Whiskey Date and Buttermilk Cake with Salted Pear Caramel Buttercream

It’s been a bit of a crazy time here, along with this tasty buttermilk cake, I’ve been swept up with extra holiday articles to write and recipes to develop, in addition to working on the cookbook and the general hullabaloo of the season. I’m really excited, though, because every year my friends and I have a Christmas party when we’re all back home from the places we moved off to, and this year because I am finally settled back home in Oregon for good, we’re having it at my house. Jeremy is hard at work building a dining table for us to use at the party (fingers crossed it will be done in time!) and I’ve been trying to finish up the last bits of the kitchen. A hanging fern there, costco-sized bags of sugar being tucked away there, little mug hooks being screwed into the cabinets, it’s nearly come together.

Being permanently back home with my family and friends for the first time in nine years, I have much to celebrate, so I wanted to make a cake that was very much part of the holiday season of joy, booze, and excess. So, I decided to combine one of my favorite sweet flavors, dates, with one of the most flavorful alcohols around, whiskey, and do so in the form of a buttermilk cake. I simmered the dates in a bit of whiskey, covered, until the dates soaked up the liquid in the pot. Since dates are dried, they will absorb any hot liquid you trap them with, almost like a whiskey steam bath (the best steam bath of all).

But back to the cake! I took the whiskey dates and pureed them with buttermilk, and lots of it. I was almost suspicious of the amount of buttermilk this cake took, half expecting a hot pan of thick buttermilk to come out of the oven instead of a cake. But the buttermilk, dates, and whiskey, along with hefty doses of McCormick Roasted Saigon Cinnamon and McCormick Jamaican Allspice, made this hands-down my favorite cake ever. Like, in the history of cakes I’ve ever made and/or ingested. I’m not ashamed to admit that I always eat a decent amount of the batter when I’m baking, and this batter was stupid good.

Then comes the frosting, I made my standard salted caramel recipe but with a little twist, I minced up a pear and tossed it into the mixture. The pear nearly disintegrates in the hot sugar water, with the sugars and juices of the pear seeping into everything else. I used a generous amount of the salted caramel in the buttercream, and then poured an even more generous amount of it over the top of the iced cake. The rosemary bush in my garden is in bloom right now oddly enough, so I was able to snip off a few of its beautiful blue blossoms to use as a garnish, as well as some pears and tomatillos I had laying around and a leaf from the Japanese maple on my driveway.

I ended up with a cake that was even tastier than it looked, which is certainly saying something. And while there’s definitely a good amount of steps to making this cake, the holidays are the time to go that extra mile with food. To make that insanely tasty, flavor-layered thing that takes half the afternoon. So make all your friends and family extra happy at the end of 2014, and whip up a batch of this rich, moist, buttery, and deeply fulfilling cake. They, along with your extremely satisfied stomach, will thank you for it.

And I also have some fun articles up around the web right now, too. You can take a peek at this ridiculously tasty and festive greek yogurt panna cotta with pomegranate syrup up on One Kings Lane, and I also have a winter squash recipe series up on Food 52’s Halfway to Dinner column right now that’s full of a delicious assortment of squash dishes. Also! There is this wonderfully minty chocolate peppermint cake I have up over on Design Love Fest that I *highly* recommend you take a look at. They will all make your days both merry and bright 🙂