Mardi Gras King Cake

Yes, I realize that not only is it way past Mardi Gras, we've already passed Easter as well.
Never you mind!

The fantastic thing about annual holidays is that they'll always come round again! So, just think, you (and I) will be extra prepared for next Mardi Gras!

Total: 4 hrs

Makes: 10 to 12 servings

Ingredients

For the brioche:
1 cup whole milk, heated (about 105°F to 115°F)
1 (1/4-ounce) packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
Vegetable oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon fine salt
2 teaspoons orange zest
4 large egg yolks, beaten
2 tablespoons bourbon
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 teaspoons almond extract
4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), chilled and cut into small
pieces

For the filling:
3 cups pecans, toasted and cooled
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon fine salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), small dice
To assemble:
1 egg yolk
1 tablespoon milk
1 small plastic baby (optional)
For the decoration:
1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1 tablespoon bourbon
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons freshly squeezed orange juice
3 tablespoons sanding sugar (optional)

Method

For the brioche:
1. Place the milk in a large bowl and (You can also do this with a stand mixer, but I recommend the old school hand method) sprinkle the yeast on top.
Set aside to rest until the mixture bubbles, about 5 to 10 minutes. (If the mixture doesn’t bubble,
either the milk was not at the correct temperature or the yeast was old.) Coat a large bowl with
vegetable oil and set aside.

2. Add the sugar, salt, and zest to the milk mixture and mix to combine. Add the egg
yolks and mix until evenly incorporated. Add the bourbon, orange juice, and almond extract and
continue mixing. Add the flour and nutmeg little by little until the dough is moistened throughout
and starts to come together. Turn out the dough from the bowl and knead until the dough forms a ball, and is smooth and elastic, about 5-10 minutes.

3. Add the butter piece by piece, letting each fully incorporate before adding the next. Place the
dough in the oiled bowl, turn to coat with oil, cover with a damp cloth, and let sit in a warm area
until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

4. When the dough has doubled in size, punch it down, cover, and let rise until doubled in size again,
about 1 hour. (Alternatively, you can place it in the refrigerator overnight to rise, about 12 to
16 hours. Be sure to let it sit at room temperature for 10 to 15 minutes before rolling.)

For the filling:

Place the nuts in the bowl of a food processor fitted with a blade attachment and pulse until
coarsely chopped, about 5 pulses. Add the remaining ingredients and pulse until you have a coarse
meal, about 5 more pulses.

To assemble:
1. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Roll the dough into a 28-by-8-inch
rectangle. Leaving a 1-inch perimeter at the top and bottom (the short sides), spread the filling
out along the whole length of the dough.

2. Whisk together the egg yolk and milk until evenly combined. Brush the exposed perimeter of the
dough with the egg wash, fold the long sides of the dough over the filling to form a long cylinder,
and pinch the edge to seal. Place the cake seam side down on the baking sheet, form into a ring,
and pinch the ends of the dough together to form a circle with about a 3-inch hole in the middle.
As needed, press on the circle so that the filling is evenly distributed within the dough. 

3. Cover the cake loosely with a damp towel and set aside to rise until doubled in volume, about 60
minutes. Meanwhile, heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle.

4. Just before baking, brush the remaining egg wash on the surface of the cake. Place in the oven and
bake until the cake has puffed up, the crust is golden, and the underside is golden brown, about 30
minutes. Remove to a wire rack and let cool at least 1 hour.

5. Hide the baby, if using, in the cake by pushing it up through the bottom of the cake, being careful
not to push through the top of the cake.

For the decoration:
1. Stir together the powdered sugar, bourbon, and orange juice until evenly combined. Brush the cake
with the icing and, if desired, immediately decorate with the sanding sugar.

English Carrot Cake

I know what you must be thinking. English carrot cake? What on earth could be the difference between English carrot cake and American carrot cake?

Well, good thing you asked.

I enjoy following the Guardian series "How to cook the perfect..." because I think it's an excellent idea. Everyone has their version of classic recipes, but rarely are these variations compared and contrasted.

Is pasta or rice better in minestrone soup? Are tomatoes essential in it?
How about the perfect yorkshire puddings? Should they be massive pillowy things or small dainty puffs?

These variations are probably fought over in kitchens throughout the world, but the Guardian sets their writers to compare and contrast each, pulling out the best from each recipe they find, producing essentially the "best" of a particular well-known recipe.

And, for the most part, they've come up with some excellent "best of" recipes in the past (see my version of a blissfully tomato-free minestrone).

But obviously any "best of" recipe will ultimately rest with the chef making it. And here is where the carrot cake comes in.

I have had many carrot cakes in my time, most of them in the US. They can be wonderfully dense, moist things, full of carrot flavor and rich in nuts and raisins. Add some classic cream cheese frosting, and carrot cake can do wonders.

