frances cake 2.0: the you break it, you eat it edition

you know those couples who lie about where they met, because maybe they met online or speed dating, or maybe at a church dance or a family reunion, and they are kind of embarassed about it, so instead they tell you they met "through mutual friends" or "just, you know, around"?



well, that is sort of how i feel about the friends i made at duck beach. because even though i shouldn't be, i am still a little shy/embarassed about that whole thing. so, when i tell you that i met adangerm "on vacation," i think you'll know what i mean.



adangerm is the perfect companion for concerts and craft fairs, and spontaneous burger-and-movie dates. adangerm also recently broke her ankle (such a sad story!), which made her the perfect (captive) audience for the return of frances cake (see: goal #24).






we went with one of my favorite stand-bys, a super-easy and super-duper delicious chocolate bundt cake from caroline's bake shop. adangerm crutched her way into the kitchen and very helpfully pointed me to ingredients and various baking acccoutrements. the conversation revolved around boys (natch), the us weekly magazine cover story about jason mesnick, the biggest butthead in bachelor history, finally proposing to his second-turned-first choice molly, how mad we were that "glee" had been preempted by the stupid world series two weeks in a row, and how having a cast for 10 weeks is not that awesome, especially when some of those weeks will be spent in spain.



whew!



someone get this girl some cake!








done and done.

frances cake, take 16: the mission, impossible edition

heidi is a baker of style and class. clearly.



she has a passion and keen taste for all things delicious and good, so when she told me about "impossible cake," i knew the frances cake challenge was on. (impossible cake also goes by the much less thrilling, though more descriptive, name chocoflan.)

here is the sitch. impossible cake has three layers: dulce de leche (also known as cajeta), chocolate cake and flan. each layer is poured into the pan in that order. but, through impossible magic, the chocolate cake layer and the flan layer trade places while the cake is baking (what the what?), so when the cake comes out it goes dulce de leche, then flan and then chocolate cake on the bottom. impossible!

but really, not impossible. because heidi and i just did it.

the recipe might seem a little daunting...



...but don't be dismayed. you can take your time and prepare the layers one by one. your counter will look like this.




{dulce de leche for the top layer, ready and waiting}


{flan in the blender, light, foamy and delicious}

(a small piece of advice, if i may: check to make sure you have enough eggs before you start. or pray that you have really kind neighbors with adorable red-headed twins and spare eggs. either one works.)

heidi also showed me this little trick, because she is in-the-know like that. when pouring one layer of something onto another (like when pouring flan on top of cake batter), pour over a ladle to distribute evenly and avoid making a sink-hole in the layer beneath.



who knew? (heidi did.)

since we had already attempted one impossible task (the cake itself), we decided to try more impossible things while it baked. these included tracking down a totally obscure clip of an episode of "this american life" (success!), as well as finding a video that appeared to have been removed from youtube (success again!).

the final impossible step of impossible cake is getting the cake out of the pan. but, even that turned out to be no match for us!







one suggestion, though, should you decide to attempt the impossible yourself. the recipe says to use a springform pan, which we did, but i don't think you need to. when we flipped the pan upside-down the cake came out so easily i didn't even open the springform at all. and the downside to the springform is that some of the flan leaked out. this is more of an annoyance than a major problem because the springform pan is sitting in another, slightly larger, pan of water. that pan caught the leaky flan and we just ate it out of the bottom, so all was well (and delicious).



but, i say you can use a regular cake pan and leave all that flan inside the cake instead.

leaks and all, the final product was absolutely beautiful and, i'm not going to lie, possibly the most delicious frances cake yet.







and, there you have it. impossible my eye.

frances cake, take 15: the it's a reunion! (and a baby!) edition

{frances and kate, together again!}

i would not use the word "dear" to describe very many things about high school (the pain! the horror!) but i would use it to describe kaiti, as she was one of my dearest friends then, and remains one to this day. (also, now she goes by the more grown-up kate, but old habits die hard.)

kaiti and i met in seventh grade through the magic of alphabetized lockers. we were pretty mad when b.j. johnson and eli jones separated us in eighth grade, but by then we were already more or less permanently bonded, thanks to big gulps and "reality bites." looking back, it might have seemed like sort of an odd pairing. kaiti was a cool, mellow artist who listened to nirvana and decorated her room in earth tones, and i was a slightly spastic journalism and choir nerd prone to absurd crushes and fits of uncontrollable giggles. but, it was easy to be myself around kaiti and feel ok about it because it seemed like kaiti was always herself and felt ok about it, and that sort of things catches.

