Pumpkin Loaves of Lub

That's "lub", not "lube", you crazies! Everyone always gets that wrong...

Anyway!

I made these pumpkin loaves and I was told that they were delicious. I don't really know whether they were or not myself because they were all gone and eaten before I could get a taste. The loaf itself was a pretty strait forward pumpkin loaf with walnuts just topped with an exceptionally delicious cream cheese icing flavored with lemon and vanilla bean. I'm told that they were moist and light--not heavy and dense like most pumpkin loaves that you find around town (shameless self promotion right there...). Instead of the required vegetable oil, I used some walnut oil that I found sitting at Winners and I think it really helped bring out some of the flavor. It's the little things.

The challenging part of these little loaves were the silly little loaf liners designed by the geniuses at team Paula Deen. Too awkwardly sized for any rational loaf pan, these liners look cute, but only cause unnecessary frustration. To make them fit better, I filled the empty space with aluminum foil, and this is the result:

The only thing that saved me from extreme shame at these misshapen trolls of the loaf/cake world were the adorable little boxes that handily went with the liners (all on sale at Michaels for 70% off!). I almost look like some kind of professional when I use these!

If you want to make these for yourself, they're very simple--just your basic muffin method at work here! I doubled this recipe easily and substituted walnut oil for vegetable oil, but other than that, this is pretty much it.

Pumpkin Walnut Bread
Adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet

2 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/3 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted)

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF. In a large bowl whisk together first seven ingredients until thoroughly blended. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, water, sugar, pumpkin, oil, and vanilla.

2. Add the pumpkin mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk until blended and smooth. Add walnuts and stir. Pour batter into prepared loaf pans and level off the tops.

3. Bake for 55-65 minutes, until the bread is firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean. Transfer to a rack and cool before adding cream cheese frosting.

For Cream Cheese Frosting:
Combine 12 ounces softened cream cheese, 3 ounces softened unsalted butter, finely grated zest of one lemon, 10 ounces powdered sugar, and 1 1/2 tsp vanilla in a mixer. Beat until smooth.

Comfort Food: Blueberry-Blackcurrant Muffins

It's nearing the end of summer here. In fact some say that the summer had already come and gone by the middle of August. Yesterday I had to put on a sweater and crank the heat in the car. This seems somehow... wrong. Unfair even. The only thing I had to make up for the dismal weather was a bowl of blackcurrants I had picked the day before. Yes, I am that weird woman in her short shorts, batman t-shirt and Lindsay Lohan shades holding a little white bucket, picking currants off the bushes in public parks. I'm doing the city a service. And you can't stop me!

Anyhow...

I decided that the currants would go pretty well inside muffins with some blueberries. What I didn't count on was how much of a pain it would be to de-stem each and every one of these finicky little berries. I think I sat through 2 episodes of Mad Men while cleaning and separating (I didn't miss much--Don Draper was dashing and intense, Peter Campbell was creepy and intense, Peggy Olsen was weird and intense, and Roger Sterling was busy getting syphilis).

In the end, I managed to produce these delicious cakey muffins adapted from Sur La Table that were all eaten while the berries inside were still molten hot. Always a good sign I think.


Easy Morning Muffins with Blueberries and Blackcurrants
Adapted from The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet, page 148

2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
3/4 stick of butter (unsalted)
finely grated zest of one lemon (I used 1 tsp lime oil instead and it was really yummy)
2/3 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
6 oz fresh blueberries
4 oz fresh blackcurrants

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Prepare muffin tins. Blend together flour, 2/3 cup sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In a medium skillet, melt butter with the lemon zest. Turn off the heat. Add the buttermilk to the melted butter and let sit for 1 or 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla to butter and mix well.

2. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Pour the butter mixture into the well and stir gently. Mix only until there are no more streaks of flour or pools of liquid and the batter looks fairly smooth. Gently fold in berries until evenly distributed.

3. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Sprinkle remaining sugar over the tops of the muffins.

4. Bake for 18-20 minutes, until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

Playing With My Food

I like to play with my food. Not in a mountain-out-of-mashed-potatoes-this-means-something kind of way, but more in a... how can I make this taste different or better or healthier or (forgive me) organicier. Because my family enjoys acting like a bunch of enablers, I got a book called Culinary Artistry by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. This book is laid out kind of like a culinary dictionary of flavours. You look up the word "lemon" and it will have listed all the things that compliment the lemon flavor of a dish from almond and raspberry, to honey and lime.

