Strawberry Birthday [Short]cake

Sometimes the best things happen by accident. Child knew she wanted to bake a cake for her birthday and it should have layers and strawberries.

So we started with a Betty Crocker Starlight Yellow Cake adapted slightly since I didn't have shortening.

I used a jelly roll pan for one layer and the corresponding sized cake pan for the second.

Preheat oven to 350.

Grease and flour pans.

The cake:

(Put all ingredients in, 30 seconds mixing on low, 3 minutes on high.)

- 2 1/4 cups flour

- 1 1/2 cups sugar

- 1 heaping tablespoon baking powder

- 1 teaspoon salt

- 1 1/4 cups soy milk

- 3/4 cup butter (softened)

- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla

- 3 eggs

We cooked ours 30 minutes.

The filling:

I had leftover cooked strawberries frozen from a previous dessert and used fresh strawberries and homemade lemon whipped cream to stretch it out

The whipped cream:

(In a cold mixing bowl with a cold blender)

- one pint heavy whipping cream

- one tablespoon powdered sugar

- one teaspoon lemon extract 

Mix until it "creams"

Take the layers out of the oven. Cool the pans on wire racks for ten minutes. Invert them and the layers should fall out. When cool, spread strawberries and whipped cream on one layer, top with other layer, ice with more whipped cream. Decorate with strawberries. Store in fridge.

My ten-year-old did all the work. I supervised.

Watermelon cupcakes

My daughter did my blog post today:

We made cupcakes in our free time before I went to school.we used two eggs and a single serving cup of apple sauce instead of three eggs .they took 15    min.to cook .5min.in the tray to cool and a half hour to cool out of the tray .they tasted wonderful !

Coffee cake and hibiscus tea

My husband and daughter made me a coffee cake while I was in class, which I am enjoying with hibiscus tea diluted with bubbles.

Banana Breakfast Cake

I have committed a culinary crime. I have just noticed that I have had a Kitchen Aid big mixer for more than a year and I have forgotten to use it!

This recipe is based on a Betty Crocker Banana Bread recipe from the 25th Anniversary cookbook.

It can easily be made vegan by replacing the egg with applesauce and the butter with your favorite margarine.

I decided to try my hand at using the bundt pan, basically for the amusement of my daughter.

BANANA BREAKFAST CAKE
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- about 3 tablespoons blackstrap molasses
- about 3 tablespoons agave nectar
(OR use 1 1/4 cups plain old sugar, but I love to mix it up)
- 1/2 cup butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 single serve cup unsweetened applesauce
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 5 medium ripe bananas
- 1/2 cup unsweetened soy milk spiked with one tablespoon apple cider vinegar (or 1/2 cup buttermilk or 1/2 cup milk with the vinegar)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup unbleached white flour*
- 1 1/4 cup oats*
- 1/2 cup whole wheat flour*
(* OR 2.5 cups flour)
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon fresh ground sea salt
- 1 cup chopped walnuts plus whatever odds and ends are left in the bag

Preheat to 350. Grease bundt pan.

Cream sugar(s) and butter. Add eggs and applesauce and cinnamon. Stir well. (I had my daughter beat.) Add 'milk,' vanilla and bananas. Beat until smooth.

Add everything else except nuts, stir until moistened. Add nuts.

Starting with 60 minutes in oven...

60 minutes worked beautifully.

Now for a glaze I mixed 1/2 cup peanut butter with 1/2 cup JIF Mocha Cappucino hazelnut spread, heat in microwave, stir, add a tablespoon very vanilla soy milk to thin. Stir. Heat. Stir. Spread on cake with rubber spatula.

Dust with powdered sugar.

A masterpiece!

Birthday

Breakfast: cake
Lunch: Wegmans classic escargot
Next stop: purple cow ice cream

Daughter Cup Cakes

This is my daughter's attempt at the five minute microwave chocolate cake in coffee mug:

Mix in a mug and cook for 4 minutes in the microwave:
- 4 tablespoons flour
- 4 tablespoons sugar
- 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
- 2 tablespoons whisked egg
- 3 tablespoons vanilla almond milk
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- splash vanilla
- handful of chocolate chips

Clafoutis

Found this recipe online:

http://www.delish.com/recipefinder/apricot-almond-clafouti-recipe-9990

And now I'm off to the kitchen, knowing full well i have none of the proper ingredients... But I must try!

Details to come.

Okay, initial reaction: this was incredible. Now next time I want to follow the directions because that would be mind-blowing.

