TWD: Perfect Party Cake, orange version. Happy Birthday USA!

Happy Fourth of July! Let's celebrate with an orange-flavored version of Dorie Greenspan's "Perfect Party Cake." This was the Tuesdays with Dorie assignment for June 30, chosen by Carol of mix, mix...stir, stir. You can find the recipe on her blog -- as well as lots of interesting recipes and information about spices. Oh, and be sure to read the tips from Dorie (and Nick Malgieri) as well!


My choice of flavor was due to very practical considerations -- I had made a recipe of orange-flavored Italian meringue buttercream many months ago, and it was still sitting in the freezer needing to be used up! (The recipe was from The Cake Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Sorry, it's not on the Web.) So, I went with orange-flavored cake, orange marmalade, and orange curd for the other cake components. (And home-made candied orange peel for the decorations.)


Cakes are still a "learning experience" for me but this one turned out quite well despite some problems along the way.


Here's the cake batter -- half of Dorie's recipe, in 6-inch pans. It seemed like a thin layer. I used orange zest and orange extract in place of lemon, and increased the amount to 1 1/2 times the original. I also reduced the sugar (by 2 Tablespoons for the half recipe) and added 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil. Oh, and I weighed my flour, using that one cup of unsifted cake flour is 4.0 ounces.

Things I've learned about cakes along the way: use the right type of flour, and measure it the way the cookbook author does (best of all is if she gives weights--Dorie, please mention that to your publisher!). Have the butter soft, but not melted, and cream it with the sugar for a long time. Don't get impatient at this step! (I have to keep reminding myself of that.) Mix gently once you start adding liquid. And, pay attention to your oven temperature. Mine runs cool, so I always turn it up by 15 degrees. Then things bake just right.

In the picture above, see those foil strips around the cake pans? Those are my home-made "cake strips." They have wet paper towels inside. It slows down the baking of the outside edges of the cake, so it bakes more evenly. You can see them below, behind the cakes, opened up so they can dry out and be re-used.


Here are the cakes on the cooling rack. They rose nicely, but didn't fill the pans all the way. They didn't brown at all, but the edges were pulling away from the pans and the top was springy, so I pulled them out. They were fine, moist and fluffy and just right.

Making the other components and assembling the cake turned out to be more of a job.

Well, the marmalade wasn't that hard. It was just a mixture of store-bought (Dundee's) and home-made. Next time I would either strain out the bits of peel, or puree it finely in the blender or food processor. I thought the bits of peel were a distraction to the suave texture of the cake, filling and frosting. And, I'd use an even thinner layer of marmalade -- the flavor was a bit too strong. Marmalade is very assertive!

The orange curd turned out to be a PITA. Partly that was my own fault. Instead of sticking with the recipe from Rose Levy Beranbaum that has worked for me before, I decided to get creative and adapt Cook's Illustrated filling from their Lemon Layer Cake. The recipe intrigued me because it had gelatin added, for extra thickness. I made half the recipe, substituting frozen orange juice concentrate (undiluted) for the lemon juice. The result? Very eggy, barely tasted of orange at all. I added some frozen orange zest, then some fresh orange zest. Still not orangey enough. Some strained marmalade. Still not enough, and now it was getting runny. Finally I added about 1 1/2 tablespoons of Grand Marnier, with more gelatin sprinkled over the top and dissolved. Ah, that did the trick! Let's hear it for Grand Marnier! But, now I had to chill it overnight--and it still was a bit runny. Sigh.

Finally I sliced the cakes and filled them. The orange curd was oozing out all over. More chilling, then gently scraping / smoothing the extra curd on the sides of the cake. Finally I could frost this beast!

It's amazing. Frozen and thawed Italian meringue buttercream looks like a nasty, curdled mess. But get it back to room temperature and beat the heck out of it, and it smooths right out! Put one coat on, chill (and watch the 4th of July fireworks), put the other coat on, decorate, eat!

The cake was delightful. The curd tasted good, but next time I'll start with Rose's recipe and add gelatin. (And maybe Grand Marnier.) The buttercream was not too sweet and tasted nicely of orange, not butter (it also had orange curd and Grand Marnier). But I find the texture of buttercream to be a bit too slippery for my taste.

I like frostings that are very light and fluffy, but not sweet. Whipped cream is ideal, except that it doesn't keep well. Cream cheese frostings are great (as long as they're not too sweet), but a bit heavy. Hmm. Do you suppose it would be possible to make an meringue-and-cream-cheese frosting instead of a buttercream?


Thank you, Carol, for finally giving us the chance to make this cake for Tuesdays with Dorie! Be sure to check out all the other fabulous versions by the other TWD bakers.

Bungalow Black-Raspberry Cobbler

I liked the cobbler I made for Tuesdays with Dorie so well that I decided to try it again, with a number of changes and variations. It gave me a chance to use up the last of our home-grown frozen black raspberries. (We just started picking this year's crop today, so it's time to get rid of the old stuff!)


