EASY ANGEL FOOD CUPCAKES

Slight variations of this easy angel food cupcake recipe are all over the Internet, but look no further, todays post is DELICIOUS!!!

Even my picky-picky husband ate several of these this afternoon and he is NOT known to be big on snacking (so that is quite the thumbs up at our house).

The cupcake is super moist, ultra light and fluffy and definitely going (immediately) into my "make again soon" recipe box.

3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons caster sugar(divided)(see note below)
1/2 cup CAKE FLOUR  (no substitutions)
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 egg whites (at room temperature) (see note below)
2 1/2 tablespoons warm water (not hot)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1   tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350° and put paper cupcake liners in your cupcake pan (makes 18).

Sift together 1/2 cup castor sugar (reserve the rest) + 1/2 cup cake flour + salt and set this mixture aside. (*Make sure you use only 1/2 cup of the castor sugar in this step)

With electric mixer and a large bowl (I use my stand mixer), beat the egg whites, warm water, vanilla, lemon juice and 1/4 cup of the reserved caster sugar. Beat until its very foamy, then while the mixer is still going, sprinkle in the reserved final two tablespoons of caster sugar and beat on high till stiff peaks form. If you are using a hand mixer, this can take as long as 5 minutes, but I had stiff peaks in only 2-3 minutes with my stand mixer.

After egg white mixture reaches stiff peaks, turn mixer off and use a spatula to GENTLY FOLD IN the cake flour mixture (about 1/3 of it at a time).

Divide the batter (it will look like meringue) evenly between 18 cupcake papers. Stack the batter high above the top of the cupcake papers.

Bake at 350° for 18 minutes or till top is light golden. Remove from oven and cool in the pan. When they are completely cool to the touch  when you hold your hand against the underside of the cupcake pan.....then you can frost or top with whipped cream and berries.

NOTE:  If you do not have caster sugar(which is fine sugar but NOT powdered sugar) you can make it by putting it in the food processor for about 15 seconds. Just make sure you measure it AFTER it comes out of the food processor.

 

NOTE: To get "room temperature eggs", I put mine in a bowl and then cover them with (almost) hot tap water and let them sit for 15 minutes.

 

NOTE: Make sure you stack the batter in a well rounded mound above the top of the cupcake paper. When you first take them out of the oven, they will look tall, but they collapse as they cool so that the final cupcake is even with the top of the cupcake paper.

 

 

ENJOY !!!

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Baked Occasions

We love those "Baked" boys, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito!  We loved Baked.  We loved Baked Explorations. We loved Baked Elements, though we never wrote about it.  We were wondering why we didn't write about it, and whether we should write about it before we wrote about about Baked Occasions, but we couldn't decide and we couldn't wait, so here is Baked Occasions.

We usually don't go all in on baking books.  We don't like a lot of sweet, we don't like anything that doesn't contain chocolate, we don't like to read we need glucose, or meringue powder, or orange water, or sheet gelatin and on and on.  (We do love having to buy a speciality pan of some sort to bake in, but I digress....)

We are not going to lie to you -- these recipes are quite long and involved.  Don't panic.  As with much baking, you need several leaveners, so there is baking powder, baking soda and salt; then a mix of white and brown sugar, plus confectioner's sugar for glazes, whole eggs and an occasional extra white or yolk, and flavorings -- these things add up to long recipes, but not unmanageable.  Read the recipes -- basically, most baking boils down to dry stuff, sweet stuff, oily stuff and wet stuff.  Those four things in a myriad of combinations is baking.  

Lewis and Poliafito specialize in making desserts that harken back to childhood, retaining that wonder and elevating the baking with a modern spin on flavor.  Every cookie, cake, and tart is, indeed, an occasion. Each year the pair celebrates Dolly Parton's birthday by making this special cake. 

