Now This Is A Cake

About a month or so ago I had a day where I had a bit of free time, so I thought I’d spend some time visiting some blogs that I’d been remiss in visiting.  I hate that there are so many wonderful food blogs, and only so much time to keep up with them.  One of the blogs I spent some time reading was Tasting Spoons.  I love it when I can sit back with a cup of tea or coffee and catch up on what Carolyn has been doing, because she is quite the storyteller, and always has something good simmering on the stove.   On this particular day, Carolyn shared about a cake that she often thought about at a restaurant she enjoys, and lo and behold, the local paper ran a story and shared the recipe for this Brown Sugar Cake.  Of course, Carolyn made it, and her photo alone grabbed my full attention, and I knew that this was going to be a fantastic cake.  I left a comment about wanting to make it, but needing to track down some almond meal to do so.

Wouldn’t you know, in my e-mail there was a lovely e-mail from Carolyn mentioning that she had plenty of almond meal on hand, and she would love to send me some so that I could make this cake.  With an offer like that, I couldn’t not accept, and that almond meal has been waiting patiently in my pantry for a day that called for cake.  Yesterday was the day.  I followed Carolyn’s instructions to the letter with two exceptions.  The first was that I cut the recipe in half, I certainly didn’t need cake for 21 people, and since Carolyn said that it is a very rich cake, I really didn’t need that much cake.  The only other change I made was to use half and half in the very first step instead of heavy cream.  When I determined it was time to make this cake, half and half was what I had on hand, so that was what I used.

At first glance, the cake seems complicated, but it really isn’t.  The first stage has you bring cream, butter and salt to a boil, and then that is poured over brown sugar and then whisked together.  Once this is creamy, you pour it into the bottom of your pan.   The original recipe made one 9×13 AND one 8×8 pan of cake.  Cut in half, I took a shot and simply used my large oval stoneware baker and used that.  I poured the brown sugar mixture in and set it on the back porch to cool and set up.

One word of advice here.  When you set something sticky and gooey on the back porch on an extremely blustery day, cover it, or don’t be surprised to find little bits of who-knows-what and leaves sticking to your goo.

Once set, I mixed up the batter.  Again, easy as pie.  I beat butter with sugar and vanilla, and then eggs.  In a separate bowl I combined flour, almond meal, salt and baking powder.  The almond meal definitely intrigued me.  Essentially, it’s simply finely ground almonds, and I wondered what it was contributing to this cake.  Flavor? Texture? Both? The next part was definitely the trickiest as I gently dolloped the batter onto the brown sugar layer.  Once all the batter was in the pan, I very slowly and gently spread it with my offset spreader to the edges, and then the cake went in the oven for 55 minutes.  When the cake came out, I set it aside to cool briefly before flipping it out onto a serving plate.  There was no way that I was waiting any longer to dig into this cake!

The brown sugar mixture baked up into a rather decadent caramel, which oozes seamlessly into the cake layer.  The cake itself is light and airy in texture, but no-where near dry, in fact it’s almost damp, and very buttery in flavor.  Carolyn served this up with some lightly sauteed apples and ice cream, and I think that is a totally spot-on way to serve it.  I will be doing that later on today, in fact.  This has to be one of the best cakes I’ve ever tasted.  The caramel kind of firms up as it sits and acts as almost a frosting layer of the cake.  It is obscenely rich and unctuous, and exactly what I would expect from a sophisticated dessert menu.  This cake could easily star in any formal dinner party plan, but at the same time, the rustic charm of it also appeals to the everyday now and then treat.  Since even a half batch of cake made a small ton of pastry, I am going to cut small pieces and put them in the freezer to see how they fare that way.  Imagine, a cold winter night, a mug of spiced cider or hot cocoa, and a small piece of Brown Sugar Cake, gently warmed in the microwave.  I get shivers just thinking about it.

And while you’re thinking about it, do head over to Tasting Spoons and say hi to Carolyn and see what she’s up to today.  If you’d like to get your grubby paws on a copy of the recipe for Brown Sugar Cake, you’ll have to head on over there to get one.  If you’re contemplating this recipe and the almond meal is throwing you- don’t let it.  Since receiving mine from Carolyn, I’ve spotted it in several stores under the name of “finely ground almonds”.  It almost looks like flour- it’s that fine, and that’s what you want.

Thank you Carolyn for sending me the almond meal.  It gave me just the impetus I needed to actually make the cake, and oh my, is it a great one! This is going into the company’s coming folder, that’s for certain.