Orange Cake

As I'm sure many of you do, I keep an ongoing file of recipes I see on other blogs, recipe sites, and other places that I really, REALLY want to try at some point. Some of them I get around to making, others sit there for what seems like an eternity.

With the weather turning to spring, I have started shying away from baked goods and other heavy foods again, so many of those recipes will sit there for yet another season, until I get in the mood to bake again.

Until now.

See, my department at work is having a bake sale fundraiser. Oh, gee, darn.... So, yes, you know me, I dragged out the recipe file and started sifting through it. I came up with five recipes that are contenders for the honor of being in the bake sale. Unfortunately, now that I know I'm baking next week, I'm having a hard time waiting.

See, here is how my mind works. Whatever I make, I am supposed to divide it out into individual size containers to sell for a "donation". Well, one of the recipes on my list was for a bundt cake. And yeah, I can't really see a good way of dividing that out into smaller portions. How much do you put on the plate? One slice? Three? The whole damned thing??? My brain refuses to wrap itself around the concept, so I went ahead and made the cake last night, using the rationale that:
a. The ingredients are cheap, so if it turns out well, I can justify making it again;
b. What if it doesn't turn out well? At least this way I'll know before its too late (yes, I know, this doesn't account for the OTHER four recipes I haven't tried yet). And, finally;
c. What kind of co-worker would I be if I made a bunch of stuff for the bake sale but didn't bring a special treat in for my department to nosh on while we're selling off everything else that we made, right? RIGHT???

Yes, I know, its a weak argument. I made the cake anyway. It was super easy, just a handful of ingredients in one mixing bowl. Just make sure you grease your bundt pan thoroughly so that it doesn't stick like mine did (I did an excellent job of hiding it in the photos, don't you?).

The glaze is not really a glaze, as much as a "drench". It didn't harden up like a powdered sugar-based glaze would have. Instead, it served to moisten the cake even further. Check this out....

Talk about an ORANGE cake. This one was moist and flavorful, and very VERY "springy"! So I guess it was a compromise between baking and warm weather. My department girls will be very pleased with this one, I think.

Orange Cake

from allrecipes.com

Makes 1 10-inch bundt cake

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix

1 (3 ounce) package instant lemon pudding mix

3/4 cup orange juice

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

1 teaspoon lemon extract (I used orange. Duh, its an "orange" cake, right?)

1/3 cup orange juice

2/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup butter

Grease a 10 inch Bundt pan. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).

In a large bowl, stir together cake mix and pudding mix. Make a well in the center and pour in 3/4 cup orange juice, oil, eggs and lemon extract. Beat on low speed until blended. Scrape bowl, and beat 4 minutes on medium speed. Pour batter into prepared pan.Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool in pan for 10 minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack and cool completely.

In a saucepan over medium heat, cook 1/3 cup orange juice, sugar and butter for two minutes. Drizzle over cake.

Then and Now

Recently, my husband and I went to a local consignment auction and as I was sifting through boxes of cookbooks, the hubs came across a tattered old cookbook whose cover read, “Chesterfield Science Club Cookbook 1913”. Now, Chesterfield being the small Illinois town that he grew up in, he was immediately interested. We know of two other Chesterfield cookbooks, one from the sesquicentennial year in the mid ‘80s, and the Y2K edition, both of which we own. This edition is a typical “contribution” cookbook, with the names of each contributor listed. As Matt’s step dad (among others) was born and raised in Chesterfield, we started looking for names we recognized.

We’ve been flipping through the book here and there (yep, that’s right, my husband was the high bidder and we now own it as well as the other two editions), and while my parents were out here visiting, I thought it would be fun to try a couple of the recipes from the book, just as a kind of throwback to days gone by. Many of the recipes have very little instruction, and even some questionable ingredients, so picking one was a challenge. One recipe jumped out at my mom as she was leafing through the pages. Amber Pie.
I ask you – what exactly makes a pie “amber”? Well, the ingredient list wasn’t much help. It called for 1 ½ cups jam (what kind, you may ask? I chose Strawberry, simply because I didn’t want to waste my jar of fig if the recipe went badly.), 1 ½ cups sour cream, 1 cup sugar, 2 TB flour and 2 eggs.
The directions go something like this.
Mix all together. Take one crock of cream and whip. Pour on top of pie in unbaked shell. Makes enough for two pies.

I. Kid. You. Not.

Do you bake it? If so, how long? At what temperature? You don’t really put the whipped cream on before baking, right?

