Dominoes. Calico Cream Cake.
If I could, I’d slide some cake* your way. I’m all for the presence of cake, even when lacking a specific reason for it. Cake for everyone. Any day. It’s a philosophy to get behind.
(I’m sure we could all come up with a reason or ten today, after a week of tragedy and righteous anger after a year of tragedies tipping like dominoes. With the pace of each clicker clack, my world contracted and stretched simultaneously; I closed ranks with my closest, to my essential, and at the same time experienced expansion, with connections and kinship found and fostered.)
Cake for all, put that on a shirt.
I cut this Bundt while still warm, which meant the crumb hadn’t fully set and the inside was slightly steaming. I wanted to see it in the sunshine. Or it was an eagerness for cake. Both possible. When there is the opportunity to have it, have at it. Because really, is this the time to wait for cake? No. Maybe you’ll have the patience to wait. Maybe not. You do you. Warm cake is a joy.
It was after I glazed the cake I did have a singular pang of regret, when I remembered Flo Braker’s storied Crystal Almond Pound Cake and its sparkling CLEAR glaze. (The Tartine Citrus Teacake is based on it, if that rings a bell.)
The one I used, while a thin and shattering veil, catches the light when placed just so. Then, it’s decidedly translucent and disrespectfully clouds the view. Braker’s makes use of citrus juice and granulated sugar instead of the expected confectioner’s, and sets to crystalline perfection. I’ve made it with water in the past, basically a simple syrup, boiling it briefly until its flowing and fully dissolved. You dab dab paint it on the cooling cake and as what’s dabbed dries, it transforms. Turning into a shining, curve hugging top coat, showing off the cake below as if through a glow-bestowing, beauty filter. (My skincare could never.)
YOU MIGHT WANT TO MAKE THIS
*No cats were involved in the making of this cake, despite my ginger’s butter fixation. It took a minute to name. Neapolitan was considered. Tortoiseshell would have worked. But in the end it had to be Calico. While earlier tests had the batters more wispily marbled, those with the most graphics bands of colour spoke loudest to me.
The cake doesn’t require such ceremony as a fork. This is a sturdy cake, a Pound Cake, uppercase-demanding, definition honouring. It has heft. The batter is thick. A slice stands on its own on the plate and in hand. It’s not playing.
The titular cream is cream cheese, meeting up with butter in the batter. You’ll find this whole genre of pound cakes dates back to old school/church/neighbourhood cookbooks, as I did. The cake is as you’d want it to be, with a balance of richness from a confident measurement of butter and then an unexpected lactic sharpness—a subtle something something but definitely there.
Marble cakes though, they’re the tenderest part of my childhood. The old-fashionedness of the base felt made for the bicolour, scratch that, tricolour treatment. The chocolate swirl is shockingly good? I didn’t quite expect it, but it is convincingly chocolatey with the cocoa alone. The pink swathe is left to you. Raspberry or strawberry, player’s choice. After deciding on this colour scheme, I tripped into a rabbit hole of throwback Neapolitan cakes, landing on a whole treasure trove of those made with Jello powder or Nesquik. Nesquik! Ah! Hello again childhood. Perhaps the next experiment, after the glaze is settled.
CALICO CREAM BUNDT (Serves um, 16 using standard logic, but I don’t know your cake consumption pace nor do I invite judgement of mine. Let’s say it slices well into 16.)
600 g | 21 oz granulated sugar
340 g | 12 oz unsalted butter, at room temp
226 g | 8 oz ) cream cheese, room temp
6 eggs, room temp, you should be noting a pattern
1 tablespoon vanilla bean paste
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
383 g |13 oz all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons medium grain kosher salt
21 g | 0.75 oz cocoa powder (I used halfish black cocoa, half standard Dutch-processed)
60 ml | 1/4 cup hot water
57 g | 2 oz Valrhona Framboise or Fraise Inspiration (fruit couvertures), or ruby chocolate (Callebaut and others make them)
12 g | 0.42 oz freeze-dried raspberries or strawberries, whizzed to powder in a food processor
Nonstick spray for pan
For the glaze (as pictured, Flo Braker’s next time, dammit)
3 tablespoons hot milk, plus more as needed
57 g | 2 oz confectioner’s sugar
A pinch of salt
Preheat an oven to 350°F, with a rack in the lower third.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, tip in the sugar, butter, and cream cheese. With the paddle attached beat on medium-high (working up slowly), until billowing and fluffy. It should take about 5 minutes, stopping and scraping down that paddle and bowl periodically—it’s basically the time it takes to measure your flour, cocoa and couverture each into their own medium bowls, which I realize is breaking the rules of baking and mise en place, but no secrets here.
