Cake

Just like barbecue, the art of making something as simple as pound cake is often forgotten as we are always looking to make things better through the sheer volume of ingredients. Sometimes foods don’t need to dazzle to make an impression. Pound cake is best when it acts as a counterbalance to a meal made up of rich flavors. Big Mama’s pound cake supports the “keep it simple, cook it right” approach. How can you go wrong with butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and vanilla? The most important attributes of perfect pound cake are flavor, density, and moisture. Too dense and you sacrifice moisture, too moist and you might as well frost it and break out the candles. Let Big Mama show you how it’s done!

Pork is a natural pairing for anything apple. More like a slightly sweet bread than a dessert, Big Mama’s Apple Nut Cake is perfect with any pork main course, although it can also be served to end the meal. It can be made either in a loaf pan or in a traditional tube pan, depending on how you plan to serve it. The spiced fruit aroma this cake emits made it one of Big Mama’s favorites. With six kids and Big Bob to look after, she was entitled to a little aromatherapy. Because it was not overly sweet, the kids were allowed to snack on it during the day. After viewing this recipe I asked Ruth, the youngest daughter of the Gibson clan, what kind of nuts should be used. She said the nut of choice was either hicka nuts or scaly barks, two varieties you are unlikely to find at your local grocer. “Hicka nuts” is turn-of-the-century Southern country slang for hickory nuts, and “scaly barks” are the nut from the shagbark hickory tree. Hickory nuts are tough to crack, and getting the meat out is very difficult, but they must be superior in flavor because Big Mama would walk past three pecan trees to get to the scaly barks. You can substitute whatever nut you prefer.

Sweet-smelling, dense, and moist, these cupcakes don’t really need a frosting—it’s just icing on the cake! And yes, they really do taste good made with olive oil. These cupcakes are good keepers; they stay moist for up to a week.

Making cake batter in the blender? What could be easier? This cake is elegant enough for a dinner party and easy enough for a weekday.

The classic combination of chocolate cake, cherries, and cream found in the traditional Black Forest cake was our inspiration for this cream’wich. In the summertime, fresh cherries can be used in lieu of dried. As is true of all of our ice cream sandwiches, we advise that you make them at least a short while in advance of when you want to serve them. Otherwise, the ice cream tends to squeeze out the sides.

We used pears in this ice cream’wich, but many other fruits would work well, too, such as apples, figs, or peaches. Because the fruit is poached, it won’t harden in the same way that raw fruit does when it is frozen. And not to worry if you do not like rum: you can simply leave it out of the ice cream recipe, yielding a simple and tasty vanilla ice cream.

Here, the brittle adds the excitement to the ice cream sandwich by providing the crunch. But don’t add the brittle too far in advance, as it will begin to dissolve into the ice cream. If pecans are not your favorite, you can substitute a nut that’s more to your liking.

My sister Sarah, the planet’s most outrageously particular eater, once told me: “I would rather starve than eat something that isn’t a symphony in my mouth.” As I would gladly eat a toupee if my blood sugar sank low enough, people like Sarah are like Martians to me. This cake is the perfect bridge between you and the Sarahs in your life. When I finally had the chance to offer her a slice, she took a bite, shut her eyes, raised a finger like a conductor’s baton, and began humming Beethoven’s Fifth. No joke. I’ve really become partial to the strawberry filling, but on occasion, at Sarah’s request, I substitute both blackberries and blueberries. Stay creative.

I use this version primarily as a base for Volcanoes (page 74), but it could certainly be used for the Double-Chocolate Crumb Cake (page 110) or the Macaroons (page 76), or as a foundation for a special recipe of your own. The red velvet cake, like the chocolate, is already fairly moist and sticky, so it doesn’t need much additional oil to hold it together.

Crumbs can function as a binder (Macaroons, page 76), as a toasted topping (Double-Chocolate Crumb Cake, page 110; Blueberry Crumb Cake, page 113), or as a bite-size vehicle for a delicious frosting or sauce (Volcanoes, page 74). The chocolate cupcake contains more oil than its vanilla counterpart, so in the crumb phase you should add less. If you like it on the sweet side, add an additional tablespoon agave nectar, but avoid going beyond that—as is, this recipe packs a massive punch.

Before BabyCakes NYC, my dreams were limited to potential hairstyles, sarcastic comebacks, and still more prospective hairstyles. Nowadays, I dream almost exclusively of baked goods. One restless night, after being awakened by images of a fluffy blueberry cake topped with spiced crumbs and a rich vanilla sauce, I sprinted to the bakery to begin testing. I encountered a few setbacks, but once I found out that the crumb cooks faster than the base and must be added halfway through baking, my dream came true. Please don’t trust your instincts with this one; the window for applying the crumb is small. Add it too soon and your crumb topping will burn, too late and it will be soggy. Use those timers, people!