What I made:

Ingredients:
- one large can pear halves, drained (seven halves)
- one apple, peeled and sliced
- 1/4 cup triple sec
- 2 teaspoons lemon juice
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup milk (I used unsweetened soy)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 egg white
- 1 pinch salt
- 2/3 cup unbleached flour

In large bowl, mix fruit, alcohol and lemon juice. Soak for at least one hour.

Preheat oven to 350. Take deep dish 10-inch pie plate and butter liberally. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the sugar.

Arrange fruit on bottom of pie plate. Reserve liquid.

Take eggs and egg white and cream with the remaining sugar. Add remaining ingredients, including the reserved alcohol from the fruit. It will be runny, as this is more of a custard than a cake.

Bake about 50 minutes until the clafouti puffs and turns golden. It will deflate some once cooled.

Cool 20 minutes before serving. Best served warm.

Starlight yellow cake with lemon filling

I think it should be official that I can't have fun without food. We had dinner with people over the weekend whom we hope will become good friends, and one of them said something along the lines of "food should be an experience, one as good as something I can't say in front of the child. One where the wine blends with the appetizer and complements the salad and the main dish and it all goes together."

He's Italian, but it's the same theory the French have, without the copious doses of pasta.

Today, my daughter has off from school and we had plans to visit a friend. Those plans fell through. Such is life. Eventually, I was left with no choice but to fill the void with food. And not merely food-- but cake!

I consulted my Betty Crocker 25th anniversary cookbook and selected a Starlight Yellow Cake. In a fit of optimistic insanity, I decided to make a layer cake with the Betty Crocker lemon filling.

I used a jelly roll pan and a matching cake pan to make the layers, as I don't have multiple jelly roll pans or round layer pans or even a brownie pan.

This is my first layer cake. The layers are safely out of the pan and cooling in the kitchen and the filling is setting in the fridge, which doesn't even seem necessary because it tasted perfect and had a fabulous consistency while still in the saucepan.

Now the recipes:
The Starlight Yellow Cake
- 2 1/4 cups white flour
- 1 1/2 cups sugar (I usually reduce)
- 3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups milk (I used 3/4 cup whole milk and 3/4 cup soy milk)
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 eggs

Preheat to 350. Grease and flour pans. Beat all ingredients on low 30 seconds, scraping sides constantly. Beat on high three minutes. Poor into pan. Bake 40 minutes for a rectangle cake, 25 for two rectangle layers, 30 for two round layers. Until toothpick comes out clean or cake springs back when touched.

Lemon filling
- 3/4 cup sugar (I only used 1/2)
- 3 tablespoons cornstarch
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2/3 cup water
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 teaspoon grated lemon peel
- 1/4 cup lemon juice (I used two small lemons)
- yellow food coloring if desired

This tastes just like the inside of one of those Hostess fruit pies.

Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt in saucepan. Gradually add water, mix and then heat over medium, stirring constantly until boiling and thickened. (mine thickened quickly and into lumps, lumps of a nice consistency that absorbed water without trouble, but lumps)

Boil and stir one minute. Mine thickened totally before one minute.

Remove from heat. Stir in butter and lemon peel, mixing until butter melts. Gradually stir in lemon juice, and then food coloring. Refrigerate 2 hours or until set.

The recipe book suggests icing with White Mounting Frosting. I'll investigate.

Baby's 6th Birthday

June babies mean a lot of sweating while baking birthday cakes...

Today's yellow cake is a kid-crazy chocolate chip, blue swirl number that started with the batter from last year's cake for Tracy. Only substitution is cutting the sugar back to 1 cup and using vanilla almond milk instead of milk.

After I mixed the batter, I divided the batter in half and added 1/2 a bag of chocolate chips to one half and poured it into the bottom of the cake pan.

The other half I took a LOT of blue food coloring and some rainbow sprinkles and mixed that. I poured it on top of the chocolate chip mixture in most places, along side in others, and swirled gently in others.



cake:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/tracys-yellow-cake.html

icing:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/08/silly-cake.html

Très grande tarte tatin

Went to start my tarte tatin and as usual as soon as I went to open the can of pears, our cordless electric can opener died. And we don't have a manual one. The odd thing is, as soon as it dies, it's done. When you plug it in, you have to wait about twenty minutes before you can use it plugged in.

Then I started working on the sugar syrup and I was working on this blog entry at the same time and the sauce reduced down to the point where I thought I had burned my pan. Interestingly, I think this is how it's supposed to work. The color is perfect and it's reduced by about half. And my tatins are always a tad runny so this may explain why... I am too impatient with the syrup and use it prematurely.

