Cardamom and Pear Upside-Down Cake

I have a flavor secret weapon: Cardamom.


It wasn’t until I went to pastry school that I truly discovered and fell in love with Cardamom. In my experience, it’s one of those ingredients that many people have heard of but don’t know how to use…nor are they aware of the magical powers it possesses in the deliciousness department. Cardamom’s flavor is both pungent and sweet, it reminds me of cinnamon, ginger and citrus.


Cardamom is a member of the ginger family and is one of the most expensive spices out there (luckily, a little goes a long way). The most common varieties sold are green and black. I tend towards the green cardamom in baking, but you can use either variety depending on your taste. To me, black cardamom is a bit bitter and has kind of a blunt flavor compared to the green variety.

For maximum flavor, I recommend buying the cardamom in their pods and then grinding it in a spice grinder. You can also find it in powder form but it’s a little iffy as to how strong the flavor will be…it could have been sitting on the grocery store shelves for longer than you’d like to imagine.


Cardamom has a warm and lingering flavor that is full of complexity and is quite wonderful in baked goods. I especially like pairing it with fruit, like pears in this Cardamom and Pear Upside-Down Cake.


Here, the cardamom takes on a very warm and cozy quality that is perfect for dessert tables in the fall and winter months.



Cardamom and Pear Upside-Down Cake
Upside-Down Topping:
2 Bartlett Pears, peeled, cored and cut into ¼ inch slices
½ stick of butter
2/3 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt
2 teaspoons juice from an orange

Cake:
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
¾ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
¾ stick of butter
zest from 1 orange
¾ teaspoon cardamom
½ cup sour cream
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch round cake pan (I used a pan with a removable bottom, but it’s not necessary).

For the Upside-Down Topping:
Heat the butter, brown sugar, salt and orange juice in a skillet over medium heat. Once the butter has melted and all sugar is dissolved, take off the heat and pour mixture into the cake pan.
Arrange the Pear slices overlapping one another on top of the sugar mixture. Set aside.

For the Cake:
Melt the butter with the orange zest and cardamom. Once butter is melted, set aside to cool.
Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
Whisk both sugars and the eggs together in a large bowl until thick and smooth. Slowly whisk in the melted butter mixture until combined. Add sour cream and vanilla and whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture and whisk just to combine.
Pour batter into the pan over the pears and spread evenly. Bake until cake is golden brown, ~35-40 minutes.

Cool in the pan for 20 minutes. Loosen the cake from the pan by running a butter knife or small offset spatula around the inner edge. Place wire rack on top of cake and flip over the cake (you may want to do this over parchment to catch any drips). Gently remove the cake pan and allow to cool completely.

Share

Gateau Marjolaine

I laughed, I cried, I ended up with a cake…not an uncommon sequence of events in my world.


When I’m in the middle of baking a recipe involving lots of finicky components (like some sort of layer cake), I will likely reach a point when I debate scrapping the whole messy project and heading downstairs to the Whole Foods Bakery instead.

Cakes that include lots of layers and fillings almost always look bad before they look good, at least mine do. The Gateau Marjolaine, a cake with multiple layers, is a perfect example.

The Gateau Marjolaine is a cake for special occasions, and the recipe I’m familiar with consists of layers of Dacquoise (a meringue that is baked like a cake) that is then layered with chocolate ganache, coffee buttercream (or hazelnut praline buttercream) and almond cream. It is covered with rich chocolate ganache and toasted almonds or hazelnuts. Sounds delicious…and really, it is…but it’s creation isn’t always pretty…


I started losing faith in my Gateau Marjolaine fairly quickly…the cake layers were crumbling before me as I tried to smooth the fussy fillings into place. Instead of setting up as I had envisioned, the buttercreams created a sort of slip and slide with the cake. And then, there was the matter of the ganache. It had become a magnet for my clothing and was getting all over the place. I even found some in my pocket.


