Squash Chiffon Cake

Awhile ago, I made the Espresso Chiffon Cake from Smitten Kitchen, and I was really impressed with how it turned out. So when I saw a recipe for Pumpkin Chiffon Cake as I was deciding what dessert to make for Thanksgiving, I knew that I would have to try my hand at that, too.

There were a few tweaks: I halved the recipe, used acorn squash rather than pumpkin, substituted pastry flour, and used the same number of yolks as whites. Oh, and I made up some cream cheese frosting for the cake. Because: Cream Cheese...

It turned out phenomenally. It was certainly denser than the previous chiffon cake I made, but with the squash puree and not cutting some yolks out, that was more than expected. The beaten whites still gave it so much lift and tenderness! I will be doing this again!


Squash Chiffon Cake
adapted from Alice Medrich via Food52
makes 1 - 8" round cake

1/2 cup sugar, divided
4 eggs, divided
1/4 cup canola oil
3/4 cup squash puree (I used acorn)
100 grams (~3.5 ounces) pastry flour (cake or rice work, too)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3/8 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar


1. Line an 8" round cake pan with parchment paper (optionally, grease)

2. Preheat oven to 325°F

3. Set aside 1/8 cup sugar (to stiffen egg whites)

4. In a large mixing bowl, mix remaining sugar with yolks, oil and puree

5. Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves

6. Mix flour/spices into the puree/yolks

7. In a separate bowl, whip egg whites until they hold soft peaks; add the sugar that was set aside, then whip eggs until stiff but not dry

8. Fold half of the whites into the batter until no streaks remain, then do the same with the second half

9. Pour into prepared cake pan, set in the bottom third of the oven, bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (30-40 minutes)

10. Cool, then slide a knife around the sides to release from the pan; Peel off the parchment paper



Cream Cheese Frosting

1 - 8 ounce package of cream cheese, room temperature (leave out ≥1 hour)
1/2 to 1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
pinch of salt

1. Once the cream cheese is at room temperature (softened), whip until light and fluffy

2. Whip in a pinch of salt, and the powdered sugar to taste (start with 1/2 cup, add until you like it)

Apple Cake

A couple of weeks ago, Chris and I bought a bushel of winter apples, which I must say is a fair few apples. However, being not in the mood for apple pie or crisp (sacrilegious, isn't it?) and having accidently made up too much of the dries for a carrot cake a week or so before I thought, why not?


And so I made an apple cake. The wet ingredients are a bit made up (though I did reference a couple of actual apple cake recipes: 1 & 2, neither of which upon baking them I like quite so much as the cobbled together recipe I first made) so the apple sauce and egg amounts are adjustable to your preferred batter consistency (read: I don't remember how much I added as I didn't measure and it was awhile ago).


Apple Cake
makes 1 single-layer cake


Apple Mix:
4 medium apples
1/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon


Dry ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup sugar


Wet ingredients:
1/4 to 1/2 cup apple sauce
1/4 cup brandy or rum
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup melted butter
2 to 3 medium eggs


1. Preheat oven to 350°F, grease a 9" cake pan and dust the cake pan with flour


2. Peel and core apples, then cut them into chunks


3. Toss the apples with 1/4 cup sugar and 1-1/2 tsp cinnamon and let sit for 15 minutes


4. Mix all the dry ingredients together


5. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add all wet ingredients except eggs (starting with 1/4 cup apple sauce)


6. Stir that together, adding first two eggs one at a time, and the extra apple sauce and egg as necessary to make a pourable but somewhat thick batter


7. Pour half the batter into the cake pan and smooth to cover the entire bottom


8. Distribute half the apple chunks over the batter, then do a second layer of batter and apples, pouring the juice from the apples over the top layer


9. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean from the middle of the cake

Chocolate Beet Cake

My first experience with chocolate beet cake was at a potluck earlier this year when Chris and I went to our CSA farm for a day of cider pressing. It was pretty exquisite, but it was much more a chocolate cake that incidentally had beets in it than a chocolate beet cake. The recipe that I found for making it at home, however, is more the latter. This is a beet cake that has some lovely chocolatey-ness to it, and I love it.

An additional note now that I've made this recipe again: I found that the cake is very different depending on how you make the puree. Boiling gives a much less pronounced beet flavor. This was probably obvious if I had thought on it, but I hadn't until it smacked me in the face. That said, I found boiling to be even easier than roasting and definitely shorter, so it's a bit of a toss up as to which I prefer.

So, without further ado, here's the recipe.

Chocolate Beet Cake
makes a two-layer 9-inch cake
adapted from Tiger in a Jar

Ingredients:
1/2 cup oil (or butter)
1 cup packed light brown sugar
3 large eggs

4 (1 ounce) squares semisweet chocolate
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
1 pound (~2 cups) beet puree*
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ounce liquor of choice (I used whiskey)

10 ounces (2 to 2-1/2 cups) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

confectioner's sugar or frosting (optional)


1. Preheat oven to 375°F and grease two 9-inch cake pans

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix together (or cream if using butter) oil and brown sugar; then add eggs and mix well

3. In a medium mixing bowl (or double boiler) melt chocolate and 1/4 cup butter and stir until smooth

4. Cool the chocolate slightly before adding beets, vanilla and liquor

5. Add the beet mix to the butter/sugar/egg mix and blend thoroughly (this apparently may appear separated, but I didn't have such an issue)

6. Sift together flour, soda, and salt before adding to the wet ingredients and stirring until smooth

7. Pour one-half the batter into each cake pan and bake for 20-30 minutes

8. Cool in pan for at least 10 minutes before removing to wire rack to cool completely

9. Dust with confectioner's sugar or frost and serve

*If you've not made beet puree before, it's very simple. You can either just boil the beets until they're soft, skin them and put them in the blender with a bit of water, or you can skin them, roast them with a bit of water then pour all that in the blend and puree it. It does take about an hour to roast them versus about 30 minutes to boil, but still easy-peasy. And cooked beets (either way) or beet puree freezes just fine.

Guy Fawkes Day Cake

I haven't the slightest idea why Brits traditionally have a ginger cake for Guy Fawkes Day, but when Chris and I were looking at gingerbread recipes, we came across this one and saw that it wasn't too sweet and it had molasses in it (double score!). We even made it almost on time (Guy Fawkes Day was a week ago). Now, we did indeed made it according to the recipe in the book, substituting only lemon vodka (homemade) for the zest and upping the amount of ginger, but we weren't told to absolutely not use just blackstrap molasses. Which you shouldn't, as we found out. We also decided we really did miss the egg. So here's the slightly revised recipe.

Guy Fawkes Day Cake (Parkins Cake)
adapted from Joy of Cooking
1-8" round cake

Ingredients:
1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter, melted
2/3 cup molasses (NOT blackstrap); alternatively, 1/3 cup molasses (can be blackstrap) + 1/3 cup honey
1 egg
1 teaspoon lemon vodka or lemon zest

5 ounces (1 cup) flour
2-5/8 ounces (~2/3 cup) rolled oats
1 tablespoon sugar
1 to 2 teaspoons ground ginger (according to personal preference)
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2/3 cup milk

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8-inch cake pan

2. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, mix the melted butter and the molasses (and honey, if you're doing half and half), then beat in the egg and lemon zest

3. In a separate, large mixing bowl, mix together the dry ingredients

4. To the dry ingredients, add 1/2 the butter mixture and stir until the mixture is uniformly moist, then add half the milk, stir, the other half of the butter mixture, stir again, and finally the last half of the milk and stir until thoroughly mixed

5. Pour into the greased cake pan, and bake 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean