir and repeat for 30 second intervals until completely melted. When thoroughly melted, gradually whisk in sour cream. Frost cupcakes and store leftovers in fridge.


Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

Meyer lemon tea loaf recipe

Meyer lemon tea loaf. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

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 My love of lemon is well-documented in this blog - lemon pudding, lemon scones, lemon ice cream, and lemon cream cheese pound cake are just a few of my favorites. That fresh citrus scent fills my kitchen and makes my heart happy. 


And just when I thought a lemon was a lemon was a lemon, Meyer lemons appeared (finally!) in my local markets. Meyers are a cross between true lemons and a Mandarin orange - the skin is smoother and the taste is less acidic than the standard Eureka or Lisbon lemons. The can be substituted for regular lemons in recipes to add a subtle orange flavor. Try them.

Meyer Lemon Tea Loaf

Yield: 2 loaves

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened


2 cups sugar

4 eggs

Zest of 2 Meyer lemons

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

For glaze: ½ cup sugar dissolved in juice of 2 lemons

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans using baking spray or greasing with butter.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated. Add lemon rind. Sift together dry ingredients, then add alternately to the batter with milk. Pour batter into prepared baking pans.

3. Place pans in 350 oven and bake for 45 minutes. Bake until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks.

4. While cake is cooling, dissolve sugar in the juice of two lemons. Slowly pour glaze over cakes and let cool.



 

Apple blondie, aka German apple cake

German apple cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Throughout November, I'm highlighting recipes with apples - probably my favorite fruit to bake with, (ok, I love lemon, too, so it's a toss-up between lemons and apples). The fresh apples of autumn are a baker's best friend. Here's a recipe for a German Apple Cake from Atlanta blogger Lisa Kuebler. It's rather like an apple-stuffed blondie and it's delicious.

German Apple Cake, or Apple Blondie

2 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
4 cups apples, peeled, cored, and diced (a mix of Granny Smith and Gala works well)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease and flour a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.

2. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs and oil until creamy.  Add the sugar and vanilla and beat well.

3. Combine flour, cinnamon, salt, and baking soda in a bowl.  Slowly add this mixture to the egg mixture and mix until combined.  The batter will be very thick (like a dough).  Fold in the apples by hand.  The dough will be thick, but will turn into a lovely, dense, sweet cake. Bake at 350 for about 45 minutes. Serve warm.

Check out the rest of my apple stories and recipes, here on A Cook and Her Books! Begin with my pictures of beautiful Blue Ridge in the heart of Georgia apple country.

More apple recipes:

Apple crisp
French thin-crust apple tart
Classic apple dumplings
Short-cut apple dumplings
Applesauce
Apple blondie

Three more recipes on A Cook and Her Books that use apples:

• My prize-winning Morning Glory Muffins
• Chicken soup with Indian spices: Mulligatawny
• Perfect for lunchboxes: Kid-friendly sushi

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Halloween Cakes Past

Glass pumpkins from Atlanta Botanical Garden. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



I've made a few Halloween cakes in years past, mostly for Fall Festival cakewalks and class parties, and I managed to find a few pictures of some of my favorites. These are a few years old and the quality isn't great, but they do give a good idea of how I made the cakes.

The one I wish I had a picture of, but didn't think to do that (pre-blogging days) was a chocolate Bundt cake with chocolate glaze topped with a chocolate spiderweb. It was elegant and spooky and had a come-hither chocolate-y-ness about it. I may need to remake that one and take a picture of it. The cake was baked using my go-to chocolate pound cake recipe.

Now here's a cake, or cakes that I'm pretty sure I will never make again. Three recipes of pound cake baked in all sizes of Bundt pans, cemented together with buttercream and decorated with orange buttercream and green fondant. It was a family project and it was incredible - the largest of these cakes was unbelievably heavy.

Pumpkin pound cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Pumpkin cakes. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

And finally, the ever-popular graveyard cake made with Pepperidge Farm Milano "tombstones" and Peeps ghosts. Here's my very homemade-looking cake:

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I was reminded of this very homemade cake recently when I received this picture from the fne folks at Driscoll's berries - a fruit-enhanced graveyard cake. The ghosts are strawberries dipped in white chocolate, how clever is that? To learn how to make this ghoulishly good cake, check out this story. http://www.examiner.com/american-food-in-atlanta/spooky-graveyard-cake-for-halloween-parties

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books.

