Spice Cake With Coffee-Toffee Crunch
- Ready In:
- 3hrs 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 22
- Yields:
-
1 6-layer cake
- Serves:
- 20
ingredients
-
CAKE
- 1 1⁄4 cups butter, at room temperature, plus more for pans
- 3 3⁄4 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pans
- 1 1⁄2 cups sugar
- 5 large eggs
- 1⁄2 cup molasses
- 1 tablespoon baking powder
- 1 1⁄4 teaspoons ginger
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1⁄2 teaspoon salt
- 1⁄8 teaspoon clove (optional)
- 1 1⁄4 cups milk
-
FROSTING
- 2⁄3 cup butter, at room temperature
- 24 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature (4 8oz. packages)
- 2 2⁄3 cups powdered sugar
- 2 1⁄2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons molasses
- 1 tablespoon milk
-
COFFEE-TOFFEE CRUNCH
- 1⁄2 cup butter, cut in chunks, plus more for pan
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 1 1⁄2 teaspoons instant espresso powder (we used Cuban coffee either Pilon or Bustelo)
directions
-
CAKE:
- Preheat oven to 350°F
- Butter and flour three 8-in. round cake pans.
- In a large bowl with a mixer on medium-high speed (use the blade or rotary beater if using a standing mixer), beat butter and sugar until fluffy and pale yellow, 4 to 5 minutes.
- Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down sides of bowl as necessary & beat in molasses.
- In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, salt, and cloves, if using.
- Stir (or beat at low speed) a third of the flour mixture into butter mixture.
- Stir in half the milk just until blended.
- Stir in another third of the flour mixture, then remaining milk, followed by remaining flour, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.
- Scrape batter equally into prepared pans and spread level.
- Bake cakes until a wooden skewer inserted in the center of a layer comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
- Cool in pans on racks for 10 minutes, then invert cakes onto racks and remove pans.
- Cool completely before assembling.
-
FROSTING:
- In a large bowl, beat butter with a mixer on low speed until light and fluffy.
- Beat in cream cheese until well incorporated, scraping down sides of bowl as necessary.
- Beat in powdered sugar, lemon juice, and molasses, then increase speed to medium-high and beat until no lumps remain.
-
COFFEE-TOFFEE CRUNCH:
- Butter a 12X17" rimmed baking pan.
- Measure out vanilla and set aside.
- In a 2-3 quart saucepan over medium-low heat, stir sugar, butter, 1/4 cup water, corn syrup, and espresso(or Cuban)powder until butter is melted and you no longer see any crystals.
- Increase heat to high and boil, stirring occasionally, until mixture reaches 300ºF on a candy thermometer, 4-5 minutes.
- Quickly remove from heat and carefully stir in vanilla (MIXTURE WILL BUBBLE UP) BE CAREFUL, IT IS NOT WORTH BURNING YOURSELF!
- Immediately spread thinly in prepared baking pan and let cool until hard, about 20 minutes.
- Flex pan to release toffee.
- If using for topping cake, finely chop enough to make 1 1/4 cups.
- Break remaining toffee into small chunks and reserve for garnish. Store in airtight contained at room temperature for up to 1 week.
-
ASSEMBLY OF THE CAKE:
- Cut 4 strips of waxed paper or parchment paper, each about 4 by 12 in., and arrange them in a square over edges of a serving platter.
- With a serrated knife, carefully slice cake layers in half horizontally.
- Place first split layer, cut side down, on serving platter (adjust parchment paper so that edges of platter are covered).
- Spread layer with about 1/2 cup frosting.
- Sprinkle with about 1/4 cup chopped toffee.
- Repeat frosting and sprinkling with next 4 split layers.
- Top with remaining split layer, but don't frost or sprinkle with toffee.
- Brush away crumbs around sides and base of cake.
- Spoon 1 cup frosting into a small bowl and stir in milk until smooth.
- Spread a thin layer of frosting over top and sides of cake to seal in crumbs.
- Refrigerate cake until coating is set, about 1 hour.
- Spread remaining frosting over top and sides of cake, then remove strips of paper.
- If not serving within a few hours, cover and refrigerate for up to 1 day,
- Shortly before serving, garnish top of cake with toffee chunks.