So, using our common sense (we hoped), we mixed the four pie ingredients together (I halved the recipe to make one pie), poured it into an unbaked crust (yes, I cheated and used a frozen one from the store), and baked it in a moderate oven (350), hopefully until the filling “set”, and, we waited.

At about 30 minutes, the filling was still liquid.
At forty minutes, it was boiling. Spewing fat little bubbles up from the middle of the pie. But the crust was definitely not done. Hmmm....
Ten minutes later, it was a puffing and heaving mass of phlegmy looking curdles that reminded me of a festering cesspool. I was mildly disgusted and somewhat horrified.
Finally, at an hour and ten minutes, there was a distinct change that had taken place, the puffing had subsided and it appeared to be a consistently gelled mass, apart from a bit around the edges that was caramelizing aggressively.
We removed the pie from the oven and allowed it to cool. After lunch, we decided to brave the beast. Cutting small slices from the pie, we passed them around the table, daring each other to take a bite.
As it turns out, it was....not bad. It tasted only vaguely of strawberry, but held a strong resemblance to a curd, in texture. It was intensely sweet, and the whipped cream helped cut the sugar a bit. All in all, not a bad result, if a bit disturbing in the process. I hope to try a few more obscure choices over the next month or so, and bring a taste of historic Illinois to my blog!

Oh, and just to salvage our sense of the present, we also made the Snowball Cake featured on the cover of the last Kraft Foods magazine. It was easy to make and turned out great! A creamy, coconut-y confection that my co-workers were happy to help me get rid of yesterday.

Snowball Cake
1 pkg. (2-layer size) devil's food cake mix
1 pkg. (8 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese, softened
1 egg
2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1 pkg. (3.4 oz.) JELL-O Vanilla Flavor Instant Pudding
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 cup cold milk
1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping, thawed
1 cup BAKER'S ANGEL FLAKE Coconut

HEAT oven to 350ºF.

PREPARE cake batter, in 2-1/2-qt. ovenproof bowl, as directed on package; scrape side of bowl. Beat cream cheese, egg and granulated sugar until well blended; spoon into center of batter in bowl.

BAKE 1 hour 5 min. or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool cake in bowl 10 min. Loosen cake from bowl with knife; invert onto wire rack. Remove bowl. Cool cake completely.

MEANWHILE, beat dry pudding mix, powdered sugar and milk in medium bowl with whisk 2 min. Stir in COOL WHIP. Refrigerate until ready to use.

PLACE cake on plate; frost with pudding mixture. Cover with coconut. Keep refrigerated.

Ginny's Special Request - Pumpkin Roll

Many, many moons ago, when I was just a teenager, I attended an event at a friend's home and fell in love with one of her mother's desserts. It was creamy, rich, and the epitome of autumn baking. Pumpkin Roll. I had never had such a thing roll across my tongue before, and I begged for the recipe. This may actually be the first recipe I had in my own personal collection.

I made batch after batch throughout the next decade (ok, more than a decade) and it became the most requested recipe in my rapidly growing repertoire. I can't say for sure what the reason behind it was, but I haven't made this in quite a long time. Pumpkin roll burnout? Maybe.... In any case, while we were planning the onslaught of recipes that we planned to make while Ginny was here, this came out as a special request from the lady, herself.

"Can we please make pumpkin roll?"

Wow. Well, YEAH! Of course we can!

Did you know there is a pumpkin shortage this year? That's what my local grocers tell me. It was actually fairly difficult to come by a can of pumpkin pie filling for a little while there, but I got it together and sure enough, we had pumpkin roll. For breakfast.

This is not a difficult recipe, by any means. I think that I must have some particular ways in which I coax and soothe the ingredients after rolling these out in such quantity over the years, that it always just sees to come out better from my kitchen. I even have one tea towel and one jelly roll pan that are reserved strictly for this purpose. When those two items finally see their last days, I don't know what I'll do.

So, if you are looking for a fantastically seasonal dessert (or breakfast) that is bound to satisfy anyone's palate, give this one a shot. It is a tried and true favorite in our house and many others.

Beth’s Pumpkin Roll
Cake:

3 eggs
1 cup sugar
2/3 – 1 cup pumpkin pie filling
1 tsp baking soda
2 TB cinnamon
¾ cup flour

Beat eggs; gradually add sugar. Blend in remaining ingredients. Spread onto a greased, wax-paper lined cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 12 – 14 minutes. Turn out onto a tea towel covered in powdered sugar.

Roll lengthwise and let cool. (Yes, roll it up on the towel and put the whole thing in the fridge for a few hours.)

