lemon

grilled lemon herb chicken thighs

So, in case you haven’t already noticed, it’s starting to warm up outside and things are starting to turn green. I’m so into it.

On Sunday we decided it was warm enough to have our first cookout of the year. It wasn’t really, but we were drinking so no one seemed to notice. We gathered some friends, fed them some cocktails, and cooked up a bunch of food over an open flame. We also tried to overlook the fact that I was standing over the grill with a camera while everyone else was enjoying the outdoors for the first time since 2013. In case you were wondering, photographing a grill while smoke pours out can be an awkward task, especially when the wind can’t decide which direction it wants to blow.

I thought the perfect thing for a warm(ish) spring day would be some lemony grilled chicken thighs with plenty of fresh green herbs. I know, chicken thighs again. I’ve already said this, but beyond being affordable, chicken thighs are also really juicy, tender, and flavorful. They also happen to lend themselves perfectly to grilling. I love white meat too, but I sometimes find that breast meat can dry out on the grill if you’re not a really experience griller. Chicken thighs are much more forgiving if you forget them while you’re sipping your drink and accidentally leave them on just a bit too long, or if you’re afraid of undercooking and intentionally leave them on just a bit too long. Either way, they’re going to come out moist and delicious and all your friends will tell you how skilled you are at cooking with fire.

To go along with our chicken, I also grilled some marinated veggie kabobs. A nice mix of grape tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and mushrooms was just what the doctor ordered. I LOVE the way grape tomatoes get all hot and juicy and just barely hold their shape when you grill them. You can definitely play with other veggies too, but it’s important to keep in mind that they’ll all cook for the same amount of time. Simply cut up your veggies into bite sized chunks (l left my mushrooms and tomatoes whole), marinate for an hour or two, arrange on skewers, and cover until you’re ready to grill. If you’re using wooden skewers you should soak them in water while your veggies marinate so they don’t burn on the grill. As for marinades, I think vinaigrettes work really well for grilled vegetables, but you can really use whatever you like. In this case, I just made a little extra lemon herb marinade and used that.

When it comes to cooking outdoors, I’m a firm believer that charcoal grills give your food MUCH more flavor. Gas grills cook your food, and you’ll be standing outside while it happens, but you’re really not going to get any of that smokey “grilled” flavor. If you have a gas grill at home and want to try to get that smokiness, I’d suggest trying some hardwood smoking chips. Smoking chips usually come in a few different flavors like hickory or applewood, and can be found online or at many grocery or hardware stores. Before using them you need to soak the chips in water so they don’t just burn up. To contain the ash and prevent them from burning too quickly, you can make a pouch for your chips out of aluminum foil, or get one of these handy smoke boxes.

This chicken is seriously phenomenal. So good in fact, that one of our friends who usually doesn’t eat meat went back in for seconds. The skin gets all crispy and golden brown, while the meat stays moist and full of flavor. The marinade completely permeates the meat without being overpowering. It’s savory, aromatic, and earthy thanks to two fresh herbs and a healthy dose of garlic, and the olive oil and lemon juice make it tangy, sweet and bright. These fresh clean flavors are an ideal pairing with the smokiness that comes from cooking with charcoal or hardwood chips. You might not see another grilling recipe for the rest of year, because I’m just going to make this over and over and over. Just kidding! I promise!

Grilled Lemon Herb Chicken Thighs

Servings: 5-10ish *see cook's note
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8-10 chicken thighs
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup lemon juice
zest of 3 lemons
4-5 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tablespoon rosemary (finely chopped)
2 teaspoons thyme (finely chopped)
1 1/2 teaspoons coarse Kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper

Wash and dry chicken thighs and place in a shallow dish. Combine all remaining ingredients, mix well, and pour over the chicken thighs. Turn the pieces over and over until they’re all well coated in marinade. Press the chicken down into the dish so it’s as submerged as possible. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 4-8 hours, turning the chicken a few times so it’s all well coated.

