Let them eat cake

We had some friends over for a cookout on Monday. We grilled some steak tips and chicken, and I made potato salad and coleslaw, a yummy dip to go with our potato chips (remind me to post that), and, to celebrate the birthday of one of our friends, a cake.

At Anne's request, I made a yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Now, I love cake, but I almost never make yellow cake; we're definitely a chocolate-cake household. In fact, truth be told, I'd never made a yellow cake from scratch. I mentioned a while ago - if not here, then elsewhere - that I didn't have a good recipe for yellow cake. My friend Charles suggested one from the Silver Palate New Basics Cookbook. However, I struck out on my own in my quest, because the recipe he recommended calls for white wine, and the birthday girl happens to be seven months pregnant. I know, I know, the alcohol cooks out, yadda yadda yadda. Doesn't matter - I knew I could find a good yellow cake that didn't call for white wine.

It will come as no surprise to regular readers that the first place I looked was the baking companion to my cooking Bible. It's called Baking Illustrated, and if the recipe I made today is any indication, this cookbook is going to become my baking Bible.


At the risk of sounding like a pig, I ate three pieces of cake. It was moist and buttery, and there was no odd chemically aftertaste that some (most?) yellow cake mixes seem to have. Frosted with creamy chocolate frosting, with a scoop of Edy's Swiss Orange on the side (orange sherbet with chocolate chips), it was just delicious. This is a yellow cake worth making and eating.

Here it is.

Yellow Layer Cake
from America's Test Kitchen's Baking Illustrated

1 3/4 cups plain cake flour, sifted, plus more for dusting the pans

4 large eggs, at room temperature

1/2 cup whole milk, at room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened but still cool, cut into 16 pieces

frosting (see below)

1. Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position and heat the oven to 350˚F. Generously grease two 9-inch round cake pans and cover the pan bottoms with rounds of parchment or waxed paper. Grease the parchment rounds and then dust the cake pans with flour, tapping out the excess.

2. Beat the eggs, milk and vanilla with a fork in a small bowl; measure out 1 cup of this mixture and set both aside.

3. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a standing mixer. Beat the mixture at the lowest speed to blend, about 30 seconds. With the mixer still running at the lowest speed, add the butter 1 piece at a time; mix until the butter and flour begin to clump together and look sandy and pebbly, with pieces about the size of peas, 30 to 40 seconds, after all the butter is added.

4. Add the 1 full cup of egg mixture and mix at the lowest speed until incorporated, about 5 to 10 seconds. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy, about 1 minute. Add the remaining egg mixture (about 1/2 cup) in a slow steady stream, taking about 30 seconds. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Beat at medium-high speed until thoroughly combined and the batter looks slightly curdled, about 15 seconds.

5. Divide the batter equally between the prepared cake pans; spread to the sides of the pans and smooth with a rubber spatula. Bake until the cake tops are light gold and a toothpick or thin skewer inserted in the centers comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. (Cakes may mound slightly but will level when cooled.) Cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the pan perimeters to loosen. Invert one cake onto a large plate, peel off the parchment, and reinvert onto another wire rack. Repeat with the other cake. Cool completely before icing.

I just looked back, and it amazes me that I have yet to include my favorite chocolate cake recipe in this blog. It's a slight variation to the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" chocolate cake. I'll have to put it here sometime soon. I mention it only because I frosted this cake with the frosting I generally use on that cake: the Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" chocolate frosting. There were plenty of frosting recipes in my baking Bible, but why mess with perfection?

"Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
2/3 cup HERSHEY®'S Cocoa Powder
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to a creamy, spreading consistency; add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla.

Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb

It's springtime, boys and girls. Do you know what that means? Of course you do! It means RED SOX GAMES!

Oh, wait, this is my cooking blog. In that case: springtime means RHUBARB! *does a happy dance*

Here in New England, rhubarb is one of the first things that's available fresh out of the garden. However, don't just go crunching into a freshly picked stalk of rhubarb; you'll find it far too sour to eat that way. Rhubarb earned its nickname of "pieplant" because when it's turned into a dessert, you can add enough sugar to it to take away some of its lip-puckering tartness.

Gramma Bonnie's favorite thing to do with it was to stew it down into a sauce. My favorite way to eat rhubarb is in a pie - not strawberry-rhubarb (though I won't refuse it), but just a nice piquant-yet-sweet rhubarb pie. My mom's recipe is the best I've had; it's a combination of the recipes that my Gramma Betty (my dad's mother) and my Great-Great-Aunt Margaret (my Gramma Bonnie's aunt) used to use. I've included both of them after my mom's version.

Speaking of Aunt Margaret, before we get to the pie recipe(s), this seems like as good a place as any to tell a couple of stories about her. I never knew any of my great-grandparents, but I remember Aunt Margaret vividly. Gramma Bonnie told some great stories about her, too, from which I have borrowed.

Margaret Hutchinson, née Wilkins, was born in 1890, and graciously shared her birthday, July 4, with the rest of the nation. Her father, my great-great grandfather, used to say that she was a born firecracker (and it was true, well into her nineties).

On Saturday mornings, she would bring a beanpot with her family's Saturday supper in it downstreet for my great-grandmother Effie Wilkins (her sister-in-law) to put in her oven and tend all day, along with the Wilkins' family supper. She would say, "Effie has her oven going anyway, she might as well do my beans, too," (and Effie never complained).

I think some of my pack-rat tendencies come straight from Aunt Margaret. The attic of her big old Victorian house, as well as the loft of the "barn" out back, were stuffed to the gills with things that might someday find another use. Aunt Margaret loved hats, the bigger and splashier, the better. Many of them made their way to her attic after they'd become a bit worn, and made later appearances in Danvers parades and shows at First Church.

