Rodney Scott - Rodney Scotts World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day

DESSERTS

Angie Mos Cracklin Layer Cake

All kids have a favorite flavor of birthday cake. For me, it was always yellow cake with chocolate icing. One time, a FatBack Collective event took place around my birthday. Angie Mosierfriend, baker, photographer, confidantecame up with this Rodney-fied version of a birthday cake for me.

While she was assembling it, she happened to be snacking on some of our pork skins and got a brilliant idea of connecting the salty, umami pork cracklins to the sweet frosting. She ended up decorating the cake with pork skins. It was a big salty-sweet hit with the FatBack Collective. Im willing to bet itll be a big hit with your friends, too.

You will need three 9-inch round cake pans to make this cake. If you only have two pans, bake off two layers at the same time, setting the remaining batter aside. Then then bake off the remaining layer.

Makes one 9-inch three-layer cake

Butter and flour, for greasing the pans

For the yellow cake

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

4 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 cups sugar

For the chocolate icing

10 ounces semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped into small pieces

3 sticks (12 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 cups powdered sugar (about 1 pounds)

4 to 5 tablespoons whole milk or half-and-half

For assembly

2 cups cracklins (see )

Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans.

Make the yellow cake: In a large bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking powder. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla.

In a stand mixer with the paddle (or in a bowl with a hand mixer), cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add about one-third of the flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix on medium speed until just blended. Add half of the milk mixture, mixing until theres no flour visible. Repeat alternating the flour and milk mixtures, ending with the final one-third of the flour mixture, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed. Mix until all the ingredients are well incorporated and there are no visible lumps (do not overmix). Divide the batter evenly into the prepared pans.

Bake until a cake tester or toothpick inserted into the center of each pan comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 5 minutes before flipping them out onto wire cooling racks to cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the chocolate icing: Bring an inch or two of water to a boil in a medium saucepan. Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set the bowl over the saucepan (the bottom of the bowl shouldnt touch the water). Reduce the heat to a simmer and stir the chocolate occasionally until it is completely melted. (This can also be done in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave by using 15-second blasts and stirring the chocolate after each blast.) Set the melted chocolate aside and allow to cool slightly (but not back to solid).

In a stand mixer with the paddle (or in a large bowl with a hand mixer), cream the butter, salt, and vanilla together on high speed until smooth, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl as needed. With the mixer on low speed, start adding the powdered sugar gradually, allowing the butter and sugar to cream together before adding more, and stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides as you go. The mixture should look a little dry at this point. With the mixer running, slowly pour in the melted chocolate, scraping down the sides well to incorporate the chocolate completely. Start adding the milk 1 tablespoon at a time and beating on medium-high speed until you get a creamy texture that still has enough body to frost the cake without it running off. Be careful not to add too much milkjust add it 1 tablespoon at a timebecause it is difficult to get the proper texture back once too much liquid is added. The icing can be made ahead and refrigerated. When you are ready to use it, you will have to remove it from the refrigerator, let it come back to room temperature, and beat it again with the mixer.

Assemble the cake: Place one of the cooled cake layers on a cake plate or cardboard cake round. Spread some icing on the top of the first round and then top with another cake layer. Spread more icing on the top of that layer and then add the final layer of cake on top. Frost the top and sides of the cake with the remaining icing and create some texture by using your icing spatula to swirl the frosting.

Surround the bottom border of the cake with cracklins and place some of the rinds on the top. (Alternatively, the pork rinds can be crushed up and sprinkled on top of the cake or pressed into the sides.)

Apple Hand Pies

The closest thing I had to hand pies made from scratch when was a kid was the apple turnover at Hardees. I wasnt even a big fan of those until one day in about 1989, I was hanging with my cousin Curly and we both ordered the turnovers and strawberry milkshakes. I fell in love with them that day. I got to the point where I ate two turnovers and a strawberry milkshake every morning for breakfast. Thank goodness my metabolism was in the left lane then, speeding along the highway of life! This recipe takes everything I loved about fried pies from fast-food restaurantsflaky crust, sweet fruit with a little lemon juice kickand makes it much, much better. I adapted it from my friend Lisa Marie Donovan. She used to be the pastry chef at Husk in Nashville. When it comes to Southern pastries, shes dah bomb!

Note that the hand-pie dough needs to chill for 3 hours before rolling. While the dough is in the fridge, you can bake and chill the apples, too.

Makes 12 hand pies

For the hand-pie dough

3 sticks (12 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces

Ice

2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons Diamond Crystal kosher salt

For the filling

4 to 5 apples (I like a mix of Honeycrisp and Granny Smith), cored and diced into 1-inch chunks (about 5 cups)

cup apple juice

1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice

cup granulated sugar

cup packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

teaspoon vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract

Pinch of ground cinnamon

For baking

1 large egg

Flour, for the work surface

Granulated sugar

Make the hand pie dough: Place the cubed butter in a bowl and in the refrigerator while you prepare the dry ingredients. Fill a tall glass with ice and add at least cup water.