Stop Blogging and Cook

I like a cook who smiles out loud when he tastes his own work.  Let God worry about your modesty; I want to see your enthusiasm. ~ Robert Farrar Capon (1925  – )

PART OF VALENTINE’S DAY MENU

TODAY’S PREPARATION

GO ON, GIVE IT A TRY!

For the crowning end (or maybe it’s just the beginning) of your Valentine’s Day evening, why not present a cake?  Or at least a cupcake?  It is not a difficult one, but it is a cake without a box.  It is a cake that you can sink your teeth into, and for that reason I like to make muffins or cupcakes.  No icing is needed, and they travel well, too.

If you can sift flour (or use a small sieve & metal spoon) and beat egg whites (a manual egg beater is what I use, but you can use an electric hand mixer) and you’ve stocked up on some staples (flour, eggs, sugar, baking soda, salt, vanilla, oil) and a few specific ingredients (nuts, cocoanut, dried cranberries, applesauce and cider) you’re set.

This is a forgiving cake.  Even if you don’t have the coconut or the applesauce or the cider, you can make it anyway and I’ve given lots of substitutions.  And if you don’t have a cake or a bundt pan, use a loaf pan or even a muffin tin and you’ll have the cake in just another shape.

There are three essential processes in making a cake:

1. Preheat the oven.  Putting cake batter into a cold or warm oven will guarantee that the cake will not rise.  For best results, get a small oven thermometer to insure that your oven is the correct temperature, especially if it’s already had many years of service.
2. Sift the flour.  This is to insure that the amount of flour is accurate.  Sifted flour takes up more room than unsifted, so a cup of sifted flour equals more than a cup of unsifted.  All recipe quantities for making cakes assume the flour is sifted (unless specifically stating unsifted), although they may not call it out.  If you don’t sift the flour, you will be adding too much which will weigh down the other ingredients (like beaten egg whites) and inhibit rising.  And if a cake doesn’t rise, well, it’s not a cake as much as a pancake.  Thick and inedible, more like a brick than a cake.  That is exactly what happened to my first cake.  As a ten-year-old I dutifully followed the cookbook recipe to the letter.  No mention of sifting the  flour.  How’s a beginner to know?  The practice had begun!
3. Beat the egg whites separately.
   • Even if you don’t beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, you will still have cake.  It just won’t be as light and fluffy a cake, but a little more ponderous.  Spending two minutes to get stiff peaks is well worth the effort.  Oh, and don’t over beat the egg whites.  Here’s what happens:  beating pumps in air, which is what makes the finished cake texture light and fluffy, so stop when they are stiff.  Continual beating will begin to break them back down, defeating the purpose.  Think of a balloon.  Blow it up and you have a big balloon.  Blowing if up further will not make a bigger balloon so much as a popped balloon.  Don’t pop your egg whites.
   • Here’s a simple test to see if the egg whites are beaten as stiff as possible:  As the air is pumped into the viscous whites, they begin to foam.  This foam rises to the top of the bowl, with the unbeaten whites settling on the bottom.  As the foam begins to turn into soft peaks, the whites on the bottom become foamy as the lighter, beaten whites rise to the top.  As they become stiff, they will stick to the bowl surface.  Continue beating and the whites are stiffest at the top, and those at the bottom are still soft.  If you tilt the bowl, you will see that the whites will easily slip away from the bottom.  Continue beating until, when the bowl is turned upside down, the whites remain in the bowl.  Neat, huh?

EQUIPMENT

• Large bowl for mixing batter, medium bowl for beating egg whites, small bowl for beating egg yolks.
• Egg beater, wooden spoon, measuring spoons, measuring cups.
• As much counter space as you can muster.
• Pot holders or oven mitts.  If you’re cooking with kids, they should use oven mitts large enough to cover both fore arms.
• Cake tester, to see if the cake deep inside is fully cooked.  If you don’t have one, use a small paring knife.
• Cooling rack, important to get air circulation on all sides of the pan, especially the bottom.  If you don’t have a rack, use burner grate from the stove laid on the countertop.  Do not cool baked goods on top of the stove, as it’s likely to be hot from the oven.

SUBSTITUTIONS

DRY INGREDIENTS
Flour:  Whole grain flour is best and whole wheat has the silkiest texture.  However, if you’re wheat-intolerant, I’ve had success with spelt and rye flour.  There is also almond flour, which I bet is fabulous and gluten-free, but it is hideously expensive.  Rice flour also has no gluten, but only use this for a third of the total amount.  Rice flour is very granular, and cakes made entirely from rice flour will tend to crumble easily.

Sugar:  I like sucanant because it is an unrefined, free-flowing sugar.  If your brown sugar has hardened, don’t throw it away!  Combine with the cider and, after it has softened, add to the batter before the egg whites.  You can use white sugar or even powdered sugar, if you have that on hand.

No substitute for the salt, baking soda & baking powder.

Out of cinnamon or nutmeg?  Use half the amount of allspice or cloves.

Vanilla is nice, but can be made without if you’re out.

Nuts & coconut:  Add or omit, your choice

Dried fruit:  Instead of cranberries, use raisins, apricots or a combination.  If your dried fruits are too dried out, don’t throw them away!  Bake with them or soak them in cider, orange juice, rum or brandy before using.

MOISTURE

Oil:  Adds moisture, important element in cake baking.  Balance all of the liquids, using more or less oil according to your preference.  Cake can be made with juice and applesauce, but it will not be as moist as if you use oil for at least one-third of the liquid.

Cider:  No cider?  Use any other fruit juice (with no high fructose corn syrup which will create an imbalance in the amount of sugar).  You can also substitute milk or, in a pinch, water.

Applesauce:  I use this because keeping a jar of applesauce in the pantry is handy.  Can substitute any other fruit puree.  Got a ripe pear in the fruit bowl?  Mash with a potato masher.  You could also use the pulp from juice oranges, without the membrane surrounding the sections.

HINTS

• Neaten up the pan before putting into the oven.  A very important reason to wipe away any drips on the muffin tin or loaf pan is that small globs will burn very quickly, giving your nose the alarm that the cake is burning.  You don’t want to be opening the oven door prematurely because that will also inhibit rising.  Keep the oven light on so you can monitor it’s progress.  If you don’t have a window in your oven door, you’ll just have to take baking times on faith before testing for doneness.
• The first bowl to be emptied, place in sink and fill with hot, soapy water.  As soon as you’re done with wisk, beater & spoons, put in bowl and clean-up will be a snap.

BAKING TIME

• Muffins bake more quickly (in about half the time) than a loaf, bundt or tube pan.
• You can double this recipe to fill a tube pan and bake for 1 1/4 hrs before testing.
• If using glass bakeware (Pyrex, Corell) decrease baking temperature by 25ºF.

REMOVAL

• Use paper or foil cake cups (found in the baking aisle) for easy removal of cupcakes and forego greasing the muffin tin.
• As soon as the pan is cool enough to be handled, remove by running a knife around the edge of the pan & turning upside down on the cooling rack.  It should fall right out.  If you’ve made the mistake of forgetting to remove the cake and the metal pan has cooled completely, warm up the bottom on a low burner on the stove and it should come right out.  DO NOT do this with oven glassware because it will crack if put on top of a stove burner, even a low one.