Old Fashioned Jelly Cake With Bama Jelly

This recipe is past Vallery Lomas, author of Life Is What You Bake It and winner of the Great American Baking Bear witness, season iii.

Jelly cakes are a Southern tradition.

When I went to Grandma Willie Mae's house, sometimes she would bless us with not one of her million-dollar cakes but 2. The first one was e'er filled with pineapple and the second i e'er had apple tree jelly as the filling.

I later learned that "jelly cake" was actually a thing, traditionally filled and iced with jelly so information technology luxuriously drips down the sides. Granny ever frosted her jelly cake with cream cheese frosting on the top and sides — she liked things tidy.

To turn Granny's Million Dollar Block into a jelly block, substitute i to 1½ cups of your favorite jelly for the pineapple and warm the jelly slightly to arrive spreadable. It can exist hard to find apple jelly these days, and so I often use strawberry or apricot jam instead. Just be conscientious if you lot choose to use preserves, which incorporate large pieces of fruit that might non be so spreadable or cute for your jelly cake

Virtually the recipe

Baked in the right pans, these cake layers bake up perfectly flat, making them ideal for a layered cake.

If your layers grade a dome, don't worry — you can notwithstanding stack them or trim off the rounded top with a serrated knife.

Brand sure all your ingredients are at room temperature, which will help this cake whip up beautifully. The pineapple filling should be added when the cake is withal warm. It acts as a soaking syrup and melds the pineapple filling into the cake layers. But don't frost the cake until it has cooled completely. Otherwise, the butter-based frosting will melt correct off the cake! Also, using both almond and vanilla extracts gives the cake a more than interesting, wedding-cake-like flavor — which I love.

Ingredients

Pineapple filling

1 21-ounce can crushed pineapple in heavy syrup or pineapple in its own juice

¼ cup granulated sugar (if using pineapple in its ain juice, increment to 1⁄3 cup)

Block

Nonstick baking spray with flour

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking pulverisation

1 teaspoon kosher common salt

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

2 cups granulated sugar

4 large eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup whole milk

Foam cheese frosting

1 eight-ounce package (1 cup) cream cheese, room temperature

½ cup (one stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

4 cups confectioners' sugar

one teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

Set the pineapple filling:

In a blender or nutrient processor, blend the pineapple on low until the consistency of absurdity, most 30 seconds. Transfer to a small saucepan, add the sugar, and heat over low until the sugar dissolves, about five minutes.

Make the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350°F and place a rack in the middle of the oven. Spray 3 8-inch cake pans with baking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle zipper, vanquish the butter on medium-low speed until creamy, virtually xxx seconds.

With the mixer running, pour the sugar in a steady stream. Continue to beat out on medium-low speed until incorporated, about 2 minutes. Increment the speed to medium and continue to beat until light, fluffy, and pale, 2 to iii more than minutes.

Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating until each is incorporated before adding the side by side, virtually two minutes in total. Use a condom spatula to scrape the sides and bottom of the basin. Add the vanilla and almond extracts.

Reduce the mixer speed to depression and add 1-third of the flour mixture, mixing until merely a few streaks of flour remain. Add half the milk and mix until combined. If the concoction appears broken, don't worry — the next bit of flour will bring it dorsum together. Add together one-half the remaining flour mixture and continue to mix on low speed, just until no streaks of flour remain.

Add together the remaining ½ cup milk, standing mixing on low, then add together the remaining flour mixture. Mix until the flour is integrated, using a rubber spatula to scrape the bottom and sides of the basin as needed. Divide the batter evenly amidst the prepared cake pans and smooth the top.

Broil until the block layers are golden on peak and a cake tester inserted in the centre comes out make clean, about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and absurd on a wire rack for xv minutes. Invert the layers onto the cooling rack to absurd.

While the layers are on the cooling rack, spread half the pineapple filling on one layer and the remaining filling on a 2d layer. (The third layer won't get any pineapple on top.) Let cool completely.

Brand the cream cheese frosting:

Add together the foam cheese, butter, confectioners' saccharide, and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the ingredients come up together, and so increase the speed to medium and mix until creamy, about 5 minutes.

Identify one layer with pineapple filling on a cake plate, pineapple side up. Gear up the second layer with pineapple filling on top of the first. And then add together the terminal manifestly layer, placing it upside down on elevation so that the lesser of the cake, the most even side, faces up (this gives you a nice, flat surface to frost).

Utilise a spatula to frost the top and sides of the cake with the cream cheese frosting. Let the frosting set, then savour.

Storage:

Store the cake, covered (I like using a cake dome), until ready to serve. If it won't be eaten within a couple of days, it tin can exist stored in the fridge for upward to v days.

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