Those Cakes We Like ... Got Caught In The Rain
1. A cake wheel – absolutely vital when it comes to the decorating stage.
2. Large star shaped piping nozzle and disposable piping bags – trust me, for this you need disposable ones.
3. Cake board – you could use a large, flat, plate … but it’ll be difficult to tidy.
4. Cake pans — I’d suggest using 8-inch pans if you use my measurements.
5. Large metal spatula
As always, a stand mixer is a nice thing to have, but not strictly necessary as long as you don’t mind hard work. Kitchen scales are essential though; if you want to take up baking you really need to invest in a set, preferably electronic ones.
This cake has a madeira base. It’s pretty similar to what you call pound cake or yellow cake in the USA, so if you have a trusted recipe for either of those then feel free to substitute it in place of mine. I usually favor (look at me, I’m trying to adapt to your ways) the Victoria Sponge for celebration cakes, it’s lighter and I like the texture better, but this cake needs the extra strength of the madeira sponge. Interestingly, the madeira cake is not named for the Madeira islands; this variety of cake has its origins in the mid-1800s, and it takes its name from the wine that it was served with (the wine was named for the islands).
You’ll need to do a bit of prep work before you start on the actual baking; this is the kind of project that needs to be done over an entire day, possibly two. The first thing you’ll need to do is mix up a Pina Colada syrup (credit to Wonkette’s resident bartender, Hooper, for this one). For this you’ll need a ripe pineapple, a good quality coconut rum (not Malibu, you’ll upset Hooper – seriously, he’s not mad, just disappointed), sugar, and water. You won’t need a lot of syrup for this recipe, so be prepared to eat leftover pineapple — but save a wedge for decorative purposes.
Pina Colada Syrup
1 cup pineapple, in 2cm cubes
1 cup water
¾ cup granulated or superfine (caster) sugar
Coconut rum, to taste (2 tbsp was perfect for me)
I found this rum on Amazon, it is delicious, and it helps to save the sea turtles! I call that a win-win situation.
Simply combine the above ingredients (except for the rum) in a small saucepan, bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 40 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to cool. Pass through a sieve to a bowl, squeezing as much juice as you can from the pineapple. Stir in the coconut rum until you’re happy with the balance of flavors – 2 tbsp was perfect for me, you might like it a little stronger.
Now it’s time to get started on your cake.
Madeira Cake
350g/12oz butter (at room temp)
350g/12oz caster sugar (superfine would be ideal, but granulated will work)
6 eggs
500g/18oz self-rising flour (if you don’t have this you can make it by adding 1 tsp of baking powder for every 200g of all-purpose flour)
4 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla essence
To decorate;
Pina Colada syrup
Pineapple jam
Coconut rum
Buttercream (recipe below)
Suitable cocktail accessories
Preheat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4 and grease two 8-inch cake pans. In your stand mixer or bowl, whisk together your butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Beat in your eggs one at a time; with the last egg add 2 tbsp of the flour as this will help to prevent the mixture from curdling.
Now sieve your flour into the mixture and carefully fold it in; the best way to do this is in figure-eight motions that move the mixture from the bottom of the bowl to the top. Add the milk and vanilla essence and stir.
Divide your cake batter evenly between the two cake tins and smooth the tops using the back of a metal spoon.
Pop the cakes into the oven for 40 minutes. You can check they’re finished by inserting a wooden skewer, if it comes out clean, you’re all done, if not then just pop them back for another 5 minutes, then re-check. Once baked, remove from the oven, and allow to cool for 15-20 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to finish cooling. Once cooled, slice each cake in half and trim off any massively uneven bits.
Coconut Rum Buttercream
1kg icing/confectioner’s sugar
500g butter
3 tbsp coconut rum
Yellow food coloring (gel food coloring works best)
Slowly mix together your butter and icing/confectioner’s sugar. Once it has started to combine, increase the speed, and whisk until pale and fluffy. Whisk the coconut rum through the buttercream. If the buttercream feels too stiff to work with, I have found adding 1 tbsp of boiling water softens it up nicely. Most recipes say to use milk, but if you use milk you won’t be able to store the finished cake for more than two days.
