Books and Bites: Lemon Cake with Chocolate Frosting

When you read a book with lemon cake in the title and on the cover, of course you have to make one like it for proper discussion of its text. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake is about a girl who can taste the feelings of whoever prepared the food she eats, and she first discovers her gift when she tastes sadness in the lemon cake with chocolate frosting her mother made. Our book club concluded that the writing and characterization were strong, the concept amusing, and the plot overall very sad but most notably quite strange.

What I enjoyed most about the book was the author's descriptions. I need to learn to talk about food like this: "Warm citrus-baked batter lightness enfolded by cool deep dark swirled sugar." That description fit my cake quite well, which is good considering I was mimicking the cake in the book.

I wouldn't have put lemon and chocolate together, but it worked. Really, you can't go wrong with chocolate frosting on anything. Recipe-wise, I stuck with the basics: Southern Living lemon cake and the chocolate frosting from the cocoa box. It was so delectable that I ate the giant slice I cut for pretty photograph purposes.

I don't know that I'd make lemon cake again because citrus desserts aren't my favorite, but this cake made me really want to make a basic white cake with almond extract iced with the same ah-mazing chocolate icing.

Books & Bites: Paula Deen's Caramel Cake

This month, our book club paired the most delicious caramel cake I've ever tasted with The Help, a novel that middle-aged women's book clubs have brought way high on bestseller lists and for good reason. The gist: 1960s Jackson, Mississippi--a 24-year-old white girl (who, gasp, has no wedding ring and aspires to be a journalist)  works with black maids  she gets to know to write a book about their experience. Through its character development, the book explored in-depth both the Jim Crow-mentality of the South and just how wicked or how loving women's relationships can be. Being as one of the main characters makes prize caramel cakes in the book, we decided to make one ourselves and, keeping with the Deep South theme, selected a Paula Deen recipe.

And what an excellent recipe we chose! A caramel glaze-like filling tops each of three butterlicious cake layers that strike the perfect balance between dense and light, and a creamy caramel frosting covers the whole cake. Both the ingredients (butter, white sugar, butter, light brown sugar, butter, dark brown sugar, flour, powdered sugar) and the assembly were as simple as a homemade layer cake gets. Perhaps most exciting for impatient persons like myself, you spread the filling and icing on while the cake is still hot out of the oven. That's right, no waiting for the cakes to cool while you snack on the icing, anticipate what that first bite will taste like and if the layers will be lop-sided, take off nibbles off the cake that surely will get covered up, and generally waste in-between time steps. Paula claims it makes 8 servings, but people who can only tolerate normal cholesterol intake will get many more slices.

Paula Deen’s Caramel Cake

Cake:

1 cup butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs

3 cups self-rising flour, sifted

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 3 (9-inch) cake pans.

Using an electric mixer cream butter until fluffy. Add granulated sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add flour and milk alternately to creamed mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and continue to beat until just mixed.

Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level batter in each pan by holding pan 4 inches above counter dropping it flat onto counter. Do this several times to release air bubbles and assure you of a more level cake. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Filling:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

While cake is baking, in a saucepan, combine butter, brown sugar, and milk. Cook and stir over medium heat for 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.

Remove cake layers from oven and allow cake to remain in pans as you prepare to stack and fill. Remove first layer and invert onto cake plate. Pierce cake layer with a toothpick over entire surface. Spread 1/3 of filling mixture on cake layer. Top with second layer, repeat process. Top with last layer and repeat process again.

Frosting:

1/2 cup butter

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/3 cup heavy cream, or more if needed

1 (16-ounce) box confectioners' sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup chopped nuts, optional

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir in brown sugar and cream. Bring to a boil, and transfer to a mixing bowl. Add confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Beat with a handheld electric mixer until it reaches a spreading consistency. At this time it may be necessary to add a tablespoon of heavy cream, or more, if frosting gets too thick. Be sure to add cream in small amounts because you can always "add to", but you can't take away. Frost cake and sprinkle top with chopped nuts, if desired.

Books and Bites: Peppermint Bonbon Cookies

The dark color of this chocolate-peppermint bite beat out the darkness of the stories in David Sedaris' Holidays on Ice for book club this month.

