Pumpkin Pie Cake for Thanksgiving

I wanted to try something special for Thanksgiving. I was reading Momofuku Milk Bar and I liked the idea of the Apple Pie Layer Cake. I decided to make a Pumpkin Pie Cake.

Pumpkin Ganache

My starting point was the Pumpkin Ganache from the Milk Bar Cookbook. It's basically a mixture of pumpkin purée and white chocolate, smoothed out with some glucose. I was able to buy glucose at Joann in the cake decorating section. It's pumpkin-y, but isn't spiced like pumpkin pie. I made a double recipe.

To add spice, I made a Cinnamon Brown Sugar Cake, based on the Triple Browned Cake from Completely Delicious. To that recipe I added 1 tablespoon cinnamon, 1½ teaspoon ground ginger, ½ teaspoon ground cloves, and ½ teaspoon grated nutmeg. I baked the cake in three 9-inch cake pans.

The original cake has a liquid cheesecake layer; I love pumpkin cheesecake, so I knew the flavors would work together. I doubled the recipe and baked the cheesecake in an 8-inch round cake pan, which has approximately the same volume as two of the 6-inch square pans called for.

The pie crumbs are very easy and delicious. I made a double recipe, but had a bunch left over. I'll save them for another dessert.

I made all the components on Monday and Tuesday, assembled the cake Wednesday, and served it Thursday.

I assembled the cake in my 8" Cake Pan with Removable Bottom. A springform pan would work equally well in place of the cake ring. The Bakery at Wegmans gave me three acetate strips after I called and asked about them. I wouldn't have wanted to make the cake without them, and I didn't have enough time for an online order.

 

I trimmed the cakes to 8-inches by cutting around the base of an 8-inch cake pan. I also trimmed and leveled the tops of the cakes.

I lined the cake pan and put in the bottom layer, then spread the liquid cheesecake over.

I sprinkled on the pie crumbs.

I piped the pumpkin ganache using the cake icer tip because the ganache was the most firm element. I tried to push each element up to the edges evenly, and wiped the inside of acetate after each layer. I then did the same again, adding the next piece of acetate.

I froze the cake overnight, and removed it from the pan the next day.

Instead of frosting, I mixed 1 cup heavy cream, ½ cup sour cream, and ½ cup brown sugar, then let it sit 4 hours in the refrigerator. I whipped it right before serving, the spread it level with the top of the acetate.

The key to making these cakes attractive is to layer very evenly and spread each layer to the edge. I forgot that I was supposed to take the acetate off when the cake was still frozen, so the sides weren't as smooth as they would have been otherwise.

The flavor was the best part. The combination was much better than any individual component. I was very proud, and can't wait to make more cakes like this in the future.

 

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Stabilized Whipped Cream for Icing

This was a lesson in humility.

This cake was for my husband's birthday, so you can imagine that I wanted to do a great job. Lemon is his favorite flavor, so I made a white cake (using the KAF recipe for Tender White Cake) with lemon curd filling and whipped cream icing. I modified the lemon curd recipe from BakeWise, and confidently documented it.

Well, it didn't thicken in time.

So I decided to go ahead with blogging about the stabilized whipped cream instead. Jim still loved the cake; I will serve a funny-looking cake, but not a bad one.

I modified this method from Rose's Heavenly Cakes

I cooked 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 2 teaspoons cornstarch, and 1/2 cup heavy cream in a small saucepan. I brought the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly with a silicone scraper.

I then transferred the "pudding" to a bowl and refrigerated it until cool. This didn't take very long, with only 1/2 cup liquid.

Before I was ready to serve the cake, I put the mixer bowl and whisk attachment in the freezer. When they were cold, I whipped 1½ cups heavy cream and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract on high speed to soft peaks.

The I switched the mixer to medium-low and spooned in the chilled "pudding", allowing each spoonful to incorporate before adding the next.

By the time I finished, the cream was at stiff peaks.

I frosted the cake, being just a little more gentle than usual. I served it immediately, but I could have held it for a couple of hours in the refrigerator. Whipped cream should not be kept very long at room temperature, especially on a hot day, as will melt and drip.

If you want whipped cream that will hold at room temperature, you need to use gelatin. I couldn't find my gelatin—I really need to organize my baking supplies :-) The cornstarch is softer than gelatin, and I couldn't taste it.