Place 1 tsp of buttercream in the centre of your cake board and place this on your cake wheel. Take one of the halves of your cakes and place it in the centre of your cake board, drizzle it with pina colada syrup, then spread generously with pineapple jam. Spread a layer of buttercream over the top, it should look a little like this…
Repeat this process until you have the desired number of layers (3 or 4 is ideal).
Next you need to crumb-coat your cake, I find the back edge of a butter/table knife works perfectly for this. All you need to do is spread a thin coat of buttercream over the cake. Use the flat edge of the knife to smooth it out. It should look something like this …
Ideally, you’d leave the crumb coat to set in the fridge for at least 30 minutes, if you can’t resist then don’t worry, it won’t be an issue if you don’t do that.
Now take 6-8 heaped tbsp of your buttercream and place it in a separate bowl. Mix in your yellow food coloring until you have a strong yellow color (1 tsp should be enough). Place the yellow buttercream into a disposable piping bag (without a piping nozzle) and cut off the end of the bag so the hole is about the size of your little fingertip. Now you’ll need to pipe this around your cake. The easiest way to do this is to touch the piping bag to the cake and then keep up a steady pressure on the bag while you slowly spin the cake wheel with your other hand (or ask a handy kitchen assistant to spin the cake wheel for you). You need two complete circles piping around the cake, working your way from the base of the cake upwards.
Put a couple of spoons full of the yellow buttercream aside for later and add another 2-3 tbsp of the white buttercream into the yellow mix. Mix thoroughly and then pipe this lighter yellow around the cake in the same way you did with the darker yellow, starting from immediately above the last layer you piped. Do not worry if your piping is messy, it’ll all smooth out later. Again, save some of the remaining buttercream.
You should be at the stage where two more circles will take you to the top of the cake. Now’s the time to switch to the white buttercream and repeat the piping circles.
Once you’ve finished the sides of the cake, pipe a few rough circles around the top and then set aside any remaining white buttercream. Grab a large, metal spatula and smooth your buttercream. The best way to do this is to hold the spatula so the long side rests gently against the buttercream and slowly spin the cake wheel with your free hand. As the icing is smoothed out the colors will blend together, giving you an ombre effect. If you don’t like the rustic look for the frosting you can chill the cake for an hour or so and then use a flexible, rubber spatula to smooth it out and get a more professional finish. I’ve opted for the rustic look with this one.
Finally, take your remaining buttercream and use your star shaped piping nozzle to add some flourishes. Decorate with a couple of slices of the pineapple and some cocktail cherries and then go to town with some suitable cocktail accessories.
And most importantly … Enjoy!
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Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Cantarito!
Cantarito
2 oz Cazadores reposado tequila
2 oz grapefruit juice
1 oz lime juice
1 oz orange juice
1 oz blood orange syrup
3-4 drops saline
Jarritos grapefruit soda
2-3 shakes Tajin
Shake all ingredients except for the soda. Pour into a clay cup or double old fashioned glass over ice. Top with the soda and tajin.
Blood Orange Syrup
1 oz fresh blood orange juice
1 oz sugar
Heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Keeps refrigerated for 2-4 weeks.
Traditionally, this cocktail is served in a jarrito de barro — a clay cup. The cups are soaked in ice cold water before service. The earthenware vessel holds its temperature much longer than a glass one. If you’ve got a nice piece of pottery that can hold a large-ish cocktail, this is the place to use it. A double old fashioned glass will work if you don’t have earthenware on hand. Beware serving this in a highball. You’ll be left with a lot of space, and topping off with Jarritos will end up overwhelming the drink.
I’m usually a strong advocate for fresh juice in all my drinks, but juicing four fruits for one cocktail is a bit much. I compromised and used bottled orange juice in this case; the grapefruit and lime are too important to skip, and the blood orange syrup will find its way into plenty of other drinks. I am strongly tempted to swap out the orange for pineapple juice at some time; I’ll let you know how it goes.
The reposado tequila completely vanishes in this cocktail, in a good way. You won’t notice the alcohol until you stand up and wonder where the floor went. Vodka or white rum would work if you’re desperate, but you’ll lose some of the essence of what makes this cocktail special.
