White Chocolate Macadamia Nut Cake ...

The Finished Product covered in a White Chocolate Buttercream!

 Today a friend asked if I would again make a white chocolate macadamia nut cake I had done for her some time ago as well as an Orzo Walnut Pesto salad (you gotta balance the carbs with the carbs & sugar, right!).   I had totally forgot about this delicious impressive, or at I least think, impressive looking cake and after looking in all my recipe drawers and files came across it in a 2009 Fine Cooking Magazine.


Butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and macadamia nuts

 The point of this is if you are like me and aspire to bake or cook all these great recipes you see, take heart.  After keeping the recipe for years I finally had a reason to make it several times in the last year.  So it was worth keeping for 4 years.

I have been looking at more and more baking/cooking blogs and I realize even though no one may read this or really care it is a great way to sort of journal about my own experience in the kitchen trying different things or finally having the chance to hopefully recreate all those beautiful creations I see in blogs and now Pinterest.  Hey maybe someday someone will Pin one of my pictures and I can be part of the 'in' group which I never was in school.  Maybe that's why we love this Pinterest stuff so much...we can be part of someone's group and they never realize we are really part of the 'uncool' group.  But I digress....this is about turning the staples of butter, sugar, eggs, etc. into a yummy cake.

The recipe from Fine Cooking Magazine has several steps to make and prepare the cake.  There is the cake recipe, steps for making white chocolate leaves, a buttercream recipe and a filling recipe.  When putting together my cake I just made the cake recipe, used a favourite buttercream recipe I had and folded in a couple ounces of good white chocolate that I melted and cooled and for the middle mashed up some raspberries, about 3/4 cup of frozen berries and pushed them through a sieze and mixed that with about 1 1/3 cups of buttercream for the filling.  No one need know we skipped a few things....

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Grease 3 9-inch pans and parchment line the bottoms of them.

You will need:
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
3 1/2 cups cake flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 1/3 cups granulated sugar
2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 cups buttermilk, room temperature (I used sour milk as I never seem to have buttermilk when I need it)
1 1/3 cups chopped white chocolate
1 cup chopped, toasted macadamia nuts

Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. 

In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3-5 minutes.  Scrape down sides of bowl.  Add the vanilla and then the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture and mix on low speed until incorporated.  Add half of the buttermilk and mix until incorporated.  Continue adding the flour mixture and the buttermilk, alternating between the two and ending with the flour.  The batter will be thick and glossy.  Fold in the white chocolate and macadamia nuts.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cake pans.  Level the batter with a spatula and put into preheated oven.  Rotate pans halfway through baking.

Bake for about 28-35 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.  Cool on counter for about 10 minutes and remove from pans.  Let cool completely before icing.

Sweet Enuf comments from the kitchen...this cake freezes well and even with a buttercream made using egg whites, sugar, butter and vanilla freezes great to.  This is a little heavier cake so a small slice is filling and is a little pricey to make with the white chocolate and the macadamia nuts but worth it.

Hope you have a sweet enuf weekend.