Upside Down Cake - all the way from Paris

I am trying to get better at my photography. More specifically, food photography. Just when I think I have the best light/angles/tricks to make sure there are no children’s fingers way to get that shot in a certain place, we pick up and move to a new kitchen where all the light/angles/tricks change and I need to learn it all over again. Alright, so maybe the tricks for the children don’t change but one quick browse through the blog will tell you that I still don’t have that one down.

(Note the child sized finger print)

One person who I think does is David Lebovitz. Not in that every shot is perfection way but in the this is what food looks like way. Not to say that his shots aren’t perfect, they are (and who am I to say). His shots are what I aspire to be able to achieve. You know, just as soon as I can drive the camera properly.

The recipes Lebovitz offers up are in the same class as his food shots, so it was to him I turned when we fancied a little Upside Down Cake. 

None of that pineapple stuff though, visions of tinned pineapple rings and glacé cherries bounce around in my head every time I hear the words. I have yet to decide whether that is a bad thing or a fond childhood food memory. I had blueberries to put to use and muffins, pancakes, sauce and cheesecake had all been vetoed.

I barely adapted the recipe, figuring that if David says it’s good I probably shouldn’t mess with it. I tweaked the fruit quantity since I was using all berries instead of something sliced. I also baked it in a pyrex dish because I don’t have a cast iron pan here. I can only imagine how divine it would be in a cast iron pan.

What I got was a very good, no surprises, just what you would expect Upside Down Cake. The cake was very tender and moist and light. The topping was fruity and saucy and sweet. 

I am pretty sure it was the first time I have made Upside Down Cake but it was so easy and the results so good, it won’t be the last. 

It also, as Lebovitz recommends (not that I would ever, even with empty fridge and bare cupboards and two screaming like they hadn't eaten in a month children, be so inclined - and if you believe that, I have a really great used car to sell you), makes a fine breakfast.

Blueberry Upside Down Cake adapted, a tiny bit, from David Lebovitz

If you have a cast iron pan, make this in there. Just cook the caramel and leave it in the pan. Cool it and start from there.

Fruit topping (bottom):

3 tablespoons butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

3 cups blueberries

Cake Base (Topping):

8 tablespoons (1/2 cup) butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup whole milk, room temperature

(the original recipe called for a 1/4 teaspoon salt as well which I skipped because I used salted butter)

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

Melt butter in pan, add brown sugar and stir until sugar dissolves and it starts to bubble. Remove from heat, if you are not using a cast iron pan, transfer it to your buttered 8-inch baking pan or dish.

Arrange the fruit on top of the cooled sugar.

To make the cake, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs one at a time.

Sift the dry ingredients together and gently stir 1/2 into the butter mixture. Stir in the milk and then stir in the remaining flour mixture.

Pour on top of the berries and gently spread to cover the fruit.

Bake for around 45 minutes. The cake will spring back in the centre when you gently press down with your finger.

Serve with ice cream or custard or yogurt.

My 'Go To' Cake

After my last post about a cake, I thought I had better redeem myself and try to prove that I can do good cake even better than I can do not so good cake. I have lots of cake recipes - some I have made once or twice, some sit clipped and waiting in the disaster of clippings, some have been admired in the pages of cookbooks and then there are those that just get made over and over and over. These are ‘go to’ cakes. The cake you can count on not being a mess. The cake you could almost make in your sleep. The cake that feels good.

My ‘go to’ cake is our standard birthday cake. It gets finished differently depending on recipient, where it is being made, where it is being served and to how many. Is it just us or is it for eighty hungry boat yard employees? Is the birthday boy or girl six or sixty? Are we in Canada in the middle of winter or on the beach in the Caribbean or stern to in Portofino? In other words, do I need to worry about it melting or does it need to look unbelievably fabulous? Or, do I need something a little bit decadent but still homey and something an almost four year old can help with(read: spread all over her face while having ‘just a little taste.’) Something to welcome home a recently turned forty daddy after two long and horrid months in the Caribbean.

The ‘go to’ recipe is for a chocolate cake. It originally came from the back of a cocoa container - I can’t remember which one. Over time it has been copied and recopied from notebook to notebook. 

For this occasion, I decided I would split the layers and fill them with thick caramel sauce. I discovered this while working at a restaurant called Five Doors North in Toronto. It was loud and fun and very Italian and everything was simply made and simply deliciously perfect.

