MORE of Elizabeth's Extra Cakes - Strawberry Cream Cake and Pine Nut Cake

I made lots of extra cakes in December. In fact, I was a cake-making machine that month! I even made a couple of tried-and-true cakes from earlier this year.

These two cakes were new to me, though. The first, and more complicated of the two, was Strawberry Cream Cake, from my good friends (I wish) at America's Test Kitchen. I took it to a Christmas Eve party, and it was admittedly an odd choice for that type of event, since it seems better suited for a summer picnic. But whatever! I wanted to make it before the year was done, and it was such a fab-u-lous cake that I can't imagine anyone minded.

I have loved looking at strawberry cream cakes in the past, but have not enjoyed eating them very much. They're pretty but not very flavorful. The things that made this cake different were these:

1. A strawberry "mash" in addition to the whole strawberries. It really brought out the strawberry flavor,
2. A flavorful cream filling (from the addition of cream cheese), and
3. A cake sturdy enough to handle the berries and cream, but not so sturdy that it was dry.

I really do think this Strawberry Cream Cake was as good as it gets in the cream cake category. But if you like cake mixes, which get all goopy when stacked, this isn't for you. But please don't serve me yours. (Is that mean?...)

The first two layers


Here you can see the way the layers are constructed:
strawberries around the circumference, strawberry mash
in the middle, cream on top of that.



Julia wants to eat it all up!

I added a cut up strawberry to the top of the cake.

The second cake was an Italian pine nut cake from the Jamie Oliver cookbook, Jamie's Italy. I made this cake for a dinner party, and it was pretty good. It is a very dense cake and not too sweet, which is VERY Italian. In fact, in my year and a half in Italy, I saw this cake many times in bakery windows, but never ate it. This version mixes like a quick bread, but it has yeast in it. It doesn't sit out to rise or anything, so it felt very odd to mix it up quickly, pour it in a springform pan, and have that strong yeast smell come back at me. It was very dense in the end (was the yeast supposed to have done something? Did my yeast die?) and I got nervous about it. It just seemed that it might be too bland to serve as the finish to a dinner party. I whipped some cream before serving it and mixed cut up strawberries and oranges to spoon on the side of the plate. I thought it was good like that, but not spectacular. I think it would be a more appropriate cake to eat with a cup of tea on a winter day or something like that. A HAND CAKE!




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RECIPES


Strawberry Cream Cake, by America's Test Kitchen / Cook's Illustrated Magazine

Serves 8 to 10. Published May 1, 2006.

If using a cake pan, you will need one with straight sides that are at least 2 inches high; otherwise, use a springform pan. The cake portion can be made ahead of time, wrapped in a double layer of plastic wrap, and frozen; thaw the frozen cake, unwrapped, at room temperature for about two hours before proceeding with the recipe.

Ingredients

Cake 1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 1/2	teaspoons baking powder
1/4	teaspoon table salt
1	cup sugar (7 ounces)
5	large eggs (2 whole and 3 separated), room temperature
6	tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled slightly
2	tablespoons water
2	teaspoons vanilla extract
Strawberry Filling
2	pounds fresh strawberries (medium or large, about 2 quarts), washed, dried, and stemmed
4 - 6	tablespoons sugar
2	tablespoons Kirsch (I omitted this ingredient and added a bit of water instead)
	Pinch table salt
Whipped Cream
8	ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/2	cup sugar (3 1/2 ounces)
1	teaspoon vanilla extract
1/8	teaspoon table salt
2	cups heavy cream

Instructions

1. FOR THE CAKE: Adjust oven rack to lower-middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Grease and flour round 9 by 2-inch cake pan or 9-inch springform pan and line with parchment paper. Whisk flour, baking powder, salt, and all but 3 tablespoons sugar in mixing bowl. Whisk in 2 whole eggs and 3 yolks (reserving whites), butter, water, and vanilla; whisk until smooth.

2. In clean bowl of standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat remaining 3 egg whites at medium-low speed until frothy, 1 to 2 minutes. With machine running, gradually add remaining 3 tablespoons sugar, increase speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form, 60 to 90 seconds. Stir one-third of whites into batter to lighten; add remaining whites and gently fold into batter until no white streaks remain. Pour batter into prepared pan and bake until toothpick or wooden skewer inserted into center of cake comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then invert cake onto greased wire rack; peel off and discard parchment. Invert cake again; cool completely, about 2 hours.

