Comments on: walnut jam cake

By: bell

bell — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 15:50:07 +0000

Hi Deb – another great recipe! I made this today using a ganache topping and it was delicious. It’s incredibly moist. I also made if gluten free and it worked perfectly. Thanks!

By: Angela

Angela — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 17:41:52 +0000

I made this with mixed nuts and raspberry jam, it was really, really delicious. Thank you for the recipe!

By: Isabel

Isabel — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 17:09:34 +0000

love it! very tasty, didn’t even get round to the jam topping and it was scrumptious all the same

By: Victoria

Victoria — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 19:56:07 +0000

A friend of mine made this with a few tweaks, one of which was using pecans instead of walnuts. I made it that way as our Thanksgiving dessert, with a little whipped cream and some Fruit of the Forest preserves.

It was delish!

By: Nigel

Nigel — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:30:43 +0000

Not sure if you’ll ever see this note, but I have to let you know that this is one of the best (and easiest!) cakes I’ve ever made. So good I’ve made it twice in the past week and a half. Can’t wait for your book.

By: NickS

NickS — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 03:58:41 +0000

Having read your Vermontucky Lemonade recipe, and confirmed that you like bourbon, I definitely recommend trying the walnut-bourbon cake idea.

Part of what makes it work so well, in addition to the fact that it’s a good flavor combination, is the general richness/density of the cake helps it stand up to a strong flavor without being overwhelmed.

By: NickS

NickS — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 16:19:25 +0000

I made this yesterday for a 4th of July party, it was the first time I’ve made a recipe from Smitten Kitchen, it was fantastic, and I ended up changing the recipe in a way that turned out so well I wanted to share.

I knew that I didn’t want to serve it with a topping so I wanted to add fruit flavor to the cake. I took ~1/4 of a cup of finely chopped fruit (mix of dried apricot and candied ginger), packed, soaked it in bourbon for 24 hours (just enough to cover the fruit ~2tbsp), and added that to the batter.

The fruit was nice, but not that strong a flavor, but the bourbon was fantastic!

We ate the cake just after if had finished cooling, about 4 hours out of the oven, and the whole cake tasted like bourbon, without having much alcohol in it at all.

It was a bit of an accident, I was just trying to add a fruit flavor, but the walnut-bourbon cake was better than I could have expected.

Also I cut the butter and eggs by a third and didn’t miss that at all. It was still a rich cake, with the walnut base, but a little lighter which was good since with six people we finished it off pretty easily.

By: Laura

Laura — Fri, 20 May 2011 03:04:03 +0000

An update, in case others out there are plagued with similar food allergies: though the food chemistry expert did not appear, I tried it anyway with quite good success and the following substitutions:

For the butter: 1 stick crisco butter flavor baking sticks + 2 TBSP water
For the flour: 1/2 cup rice flour
For the baking powder (contains corn starch): 2 parts cream of tartar to one part baking powder
corn-syrup free raspberry preserves
whipped cream on the side

The only downside was that, I think, rice flour is not as effective as normal flour when flouring a pan, because the cake fell out in two pieces even though it was almost completely cooled. Nothing that some squishing together and a layer of jam couldn’t fix, though. And it was DELICIOUS! And my friend was DELIGHTED!

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:05:17 +0000

I’ve been ogling this recipe for weeks, saving it up for a special occasion. Tonight’s special occasion is a friend visiting from out of town who I haven’t seen in years… and who is a poor soul unable to eat gluten, dairy, or corn products (or xanthum gum)! And I’m thinking of attempting this cake!

So could someone tell me:
(1) If I can use a 1/4 cup GF all purpose flour WITHOUT xanthum gum?
(2) Can I use a stick of shortening instead of butter or margarine? Even Earth Balance margarine has corn products in it. :(
(3) Or should I *really* just not press my luck with this one?

Thanks folks! Hopefully someone with a masters in food chemistry will serendipitously happen to see this in the next few hours!

By: Katharine

Katharine — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 18:52:42 +0000

I finally tried making this cake after drooling at the pictures for about three months straight, and while it was absolutely wonderful it wasn’t quite what I expected. I was anticipating something a little more dense and – how dare I – less buttery. Could it maybe have to do with my lack of a food processor, and instead grinding the nuts in our blender? I don’t know how fine they’re supposed to be, but mine were like a very coarse meal, not quite into tiny-pebble territory. Any other suggestions to arrive at my different texture idea?