The Ninja Baker - The Cake Slice Bakers

Coconut Cake, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 22:25:43 +0000

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. We vote on a recipe and then bake the sweet from the same cookbook every month. Our current book is Carole Walter's Great Cakes. This month's sweet assignment? Coconut Cake!

Coconut Layer Cake was this month’s Cake Slice Baker’s challenge. Layer cakes are grand. Especially coconut ones. Yet, the image of a coconut layer cake conjures up the image of sitting in a stuffy Southern living room. Fine on a chilly winter’s day… But it’s spring!

Springtime Cherry Blossoms in Kamakura, Japan

Whether I’m strolling with my 88-year-old mother in a quiet Northern California neighborhood or whether I’m striding down Main Street in Southern California, birds are singing! My fine-feathered friends won’t let me forget to celebrate this season of rebirth.

Japanese haiku poetry master, Basho expresses with elegance the lighthearted hopefulness that accompanies spring:

“April’s air stirs in
Willow-leaves…a butterfly
Floats and balances”

~Matsuo Basho

Sweets easily transported outside are essential in springtime. So, instead of a coconut layer cake I baked up stackable coconut cupcakes.

The crumb was fine and the cake moist. Part of what makes Carole Walter’s recipes live up to her dessert cookbook title, Great Cakes, is the great care she takes to double sift flour. The grande dame of baking also insists that bakers allow extra butter-beating to encourage aeration as sugar is added one tablespoon at a time.

A pink-tinted buttercream tops the coconut cupcakes.
For extra coconutty flavored frosting, substitute coconut milk
and use coconut extract instead of vanilla.

Despite the greatness of Carole Walter’s recipe, I boldly modified her coconut cake recipe by substituting coconut milk for cow’s milk. (Tip: Due to the extra creamy nature of coconut milk, add an additional 3 tablespoons to the required ¾ cup milk.) Vanilla extract was also replaced by ¾ teaspoon of coconut extract. The result? An A+ coconut cupcake that doesn’t bury all other flavors in overstated coconut!

Butterflies & Coconut Cupcakes....Could spring be any sweeter?

Here’s some good news, bad news: The Great Cakes author is now sharing many delectable dessert recipes at Carole Walter.com. Including her luscious buttercream frosting needed for the coconut layer cake. The bad news (unless you own the Great Cakes cookbook) is that her coconut cake recipe has yet to be shared.

I Googled and clicked away on many a link to bring you a coconut layer cake recipe which is almost identical to the Great Cakes version. Alas, none were to be found. However, I did find this similar coconut cake how-to from one of the chef stars of TV’s The Chew.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you butterflies, birds and blissful springtime sweets.

The Ninja Baker

© ™ Watkinson 2012

The Ninja Baker has guest blogged and contributed recipes to numerous food sites. These additional recipes can be found here.

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Carole Walter Great Cakes

coconut cake

The Cake Slice Bakers

#Japanese haiku spring butterflies

Espresso Cake with Kahlua Chocolate Ganache, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 01:44:00 +0000

Smooth as that first sip of coffee, sophisticated as a Kahlua cocktail, Carole Walter’s Great Cakes’ Espresso Cake is as soothing as jazz. Espresso flavors play rich and deep but the timbre of the cake is feather light. (Perhaps blending the butter with caster sugar for 8 minutes contributes to the fluffy sponge.) Lemon zest adds another layer of complexity. (Amazing what a ½ teaspoon of citrus zest can do!)

Notes of espresso and lemon liven up The Cake Slice Bakers selection of the month.

Combining elements of Carole Walter’s recipe for Kahlua syrup and Ganache Glaze, I created a Kahlua Chocolate Ganache to pour on top of the espresso cake. My cake was baked in the wee hours of the morning. So, to avoid an all-nighter, instead of infusing the cake with Kahlua syrup for 60 minutes after baking, I created the ganache.

I also riffed on the required ingredient of sour cream
and substituted Greek yogurt.

My improvised Kahlua Chocolate Ganache is simple and scrumptious! In a saucepan, bring 2/3 cup of Kahlua, 2/3 cup heavy cream and 3 tablespoons of honey to a gentle boil. Immediately pour over 8 ounces of finely chopped bittersweet chocolate. Stir rigorously. Pour over slices of espresso cake.

Kahlua Chocolate Ganache harmonizes well with espresso cake.

Due to copyright issues, I cannot reprint Carole Walter’s espresso cake recipe. But this one here comes pretty close….Just be sure to add a bit of lemon zest.

Jazz up espresso cake with Kahlua Chocolate Ganache...Or serve the cake plain.
Either way, a round of applause is sure to follow.

;

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you weeks which flow as smoothly as Japanese Jazz!

P.s.
Fun Fact: According to Quincy Davis who toured with Jazz pianist Junko Onishi, there are more Jazz clubs in Tokyo than in New York City!

The Ninja Baker

© ™ Watkinson 2012

The Ninja Baker has guest blogged and contributed recipes to numerous food sites. These additional recipes can be found here.

Tags:

Espresso Cake

Kahlua Chocolate Ganache recipe

Carole Walter

Great Cakes

The Cake Slice Bakers

Old-Fashioned Pound Cake, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Wed, 08 Jan 2014 01:53:55 +0000

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. We vote on a recipe and then bake the sweet from the same cookbook every month. Our current book is Carole Walter's Great Cakes. This month's sweet assignment? Old-Fashioned Pound Cake!

