Pecan Birthday Cake with Caramel Filling and Vanilla Buttercream + Panda Head

May and September are birthday months ‘round these parts. I’ve got a few late April and early June babies and a handful of Scorpios in my life too, but many folks I know—including me and my sister—celebrate in May. I’ve always felt like a bit of a spring cheat since I was supposed to be born on the Fourth of July, but it was with great and telling baby aplomb that I ruined my sister’s eighth birthday party with my newborn homecoming; none of her guests, she cites as evidence, remember watching Splash. Morgan Hungerford West of Panda Head Blog is also awash in May birthdays, and she contacted Tarts by Tarts last month about putting together a birthday cake for the May edition of her monthly newsletter. Emily and I agree on a lot of baking things, but one point of particular sameness is in the utter glory of the birthday cake—towering and covered in frosting, filled but not with fruit, white on white is tops, nuts are always awesome, one can get away with pink.

Photo by Michelle Rigg. Thanks Michelle! This shows step four of assembly.

After being totally inspired by the baking prowess of Yossy from Apt. 2B Baking Co., we came up with a pecan cake filled with caramel and covered in a yellow ombre design to ring in the spring and season of birthdays. Tarts by Tarts is also handy with a cocktail shaker, and for the birthday shoot Em and I devised the Mayday (visible below), made with blackberries, lavender simple syrup, lime juice, and two shots of an awesome gin out of West Virginia called Smooth Ambler—this drink will float your keister to the floor. Morgan and her pal, photographer Michelle Rigg, swung by our house on Easter Sunday, where they proceeded to bowl us over with their casually rad styling abilities and quips about ’90s tattoos and our jungle lawn. It was a joyful afternoon, and we’re so glad to finally share the cake with you! Morgan released the May newsletter yesterday, and you can get the cocktail recipe over there and more photos from the shoot, plus Morgan’s breezy take on summer tees, brewing beer, and Arnold impressions; seriously, check it out. Below, I’ve got a couple more cake close-ups and the handwritten recipe. If I were to blow out my candles today, my only wish would be that you could read it. Enjoy!

A rare shot of us in the kitchen. Also by Michelle Rigg!

Pecan Cake!
Just wanted to offer a few notes on the baking, which my hand was too cramped to include. We used the recipe below, but baked the photographed cake in six-inch pans with the leftover batter yielding six cupcakes. The baking time for six-inch layers was actually the same as the time for eight-inch layers, but start checking the cake around 30 minutes if you choose to go the route of smaller rounds. There will be a bit of leftover frosting and filling if you make smaller cake layers, but um, the frosting is good on anything and the filling is awesome on ice cream. Also, click the images to embiggen to a readable size.

Maple Pecan Tartlets (And When Things Could Go Better)

Hazelnut cardamom "tartlets"

I have a hard time screwing up. Sometimes I cry, often I break things, and if I'm not snappy then I'm hysterical. Shown are some hazelnut, cardamom, honey tartlets that I absolutely effed up three times in a row (in the same night!). Not shown is my poor little dented tartlet pan bottom that I banged repeatedly and frustratedly with a fork while trying to dislodge a stuck, curdled tart. The truth behind my kitchen is that I'm thrilled with about 80% of what I bake and totally mortified by the rest of it, and usually I only blog about what turned out awesome. I've done a lot of bake sales and events in DC since participating in that first bake sale way back when, and I've always been proud of my contributions. This makes me pretty lucky as far as sharing what I love goes, but I have yet to learn how to troubleshoot or recover when things go disastrously. If there was any day to know how to screw up gracefully, it would have been last Saturday.

Maple pecan tartlets. Say it proud!

Before the Punk Rock Flea Market, my pumpkin whoopie pies fell flat, I broke my favorite dish, broke my oven thermometer, broke the sink, and I'm pretty sure that our new oven is out of whack, so maybe I broke that too. I burned cookies, underbaked cookies, over-diluted icing, ran out of butter, lost a tartlet pan bottom, dropped stuff on the floor, and didn't bake my maple pecan tartlets with enough time to allow them to set. Panicked, I called my sister who counseled me to save what I could and walk away from the rest; "remove the stress," she said. And I did! And she was right! In the end, I donated four potato-gruyere tartlets and two dozen cookies (less than half of what I had planned to sell) with moderate success, and Joey and I spent a killer day thrifting and eating food made by others. I learned that if I must mess up, then I shouldn't agonize over it or smash my tartlet pans with a fork. I'll save what I can and walk away from the rest and hey, who knows, maybe by the time I get back, my maple pecan tarts will be set and they will taste so dang good that any anguish will have almost been worth it. Plus, I'll relearn for the umpteenth time that rushing through the kitchen is no way to bake; lesson learned (again).

Maple Pecan Tartlets

Adapted from Gourmet

Makes six tartlets, but could be adapted for one nine-inch tart.

These would be super for Thanksgiving. I love maple with most of my soul, and it's great and gooey with the pecans. The original recipe calls for maple sugar, but since it's so pricey and there's already maple syrup in the tartlets, I opted for tubrinando sugar. I don't think these needed any help in the maple department, but if you've got maple sugar lying around (you luxurious animal!), you might try it.

For the tartlet shells

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1.  In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, and salt, pulse once to blend. Sprinkle the cold butter across the top and pulse several times until mixture has some pea-sized lumps of butter and some oatmeal flake-sized lumps of butter. Do not overmix. Add the egg a little bit at a time, pulsing after each addition. Once it's all in, process in long pulses--about ten seconds each--until mixture comes together in clumps. Shortly before this stage, the processor will make a different, deeper sound; that's how you know the dough is about to be ready.

2.  Dump the contents of the processor onto a lightly floured surface, and using your hands, gently incorporate any ingredients that didn't get mixed in. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about two hours.  After the dough has chilled, divide into six equal rounds. Roll out each round to a five-inch diameter and gently line your tartlet shells with the rounds. Either trim the overhang or tuck it down for a double wall of crust (what I do). Pop them into the freezer for 30 minutes to chill thoroughly (this helps prevent the crusts from shrinking).

For the filling

2 large eggs

1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup (the good shtuff)

6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3 tablespoons maple sugar (I used turbinando)

1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup pecans, 2/3 cup finely chopped and 1/3 cup coarsely chopped

1.  Preheat oven to 370 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with foil, and line each of the frozen crusts of the tartlets with a square of lightly buttered foil, shiny side down. Bake the tartlet shells for ten minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional seven to ten minutes, or until the edges are slightly gold.  Remove and let cool (in pans) for about 15 minutes.

2.  Increase the temperature to 375 degrees. As crusts are cooling, whisk the eggs, syrup, sugars, vinegar, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Make sure that everything is evenly mixed.  Put the tartlet crusts on the cookie sheet, and evenly distribute the finely chopped pecans to each of the shells. Then evenly distribute the filling among the shells, and top with the remaining large pieces of pecans. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until filling is just set. Remove and cool on racks for at least 15 minutes and up to 30, until filling has firmed somewhat. Serve warm or at room temperature, possibly with bourbon whipped cream.