Baking

I’m probably dying. Let them eat cake.

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

I’m hot. I’m cold. My fingernails are blue. My head hurts. I’m nauseated. And, if you’re Nick, nauseous. I have burst capillaries all over my face, and my bangs are unkempt. Probably, I am dying. David left a message this afternoon requesting a cake recipe, so hopefully this one will suffice – Devil’s Food Cake, simple/awesome, and, let me tell you, quite a thing to muster in this perilous state. So now I’m thinking of cake – which I will make again when I am not teetering on the brink of my own demise. Next week, I think, or for my birthday, which is Sunday. It would be tragic if I didn’t survive until then. For me. It would be tragic for me.

Nick crossed his fingers when I made him promise that he wouldn’t remarry after I’m gone.

Devil’s Food Cake

  • 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 3/4 cup butter, at room temperature
  • 2 cups firmly packed dark brown sugar
  • 2 tsp. vanilla
  • 4 eggs, at room temperature
  • 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, at room temperature (if you don’t have buttermilk, sour milk is fine – one teaspoon lemon juice or vinegar for every cup of fresh milk)

Preheat an oven to 350°F.

Lightly butter the bottoms of two 9-inch round cake pans and line with parchment paper. Lightly butter the paper and the sides of the pans and dust with flour.

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda and salt; set aside.

In another large bowl, beat the butter until smooth. Add the brown sugar and continue beating until fluffy. Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat together with the flour, and add the buttermilk/sour milk slowly.

Divide the batter between the prepared pans and spread it out evenly. Bake until a toothpick inserted into the center of a cake comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Let the cake layers cool completely if you’re going to frost this. Of course you are. You can find a recipe for that here.

So, right. If I die, please remember me fondly when eating my cake. If I do not die, I’ll be in an eating mood again soon, at which point you are more than welcome to invite me over for cake and cocktails. I’m going to lie on the bathroom floor now.

Update: I’m still probably dying. But I’ve made it this far, so I’ll probably outwit death yet. And then, with one successful outwitting behind me, I’ll be unstoppable. Oh, I was going to tell you about Koreans and their fantastic meat. If you’re lucky, I’ll survive the day to report back tomorrow.

Pumpernickel for Grace

~ wellfedemily ~ 2 Comments

Grace asked if I had any recipes for pumpernickel bread, and, as I am the proud owner of The Fannie Farmer Baking Book – edited by The Marion Cunningham, circa 1984, and dedicated to James Beard – the answer was, of course, “I have two!” But one of them contains “instant grain beverage,” which is kind of annoying since I don’t know what that is. Beer? That’s all I can think of. So, here’s the better recipe! In blog-form, which means forever!

I’ve never actually made this recipe, but if Grace makes it, the result will be beyond excellent, and more than worthy of The Marion Cunningham’s Glorious Praise.

Pumpernickel Bread

(makes two free-form round loaves)

This bread is described as “A good pumpernickel with a thick crust and a fine, moist crumb.” The recipe comes from page 476 of The Fannie Farmer Baking Book (1984). BTW, if you don’t own this book, it’s pretty comprehensive and well worth buying – you’ll get a ton of really great recipes out of it, the kind you’ll use over and over again.

  • 2 1/2 cups potato-cooking water
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons yellow cornmeal
  • 1/4 cup dark molasses
  • 2 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
  • 2 packages dry yeast
  • 1 cup mashed potato
  • 1 tbsp. salt
  • 3 cups rye flour
  • 3 1/2 to 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tbsp. caraway seeds

Glaze:

  • 1 egg yolk, mixed with two tablespoons of water.

Bring the potato water to a boil. In a large mixing bowl, stir together 1/2 cup of the cornmeal, the molasses, brown sugar, and the butter. Pour the boiling potato water over all and stir until well blended. Let stand until comfortably warm when you plunge your finger deep into the mixture.

Sprinkle the yeast over the potato mixture, and let stand until dissolved and fluffy. Beat in the mashed potato, salt, rye flour, two cups of the all-purpose flour, and the caraway seeds. Add enough all-purpose flour to make a manageable dough, then turn out on to a lightly-floured surface and knead for a few minutes. Let rest for ten minutes.

Resume kneading for about ten minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic, sprinkling enough all-purpose flour to keep the dough from becoming too sticky. Transfer the dough to a large greased bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rise until the dough has doubled in bulk.

Punch the dough down and shape into two round loaves. Sprinkle a baking sheet with the remaining two tablespoons of cornmeal, and place the loaves on it with a few inches space between them. Cover loosely (greased plastic), and let rise again, until double in bulk again. Brush the tops of the risen loaves with the egg-yolk glaze. Bake in a a preheated 375°F oven for 30 minutes, brush again with the glaze, and bake for another 15 minutes. Remove from the baking sheet, and let the loaves cool on racks. Invite your friend Emily over for drinks and fresh-baked bread with butter.

