CAKE, COUTURE & CIE

Here's a quick and easy recipe for those of you looking to dirty as few pans as possible. I found this recipe in last week's St. Louis Post Dispatch's food section. I had some apples in the crisper and part of a liter of buttermilk that was a few days away from expiring, so falling upon this recipe was perfect timing.

This cake was a hit and tasted as good as it looks. With its warm, caramelized apples, it reminded me a bit of a Tarte Tatin with a cake underside instead of crust.

Here's the recipe provided in the newspaper. If you don't have a food processor, I'm sure a hand-held pastry blender would probably work just as well, while giving you a workout at the same time!

Upside-Down Apple Cake

Adapted from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 9 December 2009

Yield: 6 large servings

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, divided

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

3 apples, peeled, cored and sliced

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup honey (locally harvested if possible)

1/2 cup buttermilk

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt 3 tablespoons butter in a 10-inch cast-iron skillet. Stir in brown sugar. When melted, spread evenly across the bottom of the skillet. Arrange apple slices in overlapping circles over the butter-sugar mixture.

2. In a food processor, pulse together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Cut remaining 5 tablespoons butter into chunks; add to processor. Pulse until butter is cut into small pieces and well distributed. Drizzle in honey. With motor running, slowly add buttermilk through the feed tube, processing until dough forms.

3. Using a spoon, drop batter evenly over apples. Spread dough into an even layer, stopping just short of the edges of the pan.

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the cake portion comes out clean.

5. Place the skillet on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes. Run a knife around the edge of the cake. Use pot holders to handle the skillet, which will still be hot. Place a plate on top of the skillet, and invert. Lift skillet straight up, releasing cake.

And it's round #2 for me as a Daring Baker. And here are the obligatory "blog-checking lines" so they can verify that I've followed the challenge:

The November 2009 Daring Bakers Challenge was chosen and hosted by Lisa Michele of Parsley, Sage, Desserts and Line Drives. She chose the Italian Pastry, Cannolo (Cannoli is plural), using the cookbooks Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and The Sopranos Family Cookbook by Allen Rucker; recipes by Michelle Scicolone, as ingredient/direction guides. She added her own modifications/changes, so the recipe is not 100% verbatim from either book.

This was my first time ever making cannoli, or any deep-fried dessert for that matter. When visiting some friends in New Orleans a few years ago, I picked up a box of beignet mix with the best of intentions but never quite got around to making them. Although I thought the frying step of the recipe would be the most daunting part, in reality it went smoothly and with no major problems encountered -- no splattering, no burns.

The trickiest part of the recipe was getting the dough rolled out thin enough and then getting it to stay that way. Above you can see the little cannoli soldiers all lined up and ready to go, waiting for the oil to heat up. Well, after frying the first one, it was clear that they weren't thin enough. I had to re-roll each of them until I reached a thickness that wouldn't cause them to open up (you can see the steady progress below). Cannoli are supposed to have a "blistered" appearance, and I'm afraid mine weren't rolled thin enough for this to happen.

As for the final product, I can only vouch for the shells as anyone who knows me knows I steer clear of anything too creamy. The dough contained wine, chocolate and cinnamon, and I found that the shells not only tasted good, but also smelled quite nice when I was rolling them out. After they had cooled, I had fun dipping them in chocolate and sprinkles and filling them with mascarpone.