"It would be easy, almost lazy, to categorize our yearly birthday tribute to Dolly Parton (forever known far and wide as just “Dolly”) as mere kitsch. While we are partially attracted to Dolly’s camp factor (who isn’t?), we are equally, if not more, fascinated by her business acumen and all-around talent. She is Martha Stewart with a banjo. She is Oprah with a country heart. Her musical accolades are well known and well deserved"

They have done Dolly well.  This recipe was featured in Sweet Paul a while back.  Yes, it is long, but you can do it.  Do it for Dolly!  Just divide and conquer!  The cake has four parts.  The cake, the filling, the glaze and the sprinkles.  

 

Dolly's Doughnut

For the Coconut Bundt Cake:

3 cups (385 g) all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

8 ounces (2 sticks/225 g) unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the pan

21/2 cups (500 g) granulated sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2 tablespoons coconut extract

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

11⁄3 cups (315 ml) unsweetened coconut milk

For the Dark Chocolate Coconut Filling:

5 ounces (140 g) cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup (40 g) lightly packed unsweetened shredded coconut

6 ounces (170 g) dark chocolate (60 to 72% cacao), melted and cooled

1 large egg

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

For the Simple Coconut Glaze:

4 to 6 tablespoons (60 to 90 ml) coconut milk

1/2 teaspoon coconut extract

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups (225 g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted

6 ounces (170 g) good quality white chocolate, melted but still warm

Red or pink food dye or gel

For Décor:

Pink or rainbow sprinkles (optional)


 

MAKE THE CHOCOLATE BUNDT CAKE

1. Preheat the oven to 350F (175C). Butter the inside of a 10- or 12-cup (2.4- or 2.8-L) Bundt pan, dust with flour, and knock out the excess flour. Alternatively, spray the pan with cooking spray. Either way, make sure the pan’s nooks and crannies are all thoroughly coated.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.

3. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl, then add the eggs and egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the bowl again, add the coconut and vanilla extracts, and beat until just incorporated.

4. Add the flour mixture in three parts, alternating with the coconut milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture, mixing after each addition until just combined, about 10 seconds; do not overmix. Remove the bowl from the standing mixer, transfer the batter to a large bowl, and clean and dry the mixing bowl.

MAKE THE DARK CHOCOLATE COCONUT FILLING

 

1. In the now-clean bowl of the standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the unsweetened coconut, melted dark chocolate, egg, and granulated sugar and beat again until completely incorporated, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl and mix again for a few more seconds. Add 1/2 cup of the cake batter to the filling batter and fold until incorporated.

ASSEMBLING THE BUNDT

 

1. Spoon half of the cake batter into the prepared pan. Spoon the filling on top of the batter, keeping it in the center of the batter and away from the sides of the pan. Then pour the remaining half of the batter over the filling. Smooth the top with an offset spatula. Bake in the middle of the oven for 50 to 55 minutes, until a small sharp knife or toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs.

2. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool completely. Gently loosen the sides of the cake from the pan and turn it out onto the rack. Place a baking sheet (lined with parchment if you like, for easy cleanup) underneath the wire rack.

MAKE THE SIMPLE COCONUT GLAZE

 

1. In a large bowl, whisk together 4 tablespoons (60 ml) of the coconut milk, the coconut extract, and vanilla extract. Add the confectioners’ sugar and whisk until incorporated and smooth. Slowly stir in the warm white chocolate. We prefer a thick yet pourable glaze; if the glaze appears too thick, thin it out with additional coconut milk, a tablespoon at a time, until you reach the desired consistency. Stir in the food dye, a few drops at a time, until the desired color is reached.

2. Pour the glaze in large, thick ribbons over the crown of the Bundt, allowing the glaze to spread and drip down the sides of the cake. Top with sprinkles, if using. Allow the glaze to set before serving, about 5 minutes.

HOW TO STORE

The cake will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

TIP

We are thoroughly enamored of the ribbon of chocolate running throughout this cake—it is a tasty and fun surprise. However, if you are not a chocolate fan (the horror!), you can turn Dolly’s Doughnut into a straight-up (and quite tasty) coconut-y Bundt. Simply omit the dark chocolate filling in its entirety, pour all of the coconut batter directly into the pan, and bake per the recipe. We leave it up to you whether you want to omit the white chocolate glaze (and whether you consider white chocolate to be chocolate, anyway).