After an irate phone call from a friend and a facebook message from another friend experiencing some career difficulties, I can still only get the can half open...

For my syrup, I used about a half cup of the pear juice from the can of pears (I used a church key to extract it) and less than 1/4 cup sugar. I swirled and boiled this until it reduced and turned vivid amber. I poured it back in the pyrex measuring cup and it seemed to be about 1/4 cup syrup. I added another 1/4-ish cup pear juice to the hot pan and used a silicone rubber spatula to scrap the stuff from the bottom of the pan. It all turned amber about immediately though it did not reduce. I pour it into the measuring cup and stirred.

Next, while waiting for my pears:

• Cream 12 tablespoons room temp unsalted butter
• With about 1 cup granulated sugar

Lower speed and beat in one at a time:

• 5 large eggs, also room temp

Now at this point, the Ina Garten's recipe calls for 2/3 cup sour cream. I have a nice amount more than 1/3 cup but no where near 2/3. This is also when you add 1 teaspoon lemon zest and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Since sour cream is like a liquid, maybe I'll add a teaspoon of lemon juice. Yeah. I'll do that as I don't have lemons to zest. Oh, and cool... upon closer review of the fridge I found sour cream from the tacos I got via take-out last week... 2 ounces... awesome!

Sift together in separate bowl:

• 2 heaping cups unbleached white flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon iodized sea salt

At this point, I'm going to fight more with my can opener and try to get my pears... I got one 29 ounce can open but it stalled (AGAIN) 3/4 of the way through the 15 ounce can... And I think I'll need another 15 ounce can. UGGH.

Okay, so once that last can is open... (In pried open the nearly open one, like Popeye and his spinach) I can finish nicely arranging my pears, cover them with syrup, combine the dry and wet ingredients pour over the pears and bake at 350 for about 35 minutes. This project has already taken 90 minutes and normally, I would have eaten a slice of tatin by now. This is almost too frustrating to bring to International Poetry Night.

Update... 2 hrs later from when this project started and the tatin has finally made it into the oven. I had exactly the least amount of pears as I could get away with. I arranged them nicely and then poured the batter on, only to realize when I got all the batter into the pan that I forgot the syrup.

So I very carefully poured the syrup into the spouts on my Le Creuset skillet and tilted the skillet in hopes of the syrup making it to the pears on the bottom, a slow and steady process. The syrup all disappeared so I can only hope it was successful.

Now we wait for it to come out of the oven and see... fingers crossed.

Perfumed Pineapple 'Tatin'

I thought I would cross my recipe from 'C'est Prêt, Venir Dîner' for Perfumed Pineapple Crumble (a must try, if I do say) and my usual tarte tatin from 'Barefoot in Paris.' I wanted to use my new Le Creuset skillet in the oven.

But I didn't think of how much larger this skillet is when compared to my deep-dish pie pan. I should have doubled the cake batter... but didn't... so I may end up with Pineapple with French Dumplings...

I started with my Le Creuset skillet, greased generously with unsalted butter by my five-year-old daughter. Then we sprinkled about 1/2 cup light brown sugar in the bottom. We perfumed the bowl of pineapple (one pineapple, cored) with one tablespoon vanilla, stirred well, and arranged slices in the skillet. (My pineapple coring skills have improved. They almost look like pieces from a can.)

I took the remaining pineapple juices and poured into my measuring cup, where I added water to make 1/3 cup. Now this water is to go into a small saucepan on high heat. You're supposed to add one cup sugar, but I reduced to a 1/2 and added 2 tablespoons honey. Swirl pan to mix, but don't stir. Boil until it turns amber. I always forget and stir.

When it's ready, pour it evenly over the pineapple.

Now the batter: Cream six tablespoons room temperature butter with 3/4 cup granulated sugar. (Again, I reduced to about 1/4 cup) Beat until light and fluffy. Lower speed and beat in two room temperature eggs, one at a time. (It says two extra-large, I should have used three I think. Because mine were merely large.) Then add 1/3 cup sour cream. And 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.

In separate bowl, combine 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour (or if you're me, one heaping cup), 1/4 teaspoon salt, and one 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Slowly mix with the butter mixture. Cover fruit with this batter. Bake 30-40 minutes at 350. Cool for 15 minutes and flip onto plate.

Mine was swimming in syrup when it got done, so I drained it and will use the syrup for something...

Silly Cake

Yesterday we ate leftovers... leftovers from the weekend, the dinner party, even pasta I don't remember. Today for lunch, we'll probably have salad wraps and cake.

