Muffin Cake With Goat Cheese Frosting and Fruit Compote.

Alright here it is! Two days later than originally planned but you should be used to my tardiness by now. Pretend that it's endearing. A charming trait. One of my many delightful idiosyncrasies that brings you back again and again.

As I mentioned before, I wanted to make something with goat cheese. I don't know what it is with me lately, but I couldn't get goat cheese off my mind. I always find the stuff enchanting but this was along the lines of an irrational pregnancy craving. No I'm not pregnant. Anyway, specifically the combination of goat cheese and fruit. It's heavenly. So on Saturday morning I decided that I would make cake just so that I would have something to put goat cheese frosting on. The cake itself was made with a gluten free baking mix I already had on hand, and if I'm being completely honest, it was muffin mix. So I'm just gonna call it muffin cake. The muffin cake was provided by Pamela's, the gluten free brand I usually go with.

It's a good brand for mixes for things from pizza dough to cookies. I know that it's sold at Whole Foods. I'm not sure where else but you can always buy it online if you're interested. Anyhow, I used the muffin recipe from this particular mix and it was tasty enough. I'll get into that later.

I made two separate cakes. A nutmeg-cinnamon cake with pear compote, and a plain muffin cake with lemon juice and zest and blackberry-lemon compote.

Cake:
-Use the mix of your choice, or make it from scratch. I would suggest making something slightly more dense (but still moist) as opposed to a light and fluffy cake. I don't know why, I just feel like something too fluffy would clash with the frosting and compote.
-I chose to use bread pans instead of a cake pan or muffin tin. But any of these would work, it all depends on what you want the finished product to look like. I wanted two small two-tiered cakes, hence the bread pan.
-I wanted two different flavors of cake. To the first mix I added about a teaspoon of cinnamon and maybe half a teaspoon of nutmeg, but add to taste. To the second mix I added about a tablespoon of fresh squeezed lemon juice and zested some of the peel, but again, add to taste.
-Bake the cakes as the recipe suggests, and let cool completely before frosting.

Goat Cheese Frosting:
-12 ounces goat cheese, room temperature
-6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
-1/2 cup confectioners sugar
-In a bowl, beat all 3 together thoroughly. You will most definitely have extra and it can be stored, covered, for up to three days. If you're like me and don't have a beater, you can mix by hand. It will be harder and take longer but this is why the ingredients being room temperature is so important. The softer they are, the easier it is for you to mix them.

Fruit Compote:
-Fruit of your choice (I used pears and blackberries)
-Sugar (optional)
-Water (optional)
-Cinnamon (optional but it tastes bomb so go ahead and use it)
-Lemon juice

-Fruit compote is one of those things that turns out to be so incredibly easy and delicious, it leaves you delightfully shocked and wondering why you didn't do it sooner. You will need fruit, sugar, and water. Like all of my recipes before this, I have half-assed measurements that depend on how much you're making and what you're using it for. So I'll say this: compote can be used for a great many things. I used it as cake filling but you can substitute it for jam on toast, add it to yogurt, put it in your oatmeal, or just eat it straight. Therefore if you make more than you need, it's fine. Put it in a container and use it tomorrow for something else. It's healthier than jam as you may not even need to add the sugar. That's really only for fruits that are more tart. The natural sweetness of the fruit is often all you need. The water is for fruits that have a lower moisture content, although off the top of my head I can't think of a good example.
-In a saucepan, simmer your fruit on a low heat and stir frequently. The heat will begin to break the fruit down and give it the consistency of a pie filling. This is also a matter of preference. If you want your compote to have more whole pieces of fruit, cook it for a shorter period of time. I wanted mine to be mushier, so I cooked it longer.
-For the pear compote, I used 2.5 bosque pears (they're crunchier than a bartlett pear, and have a crisper flavor) and chopped them into small cubes. I didn't add any sugar but did add some cinnamon (to taste. Sorry!). I guarantee that you will not need sugar for the pear compote. It's a sweet fruit to begin with and not in the least bit tart. Remember to stir frequently to prevent burning and to make sure it's all cooking evenly. If you wish, use a fork or spoon to mash the fruit as it gets softer if you want a mushier consistency. When the compote is at a consistency you like, remove from heat.
-If you are using a fruit with a lower water content, you can add some water. You don't need a lot! Start with less and work your way up if you feel it still isn't enough.
-For the blackberry-lemon compote, I did end up adding about a tablespoon of water (it turned out to be unnecessary but it didn't ruin anything), a tablespoon of sugar (but it's to taste. You can shoot me if you want) and some fresh-squeezed lemon juice. The sugar is more necessary with a fruit like blackberries since they can be very tart. When the compote it hot, it's more watery. But after removing it from the heat and letting it cool, it thickens up a bit.
-Remove from heat. Set aside.


Now that your cakes have cooled completely, you can begin icing. Mine started out as two rectangular cakes. I cut them in half so that they could later be stacked on top of each other to create two square two-tiered cakes. I frosted the bottom layers with a generous amount of goat cheese frosting. To the cinnamon nutmeg cake, I topped the bottom layer with the pear compote. I put the top layer on, frosted it, and added some pear slices, compote, and sprinkled cinnamon to the top for decoration. Repeat the steps for the blackberry cake. Keep in mind that the blackberry compote is runnier by nature as it is a very juicy fruit. This means that some of the juices ran down the side of the cake. I find this charming and rather pretty. I topped it with a few leftover blackberries and compote juice, letting it dribble down the side. I also added some lemon zest to the top. I then popped both cakes in the fridge to let them set.

If I were to go back and do any of this again, I would change a few things. One, I would use a different cake mix. It didn't taste bad, but gluten free mixes have a tendency to all have a corn-y aftertaste and texture about them. It takes away from the other flavors. Granted, I was using a muffin mix so I can't be too surprised that my cakes came out tasting like muffins.  Two, I would wait until just before presenting the cakes to add the compote to the top. It didn't make a huge difference with the pears, but as you can see from the top picture, the blackberry compote bled into the frosting and set there in the fridge. Fresh dribbles and zest would have looked much more attractive. Three, I would have shaved the cakes down a little to make them more evenly square and flat. Four, I would have thought ahead more about what I wanted the finished product to look like. When you make up recipes as you go the way I have been, your focus is all on the individual steps. When you get to the end you realize that you hadn't planned that far ahead and now you have no idea how to make it look as good as it tastes. At least that's what my problem has been. Food styling is a whole new world for me and I'm still figuring out how to incorporate my other styling skills into the kitchen.

Anyhow, there you have it! I'm sorry this was such a novel. I guess that's what happens when you don't use any actual measurements for things. I'll work on that, I promise. If anybody takes any part of this recipe on, please please please share it! Enjoy!

-LG