Cake, I Love You by Jill O’Connor – Cookbook Review and Holiday Gift Idea
If you haven’t been able to tell by now, I love to bake. And in loving to bake I adore cookbooks. Especially cookbooks about cake, so one entitled Cake, I Love You was about fated to be mine. It was sent to me at no charge for my honest review.
Table of Contents
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About Cake I Love You:
What better way to celebrate life’s big and small achievements than with cake? There is something inherently festive and special about a homemade cake. Master baker, Jill O’Connor walks home cooks through the cake-making process with crowd-pleasing recipes, perfect for the holidays. Cake: I Love You (Chronicle Books/May 2017) is a love letter to a classic indulgence and offers more than 50 divinely decadent recipes home bakers will want to make right away.
Organized by flavor profile (banana, coconut, chocolate, caramel, spice, fruit) and level of difficulty, each chapter in this cookbook presents a wide range of sweet choices, from easy weeknight sheet cakes to showstoppers layered with frosting and ganache. With photos that will make readers want to reach out and swipe their fingers through the frosting, Cake, I Love You offers foolproof cake-making advice for beginning bakers and master mixers alike.
From the simple to the more detailed, Jill’s delicious cake recipes include:
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake with Melted Chocolate Bar Frosting
Dixie’s Banana-Bourbon Stack Cake
Vintage Coconut Cake
Chocolate-Dipped Strawberry Layer Cake
Chocolate-Peanut Butter Blackout Cake
Hummingbird Morning Cake
Proper Victoria Sponge with Ginger-Roasted Rhubarb and Devonshire-Style Cream
Raspberry-Hazelnut Financier
Blood Orange-Ricotta Pound Cake with Spiced Blood Orange Compote
Cake, I Love You provides chapters on Baker’s Gear, Baker’s Pantry, and Building a Better Cake, and Jill provides helpful tips and techniques throughout the book that will make the cake-making experience even better.“Everyone love cakes in one form or another,” says Jill. “This book is my unapologetic love letter to cake, in all its sweet, gorgeous, and celebratory glory.”
This holiday season bake something special for friends and family with Cake, I Love You, a no-butter-spared tribute to this classic indulgence.
About the Author:
Jill O’Connor is a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu Cooking School in London and studied at the International Pastry Arts Center in New York. She writes a food column for the San Diego Union-Tribune, is the author of six cookbooks, and has developed recipes for Food & Wine, Southern Living, Bon Appétit, and Fine Cooking magazines.
My Opinion:
OH.MY.WORD.
This is a cakebook full of achievable drama. If you have made a two layer cake and successfully iced it you will be able to get to the beauties in this book. Some are more complicated than others but with patience and attention to detail you can present a bakery style cake at your next party.
There are simple cakes too, like the one showcased below but then there are recipes like the one I can’t wait to try; it is three layers but one layer is marshmallow! MARSHMALLOW – can you imagine? It’s chocolate cake, marshmallow, caramel and fudge. I can taste it already. This cake has been in my dreams since I read the recipe. It’s just finding the time to make it.
The book offers tips for each type of cake; the equipment you will need, the best ingredients to use and where you can find things. I especially liked the section on the different buttercreams. I have tried several different types and have had successes and failures. Perhaps with some of the insights offered I’ll do better.
This book will keep me happy for a very long time. Even if only for that one recipe with the marshmallow. But I know I will use it for more than that. Just looking through it was a delight. There was not a photo of each recipe but there were enough photos to keep me very happy. This book would make an excellent gift for any baker in your life.
Rating:
5
A Special Recipe For You:
Recipe from CAKE, I LOVE YOU: Decadent, Delectable, and Do-able Recipes
By Jill O’Connor
Chronicle Books/May 2017
Luscious Lemon Loaf
Lemon zest, lemon juice, and lemon oil combine to give this simple cake real zing. Don’t be tempted to skip the lemon oil, as it adds a wonderful fragrance and intense lemon flavor that lemon extract can’t match. Cold pressed from the zest of oranges, limes, or lemons, citrus oils are concentrated and fragile. They must be refrigerated once the bottle is open, but even then they don’t last forever.
Serves 6 to 8
Lemon Icing:
½ to 2 cups (180g to 240g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
Position a rack in the center of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325º. Coat a 9-by-5-inch metal loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line the pan with an 8-1/2-inch-by 15-inch strip of parchment paper so it covers the bottom of the pan and hangs over the long sides.
Put the sugar in a small bowl. Using a microplane zester, grate the zest from the lemons into the sugar. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips until the sugar is sandy and moist and fragrant with lemon. Set aside.
Cut the lemons in half. Using a citrus reamer, squeeze the juice from the lemons into another small bowl.
In a third small bowl, whisk together ¼ cup of the fresh lemon juice, (you should have about 2 tablespoons remaining; set aside for the icing.) the sour cream, vanilla, and lemon oil. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and oil together on medium speed just until creamy. Add the lemon sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the bowl as you go. Decrease the mixer speed to low and beat in the sour cream mixture. Add the dry ingredients in two additions, beating on low for a few seconds after each.
Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 55 to 65 minutes (do not check the cake until it has been in the oven for at least 40 minutes, as it might sink in the middle.) The cake is done when a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer the loaf, still in the pan, to a wire rack to cool 10 minutes. Grasping the overhanging parchment, lift the loaf out of the pan and set it on the rack. Cool completely.
To make the icing:
Whisk the butter, 2 tablespoons lemon juice, and lemon oil with the confectioners’ sugar until smooth and creamy. Spread or drizzle the icing over the cooled cake.
