Ginger cake with ginger buttercream

It was Madame's birthday and we did a special event for people who could walk home. For once we had a party catered. And beautifully done it was by Sharon Hage. But I wanted to make the cake. After all, I can't help myself - meddling in the kitchen.

Madame's favorite flavors in a cake are ginger/spicy - almost ginger bread like. So I scoured recipe sources - including old handwritten recipes from my grandmother and mother.  I came up with this (note, I weigh most ingredients and use metric measurements - except for the spices, and leavening):

Ingredients - Cake

210 gm butter (unsalted, high butterfat - I used Kerry Gold

Small pinch of salt

75 gm Black treacle (like molasses, but not as pungent)

200 gm Dark brown sugar

230 gm Golden Syrup - commonly used in British cooking

4 Large eggs

250 ml whole milk (I made this using 2% and 1/2 and 1/2)

410 gm All purpose flour

4 tsp Double acting baking powder

3 tbsp Ground ginger

3 Cloves - ground fine

1/4 tsp Anise seeds - ground fine

1/4 tsp Ground nutmeg

1/4 tsp Ground black pepper

200 gm crystallized ginger roughly chopped into bite sized pieces

Ingredients - Ginger Butter Cream

220 gm butter (unsalted, high butterfat)

3 or 4 grains Kosher or sea salt

440 gm Powdered sugar

3 tsp Ground ginger

3 tbsp Liber brand ginger cocktail syrup

Method - Cake

Preheat fan assist oven to 320F (350F if not using fan assiste feature). 

Grease 2 8" cake tins, and line the bottom with a circle of parchment paper.

In a saucier or other suitable saucepan warm the butter, treacle, sugar, salt, golden syrup over low heat until the butter is melted. Leave to cool. 

Meanwhile whisk together the flour, baking powder, ginger and other spices. Put the eggs and milk into a large mixing bow and whisk to combine.

Once the pan has cooled, pour the contents into the egg/milk mixture and whisk to combine. When well combined, whisk in the flour. Do this all at once, no need to be overly gareful here.

When the flour is incorporated, stir in the crystallized ginger incorporating it all through the batter.

Divide the batter equally between the cake tins. Bake in the center of the oven for 20 minutes. Rotate the pans (even in my fan assist oven, I do this as a safety measure). Bake for another 15 - 20 minutes - until a toothpick inserted comes out with no crumbs.

Leave to cool in the tins. Turn out onto a cooling rack and level the tops if they are slightly domed.

Method - Butter Cream

Make sure the butter is at cool room temperature (65- 68F). In a stand mixer beat the butter until it is thoroughly soft. Add the salt and powdered sugar a large spoonful at a time. This prevents the sugar from flying everywhere.

Once the sugar is fully incorporated, add the ginger syrup and beat for a little longer.

Assembly

When the cake is thoroughly cold, peel off the parchment paper from the base of each layer. Place the first layer on your stand (or plate, or whatever). Spread a thin layer of the buttercream (about 1/3 of the total buttercream) evenly over the bottom layer. Put the second layer on top, aligning with the bottom layer. Spread another third of the buttercream on the top. And then pipe small rosettes on top using the remaining butter cream. Allow to cool, and serve.

Note: Licking the buttercream bowl and beaters is mandatory once the cake is iced!

Interpreting a recipe

My sister has been waxing lyrical about the cinnamon buns from the Da Bara bakery in Cornwall (SW England). She dug around and found a recipe for them and gave it to me to try. She tried it herself too, Somewhat mixed results.

Here is the recipe copied from her note to me.

Makes 8

For the Buns

300 ml Whole Milk

50 gm Butter 

225 gm Plain Flour

200 gm Bread Flour

7 gm Fast Acting Yeast

60 gm Caster Sugar

1/2 t table salt

1 Egg, Beaten

For the Filling

75 gm Softened Butter

50 gm Light Brown Sugar

2 t Cinnamon

1/2 t salt 

2t Cinnamon

100 gm Caster Sugar

The first thing to notice is that the dough is going to be very sticky. Just the milk alone gives a ~72% hydration. Then add in the egg and the butter and we are up at almost 80%. That is going to be very hard to work by hand.

Method

Bring the milk to room temperature before mixing with the rest of the bun ingredients to form a strong, stretchy dough. Place in a bowl , cover with cling film and leave to prove for an hour

Tip the dough onto a lightly floured board and roll out to a rectangle of 35x25 cm

Beat the filling ingredients together and spread over the dough.

Preheat the oven to 190C (375 F) and line a muffin tin with baking parchment. Roll the dough tightly into a 35 cm cylinder and cut into 8 pieces. Place the buns into the lined tin and leave to rise for 45 minutes.

Bake the buns in the oven for 20-25 minutes until dark golden. Remove to a cooling rack.

Mix together the cinnamon and sugar. Toss each bun into the cinnamon/sugar mixture until coated.

