- Hey, I'm John Kanell,
and today on "Preppy Kitchen",
we're making a delicious spice cake,
perfect for the holidays.
So, let's get started.
First off, set your oven to 350.
Then, in a large bowl,
we're gonna combine 360 grams or three cups
of all-purpose flour with a couple other amazing things.
(bell ringing)
To leaven this delicious cake,
I need two teaspoons of baking powder.
Always check the expiration date on your canister.
If baking powder goes bad,
it really loses its potency
and it doesn't last as long as you think.
I also want 1/2 a teaspoon of baking soda,
1/2 a teaspoon of salt.
And now it's time for the spices,
starting with two teaspoons of ground cinnamon.
In this cake, I'm using some of my favorites,
but sometimes you wanna have the flavors
be a little bit more clear,
so you pull back some of the spices.
Sometimes you wanna have a rich melange,
so go ahead and use your favorites.
Two teaspoons of ground ginger, little bite,
1/2 a teaspoon of cloves,
a powerful and delicious, very Christmas-y spice.
I also want 1/2 a teaspoon of nutmeg.
This is a nutmeg nut.
You can use ground nutmeg if you'd like.
I always think that if you do it yourself,
it's a bit more like, get a little bit more flavor.
It smells amazing.
(John humming)
(nutmeg clanking)
(John laughing)
If you wanted to,
you could also add in a heaping 1/4 teaspoon of cardamom.
I would add in maybe 1/2 a teaspoon of allspice.
Those would be my two favorites to add,
but it's really up to you.
Okay.
Grab a whisk and we're gonna mix, mix, mix.
Whisk it up, it stays in the bowl.
And once those spices and leavening agents
and the salt are evenly distributed,
we can grab another large bowl
and get onto the wet ingredients.
Okay, here's the deal.
Taking my scale back, zeroing it out.
I do not like packing brown sugar
in the measuring cups anymore.
It clumps it up.
You're actually making giant clumps,
and it's so annoying.
So, we're gonna add this in and just weigh it out.
Oh my gosh, I was like, "What's in here?"
There's a marshmallow.
I was like, "I feel something, it's a finger!" (laughs)
No, they're just marshmallows.
Marshmallows help keep your brown sugar moist.
So, 440 grams, two cups packed brown sugar.
As it is, I can see there's some clumps,
so feel free to break those up with your hands.
I love the way brown sugar fuels on my hands,
but aside from that,
the clumps are really annoying to try and mix out,
so if you break them up now,
it'll be much easier later.
♪ 440 grams, the lumpy feel ♪
Oh, my gosh, this one is so lumpy in a freshly-opened bag.
Perfect!
Oh, my gosh, it's like the longest sequence ever.
Get rid of that scale for now.
1/2 a cup of buttermilk.
Buttermilk gives you a wonderful little bit of tang.
It also has an, it's also acidic,
so that means that it's gonna help inhibit
some of the gluten bonds from happening
and give you a more tender cake.
One cup of oil.
You can use any neutral oil that you prefer.
The nice thing about having oil in a cake versus butter,
and you know I love butter,
I'm never gonna speak badly about it,
is that it'll come out of the fridge and be perfectly soft.
If you have a butter-based cake,
you actually have to warm it up
in the microwave a little bit
or let it sit on the countertop for a while
until it's nice and room temp.
I also want one cup of applesauce.
I love having applesauce in my cake recipes.
It'll give you a little bit of apple flavor,
a lot of moisture,
and it lets you use less fat in the cake,
which is really just gonna give you a tender, moist cake
that will never be oily, mmm-mm.
I need four large room temperature eggs
cracked into a separate bowl.
I don't wanna have any shells, not in my cake.
I've gotten so paranoid about shells lately
just because I was making scrambled eggs one day,
and a shell got in there.
And it's, ugh, it was the worst thing ever!
Sometimes you get an egg that's just kind of crumbly.
It just shatters into a thousand pieces.
Okay, grab your whisk
and we're gonna whisk these wet ingredients up.
We're gonna add one teaspoon of vanilla in
just to gild the lily.
It'll add a little bit of depth of flavor,
and I can never say no to vanilla.
If you wanna omit it, you totally could.
You could also add in a teaspoon or two of bourbon or rum
for a little bit of extra flavor.
Oh, my gosh, that smells so good!
Time to combine the wet and the dry.
This is such an easy cake.
There's no need for a mixer.
That really means it's perfect for little ones
to help you in the kitchen,
if you'd like them to.
Add the wet to the dry.
I spy with my little eye
some clumps of brown sugar that made it through.
I'm not even gonna bother with them.