Luckily, I regained control of my Marjolaine mishap by putting the entire thing into the fridge and taking some deep cleansing breathes. The fridge is a good sort of time-out for unruly baking projects. It straightens things out a bit and gives the baker some more control.

After much mayhem, frustration, and eventual delight, the Gateau Marjolaine was deliciously worthwhile.

Pumpkin Financier with Blueberry Compote

Pumpkin and Blueberries. These two flavors taste so delicious when combined, it’s crazy to me that they aren’t seen together more often. Perhaps it has something to do with sadly seasonal Pumpkin-cravings. It’s no secret that people tend to eat Pumpkin-heavy desserts during the Thanksgiving/Holiday season (helllllooo Pumpkin Pie), and then forget about them for the rest of the year. Poor Pumpkin…so often stuck in Libby’s cans, collecting dust until the next year’s Pumpkin Pie frenzy rolls around.

Well, let’s bring Pumpkin back for a summertime rendezvous. And, what better way to celebrate the Pumpkin rediscovery than with the delicious Blueberry? When plump and juicy Blueberries are cooked, their flavor profile changes immensely. They become deeper and more complex, able to stand up to bolder flavors and spices. In short, they become more compatible with our dear friend, Pumpkin.

So, here we go….I’ll bake up a Pumpkin Financier made with Almond flour and highlighted by browned butter, Orange zest and spices like Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Ginger.



Then, a Blueberry Compote simmered with a Cinnamon stick to top it all off.



When it’s all put together…with some softly whipped cream on top, it’s hard to remember how we ever made it through a summer without Pumpkin desserts…mmm.



Pumpkin Financier
(Pumpkin Financier recipe adapted from Sherry Yard)

5 oz butter
1 ¼ cups almond flour
1 ¼ cups AP flour
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground ginger
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
2 Tbsp tightly packed brown sugar
8 egg whites, room temp
1 cup pumpkin puree
½ tsp chopped orange zest

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and brush a 10” round cake pan with butter, line with parchment, brush with butter again.
Melt butter in saucepan until it browns (7-10 minutes). Set aside to cool to room temp.
Sift together almond flour, AP flour, powdered sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment. Add spices and brown sugar. Mix dry ingredients for 30 seconds. Add egg whites all at once and mix on medium speed for 3 minutes. Add pumpking puree and orange zest and mix for 30 seconds.
Add melted butter all at once. Mix for 30 seconds on medium speed, then turn mixer to high speed and mix for 3 minutes more.
Poor mixture into prepared pan and bake for 35-40 minutes, rotating pan, until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.


Blueberry Compote

1 pint Blueberries
Sugar to taste
Pinch of Salt
1 Cinnamon Stick

Put all ingredients in saucepan and cook over medium-low heat stirring occasionally until fruit becomes soft and mixture thickens (~7-10 minutes). Remove Cinnamon stick. Serve compote with Pumpkin Financier and a dollop of softly whipped cream.

Strawberry-Rose Roulade

Oh, the delicious Roulade. This fancy sounding dessert is basically a jellyroll wearing high heels, all dolled up for a night on the town.

For me, making Roulades is soothing. A good thing to embark on when you’re in need of some Zen…kind of like the yoga of the pastry world. There is a gentle nature in their preparation, and they come together fairly quickly.

Another thing I like about Roulades is that they are easy to play with in terms of flavor combinations and tastes. I’m a flavor flirt, so I love this versatility of Roulades.

My first date with a Roulade was full of strawberries and rose…literally. I combined strawberries and rose extract with a cloud of lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream. Then, I layered the Strawberry-Rose Cream onto the Lemon-Scented Genoise Cake that I had baked earlier (in a sheet pan so it was flat).

The final step is to roll up the cake, which creates lovely swirls of cake and filling that are both beautiful and delicious looking. You can’t help but want to dive in for a luscious bite.

To accompany the Roulade, I made a fresh strawberry sauce and sugared rose petals for decoration.