The chocolate-intense cookie is soft, but the crushed peppermint adds a nice crunch and stronger mint flavor that brings out the mint in the chocolate dough. They look and taste like Christmas to me. The recipe requires that you allow the dough to get firm in the fridge, and rolling the balls of dough and then pressing in peppermint pieces turned out to be quite time- consuming. But masterpieces take time, right? 

If you make small dough balls like me, you'll end up with a large plate full of cookies. I brought mine to serve at an awards reception (where they garnered several compliments and a recipe request) and still had more than enough to stuff my face back home and freeze a bunch for visitors later. The recipe came from one of member's cousins, who got it Oxmoor House (who has a nifty how-to video for the recipe online).

Peppermint Bonbon Cookies

8  ounces  bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (I used chocolate chips)

1/2  cup  unsalted butter

1 1/2  ounces  unsweetened chocolate, chopped

1/2  cup  finely crushed hard peppermint candies (or candy canes)

6  tablespoons  granulated sugar

3  large eggs

1  teaspoon  vanilla extract

1  teaspoon  peppermint extract

1 1/2  cups  all-purpose flour

3/4  teaspoon  baking powder

1/4  teaspoon  salt

1/2  cup  semisweet chocolate morsels

Additional coarsely crushed hard peppermint candies, divided

1/2  cup  powdered sugar (optional)

2 1/2  teaspoons  milk (optional)

1/2  cup  semisweet chocolate morsels, melted (optional)

Combine first 3 ingredients in a large saucepan; cook over low heat until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat, and stir in 1/2 cup crushed peppermint and 6 Tbsp. sugar. Let cool 30 minutes.

Add eggs to melted chocolate, 1 at a time, stirring well. Stir in extracts.

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt; add to chocolate mixture, stirring until combined. Stir in chocolate morsels. Cover and chill dough 2 hours or until firm enough to shape.

Shape dough into 1 1/2" balls; place on parchment paper-lined baking sheets. Bake at 325° for 12 to 13 minutes or until cookies are puffed and cracked on top. Sprinkle coarsely crushed peppermints onto cookies; press candy lightly into cookies. Let cookies cool 5 minutes on baking sheets. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

Whisk together powdered sugar and milk; drizzle over cooled cookies, if desired. Drizzle with melted chocolate, if desired. Sprinkle cookies again with chopped peppermint, if desired. Let cookies stand until glaze and chocolate are firm.

Books & Bites: Peach Cupcakes

ABOUT BOOKS & BITES: Once a month I meet up with college friends (and their friends) living in different cities for book club via video chat. And a female social event isn't complete without dessert, so Danielle, our Web master and Memphis hostess, usually bakes some bites for those that gather at her house.  Unfortunately, AIM has not yet figured out how to let us send food to one another. However, when we want it badly enough, those of us in other cities attempt to replicate cupcake master Danielle's recipe of choice.

TODAY'S BITE:  This light, summery cupcake recipe complemented our discussion of a quick, fun read about the spinster and other quirky characters in a small Virginia town (Big Stone Gap). The recipe looked far too good not to prepare. When I remembered I had a few peaches at home and my evening work duties ended early, it was clear that making a mini batch (1/3 recipe) was my destiny for the evening. 

Danielle made cream cheese frosting for cupcakes, and I made my old standby, buttercream, to which I added extra orange zest (maybe a little too much-- the taste was wonderful but overpowering on the cake). The Memphis crew was little critical of the "chunks" of fruit in cupcakes, but I chopped them small enough that it didn't bother me.

Peach Cupcakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup  butter, at room temperature
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoon grated orange zest
3/4 cup  milk
2 peaches or nectarines, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter until well combined. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition until light and fluffly. Add vanilla and orange zest, beating well. Alternately beat in flour mixture and milk, making three additions of flour mixture and two of milk, beating until smooth. Fold in peaches or nectarines.

Scoop batter into prepared pan. Bake in preheated over for 23-28 minutes or until golden brown and tops of cupcakes spring back when lightly touched. Let cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and let cool completely on rack.