back in the day, kaiti and i would often entertain the idea of moving to seattle and opening a bookstore/coffee shop where we would sell her art and my writing and talk philosophically all day long. and then, as the plan went, i would get married and have lots of babies, and kaiti would be the quirky single friend who would be my kids' "auntie" and come stay in our attic during the summer.

well, that is obviously not how things went down. actually, basically the opposite happened. kaiti got married and had adorable baby harry, and i am now his gift-bestowing, eccentric aunt, though i have managed to avoid attic-dwelling. so far. i have loved keeping in touch with kaiti through moves and missions (mine) and marriages and babies (hers) and seeing how life worked out so much differently, and, so far, so much better than we had ever planned. the only downside being that, with her back in michigan, and me in the wild, wild west, getting together has posed something of a challenge.

until!

a small miracle unfolded and kaiti and her little family came out this way for some skiing. except that instead of skiing, kaiti and i went out to lunch and caught up on people from high school (she remembers everyone's names. i am not so good) and made a delicious lemon and blueberry bundt cake.




plus i got to meet baby harry for the first time, and spoil him with a monster t-shirt and lots of hugs and kisses.







harry was pretty upset that he didn't get any cake, though.



and i am pretty upset that these favorite people are so far away. as soon as the attic is ready, i am totally there.

{and, check it. this is the 200th post on this blog! holy hannah. i feel like i need a celebrity guest or something. john krasinski, are you there?}

frances cake, take 14: the martha, martha, martha! edition

generally speaking, i am not a fan of martha stewart, mainly for two reasons. 1. i think her pernicious brand of high-maintenance domesticity serves to do little more than make women feel badly about themselves for not doing "enough" when really, who has time to plant and nurture their own pine forest so they can harvest the cones to make wreaths? sheesh. and 2. i don't think convicted felons should get their own tv shows, unless those tv shows involve bounty hunting, tattoos and/or reality dating.

i will say, though, that martha does know her way around a cupcake, and when holly lent us a copy of martha stewart living with this feature, i knew i would have to break down and try one (or all) of the recipes.



and so it was that morgan joined me to bake some brown sugar pound cupcakes with brown butter glaze. the recipe (which i will include below) was not actually that difficult, especially if you disregarded martha's hoity toity "basic cupcake how-to," which really just confused things. the only thing worth remembering is that these cupcakes have a lot of brown sugar, which morgan and i agreed is probably the most delicious thing in the world. (and yes, we probably ate at least three cupcakes worth of batter. sue us.)

in addition to being an appreciator of fine cupcakes, morgan is a genius at all things electronic, and may or may not have a pin with a programmable LCD screen (or is it a belt buckle?) though i have one nerd leg up on him (gross?) because he has never seen "battlestar galactica." morgan is also planning a trip to spain this summer, which makes me insanely jealous. and he knows all about the emotional wheel, which is pretty sweet.

morgan is also a good person to have around if you decide to make these cupcakes, because he knows how to brown butter. i, myself, did not know that you could turn melted butter brown without also catching it on fire. turns out you can. add it to many, many cups of powdered sugar and it is de-licious. though, as usual, the glaze did give us a bit of trouble. some cupcakes had to be stripped of their glaze and refrosted.



and, despite our best efforts towards equality, some still came out looking better than others. (quoth morgan: "it looks like a bad toupee!")



but, final consensus?





yum.


wanna try 'em? here you go!

brown sugar pound cupcakes
(martha says the recipe makes 29, which is the most silly cupcake batch number ever. we made 24.)

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 1/4 cups packed light brown sugar
4 large eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk

1. preheat oven to 325 degrees. cream butter and sugar. add eggs and buttermilk. combine dry ingredients and add.
2. fill each cup 3/4 full and bake for 25 minutes.
3. set rack with cupcakes over a parchment lined baking sheet. spoon glaze over cupcake tops and let stand until set.

brown butter glaze
(makes one cup)

4 ounces (1 stick) unsalted butter
2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 to 4 tablespoons whole milk

1. heat butter in a saucepan over medium heat until golden brown (about 10 minutes). carefully pour butter into a bowl, leaving sediment behind.
2. add sugar, vanilla and 2 tablespoons of milk to butter; stir until smooth. if glaze is too thick, add more milk. use immediately. (and that part is no joke. just warning you. but make sure the cupcakes aren't too hot, or else you'll get melty toupees.)

frances cake, take 13: the it's beginning to look a lot like christmas edition

i was so busy enjoying my evening with chuck that i completely forgot to take a picture of him. i did, however, remember to snap these chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting and peppermint candy on top. beauties, eh?




nothing says "holiday season" to me like peppermint. and on the night of frances cake with chuck, "holiday season" is just what i wanted to hear.

chuck grew up in a big family in the midwest, minnesota to be exact, so we have that whole growing-up-in-midwestern-states-that-start-with-M thing in common. (did you know that was a thing? well, now you do.) though this was only the third time we had ever met, i can tell you that chuck is remarkably intuitive and interested and gives good compliments and asks good questions. por ejemplo: what is the best gift you have received? (me, a framed picture of my great-grandmother the christmas after she died. him, a guitar from his mom which he has played every single day since.) we also talked about super powers we would like to have. (me, invisibility. him, ultimate empathy.) and that led to a really great discussion, over frosting, about how we can develop some "super powers" right here and now. invisibility maybe not so much, but empathy for sure. i think i often fall into the trap of thinking, "well, this is just the way i am so take it or leave it" and it's nice to be reminded that we can, in fact, change for the better.

and, being that this was the day before thanksgiving, chuck also helped me put up the christmas tree! hurrah. it was pretty easy since chuck is actually taller than my tree. and he put on all the lights, which is my least favorite part.



it was, if i do say so myself, a wonderful way to welcome the season. and, f your information, chocolate cupcakes with buttercream frosting and peppermint candy on top make a delicious breakfast.

frances cake take 12: the half-baked edition

a little while ago i got a very nice e-mail from nicole. it appears there was a rumor circulating that she didn't like me (how old are we again? this rumor business is so seventh grade. which i like to pretend never even happened), and she was just writing to clear it up. i hadn't heard the rumor, but it sure was nice to hear that it wasn't true anyway, and we decided to put it to rest once and for all by getting together for frances cake. because if anything kills nasty rumors, it is baking. not sure if you knew that, but it's true.

now, i don't want the following information to be regarded in any way as an indication of how i feel about nicole, but, as it happens, i was so swamped the day of our rumor-busting cake date that i didn't have any time to look up a recipe, let alone pick up ingredients. and so, when nicole appeared on my doorstep in her adorable purple sweater, i asked if it would be all right if we just ate some of the lemon tarts bri and i had made the sunday before. (this was only tuesday so it wasn't gross or anything.) nicole said that was fine. and that is why nicole is just fine, too.





nicole and i met at a rilo kiley concert (actually, we met in her car on the way to a rilo kiley concert), so we had a pretty fool-proof start. and then she moved to salt lake from lehi and started coming to my ward, which also helped. the biggest news in nicole's life the day she came over was that her boyfriend, patrick, had just been baptized into the mormon church. so, over our lemon curd, we talked a lot about mormonism and what being mormon means to us, which is a discussion i really needed. i have, of late, had some difficulty articulating, to myself and to others, what it is about mormonism that is so important to me. it was really enriching and comforting to sit and hash the whole thing out with someone who knows where i am coming from, with someone who can relate, who sees life through the same lens i do. i am all for diversity, don't get me wrong, but sometimes you need to be reminded that there are other people playing on your team, and nicole gave me just that.

as this is a post about cake and not religion (though i suppose the two could be closely related) i won't go into all the details, but let me say this. while from the outside i am sure the mormon church seems a stark contrast of nothing but black and white, i have always done my best learning and growing inside the nuances of the gray spaces. sunday school cliche or not, the business of being mormon is an intensely personal and rewarding experience for me. there are things i do not like or understand, but what i gain has always outweighed anything i have had to sacrifice and i am always grateful to be reminded that my way of living the gospel is just as good as anyone else's. (if not better.) (i kid, i kid.)

anyway, back to nicole. since frances cake, her life has generated even bigger and more exciting news. she and patrick are getting married! hurrah and congratulations! i can't prove that it is all thanks to my tarts, of course, but i wouldn't be surprised.

frances cake, take 11: the pumpkin isn't just for pie edition

let me tell you a little bit about jeremy.

jeremy is the kind of person who will see a vintage copy of a children's book with your name in the title (in this case, "bread and jam for frances") and buy it for you, just because, even though he doesn't know you very well.

jeremy is the kind of person who hosts watch-cartoons-in-your-pajamas parties. and he has all the good ones, including "he-man" (by the power of gray skull!), "smurfs" and "the gummi bears."

jeremy is the kind of person who was raised by a florist father and a jill-of-all-trades mother, who taught him to value creativity and beauty, so he is the kind of person who is majoring in interior design, but also takes photographs, paints with acryllics and writes children's stories.