My daughter and I took the cake recipe we used for the birthday cake last week and decided to make our own silly cake. We mixed yellow food coloring (my daughter's choice) into the batter, then I gave her a fork and let her swirl other colors into the final product. While it baked, I whipped up some experimental lemon icing. I used some ingredients that means it will require refrigeration.

To make Creamy Vanilla Frosting Betty Crocker advises mixing the following:

• 3 cups powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup butter, softened
• 1.5 teaspoons vanilla
• About 2 tablespoons milk

I only had two cups powdered sugar so I did the following:
Angel's lemon yogurt frosting

• farm fresh lemon yogurt, two tablespoons
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1.5 teaspoons lemon extract
• 1 tablespoon heavy cream

Tracy's Yellow Cake

My friend Tracy said yellow cake is her favorite. So, I tried to hook her up.

From:
http://bakingbites.com/2005/10/happy-birthday-to-me/

Yellow Sheet Cake

2 ½ cups cake flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 ½ cups sugar
½ cup butter, softened
3 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9×13 inch sheet pan with parchment paper, or lightly grease it with shortening or oil (butter will produce a harder “crust”).
Sift cake flour, baking powder and salt into the bowl of an electric mixer. Add sugar and, using the paddle attachment, mix on low speed to blend. Cut butter into 4 or 5 chunks and drop into the bowl with the flour. Blend on low speed until mixture looks sandy and no large chunks of butter remain, 1-2 minutes.
In a large measuring cup, combine eggs, milk and vanilla. Beat lightly with a fork until combined. With the mixer on low, pour 1 cup of the egg mixture into the bowl. Turn speed up to medium and beat for 1 ½ minutes. Reduce speed back to low and pour in the rest of the egg mixture. Continue to beat at low speed for an additional 30 seconds, until liquid is fully incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and beat for a few more seconds, if necessary.
Pour into prepared 9×13 pan and spread batter evenly with a spatula. Tap gently a few times to eliminate any bubbles.
Bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes, until a tooth pick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cool for 30 minutes in the pan before turning out onto a rack to cool completely. You can leave it in the pan if you’re serving it casually.
Serves 16 (or 12 birthday-sized pieces)

I really followed this one and made Betty Crocker's chocolate icing.

That I deviated from the recipe...
Chocolate Frosting (from Betty Crocker)
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, melted and cooled
(I didn't have unsweetened so I used semisweet)
2 cups powdered sugar (I reduced to 1 and 1/3 cups because of the semisweet chocolate)
1.5 teaspoons vanilla
2 tablespoons milk

Combine butter and chocolate until well mixed. Not when hot. Stir in sugar. Beat in milk and vanilla. Use enough milk to make desired consistency.

I also gave Tracy some Heath baking bits to sprinkle on top. Turns out Heath is her favorite candy.

The cake didn't cool before she had to leave so I sent her on her way, with the cake in the pan, icing in a separate container and the Heath bits.

Streusel Coffee Cake

Years ago my mother gave me a little pocket cookbook called "Cooking for Two for Couples" (the redundancy in that title is amusing, isn't it?).

I'm using their recipe for streusel coffeecake and making variations for my guests.

I'm making plain, blueberry and honey-pecan cakes. I can't exactly reproduce my recipe because... well, I'm a mess in the kitchen today. Here is the original.

Streusel Coffeecake for Two
1/2 C sugar
1/4 c margarine
1 egg
1/4 tsp lemon extract
1/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 C flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 Tablespoons milk

crumbs
1/3 C brown sugar
1/4 C flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 Tablespoons margarine

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cream flour and butter. Beat in egg, lemon extract and vanilla.
Combine 3/4 cup flour, salt and baking powder. Stir into creamed mixture alternately with milk. Pour into greased and floured 6x6 pan. Combine crumb ingredients, sprinkle over top of batter, bake at 350 for 30 to 35 minutes.

Gayle's fundraising dinner

Last night was Gayle's fundraising dinner. She's walking in two fundraising/awareness events in October to benefit breast cancer research. One weekend she'll walk 40 miles in NYC and 60 miles in Philadelphia the next.

Last night she hosted her Italian dinner: real salad, rolls with garlic butter, cheesy shells, spaghetti with red sauce, spaghetti with meat sauce, sausage meatballs, and ziti with or without meat.

I manned the bake sale table. A difficult position for me.

I spent $54: $30 for our family to eat, $12 on raffle tickets for prizes, and $12 on baked goods. I won a $10 gift card for the Giant Supermarket. I brought home a pumpkin roll and put it in the freezer. We ate some mini cheesecakes while there. I bought a Harvey Wallbanger cake out of curiosity, some cookies for my daughter, and two big old brownies to make sundaes of at some point.

