Batter-Splattered

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

I found this vintage metal cake carrier at a thrift store a couple of weeks ago and ever since I've been positively itching to take a cake somewhere. Anywhere.

ITCHING to take a cake, I tell you. I was even wishing I had church to go to on Sunday just so I could take a cake for my fellow church-goers to enjoy (that urge passed).

Have cake, will travel.

Luckily, one of my co-workers up and quit and we threw her a going-away potluck yesterday! YAY, she's leaving, I can bring a cake! ... or something a little more sensitive and sorrowful.

The cake carrier was quite the conversation piece at the potluck. I'd hear people saying things like, "Reminds me of something my grandma would have!" It's not the first time someone's accused me of having the taste of a granny. I embrace it -- grannies lived in times of very good design.

I'd also hear: "Groovy!"

And: "Classy!"

People were even taking bets on when it was made. The 1940's? '50's? 60's? It has West Bend, Made in the USA etched on the bottom, but no date. There's also quite a few dents in it. I hope there wasn't a cake inside when they dropped it! I didn't mind the dents though -- I have a few dents and scratches in me too.

I suspected it was made in the 1970's (just like me), what with the harvest gold color and all. Sure enough, I found some more on ebay in avocado green. Mrs. Brady would have carried one just like this, with a cake baked by Alice inside.

You can get your own cake carrier right here on ebay. If that link has expired, as ebay links are bound to do, run a search on "west bend cake" and some should pop right up. I have my eye on a set of matching canisters for holding flour, sugar, tea, and coffee. The black knob on top is bakelite -- pretty cool.

And with all this talk about cake, why don't we talk about the real deal? I just baked a pineapple upside-down cake! But not for the potluck -- the potluck cake was chocolate-chocolate with strawberries on top.

This afternoon, it was all about the pineapples:

I've only ever made pineapple upside-down cakes in a Lodge cast iron skillet.  This one was made in a regular old 9-inch cake pan. I think I like it -- the non-stick coating released the cake easily and without a hitch when I turned it out onto a plate.

Come to think of it, I've only ever made this cake once or twice. Canned fruit isn't exactly my favorite thing and I wouldn't even go near a pineapple when I was little. It's the sugary sweetness. It's not my thing.

But I do enjoy an upside-down cake from time to time at this particular juncture of my life. I got the recipe from the same cookbook I got my zucchini bread recipe from, Mary Englebreit's Queen of the Kitchen Cookbook. Ever since I pulled it off the shelf and dusted it off, I've been flipping through it and marking one recipe after another to try out. 

My husband loves himself a pineapple upside-down cake. LOVES. So his eyes lit up when he learned I was making one. Once I'd fished seven perfect little pineapple rings out of the can, he polished off what was left, juice and all. Knocked it back in a few seconds flat.

I messed up right away when I was making this and I blame the person who wrote the recipe. In the ingredients list, it says a stick of butter. And what I didn't notice was that the butter is divided in the recipe instructions -- a half a stick at the beginning, a half a stick at the end. So I ended up putting an entire stick into the gooey syrup that you pour into the cake pan first. And so it didn't turn out too syrupy. It was good. Just not thick and sticky and syrupy.

For the love of god, recipe writers, if an ingredient is divided in the recipe, say so right there in the ingredients list. One stick of butter, divided. Gimme me a heads-up. 

I fixed it for you, dear reader, in the recipe as written below.

You're welcome.

I also didn't use the dark brown sugar called for in the recipe because I didn't feel like buying more brown sugar even though it was only $1.50 at the store because I already had plenty of light brown sugar at home. I'm like that.

We had this right out of the oven with a little whipped cream. So good. Oh, and a little something I liked about the ingredients is that they call for a pinch of pepper along with spices such as cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg -- I thought that was a nice touch.

Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Makes one nine inch cake

1/2 c (one stick) butter, divided

1/2 c packed dark brown sugar

8 slices canned pineapple (20 oz. can)

1 1/4 c all purpose flour

3/4 c sugar

2 t baking powder

1/4 t cinnamon

1/4 t nutmeg

1/4 t ginger

1/4 t salt

Pinch of finely ground pepper

1/2 c milk

1 egg

1 1/2 t vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a small saucepan, melt 1/4 cup (half a stick! not the whole stick -- save the rest for later) of butter over low heat. Remove from heat and stir in brown sugar until well mixed. Spread the butter-sugar mixture evenly in the bottom of a 9-inch cake pan. Place a pineapple ring in the center of the pan on top of the butter-sugar mixture, then arrange more pineapple rings in a circle around the center one.

In a bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

In a small saucepan, melt the remaining half a stick of butter. Pour the milk into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add the melted butter, egg, and vanilla and mix well. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until combined. Scrape batter gently over pineapple rings and gently smooth the top with a rubber spatula.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Let the cake cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Invert the cake onto a serving plate and let stand for 1 minute before lifting the cake pan (mine popped right out). Serve warm or at room temperature.

