Miso-Maple Loaf and Everything Cake from Baking With Dorie
Here are three recipes excerpted from Baking with Dorie: Sweet, Salty, & Simple 2021 by Dorie Greenspan. Photography by Mark Weinberg. Reproduced by permission of Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
Miso-Maple Loaf
Makes about 10 servings
“If I owned a bed-and-breakfast, I’d make this my signature treat. Sturdy, coarse-crumbed (I say this with admiration), and on the brink of savory, the loaf is reminiscent of many crowd-pleasers. It may make you think of honey cake or gingerbread or banana bread, but in the end, it will never be anything other than itself—it’s an original.
“The miso and maple are less stand-out individual players than they are a team working together to create flavors that are robust, warm and mysterious. And, along with the recipe’s buttermilk, their moistness contributes to the bread’s lovely crumb, which is slightly open and very tender.
“I prefer white (shiro) miso here, but if you’re looking for a stronger flavor, you can use red. You can also switch the orange or tangerine zest for lemon, if you’d like.’
Ingredients:
1¾ cups (238 grams) all-purpose flour
2½ teaspoons baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¾ cup (150 grams) sugar
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
Finely grated zest of 1 orange or 2 tangerines
1 stick (8 tablespoons; 4 ounces; 113 grams) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
¼ cup (70 grams) white miso
¼ cup (60 ml) pure maple syrup
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup (80 ml) buttermilk (well shaken before measuring)
For the glaze (optional)
About ¼ cup (80 grams) orange marmalade or apricot jam
1 tablespoon water
Directions:
Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Butter an 8-inch loaf pan and dust with flour, or use baker’s spray. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, and baking soda.
Put the sugar, salt, and zest in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl that you can use with a hand mixer. Reach in and rub the ingredients together until the sugar is moist and fragrant; it may even turn orange. Add the butter, miso and maple syrup to the bowl. If using, attach the bowl to the mixer stand and fit it with the paddle attachment.
Beat on medium speed for about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beater(s) as needed, until you’ve got a smooth, creamy mixture. One by one, add the eggs, beating for a minute after each goes in. Beat in the vanilla. The mixture might curdle, but this is a temporary condition. Turn off the mixer, add the dry ingredients all at once and then pulse to begin the blending. Beat on low speed until the dry ingredients are almost incorporated. With the mixer still on low, pour in the buttermilk and blend well. Scrape the batter into the pan, working it into the corners and smoothing the top.
Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, checking the bread after 40 minutes and covering the top loosely with a foil or parchment tent if it’s browning too fast. The loaf is properly baked when it pulls away from the sides of the pan and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. The top will be flat—this bread doesn’t rise above the pan—and most likely cracked down the middle. Transfer the pan to a rack and let the bread rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the loaf and unmold onto the rack; turn it right side up.
If You’d Like to Glaze the Bread: Stir the marmalade or jam and water together and heat the mixture in the microwave or over low heat until it comes just to a boil. Using a pastry brush (or a spoon), cover the top of the loaf with the glaze. Allow the bread to cool to room temperature before slicing.
Storing: Wrapped well, the bread will keep for about 4 days at room temperature. If it stales—or maybe even if it doesn’t—toast it lightly before serving. If you haven’t glazed it, you can wrap it airtight and freeze it for up to 2 months; defrost, still wrapped, at room temperature.
The Everything Cake
Makes 8 servings
“I had trouble deciding on a name for this easy one-bowl cake that you mix by hand. It’s like a sponge cake, but moist and a smidge chewy; you taste the butter, but you wouldn’t call the cake rich, just good. Its beauty lies in its possibilities. You can flavor it by adding other ingredients to the batter or by infusing spices, herbs or tea into the melted butter that goes into it. It can welcome fruit, fresh or dried, either in the batter or on top of it (the fruit usually sinks, but that’s fine). It can be frosted—I like it with a confectioners’ sugar icing—or brushed with warm jam, or just sprinkled with sugar. It can be sliced and filled, and it’s nice with a topping of poached fruit, whipped cream or even hot fudge sauce. I’ve suggested a few ideas...but there are many more possibilities for you to discover on your own.” [The cookbook offers options for lemon, lime, orange, or tangerine cake. Also, appple or pear cake, berry cake, tea cake, spice cake, herb cake, boozy cake, and nut cake.]
For the Cake
Ingredients:
1½ cups (204 grams) all-purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking powder
1 cup (200 grams) sugar
3 large eggs, at room temperature
½ teaspoon fine sea salt
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
⅓ cup (80 ml) milk, at room temperature
1½ sticks (12 tablespoons; 6 ounces; 170 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
Confectioners’ Sugar Icing (see below) or Chocolate Icing (see below)
Sliced toasted almonds for sprinkling (optional)
Directions
To Make the Cake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9-inch round cake pan, or use baker’s spray. Whisk the flour and baking powder together.
Put the sugar in a large bowl and add the eggs and salt, whisking for a minute or two to get a homogenous mixture. Whisk in the vanilla and milk. Switch to a flexible spatula and stir in the dry ingredients. When they’re fully incorporated, gradually fold in the butter. Scrape the batter into the pan.
Bake the cake for 28 to 32 minutes, or until the top is set and golden, the cake is starting to pull away from the sides of the pan, and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer to a rack and let rest for 5 minutes, then run a table knife around the edges of the cake and unmold it onto the rack. Turn it right side up and let cool to room temperature.
If you want to ice the cake, do this when the cake is cool. If you’re using almonds, sprinkle them over the cake while the icing is still wet. Let the icing set at room temperature before serving.
Storing: Wrapped well, the cake will keep at room temperature for up to 4 days. If you haven’t iced the cake, it can be frozen, well wrapped, for up to 2 months; thaw in the wrapper.
Confectioners’ Sugar Icing
Makes about ½ cup
1 cup (120 grams) confectioners’ sugar (or more or less, depending on
what you want), sifted
About 1 tablespoon milk, water, lemon juice or other liquid
(or more or less, depending on what you want)
¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract (optional)
Put the confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl and little by little, work in the milk or other liquid with a flexible spatula. At first it will seem impossible that such a small amount of liquid could moisten all that sugar—just keep stirring. Add the vanilla, if you’re using it, and then, if you’d like a thinner icing, add more liquid by the drop. If the icing is too thin, add a little more sugar. For most jobs, an icing that falls slowly and steadily from the tip of a spoon is just right.
Storing: It’s best to use this icing as soon as it’s made.
Playing Around: Chocolate Icing
Mix 1 cup (120 grams) confectioners’ sugar and 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder together. Stir in 4 to 5 tablespoons water, depending on the thickness you want.