The poetry of cakes

Preparing to bake a cake.

     --Winter Spice Cakes, Fluffy Rum Frosting, Warm Cornmeal Shortcake with Berries, Spicy Autumn Apple Cake, Baba au Rhum, Amaretto Apple Crisp, Black Forest Brownie Torte--
     These poetic cake recipes are only a few in a vast file of recipes  I've collected since high school.  The collection started as a home economics project and kept growing.  My home ec teacher will never know what she started.  
     There are many of us women and probably men too who collect recipes and cookbooks, but we don't use them much for cooking.  I meet women at  library book sales and church bazaars as we comb through the many recipe books.  These women and I talk and always laugh about how we "really need another cookbook."  We also admit that we buy them but don't much cook from them.
    For those of us with active imaginations, the books and their illustrations are a trip into a fantasy of delightful tastes, smells and entertainment possibilities.  It's all about possibilities.
After all, we might cook that pecan divinity cake one day for a special occasion. 
    All these thoughts came to me this week as I looked through my cake files for the perfect recipe for a Thanksgiving cake.  I'm meeting with my family and I want to take something really yummy.  
    I'm considering Walnut Cake with Praline Frosting, a sheet cake which will travel well or Ginger Carrot Cake, a layer cake which includes make-ahead directions and can be frozen.  You might like them too.  The recipes follow:


Walnut Cake with Praline Frosting
What you need for the batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
7 tablespoons butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup low-fat buttermilk (can substitute:  1 teaspoon vinegar stirrred into 1 cup milk)
6 tablespoons chopped walnuts, toasted
What you need for the frosting:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
6 tablespoons low-fat milk, divided
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon light corn syrup such as Karo syrup
dash of salt
2 cups powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons chopped walnuts, toasted
Now, put it all together:
1.  Preheat oven to 350;   spray with cooking spray and flour a 13x9 baking pan
2.  Combine flour, baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Stir well with a whisk or fork.
3.  Place in a large mixing bowl, 7 tablespoons butter, 1 cup sugar, 1/4
cup brown sugar;  beat a medium-high speed with a mixer until light and fluffy (about
3 minutes).  Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each egg. Beat in egg white and
vanilla.
4.  Add flour mixture alternating flour and buttermilk.  Begin and end with the flour mixture.
5.  Fold in 6 tablespoons walnuts. 
6.  Place the batter in the sprayed and floured pan.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.


Prepare the frosting:
1.  Place 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup milk, 2 tablespoons butter, corn syrup in a medium sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Cook for about 2 minutes, stirring occasionally. 
2.  Place the frosting mixture in a bowl;  add remaining 2 tablespoons milk and powdered sugar.
3.  Beat with a mixer at high speed 2 minutes until slightly cooled and thick.  Beat in 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.
4.  Spread frosting over cooled cake; sprinkle with 2 tablespoons chopped walnuts.
5.  Let the cake stand until the frosting sets.  Cut into squares and enjoy.
Makes about 16 squares.


The next cake is a truly delicious layer cake.  They'll invite you back if you take this one to an event.
Ginger Carrot Cake with Orange Cream Cheese Frosting
What you need for the batter:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda 4 eggs
3 cups finely shredded carrots
3/4 cup cooking oil
3/4 cup mixed dried fruit pieces
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger or 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
What you need for the Orange Cream Cheese Frosting:
Two 3-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 tablespoon apricot brandy or orange juice
2 to 2 3/4 cups sifted powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon finely shredded orange peel
Now, put it all together:
1.  Preheat oven to 350.  Grease and flour two 9x11/2 inch round cake pans.
2.  Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and baking soda in a large bowl.
3.  In a second medium bowl, beat together eggs, shredded carrots, cooking oil, dried fruit pieces, and ginger.  Stir  into the flour mixture.  Pour into the greased and floured cake pans.
4.  Bake for 30-35 minutes in a 350 degree oven.  Cool, remove from pans and then completely cool on a wire rack.  


Prepare the frosting:
1.  Combine the softened cream cheese, the softened butter, and the apricot brandy or orange juice in a large mixing bowl.
2.  Beat with an electric mixer on medium speed until the mixture is smooth and light.
3.  Add the 2 cups powdered sugar gradually and mix well.  Continue to beat in more 
powdered sugar until the mixture is of spreading consistency.  
4.  Stir in the shredded orange peel.
5.  Put the two layers together with frosting.  Frost the sides and top.  Press the toasted pecans into the frosting.  
Makes 16 servings.
Make-ahead directions:
After the cake is complete, put it in a cake container with a tight lid.  Freeze about 1 hour or until the frosting is firm.  Cover the cake with the container lid.  The cake can be frozen up to 1 week.  Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.  Instead of freezing in a container, place the cake on a plate and cover with moisture proof wrap.

