A Cake In Three Parts
- 3 TBS milk, room temperature
- 2 TBS warm water
- 2 tsp active dry yeast
- honey or other liquid sugar
- 6 TBS unsalted butter at room temperature
- 1/4 cup white sugar, scant
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 egg
- dash cinnamon (optional)
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 3/4 cups flour
Combine milk and water in small bowl; temperature should be approximately that of your wrist. Add yeast and stir until dissolved; drizzle small amount of honey into bowl, no more than 1/2 tsp. Set aside.
Cream butter, sugar, and salt. Beat in egg, cinnamon, and vanilla. Gradually beat in yeast mixture and flour, alternating. Sprinkle with 1 tsp warm water, cover with plastic wrap or clean hand towel and allow to rise for 2-3 hours, until doubles in size. (You can also allow it to sit overnight, in which case I recommend making the caramel and streusel first, and then simply assembling your cake in the morning.)
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar*
- 4 TBS butter
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3 TBS cream (if you don’t have enough cream, use milk + butter)
*You don’t have to use half brown sugar; I do because I like the flavor and the darker color it results in.
Melt sugar in dry saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring as little as possible. Once reaches a copper-y color, remove from heat and add butter, salt, and cream. Return to stove at medium heat and bring to simmer. Continue to cook until turns a few shades darker. Remove from heat. (You can also add a tsp or so of maple syrup at this point, as I did.)
Pour onto baking sheet lined w parchment paper and place in freezer.
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4-1/2 tsp cinnamon, depending on preference
- pinch each of nutmeg, allspice, ginger, and cardamom
- pinch of salt
- 1 stick cold butter
- 1 small egg or 1 tsp canola oil
Whisk together dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Cut in butter using pastry cutter or a sturdy fork. Mixture should be crumbly; don’t worry if there are clumps of butter remaining, so long as they’re not too big. Mix in egg. Set aside.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Remove caramel from freezer and use a knife to cut into roughly 1-2 inch chunks.
Stretch dough into greased 9 inch round springform pan. Sprinkle approximately 1/3 of streusel over dough, and then distribute roughly half of the caramel chunks over streusel. Pour remaining streusel into pan and add remaining caramel.
Cook for 30-45 min. Allow to cool for 20-30 minutes. Best served warm. This cake does not keep well, so it is your solemn duty to eat it all on the same day it was made.
For an interesting twist on this recipe, you can add various kinds of fruit to the topping layers before baking. My personal favorite is apple! This is a good impressing-the-company cake; if you're having someone over for breakfast/brunch, do all the prep work the night before, throw it in the oven when you get up, and tah-dah! Now your house smells nice and you have a deceptively simple cake with a pleasing rustic aesthetic and a caramel bite that'll knock 'em off their feet. Go ahead and play around with the amount of sugar in the cake itself, but bear in mind that as you lower the sugar you may want to add more liquid/something that will add moisture. This is a cake that tends to dry out fairly quickly anyways, so that's definitely something to be aware of.
Yeast cake and caramel recipes adapted from smitten kitchen, streusel recipe is my own.
cross-posted to tumblr, for reasons.