Cinnamon Squares and Dorie on TableFare
The coincidence of this week’s recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie corresponding to Dorie Greenspan’s Spice Inspiration feature on TableFare is quite remarkable. Dorie shares her thoughts on her favorite spice, cinnamon, along with the recipe for Cinnamon Squares that showcases the spice perfectly.
Cinnamon Squares is about as easy as a cake recipe can be. You just need a couple of bowls and a good spoon for stirring. This cake is all about the cinnamon, almost 2 tablespoons worth of cinnamon! Even with such an aggressive quantity of the spice, it doesn’t overwhelm the cake. Playing along with the cinnamon are some great flavor companions – chocolate and coffee. The frosting is as simple as melting chocolate and butter together and I added a heaping ½ teaspoon of ancho chile powder just to give it a little surprise ending.
The ribbon of filling running through the middle of the cake adds another layer of chocolate flavor and the hint of coffee from the addition of espresso powder. The best part about the filling is it’s just baked right in. No cake layers to work with, just pour half of the batter in the pan, sprinkle on the filling, and top with the rest of the batter. Simple. The cake is tender and moist and the accents of chocolate in the filling and icing make it rich and satisfying.
I made the cake exactly as written in the recipe, with a “pinch of salt” equating to a scant ½ teaspoon in my world. I used a beautiful Vietnamese cassia (cinnamon), which is known for having a very bold flavor due to the high volatile oil content of this particular variety of cassia. I was delighted with the end result and expect Cinnamon Squares will be showing up frequently at our house. If you would like to read about the different varieties of cinnamon and how cassia and cinnamon are different visit our Spice Library.
Tracey of Tracey’s Culinary Adventures selected Cinnamon Squares for us to make this week and I applaud her perfectly timely selection that corresponds to cinnamon month here at TableFare. You can visit her blog for the recipe or find it in our featured recipes section.
Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 76 recipes completed 145 to go!
All photos by David Peterman unless otherwise noted
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June 2nd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Wow, your Cinnamon Squares look incredible! The frosting and the ribbon of cinnamon/chocolate look soo delicious! Love the photo setup too! I’ve always wanted to try a little hot spice with chocolate, I’ll definitely have to try it!
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June 2nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
they look fantastic! and great write-up from dorie–that is funny about the timing!
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June 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Hi Carol! How are you?
Your cinnamon squares turned out gorgeous and I love how you incorporated the Vietnamese cinnamon into the cake. I bet that cake smelled GREAT in the oven!
Hope you are doing well over there! Happy Baking!
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June 2nd, 2009 at 4:51 pm
You rock…these look so great and I learn so much over here…all the spicing suggestions, etc., were just wonderful to read about. Ancho in there…wow. I bet my guys would love that addition. Must try that soon. How did you keep your ribbon of chocolate centered??? How did you do that amazing job of frosting like that??? You have tricks over there that I know nothing of! Great job…yours are lovely.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 5:50 pm
YUM! I’m glad you enjoyed it… especially with good “cannelle casse”, it must have been pretty HOT! I love “cannelle casse”… but it’s hard to find here. Mine was very nice even though… but I wouldn’t mind at all making it again with good cinnamon.
Very nice picture by the way! (I seem to have this thing for diagonals! LOL LOL)
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June 2nd, 2009 at 6:12 pm
Thanks for baking with me this week! That’s too funny about my pick coinciding with the timing of Dorie’s wonderful feature. Your squares look amazing and I’m so glad you liked them!
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June 2nd, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Gorgeous as always. I am going to take a mini hiatus. End of School is taking up a lot of my time and energy! Gonna make these babies next week, first thing.
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June 2nd, 2009 at 9:37 pm
What a wonderful coincidence and what a neat feature on your blog (last week was the first time I visited here). Your cake looks lovely and I’m sure the chile was great with this flavor combination.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 3:30 am
Your squares look amazing! Wow…ancho chile powder sounds like a fabulous addition!!!!! Nicely done!
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June 3rd, 2009 at 4:24 am
Mmm, I like how lucious your icing looks. Looks delish!
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June 3rd, 2009 at 5:35 am
These are beautiful! I’m a huge cinnamon fan too, and like Dorie I have a hard time grasping that not everyone likes LOTS of cinnamon.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 6:14 am
I love cinnamon, and I loved this cake. And I love your photo!
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June 3rd, 2009 at 8:07 am
Oh…they look fabulous.
I need you to email me so I can get the OSI out to you.
Thanks so much.
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June 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
OH!!! Those are prettier than Dorie’s
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June 3rd, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Ugh, they look so fantastic! Wish I had some more right now.
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June 4th, 2009 at 6:10 am
I bet the chile powder did give it a cake. Your layering looks great.
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June 6th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
What great flavors and spices! This look great!!!
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David Peterman Reply:
July 7th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Testing the new thread plug-in-ignore
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June 30th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Your cinnamon squares look really good. I made these once and they were a huge hit.
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