HCB: Cradle Cake

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I have been waiting for this cake for a bit now.  Somehow every time I would open Rose’s Heavenly Cakes book, it seem to fall on this page.  And every time I would hope that Marie would put it in rotation.

This week the waiting was over.  This week this was the cake on the spotlight.

At first glance, the cake does not look like much and I actually thought it was a plain pound cake with a crusty shell.  Which to be honest, I’m a total sucker for.  I have written before how heavy, pound cakes, are actually my favorite types of cakes.  Maybe because they remind me of they types of cakes my “nonna” and I would bake when I was young, or the fact that that buttery flavor just screams comfort food at it’s best.

So this simple cake was screaming my name.

Boy, was I wrong.  This cake actually is a variation of the original recipe that won the Pillsbury bake-off in 1950.  Upon closer reading of the whole thing, I realized that the crusty outer of the cake is made up of a dacquoise made with pecan and chocolate which hugs the simple butter cake – thus the “cradle” in the name.

HELLO CAKE!  You just jumped to captivating status in my world.

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HCB: Génoise Tres Café

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See that pretty picture above of the pretty cake.

It looks all innocent like.

But, don’t let it fool you.

Because that pretty, innocent cake did not play nice with me.

You would figure that after almost a year of baking with the HCB group, I would have certain steps engrave in my brain.  And that list of steps should read like this:

  • READ THE WHOLE RECIPE, not once, not twice, not three times, but four times
  • READ IT AGAIN, just in case.
  • Stop being confident and cocky.
  • No trash talk back to the cake 

Instead it reads like this: 

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TWD: Lemon Poppyseed Muffins

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I been neglecting my Tuesday with Dorie group.  But I had to be honest the last recipes just have not caught my attention at all, and I have to say I’m sort of picky when it comes to making desserts.  If I truly don’t love it, then why waste ingredients in making something that I’m not going to eat in the first place?

I’m sticking to that, sorry folks, that is how the cookie crumbles around my house.

But I could not PASS UP this weeks choice picked for us to try by Betsy at A Cup of Sweetness.  I’m a huge fan of lemon poppyseed muffins and I’m always looking for the right balance of lemony goodness and sweet. So I have eaten A LOT of lemon muffins in my lifetime.

And sadly I have not found it yet, they are always way to sweet or way to lemon-y.  So when I saw these, I thought to myself - Ok, Dorie, show me what you got.

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