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Grandma's Seven-Up Poundcake
In my good spirits I’ve decided to divulge the recipe..
1 cup butter (2 sticks – room temperature)
1/2 cup shortening
3 cups sugar
6 large eggs (room temperature)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 cup 7-Up or Sprite
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees.
3. Grease and flour a bundt pan. Use Baker’s Joy if you trust it. I don’t.
4. Put the butter into the mixer. Turn it and let it run til it’s all smooth and silky.
5. Add the shortening – mix til uniform.
9. Add in the flavorings. I gave you my grandmother’s measurements, but I can’t make up my mind on this. I tend to go 2-3 teaspoons of vanilla and at least a full teaspoon of lemon extract and up to 1 1/2. I’ll say to taste.
10. Here is where some care needs to taken in terms of your mixing. If you overmix the flour, you’ll get a brick. It is called a poundcake but we still want a kind of lightness to it and being mean to the flour won’t get you anywhere good.
11. Add the flour one cup at a time, wait until it is almost incorporated before adding the next – Don’t worry so much about scraping down at this point. You want it mixed in as few passes of the paddle as possible.
13. Take the bowl off the mixer and add the soda. Using your spatula, fold the soda into the batter, lifting from bottom to the top – be gentle, but thorough. It’s gonna be nice and satiny.
15. Bake it for 30 minutes at 350. Then reduce the heat to 325 and bake for another 60 minutes. If a toothpick comes out clean – take it out of the oven.
- If your oven is whack, check the cake after first 15-20 minutes – if you see brown edges already, reduce the heat asap. If your oven has a glass window and a light – use it. If not, do not open the door anymore than you have to – it fucks with the heat. My grandma also insisted on us not making a bunch of ruckus around the oven. . . “you’ll make my cake fall.” Is it true? No idea, but I’m careful not to make a ruckus around the oven while my cake is baking.
16. Let it cool 10 minutes, then flip it out of the pan. If it sticks – stop using Baker’s Joy and go back to Crisco and flour.
Now.. Sprite vs. 7-up? I don’t like 7-up, so why would I use it to bake when I’m going to end up with leftover soda I won’t want to drink.
Made with Music and Lurve
Wheat Tortillas! – Getting a nice circle is an art I haven’t quite mastered.
So we went to Pittsburg back in June, and still haven’t properly thanked Lori and Mary for having us. When we went up I took them some flour tortillas. Since they liked the flour tortillas, I figured I’d make some wheat tortillas to send to them with a thank you note.
I’ve done these before with 100% wheat flour and they were good, but a little too. . .much for my liking. So this time, I used 1/2 whole wheat flour and 1/2 all purpose unbleached flour (2 cups each). Then 2 tsp of salt, 2 tsp baking soda, 2 tbsp shortening, 3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter, and enough warm water to make a good dough. I think it was somewhere around a cup and half. I generally use manteca in place of the shortening but Lori and Mary are vegetarians, so Crisco. . .
And I gotta say, my double comal fucking rocks. (I got that while we were in Pittsburgh at a Mexican market on the Strip.) Gets them done in 1/2 the time it usually takes me with the single comal. I reckon that goes without saying, but its waay past my bedtime.
I had an awesome time making them thanks to DJ Serena who was spinning that old school hip hop that I love on Juiced Radio, along with some hilarious raunchy stuff. The time went by quickly as I made the tortillas and danced/sang my way around the kitchen. Thems gonna be yummy tortillas indeed. Nothing like mixing in a little booty shaking. o/~ butterfly, uh oh, that’s old! let me see ya tootsie roll! o/~
Time for Scaling!
There are a few more pics to this adventure on my Flickr page.
My First Sourdough
My starter is descended from three historic starters: one that crossed the American prairies in a covered wagon during the last century, one from Alaska, and one that originated in New England 250 years ago. I hope I can keep this one going for years to come.
Steam was still coming out of that puppy. We can never wait for things to cool completely before trying them out. That’s one of the joys of homemade bread.
Recipe:
1 cup (9 oz.) fed sourdough starter
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 tablespoon active dry yeast or 2 tsp instant yeast
5 1/2 to 6 1/2 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 tablespoon salt
1 tablespoon vegetable (optional, for a texture more like sandwich bread) – I didn’t put this in.
cornmeal to sprinkle on baking pan
In a large bowl, combine all the ingredients, using only 5 cups of the flour. Knead to form a smooth, soft dough, adding the additional flour as needed.
