TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Glaze Over A Sugary Southern Favorite Cake

ADVERTISEMENT

By CHARLES PERRY, Los Angeles Times

Published: October 24, 2007

In a climate such as the American South's, you would think people would want light, refreshing desserts - sorbets, maybe. Actually, Southerners are crazy for cake.

Crazy-kooky-nutsy, with frosting on it. They make fruit cakes, angel cakes, chocolate cakes, pound cakes, layer cakes of all kinds (they can't get enough of coconut cakes). They have varieties you may never have heard of, such as Laine cake (a white cake with fluffy white frosting and a custardy coconut, raisin and nut filling), and they keep inventing more.

Some are homey treats based on molasses or dried fruit, but the majority are madly rich. Most of the 64 recipes in Nancie McDermott's just-published 'Southern Cakes' call for reckless quantities of cream, butter, sugar and eggs.

For a generation, people have been amazingly impressed when anybody makes a cake from scratch. In fact, it's easy. Your mixer creams the butter and sugar with no effort from you, then you mix in the eggs, liquid and flour, and bingo: batter. The baking part is no more difficult than with a mix.

True, frostings can be more troublesome, and I tend to trust a candy thermometer when higher densities of sugar syrup are involved, rather than relying on the traditional method of evaluating thread or soft-ball stages. My main criticism of McDermott's book is that I wish she had put in temperatures more often for the frostings. Otherwise, these recipes are very well worked out , written clearly enough for a novice to handle.

Every recipe has a charming headnote, often showing a bit of historical research, and about a third are illustrated with color photographs. McDermott's handy introductory chapter on cake baking includes advice to buy butter on sale and keep it in the freezer 'so you are baking-ready 24/7.'

For my money, one of the grandest-looking cakes in this book is the brown sugar pound cake baked in a tube pan with a lush mass of caramel glaze drooling down its sides.

In this recipe adapted from 'Southern Cakes,' each of 12 servings has 840 calories, 8 grams protein, 129 grams carbohydrates, 1 gram fiber, 34 grams fat, 21 grams saturated fat, 174 milligrams cholesterol and 144 milligrams sodium

BROWN SUGAR POUNDCAKE WITH CARAMEL GLAZE

For cake:

3 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened, plus additional for greasing the pan

1 (1-pound) box dark brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

5 eggs

For caramel glaze:

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup evaporated milk

4 cups sifted powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt, and stir with a fork; set aside. Into a small bowl, pour the milk and add the vanilla; set aside.

With a mixer, beat butter at high speed until light and fluffy. Add brown sugar in three batches, then add all of the white sugar, beating after each addition. Add eggs one by one, beating well after each addition.

Reduce the speed to low, and add half of the flour mixture and then half the milk, beating until the flour or milk has disappeared into the batter. Add the rest of the flour and the rest of the milk in the same way. Quickly scrape the batter into the tube pan, and bake until the cake is nicely browned at the edges, springs back when lightly touched at the center and a wooden skewer inserted into the center comes out clean, about 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Remove the pan from the oven, and leave it on a wire rack for 20 to 30 minutes. Loosen the cake from the pan with a table knife, and turn it out onto a wire rack or plate, then leave it to cool completely. When cool, glaze with caramel glaze.

To make glaze: In a large saucepan, place butter and brown sugar over medium heat. Stir until the butter melts and blends with the brown sugar into a smooth sauce, 2 to 3 minutes.

Add milk, and let the icing come to a gentle boil. Stir well, remove from heat, and add powdered sugar and vanilla. Beat well with a mixer, whisk or spoon until the glaze thickens and loses a little of its shine, 1 or 2 minutes. Use at once.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT