July 24, 2010

Swedish Visiting Cake with a twist...or two...or three!



This was a busy week, with an even more busy weekend. Busy but good! I like these kind of days: those days when you have lots of things going on but they are all good things! It feels good! Good things, good events, good people...it makes me get to the evening tired but with that sense of accomplishment and satisfaction that give me serenity.

We had a good amount of work at the school this week. We cooked some amazing recipes with the kids (I will try to blog on this later this week) and we have some amazing one coming on next week. On top of it, I got a new job as academic tutor for k-12, which I think will keep me pretty busy once the school period starts again. To complete the week, this is a big weekend for Wally. He (and his band, miRthkon) is playing his biggest gig ever at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco tonight! We are so excited!! To complete the excitement one of his best friend, Zev, came over all the way from Austin to visit us and see the show... how cool is that! That's a great friendship! 

As I said, so many rewarding events this week! Life can be really good huh? So, I decided to make it even better with a nice breakfast cake but, of course, I did not have time to spend hours researching some new or original recipes. But who said that a great cake has to be new or original or complicated? Whenever I need a good fool-proof recipe, we all know already where I'm going look at, right? Yes, of course...Dorie Greenspan's books! Her recipes never fail me :) 

What I also love about Dorie Greenspan's recipes is that you can usually twist them as much as you want and the success will still be sure! So that's what I did this week. I was planning on making the famous Swedish Visiting Cake since a long time but given my time constraint (and to Wally's sometimes picky tastes) I had to give it a couple of twists....Ok, maybe more than a couple...Can I still call it Swedish Visiting Cake if I changed a few things? Can I still check it out of my "want-to-make-soon" list? Yeah, I think I can...I will still call it Swedish Visiting Cake and as always all the merit for the success goes to Dorie Greenspan. What would we do without her?!


Swedish Visiting Cake Squares
Ingredients

230 gr (8 oz or 1 cup) sugar
2 large eggs 
5 gr (1/4 tsp) salt
5 ml (1 tsp) pure vanilla extract
2.5 ml (1/2 tsp) pure orange extract
230 gr (8 oz or 1 cup) all-purpose flour
113 gr (1 stick or 8 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted and cooled

brown sugar, cinnamon and white chocolate for sprinkling*

*I used two tbsp of brown sugar, 2 tbsp of cinnamon and 2 oz of white chocolate but you can use the proportions you prefer, depending on your tastes.

Stir 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of cinnamon in a small bowl.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch cake pan or even a pie pan and place the pan on a baking sheet.

Pour the sugar into a medium bowl. Whisk in the eggs one at a time until well blended. Whisk in the salt and the extracts.

Switch to a rubber spatula and stir in the flour. Finally, fold in the melted butter. 

Scrape half of the batter into the pan and smooth the top. Sprinkle the brown sugar-cinnamon mixture  and a few white chocolate chips over the batter. Cover with the rest of the batter (you need to be very careful in pouring the rest of the batter because it is very dense and, thus, hard to distribute homogeneously. If the batter is too stick try to spread it with a slightly wet spatula) and smooth the top.

Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until it is golden and a little crisp on the outside; the inside will remain moist. Remove the pan from the oven and let the cake cool for 5 minutes on a cooling rack before unmolding it onto a serving plate.

Source: Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan

20 comments:

  1. What a great looking little cake. I must try to make these and they look quite easy to make. Thank you for sharing!

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  2. These look great, I like the way you photographed the square pieces!

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  3. Questo deliziosi quadrati mi sembrano perfetti per sugellare una settimana così ricca e piacevole! Buona domenica!

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  4. @Lisa; they are indeed very easy and quick to make. This recipe is a real keeper.
    @Patty: thank you! Square cakes are a lot of fun to photograph! And much more easy to carry around. I always pack them for my husband to bring with him to work :)
    @Tania: adoro queste torte..semplici semplici...devo sbirciare nel tuo blog appena ho due minuti per prendere ispirazione :) buona domenica!

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  5. Not a lot of ingredients for such am enticing looking cake! I like how you've stacked them up...nicely presented.

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  6. @Cristina: I like taking pics of stacked squares and cookies...it's very popular right now and I can see why...I'm still trying to find another effective way to take a pic of this kind of desserts. If anybody has any cool pic or suggestion to share I would love to see/hear them

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  7. Busy weekends are the best....this looks quite easy though I am sure I will find a way to mess them up!

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  8. @A Little Yumminess: you have no idea of how goooood I am at messing up even easy recipes. In fact at the first bite my husband took at this cake he said :"Eh...not special"....the day after the cake was over....appearently once cold this cake is much better and once again I felt I cannot fail with Dorie Greenspan's recipes :)

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  9. I need some! What a perfect cake recipe!

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  10. Wow! Sono dei quadretti semplici ma deliziosi... Non vedo l'ora di provarli!!!

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  11. Those do look outstanding. I'm always looking for new cakes now that I have my own preschooler and I think this is a keeper. Thanks for sharing the recipe.

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  12. Thank you all for the compliments! If you have any suggestion for other nice, easy to make and fail proof recipe I would love to hear all about it!

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  13. Looks great. Thanks for the Dorie Greenspan mention. I'll have to check her out

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  14. Ciao! Hai proprio ragione, quando si ha poco tempo le ricette ben rodate sono la soluzione migliore! Complimenti, questo dolce sembra delizioso!!

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  15. Hi Sara,
    This cake sounds amazing! Can't wait to see what else you are baking! I love drooling over baked goods!
    -Gina-

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  16. Hi Gina, I will be posting very soon something else to drool over...in the meantime, I am drooling over your lemon sponge pudding...man, that looks delicious! My "to-do-soon" list is getting way too long :)

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  17. Congrats on the new job, and your husband's gig! That cake looks and sounds simple and delicious, just what I prefer!

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  18. just made these!! they turned out so well! remind me a bit of brownies in their consistency. i didnt use white chocolate and they turned out so delicious anyway. thanks for the recipe!
    http://netflixandnutella.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/tea-time/

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