The recipe is below. I made double the recipe and baked it in two pans. The small pan above is half a recipe, baked in a 6-inch casserole dish. The large pan below is a 10-inch casserole dish, holding one-and-a-half times the recipe.


What would I do differently next time? I'd increase the sugar just a little. Also, it was easy to slide the dough onto the smaller cobbler, but quite a pain to do it for the larger one. I might try cutting the dough into smaller pieces and putting them on individually next time.

Other than that, I was very happy with the recipe I came up with!

Bungalow Black-Raspberry Cobbler
by Bungalow Barbara

For a 9-inch round or 8-inch square baking pan, with a capacity of at least 8 cups.

Fruit Filling:
1 Granny Smith or other tart apple, grated,
sprinkled with 1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice (about 4.95 oz / 140 gm total)
7 cups individually frozen black raspberries, not thawed (27-28 oz / 770-791 gm)
7 Tablespoons sugar (3.1 oz / 88 gm)
Note: next time I would use more, say about 9 Tbsp. (4.0 oz / 113 gm)
Note: my husband and I prefer cobblers with less sugar in the filling.
If you like sweeter fruit desserts, increase the sugar to 3/4 cup or 1 cup.
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon potato starch or scant 1 teaspoon cornstarch

Butter the baking pan.
Peel and grate apple. Sprinkle grated apple with lemon juice. In small bowl, rub lemon zest into sugar with fingers. Mix in salt and starch. Place berries in large bowl; add grated apple and sugar mixture, and mix well. Place in baking pan.
At this point I wrapped and froze the filling (the raspberries hadn't even had a chance to defrost).

Biscuit-Dough Topping:
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (2.55 oz / 72 gm)
1/2 c. unbleached all-purpose flour (2.6 oz / 74 gm)
1/2 c. unbleached pastry flour (2.35 oz / 67 gm)
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
3 T. sugar (1.3 oz / 37.5 gm)
1/2 tsp. grated lemon zest
6 T. unsalted butter, frozen (3.0 oz / 85 gm)
cut into 6 or 8 pieces
9 Tablespoons buttermilk (4.8 oz / 136 gm)
plus an extra Tablespoon if needed
1/2 tsp. vanilla
For the top:
about 2 teaspoons cream or half-and-half
Demerara sugar for sprinkling

Place flours, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in bowl of food processor. Rub lemon zest into sugar with fingers and add to flour mixture. Process briefly to mix.
Add about one-third of the butter to processor and pulse until mixture resembles fine crumbs and no lumps of butter remain. Add the remaining butter and pulse until butter lumps are no larger than peas. At this point, you may put the mixture into a plastic bag or container and freeze until ready to use.

When you are ready to bake, bring pan with fruit filling out of the freezer. Place topping mix into a bowl and set in refrigerator. Measure out the 9 T. of buttermilk and mix in the vanilla, set that in refrigerator as well.
Set oven rack to middle position or slightly lower. Place silicone mats or aluminum foil on lowest rack or bottom of oven to catch drips. Preheat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
Measure your pan before you put it into the oven. Then, place pan with fruit into oven. Bake for about 35-45 minutes, until fruit is very hot and bubbling around the edges.
About 5 to 10 minutes before the fruit is ready, take topping ingredients out of refrigerator. Mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients with a fork or spatula, being careful not to overmix. If more than a few dry crumbs remain, add in more buttermilk or other liquid as needed. The dough should be moist and fairly sticky.
Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and pat out to dimensions of pan. You did remember to measure it before you put it into the oven, right? Cut out some steam vents.
When fruit is ready, take it out of the oven and turn the oven up to 425 degrees.
Slide the dough onto the top of the fruit. I like to use a flexible cutting mat for this (just don't use the one you use to chop garlic and onions). Brush top of dough with cream or half-and-half, sprinkle with sugar.
Put it back in the oven and bake for about 20 to 25 minutes, until top is well browned and filling is bubbling vigorously.

Cool on rack for half-an-hour to 45 minutes. Best served warm, with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream.

Inspirations for this recipe:
Mixed Berry Cobbler from Dorie Greenspan's "Baking from My Home to Yours," or here, or here.
Best Blueberry Cobbler in Cook's Illustrated magazine, July/August 2002 or here.
Best Blueberry Pie in Cook's Illustrated magazine, July/August 2008 or here.
and Rose Levy Beranbaum's "The Pie and Pastry Bible" for general good advice, and weights and measures.

Tuesdays with Dorie: Raspberry/Apple Cobbler

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Mixed Berry Cobbler, chosen by Beth of Our Sweet Life.

Dorie's recipe calls for mixed frozen or fresh berries with a biscuit-dough topping. I fiddled around with the recipe and ended up with a part-whole-wheat topping and a black raspberry and grated apple filling. Served topped with leftover orange-flavored whipped cream from last week's cream puffs, it was a great treat.