3. FOR THE STRAWBERRY FILLING: Halve 24 of best-looking berries and reserve. Quarter remaining berries; toss with 4 to 6 tablespoons sugar (depending on sweetness of berries) in medium bowl and let sit 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Strain juices from berries and reserve (you should have about 1/2 cup). In workbowl of food processor fitted with metal blade, give macerated berries five 1-second pulses (you should have about 1 1/2 cups). In small saucepan over medium-high heat, simmer reserved juices and Kirsch until syrupy and reduced to about 3 tablespoons, 3 to 5 minutes. Pour reduced syrup over macerated berries, add pinch of salt, and toss to combine. Set aside until cake is cooled.

4. FOR THE WHIPPED CREAM: When cake has cooled, place cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt in bowl of standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment. Whisk at medium-high speed until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down bowl with rubber spatula as needed. Reduce speed to low and add heavy cream in slow, steady stream; when almost fully combined, increase speed to medium-high and beat until mixture holds stiff peaks, 2 to 2 1/2 minutes more, scraping bowl as needed (you should have about 4 1/2 cups).

5. TO ASSEMBLE THE CAKE: Using large serrated knife, slice cake into three even layers. Place bottom layer on cardboard round or cake plate and arrange ring of 20 strawberry halves, cut sides down and stem ends facing out, around perimeter of cake layer. Pour one half of pureed berry mixture (about 3/4 cup) in center, then spread to cover any exposed cake. Gently spread about one-third of whipped cream (about 1 1/2 cups) over berry layer, leaving 1/2-inch border from edge. Place middle cake layer on top and press down gently (whipped cream layer should become flush with cake edge). Repeat with 20 additional strawberry halves, remaining berry mixture, and half of remaining whipped cream; gently press last cake layer on top. Spread remaining whipped cream over top; decorate with remaining cut strawberries. Serve, or chill for up to 4 hours.

Pine Nut Cake (La Torta Della Giovane Sara) from Jamie Oliver’s book – Jamie’s Italy

1 cup unsalted butter, melted, plus a little for the pan
3 & 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 eggs, preferably organic
2 cups sugar
zest and juice of one lemon

1 & 1/4 ounce packet active dried yeast
3 & 1/2 ounces pine nuts

Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 12 inch springform pan and line it with a disc of waxed paper. Sprinkle the waxed paper with a little bit of the flour. Beat the eggs in a large bowl, then mix the yeast with the melted butter. Add this to the eggs, with the sugar, remaining flour, and the lemon zest and juice. Mix together well and pour into the cake pan. Scatter the pinenuts over the top and bake in the preheated oven for about 40 minutes or until golden.

Ann's April Pie - Hippie Pie

I went home to Arizona for a triumphant reunion of all of my siblings during the last week of April. I knew before I left that I wanted to make an Arizona-themed pie to share with the family while I was there, and spent days looking for something appropriate. I considered a southwestern-flavored savory pie or quiche, or something with a name that sounded like it came from my home state: sun, or diamondback, or snake, or desert...you get the idea. I was sure that I'd find something online, but I searched and searched and found nothing. I turned to the archives of Sue Anne's Pie of the Month site, and found a couple of possiblities, the best being Dry Pie. However, you will notice in the recipe that a key ingredient is pumpkin puree. Now I must make a confession: the ONLY food in the world that I hate is pumpkin pie. I loathe it. I try every year to eat some at Thanksgiving and it is just as bad as I remember. Moreover, only my parents like pumpkin pie in my family; my mom has asked every year at Thanksgiving how I can be my father's daughter when I hate pumpkin pie so much. Knowing that I'd be serving my pie to my pumpkin-hating siblings, it didn't seem quite fair to force us all to eat it - and to leave my mom with the entire thing. Therefore, I went with an Arizona theme I could get behind: ice cream pie.

Specifically, I made a family favorite: hippie pie. Hippie pie is not to be confused with hippie pie, which is like the Pizzookie at Oregano's and is perfect and delicious. Hippie pie is an ice cream pie that my family eats after watching fireworks on the Fourth of July. I decided that the best thing I could do for my month's pie would be something that my family would all love and we could enjoy together. There's actually another version of hippie pie that has cherries and chocolate flakes, but this is the one we eat every year.

This is such an easy dessert to make because it's just layering the different ingredients. You start with an Oreo crust and layer vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet, chopped walnuts, blueberry jam, and fruit. Voila! Hippe pie.

Here I am with the finished pie, and two random kids that wanted to hang out with me. Okay, I'm related to them. They're Listle's kids, Badam and Bella.

Can you see why it's called hippie pie? Psychadelic!!!

It tasted just like summer to me. Since I'm not going home for the Fourth of July this year, I was glad to get to share it with my family - we probably won't be in the same place together for a long time (Lee is moving to China with her family, and Pat is moving to Philly), so it was great to be home and remember happy memories. Despite the fact that we all got food poisoning over the next few days from the Mexican take-out we'd had for dinner, it was hot, summery, Arizona perfection.