Once marinated, prepare your grill. A gas grill should be on low heat, or a charcoal grill should be prepared so one side has fewer coals than the other. Place the chicken on the cooler side of the grill, skin side up, and cook for 10 to 12 minutes, until the underside is golden brown. Resist the urge to pour the marinade over the chicken. Turn each piece over once, cooking for another 10 to 12 minutes, or until the skin is golden brown and the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the grill and let rest, covered with foil, for 5 minutes before serving.

*cook’s note:
You can definitely increase (or decrease) this recipe to accommodate the number of guests you’re cooking for. I’d recommend one to two pieces per person, depending on the size of your thighs, what else you’re serving, and how hungry you think your guests might be.

grapefruit bars

Well folks. Guess what…
I’m a man obsessed. I have yet another citrus recipe to share with you.

First though, I would like to mention that Brooklyn Homemaker received enough nominations in theKitchn’s The Homies to make it into the finals for “best daily read” cooking blog! Woohoo!!! I only started writing this blog about six months ago, and at that time I never imagined that I would come so far so quickly. I hate to sound like I’m bragging, but I feel like my writing style and photography skills, as well as my understanding of blogging and my idea of what I want Brooklyn Homemaker to be, have grown and improved so so much. There’s still a lot of room for improvement, but I’m at a place where I feel very pleased with the direction of this blog and excited for what it will become in the future.

If you are as big a fan of Brooklyn Homemaker as I am, and you’re as excited about the future of the blog as I am, please take a moment to vote for me in The Homies for “best daily read”. TheKitchn does make you create an account, but they make it very easy, and you can even sign in through facebook. Please choose Brooklyn Homemaker from the list of ten finalists at the top of the page HERE. Being such a young blog, I honestly cannot believe that I’m holding my own against blogs that have been around for years and have thousands of readers. It is such a huge honor to have made it into the finals and no matter what the outcome, I will be thrilled to have done so well. Being one of the ten finalists has brought in so many new readers, and I couldn’t be happier about it. If you’re new here, welcome! I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you’ll keep coming back!

Okay. Enough about me, let’s get back to the recipe.

Although we’re facing another cold front, the weather in Brooklyn actually warmed up for a brief moment over the weekend. Unsurprisingly though, my nagging citrus craving didn’t subside one bit. This time around I thought something bright and sweet and unmistakably citrus-y might do the trick to help me snap out of it. For over a week now I’ve been thinking about trying to make grapefruit curd, but I hadn’t yet because I couldn’t decide what I’d do with it. I love citrus curd but if I’m making it fresh I usually like to use it to fill a cake or serve with brunch or some such thing. Homemade curd tastes one bajillion times better than the store-bought stuff, but it isn’t nearly as shelf stable, so if I don’t have a plan to use it up pretty quickly, I generally don’t think it’s worth the trouble.

I toyed with the idea of making a grapefruit cake, but decided that if I were going to do that I’d want to make the famous Brown Derby grapefruit cake, which doesn’t actually call for grapefruit curd. Maybe some other time. After racking my brain a bit longer it finally hit me, I’d make lemon bars but with grapefruit instead. Since you don’t have to pre-cook the curd on the stove top it’s actually even simpler, but with very similar (delicious) results. I consulted with my dream woman, idol, and friend-in-my-head, Ina Garten, for the recipe, and made some tweaks and substitutions to turn her more traditional lemon bars into grapefruit bars instead.

Though her recipe is truly wonderful and worked perfectly with the grapefruit substitution, I wish I’d read some of the comments before I got started. I ended up having to make two batches to perfect this recipe, and I learned a few important things from the first, failed, attempt. The first batch wasn’t actually a true fail though. They were pretty decent, but they weren’t GREAT, and I wasn’t sure they were worth sharing here. So, rather than accepting defeat, or worse, blogging about a recipe I wasn’t that happy with, I decided to give it another shot the next day, and had MUCH better results.

