Don't let them eat cake without great frosting
While I was away baking strawberry cakes and topping them with homemade cream cheese frosting for all my favorite ladies, the 405 diningsphere crackled with news.
Timing's ability to continually prove to be everything warms the soul, doesn't it?
Ted's Cafe Escondido announced intentions to open a new taqueria concept so close to Big Truck Tacos it makes you wonder if Uptown might become a gourmet homage to SW 25. Pandemics aren't the death of all hope, right? Right?
A couple of the market's leading women had big weeks. Chef Shelby Sieg accepted an opportunity to return to The Plaza District and oversee the ongoing birth of Lua in the
space where she tended stove for The Pritchard. And Jenny Nguyen reopened her family's Lee's Sandwiches franchise with a newly built drive-thru window.
I spent a good portion of my first day back from furlough tracking down restaurant openings and came across some sad news. Hopdoddy's two burger bars said goodbye after a short tour of Oklahoma while iconic northwest Oklahoma City dive The Wilshire Club announced it was gone for good. (Pardon the pun).
Was relieved to see long-standing Canton Restaurant in Warr Acres will reopen at month's end, but sad to see venerable Del City institution Canton Palace won't return at all.
That list and lots of other news is now online at oklahoman.com/dave-cathey
Now to matters of the hearth where I've spent a good portion of this month determining once and for
all that when it comes to cakes, it really is all about the frosting.
Let's face it, cake at its core is a big sweet muffin. Sometimes it's one big sheet of a muffin, sometimes its two round flat muffins stacked on top of each other. You might not turn down a good muffin, but have you ever had a muffin good enough to chase down?
Enter frosting, and suddenly folks are hydrating and stretching their legs.
Buttercream is the standard frosting we find on cakes, but my wife prefers cream cheese frosting, and I was baking for her birthday. She liked the result enough to request another to share with her sister and mother for Mother's Day despite my using a strawberry cake mix from Duncan Hines.
Cake from scratch is superior, and with the right technique an iteration that transcends perfectly acceptable muffin country can be reached. But if you can make a 15-minute frosting that will handle the transcendence, reach for the box.
Here's the frosting that made the women in my family hog all the cake. This is a good place to start, but you can reduce the amount of sugar and add extra cream cheese for firmer, less sweet result. Warning, keep fingers out of the frosting to avoid spontaneous sugar-binging.
CREAM CHEESE FROSTING (single layer sheet)
• 1 stick butter, softened
• 1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
For a double layer cake,
add a 1/2 a stick of softened butter, 4 ounces of softened cream cheese, 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla, 1/8 teaspoon of salt.
Using a hand-mixer, beat softened butter and cream cheese on medium speed 2 to 3 minutes in a mixing bowl, scraping sides occasionally, until smooth and creamy. Stir in vanilla, then stir in powdered sugar. Once the sugar is incorporated, beat it with the mixer one more time for about a minute for consistency.
Spread over your favorite homemade or box-mix cake. Frosting can be refrigerated for about a week.