Enjoy.

Ann's Hippie Pie (not to be confused with Hippie Pie)

1 chocolate cookie crumb crust

Vanilla ice cream

Raspberry sorbet

Walnuts, chopped fine

1 jar blueberry jam

Fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

Fresh blueberries

Spoon vanilla ice cream into the crust until it is halfway full. Smooth to create a solid layer. Spoon a layer of raspberry sorbet over this, then top with more vanilla ice cream, mounding up in a rounded dome. Smooth out. Spoon blueberry jam over the top - be careful, it may spill down the sides, so put a plate underneath the pie shell to catch any drips. It may be a good idea to create a ring of foil around the edge of the shell to keep the jam from spilling over (I didn't do this - I just let it get all over my brother's freezer). Sprinkle the chopped walnuts over the top, and then layer the strawberries and blueberries in whatever pattern you'd like. In fact you could use whatever fruit you want - different ice cream flavors, etc., but since this is Fourth of July themed, my family uses this combination. Place in the freezer and allow ice cream to re-harden for several hours before serving- or just eat it when you feel like it. What's the worst that can happen?

Chocolate Cookie Crumb Crust

from America's Test Kitchen

16 Oreo cookies (with filling), broken into rough pieces, about 2 1/2 cups

2 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted and cooled

1. For the Crust: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. In bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade, process cookies with 15 one-second pulses, then let machine run until crumbs are uniformly fine, about 15 seconds. (Alternatively, place cookies in large zipper-lock plastic bag and crush with rolling pin.) Transfer crumbs to medium bowl, drizzle with butter, and use fingers to combine until butter is evenly distributed.
2. Pour crumbs into 9-inch Pyrex pie plate. Following illustration below, press crumbs evenly onto bottom and up sides of pie plate. Refrigerate lined pie plate 20 minutes to firm crumbs, then bake until crumbs are fragrant and set, about 10 minutes. Cool on wire rack while preparing filling.

Ann's March Pie - Strawberry Glace

As I've mentioned before, I like to think of some reason to make a certain pie each month, generally out of necessity to use something up. But this month, I went with subtle hints directed towards me. My roommate Scholarastastic has regaled me with stories of her mother's magical strawberry pie that she makes for Valentine's Day each year, and since she had a birthday in March, this pie seemed as good as any to make. I didn't make it for her, per se, but maybe in honor of her.

To start, I'm not sure about the name. The recipe is written as "strawberry glace", Scholarastastic pronounces it "strawberry glass", but glace means "freeze" in French, and glacé, which is what I thought it was called, means "frozen". Neither of these apply to the method or result of the pie. I know that it's supposed to be refering to the glaze, but I don't know what the name is actually supposed to be. Maybe if I spoke French, I'd get it. Stupid Romantic languages.

Anyhoo, I love the idea of this recipe because I knew it'd be gorgeous and that I could try out some new skills, but most appealing is the fact that it is a family favorite and that's what pie making really should be all about. However, the recipe didn't come with a specific crust, so I decided on a butter-and-shortening crust since I hadn't made one yet. I did some research, and decided on a recipe from The Dessert Bible by Christopher Kimball (of America's Test Kitchen fame, and Elizabeth's secret boyfriend). I liked that he had a handmade method instead of requiring a food processor, and I especially liked that the recipe said to freeze the fats and then grate them into the dry ingredients. How fun! This allows the fats to be in small enough pieces without a food processor and cuts them down quickly so they can remain as cold as possible as the dough is incorporated together. And it just looks cool:

Is it mozzerella... or butter and Crisco???

The dough came together fairly easily - I think I ended up adding an extra tablespoon or two of water to make it form a ball, but it wasn't bad at all. After I put it in the fridge, I looked at the recipe again to see what I'd need to do for the rolling out and prebaking processes..and then I saw the separate recipe for crusts that require prebaking, which is what I wanted. Gah!!! I really felt like I had read the recipe through and understood it, but how can I compete with a cookbook that doesn't tell me that the recipe I want isn't actually the recipe I want? How would I know that there would be a different recipe if you want to prebake the crust? I thought that was just part of what you did with pie crusts of this nature!! I guess there must be pies that you don't prebake first - clearly, this is something I need to look into. So you'll get different results from the slightly different amounts of fat, which must be true because Chris Kimball says so. He also says "The single most difficult culinary task for the home cook is prebaking a pie shell." Yikes! What was I up against???

Actually, the crust rolled out BEAUTIFULLY - absolutely no dry edges, pliable, perfect. Chris Kimball recommends refrigerating the dough first and then freezing it briefly before baking it to help prevent the crust from shrinking. At this point, I transfered over to Miss Hass's house to finish the pie since we were going to a Scholarastastic's birthday party a little later and it was closer to her apartment. Plus, she promised to take pictures with her amazing camera in exchange for pie. Hooray!!!

