My cousin decided to take a year and bake through Martha Stewart's cupcake book. The end of the year is quickly approaching (and she was asked to supply cupcakes for a friend's wedding), so she reached out to see if others would help her reach her goal. I volunteered. I chose these cakes, and they didn't quite turn out like the picture but tasted great.
Orange zest was nice addition to regular batter
In the background of this picture you will see beaten egg whites. The way to get successful fluffy whites is to make sure your bowl and beaters are very clean and the egg whites are room temp. You can always add a pinch of cream of tarter to stabilize. When I need beaten egg whites, I always do those FIRST and then cream the other stuff, without bothering to clean the beaters. The only trick is that you have to assemble the ingredients quickly or your white will lose their fluff.
I threw all the dry ingredients into the sifter
Used my leftover butter paper to prep my dishes. You can always put a hunk of butter on the paper if you think it needs more spread.
I put a layer down of the batter, jam in the middle and then batter around the edges and over the top.
It came out the perfect consistency with a crunchy crust on top. We ate these still slightly warm (which is the only way to eat cake if you ask me) and they were delicious. I would have been just as delighted with them without the frosting.
As you can see, the whole jam thing didn't quite work out. I felt like I put a nice amount of batter on the bottom so I am not sure what went wrong. It was a dang good fruit-on-the-bottom jam cake though!
Cheers.