Pound Cake Dessert Sandwiches



Pound Cake Dessert Sandwich with Strawberries by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

We all know about sandwiches for breakfast, lunch and supper, now meet a dessert sandwich - juicy strawberries dripping over whole milk ricotta, between two slices of buttery pound cake. This inspired and summery dessert comes from Susan Russo's delightful new cookbook, "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches: Recipes, History and Trivia for Everything Between Two Slices of Bread." (Quirk, 2011).


The recipe is a terrific use for stale or leftover pound cake. It reminds me a little bit of the treat my husband's grandmother would fry up for him - mayonnaise-coated pound cake slices. Macerate some sliced strawberries in orange juice and zest, griddle the pound cake slices, spread with rich ricotta, and assemble all for a tasty dessert.

Begin with a loaf of my home-baked cream cheese pound cake, the only pound cake recipe you will ever need. Gather some berries and ricotta and you're in business.

Pound Cake Sandwich: The Ultimate Dessert Sandwich
from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches" by Susan Russo (Quirk, 2011)

Macerated Strawberries

2 to 2 1/2 cups fresh ripe strawberries, thinly sliced *see note
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
3 tablespoons orange juice
Zest of 1 small orange
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

About 2 tablespoons butter, divided
1 pound cake, sliced thin
1 (8-ounce) container whole-milk ricotta or mascarpone

1. A few hours beforehand, prepare strawberries: In a glass bowl, combine all ingredients for macerated strawberries. Toss well. Let rest at room temperature at least two hours.

2. Butter both sides of cake slices. Place on a hot buttered griddle and cook 2 minutes per side, or until golden. Remove from heat. For each sandwich, spread 2 tablespoons ricotta on one slice of grilled cake, top with a spoonful of berries, and close sandwich. Serve warm. Makes 4 to six, depending on the thickness of the cake.

* Frozen strawberries can be substituted for fresh; just reduce the amount of orange juice since frozen berries will release more liquid.

Check out more sandwich recipes from "The Encyclopedia of Sandwiches":

• Chicken salad from the Loveless Cafe
• The Jucy Lucy cheese-stuffed burger.

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake

Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Thursday was the last day of preschool for my baby girl. And unless I’m a grandmother before my time, it was my last day as a preschool mom for a very long while. These September babies get nearly an extra year before they start kindergarten, a spare year that from the moment I knew my due date, I dreaded a little (or maybe a lot). An additional year of drop-offs at 9 a.m. and pickups at noon, snack schedules, and tution. But now at the end of this extra year, I know I wouldn’t have changed it for the world, even if I could.

My baby girl has grown. Her blond locks are darkening, and the wispy baby curls are gone. Her face is slimming down, the little roll of fat just above her knees is long gone because she doesn’t just walk, she runs and skips. Really why walk when you can run? And why run when you can skip?

In this year, she’s grown four inches in height and leaps and bounds in behavior. In the classroom, she's everyone's friend and if she had to pick a career for her, her teacher would choose "an advocate for world peace.”



The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle/Penguin Group



The final class party for our preschool days was a “Very Hungry Caterpillar” theme based on the childhood classic by Eric Carle. Words cannot describe how much I love and adore Eric Carle’s books. I want to live in a Carle-colored world, with oranges and reds and blues that subtly change to yellows, purples and greens. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, to those unfamiliar with the story, concerns a caterpillar on an eating binge – fruit and vegetables, then cake and pie. All this food creates a tummyache, so he eats a green leaf and feels much better. Then he realizes he’s a very fat caterpillar. He spins a cocoon where he stays for two weeks, then nibbles a hole in the chrysalis and he becomes a beautiful butterfly.

Fat caterpillar by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

As the children recited the story with pictures, I realized the metamorphosis that has taken place, in my child’s heart and mind. She’s no longer a baby, she’s now ready for kindergarten. She can count, she can read, name all her shapes. She knows that Eric Carle is an author and an illustrator. She's a beautiful butterfly.

Beautiful butterfly by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I expected to be a little teary at the final party, and it was poignant, but I’ve sailed this cruise ship before. When one schoolhouse door closes, two months later, another opens and I have lots of end-of-school year parties ahead of me. And let's not forget Halloween, Christmas, Valentine's, Easter, and Cat in the Hat Day. Wonder what cakes I'll make for those parties?




Very Hungry Caterpillar Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Funny thing about having a food blog – you occasionally get asked to bake and decorate cakes. I’m not a Wilton Warrior by any stretch of anyone’s imagination, but I can Google and I know where to buy fondant, so this is the cake we created. And I do mean we - it was a family project. Laura helped with the caterpillar face and Lindsey helped frost the cupcakes.