After I filled the layers, I frosted it with a whipped dark chocolate ganache. This is like the filling of a truffle and truly decadent and truly not for someone who is not a fan of chocolate. After the ganache, I would top it with a small mountain of dark chocolate shards. I contemplated chocolate curls but, I had an almost four year old helper and figured I wouldn’t be nearly quick or tidy enough with my help for curls. Plus, it isn’t as heartbreaking to see the shards being eaten as quickly as you make them as it is with the curls.

Chocolate Caramel Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache

Cake (I almost can’t believe I am giving this recipe away)

3/4 cup butter, softened

1 2/3 cups granulated sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all purpose flour (I have used cake flour, which gives a slightly lighter cake, use it if you have it, don’t worry if you don’t, the cake will be fine)

2/3 cup cocoa (I usually use some really lovely rich fairtrade stuff, use the one you like the flavour of)

1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/3 cups water

Preheat the oven to 350º. Butter and flour two 9-inch baking pans or a 13x9x2-inch baking pan or 24 cupcake tins (which you could also line). I like to put a circle of parchment on the bottom of the pans, or a square depending on what you are using.

Beat butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla on high for 3 minutes. This should look light and creamy. Sift flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and baking powder together. Add this in four additions to the creamed butter mixture, alternating with the water. Begin and end with the dry ingredients. 

Pour into pans and bake 30-35 minutes, less for cupcakes. As usual, a tester inserted in the centre should come out clean.

Allow to cool. After a few minutes, remove the cakes from the pans onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Caramel sauce

2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup water

1 cup cream

Put sugar and water in medium sized, heavy bottomed saucepan over medium heat.  DO NOT STIR the sugar.  Gently swirl the pan until the sugar dissolves. Use a pastry brush with some water to ‘wipe’ any sugar crystals off the sides of the pan. After the sugar starts to boil it will take about ten minutes to caramelize, but don’t go anywhere.  Keep an eye on it. And, be really careful, boiling sugar is just about one of the hottest things you can cook with and it takes a long time to cool once it hits the skin. 

Now, if you are as much of a nerd as I am, and you care to listen, you can sort of hear the sugar start to caramelize. Of course, I can’t hear it anymore because I have a seven month old baby and an almost four year old to drown out any audible cooking clues now. Once it starts to caramelize, it will happen quickly and can go from being perfectly toastily amber to burnt and bitter in a few seconds. Be ready with your cream and a whisk. When it reaches that perfect shade of amber, add the cream, pouring away from you. It will roll and boil, so don’t get too close right away, but give it a little whisk once it starts to calm down. 

Allow this to cool.

Assembly (this can be done a day or two in advance and wrapped in cling film and kept in the fridge)

Spilt the two layers of the cake so you have four layers. Level off the tops if they have gotten too hilly in the middle.

Pour about 1/5 of the caramel sauce onto the first layer and quickly spread it around.  It will soak into the cake. Continue this with two more layers, don’t put any caramel sauce on the top layer.

Wrap it in cling film, or, if you are finishing the cake the same day, make the ganache.

Whipped Dark Chocolate Ganache

18 ounces good quality dark chocolate chopped

2 cups whipping cream

Gently heat cream until almost boiling. Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate. Continue to stir until the chocolate is melted. At this point, if you don’t want to whip the ganache, let it cool a bit and then pour it over the cake, spreading it on the sides.

Or to whip, pour into the bowl of the mixer and beat on medium high speed until the ganache is cooled and has a mousse-like stiffness.

Spread over the sides and top of the caramel filled cake.

Dark Chocolate Shards

4 ounces of good quality dark chocolate chopped.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Take care not to let any steam or water from the pan to get into the chocolate. 

When the chocolate is melted pour it onto a sheet of waxed paper. Spread the melted chocolate with a spatula into a thin layer. Cover with another sheet of waxed paper. Roll and refrigerate for at least four hours.

Remove the roll from the fridge and gently unroll it. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and gently free the shards with a spatula. Use tongs or the spatula to put the shards on top of the cake. Touching the chocolate with your hands will melt it.  

The cake should be served as soon as possible, depending on how hot it is. If there is any left, you can refrigerate it but the ganache will harden a bit.

Birthday goodness - every time.