Jill OConnor - Cake, I love you: decadent, delectable, and do-able recipes

For Olivia and Sophia: You are both my sweet inspiration; every day with the two of you is filled with buttercream and chocolate sprinkles and joy.

For Jim: You make me laugh just as hard today as you did the day I met you thank you for showing me that with a sense of humor, even lifes little catastrophes can be crafted into a delicious story.

And in memory of my father, who taught me that the sweetest recipe for a life well-lived starts with love.

Text copyright 2017 by Jill OConnor.

Photographs copyright 2017 by Leigh Beisch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher.

ISBN 9781452153940 (epub, mobi)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Names: OConnor, Jill, author.
Title: Cake, I love you : decadent, delectable, and do-able recipes / Jill OConnor.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2017. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016025898 | ISBN 9781452153803 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Cake. | BISAC: COOKING / Methods / Baking. | COOKING / Courses & Dishes / Cakes. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.
Classification: LCC TX771.O29 2017 | DDC 641.86/53dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016025898

Designed by Alice Chau.
Illustrations by Jordan Sondler.

Food styling by Robyn Valarik.
Prop styling by Sara Slavin.

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Its no secret that I love cake. At different times, its been my best friend, my muse, and, when I am on a diet, my kryptonite. I think there is no fragrance more heavenly than the smell of pound cake baking, and that everything good and right and wonderful in the world starts with the words, cream together the butter and sugar.

Ive been baking for as long as I can remember, and my favorite dessert to bake by far has always been cake.

There is something inherently festive and special about a homemade cake, from the simplest loaf of banana cake sprinkled with confectioners sugar to a towering triple-layer chocolate fudge cake filled with pastry cream and caramel, slathered with buttercream, and dripping in chocolate ganache. I remain convinced that the addition of a cake, no matter how humble, can make the most mundane event feel like a party.

When I was in the second grade, my mother brought home a huge burnt almond cake from our neighborhood bakery to celebrate my first communion. The delicate vanilla-scented cake layers were frosted with a creamy German buttercreama heart-skipping concoction of rich pastry cream rendered airy and silken by whipping in lots of butter. Encrusted in caramelized almonds, with big white frosting roses crowded into the corners, it was an imposing beauty. But what impressed me the most was the giant, pressed-sugar chalice brushed with gold, and moonlike communion wafer that floated on top of the cake. I barely remember the important events of the day, but I do remember circling that cake, like a fox circling a chicken coop, through most of my party. I indulged my grandparents as they planted congratulatory kisses on my cheek, but remained transfixed and slightly obsesseduntil my mother cut the cake. She handed me a corner piece with a fat frosting rose and another small plate holding the sugar chalice and communion wafer. I was awed, and a bit confused. Do I eat them? Do I save them? Were they, in fact, holy? This last question remained unanswered, as temptation got the better of me and I crunched my way through the chalice by the end of the day. Holy? Well, I saved the communion wafer, wrapped in a cocktail napkin, for about a week, until my mother told me to eat it or throw it away before the ants got to it.

To this day, I still find cake slightly magical, and in all its many flavors, shapes, and sizes, worthy of my obsessive attention. Ever since that transcendent burnt-almond cake, Ive realized that in so many of my memories, of both the big events and the little everyday moments, there is usually cake.

I wooed my husband with dark chocolate black-bottom cupcakes while we were datingtheir rich, robust exterior hiding a sweet and creamy cheesecake heart that said more than I could with words at the time. When our daughters were born (their taste buds genetically programmed to adore everything sweet), cake was always a happy part of their everyday lives. For big events like their birthdays, their cakes matched the birthday party theme. There was a chocolate cake shaped like a bowling ball; a lemon sheet cake carved into an artists palette, complete with colorful dollops of frosting paint; and a honey cake shaped like a beehive and frosted in loopy swirls of honey buttercream with little marzipan bees buzzing around it.

When my oldest daughter had to create a 3-D model of an animal cell in sixth grade, I helped her carve it out of cream-cheese pound cake, piping everything from the mitochondria to the ribosomes in colorful royal icing. I think it was the first completely edible cell her teacher had ever seen. When my youngest daughter turned ten and started playing softball, I wanted to participate with the other parents, but my knowledge of the game wouldnt fill a teacup, so I did what I always doI baked. Every week there were chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, cupcakes, slices of banana bread, or pumpkin muffins, but my most popular offering, hands down, was the New Yorkstyle crumb cake I brought to one gamebig squares of tender sour-cream coffee cake covered in big chunks of sweet, rocky, brown sugar crumble.

Of course, I am not the only one who thinks a cake equals a party. Birthdays and weddings, graduation days and baby showers wouldnt be the same without a luscious cake bedecked and festooned in layers of buttercream and sprinkles and flowers and candles, holding a place of honor to symbolize the importance of the occasion.

Everyone loves cake, in one form or another, and they always will. Life is too short to live on kale, kombucha, and quinoa alone. This book is my unapologetic love letter to cake, in all its sweet, gorgeous, indulgent, and celebratory glory. In these pages, I serve up an irresistible, eclectic, and multilayered homage to the goodness of cake, with a collection of recipes for baking both simple and elaborate but always delicious and beautiful cakes at home.

The chapters are divided by flavors, focusing on the ones we love most, from banana to coconut to chocolate to caramel to lemon, all dolled up with nuts and spicesand the occasional splash of spirits to make things interesting.

Each flavor-centric chapter begins with a few simple recipes for snack cakes, loaf cakes, coffee cakes, and single-layer cakes, such as the Banana-Butterscotch Loaf , that might require a stand mixer, multiple cake pansand maybe even a candy thermometerto produce a dazzling showstopper of a cake that will light up any celebration table.

When you cant decide which cake to make, look for the crowd-pleaser stamp of approval. Every chapter features one classic, iconic favorite you can turn to again and again with confidence.

Whether youre looking for an extravagant birthday cake dripping in caramel and covered in chocolate curls or just a simple loaf of lemon cake to serve with your morning coffee,