By now you’ve no doubt realized that many of these recipes call for high-quality ingredients that are a bit more costly than a tub of shortening or a sack of bleached flour. As I’ve mentioned before, though, I also abhor waste. This recipe might be the most ingenious recasting of leftovers you’ll ever find, the best part being that nobody could ever possibly know!

Dear Outraged Icebox Cake Purist: I understand you will be frustrated and angry that what follows is in no way an icebox cake, and for that I’m sorry. But those traditional icebox cakes you are so staunchly defending are nothing more than raw eggs, butter, and sugar mixed together and dumped into a pit of sponge cake or stale ladyfingers. Not cool for your stomach, or mine! We can do better—and have with this towering ode to the magical pairing of mint and chocolate. The cake may seem a touch underdone when the baking time is up, but trust me: You will have a beautifully moist cake that won’t dry out in the freezer, one you’ll pick at happily each time you pass the fridge for weeks to come! If you avoid evaporated cane juice, omit the cookies but add some berries or Chocolate Crumb Base (page 116).

I’m all for mindful eating—scanning each and every nutritional label, chewing each bite of food twenty times before swallowing—but we all know there comes a time when we want to slide into a pair of elastic-waisted pants and go to town. When that urge arises, I, for one, succumb. Composed of three of the bakery’s most popular items—frosting, brownies, and cookies—this extraordinary layered cake is an indulgence that would make even the lovely Paula Deen blush. Right with you, Ms. Deen!

All right, pull the Stepford Wife ensemble out of mothballs and apply your signature color lipstick: It’s photo time! While the still-life aesthetic of this cupcake is its own reward, I swear on my highlights that the taste surpasses its beauty. Make sure to avoid overchopping your cherry chunks, and try for a nice, thick lemon zest—the added texture pairs neatly with the creamy frosting.

My sister Joanne was once a major disciple of Susan Powter, author of the “Stop the Insanity” series and the face that launched a trillion potato recipes. We McKenna girls eagerly adopted her fat-free mantra “One slice of cheese or ten baked potatoes?!” and happily toted Molly McButtered bagels to school each day. We even developed our own carrot muffin that had less than 1 gram of fat. Of course, over time, counting fat grams on the hour tends to incite insanity rather than stop it. Today everyone knows that good fats in the right amount are a beneficial part of your diet. This recipe makes no pretense of being fat-free, but it’s got all the best stuff in all the right places.

Ask someone what, exactly, red velvet is, and chances are they’ll stare back at you blankly. Nonetheless, red velvet remains the top-selling cupcake in America (“America” means BabyCakes NYC, of course). As I’ve come to understand it, the name dates to the time when people carried books with a belt and wore bonnets, and cocoa powder was still all natural and reacted with the acid in buttermilk and baking soda by turning it a reddish brown, an effect some precolonial marketing genius dubbed red velvet. You might be sad to hear that, historically, red velvet cake was appreciated primarily for its neutral (you can say it: bland) flavor and supple texture, which served primarily as a vehicle for frosting. While I obviously have nothing against frosting, I believe the cake should be more than a booster seat, so I’ve gone ahead and fixed that little problem for you. Thank me by baking these by the thousands.

This is my healthy version of the popular Hostess® cupcake. This double-stuffed cupcake is a frosting lover’s fantasy (see Anderson, Pamela, opposite). Although the recipe calls for 1 tablespoon frosting for the filling, you won’t be blamed for upping the amount a bit—just be reasonable! Too much and you’ll bury the innocent, delicious cake. Although I have found what follows to be the best flavor pairing, you can freely use any of the cupcakes and frostings in this book together with dazzling results.

If the vanilla cupcake is my doted-on firstborn, the chocolate version is my wild and unruly second child. Prone to petulant deflation, the chocolaty batter forced me to employ every disciplinary technique I could think of before it embraced its chocolate roots and revealed its softer, billowy side. This recipe is not as subtle as the vanilla cupcake; expect a rich, fudgy cake with an intense flavor that resonates with the most feral of chocolate addictions.

As you know, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the kitchen, and often the smartest thing you can do is delegate responsibilities. Trust me when I tell you it is perfectly safe to farm out this recipe to some antsy houseguests or eager, enterprising children. It’s virtually infallible and can take on just about any flavor you like, no matter how clumsy the chef. Find the vanilla sauce–filled center too timid? Stir in a tiny bit of beet juice to make it a little more Hollywood.