Cinnamon Cake by The Careless Cook

 

Notice the very light glaze using my recipe

 

There have been requests from a group of ladies for this recipe…. and especially from their husbands.  I do my best to please both sexes, all ages and especially the excitably hungry.

 

You immediately noticed I used the word ‘sexes’ instead of genders.  See, The Careless Cook doesn’t jump up and attach himself to every new fad, such as using a linguistic term, which has nothing to do with male or female, to identify human males and females.  In French, dogs and cats are masculine gender.  Neckties are feminine gender. So dogs and cats are only males? Men wearing neckties have women hanging around their necks? See, gender has nothing to do with people.  In German there is also a neuter gender. Apply that to humans?  An important part of me doesn't like to think about it. 

 

But, there is a good side to my diversion, cake is cake, and this cake is delicious! No matter who’s eating, even if they’re sexy or gendery!

 

Easy Cinnamon Cake by The Careless Cook

 

As my few and happy readers know, The Careless Cook does not exactly cling to the rules of the recipe.  In the case of this cake, feel free to use a store bought box of cake mix and a can of icing…but, this recipe is so easy, there’s no need to worry, either way.

 

Ingredients

 

For the cake

 

3 cups flour

1 cup granulated white sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I make my own by soaking chips of vanilla beans and soaking them in bourbon for several months)

1 ½ cups oat milk, or cow’s milk (I prefer the creamy taste of oat milk, but you must shake it very well before using.)

1 stick salted butter melted

 

For the Cinnamon Filling

 

1 ½ sticks butter, melted

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 tablespoons flour

1 (or more) tablespoon(s) ground cinnamon

 

For the glaze/icing

 

2 cups powdered sugar  (Add more sugar if it’s too thin, more milk if it’s too thick.)

5 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Puttin’ It Together 

 

First the cake!  

 

Heat the oven to 350ºF or 180ºC and coat a 9x13 inch baking dish with sprayed olive oil.

 

Get your electric mixer ready.  I use a hand held mixer.

 

In a large bowl, put the flour, eggs, white sugar, baking powder, vanilla extract and milk.  Mix well. Not yet with the butter….

 

Keep beating and add the melted butter.  Mix until just until combined, too much mixing toughens the batter.

 

Pour the batter into the 9x13 baking dish and smooth it out.

 

Now the Cinnamon Batter

 

Add all the cinnamon batter ingredients to a small to medium sized bowl and mix well.

 

Add the cinnamon batter by dropping spoonful by spoonful on the top of the cake batter.  Use a butter knife or other flat knife to swirl the cinnamon batter through the cake batter.  Voila!

 

Bake for 35-45 minutes.  Test from time to time by inserting a knife to see if the cake is baked.  The knife should come out clean.

 

Took just 35-40 minutes in my oven.

 

For the Glaze/Icing

 

If using my recipe, mix all the ingredients. 

 

Then you have a choice!

 

You can pour the glaze directly over the cake that’s just come out of the oven, or you can wait. The difference is, pouring it straight on the warm/hot cake, the glaze will sink right in.  If you wait until the cake cools, more of the glaze will stay on the surface.

 

If you use the store bought icing, I suggest you wait until the cake cools so the thick white icing will stay on the surface.

 

BUT, as The Careless Cook always says, you’re the chef! Do what the heck you want!  Either way, it’s going to be delicious and people whom you’ve never met will fight for a piece of this cake!  Genders and sexes will be all over it!

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Simple Cake, Simple Icing – Elegantly Simple

 

Finished Peach Cake with icing

My faithful readers should know by now, I like to keep things simple.  I’m a simple man of simple tastes.  A quiet, tableside martini, mixed by a thin man in a white dinner jacket, in the elegant bar of a five star hotel and you’ll find me serenely happy. 

While “Simple wife, simple life” may be a complete fiction, in the kitchen, there’s no need for complexities that drift beyond the male mind’s comprehension or attention span, especially when it comes to baking a superb cake for the ravenous, but unworthy multitudes.

I settle for the masculine outlook:  Huummmm, cake good, me want more! Next time me use fork.

This culinary delight is not the usual cake because this one uses pie filling.  Pie filling in a cake?  Yes, those who are faint of heart, release your inhibitions. Cast aside those dark, spurious doubts. This cake is so simple and delicious you’ll never buy another box of cake mix!  You’ll be able to smile benevolently at the admiring throngs and brag “Naturally it’s made from scratch!  I grow my own heirloom wheat, fertilized by free-range bovines who graze on sustainable native shrubs.”

Snobby, organic eating friends, who often avoid you, will lower their upturned noses and invite you over for a glass or two of wheatgrass flavored champagne.  But, before you accept their invitation, get your wife to teach you about forks.

Simple Cake, Simple Icing – Elegantly Simple

For the cake:

Preheat oven to 350ºF (180ºC)

Butter an 8 X 13 inch (21 x 33 cm) baking dish.  I prefer glass or ceramic.

2 Cups white sugar

1 Cup butter (2 sticks)

4 Eggs

4 Teaspoons vanilla extract

3 Cups flour

3 Generous teaspoons baking powder

1 Cup milk

21oz can of fruit pie filling (Sometimes I use peach and sometimes cherry)

1.    Cream together the sugar and butter and set aside

2.    Crack the eggs into a small bowl

3.    In a separate bowl, combine the flour and baking powder

4.    Alternately beat in an egg and some flour mixture into the creamed butter and sugar, until everything is combined.

5.    Add the milk and mix until the batter is smooth

6.    Mix in the fruit pie filling.

7.    Put the batter in the prepared baking dish and slide it in the oven.

Bake for 80 minutes. Every 20 minutes, test with a knife to insure it’s done. ALL OVENS BAKE DIFFERENTLY.  The first time I tested, all I had to do was shake the baking dish to see the center jiggle.  I cooked it another 20 minutes, then another 20 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center came out clean.

VERY IMPORTANT:  Let the cake cool completely before putting on the icing.

Make the simple Icing:

2 ¾  Cups confectioner’s sugar

4 Tablespoons butter, softened

½ Cup sour cream

¼ Teaspoon salt

1 Teaspoons vanilla extract

1.    Cream the sugar and butter. (Simple man that I am, I use an electric handheld mixer)

2.    Add the remaining ingredients and beat until the icing is smooth

3.    Spread the icing on the cooled cake and decorate (For the cherry cake version, I used cheery pie filling for the cake, but  maraschino cherries as decoration.)

Now it’s time to pop the cork on some bubbly, slice the masterpiece, and show your guests the real reason they’ll love your cake as much as they love trousers with an elastic waist!