Raccoon and Lobster

At this point I am baking enough of Rose’s cakes that I can’t in good conscience continue posting recipes for every one I bake. This is a four layer cake (made from two 9×2 cakes) with two layers of lemon curd and one layer of the white chocolate custard buttercream that also forms the frosting.

Between all of the components, this baby took me the large part of the day but I got to break in my new rotating cake stand and my enormous 14″ cake slicer. Assembling all of the pieces to put together a cake is the most fun part for me right now, actually eating the cake comes in a distant second. Good thing I have a willing army of cake eaters at my beck and call.

Normally a fifth wheel is considered a bad thing, but when we are talking about wheels of cake, it’s a different matter completely. I’m really proud of how this cake came out, it’s one of my favorites so far. The Boyfriend had inquired about the possibility of a lemon-flavored cake, and so I went out in search of Meyer lemons. It took a few tries, but I finally located a stash and I needed a recipe that would put them in their best light. The last citrus cake acquired most of its flavor via the syrup drizzled on it, and I wanted bigger and better things for my hard-sought lemons.

When I considered making a lemon curd to go with the cake, it was Stacy who suggested using the curd as a filling. I wasn’t sure if the curd would survive an hour in the oven without getting soaked into the cake, but the allure of a warm, gooey punch of lemon was too much to resist.

As for the cake, the final recipe was sort of a hodge-podge. Google introduced me to a Lemon Poppy Seed Cake whose ingredient list looked very similar to the Orange Cream Cheese Pound Bundt I made on Monday. This cake had a little bit less butter, and some baking soda added for leavening, which made it a lighter variant. One might even call it a cousin to the previous pound bundt. I expanded on that and added more lemon flavor and switched out half of the sour cream for crème fraîche to make it even lighter. It’s pretty good by itself, but paired with the lemon curd filling it really turns into something special.

Is it bad form to post extremely flattering reviews of your own food? Granted, the person who wrote this has been bribed with warm cake for 5 days in a row, but I was still tickled pink when he said

There should be a warning about the lemon curd – it’s so awesome it could cause injury.

That’s a smart guy who will be getting more cakes in the future. And this is a cake that I’ll definitely be making again.

Meyer Lemon Curd

1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice
zest from said lemons, about 1 tablespoon
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
4 ounces butter, cut into 4 pieces

Heat a saucepan with about an inch water over medium high heat. In a metal bowl large enough to function as a double broiler, whisk together the juice, zest, sugar and egg. When the water is simmering, turn the heat down to low and place the metal bowl over the saucepan. Whisk the lemon mixture until it thickens about 5 to 6 minutes. You should be able to coat a spoon and draw a clean line on the back with a finger. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir in the butter one piece at a time, letting each piece get fully incorporated before adding the next. If you want, you can force the curd through a sieve to remove the zest, but I liked the extra flavor it added and the mixture was not lumpy, so I let it remain. Transfer the curd to a clean container and layer plastic wrap directly on the curd surface to prevent the formation of a skin. Keeps for up to 2 weeks.

Meyer Lemon Cake

3 cups flour (I used 13.8 oz)
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 large eggs
½ cup sour cream
½ cup crème fraîche
3 tablespoons Meyer lemon zest
1/4 cup Meyer lemon juice

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease up a 12 cup bundt pan and set aside. Whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together in a bowl. In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy and then add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time. Whisk together the sour cream, crème fraîche, zest, and juice. Gradually add the flour mixture and the lemon mixture to the bowl, alternating between wet and dry ingredients and mixing only until just combined.

Pour most of the batter into the bundt pan, reserving roughly 2 cups worth. Using a piping bag or a freezer bag with a corner cut off, pipe the lemon curd in a circle on top of the batter, making sure to keep away from the inner and outer edges of the pan. Cover with the remainder of the batter and bake until a cake tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

My cake rose to be exactly level with the top of my 12 cup bundt pan. Slightly harrowing.

I also got a few small spots that stuck to the pan, so I dusted this cake with extra powdered sugar.

And if a little bit of the curd filling gets smooshed by the layer of batter on top and touches the edge of the pan, this is what happens. It’s not a big deal. Maybe use more powdered sugar concealer. No one will notice. Or care.

Even though there is about 3/4 of a cup of lemon curd filling, it looks like a lot less in the cross section. Rest assured, the lemon curd offers a sweet, tangy bite that will not disappoint. Just ask Joe.

I needed an epic comeback to my long cooking drought. Something that would appeal to everyone. Something that would win me new readers and remind old ones why they come back. Something like a doughnut day with three different types of doughnuts made from the best recipes the internet had to offer.

By the time the last guests staggered home at 1 am, the doughnuts were looking a lot worse for the wear, the glaze had hardened up, and I was ready to do a face plant into my pillow. It seems I am suffering from some sort of doughnut related photography curse.

submitted to Yeastspotting

While I would recommend any of these doughnuts, and in fact, heartily recommend the very concept of a Doughnut Day, I would recommend that you do not, in your zeal, dip three of your fingers into 375° oil.  You’ll be happy to know that I still have fingerprints. In fact, there is no lasting sign of injury at all, and no one seemed to mind that the next batch of doughnuts developed a slightly meaty flavor. I kid. Mostly.