In the name of learning, here’s what I did wrong the first time around. In an attempt to make for more attractive photos, I tried to make the first batch in a pretty white ceramic baking dish, but the pan was slightly smaller than the recommended 9×13 called for in the recipe. This already makes for a thick bar, and the smaller pan ended up making them even thicker. They took much longer to set than expected, baked kind of unevenly, and resulted in a slightly overcooked and muted flavor instead of the bright citrus-forward flavor I was hoping for. After reading some of the comments, I learned that a lot of people said they like a thinner bar and used a larger pan, like a 10×15 or a baker’s half sheet to spread the bars out, which apparently works really well. Making the bars even thicker than they already were though, was definitely not a wise decision on my part. Another thing I learned from reading the comments, again too late for the first batch, is that the filling shouldn’t be mixed together until the very last minute. If mixed too early, the acid in the citrus juice can affect the texture of the raw eggs, effectively cooking the eggs before they’re baked, and giving the cooked filling a rubbery “off” texture.

But here’s the good news! The second time around these bars were everything I was hoping they would be and more! The grapefruit really makes for a wonderful and interesting twist on the traditional lemon bar. I think lemon bars are delicious, but the super tart, super sweet flavor can sometimes seem a little one note and end up tasting like sour candy rather than a homemade baked treat. In addition to the tart and sweet flavors, the grapefruit juice adds some bitterness and depth that pairs really well with the buttery shortbread crust. They’re such a great little twist on the traditional lemon bars. They have all of that sweet and tart flavor you’re expecting but with just a hint of grapefruity bitterness. The curd filling is soft and sweet and ever-so-slightly gooey, and the buttery shortbread adds just enough crispness and bite to really bring another layer of texture and interest to the experience. SO. GOOD.

I hope you’ll give these bars a shot. Don’t let my initial mistakes scare you, this recipe is actually really simple and easy. If you learn from my mistakes and use the right size (or larger) pan, and be patient enough not to mix the filling too early, you’ll be thrilled with the results. Especially, obviously, if you’re a big grapefruit fan like I am. If you’re someone, also like me, who likes to try to get yourself prepared and ready ahead of time, you could always zest and juice your citrus ahead and could even mix the sugar in with the zest and juice. Just make sure you don’t mix the eggs in until you’re ready to bake. Okay? Now go preheat that oven. It’s cold outside again and you need something tropical-ish in your life.

Grapefruit Bars

Servings: 20-40 bars, depending on how you cut them
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adapted from The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

crust:
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

filling:
6 large eggs at room temperature
3 cups granulated sugar
2 tablespoons grated citrus zest (from 2 lemons and 1 large grapefruit)
1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (from 1-2 lemons)
3/4 cup freshly squeezed grapefruit juice (from 1 large grapefruit)
1 cup flour
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
For the crust, cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the flour and salt and mix on low until just combined. Gather the dough together into a ball, and with floured hands, flatten the dough and press it into a 9 by 13 inch baking pan, building up a 1/2-inch edge on all sides. Chill in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes.
Bake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, until very lightly browned. Leave the oven on and let the crust cool slightly while you make the filling. Resist the urge to make the filling ahead, and wait until the crust comes out of the oven.
In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, citrus zest, citrus juices, and eggs. Add flour and whisk until well combined, making sure there are no lumps. Pour the filling over the crust and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until the filling is just set. Let cool to room temperature before cutting.
Cut into triangles and, with a sieve or dredger, dust with confectioners’ sugar.

braised chicken thighs with white wine, lemon, & capers

I may or may not have already said this, but this weather is starting to get me a little down. It’s hard to maintain a happy attitude and healthy energy level when it’s always cold and windy and slushy and wet and disgusting outside.

I also may or may not have already said this, but I’ve totally been craving citrus like crazy lately. I normally like to at least attempt to eat seasonally, eating tomatoes at the end of the summer, apples in the fall, and asparagus in the spring, and generally avoiding the stuff shipped in from Peru for the rest of the year. I am certainly not fanatical about it, but most produce honestly just tastes better when it’s fresh and local instead of traveling from across the country or across the world. At this point in winter though, all those good intentions go straight out the window. When I can smell spring coming around the corner I can’t take it anymore and want nothing more than fresh bright summery foods, especially the tropical-ish flavors of citrus. So, you’ll have to forgive me (or maybe thank me) for doing another citrus recipe, this one with lemon, after just doing a soup with a healthy dose of lime.