Filling:
1 – 8 ounce package cream cheese
1-2 teaspoons vanilla
2 TB oleo
1 cup powdered sugar

Cream all ingredients together. Carefully unroll the chilled log. Spread the filling generously on the inside of the log. Re-roll and chill again.Slice and serve.

If you chill it for a few hours after filling it, you will have a nice, consistent roll with a firmly set cream layer. We weren't that patient, and we ate the gorgeous thing immediately after filling it, so the picture above makes it look a little gooey. It still tasted great, you can take my word for that. Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Mini Cakes for King Arthur Flour

(this picture is just for my buddy, Tom)
Hello, everyone! Okay, it has take me a little while to get to this recipe, but I assure you, it is worth the wait! For my review of King Arthur Flour's White Whole Wheat Flour (if you haven't seen my other posts, this is part of my membership in View & Review, with Bloggeraid Changing the Face of Famine - check it out!), I was determined to test recipes across the board. One sweet, one savory, and the litmus test of flours....bread. For my first try, I chose savory (you know, that IS my comfort zone!) and made Spicy Cheddar Muffins. Next, I got brave and baked bread! It turned out really well, too. I found out after the fact that I had used the wrong kind of yeast, which explains why it didn't rise like it should have, so I'm going to be trying that recipe again, just for the sake of making it right. Now, that only leaves "sweet".
After looking around and considering my options, I decided to pick a recipe from King Arthur's site that is not yet rated, so that I would have to start from scratch, so to speak. This recipe for Caramel Apple Mini Cakes just practically called my name. I mean, caramel is an obvious draw, but its getting to be that time of year....the time when the orchards start filling up, and cider begins arriving in stores. Apples.....Mmmmm!
Keep in mind that I picked this recipe based on the fact that it uses the whole wheat flour. Now, I have two things to say about that:
1. You would never in a million years guess that these are whole wheat.
2. I really don't think that being made of whole wheat flour even remotely makes up for all the sugar and butter that is in them.
That being said...I so don't care. These little babies are fantastic. I have a number of cook's notes related to the recipe that I will post at the end.....make sure you read them if you plan to make this!!! Now, let's get on to the goods. Another fabulous recipe from King Arthur WHOLE WHEAT Flour!Caramel Apple Mini-Cakes
Cake
2 cups (8 ounces) King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour, traditional or white whole wheat
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice or 1 teaspoon apple pie spice
3/4 cup (12 tablespoons, 6 ounces) unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups (11 1/4 ounces )brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) boiled cider or frozen apple juice concentrate
1/2 cup (4 ounces) applesauce
3 cups peeled, chopped apples (about 3 apples, 3/4 pound before peeling)
3/4 cup (3 ounces) walnuts, chopped

Frosting
5 tablespoons (2 1/2 ounces) unsalted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup firmly (3 1/4 ounces) packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons (1 3/8 ounces) corn syrup
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) milk
1 1/2 cups (6 ounces) confectioners' sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease the wells of a Pop-Up Pan, or 12 muffin cups.
(don't you just love my pretty new muffin pan?)
Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, and spices; set aside. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Beat in the eggs, stopping once or twice to scrape the sides and bottom of the mixing bowl, then mix in the dry ingredients, vanilla, boiled cider and applesauce, stirring until evenly moistened. Fold in the apples and walnuts.Transfer the batter to the prepared pan. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cakes for 15 minutes before turning out of the pan; cool completely before frosting.
For the frosting: Melt the butter, stir in the salt, brown sugar, and corn syrup and cook, stirring, until the sugar melts. Add the milk, bring to a rolling boil, and pour into a mixing bowl to cool for 10 minutes.
Stir in the sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon. Beat well; if the mixture appears too thin, add more confectioners' sugar. Spread on the cakes while the frosting is still warm.
Yield: 12 servings.

Cook's notes:
1. the recipe says to use a 12 cup muffin pan. I did that, and still had batter to spare, so I made a little mini loaf also.
2. make sure you only fill the cups about 2/3 full or they will pop-over like mine did. Still taste great - just not so pretty.3. These took WAY longer to bake than the recipe states.
4. Don't start working on the frosting until the cakes are out of the oven. It needs to be put on while the frosting itself is still warm, but it won't be if you do like I did and start the frosting right after you put the cakes in the oven.
5. I didn't add quite all of the powdered sugar to my frosting. I really wanted it to be more pourable.
6. That worked against me when I tried serving these the next day. The frosting had softened the cakes and made them quite messy. Again, still tasted great, not so pretty.
7. I didn't add the walnuts....just not a big fan of nuts in bakes goods. Sorry!