So … call me?

Carrot cake! Blood oranges! Ginger!

~ wellfedemily ~ 3 Comments

So, I wanted carrot cake. Every time I get carrot cake, it’s loaded with raisins, and I can’t enjoy it because I have to eat strategically and pick as I go. Pain. In. The. Ass. And I didn’t want a lot of carrot cake. I have a dish that’s about 8×10, which would leave me with enough cake for about six people. So I decided, “I’ll make a small amount of carrot cake.” So I made the moistest, awesomest carrot cake ever.

Emily’s Apartment-size Carrot Cake with Gobby Cream Cheese Icing

  • 1 cup flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1 tsp. baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. cinnamon
  • t/2 tsp. nutmeg
  • 1 1/2 tsp. finely grated ginger root
  • 1 1/2 tsp. orange zest
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/3 cup oil
  • 1/3 cup apple sauce
  • 1/3 cup blood orange juice
  • 1 1/2 cups grated carrot
  • 3/4 cup chopped roasted pecans

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, and orange zest in a bowl.

In another bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, apple sauce, and blood orange juice. Pour into the dry ingredients, add the carrot, and whisk it all together. Add your nuts. This is where I dipped my finger into the batter, and was all “OHMYGOD. I am an effing genius.”

Bake in a pan, like mine (8×10), lined with greased parchment, for 40-50 minutes. I got ‘er done in 45.

Let cool on a wire rack. You’ll want to frost this with cream cheese icing. No, you’ll REALLY want to.

For the icing:

This recipe will make more than you need for the cake, but save the rest – you’ll like it on warm cinnamon buns.

Cream Cheese Frosting

  • 1 cup cream cheese (at room temperature)
  • 4 tbsp. butter
  • 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Combine the cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla in a mixing bowl. Beat well, until perfectly smooth and spreadable. Put on cake.

White bread with sweet potato

~ wellfedemily ~ Leave a comment

One of my favourite things to do is to make bread. I live in something like 600 square feet, and to fill that small space with the smell of baking is very comforting – it’s like I live in a baked fog. It smells like a hug. And the kneading! Nothing beats kneading. I own a Kitchen Aid mixer and its bread hook attachment, but I can’t be bothered. Not for loaves. For anything else, but not bread – I live for the feeling of dough writhing in my hands.

Because I bake bread at home for the week and don’t own the kind of commercial preservatives that would keep my loaves sufficiently soft and supple, I cheat. I add vegetables, which serve a dual purpose – soft, fluffy loaves of bread for as long as the loaf will last, and fibre, which is presumably absent from the soft white flour I use so much of. But I’ve never felt all that guilty about eating refined carbohydrates. If obesity is what ultimately gets me, it will have beat out a lot of other, more uncomfortable things.

In any event, here’s the recipe for the bread I love toasting the most:

White Bread for Cheaters

(1 loaf)

  • 1/2 cup mashed sweet potato (about 1 medium-sized)
  • 1 1/2 cups water from boiled sweet potato, cooled to lukewarm (or the temperature you’d heat a baby’s bottle to)
  • 1 1/2 tsp. yeast
  • 1 tsp. sugar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp. soft butter (or olive oil, depending on your mood)
  • 4 cups unbleached white flour, plus 1/4 cup for kneading
  • 2 tsp. sea salt (all salts are not created equally, but whatever you have on hand will do)

Combine water, sugar, and yeast. Let sit until foamy, 5-10 minutes.

Combine salt, flour, and mashed sweet potato. When the yeasty liquid has foamed up, mix it all together. Inhale deeply. It smells lovely.

Once you’ve got your ingredients together and a ball of dough has formed, dump the lot onto a floured surface. Knead the thing for 8-10 minutes. It seems like a long time, but it’s not – two songs, or two portions of a half-hour show, plus one commercial break. Don’t think about the time, just do it. If you’re pissed off, be rough. All the better.

When the dough is soft and elastic, form it back into a nice smooth ball, and drop it into a greased bowl or pot. I like to slather my pasta pot in butter and use that – it’s the right size, and it has a lid – I hate greasing plastic wrap. Cover the bowl or pot, using either greased plastic wrap, a damp towel, or an oiled pasta-pot lid. The wamer the room, the better. I live in a building filled with old people who prefer a tropical temperature, so I always have good bread-rising conditions. I also almost never wear pants.

Let rise in a warm room for 1 1/2 to three hours. Let the thing double in size. Then, smack it down, transfer to a greased baking pan, loaf or whatever you prefer, and let rise again, 1 1/2-two hours. An hour or so before baking, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. (I’m Canadian, and yet do not know how to measure things in metric. Also, I cannot tell time on an analog clock. School district #36 failed me.)

When the dough has risen above the pan, slide the whole thing in the oven and bake for 45 minutes.