When she turned 80 (the year I was born), she said, "Now that I'm eighty I can say whatever I want!" ...which she had been doing all her life anyway. She joined us most weeks for Sunday dinner after church at my grandparents' house. I remember listening to her, a wide-eyed little girl, marveling that anyone could talk so much.

Aunt Margaret was very involved in her community. She served as an officer of the Danvers (MA) Historical Society; was president of the Ladies' Benevolent Society of First Church; and she belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution. (She often said that the only reason she belonged to the D.A.R was so that it would be printed in her obituary.) She was often the last person to leave meetings, due to her amazing gift of gab. She made annual appearances as a "visiting teacher" to Danvers fourth graders where she informed them, in spell-binding fashion, of their heritage as Danvers citizens.

This spunky lady was the guest of honor at her 100th birthday party. She didn't stop there, but went on to observe her 101st birthday before leaving us.

I raise a forkful of pie in her honor.

Margaret Wilkins Hutchinson

Rhubarb Pie
(a combination of my Great-Great-Aunt Margaret’s and Gramma Betty’s recipes)

Pastry for 2-crust pie
3 cups cut-up rhubarb (1/2” pieces)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons lemon juice
grated rind from 1 lemon

Preheat oven to 450˚F.

Pour boiling water over cut-up rhubarb. Let set for 5 minutes, then drain.

Stir together sugar, salt, flour, lemon juice and rind, and egg. Pour mixture over rhubarb, and mix gently.

Put mixture into unbaked pie shell. Cover with second crust; crimp edges and vent top.

Shield edge of crust with loose aluminum foil, to prevent over-browning during the first fifteen minutes of baking.

Bake 15 minutes at 450˚F, then turn down to 350˚F and bake 40-45 minutes longer.

NOTES:
Original baking time on my recipe card is 450˚F for 30 minutes, 350˚F for 10 minutes. That seems to me like an awfully good way to burn a pie. I've only used the recipe myself once or twice, so I’m going to be experimenting further, but took the liberty of changing it for now.

Original ingredients: Aunt Margaret
Pastry for 2-crust pie
2 cups cut-up rhubarb (my mother’s quote: “Aunt Margaret could be rather parsimonious”)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
dessert spoon of flour
1 egg, beaten

Original ingredients: Gramma Betty
Pastry for 2-crust pie
3 cups cut-up rhubarb
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 tablespoons flour
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons lemon juice
grated rind from 1 lemon

Happy Mother's Day

In honor of Nancy Ruth Crofts Hayes

When we were kids, my stay-at-home mum always had time for a board game or an endless game of War, even if it meant that housework didn't get done, much to the (mostly feigned) chagrin of my dad. She taught me the basics of cooking and how to bake, and many of her recipes (some of which were her mother's, or her grandmother's) are in my recipe box.

Her sewing machine was going constantly, whether to make curtains for the house or something for us. She sewed a playhouse out of an old yellow sheet and dark blue bias binding; it fit perfectly over a card table. I loved that house, down to the flower garden she drew on the side of the house. She made most of my clothes through elementary school, costumes galore, from witches to clowns to gorillas, and numerous prom/Winter Ball/formal dresses.

She also did (and still does) various needlecrafts: counted cross-stitch, knitting and crocheting, which she couldn't teach me, as she's a lefty. She and I learned together how to make jointed teddy bears; she's made dozens of them, for herself and as gifts.

Though Mum's degrees were in Spanish and teaching, she stopped teaching Spanish when I came along. Her passion has always been music. Since I was a kid, she's been a church organist and piano teacher. Even a stroke at the age of 57 didn't stop her; eight years later, she still climbs the spiral staircase to the choir loft at her church (her family's church for generations) every Sunday morning.

Mum was thrown into the role of single mother to a teenaged daughter and pre-teen son when she was only 41, when my 44-year-old dad's two-packs-a-day habit caught up with him in the form of esophageal and stomach cancer. With the help of a very loving and supportive network of extended family and good friends, she guided both of us through high school and into college.

She has always been there for me, no matter what I've needed: Raspberry Kool-Aid or a band-aid, a piano lesson or help with my Spanish homework, holding me close when I needed it, and letting me fly when it was time. Mum made my first wedding gown, and was there for me with open arms when that marriage fell apart four years later. She happily welcomed Chuck into the family several years later, and is very excited about her impending grandmotherhood.

Happy Mother's Day, everyone.

Here's one of my mom's dessert recipes. We always just called it "Lemon Dessert," until we saw the recipe in Yankee Magazine, entitled "Fluffy Ruffles." Who could resist a name like that?

Fluffy Ruffles

1 can evaporated milk
1 small package lemon Jell-O
1 cup sugar
juice of one lemon, plus grated rind from half
1 cup boiling water
1 /2 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, divided

Chill unopened can of milk in refrigerator overnight or for a couple of days.

Dissolve gelatin in hot water. Chill until partially set. Add lemon juice and rind, and whip until light and fluffy.

Whip chilled milk; add sugar and vanilla, and fold into gelatin.

Line bottom of 9 x 13” pan with half the crumbs. Pour the gelatin mixture over crumbs, and top with remaining crumbs. Chill until firm.

Powerless

My four-and-a-half year old iBook power adapter has apparently given up the ghost; I can no longer charge my laptop. I just ordered a replacement power cord, and am hoping it will arrive soon; meanwhile, I'm laptopless.