Also! It is a good idea to give your stove a stern talking-to beforehand so that it knows that it is highly inappropriate to go on the fritz an hour before guests begin to arrive. The crucial hour where batters are being made, what with the heating up of milk, and the reducing of apple cider. Fortunately, there was no gas explosion, and no subsequent splashing of hot oil or flying shards of hot cast iron. After making an offering to the appropriate gods of deep fried doughs, the problem seemed to resolve itself, which is not at all totally disconcerting.

On to the recipes!

All doughnuts are cooked in a dutch oven filled with about 2 inches of canola oil heated to 375°. For cutters, I use a 3 inch cutter and a 1 inch cutter from this pastry cutter set.

My personal favorite, and the easiest of all to make were the

Meyer Lemon and Sour Cream Doughnuts adapted from Tartelette.

2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar
4 oz sour cream
2 large eggs
juice and zest from one Meyer lemon
1 tablespoon olive oil

Combine the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt in a bowl and stir together. In another bowl, combine the sugar, sour cream, eggs, juice and zest, and olive oil and whisk until smooth. Add in the dry ingredients and stir until uniform. Cover with plastic and chill in the fridge for at one hour.

Scoop using an ice cream scoop or teaspoon and drop the batter into the oil, flipping them when they brown. If you use a large scoop like I did, sometimes the centers were a little gooey and prompted some guests to ask if they were in fact filled doughnuts. I thought this was delicious and did not make any adjustments. This is the large round doughnut in the back.

The guest favorites were the Apple Cider Doughnuts which appeared on The Kitchn, and Smitten Kitchen within days of each other. With such an endorsement, who could resist?

I had some issues reducing the cider because of the aforementioned stove on the fritz, which I think is what contributed to the light, fragile, dough that was a little difficult to manage. This may have clouded my feelings on them as everyone else was very fond of them.

Apple Cider Doughnuts

1 cup apple cider
3½ cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
4 tablespoons (½ stick) butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup buttermilk (can substitute ½ whole milk with juice from half a Meyer lemon)

Step one is to heat the apple cider in a pan over medium heat until it has reduced to 1/4 cup, about 20 minutes or so. I found no good way to do this besides pouring it into a measuring cup and back. Slightly annoying and prone to failure if your stove starts clicking at you.

Meanwhile, when not trying to fix a stove that’s in use, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

Using an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar at medium speed until uniform and then add the eggs one at a time and beat until the mixture is smooth. Reduce the mixing speed and stir in the cider and the buttermilk, then the dry mixture until just combined.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and sprinkle with generous amounts of flour. Transfer the dough to the sheet and coat the top with flour as well. Flatten the dough to about ½ inch thickness with your hands and transfer to the freezer for 20 minutes to firm it up. Remove the dough from the freezer and cut into shape with pastry cutters. Place the cut doughnuts and holes onto a second lined sheet pan and refrigerate for 20 minutes. They are then ready to fry. This is the large cake doughnut in the picture.

Finally, there was the classic raised doughnut, which I have made previously using another recipe. This time I used the Alton Brown recipe, which is a little bit fussier and tasted about the same to me.

Yeast Doughnuts
1½ cups milk
2½ ounces shortening (about 1/3 cup)
4.5 teaspoons instant yeast (2 packages)
1/3 cup warm water
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup sugar
1½ teaspoons salt
23 ounces all purpose flour

Warm the milk over medium heat for a few minutes and pour over the shortening to melt it. Set aside until lukewarm.

In a small bowl, combine the yeast and warm water and let sit for 5 minutes. Then pour the yeast mixture into a mixer and combine with the milk mixture. Be careful that the milk is not too hot or it will kill off the yeast. Add the eggs, sugar, salt, and half of the flour. Sprinkle in a small amount of nutmeg and/or cinnamon if desired. Mix at low speed until ingredients are combined and gradually add in the remaining flour. Using either a dough hook attachment or a wooden spoon, knead the dough until it becomes smooth, about 3-5 minutes. Transfer to an oiled bowl and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

On a generously floured surface, roll out the dough to about ½ inch and cut using pastry cutters. Transfer cut doughnuts and holes to a floured baking sheet and cover and let rise for 30 minutes before frying.

I dropped the doughnuts in over the course of the evening, and even though they were extremely over-proofed by the time midnight rolled around, they were still delicious fresh out of the fryer. The biggest problems seemed to be cosmetic, as they were so fragile that even the gentlest touch left indentations that never bounced back. They are the blurry, malformed, light-colored doughnuts on the left side of the plate.

For toppings, I had cinnamon sugar, powdered sugar, the same vanilla glaze as last time, and apple cider glaze. Just whisk to combine. If glaze thickens, place the bowl in a warm water bath .

Vanilla Glaze
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups powdered sugar

Apple Cider Glaze
2 tablespoons apple cider
1 cup powdered sugar