Which leads me to my discovery! You can make meringue with honey. You just substitute equal parts honey for sugar in your meringue recipe (or swiss meringue buttercream recipe, which is what I did) and voila! You have to be careful about what kind of honey you use though because some varieties are much stronger in flavour than others. I just used a little bottle of liquid honey that I found in my cupboard. A subtle honey taste that wasn't overly sweet.

There are lots of cool thing about being able to use honey as a sugar replacement in baked goods, the first of which being that it supports local industry (which also decreases the the output of harmful offgases and enegry produced in shipping sugars from places like Australia and Cuba). Honey is also a completely unrefined sweetener that retains moisture so that when it's used in baked goods, so the goods actually last longer than when regular sugar is used. The more you know, eh?

This all came about when I had made a lemon curd to fill my cakes with and wanted a buttercream that was a little different from the regular vanilla that didn't overpower the velvety lemon curd. So now I have a buttercream recipe that is sugar free. And I have to admit that it was pretty exciting coming up with this on my own. Playing with your food is bound to pay off sometime.

Honey Swiss meringue Buttercream
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cooking School

1 1/2 cups sugar (OR 1 1/2 cups HONEY-- if you want a less sweet, more subtle honey flavour, use only 1 cup honey)
6 large egg whites
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
1 pound unsalted butter cut into tablespoons and room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Combine suagr (or honey), egg whites and salt in a large heatproof mixing bowl and set the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk until whites are warm to the touch and sugar (or honey) is dissolved, 2-3 minutes.
2. Attach your bowl to an electric mixer and beat on low speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat on medium-high speed until stiff glossy peaks form and mixture is cooled completely, roughly 10 minutes.
3. Reduce speed to medium-low and add butter two tablespoons at a time beating to incorporate fully after each addition. After the butter has been incorporated, add vanilla. (If the mixture looks curdled, don't worry and just keep beating-- it will smoothe out on its own)

Best Buttercream Ever (it's gonna kill me...)

I’m twenty-two years old and according to my doctor, I have high cholesterol. This isn’t the good cholesterol that keeps your body fit and your brain active, no, this is the cholesterol that supposedly clogs your arteries like a bad traffic jam and results in your early -- and most definitely ugly-- demise. This comes off as somewhat of a slap-in-the-face to me not because of my age, but because of my “active lifestyle”, perfect weight range, and the fact that while I may be making loads of sugary confections every week, I very rarely eat more than a couple bites or a single slice. All this restraint and motivation, not to mention the hours spent peddling peddling peddling away on the stationary bike sweating buckets and going nowhere, has resulted in me feeling and looking good, but also having the chemical makeup of an eighty year old obese man!

I shouldn’t complain too much. I’ve done my own research and found that most recent studies on “bad” cholesterol have shown that it is in no way related to heart disease (and, in turn, in no way related to my early and ugly demise). This is a relief. A huge relief actually. The chart my doctor gave me listing the foods I was to stay away from and the foods I was “allowed” to eat was... extensive. To sum it up, I can eat any fruit except coconut, most vegetables, absolutely no butter or other milk products with more than... 0% Milk Fat, and as many egg whites and boiled chicken breasts as I want.

So when I discovered the Best Buttercream Recipe EVER--a recipe that contained 8 egg yolks and over a pound of butter-- I figured the best course of action would be to say a quick prayer to the gods of deliciousness, whip it up, and know that if my research was wrong and I suddenly died of intense artery cloggage, at least I’ll have died with a smile on my face.

Which brings me to the whole point of this rambling post, which would be to give you the recipe for a buttercream that I guarantee will make you moan softly, close your eyes in bliss and revel in the joy that comes from an image of fluffy pastel wearing angels dancing on your tongue. Ladies and gentlemen, don’t let the simplicity fool you, this is not your grandmother’s buttercream.


Buttercream
Adapted from Baking by James Peterson

8 egg yolks (I only used 6 because that was all that I had)
1.25 lbs unsalted butter just a titch cooler than room temperature cut into small pieces
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup water
2 tsp vanilla (or your choice of flavoring)

1. Pour your sugar and water into a heavy bottomed saucepan and boil on high until it reaches the "soft ball" stage. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks on med-high speed in your mixer until they quadruple in volume and are very pale. About 10 minutes.
2. While the mixer is running, slowly pour in the hot sugar syrup careful not to touch the sides of the bowl or the beater itself.
3. Add the butter, one chunk at a time, waiting until each chunk is incorporated before adding more. Add vanilla.
4. The mixture should change suddenly and become very pale, thick, and fluffy.