And now....Blackberry CAKE!

While I was preparing to make the blackberry muffins for My Girl, Paula!, I picked up a quart of gorgeous blackberries at the local farmer's market, but the recipe only called for 2 cups, so I had quite a bit leftover. At $5.25 a quart, I wasn't about to waste half the container, but I didn't really feel like making muffins again, either. So, just to check the versatility of the recipe, I threw it together again (did I mention how easy this recipe is to make?) and poured it into a 9 inch round foil pan. (I know, I shouldn't use foil, but see, I have several in my pantry that keep falling out at me every time I get the fryer or food processor out, and I really want to use them up and get them out of there!)

It look about twice as long to bake since it was a much larger dish, but it turned out beautifully, and now I think I have a blackberry CAKE recipe that people are going to request over and over again. These things are so moist, its ridiculous. Its almost like a pancake batter in consistency. I will definitely be making this again!

Hummingbird Cake for My Girl, Paula!

Good morning, everyone! You may or may not already know, but I have recently signed up to be part of the My Girl, Paula! bloggy group. Basically, what that means is that once a week (more or less), I'll be making a recipe from Paula's cookbook, "The Lady & Sons, Too!" along with the other bloggers in the group. We all do the same recipe every week and then we get to see everyone else's version of the dish on Mondays.

This is my first week, and the assigned dish was Paula's Hummingbird Cake.

Now, you all know I'm not much of a baker. I didn't even own a round cake pan until this recipe came up. Several times this year I have come across cake recipes that tempted me, but they always call for at least 2, if not 3, round cake pans and I just didn't feel like making the investment for something I don't use very often. But, I decided that I wanted to make a strong start on my submissions to My Girl,Paula, so I bit the bullet and picked up three cake pans. After all, I recently fell in love with a cake stand (I know, I don't bake, so why do I want a cake stand?) because it was absolutely PERFECT for my kitchen. If you know me, you know I have a fetish for serving dishes, especially white ones, and if they have blue accents, even better. So, this was a great excuse for me to pull it out and put it to good use for the first time!

"Hummingbird Cake" is essentially a spice cake, looking very much like carrot cake (at least my version did) but instead of carrots and raisins, it has pineapple and bananas. The cake was not overly sweet, which was what I was expecting, but it had a nice texture to it and was very flavorful. I really enjoyed the pecans mixed in with both the batter, and then on top of the icing. Speaking of which, the icing was lovely, a simple cream cheese frosting which took care of the "sweet" factor nicely, as you can see here....

I caught Ty "sampling" the cake when I had it in my light box for its photo shoot.

Admittedly, I am NOT a good decorator of cakes and especially since I overbeat my frosting and it came out a little thing, but no one at work complained on Friday when I put it out in the lunchroom for the vultures. I also made sure I put wax paper under the layers before I frosted so that my lovely cake stand would remain pristine. (Gotta show off the pretty blue patterns on it!) I also used the recipe directly from the book versus the ones online as they seem to differ somewhat.

So, there you go, one very lovely cake, and my very first entry to My Girl, Paula!

Hummingbird Cake

For the cake:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 cups granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 large eggs, beaten

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 3/4 cup mashed bananas

1 (8-ounce) crushed pineapple, with juice

1 cup finely chopped pecans

1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

For the Frosting:

1 (8-ounces) cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 pound (1 box) confectioners' sugar, sifted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans. For the cake, in a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Add the eggs and oil and stir just until the dry ingredients are moistened. Do not beat. Stir in the banana, pineapple and its juice, the pecans, and the vanilla. Divide the batter among the prepared pans and bake for 23 to 28 minutes, or until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake layers in the pans for 10 minutes, then turn them out onto a rack to cool completely.While the cake cools, make the frosting:In a bowl, blend together the cream cheese and butter. Gradually add the confectioners' sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in the vanilla. Stir in the pecans, or reserve them to sprinkle over the frosted cake. Fill and frost the cake.Voila!And, the inside:

TFF - Baked Lime Pudding Cake...with a twist

It is HOT. Damned hot. Flipping through Tyler's Stirring the Pot, I see this recipe described as "This dessert is just light enough not to slow you down, and the lime is a really refreshing way to wrap up your meal."

Light......Refreshing.....hmmmm.....sounds like a great recipe for a hot day. And, cake is for celebrations, right? Well, we're celebrating! Our house is finally DONE. D. O. N. E.....done! And, now that we have a new deck to relax on, I didn't mind running the oven for an hour to bake these, either! And hey, if I'm going to cook, it might as well go in the roundup over at Tyler Florence Fridays, so what the heck!

