The Surprising Method I Use to Recreate Sara Lee’s Iconic Espresso Cake (and Make It Even Higher)

For so long as I can bear in mind, my father has hosted Christmas brunch yearly. The menu has remained comparatively unchanged: My dad at all times fries up a pile of crispy bacon and my aunt Zapote at all times bakes her signature quiche Lorraine. The one factor lacking these days is the Sara Lee pecan espresso cake my grandmother introduced when she was alive.

With its tender crumb, candy cinnamon filling, and toasted pecan topping, the cake was a scrumptious and far anticipated a part of our household’s vacation traditions, and nobody appeared to thoughts that it wasn’t home made. What I bear in mind most about that Sara Lee cake, which is made within the fashion of Danish brunsviger—a calmly sweetened yeasted espresso cake that’s usually eaten for breakfast or alongside a cup of espresso—is its gentle, pillowy texture. Since my grandmother’s demise, no person else has introduced the beloved cake to our Christmas gathering.

Although the traditional Sara Lee cake was as soon as simply discovered within the freezer aisle of most grocery shops, it’s a lot more durable to come back by right now. I searched excessive and low for it in virtually each main grocery retailer in my hometown of Seattle with no luck. I discovered the cake on the market on Amazon—however solely in a pack that retailed for $86. If I wished to take pleasure in my favourite Sara Lee espresso cake once more, I’d both should shell out huge bucks or recreate the recipe at house myself. I opted for the latter, and took it as a possibility to make an excellent higher model of the unique with the assistance of my father, a fellow Sara Lee fanatic. The result’s a pastry I’d be completely satisfied to serve at my very own vacation brunch annually: tender, subtly candy, with a gentle, springy crumb, and cinnamon-scented brown sugar and pecan filling.

4 Key Methods for the Finest Yeasted Espresso Cake 

For the Best Crumb, Incorporate a Tangzhong 

My first exams took inspiration from traditional Danish yeasted cake recipes. The dough is enriched with butter, eggs, and sugar, then kneaded briefly and baked right into a barely bready cake. I cherished the simplicity of those desserts, however they in the end lacked the moisture and tenderness of the traditional Sara Lee pecan espresso cake. For a softer cake, I made a decision to include a tangzhong, a Taiwanese strategy of cooking flour and water right into a paste, which supplies baked items an excellent plush texture. Bakers usually use tangzhong (and the associated Japanese yudane and yukone) to arrange shokupan (Japanese milk bread), giving it its signature loft and tender crumb, and Critical Eats has a few Western recipes that additionally incorporate this system, together with  babka and crusty dinner rolls.

To make a tangzhong, you whisk collectively a slurry of milk and flour over medium warmth till it thickens right into a stretchy paste. This helps the starches within the flour gelatinize, permitting the flour to carry onto extra water than if it was unheated. “As a result of a gelled combination of flour and water is drier in texture than an equivalent ungelled one, it permits you to make a dough with extra water in it than it may in any other case comprise—with out it turning to soup,” Critical Eats contributor Andrew Janjigian wrote in his shokupan recipe. “The additional water is there, however you’ll be able to’t see or really feel it within the dough.” This implies the dough can embody quite a lot of liquid with out changing into unworkably moist, and lends the cake a gentle, plush crumb that stays recent for longer.

Enrich Your Dough

Like brioche, the dough for my yeasted espresso cake is enriched with butter, egg yolks, sugar, and milk, producing a wealthy, tender pastry harking back to an enormous cinnamon bun. These components have an necessary function within the dough’s construction: The butter and egg yolks coat the gluten proteins—glutenin and gliadin—in fats. This makes it harder for them to bond, minimizing gluten improvement. Just like the butter and yolks, sugar additionally has a tenderizing impact on the dough. As an alternative of coating the gluten proteins, nonetheless, the sugar attaches itself to water molecules earlier than the water has had an opportunity to bond with the gluten proteins and inhibits extreme gluten improvement. The result’s a espresso cake that’s wealthy, tender, and toes the road between bread and cake.

