Royal One-Egg One-Bowl Cake and Coffee Butter Frosting

There was a wonderful blog, Butter Me Up Brooklyn, the 2012 winner of  Saveur's best baking blog. Authored by the lovely Lillie Auld (we met when we did a food event together a few years back), the blog abruptly stopped in 2014.  (Lillie: where are you?) What I enjoyed best, aside from the imaginative recipes and writing, was its tag line: Baking Makes Friends. I've always subscribed to that theory, but could never express it as well as these three simple words do. 

Which brings me to this Royal One-Egg One-Bowl Cake. James, a porter at work, stopped by my office recently to tell me he had resigned, having purchased a house (for $10K!) in Youngstown, Ohio. James was always a big fan of my baked goods. So what better send off than to bake him a goodbye cake.

Trouble was, I had no time. Or so I thought, until I discovered this easy-as-pie vanilla cake recipe. And an equally easy frosting recipe.  It is a delicious old-fashioned one-layer cake; the recipe was probably originally from Royal Baking Powder, founded in the 1880s. 

Begin by sifting the flour, baking powder and salt. No one has a flour sifter these days, so just use a strainer, pushing the ingredients through with the back of a large spoon.

Add all the other ingredients except the egg into one bowl and beat for two minutes. Add the egg and beat for one minute.

Pour into a greased and floured nine-inch round cake pan and bake until golden.

While the cake is cooling, start the frosting.  Beat the butter and add the cocoa-sugar mixture.

It won’t look very good, but once you add the brewed coffee (at room temperature), it will smooth out.

Make sure the cake is cold! Never frost a warm cake.  Mine formed a bit of a dome, so using a serrated knife, I sliced it off and then shared that thin layer with a very appreciative DH.

Some beauty shots.

I thoughtfully sliced the cake for James, because I thought he'd want to share with colleagues. Turned out I was wrong and he ate most of it himself.

Full disclosure: The first time I made this cake it was a bit of a disaster. I followed the recipe: Used an eight inch square pan, greased (and not floured). The cake wouldn't release, but it was so good, I thought I'd try again.

My attempt to salvage the cake failed miserably, but at least I could eat my mistake.

Production notes: I followed this recipe exactly, and it resulted in failure. Save yourself the heartache by greasing and flouring the pan, and use a nine-inch round pan. And be sure your butter is at room temperature, i.e., pretty soft.

This very simple frosting is from The General’s Cook Book, a 1961 collection published by the Women’s Board of Akron General Hospital.

James, on his last day of work.

World's Easiest Pumpkin Bars

Sometimes when things are too easy, one suspects that they will fail -- like, what's the catch?  But these moist and delicious pumpkin bars prove that one can bake their cake (easily) and eat it too.

This recipe is so simple and so quick, that it's the perfect baking project for children. With ingredients found in most pantries, you can put together the batter for this dessert in minutes.  As with many vintage recipes, this one is incorrectly titled, for this is a sheet cake, not typical bar cookies.  Not that there's anything wrong with that!

 How easy is this? Truly, just dump all the ingredients in a single bowl and

mix thoroughly until combined.  Pour into a 9 x 13 inch pan and bake.

Voila! Pumpkin sheet cake!

Cool slightly and cut into bars.

Production notes: I followed this recipe exactly, baking it in a 9 x 13 inch pan. When it was written, cans of pumpkin contained 16 ounces. Today, most have just 15 ounces, but it will be fine with the slightly lesser amount.

Typical of many vintage dessert recipes, this is not overly sweet. So you can make a frosting of confectioners sugar mixed with a little milk or simply dust the cake with confectioners sugar.

"Just Cake" and Easy Caramel Frosting

I'm all for back-to-basics.  I mean, why make things more complex than they need be?  And so it was great delight that I came upon this recipe labeled: "Just Cake."  Though it read more like a shopping list than an actual recipe, I took the plunge.

Just Cake is just that:  A plain and simple (and very good) yellow cake.  I fancied it up a bit with Quick Caramel Frosting found in the same recipe box, the perfect complement to this cake (though chocolate would also be nice). A slice of this beauty can transport you to a Manhattan dinner party, c. 1950 or, baked in a sheet pan, to a post-World War II backyard barbecue when life seemed (at least to our modern eyes) less complicated. (Recipes do reflect their era.  It's no surprise that these one-bowl cakes were commonplace in the mid-20th century, while today we have thousand-ingredient desserts sauced with gastrics and presented in tower formation.)

Below is the entire mis en place for the cake.  (I cheated a bit, adding some salt and vanilla, not pictured, so as to hide my deceit.)

Preheat the oven, prepare the pans and mix up the batter.  Place into the pans and ...

using an offset spatula (preferred) or the back of a spoon or regular spatula, smooth the batter until it reaches the edge of the pan. Place in the center of the oven and bake for 25 to 30 minutes.

When the cakes are cool, turn them out from the pan.  If they have a small dome on top, place a serrated knife horizontally and cut the tops off so the cake top is flat and even.  The cook must eat the trimmings.  I believe it's the law.

Next, begin the caramel frosting.  Melt the butter and add the brown sugar.  Cook for two minutes, then add the milk.  Let cool and add some confectioners sugar.

Original recipe below, and below that, is my interpretation.

Just Cake
1 c. (two sticks) unsalted butter (at room temperature)
1 1/2 c. sugar
3 eggs
3 c. all purpose flour
3 t. baking powder
1 c. milk
1 t. salt
1 1/2 t. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350F
Grease and flour two 9-inch round cake pans.
Mix flour, salt and baking powder; set aside.
Beat butter.  Beat in sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time.
Add 1/3 of the flour and blend.  Alternately add the milk and flour, ending with the flour. Add vanilla.
Pour into pan and bake about 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool about ten minutes and remove from pan.

I followed the frosting recipe exactly, but at the end added more milk and confectioners sugar to ensure I had enough to frost the cake.