The Ninja Baker - Carole Walter

Glazed Almond Butter Cake, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Sat, 19 Jul 2014 05:36:46 +0000

The Cake Slice Bakers are a group of bakers from around the world. Currently, the challenge is to bake one of four preselected Carole Walter's Great Cakes recipes. Glazed Almond Butter Cake was this Ninja Baker's winning choice.

This month's Glazed Almond Butter Cake for the Cake Slice Bakers
takes the cake!
A featherlight buttery crumb is topped by a
sticky melted brown sugar, butter and almond glaze.

Dorothy was right. “There’s no place like home.” But what do you do when lost in the wondrous land of Oz? Which path do you take when home is far away? Do you meditate to center yourself? Go hang gliding? Pretzel yourself into yoga poses? (Kudos to you if you choose yoga. My flexibility factor is zip!)

Glazed Almond Butter Cake

After meditation, baking brings me a sense of tranquility. I was reminded of this when mixing up the ingredients for this month’s challenge: Glazed Almond Butter Cake. It’s delightful seeing eggs pirouetting in my kitchen stand mixer, turning from rich golden circles into pastel. Diamond speckles of sugar hitting the beaters as it combines with the eggs are somehow also very conducive to contentment. Even sifting cake flour becomes child’s play as a snowy mini Mt. Fuji appears.

Who knew?

The still sweets of life can be found in baking Glazed Almond Butter Cake.

Smearing butter with care on the spring form pan, preparing the pan for its journey into the oven is a pleasure, too. In the past Baker’s Joy or butter cooking oil were sprayed. Currently, however, I am inspired by New York Times bestselling author / chef Kathleen Flinn. In The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, Chef Flinn extols the virtue of using real ingredients over fake chemical crammed “food.” Gotta Get Baked’s Nancy, the talented baker with a terrific sense of humor, gifted me with this gem of a book. (Thank you, Nancy!)

Smelling the heady aromas of baking cake bring me home.
How about you?

Preparing the brown sugar, butter and slivered almonds topping for the cake also mesmerized me into enjoying the present moment. Of course, the heavenly aroma of baking cake always brings me home.

Out of respect to the copyright issues with Carole Walter’s Great Cakes, I’m not writing out the recipe. However, here’s a link to a similar recipe. If you wish to purchase the cookbook, Amazon is open 24/7.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you adventures which bring you home.

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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Great Cakes

Carole Walter

Glazed Almond Butter Cake

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

NinjaBaker — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 01:44:00 +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? Espresso Cake!

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

Lemon Velvet Squares, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 01:46:45 +0000

A buzz of excitement was in my chest. (A sensation akin to watching U.S. Olympic ice dancing champions, Davis and Waters glide to gold.) The blades of my mixer were swirling lemon and orange zest across cubes of cold butter. However, the results of the lemon-orange zest twizzle - required elements in Carole Walter’s Great Cakes Lemon Velvet Squares recipe - fell to a bronze for this Ninja Baker.

A Lemon Velvet Square with the Ninja Baker's Yuzu Glaze.
(Yuzu is a Japanese citrus which has a lemony-limey taste.)

I was awed by the lightness of the Lemon Velvet Squares’ pale crumb. (A wonder similar to seeing the silver ice dancing medalists, Virtue and Moir, Quickstep in Sochi.) But the citrus element of the Lemon Velvet Squares was oh, so subtle. The cake-like treats needed oomph – a way to make them shine. Fortunately, I’ve always got yuzu (a Japanese citrus) juice in my pantry.

Carole Walter's Great Cakes Lemon Velvet Square recipe
produces a cake with a feather light texture...If you like a lemon pucker,
double or triple the required zest.

So, I whisked together a glaze similar to the one I made for yuzu scones. The Lemon Velvet Squares immediately garnered a gold medal! I’ve reprinted the recipe as seen in Great Cakes and at Food.com. I highly recommend doubling or tripling the teaspoons of zest. Love to hear how you score these lovely Lemon Velvet Square treats.