Yes, making this cake an occasion fit for a Dolly, or anyone else you might adore!

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Olives & Oranges

Sara Jenkins owns the very famous Porchetta restaurant in New York City.  If she did a Porchetta cookbook, it would be slim indeed, as Porchetta serves porchetta.  OK there are a few other things, but people go for the porchetta.  Luckily for us, Jenkins compiled a collection of decidedly Mediterranean dishes in Olives & Oranges. 

There was a huge dust up in the cookbook world when Julia Moskin wrote her now infamous, I Was a Cookbook Ghostwriter.  Generally, writers are only tangentially mentioned if at all.  Mindy Fox teamed up with Jenkins to write Olives & Oranges, and her name figures prominently on the cover. 

Sara Jenkins grew up smack dab in the middle of Mediterranean food.  Her father was a foreign correspondent and her mother is the food writer Nancy Harmon Jenkins and before she was event a teenager, Jenkins had lived in Italy, Spain, France, Lebanon, and Cyprus.

There is an introductory chapter on the pantry and as one might guess, there is olive oil and olives, a variety of citrus, pasta and beans, za'atar and sumac and a nice pecorino.  The pantry items are prominently featured in these recipes.

The olive oil even makes it into a favorite dessert.  An olive oil cake is to the Mediterranean as a pound cake is to the South; they are plain, tasty cakes that can be dressed up or eaten right out of the pan. Everyone knows how to make them, and each recipe varies just a bit.  And you can rest assured that my mother makes olive oil cake better than your mother.  Use a really nice olive oil.

Lemon Olive Oil Cake

 

1-1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 large eggs

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup plain whole-milk yogurt

Finely grated zest of 3 lemons

3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

Put oven rack in center position and heat oven to 325°F. Lightly oil a 9-inch springform pan.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

With an electric mixer, beat eggs and sugar in a large bowl on high speed for 5 minutes, or until pale and thick. Add yogurt and zest; beat to combine. With mixer on medium speed, add oil in a quick, steady stream. Reduce speed to low and gradually add flour mixture just until blended. Whisk batter by hand to make sure that all ingredients are incorporated.

Pour batter into pan. Bake, rotating pan once, until cake is golden, center springs back to the touch, and edges pull away from pan, 40 to 45 minutes. Let cool in pan for a minute or two on rack, then release from pan and let cool completely on rack before slicing. 

So many "Mediterranean" cookbooks feature food from Italy or occasionally Spain, but Jenkins takes the reader on a comprehensive tour of the whole Mediterranean area, pulling the best and spiciest in a single book.

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The Farm

Seriously, that whole farm-to-table idea has gotten so twee.  Everyone with a fourth-floor walk up and a can of compost envisions themselves a farmer.   And I applaud it, I do.  Now if you are looking for an authentic farm experience, give Ian Knauer's The Farm a try.   Knauer worked as a recipe tester for Gourmet for many years but people began to notice that his recipes were often to better than the ones he was being asked to test.

Truth be told, he also spent a lot time on the farm... an actual farm in the Pennsylvania countryside.   Like many people, Knauer packed up and moved from the idyllic countryside to find fame and fortune in the big city.  The big city is just that --big; and a city.   Knauer conned his sisters into heading back to their childhood haunts to work the family farm for a year.  The nostalgia of garden tomatoes proved too much to pass up.

Knaur takes the reader though a year in his family garden.  It has memories and history and some great food.  There are a lot of cool recipes in this book, but this is the kind of cake we love.   It is a recipe from Ian's grandmother, whose farm was thick with black walnuts.  

Black Walnut Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup black or English walnut pieces
1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/3 cups buttermilk

Preheat the oven to 350°F, with a rack in the middle. Butter and flour a 9-inch-square cake pan.

Whisk together the flour, walnuts, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.

Beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition, then beat in the vanilla. Add the flour mixture and the buttermilk alternately in batches, beginning and ending with the flour mixture and mixing until just combined.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and smooth the top. Bake until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 45 to 55 minutes. Cool in the pan on a rack for 1 hour. Invert the cake over a cake plate and serve.