In Which I Take a Running Jump at Rose's Heavenly Cakes

I had long anticipated trying out one of Rose Levy Beranbaum's cakes. She is, after all, the author of The Cake Bible--widely considered to be THE go-to book on cakes. So when my mom came home one day with Rose's Heavenly Cakes in the bag I was pretty excited to try out one of these "guaranteed to please" "impossible to fail" cake recipes.

Cut to four months later when I decide to excavate the cookbook from a huge mound of other cookbooks, and endeavor to make one of these cakes. Seeing as it was Valentine's Day, I thought it would be nice to make something festive. With this in mind, I dug up a heart-shaped cake pan from the basement (possibly circa 1994), bought a bottle of red food colouring, and set to work making a Rose Red Velvet Cake.

Let me start off first by saying that yes, this cake does in fact require you to open up a bottle of red food colouring and pour the entire contents of that bottle into a bowl of egg whites and vanilla, which will then be mixed into your cake batter. Do not wear any pieces of clothing that you actually care about when you make this cake. And for you own sanity, under no circumstances should you wear white. While the red looks beautiful and vibrant in the cake, it's only unmerciful and devastating on your favorite t-shirt.

That being said, the method used to make this cake is a bit odd. You only lightly beat the egg whites and add them after you've mixed the dry ingredients with the buttermilk and the butter/oil mixture. I'll admit that the cake turned out really nice and light with a subtle hint of cocoa that (oddly enough) only made the vanilla flavour stronger and more pronounced. My only problem with this cake was the icing. Beranbaum calls it her Dreamy Creamy White Chocolate Frosting, but I just call it... Strange. Maybe it was because I don't droll at the thought of white chocolate, and maybe it was because of the strong acidic overtones from the sour cream... whatever it was, this frosting was not for me. If I were to do it again, I would make the cake with a regular cream cheese icing. What can I say, I'm a traditionalist when it comes to my cream cheese icing!

Rose Red Velvet Cake
Adapted from Rose Levy Beranbaum's Rose's Heavenly Cakes (page 83)

3 large egg whites (room temperature)
1 bottle red food colour
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
1 cup superfine sugar
3 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cocoa (for a darker red colour, add more cocoa and reduce the amount of flour you use)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup canola or sunflower oil
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 350F at least 20 minutes before baking.
2. Mix egg whites, food colouring, and vanilla in a medium bowl until lightly combined. Set aside.
3. In another medium bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, baking powder, cocoa, salt)
4. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and oil on medium speed for one minute (it won't be smooth, so don't worry too much about this bit). Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk while the mixer is on low speed. Raise the speed to medium for about 1.5 minutes or until everything is mixed together well.
5. Starting on medium-low speed, gradually add the egg mixture to the batter in two parts, beating on medium speed for 30 seconds after each addition.
6. When all in mixed together nicely, scrape the batter into your prepared pan and carefully smooth the surface. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Gifts and Some Pasta

For my Birthday last month I got a great big food processor from my mom. The very first time I used it, I put it to work pulverizing pistachios, sugar, flour, and butter into a struesel for inside an apple strudel I made for my grandmother for Christmas Eve. In the process of figuring out how to work this new piece of heavy machinery, my brother and I both ended up with sliced fingers and hands from the slick sharp new blades. We were in a rush to get the strudel into the oven so I worked one-handed while my little brother bandaged my fingers (and then carefully cut away small layers of dough where some blood may or may not have dripped... but no one was the wiser!).

The second time I (carefully) pulled out my sparkly new food processor was yesterday--when I endeavoured to make my own pasta from scratch with another new toy I got for Christmas: a pasta maker. I went into this thinking it would not only be difficult, but also time consuming and messy. So you can imagine my surprise when, less than 30 minutes later, I was sitting at the table eating my freshly cooked fresh pasta in an ozzy cheese sauce (courtesy of Jamie Oliver). However, the huge pile of dishes and the flour that ended up all over my kitchen meant that I was at least right about one thing. But I'll blame myself and not the pasta for that one.


