There is a time and a place for a beautifully frosted cake; those layers of ganache and buttercream frosting, candles on top. And then there’s a time, like now, for the snack cake. The unadorned round or sheet pan cake, off of which you slice a bit, perhaps to snack on with a coffee. It’s your Swedish fika, your afternoon tea. It is this simple cake I want to discuss today.
The snack cake is something that feels everyday-special. A treat without the celebratory shout of sprinkles, an upgrade from the bag of Tate’s cookies you (I) sneak into every afternoon. The snack cake is made for delicious comfort and distraction, and its flavors can be more personal or unique than your average frosted confection. It’s not showy. It is quick work and low cleanup, often using little more than one bowl and one pan. Made well, it lasts for a few days of mid-afternoon grazing and desserts a la mode.
Some of my favorites because, as you can tell I have an intimate bond with the very concept of the snack cake, are Molly Yeh’s peanut butter snack cake, which I do with almond butter, and Odette Williams’ milk and honey cake (sans toppings) from Simple Cake, which is one of my all-time favorite baking cookbooks. Maialino’s olive oil cake, too, is a recipe I return to time and again.
Next in line are Smitten Kitchen’s morning glory cake, which brings the snack cake into breakfast territory and Melissa Clark’s Campari olive oil cake. How good does that sound? I’ll slice off a bit when I start to cook dinner, a little glass of white and a sliver to nibble while I sauté and stir. Bliss. I’ll turn up the volume on my Cooking Music 3: Flirty playlist.
The snack cake is also a wonderful place for fruits of almost every variety: apple yogurt cake (this one has a gorgeous crunchy sugar top), a prim and pretty strawberry snacking cake, this banana snacking cake with an optional salted caramel glaze, an orange sour cream cake, David Leibovitz’s lemon almond snack cake. And even vegetables: delicata squash upside down cake. Is there anything cake can’t do?
Play with your snack cake: try this (very addictive) chocolate mochi snack cake, which uses glutinous rice flour (mochi flour) for a uniquely smooshy and delicate texture. Go a little wild and add more than just powdered sugar on top, like this salted caramel peanut butter cake by the reigning expert on the subject Yossy Arefi.
Yossy, in fact, wrote the book on the matter: Snacking Cake. I’m currently craving the coconut lime cake and the oatmeal chocolate chip cake from those pages.
I posit that sweatpants-of-snack-cakes must be the spoon cake, and this one with strawberries is excellent. It’s so comforting and gooey, you’re just going to leave it in the pan and eat it with a spoon. We won’t call it giving up, exactly, it’s…self-care.
Ask Nicole is back with a little savory query this week!
Q: I love everything about this shiitake tartine except the mushrooms. I’m not a fan. What vegetable could I put on top instead that would still go with everything else in the recipe?
A: Mushrooms are a newer love for me, so I totally understand what you mean! The rest of the recipe is full of super delicious flavors: miso, pesto, mozzarella, good crusty bread. Who wants to give up on all of that just because you’re not down with ‘shrooms? I love the idea of broccoli florets on top or thin slices of zucchini. Sliced bell peppers, too, would be delicious. Artichoke hearts (like the ones from a jar) on top would be insanely good. Sliced tomatoes, too, would be delicious!
Want to ask me about ingredient swaps, menu ideas, or sourcing delicious things?? Please do! Leave a comment here or shoot an email to recipes@totaste.co (or a DM)!
Signing off with love and powdered sugar everywhere,