Meat cake

Posted by E-George on February 5, 2009

Today is Matthew’s birthday and on this auspicious 35th anniversary of his global debut, I wanted to make him a cake. For those of you who know Matthew and understand that he has a higher opinion of people who defecate in public pools than for those who eat or deal in the witchcraft of sugar, you might be laughing to yourself at my notion of making him a cake. Thanks to The Great Kitchen Expulsion of 2008, I have no baking materials or tools remaining in my kitchen (Except for cookie sheets which have been renamed as flat oven pans.) so this called for some ingenuity. I sat down and pondered, what are Matthew’s culinary likes and dislikes?

Likes	Dislikes
Cow Meat	Sugar
Pig Meat	Sugar
Chicken Meat	Beets
Lamb Meat	Sugar
Turkey Meat	Not apples
Fish Meat	Sugar
Game Meat	Sugar
Fried crispy souls of worthless minions	Sugar

Given these parameters, I pondered hard about what I could do to satisfy both Matthew’s insatiable carnivorous appetite whilst and at the same time pandering to my desire to bake. The result of this deep cogitation was the creation of the Meat Cake. I cannot take credit for its invention, because I’m sure this has been done before, and by better cooks than I; however, I must confess I was reasonably pleased with the result. And, even though after having one slice of Meat Cake my colon and I are no longer on speaking terms, it was fun to be in the kitchen being creative. Regardless that it nearly broke my baker’s heart to not get to make a for-reals birthday cake. What follows is the documented process for the Meat Cake.

Ingredients:

3.5 lbs of 85% lean hamburger (the fatty hamburger keeps things from getting too dry)
1 lb of thick-cut smoked bacon
16oz jar of CheezWhiz®
3 medium onions, sliced
½ a medium onion, finely diced
1 celery stalk, finely diced
2 eggs
½ tsp ground mustard
ground pepper
salt
parsley
¼ c. rolled oats (not the instant kind) – this serves as a binding agent.

Preheat the oven to 350º. Mix the meatloaf by combining hamburger, finely diced onion, celery, eggs, ground mustard, salt, pepper, parsley, and rolled oats.

Grease two 8×8 inch pans. Although, in retrospect given that the meat I used was 15% fat, the PAM was probably overkill.

Divide the meat mixture between the two pans.

Smash the meat into the pan to form a well. This well is critical for the assembly process.

Place in 350-degree oven and bake for roughly 35 minutes.

You’ll know it is done by the giant pools of meat greeze and meat smaz.

Drain the meat smaz out of the meat well and move the meat cakes out of their greeze baths and onto a cooling rack to come to a room temperature.

Slice some onions.

And saute them.

Begin assembly by filling the meat well of the lower meat cake with CheezWhiz® and topping it generously with sauteed onion. Fill the meat well of the upper meat cake with the same and lift the upper meat cake atop the lower meat cake.

Begin wrapping the edges with bacon, ala bacon explosion, pinning it to the meat cake with toothpicks. As the bacon cooks, it will shrink and adhere to the meat cake.

Return the meat cake to the 350-degree oven for another 45 minutes.

Carefully lift off the baking pan and place on your serving tray.

Remove toothpicks, and garnish as you desire. As this was Matthew’s birthday cake, candles were appropriate.

We also garnished with some halved grape tomatoes for color.

Matthew seemed genuinely pleased. Evelyn seemed genuinely horrified.

And, what do you get the man who has everything and doesn’t like much? Poultry seasoning.

Lessons learned for the meat cake:

1. Undercook the meat cakes by at least 10 minutes before assembling and returning to the oven. This will prevent the cakes from overcooking and getting too dry.
2. Laterally slice the bacon into even thinner slices. This will allow the creation of a tighter bacon weave and therefore a more professional appearance
3. Use a thicker cheese filling, something not as viscous as CheezWhiz®.
4. Replace cheese filling with a speedy rellano filling
5. Broil the final phase instead of baking – this should crisp the bacon up nicer

Filed Under: Misc - Comments: 4 Comments to Read



top