This weeks recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie is Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake. At our house it is a cake to enjoy throughout the week. This was such an easy recipe. We had all of the ingredients at home. We even had leftover cream we could use from the ice cream we attempted to make the day before. My daughter had bought an ice cream maker with some gift cards that she had and was anxious to try out the machine. Unfortunately, we missed the part of the instructions that said the bowl needed to freeze for 36 hours before using. So our first attempt was not perfect, however we froze the concoction anyway and it was still quite tasty.
Fortunately, we had a much better outcome with the cake. We followed the directions exactly as written in the book and produced a delicious cake. We started by browning the butter. I had never browned butter before. It was quite easy. It took us the full 10 minutes as described in the book. The butter turned a beautiful honey-brown color and was very fragrant.
We mixed this cake by hand, how nice to not have to clean a mixer. We did not have vanilla beans. But, we did have a brand new bottle of vanilla that we brought back from Mexico and were dying to use. It added a great flavor to the cake.
It looks like a beautiful pound cake, but only had one stick of butter instead of one pound we would normally use in a pound cake. (So, it must be a healthy alternative.) This cake is delicious on its own and even better topped with the ice cream creation we made. After a few days we cut slices of this cake and toasted it, it was even better toasted!
The full recipe can be found on page 6 of Dorie Greenspan's Book, Baking Chez Moi.
