How to eat cake for every meal

June 8th, 2012

Ovens & Cooking Recipes

This morning I ate cake for breakfast, and it was delicious.

‘And how is morbid obesity working out for you?’ you may be (snidely) asking. To which I respond (with as much dignity as one can whilst removing sprinkles from one’s cleavage), cake is the breakfast of diet champions, haven’t you heard?

Questioning what place cake has in a balanced diet is like questioning what place art has in life. Sure, if you’re a dried up husk of a human who grumbles fractiously about why food in pill format has not yet been invented and alternating your time between arranging your sharpened pencil collection and waiting to die, then maybe cake isn’t for you. But for everyone else, cake is an excellent food that’s as spiritually rich as it is in calories and saturated fat.

But why stop at breakfast? Why indeed. Today we’ll be taking a page out of the book of Mae West (‘Too much of a good thing is wonderful’), and of course the great Oscar Wilde (‘Everything in moderation, including moderation’) – to bring you a comprehensive guide on how to have your cake and eat it too… for every meal.

Cake for breakfast

How many times have you looked at a cupcake and thought to yourself, ‘sure, this contains half my daily calorie intake and will greatly increase my likelihood of contracting early-onset diabetes, but I just don’t think it’s unhealthy enough.’

I know right, all the time.

Well fatties, here’s the solution you’ve been searching for: bacon and cake, together at last:

Breakfast: ‘egg’ and bacon cupcakes

Ingredients

White packet cake mix
3 egg whites
9 pieces of crispy crumbled bacon
1/3 cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 cup water
2, 8 oz packages of cream cheese (room temperature)
Confectioner’s sugar, to taste (about 1 or 2 cups)
Poppy seeds
Butterscotch lollies

Method

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, line your cupcake pan with paper liners.

In a large bowl mix your cake mix, egg whites, water, coconut oil and maple syrup with an electric hand mixer.

Cook your bacon until it’s crispy (microwave or pan fry, but make sure it’s not greasy) and rough chop into small chunks.

Mix your bacon bits lightly into your batter with a spoon. Fill your liners with the batter, about 3/4 of the way full.

Bake for 15-22 minutes or until they pass the tooth pick test.

While baking make your frosting. In a large bowl add your cream cheese and sugar. Mix until combined and until you achieve the sweetness you desire. Remember this is a sweet and savory cupcake so it can still resemble cream cheese, just a sweetened version.

After cupcakes are baked and cooled top them with the cream cheese frosting and butterscotch lollies. Sprinkle poppy seeds and serve.

Cake for lunch

Trust Ian ‘Huey’ Hewitson to find a way to legitimise cake for lunch – this is, after all, the man who included parmesan cheese as an ingredient in a ‘raw vegan’ salad.

Best served with a crisp chilled glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and a defibrillator.

Huey’s bread ‘cake’ with pumpkin, roasted capsicum, olives & parmesan

Ingredients

Olive oil spray
Sea salt & freshly ground pepper
Top half of a butternut pumpkin, peeled
1 tbsp dried yeast
2½ cups strong bread flour
A pinch of sugar
1 cup luke warm water
Olive oil
½ red onion, sliced
4 roasted red capsicum pieces, sliced
8 pitted black olives, halved
Freshly grated parmesan

Method

Preheat oven to 150°-160°C fan forced (170°-180°C normal).

Lightly oil a piece of foil and wrap up the seasoned pumpkin. Then cook in the lower part of the oven until very tender. Remove and set aside to cool, before slicing.

To make the dough, combine the yeast, 1 cup flour, the sugar and lukewarm water in a large bowl. Set aside for about 5 minutes until it begins to foam.

Add the remaining flour with 1 tspn salt. Mix well with a wooden spoon and then knead until the dough is smooth and elastic.
Remove the dough and spray the base of the bowl with oil. Then return the dough, cover with plastic and set aside in a warm spot until doubled in size.

When ready, punch down the dough to deflate the yeast’s gases, allowing the fermentation to begin again.

Increase the oven temp to 210°-220°C fan forced (230°-250°C normal).

Spray the bowl with oil, return the dough, cover with plastic and set aside until doubled in size again.

When the dough is ready, sauté the red onion in a little hot oil until tender.

Spray the base of a springform cake tin with oil and press in the dough. Then scatter the red onion, capsicum, olives and pumpkin with some parmesan on top. Cook in the oven for about 30 mins until risen and tender.

Cut into wedges and serve.