Chocolate stout cupcakes

My friend Angie was kind enough to bring over a bunch of clams and halibut -- dug and caught, respectively, in Homer and we had some people over to my place for a great big clambake, complete with mimosas and baked corn and asparagus and white wine and strong coffee served in fancy cups and saucers.

The clams simmered in a big pot of white wine with butter, shallots, and garlic. The halibut was coated with blackening spices and then roasted in the oven.

I should have taken photos but you know how it is at feasts like this. Time flies and the mimosa (er, mimosas in my case) goes straight to your head and the food has a way of disappearing just like that.

I contributed some sloppy gloppy chocolate stout cakes made with Guinness:

The cake part is rich and chocolate-y and begins with a bottle of Guinness and some butter simmering in a copper pot on the stovetop. As you stir, the Guinness fizzes and puts off the loveliest yeasty bread smell. The glaze is drizzled on top of the warm cupcakes.

These are so sloppy that everyone ate them with forks.

Oh so good. I had every intention of making these a few days ago for entering in this month's Cupcake Hero mingle calling for cupcakes made with liquor. My mocha cupcakes with walnuts were crowned the queen last month, thank you very much, but I just didn't make the deadline this time around.

The original cake recipe is here, concocted by the Barrington Brewery in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. Rather than a layer cake (three layers!) I really liked the idea of chocolate-drizzled cupcakes. I cut the recipe in half and it yielded 16 cupcakes. Perfect for a crowd and, lucky me, I still have five bottles of Guinness gracing my refrigerator door.

Here's my version:

Chocolate Stout Cupcakes

Yields 16 cupcakes

1 cup stout (such as Guinness)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-process)

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 large eggs

3/4 cup sour cream

1 cup whipping cream

1/2 pound bittersweet (not unsweetened) or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line cupcake pans with paper cups.

Bring stout and butter to simmer in saucepan over medium heat. Add cocoa powder and whisk until mixture is smooth. Cool slightly.

Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl to blend. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl to blend. Add stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture and beat just to combine. Add flour mixture and beat briefly on slow speed. Using rubber spatula, fold batter until completely combined. Divide batter equally among cupcakes cups. Bake until tester inserted into center of cakes comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer cakes to rack; cool 10 minutes. Turn cakes out onto rack and cool completely.

Meanwhile, make icing. Bring cream to simmer in heavy medium saucepan. Remove from heat. Add chopped chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. Refrigerate until icing is spreadable, stirring frequently, about 2 hours. Drizzle over cupcakes and enjoy.

Mocha Cupcakes with Walnuts

Now that I'm all settled in the new house (just don't look in the guest room -- it's scary in there -- and while you're at it, don't go in the office either), I thought it was time to go out, mingle a little, and join a few food blogging events. Laurie at Quirky Cupcake was speaking my language when she asked for cupcakes made with coffee in honor of her husband's birthday.

The fruits of my labor:

Lemme tell you the problem with most cakes and cupcakes: it's that whole 'cool on rack' part towards of the end of the recipe. Who wants to wait that long to pound back a slice of divine-looking cake or down a cute cupcake in three bites?

This recipe has thought of everything. You get to eat these warm!

They're so moist and dripping with chocolate that I actually ate mine standing over the kitchen sink so I wouldn't make a total mess of myself. True, I could have grabbed a napkin and taken a seat at the table like a civilized human being but it was just so good I didn't want to stop after the first warm and gooey bite.

The original recipe is here and was meant to be a sheet cake with pecans, but all I had in the house was walnuts so I toasted up some of those and sprinkled away. I also added some instant espresso powder to the frosting to give it an extra coffee kick. I halved the original recipe and ended up with ten cupcakes. Here goes:

Mocha Cupcakes with Toasted Walnuts

1 stick unsalted butter, divided

1/2 cup strong brewed coffee or 1 teaspoon instant coffee, dissolved in 1/2 cup hot water

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, divided

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, divided

3 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder

Half of a 1-pound box powdered sugar

1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts, toasted

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line a cupcake pan with 10 paper cups. Stir 1/4 cup butter, coffee, 1/4 cup cocoa and vegetable oil in heavy small saucepan over medium heat until smooth. Remove saucepan from heat. Stir flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl until blended. Whisk in cocoa mixture. Whisk buttermilk, eggs and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla in medium bowl until blended. Add to flour mixture and blend well. Spread batter in prepared cupcake pan.

Bake until tester inserted into center of cupcakes comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer to rack.

Meanwhile, stir milk and remaining 1/4 cup butter, 1/4 cup cocoa, and the instant espresso powder in heavy medium saucepan over medium heat until smooth. Bring mixture to boil, stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Add powdered sugar and remaining 1/2 teaspoon vanilla and whisk until smooth.