I love to watch Ian Knauer on Unique Eats.   Rumor has it he might have a new show this year on NBC Sports.  He used to have a fine blog, but I guess writing a cookbook took him away from all that.  Ian, honey, please keep linking your info to your blog.

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Bake & Decorate

Today was the Wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. (I am sure that you forgot and are just now amazed that it happened without you. Never fear, it is being shown over and over and over again throughout today ad probably for the next few months.)

Still, it is only fitting and proper that we feature a cookbook by the baker who is in charge of the Wedding Cake. Fiona Cairns has written a a lovely little baking book called Bake & Decorate. The Book came put before she got the Royal gig, so in true marketing fashion, she will be releasing a new book just in time for Christmas.


Here is Fiona with finished Wedding Cake.

This cake adorns the cover of Bake & Decorate. Care to speculate what is on the cover of the next book?

Pansy Wreath Cake

175g unsalted butter, softened, plus more for the tin
175g self-raising flour
2 eggs, lightly beaten
175g golden caster sugar
the zest, finely grated, and juice of
1 large unwaxed lemon

For the topping

the juice of 1 large lemon
100g white granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4. Lightly butter an 18cm, 7.5cm deep, round springform tin and line the base and sides with baking parchment. Sift the flour with a pinch of salt into a bowl and set aside.

Melt the butter in a small pan and set aside to cool slightly. Using an electric whisk or mixer, beat the eggs and sugar together until very light and fluffy (about five minutes). Blend in the melted butter; then very gently fold in the flour and zest. Finally, slowly fold in the juice.

Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the cake springs back to the touch, or a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Meanwhile, make the crunchy topping by mixing the juice and sugar together. Immediately the cake comes from the oven, prick tiny holes all over it with a fine skewer or cocktail stick. Pour the lemon syrup evenly all over the surface. Leave to cool completely in the tin.

To decorate

150g icing sugar, sifted
purple food colour
20-25 crystallised small violas and pansies
50g bag white royal icing

Place the cake upside down on your serving plate or cake stand. Tip the icing sugar into a small bowl and add 1½-2 tablespoons of water and a tiny amount of purple food colour. The icing should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Spoon it over the cake and allow it to drizzle down the sides. Arrange the violas and pansies in a circle, using the royal icing to affix them, if you like, then place a few in the middle of the cake.

Check out Prince William's cake here.

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Eating Royally --REDUX

With the wedding today, we felt that we should revisit Eating Royally. Mainly we felt we should re-visit it because between the pages of this book rests the recipe for Prince William's Grooms Cake.

The actual cake is being made by McVitie's Cake Company. It is being made with the "secret" royal family recipe. McVitie's has been making cakes for royal weddings and christenings since the wedding in 1893 of the Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George V and Queen Mary. They made the 60th wedding anniversary cake for the Queen and Prince Phillip in 2007. The United Biscuits Group , who now owns McVitie's says about 1700 McVitie's Rich Tea Biscuits and over 16kg of chocolate will be used in the reception cake.


Darren McGrady, the author of Eating Royally and the chef to Princess Diana included the no-bake chocolate cake in his book. Though The United biscuit Group will not confirm that it is the recipe, it is just too close to deny.

Chocolate Biscuit Cake

1/2 teaspoon soft butter
8 ounces McVities rich tea biscuits
4 ounces soft butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 ounces dark chocolate
1 egg, beaten
8 ounces dark chocolate for icing
1 ounce white chocolate for decoration

1. Line the base of a springform pan with silicone paper, and butter the sides. Break the biscuits into almond-sized pieces and set aside.

2. Cream the sugar and butter in a bowl. Melt 4 ounces dark chocolate and mix with butter, add the beaten egg and mix well. Add biscuits and coat well.

3. Pour into the pan, making sure the bottom is well covered as this will be the top of the cake when it is unmoulded. Let set in a fridge for three hours. Let partially warm outside of the fridge while 8 ounces dark chocolate and white chocolate are melted. Flip cake and drizzle chocolate on top.

Now you too, know the secret.