Then Gayle gave us some leftover clam sauce and several pounds of dry spaghetti and some lettuce.

So, today my husband worked from 11-4. So we had a small meal at ten so he would make it through the day. At noon, I ate the leftovers from my daughter's meal when we went out to dinner Thursday.

Creative reuse is half the battle when you're watching the budget.

My daughter had a salad for lunch, with the matchstick carrots and broccoli from her party last week, topped with some ring bologna and colby jack (colby jack also from the party) for protein. Then we had a treat.

I took two smallish cookies... larger than a half dollar but not as big around as a drinking glass, and took some of the Birthday Cake Batter ice cream also leftover from her birthday party and made a little ice cream sandwich. I topped with whipped cream.

I did something similar for myself but I used the Harvey Wallbanger cake.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

My daughter and I are planning a birthday party today. We decided to celebrate my husband's birthday, which is technically Sept. 11. I had planned to go to the store and get the makings for a chicken-corn pot pie concoction, but that has been delayed. Instead, we are making a pumpkin cake, a variant of my carrot cake recipe.

My original carrot cake recipe is listed if you click on the cake link and read the "pumpkin spice muffin" entry.

Today's "Pumpkin Spice Cake"

Sift:
3 cups flour
1 3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
about 1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
about 1/2 teaspoon ginger
about 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
about 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

Blend into batter:
15 ounces pumpkin
1 1/2 cups canola oil
1/2 teaspoon iodized sea salt

Beat two minutes.
I could have added four eggs one at a time, but instead I used ONE egg, two ripe bananas and five tablespoons apple butter.

Add walnuts and/or walnuts if desired. I didn't.

Pour into greased and floured 13x9 pan and bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes.

VERDICT: I used storebought cream cheese icing on it, and this turned out to be the best cake ever. It is soooo good. My husband said: "Did you just find a new recipe somewhere or did you make something up?" We know the answer-- I made it up.

When Life Gets Crazy... bake a cake

Yesterday, none of us ate very much. My daughter is recovering from her illness and the insurance company sent people to dehumidify our house. My husband and daughter made a run to Aldi last night, more or less to keep someone out of the way, and they came home with less than $20 worth of stuff, primarily carrots, broccoli, potatoes, coffee, generic peanut butter cereal and potato chips.

So my daughter had a big bowl of cereal and I did what I do when life gets overwhelming: I baked a cake.

I adapted the microwave blueberry cobbler from Eileen Bresslin's vegan cooking class to be a right-side up poire tarte tartin. The recipe has been posted for both, click the Eileen Bresslin link for her recipe and French for the tartin.

Let's see...

Angel's Microwave pear-butter cake

Mix in one microwave safe deep dish pie pan:

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

Add and stir:

3/4 cup milk

Melt:

About about 1/3 to 1/2 cup butter and pour evenly over mixture.

Add pears to top. And drizzle with honey. Microwave for about 15 minutes.

Pumpkin spice muffins

I decided to get experimental this morning. I haven't cooked in several days, primarily because my daughter has been out visiting relatives. We had a big lunch with Memmy and Pappy on New Years Day and then my mother took my daughter and still has her. We had my husband's pasta with hamburger for dinner that night, and yesterday I had to work so my husband and I survived on peanut butter crackers until after work. Then we went for pizza. We split a large pie. And ate it all. Four slices each.

So this morning, I have a friend coming to help me with a portfolio project. I said something about muffins. I have no muffin-apropos fruit, so I thought pumpkin... I have an old carrot cake recipe that I hope will adapt itself well. I got it from my neighbor when I was growing up.

Carrot Cake (about to become Pumpkin Spice muffins)
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
cinnamon
14 ounces carrot baby food
1.5 cups oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. grease and flour 13 x 9 pan. Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon. Sift. Blend in baby food. Then oil and salt. Beat two minutes. Blend in eggs, one at a time. Add walnuts if desired. Bake 50-55 minutes.

So I get to work and the recipe becomes:
2 cups white flour
1 cup wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
cinnamon
ground cloves
nutmeg
1 cup canola oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
8 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce*
(* 4 tablespoons applesauce generally equals one egg, this is the general formula of how I make a standard cake vegan.)
3/4 cup raisins
A tad more than a cup oats

They took about a half hour to cook. Until the spaghetti inserted in the muffin top came out clean. (I never have toothpicks.) Verdict: very yummy. Raisins were a good choice. Could have added more.