Do the scraping down routine again. Set the machine to medium, then add the eggs one at time, waiting for the first incorporate before adding the next. Pour in the almond extract and vanilla. Let the machine run for a minute more.
Stop the machine. Scatter the flour and salt around the bowl. Run the machine on stir to combine. Give the batter a few final turns with a silicone spatula.
Mix the hot water into the cocoa powder into a paste. Carefully melt the fruit couverture following your microwave’s instruction for chocolate.
Fold a scant one-third of the batter to the bowl with the cocoa mixture. Scoop almost half of what remains in the mixer to the couverture bowl (it should still be liquid) then scatter the freeze-dried powder on top. Mix well. (Go slightly generous with the plain portion since the other two will be bulked up by add-ins.)
Spray a 10-cup Bundt pan with nonstick. Last minute spritzing prevents the spray from pooling.
Dollop the batter around the pan in layers. I like spring-loaded scoops for the job. If you want the colour to run like Charlie Brown’s sweater’s bands instead of polka dots, offset the colours slightly as you layer, making sure each scoop touches the same colour below. For a more marbled effect, have at it with a skewer or butter knife.
Bake in the preheated oven until the top is golden, puffed and crackling, and a cake tester comes out shiny clean, 75 to 80 minutes. Cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes before depanning.
Make the glaze by beating the hot milk (microwave it) with the confectioners sugar and salt until smooth. It should be easily pourable. Add more milk if it’s not. Gently brush over the cake while both are still warm. Leave to cool completely, at least 4 hours.
The cake improves as it sits. Don’t we all wish we were the same. Perfect case scenario, make the cake in the evening. Bake it over dinner and glaze it after. Go to bed. Dream sweetly in sugar-scented air. Boom. Cake to start your day.
Notes: Freeze-dried berries and fruit couverture won’t be in every pantry cupboard. I get it. The former is available at Trader Joe’s, many health food stores, or online. The latter is mostly online and specialty stores. Ruby chocolate is increasingly common. Alternatively, use strawberry or raspberry extract and tint with food colouring. Or Nesquik. Or Jello powder. Or, make a two-toned version; use 28 g | 1/3 cup cocoa powder and 79 ml | 1/3 cup hot water for slightly less than half the batter.
Other recipes: The Big Raspberry Rye cookies from Super Natural Simple: Whole food, vegetarian recipes for real life by Heidi Swanson. Within minutes of receiving it, I was roasting tomatoes because she garnishes her Paprika-spiked Mushroom Stew with them, and I needed both in my life as soon as possible. This new book, out on Tuesday, is her on every page, sneakily evolving, bringing us along for the ride. (I can’t wait for the border to open; let’s meet up in sunshine, Heidi.)
THINGS I WOULD TEXT IF I HAD YOUR NUMBER
Our Asian Spring: In the ashes of violence and death, Asians and Americans of Asian descent are ready to put up a fight. — Alex Wagner
A Letter to my Fellow Asian Women Whose Hearts are Still Breaking. Still and always, hypersexualized, ignored, gaslit, marginalized, and disrespected as we’ve been, I am so fortified, so alive, when I’m with us. — R.O. Kwon
Talking to Children about Anti-Asian Bias. — Heidi Shin
At the end of her video on crispy tofu, Susan Kim of Doshi shared a link to AAPI Women Lead. Grateful for the reminder, and to Nikole Herriott for the initial tip. (Also, what I said before about the border so I can feed my face at Doshi’s next pop-up.)
The Asian Mental Health Collective.
To Asia with Love: Everyday Asian recipes and stories from the heart by Hetty McKinnon. My Shanghai: Recipes and stories from a city on the water by Betty Liu. Two treasures of books, both out this spring. Each with individual voice and charm, each with hearts of generosity, collectivism and community this pair of talents embody. Loud cheers from over here.