We recently got the unfortunate news that one of our close friends is moving away to London, so we wanted to have her for dinner to say farewell. I knew I wanted to make something really special, so I thought a rich hearty braised chicken dish was just the ticket. Although I totally love spending my day off braising a roast or stew, sometimes you just need something to come together a little faster. Chicken thighs are a really great way to make it seem like you slaved over a hot stove for half the day, when in reality you threw it together in just over an hour. Chicken thighs are also really inexpensive, packed with amazing flavor, and almost always come out juicy and tender. This meal browns for about 15 minutes on the stove and then spends another 45 minutes in the oven. Including prep time, the whole shebang can be on your plate and in your mouth in 90 minutes or less.

Another little trick to make a meal feel like it cooked all day is to use really bold flavors. I thought the combination of fresh thyme, whole cloves of garlic, and salty capers would be perfect here. To cut the briney saltiness of the capers and the fattiness of the chicken, a healthy dose of crisp white wine and the zest of a whole lemon help make this dish taste really special. I think that the bright citrus-y notes of Sauvignon Blanc work really well, but you can use whatever you like to drink or whatever you already have in the house.

I adapted this recipe from one I found in Food & Wine, and while the recipe was amazing and I made only a few small changes, there was something about it that I found a bit strange. The original recipe said to use a large cast iron skillet to cook the entire meal. While the size and shape of a large skillet would lend well to this dish, I would never recommend slow cooking acidic meals in seasoned cast iron. Since this only cooks for an hour it’s not the end of the world, but acidic ingredients like wine and lemon can eat away at the seasoning in cast iron, which can not only negatively affect the function of your pan, but can also give your meal a slight metallic taste. The best option for this dish would be a large enameled skillet or enameled dutch oven without the lid. If you don’t have enameled cookware, you can also use a high-walled heavy stainless steel skillet, or any non-reactive, oven-safe and stovetop-safe pan that’s large enough.

Whatever you choose to cook this dish, you’ll be so glad that you made it. It has such a wonderfully rich and robust flavor. The wine adds a subtle sweetness and, along with the lemon, a bright fruitiness. The garlic, capers, and thyme add an earthy richness and a depth that tastes like it took several hours to build. After only an hour of cooking, the chicken thighs are tender, moist, and practically slide off the bone. Is your mouth watering yet?

Depending on how many you’re feeding and the size of your chicken pieces, you can use between 4 and 8 thighs. Larger thighs should be plenty for one person, but if your thighs are small you might want to serve two pieces per person. Either way, the remaining ingredients can be left in the same amounts. You’ll just have a little extra sauce if you make fewer pieces. The sauce is amazing, so I promise it won’t go to waste. You can serve this with whatever you like, but I thought it paired perfectly with Basmati rice and roasted broccoli, with a little slice of fresh lemon and a glass (or bottle) of white wine. I just tossed the broccoli with olive oil, lemon, and salt and pepper, and roasted it on a parchment lined sheet pan at the same time that the chicken braised.

Braised Chicken Thighs with White Wine, Lemon, & Capers

Servings: 4+ depending on size and number of thighs
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adapted from Food & Wine

4-8 bone-in chicken thighs with skin (depending on how many you’re feeding)
Salt and pepper to taste
3-4 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 or 7 peeled garlic cloves
1 1/2 cups dry white wine (I used Sauvignon Blanc)
1 1/2 cups chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 lemon
5-6 sprigs of fresh thyme
1 tablespoon capers, drained
1 bay leaf

Preheat the oven to 375°. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dust with flour. In a large dutch oven or ovenproof skillet (not raw cast iron), melt the butter. Add the chicken, skin side down first, and cook over high heat until browned, turning over once, for a total of 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate, add the garlic cloves and cook over low heat until softened, about 5 minutes. Add the wine and thyme, turn heat up to high, and boil until reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Peel the zest (avoiding the white pith) of the lemon using a vegetable peeler. Try to pull the largest strips possible. Add the lemon zest, stock, capers and bay leaf and bring back up to a boil. Return the chicken to the pan, skin side up. Transfer the pan, uncovered, to the oven and braise for 45 minutes, or until the meat is fork tender.
Remove the pan from the oven, transfer the chicken to a plate, and tent with foil. Transfer the pan to the stovetop and boil over high heat until the sauce is slightly reduced, about 5 minutes. Discard the thyme, bay leaf and lemon zest, and spoon the sauce over the chicken to serve.