There are so many issues here:

1. How will mixing develop enough gluten for the buns to gold together. Rich, we doughs typically need quite a long kneading time
2. An hour may not be enough rising time
3. Which oven shelf?
4. Lining a muffin tin? Not sure what this means at all. Could be individual muffins (a pain to line) or a larger baking pan lined with parchment
5. How might one do these for breakfast?
6. Are the buns tossed in the cinnamon/sugar while still hot?

So, I revised the method - keeping the ingredients the same.

Revised Method

Bring the milk and egg to room temperature (assuming the eggs have been in the fridge). Add the egg, sugar and yeast to the milk. Whisk gently until the egg is incorporated. Leave to stand for a few minutes while the yeast starts to become active. Note the fast acting yeasts can be added directly to the flour, but I prefer to hydrate them.

1. Place the flour and salt into the bowl of a stand mixer and, use the paddle. Stirring slowly, add the milk/egg/sugar/yeast mixture until just incorporated. Switch to the dough hook and knead for about 15 minutes.
2. Cut the butter into small pieces and add them one at a time while the dough hook is kneading the dough. A further 10 or so minutes.
3. Cover the dough with cling wrap and leave in a room temperature place, undisturbed for 1 couple of hours. Then transfer the dough to the fridge. Note it is much easier to roll out cold dough.
4. Line a baking tin with parchment paper
5. Tip the dough onto a floured board and roll out as specified above. 25x35 cm (10x14 inches). Cover with the cinnamon/sugar mixture and roll it up tightly.
6. Cut the roll across wise into 8 pieces.
7. Place the pieces into the pan so they are not touching
8. Cover tightly and refrigerate overnight,
9. When ready to bake, turn the oven on to 375F.
10. Remove the buns from the fridge and allow to sit uncovered on the counter while the oven hears up (at least 25 minutes)
11. Bake the nuns on the middle rack until the internal temperature reaches 202F
12. Remove, toss in the cinnamon/sugar mixture and allow to cool.  

They came out well for a first effort. Maybe a bit lighter/airier than the real thing. But definitely good enough to build on from

Sous Vide corn on the cob

I have had this perpetual search for the best way to do corn on the cob. Kenji at Serious eats turned me on to an approach that turned out fantastic. It involves the vacuum sealer and the circulator. So worth it, and so easy - at least easy once you have the vacuum sealer and circulator!

Ingredients

2 Ears of fresh corn - shucked

2 T butter ( I used home made, cultured butter), but I suspect any would do.

Method

Place water in a large container and set up the circulator. Heat the water to 83C (181.4F). Place the shucked corn into vacuum bags. Ad 2T butter. Vacuum seal the bags and triple seal them.

Place the bags in the water bath at 83C for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, take the bags out of the water bath. Cut open the bags and serve the corn with a little coarse salt.

Serious Eats suggests adding some flavorings to the butter in the bag - we didn't this time, but may experiment later.

Butter

During the evening of the first of the big (fortunately not everything in Texas is bigger) earthquakes in the Dallas area, we were having dinner with some friends at FT33. Matt McAllister dropped by the table and asked how we liked the butter. It was very good, very much in the European cultured style. He mentioned that it was made in house. Of course that conversation provided the inspiration to go off and make some. Madame was away for a bit, so that seemed like the ideal time. I wanted to make sure that I had time to find a cleaning crew if it went badly. I cultured the cream using some store bought creme fraiche, but didn't culture it for long enough. The 1 quart of cream, 4 oz. of creme fraiche yielded 21 oz of butter.

Ingredients

1 Quart (US quart - 32 oz, 4 cups....) heavy whipping cream

4 oz creme fraiche

3/4 t kosher salt

Method

Stir together the cream and creme fraiche. Leave in a warm place for 24 - 36 hours until the desired level of tanginess is reached. Note, I was too impatient, and the place wasn't warm enough.

Refrigerate the cream mixture until ready to make the butter.

Chill the bowl of a stand mixer. 

Pour the cream into the mixer bowl, and beat with the regular mixing paddle (not the whisk) on a medium slow speed. The cream will go through stages. After a few minutes it will have increased in volume and then thickened to the texture of whipped cream. That took about 1/2 the time - about 10 minutes. (Note that whisking cream for whipping is a much faster process). The cream volume then decreases and the cream becomes the texture of icing. All of a sudden, the cream separates into a thick fatty substance (proto-butter) and a milky liquid (traditional buttermilk). At that point the mixture sloshes about in the bowl. The buttermilk has a tendency to want to jump out of the bowl. The solids + paddle + buttermilk give much opportunity for mess making.

When the butter has reached that stage, transfer it to a fine mesh strainer, lined with 4 layers of cheesecloth. Allow the buttermilk to drain. Squeeze the solids to force more liquid out.

Rinse the solids with a lot of water (while in the cheesecloth, but don't dilute the buttermilk). Turn the butter onto a cold counter, knead it a bit by hand (it didn't show signs of melting). Flatten it, ad the salt and then knead for longer to incorporate the salt.

Form a log in parchment paper, place the log inside a plastic sealable bag and refrigerate.  

I drank the buttermilk immediately. It was fantastic. Not that acidic, slightly off flavor and disgusting texture of the stuff in a green carton.