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Archive for the ‘Cake’ Category

The Remains of the (Birth)day

The very last of Mamaw's pound cake and the three-layer fig cake.

The very last of Mamaw’s pound cake and the three-layer fig cake.

“My mother likes to use recipes,” said our youngest daughter to her friend in a tone that implied I abuse kittens. Both of these young women are the kind of intuitive cooks that fix what’s in the cupboard. Me, not so much. I’ve never been an improviser — at the piano, on stage or in the kitchen.

My cooking talent, if I have one, is the ability to intuit what a recipe will taste like. The Spicy Mango Sweet Potato Chicken, for instance, I made a few days ago did not need the called-for 3 tablespoons of hot sauce. I didn’t have to make it as written to figure that out (I used 1 teaspoon and it was just right.)

That, of course, is especially true of baking, made more difficult around here by the fact that our 23-year-old gas oven will not hold a constant temperature. Baking, so goes the cliche, is a science while cooking is an art. In our kitchen, you bake on a wing and a prayer.

This beloved child and my husband, Vlad the Plaid, share a January 20th birthday so when she came home this week, I made a cake for each. He wanted our neighbor’s dried figs ground into a fig-orange and almond layer cake filling. This extravaganza included cooked icing  more like divinity than frosting.

The Hamster, who will be 22 on Sunday, got Jean Easter’s Mamaw’s Poundcake, second prize-winner from a 2006 contest in the Winston-Salem Journal. It is a practically perfect poundcake, crispy on the outside and tender but dense inside. Coconut, butter, vanilla and lemon extracts give it a distinct, sweet taste that is a combination of all 4 but somehow different. The Hamster’s buddy said it smelled like popcorn because of the butter flavoring, but if it had been a wine, we’d say it had “notes” of the other three as well.

The only changes I made were the substitution of real butter for margarine and cake flour for all-purpose. The crumb was fine, moist and even.

Mamaw’s poundcake

3 sticks (1-1/2 cups) butter, softened

1 8-ounce package cream cheese, softened

3 cups sugar

6 large eggs

1-1/2 teaspoons each coconut, butter, vanilla and lemon extracts

3 cups cake flour (maybe you’re lucky enough to have access to King Arthur’s)

1 teaspoon baking powder

Dash of salt

Heat oven to 325°. Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan.  (I usually spend about 10 minutes doing a thorough job of this.)

Cream butter, cream cheese and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. (The air you beat into this mixture is most of the leavening in a poundcake.) Add extracts; beat until mixture is lemon-colored and smooth.

In separate bowl mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add this flour mixture to creamed mixture, one-quarter at a time. Turn off mixer before mixing completely and finish by hand. (The more you mix flour into cake batter, the tougher the cake.)

Spoon batter into prepared pan and bake 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 hours, turning pan at midway point to prevent a “sorry streak” (undone places). Cake is done when tester inserted into thickest part comes out clean, top is golden and beginning to crack. Cool on wire rack in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out to cool completely. Makes 20 to 24 very, very rich slices of several thousand calories apiece.

Category:

Baking, Butter, Cake, Desserts, Holiday baking, Recipes

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Upside-down cake starts the weekend off right

Some of our sunflowers have as many as 20 flowers on a stalk.

The days dwindle down but not the garden. More and more and more tomatoes and peppers find their way into huge piles — like highway department de-icer in the winter — on the dining room table.

I made a thick, sweet pasta sauce today (7 pounds tomatoes in 4 servings sauce) that tastes of tomatoes, a few fresh herbs and the echo of garlic only. I made 2 quarts of applesauce last night, and that’s using only a fraction of the  hard little apples out there on the tree, hard little apples that have a big taste when simmered with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and a pinch of salt. I also made a Deborah Madison summer squash soup with curry spices today, and it, too, has a big, sweet flavor, exotic and round without tasting anything like commercial curry powder.

But Friday was baking with summer fruit day. I made a peach-raisin-almond crisp and froze it for when the youngest is here in a week or so, and I also made a nectarine-plum upside-down cake from a King Arthur flour recipe. My husband Livermush would like one every week, please, from now on. He loves cake and this has a sweet, moist cake holding up a layer of soft, carmelized fruit in stained-glass colors.

King Arthur Flour fruit upside-down cake

Topping

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

As much sliced stone fruit as it takes to cover an 8-inch-square baking pan (24 to 28 ounces)

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

Cake

1-1/3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour (I use, you guessed it, KAF)

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 large egg.

Topping: Melt butter and mix with brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Spoon mixture into ungreased 8-inch-square baking pan. Heat over to 375.°

Cake: Slice nectarines 1/4-inch thick. Lay slices in prepared pan and sprinkle with lemon juice. Set aside.