So I was eager to try the Guardian's version, particularly as, thanks to our weekly veg box, we are literally up to our ears in carrots. But as I read through the post, I became immediately suspicious. Not only was the tradition cream cheese frosting summarily rejected, but the amount of carrots in the cake seemed suspiciously low. Felicity Clark, the chef behind the recipe, seemed more concerned about the guilt factor associated with the carrot cake than making the cake...well, a cake (as she says: "Carrots aren't the only good thing in this cake – it's often laden with fruit and nuts too, in the manner of a sugar-laden granola bar hoping to pass muster as a health food").

Honey, you're making a cake. Not health food. Get over it.

She was also somehow insistent on making the cake with the bizarre "sandwich tins" so popular in the UK. Now, I have nothing against the classic Victoria sponge or any layered cake. But if you're going to layer a cake, give us enough frosting to make the layers worthwhile!! As you can see from the picture, there is little "extra" frosting to go around. And that, kids, is from doubling the original quantities posted on the website. Come on, Felicity, live a little. Even though she insisted that cream cheese frosting wasn't "dignified" enough for the cake (and too rich), her version of the frosting was just cream cheese and brown sugar. Ok, it was fine. But nothing like the glories of carrot cakes in the past. It seemed too guilty as a frosting, silently criticizing itself for being too fatty and apologizing that it was even there at all.
Look, if you're going to go with cake frosting, you're going to have to commit to it. Don't apologize.

This all seems to be a woefully long rant about the evils of the Guardian's carrot cake. Which may not seem entirely fair. The cake was perfectly edible (soaking the raisins in rum beforehand helped, a trick I used from "naughty Nigella" as Felicity puts it), yet not nearly "carrot-y" enough to satisfy my American palate. Ah well. Live and learn.

Makes: 1 cake

Ingredients

150g butter, melted, plus extra for greasing
150g soft light brown sugar
3 free-range eggs
200g self-raising wholemeal flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp grated nutmeg
Zest of 1 orange
100g sultanas or raisins, soaked in rum for at least 10 minutes
200g carrots, peeled and grated
100g pecans, toasted and roughly chopped, plus extra to decorate

For the icing:
200g full-fat cream cheese
75g light brown soft sugar
Zest of ½ lemon and a squeeze of juice

Beat that sucker.

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line the bases of 2 x 18cm sandwich tins.

Put the melted butter, sugar and eggs into a large mixing bowl and whisk well (what she actually means here is use an electric beater. Otherwise, you'll be there all day) until the ingredients are thoroughly combined and the mixture has almost doubled in volume.

Sift together the flour, bicarb, salt and spices and then fold very gently into the liquid mixture, being careful to knock as little air out as possible. Fold in the remaining ingredients and divide between the tins. Bake for about 30 minutes until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Cool in the tins.

Meanwhile, beat together the icing ingredients and refrigerate. When the cakes are cool enough to ice, remove from the tins, top one with half the icing, and then the other cake. Ice the top, and decorate with the remaining pecans.

Apple Cake

I am not usually a baker of cakes. Muffins, bars, cookies, sure. Cakes seems like so much more of an investment. Who's going to eat a whole cake? I mean, I can handle at least a couple of cookies, but a whole cake? That just seems excessive.

Well, my non-baking cake days are apparently at an end. I have a roommate who loves cake. Any kind of cake. "They feel like a celebration!" she says to me as she pores over recipe books devoted to the subject. She herself is queen of what is now infamously known as the Guinness Chocolate Cake. More on that later though.

But my tendencies toward simplicity resulted in this- an apple cake courtesy of the good ol' "Joy of Cooking". I'm a fan of apple pie but I wanted something sweeter and...well, softer. I had no idea that apple cake was even an option. And now, because of this, poor apple pie may never again find a place in our household. The absolute simplicity of this cake made the fact that it was so delicious even better. I was put on dessert duty the evening we made this and I had the batter ready for the oven in less than 10 minutes. No eggs, no beaters, just a large bowl and a wooden spoon are all you need. Well, that and the ingredients which are by no means hard to find. I also *highly* recommend the addition of rum to this cake. Talk about improving on a good thing.

Served with ice cream, this cake demands recognition amongst its more famous apple-based dessert brethren. And it deserves it.

Ingredients
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (or all purpose flour)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 tbsp. rum
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup chopped apples (I recommend tart green apples, with the skin left on)
1/2 cup chopped pecans

Method
Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour an 8 inch square baking pan or line the bottom with wax or parchment paper. (I used a round spring-form pan, but honestly anything will work here.)

Whisk together in a large bowl the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt.

Add the buttermilk, oil, rum, and vanilla and stir together until smooth.

Stir in the apples and nuts.

Scrape the batter into the pan and spread evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan on a rack. Serve warm, plain or with vanilla ice cream.