As for the formal Wedding Cake, Fiona Cairns is in charge. Check out the post here.

For more Royal Wedding info head over to Lucindaville for Etiquette and a Tiara or Two!

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365 Cakes and Cookies

Marion Harland was a prolific cookbook author and recipe writer at the turn of the twentieth century. She had the kind of name recognition that lent itself to selling books, so featuring some of her recipes and adding her name to a cookbook was a good way to give a book a leg up on sales. We have often written about cookbook trends and the “recipe of the day” style was popular during this era.

365 Cakes and Cookies was published in 1904. It is a testament to the bakers who used books like these that they were able to get edible cakes and cookies form the scant instructions. Of course, at the time the book was compiled, there were few commercial bakeries, so baking was a task that most cooks knew how to accomplish.


Here is today’s recipe:

April 11 – Pistachio Biscuits

Make a batter with 3 eggs, 1/2 cupful of powdered sugar, 1/2 cupful of flour and the grated rind of 1 lemon. Put the mixture by teaspoonfuls on the baking sheet, upon which has been spread a greased paper. Dust with granulated sugar, and when baked, cover the tops with white frosting and sprinkle with chopped pistachio nuts.

It’s funny that this type of book is explicit in there being 365 recipes. What happens during a leap year? Alas, it is the one day of the year when there are no cakes or cookies. So if your Birthday is April 29th there will be no cake. Sorry.

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Feast-Day Cakes From Many Lands

There is something celebratory about cakes. My family used to bake a cake every couple of days, depending upon how fast the cake was eaten. But for me, they always seem like some type of celebration. I love this little book by Dorothy Gladys Spicer, Feast-Day Cakes From Many Lands. I love the idea of Feast-day cakes. It seems a great way to tell time. If it's Simnel Cake it must be Lent.

Traveling the world, Spicer brings cakes and cookies that are, for the most part, cooked for a specific day of the year. (Though where she got the idea to include hush puppies in this mix I will never figure out!) Still, this is a wonderful book for those of us who love holiday history and cake. Since Easter is upon us, here is her history of a Czechoslovakian Easter cake.

"Bábovka is also a coffee cake, rich with eggs and chopped blanched almonds and baked in a round pan with a hole in the center. This feather-light delicacy is served with hot coffee for the Easter Sunday feast in Czechoslovakia.

Easter in this country is unthinkable without quantities of eggs. Housewives need them for the holiday breads and cakes. Some eggs they decorate and sell at the village market. Others they paint for the feast-day table. Boys want eggs for the Easter Monday sports. Girls, especially, require eggs, since custom decrees that they inscribe them with sentimental couplets and present them as love tokens to favored lads.

On the fourth Sunday in Lent, a group of girls lead a flower-crowned queen through the streets and chant little verses to announce the spring. Some songs include requests for eggs to make Easter cakes and end with threats such as this:

Far back behind the kitchen stove
Your hen sits on her nest.
We see her white eggs rolling
And ask you to share with us.
But if you are ungenerous
And order us away
Take care!Your pretty daughter
Shall have no wedding day.

Great Friday and White Saturday, the Friday and Saturday preceding the holiday, are favorite times for decorating eggs. Most of the designs are traditional to certain villages or regions, since both patterns and coloring secrets are handed down from mother to daughter for generations. Some eggs are hard boiled and decorated for table use; but often people bore a hole in each end of the egg, blow out the contents for cooking use, and decorate the empty shell. Roots, vegetables, and grasses make interesting dyes. Onion skins, for example, produce beautiful soft tones of yellow and rust, while beets give pleasing reds and pinks.

Wax from homemade tallow candles, a stout needle or sharp knife, and a small lamp to heat the metal point, are the crude implements for creating a kraslice, or beautiful egg. The women decorate most eggs by a laborious process that resembles batik. First, they dip the egg into the wax. Then they etch a design on the shell with the needle or knife point. Next, they plunge the egg into a cold dye bath. They now cover the colored surface with wax and draw on another pattern. The process is painstakingly repeated many times before the exquisitely executed, glowingly colored egg finally emerges-a triumph of century-old peasant craftmanship.