Our freezer still holds a couple of gallon bags of frozen home-grown black raspberries. The new crop will be ripe very soon and it's time to use these up, so they were a natural choice for the filling. But I find that a raspberry-only filling is a bit seedy for our taste. I wanted to add something else. In the latest edition of Cooks' Illustrated magazine, I had noted a recipe for blueberry pie that called for adding grated apple to frozen blueberries to thicken the filling. Aha! I thought, I'll try that.

So, my final recipe for the filling called for one Granny Smith apple, peeled and grated, sprinkled with about 1 Tablespoon of lemon juice. Then I added enough frozen black raspberries to make a generous 5 cups. Our berries are somewhat tart, and then there's the tart apple and the lemon juice, so I upped the sugar to 6 Tablespoons. (Turns out I could have left it at 5.) Potato starch is my preferred thickener for pies and cobblers, so I turned to Shirley Corriher's wonderful book "Cookwise." The table on page 280 says that 4 teaspoons of cornstarch has the same thickening power as 2 1/4 teaspoons of potato starch. Using this, I calculated I'd need about 1 5/8 teaspoons of potato starch. I also added a sprinkle of salt. The rest of the ingredients were the same as Dorie's recipe. Since I chickened out on using the black pepper on the strawberry tarts, I decided to include it this time, but couldn't detect the flavor in the final result.

I made some changes to the biscuit dough topping, too. Jim and I both like part-whole-wheat toppings, so I used 2/3 cup of whole wheat flour. I also added 1/2 tsp. of vanilla extract and 1/2 tsp. grated lemon peel, for a touch more flavor, but did not increase the sugar. The dough was a little dry when it came together, and I added about 1 1/2 Tablespoons more milk. (A moist dough is best for biscuits.)

I decided to follow the cooking procedure from the Cooks' Illustrated cobbler I had made earlier this year, and cook the berries first until they were hot. Then the biscuit dough is added and you finish baking. (See picture and information at bottom of this post for more information about this recipe.)

I should have re-read the CI recipe more closely — it said to cook until the berries were bubbling around the edges. I only cooked until they were hot but not bubbling. I slid the round of dough on top of the berries using one of those flexible plastic cutting boards and sprinkled it with turbinado sugar. Then I turned the temperature up to 425 as per the Cooks' Illustrated recipe, and cooked for about 20 minutes. The dough looked done, but the berries were only beginning to bubble. Rats! I turned the temperature back to 375 and kept cooking, checking every 5 minutes. About 15 minutes later, the topping was deep brown and the filling was bubbling merrily out around the edges, but the center stubbornly refused to bubble. I was afraid to bake it any longer, the topping looked like it was going to burn soon, so I pulled it out.

(This picture shows why you should always put something underneath a berry pie or cobbler to catch those bubbling juices! The silicone mat made for easy clean-up.)

After cooling for about an hour, we sliced into it! Despite my worries, the filling was done even in the center. It had thickened nicely, in fact, perhaps too well for a cobbler. I think cobblers should be a bit runny so you can use the soft biscuit topping to soak up the juice. This filling would have been perfect for a pie instead. I guess the pectin in the grated apple and the potato starch together gave too much thickening power. I did like the way the grated apple sort of "melted" into the filling and yet made it a bit more smooth, reducing the "seedy" effect a little.

My other critique was that I thought there was too much topping and not enough filling. I'd increase the filling by 1/3 to 1/2 and decrease the topping to 2/3 or 3/4 of the original recipe.

Still, it was very good and disappeared fast!

Final conclusions? We still have more frozen raspberries—I see more cobblers in our future! For my next cobbler, I'll use the grated apple again, increase the total amount of filling to about 7 cups of berries (I'll need a deeper baking dish) and reduce the starch thickening. I'll keep the two-stage baking method but bake until the fruit bubbles around the edges. I'll use a part-whole-wheat biscuit topping recipe that calls for about 1 1/3 or 1 1/2 cups of flour, flavor it with a touch of vanilla and lemon zest, and sprinkle with sugar. We're both still "on the fence" about whether we like a smooth, one-piece topping like Dorie's recipe, or the "individual biscuit" style of the Cooks' Illustrated recipe. Both are good!

Hints for making biscuit dough:
Keep the butter very cold. Add enough liquid to make a moist, very slightly sticky dough—a moist dough rises better. Handle the dough as little as possible to avoid developing the gluten, which would make it tough. Bake in a very hot oven if possible for the lightest, fluffiest biscuits.
Hints for fruit fillings:
I find that 1 tablespoon of sugar to one cup of frozen berries suits our tastes. If I am using sour cherries I use a bit more sugar. Many recipes call for up to 2 tablespoons of sugar, which is much too sweet for us.

Here is a picture of the Cooks' Illustrated cobbler I baked in January of 2008, which gave me the idea for pre-baking the fruit.

The original recipe was for "Blueberry Cobbler" in Cooks' Illustrated magazine, July/August 2002. It is posted on their web site, but please note, the recipe is not free.