When I hear the phrase “snacking cake,” I think of a light cake, something that I can grab a piece of without fuss or guilt. It’s the kind of cake you could make on a weeknight, or you could throw together on a moment’s notice hearing that a friend is coming over, or you could make for a Saturday morning breakfast after a very tough week (and really, aren’t they all tough weeks when that can lead you to eat cake for breakfast?).
That is exactly what the kind of cake recipes you’ll find in Snacking Cakes. Author Yossy Arefi is my kind of chef, offering up cake recipes that are flavorful but not fussy, with ingredients that tend to be close by, and meant for an 8” square pan or 9” round pan. You can also use these recipes to make a handful of cupcakes, or double them for a sheet cake or Bundt cake. Sounds pretty simple, right? So let’s talk recipes.
Arefi starts with Fruit Cakes and offers up recipes like a Berry Cream Cheese Cake, Lemony Olive Oil Cake, Cherry Coconut Cake, Mostly Apples Cake, Orange-Poppy Seed Cake with Fresh Raspberry Glaze, and Whole-Grain Strawberry Cake. Then it’s time for Warm + Toasty Cakes. Cooler temperatures make you crave cakes like these: Almond Butter Banana Cake, Powdered Donut Cake, My Best Carrot Cake, Corn Cake with Honey, Salty Caramel Peanut Butter Cake, Seedy Zucchini Cake, and Sticky Whiskey Date Cake.
And then it all gets real: Chocolatey Cakes. This is my home, right here. Cocoa Yogurt Cake, Minty Chocolate Malt Cake, Espresso Chocolate Chip Cake, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake, Milk Chocolate Chip-Hazelnut Cake, Fudgy Chocolate Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting. Who’s with me on this one? Okay, if you’re not, there is also a Vanilla Buttermilk Cake with Fluffy Vanilla Frosting which is probably almost as good as the chocolate ones.
Throughout, there are lots of ideas for varying the flavors of the cake or dressing it up. She tells you how to adjust to a bigger size or a different pan (sometimes just doubling the recipe won’t quite get you where you want to be), and she offers up a bunch of ideas for adding flavors to whipped cream for a quick and flavorful topping to any cake. There are also ideas for sprinkles on the top, from candies to cocoa nibs to crushed potato chips to fresh or freeze-dried fruit.
As soon as I saw the cover for this book, I knew I had to own it. I love to read cookbooks and watch tv shows where people make big, extravagant desserts, but at the end of the day, I usually just want a small, simple piece of cake to make me happy. There is something about the texture of cake that brings a smile to my face and makes me feel better about everything, so Snacking Cakes is literally the cake book I’ve been waiting for.
