Location: Barcelona, Spain
Season: Winter 2019
A day trip to Barcelona and lunch with a friend from Cake Club changed everything.
After a night babysitting for the family outside of Madrid I was enduring, I woke up bright and early Saturday morning and headed to the airport for my 23 hour trip in Barcelona.
After making my second connection by train, panic consumed me when I realized I didn’t have my passport in my bag. I wasn’t thinking! Just because I’m leaving one Spanish city for another doesn’t mean my passport is no longer required! AHH! I did the only thing I could, I flipped a table.
Just kidding. There was no table on this train. I called the father of this family and begged an pleaded for him to possibly bring it to me.
After a little hesitation, he agreed and dug through all of my stuff in my closet to find it. My directions were (I thought) clear of where it was to retrieve it, but alas, he found my hoarded snacks, half-empty bottle of sangria, and shreds of my dignity. I say half-empty, not because I am a pessimist, but simply because I had a rough night the day prior. hehe.
So, while I was here for one day, I told a friend (I know from cake club in Dallas) how horrible of a situation I was in over carne tacos.
Yes, I was in a cake club where we met once a month where we baked a cake monthly according to a theme.
So, thanks to Facebook, this particular cake club member and I kept up when I moved to Charleston (from DFW) and she moved to Barcelona.
On my 20 hour trip to Barcelona, I started my trip at her lovely home to catch up.
Yes, I booked a flight landing in Barcelona at 1pm on Saturday and leaving 9am on Sunday. Hey, train prices were outrageous, my acquaintance and I were going out dancing anyway, and now, no hostel!
So, along my fast-track through Barcelona. I unpacked my horror story from my “home” in Madrid. Obviously, there are so many things wrong with that sentence, but I just can’t go there anymore. In awe that someone could treat someone “as sweet as me” like that, she said she knew families in Barcelona needing an aupair and would text them after our lunch, which she treated :)))
After giving me a bus pass, I headed out to the city to play tourist for the hours I had left. One mom messaged me minutes after leaving my cake club friend. After sending her my aupair profile, she requested an interview; so I took a metro to their house. I met them and had a 2 1/2 hour interview!! This family speaks English and wants me to cook for them, bring the kids to activities/school, and help with homework and weekend babysitting.
I felt like Aladdin probably did when he accidentally rubbed genie’s lamp. I I sure have never had a friend like my cake club gal! This Barcelona mom even made a joke that I get my own towel and wash rag and sheets. Not only would I be physically and mentally in a better situation, but emotionally too! Now I’ll have connections because I have the acquaintance from high school I’m going dancing with and an adult friend from cake club that both live here in Barcelona.
My genie wasn’t blue and voiced by Robin Williams…. she looked a little something like this:
I found it only suiting to share one of the cake recipes she made for cake club that was one of my favorites OF ALL TIME. It was actually, dare I say, magical.
Like friendships in life, this cake has many intricate parts and layers, but make up a delectable treat to help you through life.
Yields three 6” cakes
1/2 cup brown butter, room temp
Leslie re-hardens the melted brown butter in the fridge, then whips it for the recipe
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
2 yolks
1/4 cup grapeseed oil
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
Grease and line three 6” cake pans and preheat the oven to 350F.
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon in a bowl and whisk them all together. Set the bowl aside.
Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the brown butter, sugar and brown sugar until they are light and fluffy. Slowly stream in the eggs, yolks, oil and vanilla. Mix on medium speed until the wet ingredients have fully emulsified, stopping to scrape down sides from time to time.
Add the milk and dry ingredients alternately, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients, scraping down sides between each addition. Mix on low until the final dry ingredient addition is fully incorporated.
Divide the batter evenly between the three 6” cake pans and bake them at 350F for 20-25 mins or until they just start to get golden brown around the edges.
Remove the cakes from their pans and let them cool completely before them using to assemble the CHURRO CAAAAAAAAKE. Alternately — store the cakes in the freezer, well wrapped for up to a month until ready to use.