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Strawberry Cassata Cream Cake

When I was in college in Cleveland, I was often served Strawberry Cassata for special occasions. It is a strawberry shortcake with cake instead of biscuits. Later, I found out that most people (that is, people from Italy, and people who know people from Italy) think Cassata is a completely different cake, involving ricotta and nuts.

Wikipedia to the rescue! According the the article on Cassata, there is a specific Cleveland Cassata which as I described, based on a baker's kids who didn't like the original. I guess when you are a prominent baker in an immigrant community, your picky kids shape the city's cuisine. And thank goodness for that!

This cake is for my friend Alison, who has a birthday today. When I asked what she wanted, she said "strawberries sound good." I'd just seen this beautiful Strawberry Cream Cake at the ATK blog, and was very excited to try it.

Finding a Recipe

I loved the appearance of the ATK cake, but wasn't interested in their recipe. I'm not a fan of the very eggy genoise. Also, they stabilize the whipped cream with cream cheese, which sounds kinda fishy.

I wanted to try Shirley Corriher's Magnificent Moist Golden Cake from BakeWise. There's a good adaptation of the recipe at Cookie Madness, though I got the book from the library and worked from that. While you're there, Anna at Cookie Madness has an awesomely dorky post on All Yellow Cakes Compared.

This is an amazing cake. It goes beyond moist, all the way into damp. But this is not a perfect recipe. I ended up making it twice (you'll read why in a minute) and both times it overflowed the pan onto my baking stone. Also it calls for heavy cream, which I don't usually keep around. But the flavor is accurately Magnificent.

The recipe uses the unusual dissolved-sugar mixing method. The second time I made the cake went easier, so I'm going to write about that one.

Baking the Cake

I started by whisking the cake flour and baking powder, then set them aside. I put the sugar in the mixer bowl, then mixed in 1/3 cup simmering water (I just brought a small pot of water to simmer then measured out 1/3 cup). I then stirred in the butter (in pieces), artificial vanilla extract (I save the real stuff for icings and custards), salt, and vegetable oil. You can see a little unmelted butter in the picture below.

I mixed in the flour at low speed in three batches.

Now working with a wooden spoon, I stirred in 3 yolks and 2 eggs one by one. Finally I folded in 1/3 cup heavy cream whipped to soft peaks. Experience told me that my 6 quart KitchenAid has a very hard time whipping 1/3 cup of cream so I used my adorable Kuhn Rikon Rotary Egg Beater (about $20) and a glass 2-cup measure. It took seconds.

Shirley instructs quite clearly to bake the whole batch in one 9 x 2-inch round pan. You can see how full it is; apparently I couldn't, or at least couldn't foresee the consequences.

Both time I baked the cake it overflowed the pan. This wasn't a total disaster, as my sons and I ate the cooked overflow.

This is the very first cake my seven year old son has liked. He usually considers cake a vehicle for frosting.

Here is the finished cake, which I left to cool overnight. I promised my son that I would cut the top off for us to eat the next day.

This is what the cake looked like in the morning. I tried to save the cake by cutting off the scarred top, but only got one good layer. So I remade the cake VERY quickly before church.

Shirley says that her cake can be cut into 3 layers. This is technically true, as I was able to do so with the uneaten cake, but the top layer was very thin. For my final assembly I used my three best layers, two from the new cake and one from the old.

Assembling The Cake

I layed out the three layers on baking racks and a cake round. I trimmed and bisected 2 pounds of strawberries, then arranged the most attractive pieces on the edges of the cake, macerating the remainder with sugar.

I didn't like the idea of the puréed strawberries in the ATK cake, so my husband chopped them for me. (I have Rheumatiod Arthritis, and I can't cut up ingredients anymore.) I put the chopped strawberries in the middle of the cake.

On each layer, I piped a quick border of sweetened whipped cream with large Drop Flower Tip (2D), then glopped the rest of the cream in the middle. I used a small icing spatula to smooth the whipped cream.

I assembled the cake after decorating. Never, ever do this. One of my layers broke in the transfer, and I was glad I had plenty of extra cake to patch it with (sorry Alison!).

I had saved my prettiest strawberry as a garnish. I used an instructional video at About.com to learn how to cut a strawberry fan.

Have you had layers fall apart on you, or had a kid eat your cake in the middle of the night? How did you cope? Let me know in the comments.

As an aside, I recently read the 250 words is the sweet spot for a blog post (Food Blogging for Dummies). My posts are often around 1000 words. Should I trim it down, or split my posts? Did you even make it this far? :-)

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