All Czechs do not decorate their eggs in these traditional designs. Young girls often paint their eggs by hand, inscribe them with love messages and present them to sweethearts on Easter Monday. Easter Monday, or Pomlazka, the Day of Whipping, is Czechoslovakia's greatest youth festival. Boys braid willow branches into whips, which they ornament with flowers and colored ribbon streamers. The lads then roam about, to carol for eggs and whip the village girls "so they won't be lazy or have fleas." This symbolic custom, which probably originated in pre-Christian purification rites, supposedly brings good luck.

In return for their whippings-which are the measure of a young woman's popularity-the lads receive decorated eggs and generous portions of holiday coffee breads and cakes."

And here is the recipe.

Bábovka

1 envelope active dry yeast
1/2 cup lukewarm water
1 tablespoon sugar
1 cup sifted all purpose flour
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
4 egg yolks, well beaten
2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg whites, stiffly beaten
1 cup chopped blanched almonds

Dissolve yeast in warm water, stir in 1 tablespoon sugar, and set aside to rise for 15 minutes. Then add 1 cup flour to yeast mixture and let rise for 30 minutes, or until spongy and light. Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar, and beat in the egg yolks. Sift together remaining 2 cups of flour and salt and add to butter- sugar- egg yolk mixture. Combine with yeast mixture. Fold in vanilla, beaten egg whites, and 3/ cup almonds. Blend thoroughly. Spoon into well-greased and floured 9-inch tube pan. Sprinkle top with remaining chopped almonds. Let rise in warm place until double in bulk. Bake in moderate oven (350° F.) for 45-50 minutes.

I am so happy that my chickens are back laying their lovely "colored" eggs. They are being very generous as am I.

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Delights and Prejudices

Delights and Prejudices was written by James Beard in 1964. The book is filled with over 250 recipes, but each of them is sandwiched in the context of a larger work of memoir. On can never truly extricate themselves from their first kitchen and Beard is no exception. He grew up in the kitchen of his mother who cooked for several hotels in Portland, Oregon. While Beard fell in love with French cuisine, he never strayed from the locally grown produce and fresh ingredients that filled his mother's kitchen.

A newer edition of this title was published in 2001 with an introduction by Julia Child and a foreword by Charlie Trotter. James Beard has fallen out of fashion a bit in recent memory, but this is just the book to bring him back with a vengeance. What makes this book so marvelous is the way the talks about the food. Yes, the recipes are important, but they merely lay a framework for a larger story -- the story of a man who truly loves food and the people who grow it and cook it and sell it and share it.

Huckleberry Cake was a Beard favorite. He adapted his recipe from an old family recipe of Mary Hamblet, a lifelong friend to whom Beard dedicated the book. In some circles it is still referred to as the Hamblet Huckleberry Cake. Huckleberry Cake often has an asterisk stating that blueberries will make a fine substitution. If you believe that then you desperately need to read Delights and Prejudices. Beard makes it clear that only the tart, elusive huckleberry will give this cake the true flavor of the Northeast. (That being said, many of the blueberries that hit the supermarket from foreign lands are picked at a point that they are almost as tart as the precious huckleberry. On rare occasions, huckleberries turn up in the freezer case at a supermarket. If you want huckleberry cake, you need the huckleberry. But feel free to make a Blueberry Cake if you must, Beard won't mind.)

This edition of the book features recipes written like I like to read them -- with the ingredients incorporated into the method.

Huckleberry Cake

Cream 1 cup butter and 1 cup granulated sugar together until the mixture is very light. Add 3 eggs, one by one, beating after each addition. Sift 2 cups flour and save 1/4 cup flour to mix with 1 cup huckleberries. Add to the rest 2 teaspoons baking powder and a pinch of salt, and fold this into the egg mixture. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and, lastly, fold in the floured huckleberries. Pour the batter into a buttered, floured 8-inch-square baking tin. Bake at 375º for 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is nicely browned, or when a tester inserted comes out clean. Serve the cake hot with whipped cream, or cold.

On the James Beard foundation website, they have the recipe converted to a modern layout.