Very Hungry Caterpillar cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Some particulars: The cake was based on this one here, from CocoaCakeCupcakes. I especially liked that this artist used varying shades of green in the cupcake frosting, just like Eric Carle’s artwork. I molded the caterpillar head from Rice Krispie treats shaped in a small springform pan and covered it with red Wilton fondant. I used my go-to cupcake recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Easy Yellow Cupcakes, but to be honest, I’m ready for a new recipe, this one tends to be a little dry and coarse in texture. I used the Rich Vanilla Frosting from the same cookbook, and it was a winner, but the cakes do need to be refrigerated if not serving right away. This buttery frosting does not hold up well in the heat.

The endpapers of Eric Carle are always a treat – I took inspiration from the endpapers and sponge painted some freezer paper (butcher paper would work, too) to make a colorful background for the cake.

Caterpillar booties on toothpicks by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The little caterpillar feet were so cute! I molded fondant onto toothpicks and inserted them in individual cupcakes. The antennae were shaped onto toothpicks and inserted in the Rice Krispies cake. I considered attempting the swirled frosting tops, but 3 considerations kept me from that: I would need more frosting, already hyped-up 5 year olds would be eating this, and it was 10 o’clock at night - I needed my rest for such a big day!

Be safe this Memorial Day weekend and have fun!

Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2011, with the exception of the Very Hungry Caterpillar artwork from Penguin Group. As I wrote this article, I found some excellent Eric Carle resources. Penguin Group's Eric Carle page and Eric Carle's website with videos showing how he creates the caterpillar collages.

Time for tea, and lemon



Lemon Tea Loaves by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


I have a long-standing love for lemon, as witnessed by my recipes for Lemon Pound Cake and food-of-the-gods Lemon Pudding. When I was a little girl in pigtails, scooter skirts and Keds, I loved Sunshine lemon cookies, the kind with the powdered sugar that would leave white chalky sugar dust at the corners of my mouth. I would pull out my childhood tea set, a collection of mismatched "Made in Nippon" teacups and saucers, fill with tea and serve the cookies alongside.

Now, I'm all grown-up, completely over the pigtails and scooter skirts, (but still loving my Keds). To get my lemon fix, I sometimes bake this Lemon Tea Loaf, a rich, citrus-scented cake with a tart lemony glaze. If it's been awhile since you've used your wedding china, pull out a few cups and saucers, make a pot of Earl Grey and slice up this lovely cake. Invite a neighbor over to share the tea, then send them home with the second loaf. Or, be very strong and wrap both loaves up to give as gifts - a hostess gift on Easter or Mother's Day, or perhaps the upcoming end-of-school. Your lemon-loaving friends will be grateful.


Lemon Tea Loaf

Yield: 2 loaves

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened


2 cups sugar

4 eggs

Zest of 2 lemons

3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

For glaze: ½ cup sugar dissolved in juice of 2 lemons

1. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two loaf pans using baking spray or greasing with butter.

2. In a mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, mixing until fully incorporated. Add lemon rind. Sift together dry ingredients, then add alternately to the batter with milk. Pour batter into prepared baking pans.

3. Place pans in 350 oven and bake for 45 minutes. Bake until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool on wire racks.

4. While cake is cooling, dissolve sugar in the juice of two lemons. Slowly pour glaze over cakes and let cool.

Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

A version of this story also appears on Examiner.com.

Don't Bother Me, I'm on Vacation: April Fools!



Ice Cream Sand Castle by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Oh, girls, guess where we’re going for spring break? The sandy beaches of Florida, where you can dip your toesies in the warm Gulf waters and frolic in the sand. You can build sand castles all day long, instead of staying at home in Georgia, watching the cherry blossoms fall.

April Fools!

Instead of digging our feet into the sand, we'll dig our spoons into a sand castle cake made of ice cream. This cake is fairly simple to make, just molded ice cream coated with sugar. The time-consuming part is two stages in the freezer. If you're making this for a party, be sure to start a day or two ahead of serving time.

Sand Castle Ice Cream Cake

1 gallon light-colored ice cream, such as vanilla

3 cups natural cane sugar (you could also use sifted light brown sugar)

Clean sand pail and castle molds

1. Soften ice cream either at room temperature for about 15 minutes or in the microwave for 30 seconds. Scoop or spoon soft ice cream into sand castle mold. Cover with plastic wrap and freeze until solid, about 3 hours, or overnight.

2. Remove molds from freezer. Fill sink with several inches of hot-as-you-can-stand-it water. Dip mold into water until it releases the ice cream.

