Mango Upside-Down Cake

Two very good friends just got married (my husband’s cousin and his girlfriend) so I made this dessert for a little “we’re happy you’re getting married” dinner party we hosted at our apartment with family and our usual suspects group. To celebrate the occasion I made roast chicken with maple glazed sweet potatoes, a green salad with rhubarb vinaigrette and I wanted to serve a flavorful, but not too rich or complicated dessert. I had no time to improvise or think about adapting the recipe, so I just used this one as it is. One of our friends is lactose intolerant, so I was happy to offer coconut whipped cream to serve with this dessert. It’s the perfect combination: mango & coconut. You can find the procedure to prepare it on our Mango Pancakes with Coconut Whipped Cream post.

For the verdict, well… I hope my guests comment on my post so you can read what they thought about it! (ehem, ehem… guys? hint, hint)

Helga

Mango Upside-Down Cake

Serves 8-10
Adapted from a recipe in the January 2002 issue of Gourmet

Ingredients for the Topping:
2 firm-ripe mangoes, peeled
4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup packed light brown sugar

Ingredients for the Cake:
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup granulated sugar
2 whole eggs + 1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice

Preparation:

Slice mangoes lengthwise and remove flesh from the halves using a spoon. Cut into half-inch slivers. Be sure to extract any excess flesh from the pit, since that’ll be usable too.
Melt butter over med-low heat in a small saucepan. Once melted, stir in the brown sugar and simmer (stirring occasionally) until the sugar is incorporated and you’re left with a thick paste, about 2 minutes.
Butter the bottom and sides of a 9-inch cake pan and spread the butter/sugar mixture. It won’t coat the entire surface, but spread as best you can. Arrange the mango slices on top in whatever pattern you think is prettiest. Set aside.

Directions for the Cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the sugar and softened butter until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the 2 whole eggs and one egg yolk one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla.
Reduce speed to the lowest setting and add half of the flour mixture stirring until just combined. Pour in the orange juice and stir, then add the remaining half of the flour mixture. Finish stirring by hand to avoid over mixing.
Spoon the batter over the arranged mango slices in the cake pan – being careful not to disturb your lovely arrangement – and spread the batter evenly. Bake for 47-50 minutes or until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean.
Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes, then run a thin knife along the edges of the pan, invert onto a platter and continue cooling. Serve at room temperature with ice cream or coconut whipped cream.

Almond Streusel Cake

Bundt cakes. I don’t know why they appeal so much to me. Maybe because the first cake I learned to make with Grandma Lucy was a bundt cake… and also because they are so easy to do! This Streusel Bundt Cake is no exception. In baking and pastry making, streusel is a crumb topping of butter, flour, and sugar that is baked on top of muffins, breads, pies, and cakes. In this version we add some spices and almonds to add a little bit more flavor and crunch.

This cake is delicious, but I recommend that you bake it and serve it within a day of making it. When I prepared it, I just added half of the streusel to the bundt pan (Step 7), but you really have to add two-thirds of it. That way you don’t end up with too much streusel at the top like I did. The original recipe calls for pecans, but I replaced them for almonds and the result is equally as tasty!

Kitty

Ultimate Streusel Cake

Original recipe by Martha Stewart
Yield: Makes one 10-inch Bundt cake

Ingredients
Streusel Filling:
1 1/2 cups packed light-brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Pinch of ground cloves
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
4 ounces unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds

Cake
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
5 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups sour cream

Icing
2 1/2 cups sifted confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup milk

Directions:

First, make the filling. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves in a medium bowl. Stir in granulated sugar, flour, and salt. Using your hands or a pastry cutter, cut in butter until combined and mixture is crumbly; stir in almonds. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.
Pre-heat oven to 350ºF. Butter and flour generously a 10-inch bundt pan (or other tube pan with a 3-quart capacity) and set aside.
Now, make the cake. Sift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a bowl; set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
Add eggs, one at a time, beating until well combined. Beat in vanilla.
Add reserved flour mixture and sour cream in alternating batches, starting and ending with the flour; beat just until combined.
Spoon half the batter into prepared pan. Make a well in the center, and crumble two-thirds of the streusel mixture into well.
Spoon in remaining batter, smoothing top; top with remaining streusel.
Bake until golden brown and a cake tester comes out clean, about 1 hour. Transfer to wire rack and let cool 45 minutes; invert cake onto a wire rack set over a rimmed baking sheet.
In a medium bowl, whisk together confectioners’ sugar and milk until combined; set icing aside, cover with plastic wrap, until ready to use. Drizzle over inverted cake; serve.

Zebra Bundt Cake

I’ve seen several cake or cupcake decorations with the Zebra theme, but what if we could instead of having the zebra outside, it would be inside? I knew that this Zebra Bundt Cake was going to be a hit as soon as I started making it. At home, both my brother and dad are guys with down-to-earth, simple, no-fuss taste when it comes to desserts. They absolutely love chocolate, and they also love a simple bundt cake, specially Grandma Lucy’s Sunday Cake. I made it on a Friday, and by the following Tuesday there was only one slice left to share between them both.

This cake is light, almost as if it was made with cake flour, after you prepare the vanilla batter, you reserve 3 cups of it and add the chocolate to make your second batter. Now, for the zebra effect, it is a bit tedious, so don’t do it if you’re in a hurry. Take a good hour to prepare the cake (between mixing and spooning the batter). If you happen to have two Scoops with release bands like this one, use them! It makes the process so much easier and faster. I just have one, and it’s huge… like 5 tablespoons worth of batter, so I didn’t use it. But on the bright side, I added my scoops to my Amazon wish list so I can get them with my next purchase.

Kitty

Zebra Bundt Cake

Recipe from Bake me Away, adapted from King Arthur Flour

Ingredients

1 ½ cups granulated sugar
6 large eggs
1 ½ cups milk
1 ½ cups vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
¼ + ⅛ teaspoon salt
4 ½ tablespoons dutch-processed cocoa powder

Chocolate Covering
6 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate
2 oz. of unsweetened chocolate

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease and butter a bundt baking pan and set aside.
In the bowl of your mixer, blend the sugar and eggs until lightened, about 2 minutes. On low-speed blend in the oil, milk and vanilla until well combined and smooth.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Whisk to remove any lumps. Add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients. Combine on medium speed 1-2 minutes or until the batter is smooth and lump free. Be sure to scrape down the bowl halfway through mixing.
Remove 3 cups of the vanilla batter and place it in the measure you used for the liquid ingredients. Sift the cocoa over this batter, and stir well to combine. Be sure to use a sifter to avoid cocoa lumps in the batter.
Spoon about 3 tablespoons of vanilla batter into a side of the cake pan. Next, spoon 3 tablespoons of the chocolate batter into the center of the vanilla batter. This causes the vanilla batter to spread out. Continue to alternate batters, in bulls-eye fashion until all batter is used.
Bake the cake in the center of the preheated oven for 50 minutes, or until the cake is lightly browned and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes, and then turn out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
For the Chocolate Covering, melt both chocolates in the top of a double boiler over simmering water until smooth and warm, stirring occasionally. Drizzle over the top of the cake.

Notes:

The original recipe recommends to use dutch processed cocoa with this recipe as natural cocoa will result in a heavy, soapy taste to the cake. However, I did use natural unsweetened cocoa (I like living on the edge, what can I say?) and the recipe came out great.
If you have two heavy-duty ice cream scoops like this one, the process will be much faster. Don’t use the same one as the chocolate batter will get mixed with the vanilla one and the zebra effect won’t be as noticeable.