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
<p>Hello all, thank you for visiting My Page but forgive me for it is a work in progress! :) As I am sure you have noticed I changed my Chef Name to Manami which means love & beauty. ;) Just thought I should get with the program - my geisha & my icon! :) Don't fret, I won't change it again! <br /><br />I am 70 years young and I live in a nursing home, which is out of this world, I am treated like a princess and the world is my oyster! I have a private room and during the season I do taxes for most of the staff, as well as my personal clients that have been following me since I left the business world about 25 years ago. I was rear-ended by a van and it turned my whole world upside down. Why dwell on that? <br /><br />I am an American Jew (from NYC) who moved to Havana, Cuba when I was 2 1/2 years old, lived there until a few days after Castro took over and vamoosed it out of that country as fast as my legs would carry me! I was on a forced hiatus from the UofM, due to illness. <br /><br />From there my sister, mother and I went to NYC to work and my father went to Haiti in Port-Au-Prince, where he and my uncle had purchased some tiny cocoa plantations & a chocolate factory - for the choccolate liquer - to make baking chocolate (the real bitter stuff). We joined my father about 2 months later where I spent 2 of the most carefree & wonderful years of my life! It is the stuff that movies are made of! (A la Grace Kelly - even my clothes were like hers)> </p>
<p>I then continued my studies in upstate NY and hated it because it was too, too cold!:( Went back to NYC to work and see what I wanted to do with my life - I was all of 20 years old and had to drop out of school because of illness and then because of the weather! Yuck - so I got a job in a Textile Buying Office as a receptionist and soon I found myself buying trimmings! Loved it and was very happy with the work I was doing. <br /><br />However, I got an offer from two young guys who had a factory in Cleveland, Ohio, where they made Maternity Clothes and they wanted me to be in charge of the shipping dept, keep inventory and in my spare time - help with the designing!! I couldn't pass it up - the offer sounded so great and the salary was twice what I was making in the NYC. So I went to Cleveland, got married, had both my children and got a divorce 15 years later. <br /><br />Then my children and I moved to South Florida and have been here since 1978, I can't count that far back :) <br /><br />Learned how to do taxes with H&R Block and worked simultaneously as a Supervisor in 2 offices for them for 15 years. Then after the accident everything went spiralling downwards until I could no longer walk alone even with a walker - so the next step was a wheelchair. Stayed at home with a lot of help (nurses, PT therapists) fixed the bathroom so I could bathe myself and fixed the kitchen so I could help warm-up meals (was taught how to cook in rehab) and so forth and so on. <br /><br />However, the fire department had other plans for me, I called them too often to pick me up off the floor - how embarassing! So they gave me a choice - either a home or they would have to call HRS! :( (very sad) <br /><br />It was there, in my home where I was robbed! <img title=Cry src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-cry.gif border=0 alt=Cry /> All my cookbooks (all my Julia Childs Cookbooks, my Settlement Cookbook which had been my mothers - published in 1939 - with all her notes) my mother's cookbooks from Cuba & Haiti, all my handwritten recipes. They also took all my Delft collection, some antiques that I had in the kitchen like my rolling pin, a beautiful old & used wooden bowl, a charcoal-iron that was brought north when my parents left Haiti, it was hand-painted & was gorgeous, as well as all the other things that are too numerous to mention! <br /><br />That proved to be the last straw & from there it was an ALF,<img title=Yell src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-yell.gif border=0 alt=Yell /> which was horrible, and then on to another home where the administrator of that home became the administrator here and voila, here I am. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /></p>
<p>I have a beautiful large private room with a private bath, furnished to my liking: eclectic! <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /> My room is large enough to house my office and all the other odds and ends with which I like to surround myself.<br /><br />During tax season, mostly, my room is always full (of course I love it that way)! I have a blanket my daughter bought for me in New Mexico and that is on my bed. You guessed it - that is where everbody sits or on my great grandfather's arm chair which is in great shape. <img title=Smile src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-smile.gif border=0 alt=Smile /> Update 01/11/2008 that time is here again :) Have started doing taxes already and not just regular taxes but corporations, partnerships and 1040X - ammended returns! Whoopee! I love the feeling I get when this time comes around and I get into gear!!! I love it! :) <br /><br />The head chef, the kitchen supervisor & the dietician enjoy the recipes from Zaar; the ones that I post, as well as, the others. We are in the process of changing the menu right now - so we have been doing a lot of figuring. The administrator is so cute because every once in a while she asks for a recipe and then she gives me a pack of paper so I can print them. <img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /><br /><br />I am president of the resident council and most of the family members come to me to take care of their grievances - this way I do my part - and the staff can take care of the larger problems! It has been working for 10 years - why change if it ain't broke?<img title=Wink src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-wink.gif border=0 alt=Wink /></p>
<p>Well, it's time to say hasta luego folks. <img title=Laughing src=/tiny_mce/plugins/emotions/img/smiley-laughing.gif border=0 alt=Laughing /><br /><br /></p>