Now, I do love me some lime, but since this was a rather spur of the moment dish, I had to improvise a bit. What citrus do I have in the house? Lemons.....yes, that would work, but then how will I make my yogurt cheese this weekend without making a run to the store? No. Orange? Possibly, but I wasn't sure if the orange would be acidic enough. Ah-HA! Red grapefruit! Yes! Sounds perfect. AND, I even have a fresh container of buttermilk in the fridge!

Ummmmm...ooops. Ok, so the Sell By date on it is June 10. Hmmmm.....how do you know when buttermilk is past its prime? Yeah, I'm not sure...but I wasn't taking a chance. You know what to do when you don't have buttermilk? Improvise! Take one cup of whole milk (or, in my case, cream) and add a teaspoon of white vinegar. Stir it up for a few seconds and VOILA! Buttermilk.

I decided to use my little Longaberger condiment bowls for this since my ramekins were only 4 ounce size, and the recipe calls for 6 ounce ramekins. I didn't want to try and guess at cooking time on a new recipe, so I have pretty little round cakes instead!

I may have let the cakes stay in the oven a bit too long, but it could just be my ability to judge the amount of "spring" the cakes had (or lack, thereof), but it didn't seem to matter, because they came right out of the bowls without any persuasion at all and were just as luscious and dreamy as can be. I could barely stand to take pictures....I scarfed an entire cake down before my husband even knew they were out of the oven. Practically burned my mouth on the gorgeous little thing, but it was worth it. Part pudding, part cake, and every bite leaves you guessing. These would be the perfect finish to a barbecue....a refreshing little bite, in individual portions. I'd say you could just serve them up in their ramekins, but the picture of the creamy top on the cake is just too pretty to hide inside a bowl....don't you agree?

**The recipe below is verbatim from the book, but I replaced the lime juice and zest with red grapefruit juice and zest.

Baked Lime Pudding Cake

Tyler Florence, Stirring the Pot

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

superfine sugar

2 eggs, separated

2/3 cup reduced-fat buttermilk

1 tablespoon lime zest

2 tablespoons lime juice

1/4 cup all purpose flour

2/3 cup superfine sugar

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

lime halves and leaves , for garnish

Preheat the oven to 325. Butter and lightly sugar four 6-ounce ramekins. Using the paddle attachment on a kitchen stand mixer, beat yolks, buttermilk, lime zest and lime juice on medium speed until well combined. Reduce the speed to low and slowly add flour, the 2/3 cup sugar and the salt, until just combined. Transfer to another large bowl. Thoroughly wash mixing bowl with soap and hot water; return to stand mixer. Using the whisk attachment, beat egg whites in the clean bowl until stiff peaks form. Gently fold the beaten egg whites into the yolk mixture, a little at a time.

Divide mixture evenly among ramekins. Place ramekins in a roasting pan and fill the pan with hot water halfway up the sides of the ramekins.Bake about one hour, until the top springs back when gently pressed and the cakes have a light golden color. Remove ramekins from water; allow to cool slightly.Carefully invert each onto a plate.

Taking Cake on a Test Drive

Here comes another recipe on a test drive for my brother in law's birthday in July. I ran across this recipe on Chef Chuck's Cucina and it really spoke to me!

I don't usually have a sweet tooth, but I do love a good, rich chocolate. I made my version with unsweetened chocolate, for two reasons:

1. my store didn't have the Bittersweet the Chef Chuck recommended.

2. I like my chocolate extra dark and bitter

So, the torta turned out beautifully, although it took almost twice as long to cook as Chuck's did, and it was definitely bitter. I liked it very much, but you've got to like it really dark to do it this way. I may try it again with a different chocolate for the BIL. But, I think we might have a winner, the texture was wonderful, very dense and rich. And as an extra bonus, it was incredibly easy to make. I didn't have a tart pan, so I lined my springform pan with foil and it worked just fine...but I'm thinking I might have to get back up to TJMaxx now for the tart pan I talked myself out of there last weekend!

Chocolate Torta

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate

1 cup butter

1 cup sugar

5 eggs

1 tablespoon vanilla (I got to use my new homemade vanilla extract!)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup flour

powdered sugar for dusting

Slowly melt chocolate and butter over low heat, remove from heat. Whisk in sugar, add 1 egg at a time, vanilla, salt and flour. Pour in a 9 or 10 inch pan and bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes or till tooth pick comes out clean. Dust with powdered sugar.