Strawberry-Rose Roulade

6 large eggs

7 oz sugar

2 tsp vanilla extract

3 ½ oz sifted cake flour

¼ tsp salt

3 oz unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 tsp lemon zest

1 pt strawberries

8 fl oz whipping cream

1 Tbsp sugar

¼ tsp rose extract

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and line a half sheet pan with parchment.

Place eggs and sugar in bowl of stand mixer and set bowl over simmering water. Whisk constantly to keep eggs from scrambling. Heat mixture to about 110 degrees, or until eggs are warm and sugar is dissolved and no longer grainy to the touch.

Whip egg mixture on high speed until very light in color, thick and holds a ribbon (~10 minutes). Blend in vanilla and lemon zest.

Sift flour and salt together 2 times. With a strainer, sift 1/3 of the flour over the egg mixture and gently fold in with a whisk, spatula, bowl scraper, or your hand. Repeat 2 more times until all flour is used. There should be no streaks or lumps of flour. Whisk a generous scoop of batter into the melted butter, incorporating completely. Fold this butter mixture back into the batter. Immediately pour batter into prepared pan, using offset spatula to smooth into an even layer.

Bake cake ~ 15 minutes, until golden firm to touch and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Slice strawberries thinly (bite-size). Whip the cream, sugar and rose extract together. Fold in strawberries.

Dust top of the cooled cake with the confectioner’s sugar and place a piece of parchment on top. Flip cake out of pan onto a work surface, with a long side facing you. Carefully peal the parchment off the top. Spread filling evenly over the cake, leaving a 1” border all around. Starting with the long side closest to you, fold the edge over the filling, and then roll the cake into a log, pulling up and forward on the bottom parchment to help you roll the cake. When finished, the seam should be on the bottom. Trim ends. Lift roulade onto serving platter. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before slicing.

(From The Art and Soul of Baking by Cindy Mushet, adapted by crc).

Cakery

Cakes.  THE symbol of celebration…and sadly, often the culprit behind disappointed taste buds. Most of the cakes I’ve encountered in my life have been more beautiful to look at than to eat, which I think is a direct result of cakes gone wild…becoming commercialized and ubiquitous.  These tepid tasting cake frauds are cloaked with frostings made from shortening instead of butter.  How can you make a “Buttercream” frosting without butter??  You can’t.  We, as cake eaters, are obviously dealing with a raging epidemic in the sugar and butter world.  

I am relieved to say that there is a cure to this cake problem…a great recipe and the finest, REAL ingredients that you can find.  Beauty is not only frosting deep.

And so, this brings me to the wonder that is cakes done right.  A real cake is a fabulous thing.  It can be light and airy, or dense and luxurious.  It is the perfect vehicle for fruits, spices, nuts, frostings and puddings…or for nothing at all.  Cakes are incredibly versatile and can be simple, impressive, rustic and comforting all at the same time.  Because of the complexity that is cake, there are quite a few Pastry lessons dedicated to the topic.  So far we’ve covered Chiffon/Sponge Cakes and Butter Cakes. 

Chiffon/Sponge Cakes are made with meringue (beaten egg whites with sugar) for lift, and a small amount of fat (relatively) in the form of butter or vegetable oil.  These cakes bake up light and fluffy, and beg to be paired with something juicy and creamy.  I baked an Orange Sponge cake, which was going fine and dandy until I was forced to punch the cake in the face…it was trying to burn my finger.  Luckily, the damage was minimal.

After baking many cakes and making batches and more batches of Buttercream frosting, we also learned how to make edible candied flowers.  We used violas (a type of edible flower) and painted them with a meringue powder and water concoction…and then sprinkled the flowers with sugar.  These flowers perched on top of cupcakes…simply adorable.

Butter cakes are obviously made with butter…and are dense and moist.  These cakes are usually made using the creaming method (beating your butter and sugar together to create tiny air bubbles that help with the rise in the cake).  I made a Cardamom Buttermilk Cake that was fragrant and delicious and receptive to many different flavor components.  I paired the cake with Strawberries and almonds…and a dollop of whipped cream.