Spiced Citrus Bundt Cake with Buttered Whiskey Glaze

Blogging is hard work you guys. Who knew?

The first thing you think of when you read a food blog is, well, the food. But there’s a lot more that goes into blogging than just making food. You have to be able to sit down and write something, and you want it to be written well enough that someone will want to read it. Being able to write for an audience and have your writing be relatable and engaging is a challenge of it’s own. I definitely don’t want to be responsible for any eye-roll-induced headaches.

You also want to be able to photograph your food, and photograph it well enough that the food will look appealing and will make people want to make it themselves. Beyond having your food look nice in a picture, it should taste great too. I would never want to recommend a recipe I don’t stand behind. I could make a beautiful looking meal that tasted terrible, and no one would know until they tried to make it themselves. But what would be the point of blogging about food that isn’t any good? I want to share recipes with you that you’ll love and that you’ll want to make for your family and friends and keep on file to make again and again in years to come.

There’s also a certain amount of pressure, probably self imposed, but also probably better for the blog, to post unique and original recipes. I’d rather share something interesting, something that gives me bragging rights, than to post a recipe I copied word for word and ingredient for ingredient from someone or somewhere else. Every once in a while a recipe is so good that tweaking would be completely unnecessary, such as the Aunt Sassy Cake that was my very first post, and of course when I find such a recipe I definitely want to share it with you. For the bulk of my posts though, the meat and potatoes if you will, I want to be able to say, “Why yes I did think this up all on my own, thankyouverymuch.”

Over the 15+ years I’ve been cooking, I’ve learned enough to be completely confident toying with recipes to put my own spin on them. I think that most home cooks feel more comfortable making a savory meal their own than changing baking recipes. With a savory meal you can toss in a dash of this, a sprig of that, a splash of this other thing, and if you have a little experience and comfort with it, you’ll usually end up with something good, and sometimes something great. This makes cooking more exciting, and what keeps me wanting to get back in the kitchen to cook for myself and my husband.

When it comes to baking, it gets more complicated. Baking is about formulas and chemical reactions. It’s about math and science. Flour, sugar, leavening, fat & liquid; when combined in the correct proportions, should result in a tasty end product. If you get the ratio wrong though, you can end up with something heavy and flat, or dry, or burnt, or falling apart, or tasteless, or bad tasting. I am no pastry chef, and I won’t claim to be able to come up with a cake recipe from nowhere without needing at least a point of reference. I will say that I’ve been doing this long enough now that I’m comfortable toying with flavors and ingredients in my baking. If I have an idea in my head for a cake with a certain flavor, I try to find a similar recipe that’s tried and true, and tweak it to try to make it my own.

When I dreamed up this cake I was thinking about cold weather, cocktails with friends, and the smells and flavors of the holidays. I was thinking of citrus and spice and a little nip of something to warm you up. I started by finding a recipe for an orange pound cake that I could convert. A bundt cakes tends to be slightly denser than a layer cake, so pound cake recipes usually translate well. Once I found a recipe that I thought would work well, I set to changing a few things to put my twist on it. I wanted to add a layered citrus flavor so I swapped some of the orange zest and juice for lemon. I also wanted a hint of warm homey spice, so I added some cinnamon and clove, some cardamom and bit of ginger for kick.

Well. Sometimes things don’t always work out the way you expect them to. I’m not entirely sure what went wrong, but the first time around, this was a big ol’ failure with a capital FAIL. The flavor of the cake was great, with the perfect levels of citrus and spice, but the cake itself was dry dry dry. Like a loaf of bread. The original recipe called for an orange simple syrup to be brushed on the cake as it came out of the oven. With a flat loaf-shaped pound cake it’s easy to brush on a syrup and let it soak into the cake, but with a bundt the syrup would run down the sloped sides and puddle on the bottom. I skipped the syrup, assuming wrongly that it was added mostly to boost the orange flavor and not needed to add moisture. Beyond being dry, I also thought the cake was just a bit too sweet for my taste, and if I’d used the syrup it would have been even sweeter still.