In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar, then beat in milk, egg and vanilla. Mix together flour, baking powder and salt, then stir into egg mixture. Gently pour batter over fruit in pan.

Bake cake for 45 minutes or until cake begins to pull away from side of pan and springs back from touch. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes in pan on rack. Invert pan onto serving platter and let it sit 1 minute more before removing pan. If any fruit sticks to pan, carefully scrape it off and replace it on cake. Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream. Making 6 to 8 servings.

A simple buttery cake is the base for caramelized summer fruit slices.

Category:

Cake, Desserts, Fruit, vegetables

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Ye old spice shoppe, secret chocolate cake


The smells of seven continents make The Spice Shop a spa for the senses. OK, maybe not Antarctica -- six continents!

OMGsh, as our friend Marilyn writes so no one thinks she’s cussing. Waiting for supper last week with two other friends, I wandered into the Savory Spice Shop in Birkdale Village, just north of Charlotte. I’d been looking for vanilla beans that cost less than a sports car, and there they were, just inside the front door and at four different prices.

I nearly went berserk. I managed to control myself somewhat — skipping the lavender vanilla sugar but buying three vanilla beans, crushed red pepper flakes, a medium-hot chili powder and eight ounces of Black Onyx Cocoa Powder.

This cocoa looks more like coal dust than Hershey’s, and you use it for only one-quarter to one-half of the cocoa called for in a recipe. I just used it in my mother’s “Secret Cake” recipe and, I promise, the icing has aftertones of a dark and exotic jungle. I’m just sorry I put most of it on the cake!

To make the cake heat your oven to 400.° In a large saucepan melt together 1 stick butter, 1/4 cup vegetable shortening, 1 cup water and 3-

No one knows what the secret of the Secret Cake might be, unless it's that any one of us could eat it in a single and very large bite!

1/2 tablespoons cocoa (I used 1 tb. of the Black Onyx and 2-1/2 tb. Hershey’s). In bowl mix together 2 cups granulated sugar and 2 cups flour. Pour over the chocolate mixture and stir gently. In bowl beat together 1/2 cup buttermilk, 2 eggs, 1 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Add to flour mixture and beat by hand, just until well-mixed. Pour into greased and floured 11-x16-x2-inch pan and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.

During the last few minutes of baking, boil in the saucepan (which you’ve washed) 1 stick butter, 3-1/2 tablespoons cocoa and 1/3 cup buttermilk. Remove from heat. Add 3 cups confectioner’s sugar and 1 cup chopped walnuts. Spread on warm cake. Cool cake (in pan) completely on rack.

I don’t know how many servings it’s supposed to be. I think I’ll make two!

The combination of the two types of cocoa gives a rich chocolate taste.

Category:

Cake, Chocolate, Desserts, Spices

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Eliot Coleman, angel lush cake

Perhaps I should be embarrassed to even think about a recipe including

Adding sliced berries directly to pudding mixture allows you to increase fresh fruit in this light dessert.

instant pudding and synthetic whippee while reading This Life Is In Your Hands, Melissa Coleman’s loving and painful memoir of her parents’ early years on their Maine organic farm (Harper, 2011), but I’m not. Even though I just came across this quote from Scott Nearing, another back-to-the-land pioneer: “Health insurance is served on the table with every meal.”

I’m fairly certain the Colemans and Nearings would think I might as well have been eating DDT since the winter holidays, what with all the sugars on my plate. And I agree; my stiff joints complain about too many refined carbs with every step I take. Unfortunately, I’ve spent more than threescore years (we just spent a weekend in Gettysburg) learning to handle stress and discomfort by eating “bad” stuff that tastes good for a moment or two.

In defense of my sweet teeth, however, if you slice this cake into 10 slices, each has only 140 calories and 1.5 g fat with a mouth feel of something much more decadent. And if you ramp up the fresh strawberries, even add blueberries, you do get the benefits of fresh fruit with significant antioxidant content.

Angel lush cake

1 prepared angel food cake, sliced horizontally into thirds

1 20-ounce can pineapple bits with juice

1 1.5-ounce box instant vanilla pudding

1 cup reduced-fat whipped topping, thawed

Fresh straw- or blueberries

Combine pudding mix and pineapple until well-mixed. Fold in whipped topping and berries if you’re using them for more than simple garnish on top (as called for in Kraft recipe). Divide mixture between layers and top of cake. Refrigerate, covered, for at least one hour. The longer this cake sits, the more thoroughly the fruit-flavored filling soaks into the cake layers. You’ll want to slice your dessert with a serrated bread knife.

Afternoon sun gilds some of our daffodils.

Category:

Cake, Desserts, healthy cooking, Stress eating

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