Cake for dinner

You’re on the homestretch now people, stay with me. You can do this! Remember, you’ve only got one shot, one opportunity to eat cake for every meal – would you capture it or just let it slip? Yo.

This ‘cake’ has everything you want in a meal – meat, butter and marshmallows – all in a delightful, easy-to-shovel cake format. One of the instructions that came with this recipe is “if you accidentally burn the marshmallow topping, simply scrape off and start again,” which is, as Gary Mehigan would say, “smart cooking”. Plus the resultant cholesterol-induced blindness will save you the trouble of ever having to confront your own reflection in the mirror afterwards. Yay!

Thanksgiving turkey cake

Ingredients
For the turkey layers:

Unsalted butter, for coating the pans
2 pounds ground turkey breast
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated on the small holes of a box grater
1/3 cup ketchup
1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley leaves
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 1/2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
1 teaspoon minced fresh sage leaves
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2 medium garlic cloves, minced

For the sweet potato layer:

1 pound sweet potatoes
1/4 cup whole milk
2 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/4 stick)
1 tablespoon packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more as needed
Pinch ground mace or nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper

To assemble:

About 5 cups or 1 recipe Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes warm
1/2 cup cranberry sauce, such as our Cranberry and Citrus Sauce chilled, excess liquid drained
2 1/2 cups Sausage Stuffing warm
1 1/2 cups mini marshmallows
Gravy for serving (optional)

Method

For the turkey layers:

Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Coat 2 (8-inch) cake pans with butter; set aside.

Place all of the remaining ingredients in a large bowl and mix, using clean hands, until combined (don’t squeeze or overwork). Divide the mixture evenly between the pans, spreading it to the edges and smoothing out the top. Bake until cooked through and the cakes begin to pull away from the edges of the pans, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven (but leave the oven on) and let cool for about 10 minutes. Using a paper towel, blot away any excess fat from the cake layers’ surface; set aside. (While the turkey cakes are cooking, make the sweet potatoes.)

For the sweet potato layer:

Place a steamer basket in a large saucepan with a tightfitting lid. Add enough water to reach just below the basket; bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and gently simmer.

Meanwhile, peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into 1-inch cubes. Once the water is simmering, place the cubes in the steamer basket, cover, and steam until the potatoes just give when pierced with a fork, about 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer the steamer basket with the potatoes to a plate; set aside.

Discard the water in the saucepan. Place the milk and butter in the saucepan and heat over low heat until the butter has melted. Turn off the heat, add the reserved sweet potatoes and the brown sugar, measured salt, and mace or nutmeg, and mash with a potato masher until smooth. Taste and season with salt and pepper as desired; keep warm.

To assemble:

Arrange a rack in the lower third of the oven.

Run a knife around the edge of the turkey cakes. Unmold one of the turkey layers and place it bottom-side up on an overturned 8-inch cake pan or in an ovenproof serving dish.

With a long knife or offset spatula, evenly spread 1 1/4 cups of the mashed potatoes over the top of the cake, leaving a 1/2 -inch border (keep the remaining potatoes warm).

Using the back of a clean spoon, spread the cranberry sauce evenly over the mashed potatoes.

Using your hands, gently pack the stuffing in an even layer over the cranberry sauce, using one hand to keep any stuffing from falling off the side.

Press gently on the stuffing to make sure it adheres to the mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce.

Evenly spread another 1 1/4 cups of the mashed potatoes over the stuffing (keep the remaining potatoes warm).

Un-mould the second turkey layer and place it bottom-side up on top of the mashed potatoes.

Transfer the cake pan or serving dish with the partially assembled cake to a baking sheet and bake until heated through, about 30 to 40 minutes (an instant-read thermometer should register 165°F).

Remove from the oven and set aside. Heat the oven to broil.

With a long knife or offset spatula, evenly coat the outside (but not top) of the entire cake with the remaining mashed potatoes (you may have a little left over).

With a clean long knife or offset spatula, evenly spread all of the sweet potatoes on top of the cake.

Arrange the marshmallows across the top and gently press them into the sweet potatoes.

Return the baking sheet with the assembled cake to the oven and broil until the marshmallows are golden, about 1 to 2 minutes (watch closely so the marshmallows don’t burn).

Using two flat spatulas, carefully transfer the cake to a serving dish. Serve immediately with gravy, if desired.

So there you have it, the Appliances Online guide to eating cake for every meal. Join us next week for insights into which appliances you need to create many of the mouth-watering creations from This Is Why You’re Fat, including my personal favourite, ‘pake’ (a pie baked inside a cake):