As for the pasta, it tasted fantastic, so much better than the dried kind you get in a box at Safeway. It actually had nice salty flavor that could almost stand on its own. It cooked so quickly and had a lovely texture that didn't resemble over or undercooked pasta, but the perfect al dente. I liked the taste of the pasta on its own so much that I might try and make it with only melted butter, some sugar, and cinamon for a dessert. The creamy cheese sauce was good, but next time I would go for something a little less cheesy and a little more creamy, as the parmesean was a bit on the pungent side and made the whole house smell like vomit. However, I didn't mind the taste of the guyere and the creme fraiche was an interesting alternative to actual cream and gave the sauce a nice little zing of flavor. I'll also add that this meal was a bit... heavy. I didn't have to eat much at all to feel stuffed. This could either be due to the cheesy-creamy ratio or the fact that I didn't run the pasta through the rollers enough times, so it was a bit on the thick side. Either way, I am more than willing to try making my own pasta again in the near future.







Jamie Oliver's Pasta with Oozy Cheese Sauce
adapted from Jamie at Home

1. Crack 4 eggs into a food processor with 2 cups of flour. Process. The dough should be a bit crumbly looking, if it's sticky, add a bit more flour.
2. Dump pasta dough onto a floured work surface and press into a ball. Knead a few times to get it together well (this should be pretty easy). Divide the dough into four pieces.
3. Take a piece of dough and run it through your pasta machine on its widest setting. Jamie says to run it through a couple times on each setting until it's about the "width of a CD". I would say a little thinner than that because otherwise your pasta is going to be very thick after it's cooked.
4. Liberally flour both sides of your sheet of dough then fold it together and cut it into strips. Seperate the strips and add more flour to coat. Repeat with the remaining dough.
5. For the cheese sauce, you want to place a bowl over a pot of boiling water (the pot should be big enough to cook all your fresh pasta in when your sauce is done) and mix together 1 cup of creme fraiche, and about a handful of parmesean and guyere (although you can use any "good melting cheese"). When it's all melted, add salt and pepper to taste.
6. Throw your pasta into the pot of boiling water and cook for about 2-3 minutes. Drain and mix with the sauce. Voila!

Soufflé #1: Raspberry Soufflé

It's the smell. That has to be it.
The thing that compelled people to continue to conjure up soufflé after soufflé in France had to have been the smell because that in itself is pure decadence. There have been whole industries dedicated to bottling that smell. To put it very simply, it's the smell of raspberries, but honestly it's more than that. It's a clean smell - not altered or enhanced or changed in any way. And it fills the entire house within minutes so that every room you go into seems as though it's got a pink haze. I dare you to find a scented candle that will do that!

Unfortunately though, while the scent of these raspberry soufflés was enchanting, that was pretty much all this dessert had to offer.

I learned right off the hop that if you've made a soufflé with the intent to impress someone, that someone better be there to eat it the second you pull the ramekin out of the oven. This is because, while your soufflé will most certainly look jaw-droppingly impressive (possibly to the point of even being somewhat daunting) when you pull it out of the oven, that will only last about 4 minutes. If that.
My soufflés today came out of the oven towering a whole 4 inches over the top of their little ramekins, but by the time they were 5 minutes old, some of them had sunk nearly an inch below the rim. Fail. This might just be the particular recipe I was using, as it contained no flour or anything like that for structure.

These little soufflés definitely did not taste like I had expected. I thought it would be like eating raspberry mousse - light, fluffy and as pure and natural tasting as the smell had led me to believe. Suprisingly, it tasted more like a raspberry candy. Almost sickly sweet even. Combined with the custard-like texture, I didn't quite know what to make of this dish. It's not that it was bad... it was just not something I would choose to eat on a regular basis!

However! I chose to make this particular soufflé because I had 6 egg whites that I needed to use up as well as a few cups of raspberries that were getting a bit old. I had less than an hour in which to make this dish start to finish, and to be completely honest I was done with half an hour to spare. There are three steps in this recipe and it's simplicity made me constantly check and re-check it to make sure I didn't miss anything. So as far as efficiency goes, this definitely gets a gold star.

I should probably add that if I were after a recipe that was gluten-free, extremely low on sugar, or completely fat-free, this dish would have been perfect. However, I am a fan of flour, fat, and sugar, so this was not at all what I had expected. Soufflé #2 will be better!!