A few of the many recipes in my collection. 

        




           

Why I collect records, vinyl, that is

Left is the original jacket cover;  Right is the cover after the plane crash

       This weekend, we reconnected our old turntable to the amp and speakers.  Between my husband and me and garage sales, we have quite a large collection of 331/2 vinyl records. I've read there's a revival of interest in vinyl.  Yes, there's some scratchy sounds and a loss of tone that we get on the same CD recordings, but there's something else that makes it impossible to dispose of them.  I  enjoy looking at the album art and notes, holding the records, placing them on the turntable, and mostly remembering my youth when those records were so important.
        CD's and other recorded forms just don't have the same history as vinyl.  Here I'm looking at two Lynyrd Skynard albums of "Street Survivors."  One shows the group enveloped in flames and the other shows them in the very same clothes posing in a line, sans flames.  The flames photo was in the record shops only a few days before their plane crashed and killed and injured many of the group.  Seeing the flames was too hard to take and the album with the second photo replaced it.  I have both albums.  I was lucky to find the first one at a garage sale. It has classic Skynard hits, "What's Your Name," "That Smell,"  "One More Time."
        Since the group formed in Jacksonville and played at local venues before fame got them, we claim the group as our own and our main contribution to Southern Rock.
        Then there's "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan," with a jacket showing Dylan and his girl friend walking arm in arm on a snowy city street.  A VW van is parked in the background.  Bob looks skinny and young and perhaps innocent, but maybe not.  The record is monaural, "guaranteed high fidelity."  Many of Dylan's best are on this recording:  "Blowin' in the wind," "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," "Don't Think Twice."

Who could not love it!!
         "The Age of Aquarius" recorded by The 5th Dimension has a photo spread that covers both sides of the jacket on the inside.  The photo is a study in clothes and customs of the 1970's.  The skirts are short and the pants flared.  Members of the group are pictured with what else, a horoscope sign under their names.  So 1970's!

          One of the oldest of our records pictures a very young Nancy Sinatra in a sexy pose, but completely covered in stripped leggings, stripped tee, very short skirt and high boots on the jacket cover of "Boots."  I have to confess this 1960's recording, especially"These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" greatly influenced my youthful impression of what a woman could do.  She certainly wouldn't let any man walk over her and as a matter of fact, "these boots are gonna walk" all over him  if he's "been messin' where he ought not to have been messin".  The album also includes "Day Tripper," "So Long Babe," "It Ain't Me Babe."  The songs were empowering to women in the '60's.  We didn't know we could have such power.

          I could go through all the albums in my collection with a story for each one, but you wouldn't want to read all that.  Just let it be said, collecting albums is good.  Try it for lots of trips down Memory Lane, some history lessons, or if you're really young, a new experience, but you'd better hurry.  I haven't seen any good albums at garage sales in a long time.

  

Confessions of an ex-English teacher

The junky bookcase in the computer room

My dear husband Dan posing before New Year's Eve dinner

      One passion I have had since grade school is books.  My sister used to call me "Books" because I always had one, was looking at one in stores or reading one.  Through the years, I have kept quite a collection of ones I've read or wanted to read.  I've given many of them to library book sales and to friends, but I still have two walls of  filled book shelves in my house.
      Halloween, when kids were coming around for trick or treat, one little boy looked through the open
front door at one book shelf and asked, "Is this the library?"  I like to read books and almost always have one going, and I like to look at them and hold them.  Some day, I might buy a Kindle, but I'm not ready yet. It might be too hard to stick in my pocket, the car glove compartment, or on the hammock.
     I have a small collection of first editions that I keep in a closed, fairly dust-free cabinet.  Most of them are modern books, but I have one or two that in 100 years may be worth something. My favorite was given to me by my mother-in-law, "Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats" by T. S. Eliot.  It was the inspiration for the Broadway play "Cats."
     In this blog, I will occasionally write about a book or an author.  I'll never get over being an ex-English teacher.
                                      A Book of verses underneath the bough,
                                      A jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou
                                      Beside me singing in the wilderness
                                      Oh, wilderness were Paradise enow!
                                
                                  (E. Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam)

For the latest on good books see the blog, BookSlut.