We had company the other night, one of Uriah's work associates who was in town to do some training. There were some cocktails and a lovely smoked chicken from the grill. There was lots of laughing and two little kiddos who went to bed long before the adults did. Mostly, though, there was Twinkie Cake.
I think it's safe to say that I love anything cake related. I have bestowed upon myself the unofficial title of Cake Connoisseur. We don't have cake very often...mostly just birthdays or if we have company, which also doesn't happen very often. But can I tell you what I love most about these Twinkie Cake pictures? Besides the actual eating of the cake, that is. The vintage 60's tint that I processed them with. They look like they belong in my Mom's old Betty Crocker cookbook:
Do you remember this cookbook? My Mom's fell apart years ago, and she had to get a new version, but we still have some of the pages that fell out of this copy stuffed in between the pages of her newer copy. When I was a little girl, I remember sitting at the kitchen table or laying on the living room floor, flipping through the pages of Betty Crocker. I would look at the pictures and imagine what we were going to make for dinner. I especially loved to look at the cookie recipes, the gingerbread men were always my favorite. My earliest memories are of baking with my Mom. Everything I learned about baking - and cooking, for that matter - I learned from her. I still request the Chocolate Chip Cake with Butterscotch Filling and Chocolate Icing for my birthday, the recipe of which came from this Betty Crocker cookbook. My Mom used to make it for me every year, then Emily made it for me for a couple of years when we lived in Kansas City and now I think Uriah is probably going to make it for me next week.
But I digress...even though I could probably talk about cake for hours. Instead, I will just get right to the point: Make this cake. It's like a grown up Twinkie. The original recipe called for a box cake, but I don't roll like that, so I made it with a sponge cake instead. I know that it seems like making a cake from scratch would would be a lot of work, but if you have a stand mixer or a hand-held mixer, this recipe is not that labor intensive. I'm lucky to have Beverly by my side for recipes like this.
And the filling? It truly does taste like Twinkie filling...actually, no. I take that back. It tastes better than Twinkie filling.
Classic Sponge Cake
Recipe makes one 9-inch round cake; you will need 2 cakes for this recipe.
This requires a stand mixer or a hand beater.
Recipe from Cooking by James Peterson (Berkley, California: Ten Speed Press, 2007).
- Room temperature butter and flour for preparing pan
- 3 eggs in their shells, soaked in enough warm water to cover for 10 minutes
- 6 tablespoons sugar
- ½ cup, plus 2 tablespoons cake flour*
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted
Preheat the oven to 350-degrees. Brush a 9-inch round cake pan with butter. Put a small handful of flour in the pan, tap the pan to coat with flour, then tap out the excess.
Crack the eggs into the mixer bowl, add the sugar and beat at high speed to the ribbon stage: when the beater is lifted, the mixture falls in a wide band onto the surface, forming a figure eight that stays for 5 seconds before dissolving. This will take about 4 minutes with a stand mixer and 20 minutes with a handheld mixer. If you beat by hand it’s going to take about 30 minutes.
Transfer the egg mixture to a large bowl to make folding easier. Sift the flour over the egg mixture while folding it in with a rubber spatula. In a smaller bowl, fold together the melted butter and about one-fifth of the egg mixture, and then fold this egg/butter mixture into the rest of the egg mixture. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan and gently smooth the top with an offset spatula.
Bake for about 25 minutes, or until the top springs back when pressed with a fingertip and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let the cake cool in the pan until cool enough to handle and then turn out onto a cake rack. Allow to cool completely.
*I didn’t have cake flour, so I substituted 1 tablespoon of cornstarch in the bottom of a ½ cup measuring cup and then filled it up with all-purpose flour. For the additional two tablespoons of cake flour that this recipe calls for, I substituted 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour and 1 teaspoon of cornstarch. I did sift my flour and cornstarch together. My cake was nice and spongy!
Twinkie Filling
- 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup water
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 tablespoons vanilla
- ½ cup shortening
Combine the flour and water in a saucepan over low heat. Cook until thick; cool well. Mix sugar, shortening, butter and vanilla. Add cooled flour mixture and beat until thick whipped cream texture. Spread generously on top of lower half of cake; place second cake layer over the filling and frost with remaining filling.
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