Recipe:
Raspberry Soufflé
(Adapted from the Art and Soul of Baking, by Cindy Mushet)

12 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tbsp plus 1/4 c granulated sugar
5 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (f). Puree the raspberries in a food processor and then run the puree through a strainer to get out all the seeds. You should end up with 1 cup of smooth seedless raspberry puree. Stir in the 1 tbsp of sugar.
2. Whip the egg whites on medium speed until they form soft peaks. With the mixer running, rain in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Stir 1/4 of the egg whites into the raspberry puree to lighten the mixture. Fold the remaining whites in until there are no more streaks of white.
3. Pipe the soufflé batter into 10 3 oz individual buttered ramekins until flush with the rim. Bake for 14-17 minutes, until set and firm to the touch in the centre. Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve with créme fraîche. Devour immediately.

my KLA-FOO-TEE...

"What's for dessert?"
"I'm making clafoutis."
"Sounds like an STD. Or STI if I'm being politically correct, but I'm sure it will be yummy... whatever it is!"
"It will be yummy. French."
"Hey, I'd eat syphilis if it was on a dessert menu."

Making a dessert that no one quite knows how to pronounce definitely has its advantages. The first of which being that your test subjects will usually have no idea what they're about to put in their mouths. You can also get the idea into your head that you need to create a dish called "syphilis" that tastes so absolutely delicious that all people will say that they would eat syph. Weird.

I used pluots again as the fruity aspect of my clafoutis. Traditionally, this dessert is made with dark cherries (pits and all), but because I'm having a love affair with the tart-suculent flavor and bright pink color of the pluots and wanted to use as many of them as I could before they went out of season.

This is my sister's favorite dessert. She gotten into the habit of begging me to make it at every possible opportunity. Because of this, I have used any and every friut at hand to crreate this dessert from blackberries to canned peaches (although I wouldn't recommend the canned peaches as they are far too bland and add nothing at all to the taste of the dish). From this, I learned that the more tart the fruit, the better the clafoutis turns out (and this can be true for many other desserts as well).

I've tried two different recipes or this dish. One was a fancy recipe involving heating the milk and cream over the stove with the vanilla before whisking in the eggs. The other was a far simpler method whereby you just throw all the ingredients into the mixer, mix for a while until frothy, and then pour it into your baking dish. The simple one I found in a food magazine alongside an ad for cream and I believe it is, by far, the better of the two in terms of ease, taste, and time. Taste being, naturally, the most important consideration!

Raspberry Peach Clafouti
(from a Real Cream ad in a magazine I don't remember)

1. Butter a deep 9 or 10 inch pie plate. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat 3 large eggs and 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a medium bowl using an electric mixer. Add 3/4 cup cream and beat until combined. Stir in 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 cup all purpose flour, and a pinch of salt.
3. Sprinkle fruit on the bottom of the prepared dish. Pour batter over fruit.
4. Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes or until set. Cover loosely with foil during cooking if top is browning too fast. Serve warm or cold. Serves 6-8.

my quest to create the perfect Princess Torte...

In my mind, the princess torte is one of the most elegant looking traditional cakes you can find. Looking at the finished cake as a whole, it looks very simple and unassuming. Almost innocent even. But the pastel coloured marzipan is hiding a cake that is so decadent and unique that you cannot hep but sit in (at least a little) awe at this confection.

I have attempted this odyssey of a cake twice now and while the taste of both of the cakes was different (I used a completely different cake base for each), they both turned out tasting creamy and delicious. However, I have to admit that my second attempt looked much much better!

As has been the trend lately, "simple" does not in any way mean "easy" (although with any luck, this will hopefully change with time). Traditionally, the princess torte has three layers of genoisie cake and in between the layers is strawberry jam and custard folded with whipping cream topped with a heaping (HEAPING) mound of whipped cream on top of the cake to give it a domed look when it's draped with the pastel green marzipan. The first time I made this, the only major problem that I had was in colouring the marzipan--I wanted it pink, but it turned this bloody-orange colour that wasn't very appetizing at all. Other than that, it received good reviews and I was eager to try it again. The only thing holding me back was the extremely high cost of marzipan, and the fact that my 14 year old brother likes to eat it by the pound it turns out (how NEITHER of us have ended up morbidly obese is completely beyond me!). So after being gifted a 3 lb log of marzipan from my grandparents, I just had to wait for my first full day off to pull this off.