Huckleberry Cake

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
1 cup huckleberries
2 teaspoons baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Method:
Preheat oven to 375º.

Cream butter and sugar together until the mixture is very light. Add eggs, one by one, beating after each addition. Combine 1/4 cup flour with the huckleberries. In a bowl, mix the remaining flour with baking soda and then fold this into the egg mixture. Add vanilla and, lastly, fold in the floured huckleberries.

Pour the batter into a buttered, floured 8-inch-square baking tin. Bake for 35 to 40 minutes or until the cake is nicely browned, or when a tester inserted comes out clean. Serve the cake hot with whipped cream.

Give this one a try and if you have never read James Beard, this is the place to start, and that is my prejudice.

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Cosmic Cuisine

Cosmic Cuisine is one of those books I picked up at a tag sale and not because I had some overriding desire to cook within my zodiac sign. I'm a Pisces, so the general rule is cook fish. I didn't have a great deal of hope for this cookbook until I hit upon the wonderful properties of Mercury, and those pesky Virgo's who have a strong taste for liquorice. Who'd a thunk it.

I love liquorice, but I am no Virgo, so there you have it. But even so, I was so taken by this recipe that I couldn't wait to make it. And to add insult to injury, you need to let flavors meld for at least 24 hours.
Still, I am totally hooked. In a few days, I'll let you know the verdict.

Liquorice Gingerbread

4 tablespoons butter plus extra for the cake pan
generous1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons molasses
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoons ground liquorice root
pinch salt
3 eggs, beaten
scant 1 cup milk
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda


Grease an 8 inch square cake pan with butter. In a bowl, cream the butter, sugar and treacle (molasses). Sift the flour, baking powder, spices and salt into the bowl and beat well. Add the eggs. Warm the milk, dissolve the bicarbonate in it and add that to the mixture. Beat until it starts to bubble slightly. Pour into the cake pan. Bake in a preheated oven at 325 F for about 1 hour, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Leave the gingerbread undisturbed for the first 40 minutes in the oven. Take the cake out of the oven and leave to cool in the pan. When cool, turn the gingerbread out and store it in a container and do not eat for 24 hours. Makes one 8 inch square cake.

I'm off to make this right now...

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Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook

I am having company from the great unwashed North tomorrow. Actually, from from the snowbound state of Vermont. My job is to provide a gigantic feast as they head west to Colorado. I am cooking up some seafood and as I told them... If I knew you were comin' I'd a baked a cake... since I did know they were comin' I asked for cake suggestions and Southern won out. so I am baking a red velvet cake. There are numerous recipes all basically the same, but I knew one of the best was in Sylvia's Family Soul Food Cookbook.

Sylvia Woods grew up in Hemingway, South Carolina. In the early sixties, she and her husband opened a small diner in Harlem. Not to be cliché but the rest is history. Reading Syvia's cookbook is like being in big friendly kitchen. There's Bedelia's Oven-Fried Chicken, Bert's Catfish Stew, Kenneth's Honey Lemon Tilefish and of course Sylvia's Red Velvet Cake.

Red Velvet Cake

Cake

2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
2 teaspoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
2 ounces red food coloring
1 teaspoon distilled white vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Frosting

1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter or margarine, softened
1 pound box confectioners sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup chopped pecans

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour 2 (9-inch) cake pans. In a medium bowl or on a piece of waxed paper, sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Beat in eggs one at a time.

Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk. Beat in food coloring and vinegar, then add vanilla. Spread the batter evenly in the pans. Bake for 20 to 30 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Turn out onto a rack to cool.

For the frosting:

In a large bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter. Beat in confectioners sugar until fluffy. Beat in vanilla. Stir in pecans. Use frosting to fill and ice cake. Slice and serve on individual plates.

OK, here's the deal. I don;t like nuts so I don't use them. I know it makes the cake pretty. The other alternative is to take a the crumbs of the cake you get when you slice off a bit of the tops to make the cake sit evenly and crumble those up to place on the sides. Of course my other alternative so that NO cake shows through -- make extra frosting. Works for me.

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