Place dough in greased bowl, cover, and let rise until doubled, about 1 hour.
Divide dough in half and shape into two loaves. Place on a light greased cornmeal-sprinkled baking sheet. Cover, and let rise for an hour, until doubled. Slash the tops, and bake in a preheated 450 degree oven for 20 minutes, or until golden brown.
For extra flavor, make a sponge as follows: Combine the starter, the water, and 3 cups of the flour. Cover and let sit for 2 to 4 hours, until bubbly. Add the remaining ingredients, using only 1 tsp of yeast, and proceed with the recipe.
Was easier than I though it would be. . .
Mama's Birthday Cake
I spent yesterday evening making this. It’s two layers of yellow cake, with a white chocolate mousse and sliced strawberry filling. Then topped with buttercream frosting and more strawberries (which were incredibly good for being out of season and ass out expensive).
The buttercream is 2 to 1 butter to shortening for better mouth feel than 100% shortening frosting.
I actually spent most of the Thankgiving holiday baking something. Wednesday evening it was german chocolate cake for the dessert at my aunt’s house, Friday evening, I decided to make some dinner rolls to go with our leftovers, that somehow got burned. . .so Saturday it was back in the kitchen to make rolls again, this time from the challah dough. I made one braided loaf and the remaining dough I shaped into double knot rolls, no pictures, sorry. (bad lex!) Then I also made peanut butter cookies. And of course, on Sunday I made the pictured cake.
You say Noodle, I say Spaetzle
I grew up in Bavaria, and as a result, I love spaetzle. I especially love it with a nice jägerschnitzel – mushroom gravy – mmmm!
Because my baby loves me, she got me a bunch of German pre-fab side dishes, like potato pancakes, potato dumplings, and spaetzle (pictured).
I was all set to get my international grub on last night, as I decided to have the spaetzle with some kielbasa that a friend of mine gave me.
The pre-fab spaetzle aren’t your typical sort of dried pasta. Spaetzle tend to be a little thick through the middle, so these pre-fabs are super dried. I don’t really know any other way to put it. If you put a dried elbow macaroni noodle in your mouth, you can bite through it and eat it in a sense. Nothing doing with these buggers. In fact, you could break a tooth, so don’t try it.
The instructions said to boil water (natch) and then cook the noodles for 20-25 minutes (woah). Twenty minutes? For noodles? Inconceivable! But whatever, I was willing to sacrifice the time for a little bit of home, even though it would cut into the beginning of Smallville (yay DVR!).
20 to 25 minutes later, they were soft, but also a sort of grainy that I found most distasteful, not to mention a waterlogged sort of flavorlessness. But maybe I was expecting too much, they’re really just the lazy man’s egg noodle. What I did know was that the taste and texture was nothing like what a homemade spaetzle should be.
I’m getting to the point of all this. If you really want spaetzle, don’t ever buy the pre-fab. Waiting for 4 quarts of water to boil plus 20-25 minutes of cooking for noodles that take 10 minutes to make is what I like to call “crazy talk.”
I commend Maggi on the effort to make pre-fab spaetzle available, but what is the point if it takes longer than making it from scratch and the end result is substandard?
It’s helpful if you have one of these, but if you don’t, you can substitute a ricer, or a collander, or a perforated pizza pan, or a mesh strainer with big enough gaps or anything with holes in it, really.
I happen to have one of those spaetzle makers, so I took my slotted spoon and fished those “spaetzle” out of my boiling water, tossed them down the disposal, and made me a quick batch of the real thing. They’re done as soon as they float, which takes all of 10 seconds.
Here’s the recipe:
2 large eggs beaten
1/3 cup milk or water
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper finely
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature, cut into 6 pieces1. Beat eggs, milk, and seasonings in a medium bowl. Stir in flour to form a smooth but thick batter; let batter rest for a few minutes.
2. Meanwhile place 1 tablespoon butter into a bowl that has been rinsed in hot water and dried. Heat water to boil.
3. Salt boiling water, then spoon a portion of the batter into the the square container that runs along the grater track. With the machine resting on the pan rim, move the metal container quickly back and forth along the grater until about 1/6 of the dough is pressed through the grater into the boiling water.