2 cups pecans
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 teaspoon kosher salt
scant 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 1/2 cups valrhona white chocolate, coarsely chopped
1/3 cup light corn syrup
1 ¼ teapsoon white (shiro) miso
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
1 1/3 cups heavy cream
Preheat the oven to 300F. Throw the first 4 ingredients into a medium-sized bowl, and toss thoroughly.
Transfer to a parchment-lined baking sheet and roast for about 15 minutes. Halfway through the baking process, pull out the sheet and stir everything around. You’re looking for the nuts to turn dark without being burnt. The darker the nut, the better the flavor: mahogany is the color you want.
Remove the nuts from the oven and let them cool for 5 minutes, then grind them in a food processor until they break down into butter – this takes several minutes.
You should have about 1 cup of Praline butter. Put this amount in a medium mixing bowl and set aside.
Combine 1 cup of white chocolate with the rest of the ingredients—except the heavy cream—in a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a heatproof spatula.
Once the chocolate melts, turn the heat up to medium and continue to cook, stirring constantly, to caramelize the white chocolate. Once the mixture becomes a shade darker than shiro miso, remove it from the heat and slowly whisk in the heavy cream and unmelted white chocolate. If it seizes or doesn’t fully homogenize, then put it back on the stove top and heat it on low, whisking constantly.
While the chocolate mixture is still warm, marry it with the pecan butter and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator overnight.
6 ounces european style butter, room temperature
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tablespoon heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 1/2 ounces bittersweet chocolate, melted, then cooled
2 1/2 ounces white chocolate, melted, then cooled
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Using a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, cream the butter on high speed until it’s light, fluffy and totally smooth with no lumps. Scrape down the sides of the bowl several times during this process and quadruple check there aren’t any lumps of butter before you move on to the next step.
Add powdered sugar ½ cup at a time and mix on low until combined and all the powdered sugar is incorporated into the frosting.
Add the vanilla, cinnamon and salt and mix until combined. Scrape down sides and give the frosting another go-round in the mixer on medium speed.
Stream in both of the melted chocolates with the mixer on low and continue mixing until they are both fully combined and no streaks remain.
Use the frosting immediately to assemble the churro cake, or store in the refrigerator for up to a week (or one month in the freezer). If storing, return the frosting to room temp and loosen it in the stand mixer before using.
2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 cup milk
2 ounces european style butter (1/2 stick)
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup all purpose flour
4 eggs
4 cups canola oil
Preheat the oven to 250F
Mix the first cinnamon and sugar measurement together in a medium bowl and set aside.
Add the milk, butter, sugar and salt to a medium saucepan and bring it to a boil over medium high heat.
Dump the flour into the milk and stir it vigorously without stopping with a sturdy wooden spoon for one minute to cook the flour. The batter will be really thick and you’ll use some muscles stirring it.
Transfer the mixture to stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and let it cool for 5 minutes. Turn the mixer on medium speed and add the eggs one at a time. Let each egg fully incorporate before adding the next one.
Meanwhile, pour four cups of oil into a 1.5 quart saucepan and heat it to 350F
Transfer the batter to a piping bag with a star-tip (we like using a medium closed tip) and pipe the batter into the oil, cutting it with scissors every 2 inches so perfect churros drop into the oil. Fry all of the batter 6 at a time until they are deep golden brown.
Use a slotted spoon to remove the churros from the oil and put them onto a paper towel-lined pan. Let them cool for a minute, then toss them into the bowl with the cinnamon sugar and coat them.
You are going to use some of these churros to decorate the finished cake and the rest to make the churro crunchies that go inside the cake. To do this, take some of the churros and break them up in to pieces about the size of grapes. You will need 2 cups-worth of broken up churro bits.
Set the remaining churros aside to decorate the cake.
In a medium bowl, toss the broken up churros with ⅓ cup of the cinnamon sugar mixture, reserving the leftover mixture to coat the sides of the assembled cake.
Spread the churro bits onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 25 minutes, until they are crunchy, deep golden brown and caramelized.
Let the snaps cool completely before using them to assemble the churro cake.
https://www.thekitchykitchen.com/?recipes=/churro-cake/
Dates and Cakes 