"streusel" news and stories

I'm a big fan of recipes that combine at least four or more ingredients that they are decadent enough to begin with, but combined, create this magical, sugar coma-inducing masterpiece, much like the one you see above. They're the kind of treats that are so sugary, so powerful, that you widen your eyes and suck in your cheeks in shock at the first bite. That shocks soon wears off into utter delight, and you're lost in a sugary heaven.

Whew. And then I wake up.

Seriously, though these Carmelita bars from Eddybles look amazing. The pretty toasty white parts atop the treat are the streusel topping. And the only slightly daunting part looks to be unwrapping 48 of those little caramel cubes (and making sure you don't burn them on top of the stove). If you really wanted to be bad, you could substitute the suggested bittersweet or semisweet chips for milk chocolate, to achieve that cheek-sucking reaction I described above.

No. that isn't a typo in the title. Yesterday was March 14th, which, in abbreviated form, is 3.14 (feel free to add the 1592653589793238... if you so desire), better known to us non-mathematicians simply as Pi.

As is usually the tradition here at Slashfood, we are willing to turn just about any circumstance into something to celebrate, so why should Pi Day be any exception? Fortunately for us, the blogosphere was full of others who jumped on this bandwagon as well. In fact, Kitchen Parade collected submissions all week, resulting in dozens of mouth-watering pie recipes all linked up on one page.

So without further ado, following are my top eight favorites, which I will be putting on my "need to make" list. (Corresponding photos can be found in the gallery at the bottom of the page after the jump.)

Now that you have finished your cake, let's review the steps. You read your recipe carefully, preheated the oven, made the streusel, greased the pan, creamed the butter, added the eggs, finished the batter and baked it. It's time to taste it.

The cake is moist, rich and delicious. It isn't a light, spongy cake, but it is very tender and does not seem heavy or dense. I don’t know if I’ve ever had a cake with this much streusel on it – in fact, there was nearly as much streusel as batter in the recipe! I loved how simply pressing the streusel mixture into big chunks before spreading it on the cake resulted in professional looking and tasting topping. Aside from the hitch with the incorrect baking time being given in the recipe, I didn’t have any problems and found the recipe to be easy to follow. This cake is a little too rich for everyday breakfast, but it is a great choice for special occasions and is classic comfort food. The recipe says this serves 10-12, but I far prefer to cut it into 16 smaller slices.

Thanks for watching this "episode" of Cooking Live with Slashfood!

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Put your finished cake into the preheated 350F oven and bake. Martha's recipe says that this will take only 50 minutes, but mine took quite a bit longer, which is hardly surprising given the size of the cake. Perhaps it is not the ingredients or method, but instead the baking time that causes people so many problems when they are working with recipes published by Martha Stewart Living. It is also possible that more people enjoy raw cake batter than I previously imagined. Unless you, too, enjoy raw batter, I suggest that you always perform the "toothpick" test or simply bake until the cake springs back to make sure that your cake is finished. When a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean, it is done.

After the cake has cooled slightly, you need to turn it out of the pan and onto the cooling rack. Run a sharp knife around the around the outer and inner edges of the pan. Remove tube portion with cake attached. Run knife over the bottom, loosening the cake. Gently replace cake in pan high-sided pan, which will support it as you turn it upside down. Place a clean dishtowel on top of pan and a baking sheet on top of that. Carefully flip pan over, turning cake out onto the baking sheet. Reinvert onto wire rack. Allow to cool completely.

 Once the cake has baked at 350F for 60-70 minutes and a tester has come out clean, you're almost done. Move the cake to a wire rack to cool for 15 minutes. After loosening the cake with a knife, carefully turn it out onto a baking sheet and reinvert it onto you wire cooling rack. Cool completely.

There is only one more things to do.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]

Once your eggs have been added, alternately add the yogurt (or buttermilk) and the flour mixture. Adding ingredients alternately allows for thorough and even incorporation without over mixing, which can make the resulting cake tough, not soft. In any recipe that calls for you to alternate or add ingredients in multiple additions, you should make sure to end with an addition of dry ingredients. This is the easiest way to tell that you have mixed well enough, because you are finished as soon as all the flour has been incorporated into the batter. Don't forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as you mix.

Add the yogurt and flour alternately to the creamed butter/egg mixture. Scrape half of your batter into the greased, 10-inch tube pan that you prepared earlier. Smooth batter with a spatula and top with 2 ½ cups of streusel mixture. Scrape remaining batter into pan, on top of streusel, gently spreading it to the sides of the pan with your spatula. Use your fingers to squeeze remaining streusel together into large and small chunks, then top batter with all remaining streusel. It's time to bake the cake.

[Photo by Nicole Weston]