Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Resolution Cake- Butter pecan cake with rhum buttercream icing and white chocolate ganache

Hey bloggers!  It's been a while.. Again... I'm terribly sorry.  Time flies. I live 185 miles from my nearest parent or sibling... I travel a lot. In-Laws are out of state.. That being said, I hope you will take these excuses as my apology.. I should blog more.

I can seriously not believe it is 2012... i mean, when did I get this old?? (24 ugh....) Each year seems to go by faster and faster. I'm starting to believe my parents and grandparents now even though they've been preaching this to me my whole life.  It really is true.

Now to the baking thing.. since this is a food blog.. well.. sort of. half a food blog. There, I like that.
On New Year's Eve my friend Chelsea Lou and I decided to bake a cake. It's pretty routine for our relationship since we're going to open a Bakery one day. Hopefully in a couple years or so.  This recipe came as an experiment for a Bridal Shower cake/cupcakes I'll be making for her cousin at the end of the month. I'll show you how we made it, but in the mean time, I'd like to talk about the new year, what with all the resolutions floating around and all.

The new year is always a time to reflect and whatnot. So I got to reflecting myself and figure it's time for a new leaf of my own to overturn.  Maybe it's time to finally admit my secret celeb crushes on Zac Effron and Jason Segal.. Maybe not.  Maybe it's time to stop taking in so much butter. Definitely.  Maybe it's time I start writing in the journal that's been sitting by my bed for 2 months. Best intentions reborn.  Maybe it's time to start running again.  Got my running bag packed and in the car.

Now I feel better. Forget what you heard about Zac Effron. i'll deny it. My round-about point is that we all make promises to ourselves this time of year and it's time we start figuring out how to keep them.  I need less butter, but I need to bake. So.. Compromise.  That's what I did with this cake.  I baked it, and then I didn't eat it.  Well, I did have about 2 bites to make sure it wasn't poisonous. Check on that front btw... 
I baked it and then took it to a new year's celebration to let other's eat it. It wasn't a huge hit (I don't think) because I think it needed a little less rhum flavor but I'll tweek that here for you. No worries. So let's dig in.

From the beginning now. Here's what you'll need for Butter Pecan Cake. The icing and ganache will follow.

2  9in round cake pans. A non-sticking agent. 2 1/4 Cup flour. 3/4 cup sugar. 1 stick butter. 2 eggs. 1 Tbs. Baking powder. 1/2 tsp salt. 1 Cup milk. 1/3 cup brown sugar. and about 1 Cup chopped pecans.

 Pre heat your oven to 350

Melt the stick of butter over medium heat with pecans until slightly browned.

Strain the pecans from the butter and set butter aside.

 Get as much off them as you can. You're going to put the butter in the cake.

 Next add in the rest of the ingredients into mixing bowl. Flour, sugars, eggs, baking powder, milk, and salt.
**Pour in the butter you've browned as well.**
Mix for 2 minutes.
 It will look like this. It was a delightful batter. I say you can always judge a cake by its batter.

Then add in the pecans you strained.

Stir them up real nice.

Your cake batter is ready. Spray your pan.

Half your batter into the two pans. Get it as equal as you can.
Pop them in the oven for 25-28 minutes.

Next: The icing- Rhum Buttercream
This picture shows what you need for both the icing and ganache.
 For the icing: Take 1/2 cup crisco, 1 stick butter, 1/2 to 1 tsp Rhum extract and 4 cups Confectioner's sugar.

Cream together crisco and butter. Butter should be at room temp for best results.

Next add in your rhum extract and sugar 1 cup at a time.  Sift the sugar for the best consistency.
 After you mix in the sugar 1 cup at a time and it's all done, you may need to add in a little milk or heavy cream if it looks dry. Mine did, so I added about 2 Tbs of heavy cream and it ended up like this.
 Whippy and beautiful.

Make absolutely sure you let your cakes cool completely.  Then take one and ice the top of it.
 Stack the other on top and ice it all around.  Once the icing has set for a few minutes, it's not sticky anymore and you can usually smooth it over with your hand or other tool if you want it really smooth.
I didn't bother too much since I was putting ganache on top.

White Chocolate Ganache: 1 1/2 cup white choc. chips.  4 Tbs heavy cream (more if you need it) and 2-3 Tbs white karo syrup.  *Trust me here: Ganache is incredibly easy to make.*

Over medium heat, pour in your white choc chips and begin stiring immediately. They can burn fast if you don't watch them.

 Pour in your heavy cream and continue stirring.

Take of heat and add in syrup. Keep whisking away. It will harden up a bit now.
Then you can begin to drizzle, pour, dabble or whatever over the cake.
 I drizzled it in sort of a zigzag pattern... More like a tic-tac-toe board..
 Here I am holding the cake for you to see and enjoy.
 I hope it was good ;)
I have noticed that sometimes it's nearly impossible to eat what you've created because you're tired of smelling it etc.  Maybe that will be my secret weapon to shedding a few and still baking.

Oh and by the way, comments, tips, ideas etc, are always welcome!

Sierra

1 comment:

  1. Nope, I left it at the party. (part of my master plan to make everyone else eat my concoctions!) I'll happily take requests for other experiments you'd like me to try!

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