Attain for Bread Flour

Whereas we wish to keep away from extreme gluten improvement, we nonetheless need a cake with sufficient construction to assist the air bubbles—or carbon dioxide—that’s produced by the yeast because the dough ferments. Flours have differing protein percentages, which point out their gluten potential. All-purpose flour usually has a protein share of 9% to 12%, whereas bread flour tends to have 12% to 14% protein. Utilizing bread flour could appear counterintuitive, because the goal here’s a tender cake, however on this recipe, it helps assist the dough’s construction and rise. Through the use of bread flour mixture with gluten-limiting components equivalent to butter, egg yolks, and sugar, we’re capable of strike a steadiness and produce a loaf that’s each gentle and has construction.

Proof Twice to Make It Additional Good

Like many yeasted doughs, this cake requires two rises: a bulk fermentation and a remaining proof. The majority fermentation, or first rise, occurs within the mixing bowl, after the dough has been kneaded, with the ultimate rise occurring after the dough is crammed and formed.

Giving the cake sufficient time to proof is essential to reaching its gentle, gentle texture and permits the dough to develop extra taste. Below-proofing can result in a dense crumb, because the yeast wants time to digest the sugars and produce the carbon dioxide so important to the cake’s rise. To check in case your dough is totally proofed, gently poke the cake with the tip of your finger. Your finger ought to go away an indent and the dough ought to gently spring again.

After the dough is formed, it’s then lined and set to rise a second time. Whereas it’s completely acceptable to let the cake rise on the counter till puffy and bake it on the identical day, letting the cake rise in a single day within the fridge helps the dough develop extra taste, and means you’ll be able to take pleasure in a stress-free morning full with a recent, heat cake for breakfast.

Once you’re able to bake the cake, take away the cake from the fridge and let it end rising at heat room temperature till it’s puffy, which can take one to 2 hours. Use the identical poke check as earlier than to inform if the dough is totally proofed. This time, you’re in search of the dough to very slowly spring again when pressed. It’s key to not let this dough rise too lengthy at this stage or it may overproof and find yourself flat—you’ll know you’ve taken it too far if the dough begins to deflate when poked.

Fill and Kind the Espresso Cake

Working with a gentle dough is usually a bit difficult. Whilst you don’t wish to incorporate an excessive amount of flour whereas kneading, you must use sufficient flour when dealing with and forming the dough to forestall extreme stickiness. Keep in mind that dough sticks to itself, so in case your palms or rolling pin are lined in dough, issues will solely proceed to get stickier—and messier. Generously dusting your work floor and rolling pin with flour will assist stop an countless cycle of sticking. And you probably have extra flour remaining on the dough, simply take a dry pastry brush and gently brush your dough to mud it off.

To type the cake, I roll the dough right into a 9- by 16-inch-sized rectangle, scatter the cinnamon-pecan filling excessive, then roll the dough into an extended log. Subsequent, I coil the log round itself to make a circle that’s then rolled out into a bigger circle that can match the scale of the cake pan—very similar to how a scallion pancake is shaped. In my testing, I’ve discovered  this forming course of to be one of the simplest ways to include swirls of the candy filling evenly all through the cake.

Earlier than baking, I firmly press pecan halves into the floor of the dough. You’ll want to cram as many as you’ll be able to, because the nuts add a satisfying crunch to the in any other case pillowy cake. Brushing the cake with melted butter provides it a luscious sheen and helps hold the skin of the cake gentle. Because the cake itself doesn’t comprise quite a lot of sugar, a beneficiant layer of vanilla glaze provides an additional layer of gooey sweetness and is actually the icing on the cake for this particular breakfast deal with.

Serve It Heat

Technically, you’re supposed to attend till yeasted breads and desserts are utterly cooled earlier than chopping into them. This enables all of the starches to set and makes for the very best texture. That mentioned, this cake is actually finest loved whereas it’s nonetheless a bit heat. Don’t serve it straight from the oven, because the cake may have an disagreeable gummy texture when scorching. As an alternative, let the cake cool for about 45 minutes earlier than serving it.  It will make sure the cake is tender and fluffy, however nonetheless a bit gooey and heat.

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