When I joined the Department of Justice right after law school, I was immediately assigned to work on a case that was headed to trial. I look back quite fondly on that experience, especially the month we spent in Houston for the trial. I had never spent any time in Houston before (and the lead defense attorney -- who was a local -- never let the jury forget our outsider status, disparagingly referring us to as the the lawyers "from inside the beltway"). Despite having to work long hours, we managed to venture out and explore the city a bit. We fit in visits to the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, the FBI firearms training facility in Conroe, and even Cavender's, where I bought a pair of cowboy boots.
Most days we were so busy that we had to dispatch a paralegal to bring back sandwiches for lunch, but when we did have time to go to a restaurant and sit down for a meal, our favorite spot was Treebeards. I usually ordered the jambalaya and became such a fan of the restaurant that I purchased the Treebeards cookbook (fifth printing). The cookbook includes recipes for dishes served in the restaurant as well as recipes submitted by the founders' customers and friends. It's been a while since I've consulted this cookbook but I thought that the "Praline Cake" would a great choice for a Mardi Gras-themed happy hour at work.
It's an oatmeal cake with praline topping. While the recipe instructs you to mix it by hand with a wooden spoon, I made it in my Kitchenaid mixer. I combined brown sugar, sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla; incorporated the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt); and mixed in rolled oats that I had combined with boiling water. I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and put it in the oven.
The recipe instructs you to make the topping while the cake is baking so that you can pour it over the cake immediately after taking it out of the oven. The topping is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, coconut, milk, vanilla, and chopped pecans that you bring to a boil and maintain at a simmer. I followed the directions to stir the mixture frequently and it started to crystallize, so much so that when I poured it over the hot cake, it was basically a bunch of sugar clumps with nuts instead of a liquid mixture. I did the best I could to press the clumps onto the top of the cake to get them to adhere.
After the cake was completely cool I took it out of the pan and sliced it. Clusters of topping kept falling off of the top, but even so the ratio of cake to topping was almost 1:1. The cake was damp and looked liked it might be undercooked, but it was done. I really liked this cake. The cake itself had the wonderful homey flavor of oats and the topping reminded me of a Girl Scout Samoa cookie. I do wish that the topping had not been so dry -- but I suspect that could be achieved by cooking it for a shorter period of time, not stirring it so much, or possibly by adding a bit of corn syrup to prevent it from crystallizing. Even though I don't think this cake turned out as intended, it was delicious.
Recipe: "Praline Cake" from Treebeards Cookbook (5th printing).
Most days we were so busy that we had to dispatch a paralegal to bring back sandwiches for lunch, but when we did have time to go to a restaurant and sit down for a meal, our favorite spot was Treebeards. I usually ordered the jambalaya and became such a fan of the restaurant that I purchased the Treebeards cookbook (fifth printing). The cookbook includes recipes for dishes served in the restaurant as well as recipes submitted by the founders' customers and friends. It's been a while since I've consulted this cookbook but I thought that the "Praline Cake" would a great choice for a Mardi Gras-themed happy hour at work.
It's an oatmeal cake with praline topping. While the recipe instructs you to mix it by hand with a wooden spoon, I made it in my Kitchenaid mixer. I combined brown sugar, sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla; incorporated the sifted dry ingredients (flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt); and mixed in rolled oats that I had combined with boiling water. I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and put it in the oven.
The recipe instructs you to make the topping while the cake is baking so that you can pour it over the cake immediately after taking it out of the oven. The topping is a mixture of butter, brown sugar, coconut, milk, vanilla, and chopped pecans that you bring to a boil and maintain at a simmer. I followed the directions to stir the mixture frequently and it started to crystallize, so much so that when I poured it over the hot cake, it was basically a bunch of sugar clumps with nuts instead of a liquid mixture. I did the best I could to press the clumps onto the top of the cake to get them to adhere.
Recipe: "Praline Cake" from Treebeards Cookbook (5th printing).
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