Master Cake Recipe: Apple Cake and Pineapple Upside Down Cake

In scratch baking, there are shortcuts and there are loopholes. Many don't work, but this recipe is an exception.  With a single and simple cake batter, the home cook can create two different cakes in under an hour.  And therein lies the beauty of this "master" cake recipe.

Master Cake Recipe, handwritten in a 1920 cookbook owned by one Marie Bevenetto, is a true culinary building block. This simple and delicious white cake can be used as a base for many other desserts.  Marie suggests -- and provides recipes for --  Apple Cake, Upside Down Cake and Boston Cream Pie. I made the first two with great results. Marie labeled the apple cake as "very good" and the pineapple upside down cake as "excellent." My tasters (work colleagues) deemed them both excellent.

The ingredients are basic (with the exception of orange extract; I didn't have any so just left it out). Below is the mis en place for the cake batter.

After mixing the batter, which took all of ten minutes, I got started on the apple cake by slicing one medium apple very thin.

I poured half of the batter into a greased and floured 8-inch square pan. The batter is thick, so use an offset spatula or the back of a spoon to push it to the edges.

Place the apples on the batter.

And sprinkle on some cinnamon and  sugar. I used white sugar, though brown sugar would also be good.

I set the apple cake aside while I lined a 9-inch round pan (just greased, not floured) with pineapple slices, and filled the empty spaces with brown sugar and chopped walnuts.

I placed the batter atop the fruit, and again pushed the batter to the sides of the pan.

Below is the master recipe cake, along with the two variations I made. I've typed them out below, with the method I used.

Master Cake Recipe (for Apple Cake and Pineapple Upside Down Cake)

Preheat oven to 350F
Grease and flour 8 x 8 pan
Grease 8 or 9-inch round pan

2 eggs
1 C. sugar
2 C. flour
1/3 C. melted butter
1/2 C. water
1 t. salt
1 t. vanilla
1 t. orange extract (can sub extra vanilla instead)
1 t. baking powder

Beat eggs in a mixer.
Add sugar gradually, beating after each addition
Combine flour, salt and baking powder.
Add flour and water alternately to the egg mixture, beginning and ending with the flour.
Add butter, vanilla and orange. Mix until combined.
Bake in two layers, or use for the cakes below.

Apple Cake

In a greased and floured 8 x 8 pan, place 1/2 of the master cake recipe batter.
Smooth batter so it reaches the edges.
Place thinly sliced apples on top of the cake.
Sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon
Bake in 350F oven about 25 minutes.
When cool, slice in the pan and serve plain or with whipped cream.

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

In a greased 8 or 9-inch round pan, place whole pineapple slices to cover the bottom.
Fill the center of each pineapple and any empty spaces with 1 teaspoon brown sugar and some chopped walnuts.
Place 1/2 of the master cake recipe batter atop the fruit and smooth it out so it reaches the edges of the pan.
Bake in a 350F oven for about 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and place a plate over the top. Flip to release the cake.

October Butternut Cake

Before October ends in just a few hours, I figured I'd better end my blog sabbatical and post this October Butternut Cake recipe --  though it is good enough to make in any month. It's a light and delicious white cake studded with nuts, and finished with a brown butter frosting.

When I first encountered this unusual vintage recipe, I expected it to feature butternut squash. But no. It doesn't even call for real butternuts (a type of walnut) or butternut flavoring. The butternut portion of this recipe refers to the instruction to saute almonds in butter.

After the cake ingredients are mixed, fold in half of the sauteed nuts.

Pour into a greased and floured pan and bake until done.

While the cake is cooling, start the frosting. Brown the butter carefully (it can turn from delightfully fragrant to burnt in just a moment). When done correctly, brown butter has a slightly nutty flavor.

The frosting will look rather unappetizing, until the liquid is added.

The original recipe card is below, and below that is my (clearer) instructions.

Production notes: Make sure the butter is quite soft, as it is added directly to the dry ingredients. I didn't have maple flavoring, so just used vanilla.

October Butternut Cake

Preheat oven to 350 F
Grease and flour an 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 cake pan

Cake
2 c. all-purpose flour
1 c. granulated sugar
2 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 egg
1 c milk
1 t. vanilla (or 1/2 t, vanilla and 1/2 t. maple flavoring
1/3 c plus 1 T butter
1/2 c chopped almonds (reserve 1/4 c for frosting)

In a small skillet melt 1 T butter and saute nuts until fragrant. Set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients well.
Add 1/3 c softened butter and mix well.
Add egg, milk and vanilla. Combine well.
Fold in 1/4 c almonds.
Pour into prepared pan.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until a cake tester comes out clean.

Frosting
4 T butter
2 c confectioner's sugar
3 or 4 T milk
1/2 t vanilla or maple flavoring

In a small saucepan, brown the butter.
Transfer to a bowl and add 1 c confectioner's sugar. Mix well
Add milk, remainder of sugar and flavoring.
Beat until smooth.
Fold in 1/4 c almonds

Spread on cooled cake.

Lemon Queen's Cake

My friend Jay turned 50 last week and insisted on a surprise birthday party adventure.  His saintly partner Stephen more than rose to his demand  the task, orchestrating a chauffeured limousine journey through Manhattan and Brooklyn, stopping to pick up gift-bearing friends at locations meaningful to Jay. i.e, theaters, churches and restaurants. When the ginormous white car pulled up in front of my place, I had just finished frosting (badly, as you can see) a birthday cake.

I chose this vintage Lemon Queen's Cake recipe for its age (50+) and name, of course, but also because it had a coconut frosting and the recipe card had a "very good" notation on it.  This cake is "very good," but also complicated -- it has a cake component, a lemon curd filling and a frosting.