There’s no clear origin for this cocktail, beyond “sometime during the Mexican Revolution.” The most repeated version is that it was created to reward the troops after a difficult battle in Jalisco state. It's seen more often in rural roadside bars rather than urban restaurants and cocktail spots. I am struck by how balanced it is as a tiki-style cocktail. A classic Caribbean punch features “one of sour, two of sweet, three of strong, four of weak.” You have to squint a little bit to make all the definitions work, but the lime, juice, and tequila are all the right portions here, and the fire from the Tajin is welcome. I’m hard pressed to find a better hot-weather quencher.
Let’s talk ingredients:
Bartender shot. Makenna was a great bartender for the night. Best smile I've seen behind the stick yet. Matthew Hooper
Cazadores reposado tequila: A good reposado still has an agave note, but it’s far more mellow than blanco tequila. If you want a big tequila note, use El Jimador blanco tequila. Use white rum or vodka in an emergency, but doing so will cost you some of the soul of this cocktail.
Grapefruit juice: Fresh does matter here; fresh grapefruit juice and bottled are very different things. I simply squeezed the fruit by hand; using a juicer risks the chance of getting bitter pith into the drink. Allergic to grapefruit? Grab a margarita. No one will judge.
Lime juice: Always use fresh. Plastic bottles? Plastic juice. Say it louder for the folks in the back.
Orange juice: Orange juice always bothers me as an ingredient. It’s not acidic enough to balance a drink, and it’s a little too sweet to stand on its own. It does provide a little more fruit-juice volume in the glass here, but swapping it for more grapefruit or some pineapple juice would be fine.
Blood orange syrup: This rich, jam-like syrup will creep into a lot of good cocktails over time; I’m sneaking it into my Cuba Libres now. As an added benefit, the dark red color makes this drink grapefruit pink — the “correct” color for a grapefruit drink.
Saline: Not a lot of salt, just enough to punch up the sweet flavors. Swap in a pinch of sea salt if needed.
Jarritos Grapefruit Soda: Jarritos is a total sugar bomb of a soda, which is what’s needed here. Don’t add too much; an inch in the glass is enough. Squirt will do as well. Avoid any pink-colored “grapefruit” soda. I tried a few in the course of making this recipe. They’re awful.
Tajin: Don’t skip this. The pucker and spice balances the drink. A good restaurant will rim the jarrito de barro in liquid tajin and add a healthy shake to the glass.
In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below! Seriously, my boss is awesome, if you like reading my recipes please chip in! And if you'd like to buy some bar gear or books from Amazon, please click here!
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Snacks On The Go! 18 Tackle Box Charcuterie Ideas! Tabs, Fri., May 5, 2023
Idaho’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee was established by the Idaho Department of Health in 2019 to track, review and analyze deaths caused by pregnancy-related complications. In 2020, in its first report, the committee found that the state had a maternal death rate that was almost double the national average. Idaho lawmakers declined to renew the committee this session, citing budget issues. The Maternal Mortality Review Committee only cost the state $10,000, writer Jessica Valenti reported.
— Portside
We are smart and know it's not just an act with Tucker and Stephen Crowder and their ilk, but click through to let Amanda Marcotte tell you why other people believe it, and why the subterfuge matters. (Salon)
Vox says actual brain-reading machines are here and I'M NOT READING IT.
Oh hey, do you have Peacock? "Mrs. Davis" is about a nun trying to fight the AI, and it is WEIRD and FUNNY and GROSS and AMAZING and Betty Gilpin is SO GREAT and it reminds me how much I LOVE NUNS when they are being AWESOME and NOT SHITTY.
Is "Succession" the same show as "Entourage"? Probably, if Drew Magary says so, I stopped watching after that one particularly sadistic episode with Macaulay Culkin's brother crawling around eating food off the floor like a dog. I was just done! (SF Gate)
From the comments, I did not know the Consider the Lobster guy did all the stalking in the universe, tried to throw his beloved from a moving car, followed her five-year-old son home from school, charming, literary, genius. So. So! — Lithub / The Atlantic
I mean, nobody has to throw their husband out for cheating if they don't want to, but wank wank wank at "but you worked too much and I didn't feel like a man" and wank wank wank at this woman for writing a whole stupid Daily Mail column about it.
