Author Archives: Rick

About Rick

Born in 1979, Rick started cooking when he wanted to eat pancakes way more often than his mom wanted to make them. Since being allowed to cook at the age of 10, he's slowly worked his way into becoming able to cook a meal without causing someone to go to the hospital.

Bacon and cake, together at last

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So, as promised, bacon cake.

I should start off by discussing the origins.  A couple years ago, while at Otakon with some friends, I made a Kahlua cake for my friends.  They all enjoyed it, and we discussed just what kind of outrageous cakes I could make.  It was universally agreed that the most ludicrous thing I could make was bacon cake – how could I possibly make that taste good?

The thing is, when I was on my way home, I answered that question in my head.  Thereafter, it became a bit of a joke amongst my friends – oh, yeah, bacon cake, when would I ever be crazy enough to make that?  Even if the theories I had were sound, who would even eat it?

Fast forward to earlier in 2012, and the a brewery announced that they’d be doing a series of cooking competitions.  I had heard about their 2011 competition, but my local date was right around when I was moving to a new house, so I was too busy to compete.  When they announced that they were coming around again, I prepared to come up with a really great pie recipe (the focus of the last local challenge), when it was announced that they’d be doing cake this year instead.

Me?  In a cake competition?  Oh, yes.

Anyhow, I teamed with a friend who did the pie competition last year, and we started tossing forth ideas.  There was one tragically funny incident with mint cake (I’ll go into that another time), but for the most part, we felt like we were hitting against walls.  Then my friend said something that changed everything.

“It’s a shame we can’t do a meat cake of some sort.  Last year, the meat-based pies were the ones that did the best in the competition, and we’d have even less competition in that regard this year.”

I just kind of sat there, slack-jawed.  I remembered the bacon cake.  I told him about the bacon cake.  And yes, the lack of sanity of such a thing was noted.  But we also sat and noted… it could work.  It’d be the least healthy cake in existence, which is saying a whole lot.  But the culinary theories behind it made sense.

So, I put together the first draft of this bacon cake.  I kept it simple; none of the bells and whistles that would be involved in a competition cake.  Besides not wanting to put that much effort in at once, I had to know if the theory was sound.

And somehow, it was.  It has the texture of a slightly dense but very soft cake, sweet yet blended with the unmistakable flavor of bacon.  Both sweet and savory come out in this cake without clashing or becoming muddled.

Since this is for a competition, I’m holding off on giving out the recipe until after it’s done.  But still, for good or ill, bacon cake exists.  Heaven help us all.

Booze cake and I – best friends forever

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Truth be told, I don’t drink alcohol at all.  It’s a personal thing; I don’t begrudge anyone else their drinks.  I just don’t partake myself.

To others who cook a lot, I often get an initial reaction of bewilderment.  It’s said that there are two types of chefs – those who are alcoholics and those who are in AA.  And it is true that there are some liquors out there that give amazing flavors to what they’re paired with.

So, I just bake with them.  Between the serving sizes cutting the volume and how much gets baked off, I never have to worry about dealing with alcohol’s physiological effects. I learned this from my mom, who taught me many years ago how to make her holiday rum cake, which was perennially a holiday favorite.

That said, I asked my mom ages ago why she only made it around Christmas, and why only rum.  She admitted that she just never thought about doing it any other way.  So I decided to experiment a bit on my own.

The process itself is fairly easy, though you do need to tweak your recipes.  The problem with alcohol is that it will evaporate faster than water.  If there’s nothing to keep the moisture in the cake at all, it’ll dry out.  The secret is actually use some variety of custard or pudding in the cake mix (proportioned for the amount of milk used in the recipe).  That will trap the water in the milk better, so as to allow the cake to stay moist.

To be fair, there is a downside to this method – cakes will come out denser.  That said, when dealing with an alcohol cake, portion smaller, because it will fill you up fast.

Of course, the fun part, once you get the basics down, is that it really works well for multiple types of alcohol… and can be paired with multiple types of pudding.  I find that the alcohols like bourbon or rum, where it’s fermented primarily without fruit flavors, work excellent with chocolate or butterscotch.  I’m particularly proud of my chocolate butterscotch bourbon cake – I think it’s one of the best I make.

The flip side is that fruity alcohols go great with either caramel, vanilla, or fruity pudding.  Perhaps the strangest cake, prior to tonight’s experiments, was a banana cream Midori cake.  For all the strange combinations going on in that cake, it came out like a tropical fruit punch in a cake, and it went over quite well.

As for tonight’s experiment?  To give you a teaser for next time – bacon cake.  Oh yes.

Welcome to my new food blog

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Hey, my name is Rick, and I love to cook.

Thing is, I probably watch too much about various food competitions and experiments.  So I’ve been out to try my own.  For the sake of the curious, and friends who wish to follow along, I’ve decided to blog about what I’m doing.

Not everything will work, but I’m hoping the experiments will be informative and entertaining.  Sure, for every instance like dessert pesto, there will be my utter inability to turn oatmeal into patties.  But you don’t know what you can do until you’ve really tried everything.

Also, if you have any ideas on what you want to see me try to make, leave a comment.  If it’s sufficiently intriguing, I’ll give it a try and post about it afterwards.