3. This is the part where you do as I say rather than as I did: Coat the molded ice cream with sugar, cover with plastic wrap and return to the freezer until ready to serve.

4. At serving time, take ice cream out of the freezer, unwrap and turn out onto sugar bed. Arrange molds attractively. Cover sand castles with additional sugar, if needed, then decorate with small paper flags and candy.

The recipe is adapted from ideas in "The Family Baker" by Susan Purdy and Family Fun magazine. By the way, I have a lot of respect for food stylists - this was a bear to photograph - it looked more like a sand castle before I took the picture on a hot afternoon! Decidedly unprofessional, but certainly delicious according to the kid-tasters!

Text and images copyright Lucy Mercer, 2010.

Ah, Grasshopper...Cake (not pie)

Grasshopper Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Spring is all about green - the pine trees get lost in the woods among the leafed-out hardwoods. The daffodils send their chlorophyll-plumped stems to the sky, the grass awakens and replaces its brown blanket with a verdant one. The markets start to show off green as well - forget the coarse, bitter greens of winter, welcome the tender spinach and lettuces of spring. Woody herbs fade and the tender ones appear, in the market and the garden.

I guess you could say I have a garden; it's really just a glorified flower bed, home to daffodils, crocus, lamb's ear, a few ornamental grasses and a selection of herbs. The rosemary, lavender and oregano are steady friends, surviving the winters and bouncing back every summer. I plant basil when the ground warms; it has no chance of surviving the winter here. The mint, however, like cockroaches and Keith Richards, could survive a nuclear holocaust and still thrive. I used to keep mint in pots, a sane proposition to contain its trailer trash ways. Last year, in a temporary lapse of judgment, I let my daughter transfer the mint to the flower bed. The plant promptly became viral, spreading faster than an ultra-conservative anti-presidential diatribe on Facebook. In the cool days of fall, I pulled up runners four feet long, snaking through the bulbs and shrubs in the bed. Even the roots smelled like Doublemint gum.

The freshness inherent in mint makes it a cool choice for a spring dessert. Enter the Grasshopper pie, a dessert based on a cocktail consisting of crème de cacao and crème de menthe. As tempting as that boozy concoction sounds, I remade it to serve children. In church cookbooks, (and maybe this is a Southern thing, but I suspect it’s more of a rural America thing) you’ll find recipes created without alcohol with the qualifier “Baptist.“ As in “Baptist Harvey Wallbanger Cake” and “Baptist Grasshopper Pie.“ Well, this is a Baptist Grasshopper Cake. Dark chocolate layers, a fluffy minty filling, covered with a glossy chocolate ganache glaze. It’s like an Andes Candies cake, cool and refreshing, with a brilliant  green ribbon through the middle.

Grasshopper Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I put this cake together using recipes from the "King Arthur Flour’s Baker’s Companion," a reliable cookbook for family baking. Like Shirley Corriher’s "Bakewise" and Rose Levy Beranbaum’s "Cake Bible," it's the kind of cookbook that helps aspiring bakers turn ideas into reasonably attractive culinary creations. This cake is similar to a devil’s food cake, with layers baked in an 8 ½-inch pan. The filling is enhanced with marshmallow crème and I added 1 tablespoon peppermint extract and a sizable dab of green food paste. I doubled the recommended recipe for the simple glossy dark chocolate glaze - using 1 cup cream simmered with four tablespoons corn syrup, a smidge of salt. Stir in 12 ounces bittersweet chocolate and whisk until smooth. Let cool before pouring on cake.

Chocolate Mint Leaves by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

My unique spin on this dessert is the chocolate mint leaves. It’s been a few years (ok, a decade, or maybe two), since I’ve turned these out, but they are fun to make with children and really dress up a cake. Take fresh, clean mint leaves and press them between two layers of paper towels and weight with a book. You want flat, unfurled leaves. You may have good results with a paint brush alone (make sure it’s impeccably clean), but my best results were with a combination of a baby feeding spoon and a stiff child’s paintbrush (the kind that comes with children's craft kits). Melt two ounces of white chocolate or semi-sweet chocolate in microwave and stir until smooth. Place parchment paper on baking sheet. Take a flattened leaf, and working on the underside of the leaf, place a teaspoon of chocolate on the leaf. Use the brush to spread the chocolate to the edges of the leaf. Do this fairly thickly and evenly. Place finished leaves on tray and place in refrigerator cool. When set, carefully peel off the leaf, beginning at stem end. Arrange finished leaves on cake or individual plates.