4. With a slotted spoon transfer spaetzle that have floated to the water’s surface to the warm bowl. Repeat cooking in batches with remaining batter, adding butter to each batch of cooked spaeztle. Toss and serve.
Personally, I never add the nutmug, just my preference. From start to finish, this method will take 1/2 the time and 3/4 less money than Maggi’s version of my favorite noodle.
The 2nd best use of spaetzle is Käse Spaetzle. Take your cooked noodles and layer it with swiss cheese, bake until melty, and top with onions (fried or sauteed).
The 3rd best use of spaetlze is what I did to them last night. Saute some onions and mushrooms in a saucepan with butter, and/or whatever floats your boat, toss in the noodles to get a smidge of crisp to them, and yum. I served some up with my broiled/baked kielbasa, rewound the beginning of Smallville and got my grub on.
Here’s to making myself hungry.
First Podcast!
PhoodAdventures.com now has a podcast, made possible through Odeo.com.
I made the first one just as an introduction to the site and what we do here. Click the icon above to hear it.
The icon in the nav bar on the right will let you add the podcast to your Odeo queue which you can setup to download to iTunes or Windows Media Player.
Very cool, very geeky. Just my style.
The Great Tortilla Experiment: Part 1.1
Because this would be an experiment with a recipe off the top of my head, I started small. Only one cup of flour. I wanted something a little more buttery, so instead of vegetable oil for the fat, I used. . .butter.
At one point during the process it occurred to me that maybe I should have started with half butter and half shortening or something to that effect, but it was too late. I was already making a crumbly mixture with the flour and butter – a two-to-one ratio, I might add. Oh! I also shook a little salt into the flour. I’ve seen some recipes call for baking powder, but decided to see what would happen when I left it out.
After the flour & butter mixture was good and crumb-like, I added in enough water to make a soft dough. Because I wasn’t sure exactly how much water it would require, I didn’t knead it too much at the end because it had already been pretty manipulated trying to get the water content right.
In the end, the product was definitely closer in flavor to what I was looking for, but the texture was a little too flaky. As MJ rightly pointed out, my flour to fat ratio was too high. The missing baking powder also factored in here somewhere. . .
That being said, they didn’t last long. I had two, MJ ate the rest.
Challah Back!
I’ve never made challah before, but I don’t usually have a lot of problems with bread.
I got this recipe from allrecipes.com. It appealed to me because it asked for 1/2 cup of honey, and I wanted it to have a hint of sweetness. But it did seem like such a shame to cover the soon to be deep brown crust with poppy seeds, so I left them off.
I have problems sometimes knowing exactly when to stop kneading, so I followed the advice of my baking instructor from school and did it in the mixer and only mixed until the dough started to climb the dough hook. I cooked it until it reached an internal temperature of 200 degrees and voila!
I’m pretty pleased with myself. It will be made again, and next time – more complex braids!
The Great Tortilla Experiment: Part I
Flour Tortillas
If you don’t already know, MJ & I recently moved from San Antonio, TX to Baltimore, MD. Store bought tortillas here are sub-substandard. They have a nasty aftertaste that I suspect is from excessive use of preservatives. Tortillas in San Antonio do not stay on the shelf long enough to have need for more than a smidge of preservation.
Tortillas sold here in MD are stored mostly in the refrigerated section. In San Antonio, they’re shelved next to the bread. The tortilla section is actually equal to if not larger than the bread section.
I am attempting to get my friends still in TX to send us tortillas, but in the long run this method is going to be time consuming and more expensive than making them myself. I’ve tried making them myself before, and they have always been edible (if misshapen or overthick), so getting them from the store made more sense. Now I have little choice but the perfect the art of the tortilla. . .
I decided that I would start with an “expert,” so I started with google. That’s where all the experts are, eh?
The second hit was from a Texas cooking site so I decided to give them a try. I was wary because they referred to their recipe as a “chewy” recipe and the recipe seemed to lacking in the amount of fat I’m used to seeing. Just a mere two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Where’s the crisco, or the butter, or the lard?
The recipe was easy enough, but the resulting tortillas weren’t quite what I was looking for. They were still better than anything store bought on this coast. . .