Blue Cornmeal Cake

~ Mary ~

Oh! doesn’t everyone love cake!? Here we go with another winner from Sky High Cakes.  It can be made with regular yellow cornmeal, but isn’t it prettier with blue?  Well, blue is a tad harder to find.  I searched high and low, in every grocery store, in my hispanic neighborhood.  Not until I asked John to pick some up in New Mexico did I finally find it.  Oh well, at least I know now where to get it next time.

This cake really does not need the white frosting at all.  It should be served/made with just Dulce de Leche between the layers.  And I have it, at my beck and call, thanks to Nestle.

One more interesting thing about the cake is that it has a teaspoon of Chile Arbol – which lends an interesting afterthought to each bite.

Some other triple layer cakes you might enjoy:
Strawberry Butter ~ Mango Mousse ~  Tiramisu
Heaven & Hell ~ Peachy Keen
German Chocolate ~ Chocolate Peanut Butter Salute
Kahlua Mexican Chocolate ~ Lane Cake

Blue Cornmeal Cake

adapted from Sky High Cakes

In food processor combine and process until the pecans are finely chopped:

3/4 Cup Pecans

1 3/4 Cup Cake Flour

2/3 Cup Blue Cornmeal

2 tsp Baking Powder

2 tsp Cinnamon

1 tsp Ground Chile Arbol OR 1/2 tsp cayenne

1 tsp Salt

1 1/2 Cups Sugar

Transfer to a large mixing bowl and make a well in the center and add:

8 Egg YOLKS

1 1/2 Cups Buttermilk

4 Tbsp Melted Butter

optional to add a couple drops of red and blue food coloring – this gave it a more pronounced blue coloring (blue alone made it green).

Mix all ingredients together well with a whisk.

With an electric mixer in a clean bowl beat until stiff peaks form.

8 Egg WHITES

I found it easier to whip these up 4 whites at a time.  You DO NOT want to add any runny extras, from the bottom of the bowl, to your cake!

Fold in a quarter of the stiff egg whites, at a time,  into your batter slowly and gently. Once incorporated pour equal amounts into three greased and floured 8″ cake pans.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until the center of the cake, when stuck with a toothpick, comes out clean and the edges pull away from the side of the pan.

Cool completely and “frost” Dulce de Leche between each layer.

If you want the white frosting – a simple Buttercream one will do: 1 Cup Butter whipped up with 1 tsp Vanilla and 4-5 Cups Powdered Sugar.  But as I mentioned before, this cake really only needs the Dulce de Leche.

Top with:

Quick Brittle

put 1 Cup Sugar in heavy pan over medium heat

Stir constantly as it starts to melt

Keep stirring!

continue stirring and turn temperature to medium low – you DO NOT want to burn the sugar!  SLOW YOUR ROLL!

Once it’s all melted throw in a handful of Whole Pecans

Dump onto a silpat liner and spread out quickly before it hardens.

Once completely cooled, lift off liner and break into pieces.

If you don’t have a liner be sure to grease or butter your pan WELL!