jeremy is the kind of person who can tap a bundt pan just right, so your delicious pumpkin cake comes out without a problem.







jeremy is the kind of person who doesn't mind that the cake is a little crispy on the outside. he is the kind of person who says he likes it better that way.

and then, while you eat cake together, jeremy is the kind of person who will talk with you about favorite books, favorite paintings, favorite movies, and about how the creative process is less about what you get at the end and more about what you learn along the way.

in other words, jeremy is my kind of person.

mother knows best

as it happens, i was schooled by my mom in the great carmel/caramel debate and i am woman enough to admit it here for all to see. she left this response (with lightning speed, i might add) to the caramel vs. carmel question of the most recent frances cake post:

Frances,
Didn't you learn at your parents' knee to keep a dictionary in the kitchen? Caramel: 1 sugar or syrup heated until it turns brown, used as a flavouring or colouring (okay, it's the Oxford English dictionary) for food or drink. 2 a soft toffee made with sugar and butter that have been melted and further heated.
Carmel -- not a word.*
But your caramel cake looks delicious and your friend looks nice.

(*not to get nit-picky here, mom, but i might point out that carmel is a word as far as it refers to the california town of which clint eastwood was mayor. just for the record.)

but, i guess that explanation pretty much clears it up. as far as the spelling question, at least. (though i might be the only one who thought we were dealing with two separate spellings. sort of the like the time i realized the opening lyrics to "surfin' usa" were not, in fact, "if everybody had a notion" but rather "if everybody had an ocean." i have been assured i am the only person in the history of the world who has ever made that mistake.) the question of how the word should be pronounced, and when and why, is still open for debate. and my caramel-pronounced-as-carmel for sauces, etc. and caramel-pronounced-as-caramel for stand-alone candy is still a pretty solid argument, i think.

also, i feel compelled to clarify that my parents do, indeed, keep the oxford english dictionary (abridged version) in the kitchen. and it is, indeed, consulted to settle some vocabulary dispute or another at least once a meal.

and, in conclusion, at my friend jill's very good suggestion, hereafter all frances cake recipes will be included in the post, so everyone can enjoy the goodness (except, ironically, for jill who currently lives in africa where cake resources are, well, scarce). holla! so, here is the delicious caramel cake, another winner from southernfood.about.com. if you need to know what something looks like when it's "soft-balling," i suggest you call emily's mom, jayne.

frances cake, take 10: the is it caramel or carmel? edition

i stalked emily on the internet for a little while before we met in real life (i also stalked her sister, katie, on the internet before later stalking her through the grocery store), and we recently completed that ever-tricky 2D to 3D transition with frances cake. we had, of course, seen each other at concerts, craft nights, parties and other cool-people events (both of us being incredibly cool people), but the whole point of frances cake is that i get to have cool people all to myself. and so, me, emily and an autumn-appropriate carmel cake it was.

i peppered emily with questions about her job (account manager at a studio that designs packaging and logos for video games. i think. did i get it right?) and her remarkably close band of siblings (as one of two siblings, large family dynamics are endlessly fascinating to me). then we laid like slugs on the couch and talked and talked about the weird social interactions of single life, something i actually think about a lot. the bottom line is, in single-and-mormon-land (and maybe non-mormon-land as well, but i don't know anything about that mythical place) this whole business of being social can be a tricky one, and the internet doesn't help. like when you sign onto facebook (i love you! i hate you!) and see pictures of a party or spontaneous gathering of some kind to which you were not invited but other people you know were and then you get your feelings hurt until you realize that's dumb because you don't really like half the people who were there anyway and you wouldn't invite them to a party or spontaneous gathering either. you know? it can actually be really hard to decide how to spend your time and with who, unfettered by all these (usually false) notions about who and what is cool. it was, if i do say so myself, a most interesting and illuminating conversation.

and then marc came home and we started talking about boobs. just for a minute, though.

and then emily and i forced ourselves off the couch to tackle the frosting recipe. do to some inadequate vetting on my part, the recipe was a little more complicated than the usual frances cake fare. luckily, emily knew what it meant to have something "softball" so we managed it successfully. it was sort of magic frosting that turned hard as soon as it was spread, like that magic shell stuff for ice cream, only infinitely more delicious.





the frosting also spurred a highly important and intellectual discussion of whether it's carmel or caramel or both. does anyone have expertise in this? because i would love to hear it. my contention, unfounded on anything, is that carmel is attached to something else, like it's frosting or sauce or something, while caramel is a stand-alone thing. like, you can say "i am going to eat a caramel" but not "a carmel." who's with me?