Lemon Velvet Squares

As seen in Carole Walter's Great Cakes and at Food.com, this Lemon Velvet Squares recipe will produce a light dessert. My Japanese citrus yuzu glaze gives a squirt of lemon-lime flavor. But if you love a lemon pucker, double or triple the lemon zest.

Ingredients:

For the Lemon Velvet Squares:

2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour
2 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (cold)
1 teaspoon lemon zest
½ teaspoon freshly grated navel orange rind
1 1/3 cups superfine sugar or 1 1/3 cups caster sugar
3 large eggs
1/3 cup water
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup fresh orange juice

For the Japanese Yuzu Citrus Glaze:

1 cup powdered sugar
2½ tablespoon yuzu juice
½ tablespoon French Vanilla Half and Half
1 tablespoon meringue powder
Drops of yellow food coloring
Yellow sanding sugar (optional garnish)

Directions:

For the Lemon Velvet Squares:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter or coat a 13” x 9” inch baking pan with butter flavored cooking spray.

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl.

In another bowl (for a stand mixer) place the butter and cream with the paddle attachment.

Add the lemon and orange zest. Beat on medium-high for 2 minutes.

Pour in the sugar - 1 tablespoon at a time. (Allow 5 to 6 minutes to incorporate the sugar with the butter and citrus.)

One at a time, whisk in the eggs at one-minute intervals.

In a small bowl, stir the water, lemon juice, and orange juice together.

Dividing the flour mixture into 3 parts and the liquid into two parts, add in the dry ingredients. Start and end with the flour. Mix well after each addition.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Smooth the top with an offset spatula or the back of a spoon.

Bake for 30-35 minutes. When ready the cake will spring back with a touch. The surface will also be slightly golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle will come out clean.

Cool the cake before drizzling with glaze.

Tip: Scrape the bowl often as ingredients are added and combined.

For the Glaze:

Whisk together 1 cup powdered sugar, 2½ tablespoons yuzu juice, ½ tablespoon French Vanilla Half and Half and 1 tablespoon of meringue powder.

Add drops of yellow food coloring to brighten the glaze.

Drizzle the glaze atop the cake. Sprinkle with sanding sugar. Cut the cake into golden squares.

Another treat: U.S. Gold Ice Dancing Olympians Meryl Davis and Charlie White.

An InLinkz Link-up

Wishing you days of gold medal winning moments.

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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Streusel Squares, #The Cake Slice Bakers

NinjaBaker — Sat, 14 Dec 2013 22:58:32 +0000

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens…
Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels…
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
These are a few of my favorite things.

Do you recognize the lyrics to My Favorite Things from The Sound of Music?

Which favorite items make your heart sing?

If I had written the song, I might have included streusel squares. Baking this month’s The Cake Slice Bakers’ assignment brought a bouquet of brown sugar and butter aroma to our home preparing for the holidays.

Streusel Squares

Is streusel a solid part of your repertoire? I think the last time I made streusel (for a coffee cake) I was ten! So, in the process of preparing the streusel (butter, flour, sugar and cinnamon) as prescribed in Great Cakes, I was a little dismayed by the beige clumps. So, how does a baker make anything better?

Chocolate, of course! And pecans. It works every time! The yellow cake topped with streusel à la chocolate chips and pecans made my little taste buds giggle…And stumble back to the ten-year-old who believed in Christmas magic.

To obtain your own copy of Carole Walter’s Great Cakes, click here. You can also bake up your best yellow cake recipe and top it with streusel. (Equal parts flour and brown sugar tumbled together with dollops of soft butter and sprinkles of cinnamon.) A garnish of chocolate chips and pecans is highly recommended!

Wishing you home for the holidays sweets.

The Ninja Baker

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

Tags:

streusel squares

Great Cakes

Carole Walter

#The Cake Slice Bakers