Baptist Grasshopper Cake (Chocolate Mint Cake )



1 ¾ cups sugar

2 ¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

¾ cups Dutch-process cocoa

¾ cup buttermilk (preferably whole-fat buttermilk)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

½ cup canola oil

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup hot water

1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.

2. In a large bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, cornstarch, cocoa, buttermilk, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed for 2 minutes. Stir in the hot water (the batter will be thin) and pour batter into pans.

3. Bake the cakes for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes in the pans, then turn them out to cool on a wire rack.

Grasshopper Mint Filling

¼ cup vegetable shortening

¼ cup (½ stick) unsalted butter

Pinch of salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon peppermint extract

1 cup powdered sugar

¼ cup corn syrup

1 cup marshmallow creme

Green food paste

1. Beat together the shortening, butter, salt, vanilla extract, peppermint extract, and powdered sugar, until fluffy.

2. Gradually beat in the corn syrup, until well blended. Add the marshmallow creme and beat until fluffy. Add the green food paste a dab at a time until the frosting reaches the desired level of greenness.

Dark Chocolate Glaze


1 cup heavy cream

4 tablespoons light corn syrup

Pinch of salt

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1. Place the cream, corn syrup and salt in a small saucepan and warm over low heat. Add chocolate and stir. Continue heating until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is smooth.

2. Cool, stirring occasionally, for 10 to 15 minutes, so that the glaze thickens slightly, but is still pourable.

To assemble cake: spread mint filling between layers and cover cake with chocolate glaze. Decorate cake with mint chocolate leaves.

Text & images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Luscious Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake (for National Pound Cake Day)

Lemon cream cheese pound cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I'm not sure how or why there is a National Pound Cake Day, but here it is the 4th day of March, in the holiday lull between St. Valentine's and St. Patrick's Day and I guess somebody needed an excuse to bake. Pound cake is as good an excuse as any, I suppose.

The classic pound cake requires a pound of each ingredient - butter to sugar to flour to eggs. Without leavening, this makes for a large, dense cake. Modern cakes tend to fudge on the ratio. My go-to recipe has a ratio of approximately 1.25 pounds fat (combined cream cheese and butter) : .75 pound sugar : .75 pound flour : .6 pound eggs.

Looking for a new flavor, I dug out a cookbook that has hugged my pantry shelf for at least 15 years - "The Pound Cake Cookbook" by Bibb Jordan (Longstreet Press, 1994). It's a darling little book, cover price $8.95, with nearly 40 recipes from Chocolate Cherry Pound Cake to Savory Cheese Pound Cake. My eyes locked on "Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake" - I'm a sucker for anything with lemon - lemon cookies, lemon curd, lemon meringue pie, lemon bars.

This recipe is surprising, first with the self-rising flour. Pound cakes are traditionally leavened only with eggs, which can make for a leaden leaven. I personally like a dense texture, but this lighter cake is a winner, too. Because of the leavening, it bakes faster, in under an hour, and has a lighter, spongier texture. It’s perfect for a spring dessert. With Easter and Mother’s Day falling within two weeks of each other, this would make an excellent cake for the holiday table. The cake is pretty with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar, but I like the puckery tart sweetness of the lemon glaze.

Lemons by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Lemon Cream Cheese Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze

Adapted from The Pound Cake Cookbook by Bibb Jordan (Longstreet Press, 1994)



3 medium lemons, zested and juiced

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 ounces 1/3-less-fat (Neufchatel) cream cheese, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

6 large eggs, at room temperature

2 cups self-rising flour

1 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Prepare a tube or Bundt pan with baking spray or butter and flour.

2. In large mixing bowl, using an electric mixer, cream together the butter and cream cheese. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs two at a time, beating well after each addition.

3. Add flour, lemon zest, lemon extract and two tablespoons of lemon juice (reserve remainder of juice for lemon glaze), beating until flour is incorporated and batter is smooth and free of lumps.

4. Pour into prepared pan. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes at 325. Cake is done when tester comes out clean. Let cool on wire rack. While cake is cooling, prepare the Lemon Glaze.

Lemon Glaze

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 to 1 ½ cups confectioner’s sugar

1. In a medium bowl, combine lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar. Whisk until combined and lump-free. If the glaze is lumpy, whisk vigorously, then let sit for 10 minutes or so, the lumps will be absorbed.

2. Glaze lemon pound cake while still warm.

My little kitchen helper wanted to decorate the cake, and she just happened to have a box of Valentine hearts....

