A Little Bit of All Right

 December is always free choice month for the Cake Slice Bakers. Some years I know early on which cake I'll bake in December; other years I find myself flipping pages, looking for a recipe that calls my name. This year was the second kind. I was looking for a cake that was something I hadn't made before and that I had all the ingredients on hand. I finally settled on the Chocolate Orange Marble cake. The recipe has you make one batter, divide it into two sections, and then flavor one with melted chocolate and the other with orange. You then put the orange batter in a loaf pan, top it with the chocolate, and use a spoon to try to marble it. After baking, you slowly add an orange flavored simple syrup to the cake while it's still hot. Once cool, remove from the pan, slice, and enjoy. This is a delicious and fairly easy-to-make cake. Both the chocolate and the orange flavors were present, one not overwhelming the other. I opted for dark chocolate (70% cocoa), but you could cer...

This recipe starts with a coconut cake that then gets layered with yuzu curd, frosted with a vanilla-flavored French buttercream, and dusted with flaked coconut. Because yuzu can be hard to find, the author suggests a number of substitutes including other citrus curds and chocolate buttercream. I opted for lime curd. The cake recipe is simple, the instruction for rolling it up worked like a charm. My experience with cake rolls has been a little rocky in the past - the cake has cracked, broken or even stuck to the pan. I had none of those issues this time. The cake is flavored with coconut extract which gives it just the right level of coconuttiness when combined with the other components. I followed the instructions for the yuzu curd but substituted lime juice for yuzu juice. My curd need a little longer on the stove as it was not quite thick enough, even when mixed with 1/2 C buttercream as the recipe suggests. But it did taste delicious. If you haven't made French buttercream bef...

Suzy's Cake is a rich, chocolatey layer of goodness that we all enjoyed eating. It was simple to bake and used ingredients that I generally have on hand. Definitely a go-to recipe for special occasions as well as those days when you just need something decadent.     The cake may not be much to look at initially, but that first taste had everyone closing their eyes in ecstasy, so it really didn't matter. It has a moist, soft texture and held up well overnight. The instructions have you refrigerate it for an hour before taking it out of the cake pan, probably so it doesn't fall apart. Then you're to let it come up to room temperature before slicing and eating. I followed those instructions the first night, but the second night I just ate it cold, and it was still delicious. We served the pieces topped with a dollop of whipped cream and some fresh strawberries. Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking thr...

I chose to bake the Gluten-Free Fig Cake this month because we had just received a gift of home-grown figs from a friend of ours, and the opportunity of including some of them in a cake was too good to pass up. This cake starts with a layer of quartered figs that is then topped with an orange-flavored cake batter. It's baked in a springform pan, and the author says not to unmold but rather scoop out as the texture of the cake is somewhere between traditional cake and pudding.  The cake batter was easy to put together. While I did need to make a trip to the store to buy some mascarpone cheese, the other ingredients were all household staples for me. The recipe uses almond flour instead of wheat flour. Unfortunately, this cake was not a hit with anyone in my household. Some of this was because some members of my family prefer raw figs to cooked figs. But another complaint was that the figs weren't integrated into the cake. It felt like eating cake with cooked figs and not like ea...

I had a hard time choosing my cake this month. I felt like I should bake the Apple Cake as our apple tree was full of fruit waiting to be used, but nothing speaks to me quite like a rhubarb dessert. Then I went to the grocery story. Strawberries were on sale, and right next to them was a huge stack of rhubarb. Rhubarb is hard to find where I live. Rarely does anyone have it at the farmer's market, and there's only one store I've ever successfully bought it at, and that's always been in June. So to find such an abundance in early August - it was a sign.   This recipe provides instructions for either a layer cake or a roll (think Yule log or pumpkin roll). I opted to make the layer cake. The recipe as written produces an extra layer which I didn't want, so I halved the ingredients. The Genoese layer gets cut in half, filled with a strawberry-rhubarb compote and frosted with lemon buttercream. In general, I found the recipe easy to follow, though both the compote and b...

This month I decided to make the Raspberry Clafoutis in part because the raspberries available locally have been amazing this month. This is a dessert more traditionally made with cherries, but the author opts for raspberries, and I agree that they did add a lovely counterpoint to the sweet cake. The family all loved this cake. My chocolate-loving and preferring daughter declared it her new favorite and said this was what she wants for her birthday cake from now on. I did manage to save a small piece to eat for breakfast the next morning. While it was better warm from the oven, it was still quite tasty as a cold breakfast. Blackberries are now in season at our local PYO farm, so I foresee a blackberry clafoutis on this weekend's menu.  Each month The Cake Slice Bakers are offered a selection of cakes from the current book we are baking through. This year it is  Gâteau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes  by Aleksandra Crapanzano. We each choose one...

The Walnut Espresso Cake is a quick-to-make dessert whose ingredients are generally ones that bakers have on hand. The cake is a butter cake flavored with espresso powder while the frosting is an espresso-flavored buttercream. The only walnuts are those used in between the layers and on top of the cake. The author suggests either making it as a two layer cake using 8-inch springform pans or as one layer using a 10-inch springform pan. As I only own the 10-inch springform, I opted for the single layer.  The cake is described in the cookbook at good with the icing really being the star of the show. Every member of my family agreed with this description. The cake's coffee flavor was definitely muted. I used espresso powder instead of coffee extract (the recipe says either will work). We were fine with that, but if you're looking for a stronger coffee flavor, you might want to try the extract or add more of the espresso powder. The frosting is a buttercream with dark rum used in pl...