You guys love "charcuterie" posts so fucking much, I literally subscribed to a CHARCUTERIE BOARD INDUSTRY NEWSLETTER. (I have been subscribing to a LOT of newsletters.) Tackle boxes! Charcuterie! Oh my god they're so cute EAT IT WONKERS! LOL! (Charcuterie Association)
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Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Porn Star Martini!
Porn Star Martini
2 oz Stoli Vanilla Vodka
1 oz Unstuck Passion Fruit
½ oz vanilla simple syrup
½ oz fresh lime juice
2 oz Martini & Rossi Prosecco wine, chilled
Shake all ingredients except for the sparking wine and strain into a chilled martini glass. Serve the sparkling wine as a chaser in a chilled shot glass.
First off, a word of warning: When researching this recipe, do not Google “Pornstar Martini.” You will regret it. The cocktail is a Porn Star Martini, and it was created by Douglas Ankrah in London in the early 2000s. According to legend, he thought it was the sort of drink a porn star would order (although some spicier stories suggest he was inspired after a visit to a gentlemen’s club in Cape Town, South Africa).
You’d think that a drink with such a lowbrow name might not be much, but it’s actually quite good. If I wanted to show someone what passion fruit tastes like, I’d give them this cocktail. The tart passion fruit is front and center, but the vanilla supports it in ways I didn’t expect. Passion fruit and vanilla are a natural pairing, like chocolate and peanut butter. The mellow vanilla takes the edge off the acid in the passion fruit very well. It’s the sort of flavor combination that would be fantastic as a cake filling.
The champagne on the side is also a touch of brilliance. The cocktail is a little too rich after a few sips. The bubbles in the champagne cut through the cloying notes of the passion fruit, a bit like having coffee while eating a rich dessert. It’s also a cute nod to the “porn star” aspect of the drink without being obnoxious. Champagne is such an intimate sort of wine, after all.
Let’s talk ingredients:
Ingredient shot. The cocktail sashayed off seductively shortly after this photo was taken. Matthew Hooper
Stoli Vanilla Vodka: I’m normally a huge fan of all natural flavors in a cocktail. If you’d prefer to stick a vanilla bean into some nice vodka and wait a week, by all means do so. However, the chemical that gives artificial vanilla its “vanilla” flavor is the same chemical that you’ll find in natural vanilla. All-natural doesn’t gain you a huge amount in terms of flavor here.
Vanilla vodka is a solid foundation for any dessert martini. I use it for chocolate martinis all the time. If you like your after-dinner drinks served in a martini glass, keep a bottle of this as a bar staple. This time, however, the vanilla plays a major supporting role. If you can afford it, and find it, you might want to swap ½ oz. of this vodka with a good passion fruit liqueur. But that’s somewhat of an investment for a cocktail like this. Vanilla vodka alone will do fine as your alcohol base.
Unstuck Passion Fruit: Unstuck’s mission as a brand is to help refugees find jobs. The goal is very worthy, but I’ve also got a practical reason for choosing this brand of passion fruit. The “bite sized pieces” are roughly ¼ an ounce each, making cocktail measurements for the home bar a snap. Melt 7-8 chunks of passion fruit in the microwave, and you’ll have just enough puree for this cocktail. I hate throwing away a bottle of juice that I only used once for a drink. This stuff will keep for quite some time.
Vanilla simple syrup: Heat 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, and 1 whole vanilla bean over low heat until the sugar dissolves. Pour everything, vanilla bean and all, into a glass jar and keep refrigerated. It lasts at least a month, and is great in your coffee or tea as a sweetener.
Lime juice: The passion fruit is very tart, but also unctuous. It needs some acid to balance things. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face: Always use fresh juice. Plastic fruit gives you plastic juice.
Martini & Rossi Prosecco: I think it’s a mistake to use expensive champagne here (unless you uncorked something special early in the week, in which case, go for it). The champagne is a palate cleanser and chaser. The subtleties of something pricey would get lost against the passion fruit.
In summary and conclusion, drink well, drink often, and tip your bartender — donate to Wonkette at the link below! Seriously, my boss is awesome, if you like reading my recipes please chip in! And if you'd like to buy some bar gear or books from Amazon, please click here!
OPEN THREAD!