Lemon Pound Cake with Valentines by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The artist and her creation. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Happy National Pound Cake Day! Don't forget to leave cake for the elves!

 

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Bake a chocolate pound cake for the ones you love

Chocolate pound cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

A homemade cake is a nice thing to have around the house during a long weekend, or perhaps you want to bake a gift for a friend. This chocolate pound cake fills the bill. It's not a death-by-chocolate type cake, just a pleasing cocoa taste and tender texture. With a bit of chocolate glaze, it  makes a kid-pleasing birthday cake.

Chocolate Pound Cake

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup cocoa

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Grease a Bundt or tube pan with nonstick spray. In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening and sugar. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. 

2. In a separate bowl, stir together dry ingredients. Add to butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients. Add vanilla.

3. Pour batter into a Bundt or tube pan and place in a 325 degree oven. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes. Cake is done when toothpick inserted in center is clean. Remove cake from oven and let cool on wire rack.

Look for more ideas for gifts from the kitchen like Orange Pecan Coconut Balls , Roasted Almonds and my never-the-same-way-twice Ranch Snack Mix on A Cook and Her Books. Looking for cookies? Try Scottish Shortbread and Macadamia Tassies.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

Bake a pound cake for friends, family & teachers

Cream cheese pound cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 True confession: I was the kind of kid who went off to college and baked. That's right, the only graduate of the University of Georgia who spent her Friday and Saturday nights creaming butter and sugar together and preheating the oven. I'm still not too sure why I didn't channel this enthusiasm for the never-ending possibilities of the butter-sugar-flour matrix into a food-related career, but the truth is, I spent my extra hours at college baking cakes. I tried all manner of pound cakes and baked them in loaves so that I could distribute them to friends and co-workers. I tried lemon-glazed pound cakes, sour cream pound cakes, and eventually found this recipe for a cream cheese pound cake that has been my best baking friend for two decades. It makes a lovely Bundt cake, but really shines as a loaf cake, with the typical San Andreas Fault line running through the middle. The crust is crispy and shattery, the interior is buttery and tender. 

This recipe will yield two loaves or one Bundt cake. I've made four batches of this cake in the past week, to distribute to teachers, friends and family at Christmas.

Cream Cheese Pound Cake

3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, softened

3 cups granulated sugar

6 eggs

1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese (neufchatel acceptable), room temperature and divided into three equal pieces

pinch salt

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 325. Use baking spray to coat inside of Bundt pan or tube pan or 2 loaf pans.

2. In mixing bowl, cream together butter and sugar for several minutes. When fully incorporated and no longer grainy, add eggs and cream cheese alternately. This means two eggs, fully mixed in, piece of cream cheese, fully mixed in, followed by eggs and cream cheese two more times. When batter is creamy and smooth, add, on low speed, flour and pinch salt. Stir in vanilla extract.

3. Pour batter into prepared pans and smooth the top with a spatula. Cake bakes in 325 degree oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.The cake is ready when a narrow bamboo skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cake cool on rack for at least an hour before giving in to the luscious vanilla and butter smell and slicing generous portions for your starving family.

Look for more ideas for gifts from the kitchen like orange pecan coconut balls , roasted almonds and my never-the-same-way-twice snack mix on A Cook and Her Books. Looking for Christmas cookies? Try Scottish Shortbread and Macadamia Tassies.

Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

When life gives you vegetables...make soup!

Last week, I whined about an overabundance of vegetables in my refrigerator, hoping for a Salon Kitchen Challenge on the subject of arugula, or turnips or cauliflower. That was not to be, we were given the subject of Halloween candy, which turned out pretty well for me, as I turned out Poached Pears with Chocolate Sauce (using leftover Hershey's miniatures). Still, I needed to use up the vegetables, and turned to the thrifty cook's go-to recipe, soup.

I made ribollita, a Tuscan soup literally meaning "reboiled." It's a mixture of vegetables, broth and leftover bread. Hey, I had that, too. The result is a hearty soup in a tremendous quantity.



Ribollita by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books



Ribollita

 I had a lot of greens on hand, and added a chiffonade of arugula at the end. This is optional, but a colorful and tasty addition.

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 Asian eggplants, peeled and sliced on the bias
2 medium onions, peeled and diced
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1/2 head Napa cabbage, shredded
2 (14.5 oz.) cans diced tomatoes
1 cup fresh or frozen butter beans
4 cups vegetable or low-salt chicken broth, homemade if available
Salt and pepper to taste
A handful of basil, chiffonade, optional
Greens such as arugula, chiffonade, optional
Stale, good-quality rustic bread

1. In a soup pot or a Dutch oven over medium heat, stir in olive oil and place eggplant slices in pan. Cook them as you would meat, letting them brown on both sides. Stir in onions, letting them soften, followed by carrots and celery. Continue to cook until all the vegetables are brownish and soft, adding a bit of water if needed.

