Meat Cake 2.0

Posted by E-George on February 6, 2010

Matthew’s birthday is once again upon us and with it comes the opportunity (for what else could it be?) to recreate the famed meat cake. This year I took the time to consider what improvements could be made from last year’s version and here’s what I came up with:

1. Make a blend of ground pork and ground beef to try to improve both moisture content and flavor profile. Perhaps taking a gyro-style meat angle.
2. Attempt a thematic cuisine-in-a-meat-cake kind of presentation.
3. Add the delight of some sort of meat-themed cocktail to the experience.
4. Figure out a way to incorporate Vienna sausages.
5. “Frost” and possibly “decorate” the cake using sweet potatoes.
6. Also figure out a way to incorporate the required ingredient item, CheezWhiz ®

My mother-in-law had presented me with an article in one of her food magazines in which they described a new trend of meat cocktails and included the instructions on how to infuse vodka and bacon. Intrigued by the notion of making a Bacontini, I took just over half of a 750mL bottle of Aboslut® vodka and added three (3) tablespoons of rendered bacon fat, including the so-called cracklin’ shrapnel.

Slightly put off by the new gasoline color, I let these two ingredients steep together for eight hours and then stuck it in the freezer overnight to for a full separation of the fats from the alcohol. But, because the cracklin’s are solids and not necessarily a fat, there was still the issue of how to sieve those out to leave a completely non-occluded vodka product.

By running through a paper-towel lined sieve just two times I was able to have a very clear, but still gasoline-looking material. I set it to the side to focus on the meat cake, taking time to draw out a basic plan.

The plan was to get some carne adovada simmering, prep the meat cakes by pulsing together in a 1:1 mixture some ground pork and ground beef, and to build a chile rellano casserole center into one of the meat cake layers. Then, to make a brilliant frosted decorated outside of sweet potatoes. First, the carne adovada was a chunked up bottom roast simmering in a mixture of red chile sauces.

Next, to peel and chop up the sweet potatoes and get those cooking. As it turned out, this would be a critical error in process. I should have baked the sweet potatoes instead of boiling them, as boiling created too wet of a base and therefore made a too-runny material to use as frosting, but we’ll see results of that poor choice later.

While all that cooked up, I started on the meat cake itself.

Using the food processor I added one pound of ground pork with one pound of ground beef, a medium onion roughly chopped, two eggs, about 1/4 cup of quick-cooking oats, some ground pepper, ground cumin, garlic salt, onion powder, and ground mustard rounded out the seasonings.

Since the meat cake process is not without its foibles, this proved to be too much material for the food processor to handle, and I had to take about half of it out in order for it to work right.

Four half batches consumed all the meat that I had and created a smooth meat material for smashing into the 8-inch round aluminum pans. Three cake layers, in total, with the third being the one destined to bake with a chile rellano center.

Once the meat cakes were ready, I began on the chile rellano center. Based on a version created by my dear mother called Speedy Rellanos (or, as Matthew and Nathan refer to it, Fireloaf), I started by sauteing some onions and garlic, while Berta shredded a massive pile of cheese.

A combination of eggs, mayonaisse, roasted and chopped green chile mixed with the cooked onions create the bonding agent.

I put a layer of bread crumbs in the meat cake well, laid down some cheese, poured in as much of the chile mixture as would fit, and topped it with more cheese and bread crumbs.

Not wanting to overcook the meat cakes into a dry state, into the refrigerator they went to stave off E. coli and trichinosis. The aluminum foil were fittings to add heavy pottery bowls of water in my lame and (once again) poorly thought out attempt to weigh down the meat, making a dense material and simultaneously creating a usable meat well. That sort of worked and sort of didn’t.

Any meat product, even an aberrant meat cake needs gravy. But, since I was creating a mexican themed meat cake, a brown gravy didn’t feel, to me, to match up very well. Thus was born the idea of a bacon queso. Out came the bacon and so began its frying. While I was at it, I attempted bacon swizzle sticks for the bacontinis.

Phase one of the project ended with the meat cakes going into the oven and with me cleaning up the kitchen.

About this time, Evelyn had awoken from her nap and finished her lunch and wanted in on the action. 20+ pounds of baby went into the backpack and she hovered patiently and cooperatively over my right shoulder for more than 2 straight hours until I thought that collar bone was going to snap. After cleaning up all our dishes, we started on Phase 2 by draining the sweet potatoes and attempting to make a frosting.

This is right went fear began to well up in my throat as I saw how completely soupy the potatoes were, so I immediately began mitigation efforts to thicken it up without compromising the taste. I whipped in more than 1 cup of flour and 1/2 cup of bread crumbs, adding some garlic salt to take the floury taste out. It went from bad to worse to really bad to awful to maybe-I-should-rethink-the-whole-frosting-idea. But, doing what I do best, I ignored my insticts and pressed forward by turning my attention to the bacon queso “gravy”.

The initial baking of the meat cakes is completed, with a completely different meat smaz byproduct this time than last. There was quite a bit less shrinkage and instead of giant greazy pools of schnyz there was more meat juice and less meat smaz. It still need to be drained/dabbed off, though, so as to not create a stability issue. My increasing worry was to avoid a situation whereby the cakes my slide off of each other, so ensuring as much greaze was removed as possible was key.

Our first attempt at assembly went something like this: Layer one – carne adovada.

Layer two – chile rellano.

Layer three – top layer and hopeful recipient of the bacon queso “gravy”.

Commence frosting with sweet potatoes.

Commence REMOVING sweet potato frosting.

Commence cleaning off the meat cake of as much sweet potato mess as possible.

Thank the meat cake gods that I had another package of bacon thawed in the refrigerator and begin a swirled bacon wrapping.

Add the Vienna sausage candle holders. It’s worth noting that I cut a small “x” in the top of each sausage to best hold the candles.

Back into the oven the cake went to finish baking and crisp up and cook the bacon shell. One more round of cleaning dishes and shoveling failed sweet potato frosting off the counter and we were on to assembling the bacontinis. Taking center stalks from a celery I carved a point onto each one and used it as an olive swizzle. Then, to add to the meaty flavor I smoothed a piece of prosciutto on the inside of the glass. Three ounces of bacon vodka to 1.5 ounces of dry vermouth stirred over rocks and poured in. Unfortunately, I failed to get a picture of the filled martini glass, to the prepped glass will have to do.

Once our guests had arrived, we began the feast.

Also on the table was a salad and some macaroni and cheese for those of us who didn’t want to subject our colons to such a blow. It was mentioned later that I should have provided aspirin to everyone to help thin the blood out a little after dinner. It was a lot of fun, but, as always, there were a lot of lessons.

1. The multiple separate cakes create a problem relating to size consistency. Because of this consistency issue, the stacking, frosting, and otherwise stability of the cake becomes problematic. Next year I may just make a single cake in a taller pan and then cut the layers out of the single cake, thus providing the size and density consistency needed.
2. Sweet potato frosting still seems viable, but baking the potatoes will probably be a wiser choice as it doesn’t add additional moisture, but rather, removes it.
3. The rellano center was good, and set up nicely, however, the weight of the meat cake layer above it caused it to bulge, breaking the meat walls and ultimately causing the cake to lean. If I do this again, the rellano may be the top layer.
4. The challenge arose when it was pointed out that last year’s meat cake was made of entirely beef, except for the bacon weave exterior. This year, I upped the animal content to two. Next year, I may need to include lamb and seriously attempt a gyro-style meat cake.

Matthew’s biggest birthday surprise didn’t come until later than night when Spenser and Amy flew in to town and I snuck them into the house for him to see the next morning. A sweet, sweet surprise it was, too.

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