then emily gave me her famous late autumn mix cd (which i am listening to right now, as a matter of fact) and then we decided that frances cake had really sealed the deal and we could now be the kind of friends who go to a random movie in the middle of the week. in other words, it's go time. which is a good time indeed.

frances cake, take nine: the more caffeine! edition

a little while ago, emdawg went to tennessee for work and came home with stirring tales of the coca-cola cake she had eaten there. think such a thing is too good to be true? think again!

as sunday was rainy and cold and there was no work the next day, we determined to make this mythical dessert on our own. a recipe was surprisingly easy to come by; in fact, there were several to choose from. i went with the one from southernfood.about.com, because that seemed like a pretty reliable source for something like coca-cola cake. also, the recipe called for melted marshmellows to be added to the cake batter, which was intriguing and ultimately oh-so-tasty.

the only catch was, thanks to the storm, there was no power at my house. so we made the cake at em's instead.

for something as high-falutin' as coca-cola cake, the process was pretty simple. we did have to melt some of the ingredients in a saucepan, which i guess could have been tricky. and we had to make our own buttermilk. not quite as impressive as the time i had to make my own mayonnaise (true story. and it wasn't even disgusting), but worth something i guess.

the best part was watching all the other ingredients fizz when we added the magical coke itself.





(sidenote: my mom has a friend who has trained her kids to call coke "the brown juice" so she's not embarassed when they ask for it in public. i think of that every time i think about coke, which is pretty often, and it always makes me laugh.)

em and i have been friends for a while now, so there wasn't a whole lot of "getting to know you" to be done. i already know, for example, that em loves robots, the number five and pizza with pineapple. she also loves all things electronic, and is currently having a torrid affair with her iphone. she loves great music and live concerts and she doesn't like to sit with her back to doors or windows in public places because she grew up in the ghetto, and the ghetto will make you afraid of things like doors and windows.

i did manage to learn a few new things about emily while the cake baked, but she asked me not to include any of them in this post, in case she decides to run for public office some day.

we baked the cake to absolute perfection.



and then it was time to make the frosting! which was guaranteed to be delicious because it included large amounts of powdered sugar, butter and... coke!





in addition to the creation of a dessert that includes everyone's favorite beverage, the night was red-letter since it was only the second time em had worn her new "high five" shirt. em likes to refer to pretty much all social interactions as "high fives." she also really likes it if you come up to her and high five her shirt. so try that next time you see her.



the final product was everything we could have hoped for and more. it even took the edge off the hurricane gustav coverage we were watching.



and yes, i realize i look slightly insane in this picture. but you've just got to realize, coca-cola cake can do that to a girl.

frances cake, take eight: the bon voyage! edition

this is marcey.



marcey is sassy and fun and sarcastic, all of which are some of my favorite traits in a person. she also wants to be the next martha stewart (sans a criminal record, i am sure), which might be annoying to someone domestically-challenged as i am, but she's not annoying about it, so it's no problem. it also means that she will bring amazing lemon tarts with real whipped cream on their own fancy cake platter to your dessert party. so there's that.

our first cake date was foiled by a dental emergency+wedding invitation emergency and i had been kind of slow about rescheduling, until she texted the other day and said she had accepted a job in seattle! and is moving next week! now it was a frances cake emergency! it was now or never, so we went with now. this was also a particularly significant frances cake outing because it was the first in my new, expansive, easy-to-use, totally-the-bomb kitchen.

marcey found this great recipe for rainbow cupcakes. these kinds of recipes are my favorite, because the finished product makes it look like you did something really hard and technical and creative and amazing, when all you really did was whip up a white cake mix, divide the batter into different bowls and add some food coloring.





my secret is safe with you, right?

though i guess you could say scooping the layers into the cupcake tins, one by one, was sort of difficult.







they baked up beautifully and colorfully,



and in the meantime we talked about lame men who can't commit, tv shows we should be watching (i am still on a quest to become addicted to "gossip girl." anyone with me?), joe biden, marcey's new job and why sometimes being a mormon outside of utah is better. briana also worked hard on her speculum sterilization pouches. (she's a midwife so she's allowed.)



marcey was only sort of terrified when she saw a bunch of speculums out on the ironing board in the dining room. i am no fan of those things, don't get me wrong, but i am used to seeing them around by now.

back to the baking, the final product was both delightful and delicious, outside and in. i ate two. (my secret is safe with you, right?)











and then, marcey was off. not forever, of course, thanks to the magic of blogging and facebook and text messages, but it won't be the same as a face-to-face over cake. good luck, marcey! we'll miss you something awful.