2. Stir in tomatoes, butter beans and broth. Add cabbage. Season to taste and let simmer, covered, for about 30 minutes. If adding basil or greens, stir them into pot just before serving. Place slice of stale bread in bottom of soup bowl, ladle soup over all. Serve.

One of my favorite writers on the subject of food, or just about anything, is Calvin Trillin. In a piece in Gourmet magazine a few years ago, Trillin wrote that ribollita is Italian for "sticks to your ribs." I must agree, but there's always room for dessert, especially this dense apple cake, kind of a blondie with sweet apples baked inside. It's from Lisa Kuebler's blog and is fantastic.




Apple Cake by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books


Text and images copyright 2011, Lucy Mercer.

 



Blue ribbon dreams

For the past few years, my family has made an annual trip the last weekend in September to the North Georgia State Fair in Marietta. My girls love the rides, the smoked turkey legs, roasted ears of corn, and cotton candy. Each year, we walk through the exhibit halls and admire the livestock, and the late summer produce and flowers. There's also artwork, and quilts and Christmas crafts. One thing that I've always wanted to see is the baked goods - I've heard stories of blue ribbon-winning pies and cakes, but by the time I've gotten to the fair, the winners are gone.

I figured out the scheduling this year - the baked goods are judged before the fair, ribbons attached to pictures of the foods, and the food either picked up by the cook or donated to a local food ministry. I understand the rules this year because for the first time, I entered three items in competition. Sure there was cash for the winners, but I was in it for the ribbon.

About a month ago, I checked out the fair's website and the categories of baked goods - a dozen categories from bar cookies and biscuits to Bundt cakes and pound cakes and fried pies. At first, I intended to enter a half-dozen categories, but the pressure to bake everything over two days and then have it sit for overnight before judging, led me to settle on three products:

Chocolate Sour Cream Pound Cake

Glazed Lemon Thin Cookies

Morning Glory Muffins

We visited the fair Friday night and my daughter and I raced to the exhibit hall to see if we'd won - she entered a friendship bracelet display in the Youth Jewelry division. Laura came running up to me with the news - a red ribbon for second place and a premium of $3!

I looked through the photographs of the winning food entries and found a picture of muffins with a blue ribbon! That's a $5 premium and a coveted blue ribbon!

I may sleep with the ribbon under my pillow, to dream dreams of the sweet treats I can make for next year's fair. Once blue ribbon fever gets a hold of you, it won't ever let go.

If you're not familiar with Morning Glory Muffins, they're only the best muffin ever created. They are loaded with chopped apple, dried cranberries, raisins, pineapple, shredded carrot and coconut, all in a cinnamon-scented batter. They are moist and tasty and totally unlike the cake-y dessert-type muffins that you see in coffee shops.

Blue Ribbon Morning Glory Muffins

1 cup packed Craisins (sweetened, dried cranberries)

1 cup crushed fresh or canned pineapple, drained

1 Fuji or Gala apple, peeled, cored, chopped

1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut

4 large carrots, peeled and grated to yield 2 cups

3 large eggs, at room temp

1 cup canola oil

1 1/4 cups sugar

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

2 tsp. ground cinnamon

Demerara or sparkling sugar for topping

1. Preheat oven to 350 and coat muffin tins with baking spray or use paper liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine all the fruits, coconut and carrots. In another large bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, sugar and vanilla. Place the sifter over this bowl, measure into it the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, then all at once sift these ingredients directly onto the wet mixture. Stir everything together until just blended; do not overbeat. Stir in the fruit mixture.

3. Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling almost to the top. Sprinkle the topping sugar on each muffin. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, until the muffins rise, are crusty brown on top, and the top of the muffin springs back when touched. Remove the muffins from the oven and let cool in the pan for five minutes or so, then remove to a wire rack. Try to keep your mitts off the muffins for at least another 10 minutes - hot fruit can burn your mouth (voice of experience). Totally optional, yet heavenly: a dab of softened cream cheese on a warm muffin half.

Text & images copyright 2010, Lucy Mercer.

Birthday Cake




Chocolate Pound Cake decorated by the Birthday Girl. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 

Birthday girl by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

We sing this blessing a lot in our house, and it's especially appropriate here when I've made a chocolate cake for Little Bit's Birthday.