I knew though, that the idea for the cake was solid, the flavors worked really well together, and the cake was actually really pretty to boot. So, rather than admit defeat and move on, I decided it was time to try, try again. The next evening after work I went back in for another round, zesting and creaming and sifting and mixing. I dialed down the sugar just a touch, and added a bit more liquid, boosting both the citrus juice and the buttermilk for flavor. I also think that while butter adds the best flavor, cakes baked with oil usually end up impossibly moist, so I increased the amount of fat just a bit and swapped some of the butter for oil. I’ve played with this recipe so much now that I consider it completely my own.

Boy did my determination pay off. I was definitely able to fix the dryness issue, and now the cake is perfectly moist with a tender bite. This cake has it all. Good looks. Great flavor. Perfect texture. The total package. The combination of citrus and spice is comforting and somehow nostalgic. Cold weather always makes me want citrus. There’s something familiar and old fashioned about eating oranges shipped from warmer climates when the weather in the northeast is cold and windy. There is a reason that grocery stores start filling up with tangerines right around Christmas. This time of year you can usually start to find citrus married with spice too. Lemon and ginger tea, clove studded oranges, cinnamon sticks and citrus boiled on the stove to potpourri your home. Classic flavors people, now in cake form.

Then we have the whiskey glaze. The flavors of butter and whiskey drizzled over this cake is amazing. They marry incredibly well with the cold weather flavors of the citrus and spices, bringing to mind the flavors of a hot toddy. I used Bulliet rye, because that’s what I had on hand, but it would be amazing with Bourbon too. It’s easy to make, just a simple matter of melting some butter, mixing it with whiskey and whisking in confectioner’s sugar until there are no lumps. I melted the butter in the microwave in a pyrex measuring cup, and mixed the glaze up in the same cup for easy pouring.

The one word of warning is that this glaze is seriously boozey. Three tablespoons of whiskey might not seem like much, but there’s isn’t much else to this so the alcohol is front and center. It isn’t overwhelming since there’s just a small amount of it on each bite, but it definitely is an “adult” addition to this cake. If you want this to be a more family friendly recipe, or if you don’t like whiskey, skip it! A simple citrus glaze would be really great and just as easy- just whisk together some confectioners sugar and orange or lemon juice, maybe some zest too.

So go take some butter and eggs out of the fridge and let them come up to room temperature. Don’t kid yourself. Don’t stop yourself. You know you want to make this cake, so just give in and make it. It’s delicious and perfectly moist, and it has whiskey on top. In a couple hours you’re going to eat this cake, you’re going to eat it real good. Like this:

Spiced Citrus Bundt Cake with Buttered Whiskey Glaze

Servings: 12ish
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finely grated zest of 3 large oranges
finely grated zest of 3 lemons
2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil
4 large eggs, at room temperature
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Buttered Whiskey Glaze (optional):
3 tablespoons good whiskey
3 tablespoon melted butter
1 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously grease and flour a 10-12 cup bundt pan.

With the paddle attachment in an electric mixer, mix your citrus zests and sugar together on low for 3 minutes, or until the sugar is golden yellow and you can smell the citrus from across your kitchen. Add the soft butter and cream with the sugar for about 5 minutes, or until light and fluffy. On low speed, add the oil and then the eggs, one at a time, until just combined.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. In another bowl, combine the orange and lemon juices, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the flour and buttermilk mixtures alternately to the batter, beginning and ending with the flour. Pour batter into pan and tap on the counter to even the batter and remove air bubbles. Bake for 50 minutes to an hour, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Allow cake to cool for an hour or more before turning out onto a cooling rack. To make the glaze mix the melted butter and whiskey together in a small bowl. Whisk in confectioner’s sugar and continue to whisk until combined and free of lumps. If too thick, you can add a few more drops of whiskey to thin it for easy pouring. Pour over the top of the completely cooled cake and allow the glaze to dry before serving.