Spread frosting over warm cupcakes and sprinkle with nuts.

Jiffy Cake

This cake recipe has been around all my life. I think my grandmother may have found it originally and she passed it on to everyone else. It's a chocolate cake recipe that's ready in a jiffy -- the name says it all -- and it can be mixed up in one bowl. It's number 25 of my collection of favorites recipes for this 25th day of November and Nablopomo.

I still remember the day way back in high school when I whipped up a jiffy cake while a friend watched from a tall stool across the kitchen counter. Her rarely-there mom wasn't much of a cook and so they'd been eating out of boxes and cans and restaurants all her life. I only spent the night at her house once in high school. Only once. Because that night she and I had the house to ourselves and we were jonesing for dessert and she thought there might be some ice cream in the chest freezer they kept out in the communal garage of their apartment building. That carton of ice cream had been in there so long it was hard as a rock and mostly crystallized, and what wasn't crystallized was gummy. I politely demured when she offered me a bowl then watched with a shudder as she ate a heaping helping.

Later when I asked her where she kept the bath towels, she looked in the linen closet (no clean towels), under the bathroom sink (still no clean towels), and then bent over and picked a slightly damp one up off the bathroom floor, sniffed it, and handed it to me.

And don't even get me started on the ONE time we went to her house to get something to eat on our school lunch break and she tried to serve me butter and sugar sandwiches on somewhat moldy Wonder bread.

That's no way to live.

Well, her eyes were wide as saucers as she saw that chocolate cake emerge from the oven.

"I can't believe you just put that together totally from scratch JUST LIKE THAT," she cried out. "It's like a miracle!"

I think she may have even clasped her hands over her heart. Oh yeah. It was a defining moment for me.

This recipe should really be scrawled in messy handwriting on the back of a receipt - that's what everyone's copy looks like in my family -- but I'll type it out for you here. As for a frosting recipe, I think we always just use the one on the back of the Hershey's chocolate baking powder container.

Jiffy Cake

1 1/2 c all-purpose flour

3 T cocoa powder

1 t baking soda

1 c sugar

1/2 t salt

5 T vegetable oil

1 T vinegar

1 t vanilla

1 c cold water

Combine dry ingredients in a big bowl. Make a hole in the center. Pour in the remaining ingredients. Mix well. Pour into a greased square baking pan and bake in a 350 degree oven until it passes the toothpick test. I don't have a baking time noted. Just eyeball it and stab it with a toothpick when it's looking good and smelling even better.

Cupcake heaven

How do you raise money for a good cause in an office full of co-workers whose moods run from enthusiastic to glum to downright bitchy?

Why with a rolling cupcake cart, of course.

I intended to make mine from scratch but ended up feeling way too lazy to do so the night before so I'll let you in on some pretty good cake mixes and frostings.

Pillsbury chocolate Moist Supreme Devil's Food Cake mix in the blue box along with Pillsbury's chocolate fudge frosting. And then Betty Crocker's carrot cake mix (which wasn't bad but next time I would add grated carrots, raisins and some chopped nuts) with Pillsbury cream cheese frosting. I got alot of compliments on that frosting from people who didn't realize it was storebought.

We raised a boatload of money.

Cranberry Upside-Down Cake

Favorite recipe No. 2 for this second day of November and Nablopomo:

This one came to me last year by way of an email from the NPR program Splendid Table (sign up for their email newsletter -- it's really good). Splendid Table got it fromthe cookbook A Passion For Desserts by Emily Luchetti. A friend recently emailed me to inquire after 'that one recipe you made that one time, the one with the cranberries and the pumpkin? You made it? Then I made it? You know the one...'

It's one of those recipes that inspires the sort of devotion that causes people to pass it around like baseball cards.

Mmm.

Pumpkin Upside Down Cake with Cranberry Pecan Topping
From "A Passion for Desserts" by Emily Luchetti

Ingredients
16 T (2 sticks) butter
1 c brown sugar
2 c cranberries
1 c coarsely chopped pecans
2 large eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
6 T vegetable oil
1 ½ c all-purpose flour
1 c granulated sugar
1 ½ t baking powder
1 t cinnamon
¼ t salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom of 9-inch square pan with parchment paper.

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add brown sugar and whisk until smooth. Pour brown sugar mixture into bottom of preared pan.

In a medium bowl, combine cranberries and pecans. Place them in the pan over the brown sugar mixture.

In a large blow, whisk together eggs, pumpkin puree and oil. In another bowl, sift together the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Stir flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture. Carefully spread the batter over the cranberry pecan topping.

Bake cake until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean, 40-50 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes. Place large plate on top of the cake. Invert the cake and plate together, then remove the pan. Carefully peel off the parchment paper.

Let cool completely before serving.

Can be made a day in advance; wrap in plastic wrap and store at room temperature.