"God is good, God is great.

God created chocolate cake.

He's a righteous dude and He gives great food.

Rub a dub dub three men in a tub.

We thank you, Lord for this great grub.

Amen amen amen amen.

Fresh....."

Here's the recipe, Chocolate Pound Cake. I made another one this week that went to the North Georgia State Fair to be judged in the pound cake recipe. Wish me luck!

An Old-Fashioned Cake

This Thanksgiving, the nonagenarians will outnumber the children at the feast. My mother-in-law celebrated her 90th birthday two years ago, and she has two older brothers. Jerry is 97 and Leroy just celebrated his 96th birthday. The Howards come from hardy South Georgia stock and to see them is to understand what the experts say about body type determining life span. They are long and lean, six feet in their prime, slightly stooped these days, the better to lean closer to ask what it is you’ve just said. But just as hale and hearty as you’d expect. Moderation comes up frequently with them. None of them drank much, if ever, tobacco certainly not. They like green beans cooked in bacon fat, homemade pimento cheese, and coffee with the meal.

So, what do I do when my beloved uncle-by-marriage Jerry asks for a caramel cake for Thanksgiving. How can I say no to to a nonagenarian? I’ve never in my life made a caramel cake. And to be honest, I think it’s something you have to be raised on. Tooth-achingly sweet frosting, best taken with a cup of strong, black coffee.

In the realm of scratch cake baking, it couldn’t be simpler. Just a 1-2-3-4 cake, layers split and a quick brown sugar caramel spread between the layers and over the sides and top. Southerners of a certain generation are fond of this cake, probably because the women who raised them were blue ribbon bakers who took pride in putting out layer cakes for all the special occasions, birthdays and holidays.

1-2-3-4 cake is so named because of the ingredient ratio. I think of it as a yellow cake, even though that properly has extra egg yolks added. One cup of butter, 2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour and 4 eggs. It’s a tender cake and once you’ve mastered the technique, it’s as steady a friend as a pound cake. Ready to pull out for nonagenarians and dear ones in your life.

1-2-3-4 Cake

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), softened
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup milk
3 cups flour (cake flour if you have it, or all-purpose if you don't)
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt

(a note about salt: salt is essential in sweet baked goods. The salt helps the leavening and it sharpens the flavors. Do not leave it out. As rule, I put a little salt in sweets and a little sugar in savories.)

1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, cream butter and sugar until fluffy and smooth (not gritty, this will take about three minutes). Gradually add eggs and vanilla.

2. Preheat oven to 350. Prepare two 8 or 9 inch cake pans. I prefer to use baking spray, but a little butter and flour combo works really well, too.

3. In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients, stir gently. If a 4 year old is helping, be sure to watch carefully at this point or the white stuff will be all over the floor (voice of experience).

4. Carefully work the dry ingredients into the wet, beginning and ending with flour. This means 1/3 flour, ½ wet, 1/3 flour, ½ wet, concluding with 1/3 flour. Don't go too fast here, you're building texture.

5. Bake in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes, until golden. I use the touch test and the toothpick test that Mom taught me: when you think the cake is ready, touch it lightly in the center. If it springs back, it’s done. If the indentation remains, by all means, leave the cake to bake a bit longer. The toothpick test is the back up: if you think the cake is nearly done, poke a toothpick in the center. If it comes out clean, the cake is ready. If batter or even a few crumbs cling to the toothpick, leave the cake in the oven for another 5 minutes or so. Don’t stray too far, you need be nearby the check the cake again.

Caramel Icing

I’m not sure what a patissier would describe as the difference between frosting and icing, but a personal definition is pourability. I think of icings as liquid candy, a combination of sugar and butter and flavorings that drip off the sides of the cake. Frosting, on the other hand, isto my mind a fluffy mixture of butter and lots of confectioner’s sugar and spread on the cake. Icing is more rustic, frosting more polished.

This caramel icing uses the two varieties of brown sugar for just the right caramel color and flavor. If you don’t have both varieties on hand, just use what you have.

1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup whole milk
4 cups confectioner's sugar, sifted (don't skip this step, unless you like the look of a pimple-faced cake)

1. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugars, until melted and smooth.

2. Add vanilla and milk and continue to stir. When mixture is thoroughly combined, slowly add confectioner's sugar, whisking to completely eliminate any lumps.

3. Ice the cake right away, because this candy covering won't wait. If it gets stiff and chalky, place the pot back over the heat & add just a touch more milk, gradually whisking it in until you get the texture that you need.