Berry Bakewell Squares

The theme for this month’s What’s Baking challenge is baking with fruit. I actually had lots of ideas for this month, as baking with fruit is something that I do fairly often. The main challenge for me is baking when the house is so warm, but I was able to make this one morning before the house got too warm. 

This is a British recipe that I found in an advertisement for Lakeland, which is a cooking store in the UK. I really like Bakewell Tarts, which is a tart that has a layer of jam covered by an almond filling. I was hopeful that these would be bar cookie-like, but this is certainly more like a coffee cake. You can use whatever berries you have on hand. I had blueberries and cherries in the freezer and I used those. I didn’t even thaw the berries! You can use whatever fruit you happen to like, and it seems to work whether the fruit is fresh or frozen.

As this is a British recipe, this cake isn’t as sweet as most American cake recipes. I found the fruit to be fairly tart, too. I don’t think this resembled a Bakewell Tart, but it was still a nice coffee cake. It is a great way to use of different bits of fruit that you may have on hand. I had a lot of fun deciding which recipe to bake for this theme, and I’m looking forward to the next challenge.

Berry Bakewell Squares

250 grams/9 ounces butter

200 grams/7 ounces sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs

200 grams/7 ounces self-rising flour*

50 grams/2 ounces ground almonds

½ teaspoon salt

275 grams/10 ounces berries of your choice

½ sliced almonds

Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 355 degrees. Line a 9” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large saucepan, over medium low heat, melt the butter. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Add the sugar, vanilla, and eggs and stir with a wooden spoon until incorporated. Add the flour, ground almonds, and salt and stir until the batter comes together. The batter may be slightly lumpy. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 40 minutes, then cover the baking pan with foil and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes. A thin knife inserted into the center comes out nearly clean.

Allow to cool in the baking pan for 20 minutes before removing from the pan. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into squares to serve.

Recipe from Lakeland
 

*I make my own self-rising flour by combining 2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon salt

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

Pumpkin Chocolate Cake with Caramel Frosting

This month’s theme for the What’s Baking group was pumpkin or squash. There are so many options for this theme that I was almost overwhelmed with what to make. I chose this cake for a number of reasons: it used exactly the amount of pumpkin puree that I had in the refrigerator and I needed a great looking cake to take to work to celebrate October birthdays. This cake fit the bill!

Now, pumpkin isn’t my favorite flavor, but I was very excited to try this cake, since I hadn’t ever seen a chocolate pumpkin cake! I figured that the pumpkin wouldn’t be a strong flavor, but I figured it would add great texture and moistness to the cake. Caramel is such a popular flavor at work that I knew the frosting by itself would be a hit. The original recipe also included a layer of chocolate ganache, but I thought that would just be too much.

This cake was fantastic. The pumpkin flavor was subtle, which I liked, and the cake texture was just beautiful. The frosting was so good, but you have to be careful when making it: if the caramel is warm, the frosting will be runny. Mine was on the warm side, so I had to refrigerate it to allow it to cool and set before assembling the cake. I took this very tall cake to work and it was great. The pieces are very large! Make sure you check out Carrie’s Sweet Life, this month’s host, to see this month’s other pumpkin/squash recipes. 

Pumpkin Chocolate Cake with Caramel Frosting

2 ½ cups + 2 tablespoons flour

1 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

¾ cup buttermilk

1 ½ cups pumpkin puree

1 ½ teaspoon vanilla

1 ¼ cups butter, room temperature

1 ½ cups brown sugar

1 ½ cups sugar

5 eggs

   

11 ounce package caramels

2 tablespoons milk

1 cup butter softened

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

¼ teaspoon salt

4 ½ cups powdered sugar

2-3 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly spray three 8” round cake pans with nonstick cooking spray. Line the bottom of the pans with parchment and spray the parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and cinnamon; set aside. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, pumpkin and vanilla.  In a large mixer bowl beat together the butter, brown sugar, and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. With the mixer running on low, add 1/3 of the flour mixture, then half of the buttermilk mixture. Add an additional 1/3 of the flour mixture and the remaining buttermilk mixture. Add the final 1/3 of the flour and stir until incorporated. Divide the batter between the three prepared cake pans.

Bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in the pans for 15 minutes and then remove from the pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

Make the frosting: in a microwave safe bowl or in a saucepan over low heat, melt the caramels with 2 tablespoons milk. Allow the caramels to cool for about 15 minutes.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and cream cheese on medium speed until creamy. Stir in the salt and vanilla. With the mixer running on low, mix in the powdered sugar one cup at a time. Once you’ve added the powdered sugar, add milk as needed to achieve spreading consistency. Stir in the cooled caramel.

Assemble the cake: Place the bottom cake layer upside down on a serving plate. Top with about 1 cup of the frosting. Allow the frosting to set in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Top with another cake layer, right side up, and top with 1 cup of frosting. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Top with the final cake layer, and top with another 1 cup of frosting. (You may have extra frosting.) If desired, drizzle with chocolate syrup and swirl to make a decorative design. Refrigerate until serving.

Recipe from Lemons for Lulu