Cake for Thanksgiving
For this year's Thanksgiving dinner I've been tasked with making a cake (to provide some variety from the pies). Has anyone tried this pumpkin cake recipe from Epicurious?
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/foo...
It sounds good, and the reviews are pretty positive. Alternatively, does anyone have a suggestion for a Thanksgiving-y cake? (Limitations are no chocolate and no nuts.) I'm a pretty experienced baker, but trying a cake recipe for the first time always makes me a little nervous because unlike cookies, cupcakes, brownies, etc., with a cake you can't really sample the results before serving it to company.
By cookie monster
on Nov 23, 2008 05:01 PM
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This Pumpkin cake is tasty and worked well for me:
http://www.culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com/2007/08/25/now-thats-some-good-eats/
If you want to make it more Thanksgiving-y, I would skip her frosting/filling and use a cinnamon/spiced cream cheese frosting, sort of like this:
http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2008/09/cinnamon-cream-cheese-frosting-recipe.html
Basically, I might replace some of the cinnamon in that recipe with cloves, allspice, nutmeg, etc. Some orange zest might be good, too.
Other than that? Anything involving nuts (especially pecans) usually goes over well at Thanksgiving, and maple is a good fall flavor. I haven't tried this recipe, but it looks good:
http://amberskitchen.blogspot.com/200...
Hope this helps!
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In our local market here in Oakland/Berkeley CA, persimmons have been appearing regularly. I mean the big, gooshy persimmons (Hachiya?). Many are already at the point of being ready for cooking, i.e., gooey and rotten-looking.
Persimmon cake is really wonderful and there are many recipes around. When made with the addition of chopped pecans or walnuts, and frosted with a lemony or orangy cream cheesey frosting, it's an elegant dessert.
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Good idea - I've never worked with persimmons much, so I completely forgot about those.
On the subject of seasonal fruits, pomegranates are also out in full force. I can't see it being easy to make them the main flavor in a cake, but I think they'd work well in almost any situation berries would. Since chocolate is out, maybe you could drizzle a lemon cake with pomegranate syrup and sprinkle some fresh seeds on the finished cake? Their color makes anything look positively stunning. It's not very Thanksgiving-y, but I bet it'd be delicious. :D
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it's not pretty; but Paula Dean's pumpkin gooey cake is always a hit no matter where I bring it. Just cut down on the sugar to about half to 2/3. An entire box of powdered sugar is too much unless you really want a sugar rush. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/pa...
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post-Thanksgiving follow up: I ended up making the pumpkin cake from epicurious.com but with the cinnamon cream cheese frosting that nickblesch posted - I didn't feel like messing around with making caramel when I wasn't going to have time for a redo in case it went badly. It was delicious (photo below), and a big hit at Thanksgiving dinner and thereafter w/ the leftovers.
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Glad it was a hit!
My Thanksgiving turned out pretty well also. There were minor disasters (I burned my pie crust) but also significant triumphs (my grandmother LIKES burnt pie crust; go figure). :D
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I'm late to this thread, but I made a carrot cake for Thanksgiving (along with an apple crostata and a pumpkin chiffon pie.) We don't usually do cake for Thanksgiving, but I wanted a different texture/flavor, and this was a big hit. :)
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I'm late as well, but I made this cake along with a pecan and pumpkin pie. I really liked this cake and it works well made in advance because it soaks up all the layers with out becoming mushy...
http://thebittenword.typepad.com/theb...
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