The first order of business is to make the lemon filling because it needs time to chill. For some reason, it never thickened properly.  (If you make this cake, I'd recommend using a more modern recipe for lemon curd from Martha Stewart, David Lebovitz or Rose Levy Berenbaum.)

The cake itself is a true white cake, i.e., it contains no egg yolks. (The four yolks are used in the lemon curd, typical of the 1940s waste-not want-not culture.) The method calls for mixing the batter, beating the egg whites separately and folding them in carefully.

You'll have to smooth out the batter with the back of a spoon or offset spatula before baking.

Let the layers cool completely before filling and frosting.

Using a serrated knife held horizontally, you can slice the "dome" off of each layer, making it easier to fill and stack them.

This cake does not travel well, especially in the back of a stretch limousine filled with champagne swilling passengers.  At the party, the photographer (yes, there was photographer who documented the entire day), called me aside to alert me to the condition of the cake below.  No worries -- I just took a couple of forks and re-positioned the layers.  It helps to have several glasses of wine before attempting this maneuver.

I thought it looked ok until Diane, another guest, said, I see you made a three-layer cake.  Well, friends, the number of layers should not be obvious -- the frosting should be smooth enough so as not to reveal the cake's structure.

In any case, the party caterers did an excellent job slicing this eight-inch cake to serve a lot of guests.

Below are some of the celebrants with the birthday boy.

Production notes: Grease and flour the pans (don't just grease them).  Choose another proven and tested lemon curd recipe.And always use butter, not shortening, for the butter cream. The frosting has a raw egg, so use a fresh farm one, not one from the supermarket.

The (Park Slope) Miracle Cake

If New York is a collection of neighborhoods, then each neighborhood is a collection of blocks -- each with its own traditions.  One of ours (on Park Slope's 11th Street) is an annual summer party in a neighbor's garden, where the alcohol flows freely and the food is a potluck affair.  This year, I was going to contribute Sure Thing Cake (but upon closer reading of the vintage recipe card, I realized it lacked enough butter to make it a "sure thing"), so I opted for Miracle Cake with ("chewy chocolaty") Miracle Frosting.  Not sure if it's a true miracle, but it's a delicious easy-to-make cake and one that proves that good fences cakes make good neighbors.

This confectionery miracle calls for cutting the butter into the flour, a technique more common in pie crust than cake.  It's easy to do with cold butter and a food processor (or a pastry blender or two knives, if you want to do it old-school). When it's "fine as corn meal," add the rest of the ingredients, mix and put into an 8 x 8 inch pan that you've greased and floured.

The batter is quite thick; it's best to spread it around with a knife before baking.

Pull it from the oven when a cake tester comes out clean and begin the frosting immediately.

The miracle frosting is a broiled frosting, with butter, brown sugar, cocoa, nuts and "top" milk (which I took to mean cream, but since I didn't have any, I used half-and-half).

Mix all the frosting ingredients together and spread on the cake.

Put the frosted cake in the broiler until the frosting bubbles.

Let it cool, then cut.

Recipe card below.  I used unsalted butter for the shortening, and greased and floured the cake pan for easy release.  I also never sift the flour, as that tradition dates from a time when flour was less pure and it had to be sifted to remove impurities like insects.

The 11th Street garden party.

Master Recipe Cake and Chocolate Butter Frosting

Oh, how I wanted to love this cake.
The idea of having a go-to recipe for a versatile white cake -- one that could be whipped up in minutes for a frosted layer cake or used as a base for, say, an upside down cake -- is the holy grail for some of us.  Yes, this had the potential to be the cake of my dreams.  But, like a lot of relationships that seem to have promise, this one suffered from bad timing.  I overbaked it not once, but twice.  So, it was a tad dry and a tad disappointing, but still the flavor was lovely. The question is: Do I give this another go in hopes that things will improve or throw in the towel and yell "next"?

I was thrilled to find this recipe, handwritten on a page of a 1920 children's cookbook, The Junior Cook Book, I bought last weekend at The Bookseller, a lovely antiquarian and used bookstore in a strip mall in Akron.  (Just when I was bemoaning the fact that these kinds of recipes cannot be found anymore, I discovered this treasure -- and the book was only $4 and is filled with the handwritten recipes of one Marie Bevenetto.)

This is a very easy "instant gratification" recipe because one melts the butter instead of waiting for it to soften to room temperature, an exercise much like watching paint dry.  The cake is sturdy; hence the suggestion by the recipe author that it can be used as the base for many desserts.

Because I was making this cake for my mother, lover of all things chocolate, I paired this with a chocolate butter frosting that I found in one of her old cookbooks, the Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, as in "new" in 1968.  The frosting saved the cake, at least according to my cousin Debbie, who stopped over for a slice and "styled" the photo above.

The frosting mixture is below and, yes, there's a raw egg in it.  It made for an extra creamy frosting and we all survived.

I tried this cake with all purpose flour and cake flour, but didn't see much difference. In Akron, I used vanilla only for the flavoring, but back in my well-stocked Brooklyn kitchen, I also added lemon extract and it lent a wonderful flavor.  You could also try grating some lemon zest into the batter.  Do not use pans larger than 8" round, as the layers will be too thin otherwise.

So will I work on the relationship, i.e., make this cake again?  I think I'll be moving on. Just as there are a lot of fish in the sea, there are a lot of cakes to be baked, a lot of recipes calling my name.  (However, if you're looking for a softer cake with a finer crumb, do try this one. I promise it will not disappoint.)