Explorations in Baking: PB&J Log

Despite my curmudgeonly ways, I sometimes really do feel blessed that I have a lot of good people in my life who are there to support and nourish my life.  It's a very special thing to surround yourself with positive and influential friends and family members.

With that said, there is also a strong presence of dummies in my life.  All around me.  Everywhere.

In order to hone my baking skills--which have been weakened by the fact that I'm trying not to clog my arteries with buttercream--I offered a slew of my loving and caring friends with the opportunity to suggest something they would like me to make for them and I would make their request free of charge.  And of course, a bunch of freeloading dummies gave me some pretty outrageous requests.  But, then again, what did I expect?

This recipe was made in honor of a familiar dummy.  You may remember him from a previous post.  Along with his eight year old attitude comes his eight year old appetite.  So for his birthday he requested this: a grape log.  His child-like appetite requested grape while his perverse nature requested the log.  He later suggested that I make a peanut butter and jelly log, because you know what, kids love PB&J.

So here it is, folks:

P.B.'S PB & J LOG 

2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3 egg whites
1 bottle grape soda, sans corn syrup (I used Goose Island Grape Soda)


For the frosting:


1 stick softened butter
2 - 3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup natural peanut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla


Note: Despite the fact that the internet is a wealth of information, I actually couldn't find shit about how to make a cake with grape soda--that is, beyond making a boxed cake with coca cola or strawberry crush.  So, I'm proud to say that this is my first official baked good that I've completely concocted up myself.  It's a big deal.

Ok, so let's get 'er done.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Beat together the butter and sugar until it's nice and creamy.  (Now, while most recipes call for unsalted butter, I actually used salted butter in this recipe to really accentuate the sugary grapeness of the soda.  You can go either way.)  Add the vanilla.  Add the eggs one at a time and beat.  Whip this together for a few minutes so it gets nice and light and fluffy.  Set aside.

In another bowl mix together all of the dry ingredients.

Now, you're going to add half the bottle of soda and mix.  Then add half of the dry ingredients and mix. Do this again.  And blam-o!  You've got yourself grape cake.

Au naturel.

Prepare a sheet pan by covering it with parchment paper and greasing the paper in butter. Pour in the batter.

 Toss Barney into the oven for about 15 - 20 minutes, or until cake is firm and you can cleanly stick a knife into it.  It'll be pretty shallow, so this shouldn't take too long.

While that's cooking, get your frosting together.

Cream together your butter and peanut butter and vanilla.  Then slowly add your sugar until the frosting is at a stick consistency that you like.

Put the frosting in the fridge.

When the cake is done, pull it out and let it cool.  While it cools, keep it covered with a damp towel or paper towel in order to keep the cake moist so it'll roll.  I let my cake cool a little too much and ended up with cracks in the cake.  Since most logs require a sponge cake and this certainly is not one, it's pretty hard to keep the cake from cracking.  We'll cover that in a minute.

When the cake and frosting are cool enough, you can spread the frosting on the cake.

Oh yeah, I also dyed my frosting pink.  You know...pink and purple, every little boy's dream.

Using the parchment paper, you're going to roll the cake slowly.  Don't fret if it cracks, just roll away.

Wow.

Now, here's a few suggestions with what you can do from here.  My original idea for this cake was to make a vanilla bean whipped cream.  Which you can make with whipping cream, a pinch of salt, powdered sugar to sweet and stiffen the cream and a vanilla bean.  P.B. got a couple Buds in him and decided he would rather it be PB&J, so I went with the trusty peanut butter butter cream recipe.  Note, though, that I have another peanut butter butter cream recipe that has more peanut butter flavor in it.  I made this one with less peanut butter in order to not overpower the grape flavor in the cake.

Anyway...

What I did to cover the cracks--where you could put the whipped cream or butter cream on...--is make a royal icing to cover it.  You can easily make your own by mixing together powdered sugar and milk with a little bit of vanilla until you get a smooth, but not too runny consistency.  I made my very very purple:

Yeah.

Stick 'er in the fridge for a little bit to let the cake and frosting settle and warm up for about 10 minutes or so before you serve it.

Then, serve her up!

Here are some of the reactions to this cake from my dear friends who took part in this birthday celebration:

Wow, that looks disgusting.

This is really good.  I bet you could sell this in a gas station.

And so forth....

We also pondered the outcome of this cake if someone were to throw it up.  P.B. told me the next day that it actually looked something like this:

Get some.