Set those aside.
You can add it to your cake.
It'll be fine.
Those'll make little sugar voids
and you'll get these big, sweet holes,
so I'd rather not.
I want a homogenous mixture.
Gonna stir this together until it's almost combined.
Just scrape the bottom with your whisk as you turn,
and go slow.
If you overmix the batter,
you know it's gonna be a dense,
does not melt in your mouth cake.
You don't wanna activate the protein in the flour.
Oh, my gosh, but the smell.
Ooh, those spices!
It's so nice.
A couple of additions you could do to this batter,
by the way,
I would say some toasted pecans or walnuts
that are chopped finely would be really nice.
If you wanted to have a little bit
of candied ginger in here, that's an option, too.
Okay, let's see.
I don't see any flour.
It looks nice and smooth.
It's time to distribute the batter into two nine-inch pans.
Give them a little spray.
You could use butter if you wanted to,
but this'll work just fine.
And by the way, this batter is so loose,
it'll bake up nice and flat.
But if you wanted to, you could use cake strips.
You'll just increase the bake time of it.
These guys go into the oven 30 minutes at 350
or until the centers are springy to the touch,
and while they bake,
we're gonna make a luscious cream cheese frosting.
For the frosting, I'm adding one cup or 226 grams
of room-temperature unsalted butter,
although you could use salted for this, really,
if you want to have little touch of contrast.
Eight ounces or 226 grams of softened cream cheese.
Yeah!
Let's cream this up really quickly
and get the cream cheese all mixed in with the butter.
Then we can add our powdered sugar and vanilla in.
(bright music)
Nice, smooth, and fluffy.
I'm gonna scrape the bowl down just to make sure
there's no bit of cream cheese or butter lurking around.
And then we can add in our six cups of powdered sugar
slowly in a few batches.
That's six cups or 720 grams.
Mix on low.
I wouldn't mind a little pinch of salt.
So, optional, but have at it.
This is all mixed in.
Let's add the remaining three cups of powdered sugar.
There we go.
Cream cheese frosting is soft, luscious, and amazing,
but it's soft.
So, I'm gonna show you how to decorate this cake
to hide the imperfections when we get to that step.
For now, keep mixing until it's fully combined.
Then scrape the bowl down,
and we're gonna mix one more time.
Nice and creamy.
I'm gonna add in 1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla.
Then it's time to give it one final scrape-down.
Look at this frosting, though.
Ah, it looks so nice.
Scrape-down successful.
Mix one more time.
And just like that, we can assemble our cake.
My cake layers are cool, my frosting is creamy,
so that can only mean it's time to assemble.
And by the way, look at that layer.
Oh, my gosh, it's some perfect flat magic.
Center it up.
I'm gonna add one cup of frosting right on top.
One, 2/3, one cup.
Spread that out.
Okie-dokie.
Add the next layer on.
Ooh!
And now we're gonna completely cover the cake in frosting.
And because this is a really loose,
luscious cream cheese frosting,
I'm probably gonna do a nice swoopy moment.
The spicy amazingness coming off this cake is so good!
Ah, here's the deal.
The easiest way to decorate a cake with frosting like this
is just to swoop it down to the sides
and let gravity help you out.
Gravity is your friend today.
Get a mostly flat layer,
then
just let gravity pull the frosting down.
And you can do some corrections,
but the main thing is
you don't wanna scrape the cake and bring it up.
You wanna bring the frosting down.
That way you won't get crumbs on your tool.
♪ La-la-la ♪
One of the nice things about a swoopy cake
is it's a total trick.
It makes you think,
"Oh, my gosh, this cake is covered in inches of frosting!"
But it's actually a really thin layer
and it's just a trick of the cake decorator
to make it look like there's more.
♪ Do-do-do-do-do ♪
Just be patient, don't try and rush it.
My cake's completely covered.
Now for the fun part.
Grab your spatula,
and you're gonna just swoop your little heart out.
You wanna have big, bold swoops
that cut into the frosting
almost until it changes color to be the color of the cake.
That way, you can get a lot of height and drama
and everything else cool happening,
and people are like,
"Oh, my gosh, that cake looks amazing.
"I want a bite."
(bright music)
Well, well, well!
That looks pretty luxurious and swoopy,
if I don't say so myself.
I think this, I'm gonna clean the edge up,
but I think it might look nice with just
a little tiny bit of spice on top
to remind people this is an amazing spice cake.
Give your cake a cut and you're ready to enjoy.
So soft, oh my gosh!
Full of spices, creamy, luscious, and amazing.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
And if you like this video, check out my holiday playlist.