Hello Everyone and welcome to a very special post as today officially marks the 1-year anniversary of my food blog! I started up this food blog exactly a year ago during spring break, and instead of slaving away on the many assignments/projects I had at that time, I decided to spontaneously start up a blog, out of pure procrastination really. Since it was quite spontaneous, I didn’t quite put much effort into it in the beginning, as in I wasn’t bothered to purchase my own domain name, and buy a theme and customise it. I wasn’t sure of how long I’d be able to keep up with this blog (because I have tried many times and failed). I am happy that I am able to finally keep one up and running, posting 3 times a week, almost.

For the next few months or so, I will work on developing an aesthetic and a colour scheme for my blog that reflects who I am as a person – not just one who loves to cook and is passionate about all things food, but also my personality and my design style. The pink and brown was sort of a “yeah that will do for now” because it fit the default theme that I picked (which was more like “I prefer this theme that the others I’ve seen”). Anyway, so to celebrate my blog turning 1 today, I decided to bake a cake for this occasion. I wanted to bake a citrus poppyseed cake at first but for some reason, lemons were nowhere to be found in every supermarket and market that I went to. Instead, I found another recipe that stood out to me – Vermont Maple-Pecan Cake. Why I chose to attempt this cake was because I already had maple syrup in the fridge and CREAM CHEESE; like who could say no to cream cheese?!

The quantities from the original recipe that can be found on Taste of Home, makes two 6-inch round cake layers, but since my baking pans were about 8.5-inches, I decided to double the recipe until I realised that I should’ve tripled it when I poured the batter into the pans; they barely filled halfway. So I made another batch to top them off. Therefore, the quantities below have been tripled from the original to make two 8.5-inch round cake layers. Once again, Happy Anniversary to Amcarmen’s Kitchen!

PREP TIME 20 MINS | COOKING TIME 20-25 MINS | SERVES 8-10

INGREDIENTS

For the cake batter

• 2 & 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1 & 1/2 cup buttermilk*
• 1 cup toasted pecans, roughly chopped
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 170g unsalted butter, melted
• 1 & 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 3/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup finely chopped pecans, toasted

For the frosting

• 1 package (250g) cream cheese, softened
• 100g unsalted butter, softened
• 1 & 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 4 tbsp maple syrup

• Toasted pecan halves, to decorate

*I could not find any buttermilk at the supermarket, so I made my own by using a tablespoon of white vinegar for every cup of milk. Set it aside for about 5 minutes for the milk to react to the vinegar. You can also substitute the vinegar for lemon juice.

METHOD

1. Preheat the oven to 180C (350F or gas mark 4).
2. Grease two 8.5-inch cake pans with a little butter and set aside
3. For the cake batter: Combine the plain flour, sugars, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, combine the buttermilk, butter, syrup, and vanilla, and stir into dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in chopped pecans.
4. Pour into the prepared pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the centre comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing the cakes from the pans to wire racks to cool down completely.
5. For the frosting: Using an electric handheld mixer, beat the cream cheese, butter, and maple syrup in a small bowl until smooth. Then beat in the confectioners’ sugar.
6. Assembly: Place one cake layer on a serving plate and spread with about 1/2 cup of frosting. Top with the second layer of cake and frost the top and sides of the cake. Decorate with toasted pecan halves and store in the fridge before serving. Enjoy!

BON APPÉTIT

– Ally xx