728x90


Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Back to Blog Main Page

Donut Cake

Posted June 15, 2009
Find more about cake , dalai mama , dessert
11  | 
I found this helpful Thank You! Your vote will be tallied soon!

Summer on a plate.

I always forget to leave-my eggs out, so I get them to room temperature in a bowl of hot tap water.

Grating whole nutmeg on a little grater is a fragrant and lovely job for a child.

Hulling strawberries with a sharp-toothed implement is a dangerous and terrible job for a child. Birdy cut herself right after I snapped this photograph.

When you pull it out of the oven, the cake will have risen like a golden prayer to the heavens above.

And then it will sink somewhat precipitously. Never you mind: it's perfect.

See?

Right?

"Oh, are you *leaving* that last bite?" "Mama, that's, like, your standard joke. I mean, it's funny. It's just that you always say it." Oh.

Maybe it's really just frosting I don't like, which is nuts. Even a frosting-shunner like me can see how crazy that is. Frosting! Who doesn't like frosting but a grayly parched crone in a gloomy, turreted house, the one who gives neighbor kids the evil eye while she's outside calling to her dozens of many-toed cats? I know. Believe me. But I tend to think it's desserts altogether I don't like, but then I go completely wild for plain cake. Pound cake, angel food cake, unadorned cakes of just about every persuasion. I am not trying to be quaint or flexing my old-fashionedness, I swear. It's just that frosting makes me feel like some weird aerosol sweetness is dripping into my lungs and asphyxiating me, if you'll pardon my drama.

So this cake, talk about quaint and old-fashioned, is a riff on the justly famous Busy-Day Cake of cookbook author and local-food pioneer Edna Lewis. Foodie types tend to be a little in love with themselves for being in love with Edna Lewis, and I suffer from some of that myself. It's partly because she was this fierce little old Southern woman with her hair in a gray bun, a mysteriously hunky young male housemate, and not a pretentious bone in her body; her mystique and forthrightness feel pleasantly infectious. And partly it's because her recipes exalt plainness in a really beautiful way: the simple pleasure of simple, perfect flavors.

But okay, enough--I'm sure you're here to get dinner on the table, not to wade through the confessions of a compulsive cookbook reader. Busy-Day Cake really says it all, doesn't it? As if you were having such a busy day that you had time to bake only the world's plainest cake. As opposed to the more obvious no cake at all. While it's baking you will be glad that, busy as you are, you sensibly left five minutes in your day to get this cake into the oven. It fills the house with such a wonderful aroma. "That's a totally classic cake smell," Ben said, sniffing deeply as he bolted inside from somewhere or other, and he's right. It is. Not that the kids would mind if great mounds of frosting were to spill in fluffy drifts across their cake, mind you. But they do love this unfrosted cake.

We renamed it "Donut Cake" because the combination of nutmeg and vanilla really tastes like donuts. Also so that Homer Simpson might stumble on it via Google. The cake is beautifully moist, with just enough cornmeal to give it a slight sandiness (the cornmeal is not in the original recipe, and you can omit it if you like), and it's the perfect accompaniment to summer fruit, sliced up raw and barely sweetened, with a big dollop of whipped cream. It's the kind of cake you can't stop eating: if you have any left, you will stand in the kitchen in your pajamas eating skinny wedge after skinny wedge, pulling the Saran Wrap optimistically back up over it and then realistically back down again, while you wait for the water to boil for coffee. Ben and Birdy cried, "Oh, Mama! Can we have cake for breakfast too?" And so we finished it. And then I baked another one. Seriously. That same day. Even though I was pretty busy.

Donut Cake
active time: 10 minutes; total time: 45 minutes

In the original "Busy-Day Cake" recipe of Edna Lewis, there is no cornmeal, but I like it here. There also used to be less of both salt and vanilla, but hey--I am what I am.

1 stick butter, at room temperature
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, ideally freshly grated
1/2 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Heat the oven to 375°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch springform pan, and set it aside. As I must always confess, I use my weird Pam baking spray "with real flour!" But if it knocks out one of the barriers between me and baking (my dread of greasing pans), then I figure it's worth it.

Beat the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer until light and fluffy, about two minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating to incorporate after each addition, and add the vanilla in there too. You may want to periodically scrape down sides of bowl with a rubber spatula.

Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Add the flour mixture to the batter in 3 parts, alternating with the buttermilk, starting and ending with flour. Make sure each addition is incorporated before adding the next, but don't over-beat it at the end. Spread the batter in the prepared pan and smooth the top.

Bake until the top is puffed and golden brown and a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes (Honestly, I just push the top gently with my fingertip and make sure it seems inclined to spring back). Serve warm or at room temperature, with lightly sweetened fruit (I added about a tablespoon of sugar to a pint of sliced strawberries and two sliced nectarines) and whipped cream. And don't be dismayed if the cake sinks significantly upon cooling: it will, and that's fine.

Get a printable version of this recipe.

Dish with Dalai Mama
Visit the Dish with Dalai Mama community group to chat about this recipe, upload photos of your cooking, connect with Catherine, and more! Go to Group

Member Comments On...

Donut Cake

Back to Main Blog Page
Search Recipes
Need Ideas for Dinner?
Swap recipes with other parents
300x250

About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

View My Profile View My Guestbook
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
August 2006
Please log in ...
Close
You must be logged in to use this feature.
Become a member

Thank You!

Thank you for helping us maintain a friendly, high quality community at Family.com. This comment will be reviewed by a community moderator.

Flag as Not Acceptable?

We review flagged content and enforce our Terms of Use, in which content must never be:

See full Terms of Use.