Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake




This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for Browned Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake. That’s really a long title for what is a fairly simple cake. I had looked at making this cake a couple of weeks ago, when I realized that it requires ingredients that I already had on hand. I ended up making it over the weekend (how appropriate!) and I took it to work to help celebrate January birthdays at work. You can check out how the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers fared with this week’s recipe by visiting the Tuesdays with Dorie site

This cake is a simple butter cake, where you brown the butter before adding to the batter. I’ve browned butter a couple of times and it’s true, it is just a matter of seconds between browned butter and burnt butter. I learned the hard way before, so now I am very careful when browning butter. I did use a vanilla bean since I had one on hand. Somehow scraping the seeds out of a vanilla bean looks a lot easier on tv than it is in real life. 

This cake baked up very nicely, although it was just a touch under baked in the very center. It looked lovely. You almost got to see a picture of the lovely cake in the pan, because I just couldn’t get the cake out of the pan! I had buttered and floured the pan, but I guess not enough because it was thoroughly stuck to the bottom. I ended up cutting the cake in half, removing half of the cake and then I was able to get half of the cake out of the pan cleaning. Not a total loss. The flavors in this cake aren't extravagant, but I really like the cake. Next time, I will line the cake pan with parchment.

Recipe from Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan, page 6

12 comments:

Kayte said...

I can never figure out why some things stick and some don't in the same pan. I butter and flour but still sometimes things stick and some don't. It's one of those mysteries I guess. Your cake looks lovely.

Nana said...

I agree about the vanilla bean, it looks easy when
someone else is doing it, but it does flavor the cake
nicely. Your cake looks good.

kitchen flavours said...

I lined the baking pan with parchment paper, a habit of mine when baking bakes even when the recipe does not call for it! And I totally agree with the vanilla bean, it looks so much easier when someone else is doing it!
Your cake bakes up lovely!

Cher Rockwell said...

Yup, way easier when it isn't you :-)
Looks delicious.

Anonymous said...

Your cake looks great. I agree about the vanilla bean-I used a giant knife to scrape out the seeds when a paring knife or even a butter knife would have been better. Live and learn.

Kathy said...

Your cake looks lovely! Sorry it stuck to the pan! So frustrating! I used vanilla paste instead of the vanilla bean…it was actually perfect for this cake, and cut out the step of cutting the bean, which I have done many times in the past. Happy Tuesday!

Zosia said...

I used parchment with mine and it came out easily (as it should) but may have baked up strangely because of it! Scraping the vanilla bean is a little tricky but so worth it for the flavour.

Liz That Skinny Chick Can Bake said...

It's such a bonus when you don't need to make a shopping list for a TwD recipe. I'm glad you enjoyed it despite a little sticking.

caramelizelife.com said...

I found that using homemade vanilla extract and vanilla sugar helps to add good flavor.
Despite the stickiness your cake looks lovely!

Cathleen | My Culinary Mission said...

You can't tell from the photo you had issues with getting it out of the pan. Looks good!

Anonymous said...

It's frustrating when a cake sticks. The half you got out looks perfect!

Golden Life PHX said...

You can't tell at all from your pictures that you had any issues with your pan-it still looks great.