Mona Lisa is better looking when embraced by her golden frame in the Louvre. Ginger Rogers shines brightest when dancing with Fred Astaire. Similarly in the world of sweets, pound cake performs wonders when paired with bold flavored partners. This is especially true for the Old-Fashioned Pound Cake from Carole Walter’s Great Cakes.

The docile old-fashioned pound cake pairs up with a bold azuki bean ice cream.

Carole Walter's pound cake is not your typical Sara Lee’s (which I love!) A twist on pound cake tradition is made with the addition of baking powder and a soupçon of milk. Bottom line Carole Walter's old-fashioned pound cake has a lighter crumb, which is conducive to bolder companion treats…Like store-bought crimson colored azuki red bean ice cream. Of course, I’ll swallow almost anything if ice cream is involved! (Click here if a more mild mannered homemade azuki red bean ice cream is to your liking.)

Petite old-fashioned pound cakes play well with
giant scoops of azuki red bean ice cream!

Okay, truth time: I prefer a more substantial Sara Lee type of pound cake. It is a matter of taste. However, when baked in mini bundts for 36 minutes, Carole Walter’s Old-Fashioned Pound Cake is perfect for a tea party. So, if you are getting out your Aunt Hilda’s teacups, dust the pound cake bundts with powdered sugar, pour some Earl Grey and flex your pinky finger!

A duet of raspberries and mini pound cakes.

Due to copyright issues, I cannot reprint the Old-Fashioned Pound Cake recipe. But, I did find a Carole Walter’s Classic Pound Cake here. The difference between the Old-Fashioned and Classic Pound Cake recipe is the latter uses baking powder, cake flour, milk and one more egg.

What are your favorite pairings with pound cake?

Wishing you companions who bring out the best as you dance on life’s byways and highways!

The Ninja Baker

© ™ Watkinson 2012

The Ninja Baker has guest blogged and contributed recipes to numerous food sites. These additional recipes can be found here.

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Old-Fashioned Pound Cake

Carole Walter Great Cakes

The Cake Slice Bakers

Black & White Vintage Cakes

NinjaBaker — Thu, 20 Jun 2013 03:31:18 +0000

“The very pink of perfection” (a quote by She Stoops to Conquer playwright and poet Oliver Goldsmith) was inscribed at the top of my friend Anne’s “From My Sweet Heart” blog. Then, I saw her pink cake and swooned. After I picked myself up, ogled a few more photos and post, I saw that Anne was a member of The Cake Slice Bakers.

Curious, I e-mailed Anne. I was introduced to Paloma at her blog, The Coffee Shop. She’s the leader of The Cake Slice Bakers. Her treats and recipes are irresistible. And Paloma is sweeter than her baked goods.

Excited to be a part of this formidable group of ladies called The Cake Slice Bakers, I took on this month’s assignment of baking a Black & White Cake from Vintage Cakes cookbook. (Variations of shapes e.g. cupcakes, Bundt cakes are allowed.) Suddenly, popping up on Facebook were previews of fellow contributors’ completely professional cakes! This confirmed my suspicion that I was part of an elite group. Gulp.

When faced with performance anxiety, poetry brings peace to this Ninja Baker. The words of poet and playwright, William Shakespeare are among the best comforters in the world. (I also adore Basho’s haiku and the poetry of Rumi and Wordsworth.) Who’s your favorite poet?

Meditating Monk Cartoon Credit

Around age 10, the Royal Shakespeare Company arrived in Tokyo and performed a string of soliloquies. I was mesmerized. I’ve been in love with the Bard ever since. Thank goodness, I remembered lines from Measure for Measure:

“Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win
By fearing to attempt.”
Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4, Lines 87-89

So, step by step I tackled the three separate recipes, which together are known as the Black & White cake.

The Ninja Baker's cupcakes rendition of the Black & White Cake

First, the chocolate cake base. Fine quality cocoa, hot coffee, full fat sour cream and vanilla extract are combined. Next, standard sifting of flour, baking soda and salt in a separate bowl. In yet another bowl, 5 ounces of butter along with white and brown sugars are creamed. All ingredients get mixed together and a luscious I’m-back-in-a-Parisian-patisserie kind of rich, moist deep chocolate cake is the result. (My cupcakes took 25 minutes to bake in a 350 oven.)

The 3-hour process of the ganache followed. 3 hours may sound intimidating to some like yours truly. But, as I followed the Vintage Cakes instructions (on page 146), I was elated to discover a successful not too runny – perfect for frosting cupcakes ganache.

The third step was my biggest fear. I strongly dislike wasting food and money. And the vanilla buttercream recipe called for 6 egg whites to be hand whisked over simmering hot water. I forged ahead and even employed my candy thermometer as directed in the instructions. At 130 degrees plus, the mixture was carried over to the KitchenAid. Bless the author of Vintage Cakes. For bakers just like me she writes, “At some point, the buttercream will take on a curdled appearance; don’t worry, this is normal. Just keep on mixing until it comes together.”

And it did! Deliciously.

Click here for other variations on this delightful Black & White Cake made by fellow Cake Slice Bakers.

Wishing you courage when winds of change blow.

The Ninja Baker

The Ninja Baker has guest blogged and contributed recipes to numerous food sites. These additional recipes can be found here.

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The Cake Slice Bakers

Black & White Cake

Vintage Cookbook

Shakespeare