What are you baking? October 2022

Now you’re just pouring salt in my wound. :joy:
Freeze-dried fruit is pretty much the ingredient I miss the most! I brought some with me when I came over, but it’s all gone.
Though, my craving is specifically for fluffy cake with fresh berries. If ever I can win a round of the baking whack-a-mole I’m constantly playing here and manage to get both fresh berries and cream that isn’t shelf-stable at the same time, I’ll try again.

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Martha Stewart’s Spiced Prune Cake. This is an oiled-based cake calling for buttermilk, warm spices, walnuts and prunes.

On an endorsement from @mig, I had purchased some fancy, giant French prunes (the pitted version). I agree these imported prunes are a cut above – large, moist and tasty. The recipe called for soaking the prunes in boiled water, but these are so plump and soft, I skipped that step, as I was afraid they’d disintegrate. Otherwise, I made it as per the recipe - halved and baked in a 6-cup bundt pan.

The batter is very wet. The cake took 90 minutes to bake at 325 (full recipe calls for 1 ¾ - 2 hours).

The taste of the cake is to my liking - not too sweet despite the large amount of sugar. The inside is moist with a nice crumb, but the outer crust which develops (she calls it caramelization) is kind of odd. I’m going to withhold final judgement until tomorrow, after it has spent the night in an air-tight container.

I bought 6 jars of the prunes. Next up, I think, will be David Lebovitz’s chocolate cake with rum-soaked prunes. I’m open to other suggestions for prune-cake recipes.

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I tried to buy the pitted ones too but they keep shipping me figs!

(And that DL cake was high on my list too!)

Prune ice cream?

I love prunes, and have had this savory cake with prunes and lardons saved for a while.

I haven’t tried it, but i like her recipes and comments on this are good.

Sourdough with prunes and nuts of choice is always really delicious, too.

If you like Russian honey cake, many versions incorporate prunes into the filling.
Quite a few Russian cakes seem to have prunes in them.

For this Chrome browser translates for me :joy:. I really like her recipes:

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I haven’t tried to St. Dalfour prunes, but I will advocate for a these Sunsweet prunes, which are definitely large, moist, and tasty, and certainly leave any other domestically produced prunes I’ve had in the dust. And not for nothing, Costco sells a 3.5-lb. ziplock pouch of them for around $10.

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Have been away since mid-September on a long-postponed trip to Portugal and London. It was really amazing although of course I got COVID :roll_eyes:. Not going anywhere for Thanksgiving this week-end, so I did some baking for a box I am sending to a friend who just had a baby. One batch of Anzac cookies https://www.davidlebovitz.com/anzac-biscuits/ and yet another batch of Jessie Sheehan’s strawberries and cream bars https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2022/05/21/strawberryncream-bar-cookies.

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Lol! I’m not sure prune ice cream is my thing, but it is a thing. This version has brandy in it. Maybe I should make it my thing. :yum:

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Sourdough with prunes sounds intriguing. I make it often with cranberries and pecans. Prunes and nuts is probably something I would go for - thanks!

I’m tellin ya. Even the cheap version I had was INCREDIBLE.

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The Sunsweet prunes are very good. They are my go-to, as well. Have to admit I can be a sucker for a foreign label (especially if it is in French), and I really wanted to try these Dalfours as a treat. They are exceptional - I just need to find the right recipe to showcase them.

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Those are my favorite of the supermarket prunes as well. I eat enough prunes that I buy them in bulk at a health food store (no packaging), but sometimes I run out, and then the Amaz’n are what I grab.

Emmanuel Hadjiandreou has a rye with pink peppercorns and prunes in his book. For me rye sourdoughs tend to be too sour, but I’ll leave it here in case it’s of any interest to you.

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I’m sorry about the COVID! Hope you’re feeling better @rstuart

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I made extra genoise cakes when I was doing the strawberry cake so I could freeze for later use. I decided to use one to make the true orange genoise in Rose’s Heavenly Cakes. This is a cake brushed with an orange syrup laced with triple sec, filled with Seville orange curd, then covered with ganache. I made half of all the components for a 6-inch cake.
My cakes are taller than Rose’s 9x2 layers, so I trimmed one into two 1-inch layers. I figured this was taller than Rose’s layers when you account for trimming with her layers, but it would be fine.

One nice thing about living here is that I can get sour oranges everywhere and buy half a dozen for under $1.
I’ve never liked orange curd because it’s too sweet, and I had attempted a sour orange curd before that I also wasn’t thrilled with, but this one is perfect! I used a couple of pinches of vitamin C powder for added acidity, but even without it there’s a great balance of sweet and tart, and not too much butter (I really dislike the flavor of curds with a lot of butter). Rose calls for only 3/4 cup between the layers. I used almost all my curd since I was accounting for somewhat taller layers and it looked right. I think I could have used it all without much issue, but maybe the balance would be thrown.
For the ganache I used 53% chocolate because that’s what I have and I thought it would be good instead of the 60%.

This cake is absolutely delicious! Orange is about the only citrus I like with chocolate, but I was still a little nervous about sour orange rather than sweet, but the pairing works perfectly!


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Beautiful!

Thank you!

Bookmarking this recipe. Looks delicious.

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Yes thank you! I felt a bit ill one day, but not bad since then. Now if only I could test negative…

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