TWD: Cinnamon Squares

Tracey of Tracey's Culinary Adventures , my twitter buddy and baker extraordinaire, chose this week's TWD recipe, Cinnamon Squares. When I first saw that Tracey chose cinnamon squares, I was really excited, because I assumed it was a non-chocolate dessert that I could serve to my non-chocolate eating husband. I love it when my hubs loves the desserts that I make, and I've found that a critical first step to getting him to love my desserts is for him to actually eat them.

So when I read the recipe more closely and realized that the cinnamon squares did indeed contain chocolate, I was a little disappointed, because I just don't have the creativity needed to turn chocolate desserts into non-chocolate desserts. I'm not a baker so much as a recipe follower. To the extent anyone in my life has ever complimented my cooking or baking skills, I know that they really should be complimenting my reading skills, or possibly my recipe selection skills.

Fortunately, I don't need to be a creative baker, because I can just shamelessly mooch off the creativity of my baking friends. Nancy had made this cake several days earlier, and told us that she did half the cake with a streusel filling. Streusel - perfect! So obvious once Nancy mentioned it, but I never would have thought of it on my own. So I decided to split the cake into two 8.5" x 4.5" loaf pans rather than one 8" x 8" pan, and make one pan with chocolate, in strict accordance with the recipe, and the other pan using the streusel from the Blueberry Crumb Cake that TWD made a couple of months ago. I skipped the chocolate ganache topping on both versions.


The cake is really easy to make. I didn't even have to break out my beloved KitchenAid! And while I do love my KitchenAid, I love it even more when I can leave it in its home in a lower cabinet. I know that I'm supposed to bend at the knees, not at the back, blah blah blah, but I ALWAYS lift that sucker by bending at the back, and it's just a matter of time before I add "back strain" to my list of kitchen injuries. But it won't happen when making cinnamon squares, dammit, because all you need to mix up this baby is a whisk and rubber spatula!

David's uber-cool Aunt Missy was visiting us for the first time ever when I served this cake. We love Aunt Missy & Uncle Jack, and don't get to see them nearly often enough. At the end of their youngest child's wedding reception last summer, I told Uncle Jack that I wish they had more children to marry off, because David and I had more fun at their kids' weddings than we've had in like eight years. To which Uncle Jack replied: "you two really need to get out more." True dat.

So I really wanted Aunt Missy to like this. She took a cinnamon square at the table, but before biting in said "wait, have you gotten a picture of this yet?" See, I told you she was the coolest! This spared me from having to have that awkward "hey, um, just hold on for one second while I take that cinnamon square out into the shade and snap a few pictures" conversation (which just never gets easier for me, no matter how long I do this). Not only did she just instinctively GET that we food bloggers must do strange things before anyone can eat the food, but she really loved the cinnamon squares, as did David's parents, who are among my most loyal tasters, and who must be getting really tired of me pushing baked goods at them all the time.

I've got to say that I vastly preferred the streusel version to the chocolate version. I think this is just where differences in taste buds come into play. We've made several recipes with TWD that combine chocolate and spice flavors, and I always feel, as David's mother stated perfectly, that these two flavors just don't improve each other (see also chocolate gingerbread). This is strictly a matter of personal taste, as many people love this combination. But I loved the streusel version of this cake so much that I'd rank it among my top 10 TWD recipes ever. The cake was soft and just melted in your mouth, and the flavor was perfect. And the streusel itself was as great as I remembered it being in the blueberry crumb cake.

Thanks for this great pick, Tracey!

TWD: Dimply Plum Cake

I could not wait to get started on this week's recipe for Dimply Plum Cake, chosen by Michelle of Bake-en. As you all know, we've been on quite the cookie streak here at TWD, and nothing screams "not a cookie" quite like a dimply plum cake.

While Dorie lists several other fruit options to use with this cake instead of plums, I knew right away that I was plumming it. Growing up, my mother bought plums all the time in the summer. Peaches and plums shared the top status as Favored Summer Fruit in the "Fruits with Pits" category (not be be confused with the "Fruits with Seeds" or the "Berries," all of which were also much-loved by us in those sweet June through August months). But somewhere along the way, I forgot about plums. It's not like anything "happened," we just kind of drifted apart. It was me, not the plums. So when I saw that Dimply Plum Cake was chosen for this week, I knew that this was the chance for me and plums to be right again.

And so what did I go and do when it came time to choose the plums? I let my three year old, who loves picking out the produce, choose ten plums and drop them in the bag, without giving them so much as one discreet little squeeze before she let go. What was I thinking? How could I give a three year old complete control over something as important to my plum cake as the plum selection process? I guess I was distracted by the sample of Allouette on Sociables with Peach Preserves that they handed me on the way into the store. Oh, did I ever pay the piper for that little mistake.

As soon as I got home I realized that my plums were overripe. Way overripe. Not quite rotten, but most definitely well past their plummy best. But I decided to make the cake anyway, thinking that the plums would get all soft when baked anyway, and maybe overripe plums would be to dimply plum cake what overripe bananas are to banana bread.

I prepped the plums, and then got to work on mixing the dry ingredients, including flour, brand-spanking-new baking powder, salt and cardamom. Once my dry ingredients were mixed, I thought about driving straight to the bank to put the cardamom in my safe deposit box, because at $14.99 for a tiny 1.9 ounce jar, I knew that it had to be very special, and I didn't want to just leave it hanging around the kitchen, being taught dirty words by the other spices.

The world's most expensive scant 1/4 teaspoon:


I mixed it all together, poured the batter into the pan and assembled the plums on top, and then thought what I think every week: this doesn't look nearly as good as Dorie's.



The cake smelled great baking, and looked pretty good when it came out of the oven. I thought it was sufficiently "dimply."


My secret ingredient: plum label.


Ooops! Rookie mistake. Glad that was my piece! It reminds me of that time in high school when I baked fortune cookies for the International Food Fair, and then asked Senor Pelosi, my Spanish teacher, what his fortune was, and he said "THERE WAS A FORTUNE IN THERE???" I think I got a B in Spanish that semester.



The cake was okay, notwithstanding the mediocre plums. David thought that it had a slightly bitter aftertaste, and I could see what he meant -- I'm not sure if that was the rotten, er, overripe plums, or some flavor in the batter (probably the cardamom). We served it to my parents, and they seemed to like it fine. It didn't make anyone do backflips or anything, but that's probably for the best, because we don't need any injuries over Sunday dinner. I probably won't make this again, just because Dorie has a zillion other coffee cakes in her book, and I assume I'll like another one better. I do feel like I am a little further down the road to reconciliation with the plums, so making this was definitely a positive exercise anyway.