I mentioned earlier how this cake was an odyssey. Well, this particular cake a grueling one. For a bit of an experiment I used Martha's White Cake recipe for the cake because when I made the first one, it didn't rise quite like I needed it to and when I cut it there was cake everywhere. Hopefully, this cake wouldn't be quite as fussy. Luckily the cakes turned out great and I would be able to pull off a four layered one this go 'round.

Making the custard was... in a word, soul-crushing. Never have I ever been so tormented by something so simple that I have been able to pull off in the past without any problems. It took me three tries, 11 eggs, and two recipes to get a custard that was not curdled to the point where it looked like scrambled eggs in water. Gross. The first time I thought it might have been the milk I was using, 1%. Changed the milk to half and half and tried it again. Same thing. This time though, before dumping the whole lot down the toilet, my mom tasted the glorpy substance and said that the vanilla tasted a bit off. So on my final try (although I have to admit, I would have kept trying until I got it right!) I used vanilla extract in lieu of a real vanilla bean and had sweet success. Praise the Jesus! Even though I would have kept on trying until I got it right, I'm pretty sure there would have been tears and possibly the throwing of an egg or two if that third try had flopped.

Whipped Cream: check! I can do that one no problem.

Arranging the cake went without incident, which was a nice change of pace for me. I was even able to mix in the right food colouring and roll out the marzipan without any major drawbacks! Although I feel I should note that if you have a silicone rolling pin, use that for the marzipan in stead of a marble or wood one. I will only make that mistake once... marzipan is very sticky.


When it was all finished, it looked (for me) nearly perfect. The taste was even pretty awesome too. What I like about this cake the most is how you think at first that it's kind of plain. The same vanilla tastes replaying layer after layer. But that's not the case at all! The strawberry jam is so tart that it compliments both the custard and the cake and then with the added zing of the marzipan, the whole cake comes together nicely with a very unique flavor that is neither bland nor predicatble. When it's been sitting for a while, all the creams and custards combine to make the cake almost seem like one big custard (and after it's been in the fridge for a while, it almost seems like a big slab of decadent ice cream cake).

The only thing I would go so far as to change with this cake, is to return to the genoisie cake base and forgo Martha's white cake. Because the cake is so custard-heavy, the added dryness from the genoisie is necessary to hold the whole thing together, while the white cake is too soft and dense for a cake that is already going to be quite dense.

Recipe:
White Cake
(Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cooking School)

1 c unsalted butter (room temperature, plus more for pans)
3 c sifted cake flour (plus more for pans)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 3/4 c granulated sugar
1 vanilla bean split lengthwise
1 c milk (room temperature)
8 large egg whites
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees (f). Butter two eight in round cake pans and line bottoms with parchment paper rounds. Butter paper and dust both pans with flour. Tap out excess.
2. Whisk together dry ingredients.
3. Cream the butter and 1 1/4 cups of sugar until light and fluffy (about 4 minutes). Scrape vanilla seeds into the bowl.
4. With the paddle attachment on and the mixer on "low", add dry ingredients in three batches alternating with the milk and starting and ending with the dry ingredients.
5. In a separate clean bowl, beat egg whites on low speed until foamy. Add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, beating on medium-high until stiff glossy peaks form. Whisk 1/3 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten, then carefully fold in the rest of the whites.
6. Divide the batter between the prepared cake pans and bake for 30-40 minutes. Allow to rest in pans for 10 minutes after they have come out of the oven, then transfer to a cooling rack and wait until cooled completely before proceeding.

Pastry Cream
(Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cooking School)

2 c whole milk
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 vanilla bean
pinch of salt
3 large egg yolks
3 tbsp plus 1 1/2 tsp cornstarch
2 tbsp unsalted butter

1. Bring milk, 1/4 cup of sugar, vanilla seeds and salt to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat, whisking to disperse seeds.
2. Whisk egg yolks and remaining sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk in cornstarch, one tablespoon at a time. Ladle 1/2 hot milk mixture into yolk mixture, whisking. Add remaining milk mixture. Pour mixture back into pan and heat over medium-high, whisking constantly, until mixture comes to a full boil and is thick enough to hold it's shape when lifted with a spoon (about 2 minutes). Stir in butter.
3. Remove from heat and pour into a bowl. Place plastic wrap directly on the surface (to prevent a skin from forming) and refrigerate until cold, about 2 hours.