A recipe...

A few days ago I posted a recipe for Sweet Potato Lamingtons with Maple Goat Cheese Frosting.  You remember; these...

They were delicious, but as I mentioned before: they are tedious.  Annoying, even.

Beasts, if you will.

Here is the recipe, but I believe you might need a tutorial on how to construct these bad boys.

Sweet Potato Cake

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 c + 2 tbsp. white sugar
1/2 c + 2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sweet potato puree (contents of about 1 roasted sweet potato)
1 t vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour
1/4 baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1/2 t cinnamon
1/4 t ground ginger
pinch of ground cloves
1/2 c buttermilk, room temperature

Preheat oven to 350.  Prepare a 13x9 pan by putting down parchment paper in the bottom of the pan.  Make sure you let some hang over the sides as you will need to use it as handles to pull the cake out later.

Cream together the sugars and butter for 5-7 minutes, until fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing until completely incorporated.  Stir in puree and vanilla extract.


In a separate bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.  Beginning and ending with the flour mixture, add to  sweet potato mixture alternating with the buttermilk in 3 additions.  Scrape down the bowl after each addition.  Pour into the prepared pan, and bake for @ 25 minutes, but check at 20.  


When cake is done, let cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then use a knife to scrape away any cake baked into the edges of the pan, and pull the entire cake out of the pan by its "handles."  Let cool completely on a wire rack.

When the cake is cool, take a look at it.  See how the edges slope down slightly?  Take a serrated knife and gently cut off those edges.  I believe I had to cut about an inch to an inch and a half off of each side.

For your remaining slap: if the long side of the cake is directly in front of you, using a ruler, measure 4 equal pieces, at around 2.5 inches wide.  Cut, gently.  Cutting the other way, you will only be able to cut 2 rows equal to 2.5".  Cut.

Now you should have 8 equal squares.  Wrap them up, and throw them in the freezer for at least an hour.

Frosting:  Take a square and set in front of you.  Take a few tablespoons of frosting and spread evenly on top.  Place a second square of cake on the top.  Check to see that the cakes are perfectly flush together.  If they are not, cut down the sides of cake until they are.  Don't get too crazy here, as you are looking or uniform little cubes.  Then, taking some frosting onto a small, offset spatula, run DOWN the sides of the cake, spreading a thin "crumb coat" down the sides of the cake, until all sides are covered.  Scrape the sides of your spatula off between applications, as the...well, just do it.

Place completed square in the freezer to set, and repeat with other cakes.

Pulling one cake out at a time, frost thinly again, careful to keep uniformity, but knowing that they are to be covered with the topping of your choice (don't be too anal).  Coat with toasted pecans, or whatever strikes your fancy (white chocolate is good as well).

Tadah.  Take a picture, show a friend- knock on a neighbor's door- you worked really hard on these.

Eat.

Maple Goat Cheese Frosting

1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature
1 package goat cheese, room temperature
2.5 cups powdered sugar, SIFTED
2-3 tablespoons whole milk
1 t vanilla
1 t all natural maple flavoring

Beat the goat cheese until slightly smooth.  Add butter, and blend together until no longer lumpy (this can take a minute).  Add the powdered sugar and stir until incorporated.  Add milk, a tablespoon at a time, until you achieve a spreadable consistency.  Stir in extracts.  Makes enough frosting to coat and fill a 6" cake, or 4 lamingtons.

And there you have it.  See why a tutorial is in order?  See why you dip or pour frosting over traditional lamingtons?

Yikes.  Off to make some cookies.  I have an exciting cake to make this weekend (yes, it involves said "cookies").

Wiggling in my seat over the potential of this cake.  A delicious, textural explosion.

Have an extra beautiful day.

Rachel Bee

A sweet potato, a decade, and a dream...

I have very few friends.  I think I might be stinky, as in a room of nearly 20 women this morning, the only two vacant seats sandwiched little old me.

What to say next...

I pause as many of the women in that room read my blog, and I don't want any of them to feel sorry.  I really wasn't bothered.  Really.  In fact, I chose to sit on the other, more vacant side of the room when I walked in.  It was just kind of funny it worked out that way, and kind of...typical.

I begin this way, as one of my friendliest and oldest friends dreamed about me the other night, and decided to tell me about it.  She lives in California.  I met her 10 years ago, almost to the day.  Our paths converged on the other side of the world when we were paired as roommates in college.  The two of us barreled through some of the most dreadful and yet majestic moments of my life.  We were young, emotional, and broke; lorded over by two very demanding bellies and subsequent tender self esteems.  Sometimes we were good for each other, and other times we were oh, so bad.  But we had fun, and I would like to say that other people enjoyed our stereotypical American silliness.  I miss her.  And although we have mustered some self control in our agedness, I wonder how long it would take us to gain 20 pounds, if together again.

Especially if she has dreams like this...

She dreamed that I brought her sweet potato cupcakes with maple pecan cream cheese frosting, and this made me think.  I was going to do a post on Lamingtons, as this month marks 10 years after I first discovered this delicate confection.  Lamingtons are typically a white cake square, dipped in a thin chocolate frosting and covered in desiccated coconut.  They are beautiful, and my friend and I ate many of them.  All things considered, I decided to make Sweet Potato Lamingtons, coated in Maple Goat Cheese Frosting and toasted pecans.  See for yourself:

Ok.  truth be told, I made one covered in pecans.  Here are the other two:

The one on the left is coated in white chocolate, and the other is desiccated coconut.*

I am not really a "foodie," and I don't claim to be.  I am knowledgeable, but I have a very rudimentary palette.  Goat cheese frosting is a little different for me, but I didn't have any cream cheese; and I found this cheese very close to it's expiration date, under some flour tortillas and grapes.  The texture of the frosting is supremely smooth and creamy, and not as thin as cream cheese frosting.  It is, however, relatively tart and fruity.  The maple extract really worked to mellow the flavors, making it more palatable.  I enjoyed the overall product, but a Lamington is a lot of work.  That is why there are only three of them.

And it was after midnight.

And my husband fell asleep watching a certain movie, and I was too focused to stop and turn off the dvd intro, looping every 45 seconds or so.

"We need more wax!"  Frost, frost... "We need more wax!"  Coat, coat... "We need more wax!"

You get the picture.

It was a blast, however; and it made me remember.

Love you more than marshmallows, marching bands and cookie-making.

Rachel Bee

*The desiccated coconut is just for looks in this case.  Not a recommended dusting in this recipe.  Oh- recipe is here.   I am going to cuddle a toddler.