The crust didn't bake as nicely as I'd have liked, I think because the oven got REALLY hot fast - ovens can be so tricky, as I've learned since living in various apartments. Anyway, so now for the filling. We took a trip to Sam's Club for strawberries, and so I could gawk at everything (as La Dolcezza recorded in her blog recently) - I also bought bulk cheese and a skirt! We hulled them and mashed some with sugar and water for the glaze. To start, I spread softened cream cheese on the bottom of the crust. Next, I arranged the berries in a lovely pattern.

Then, the glaze:

And then it was basically done! Here is the finished product:


Come, little children, don't fear the pie...

Poor Greta gets no pie:


And then it went into the fridge for several hours - we didn't eat it until the next day in the end.

The strawberries we bought were amazing - they completely made the pie. I don't think it would be worth making without gorgeous, ripe berries, and there's something so satisfying about seeing a mound of perfect glistening red presented to you. However, there are things I would change about the recipe. The glaze was good, but it didn't taste great after the first day - it was more gelatinous than a glaze, so you either ought to eat the pie all at once or make a different kind of glaze. Also, once the pie had chilled, the cream cheese just set up in a very solid layer which I didn't particularly enjoy. Scholarastastic checked with her mom and found out that she usually does a mixture of sour cream and cream cheese, which would make a world of difference. I would whip them together with some lemon juice and zest for extra tang - similar to the top layer of the blueberry sour cream pie in January. Num num nummy!


Of course, Scholarastastic was quite pleased with the result. Happy Birthday!




Strawberry Glace Pie
courtesy Betty Crocker via Barbara S.

9-inch prebaked pie crust
approx. 8 cups strawberries (4 pints)
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1/2 cup water)
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened (per Scholarastastic's method - 3 oz. cream cheese, 3 tbs. sour cream, 1 tbs. sugar)

Mash enough strawberries to make 1 cup. Mix sugar and cornstarch in 2 quart saucepan. Stir in water and mashed berries gradually. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir 1 minute; cool. Beat cream cheese until smooth, spread on bottom of pie shell. Fill with rest of strawberries; pour cooked mixture over top. Refrigerate until set, approximately 3 hours.


Master Recipe for Prebaked Pie Shell, hand variation
from The Dessert Bible by Christopher Kimball


(Note: this the recipe I should have used)


5 tablespoons cold all-vegetable shortening (e.g. Crisco)
3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
4 to 5 tablespoons ice water


1. Freeze the vegetable shortening (Crisco) and butter for 30 minutes. Mix flour, salt, and sugar in a large bowl with a whisk for 30 seconds. Grate the butter and shortening into the bowl containing the flour mixture. Use your fingers to gently toss the grated butter and shortening with the flour. The flour mixture should turn slightly yellow and take on a course, cornmeal-like tecture. Do not overmix at this point or the butter will melt and the dough will become sticky and hard to handle.


2. Sprinkle 1 tablespoon ice water onto the mixture and gently toss with your fingers to mix. Add an additional tablespoon and toss and then a third. Check the mixture by taking a handfull and squeezing. If the dough holds together, it is done. (It is better to use too much water than not enough.) If not, add another tablespoon of water, toss, and then squeeze a handful to check. Gather the dough into a ball, turn onto a lightly floured surface, and flatten into a 4-inch disk. Dust very lightly with flour, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before rolling.


3. If dough has spent more than 1 hour in the refrigerator, let warm up a few minutes on the counter before proceeding. Roll out dough and place into a 8- or 9-inch pie pan. Push dough gently down the sides of the pan. Trim dough around edge of pan, leaving 1/2-inch border. Fold excess dough underneath the edge of the dough and shape edge using fingers, or press with the tines of a fork. Place in refrigerator for at least 40 minutes. Place in freeze for 20 minutes. Heat oven to 375 degrees.


4. Remove pie shell from freezer and fit a double thickness of heavy-duty aluminum foil (the extra-wide rolls are best; if the foil is too narrow, use two sheets) over shell, fitting foil carefully into the bottom of pie shell and pressing against the sides. Add pie weights or dried beans, enough to generously cover bottom of pie plate. Pile up the weights around the sides of the shell to help hold them in place.


5. Bake on lower rack for about 21 minutes, or until sides of pie shell are set. (They should not be moist and should be firm.) Remove foil and weights and bake another 15 to 20 minutes. Remove from oven and cool on a rack. (Note: this cooking time was too long for my pie - after removing weights, watch carefully to make sure the crust doesn't brown too much.)