Happy Mothers Day

For every joy which motherhood brings, a little pain and sorrow is mixed in for good measure. Over time our motherly memory of the failing grade on a science project or the broken vase in the hallway is forgotten. The stories we tell of our children are of the home-runs and blue ribbons. Perhaps we do remember the "not so shiny" moments of motherhood. We might recall those events with regret. If our reaction in the moment lacked patience and love.
As children, we test our parents every fiber of calm. Despite the hours of devotion and care, every child has looked into the eyes of their parent and boldly pronounced, "That's not fair". In those moments the exhausted Mom surely must have super human strength to not loose her cool. My mom lost her cool a time or two. I've lost my cool a time or two with my kids too. Still the hours of maternal nurture greatly out weighs the shortcomings.
I watched today as my aging mother allowed me to nurture her. At mealtime, I helped her put toppings on her salad and patiently waited as she decided on her choices. Her hands have weakened and her vision is poor. I watched with love as the greeting card was read to her, as she struggles to make out the words. Yet, that gentle mother spirit is stronger than ever. Her grace and tender heart is smooth. Her smile is filled with love and compassion. Despite the pain and sorrow that my siblings and I inflicted on her heart over the years. She brags of our good moments and forgives us just the same.
For those moments when she lost her cool, I remember them. I see the snot nosed kid standing with selfish wants and inconsiderate demands and blush in embarrassment for being that snot nosed kid.
The memory of my motherhood and the moments I lost my cool, I see the silly whims of a child who was only trying to get through the pains of growing. I forgive myself for being both. The aggravator and the aggravated.
I watched today as my children, the adult children and the still in the growing pain stages, care for me. A poem was read for me. Not because my eyes were too weary to read. But, because her heart was filled with love for me. Heavy objects were carried for me. Not because my body is failing me but, because he is kind and helpful. Hugs were given, tighter and more sincere than ever.
The joys are easy to live with. Mom's are all too happy to point out their successful traits and polished qualities. We do gain strength and depth when we examine our shortcomings and acknowledge those moments of sorrow. Just for a minute. Then, proceed with proud proclamation "My kids are the best kids and I am a perfect parent"
I love my Mom. I love my children. Happy Mother's Day friends!

 

Oatmeal Cake

Great cookbooks delight and torture me. Maida Heatter is vexing me like crazy. The recipes in her New Book Of Great Desserts are all interesting and I find myself marking many pages with one of my "make this" post its. I already have a recipe for Oatmeal Cake that I've made for years. Usually I bake mine during the winter months. It's a great way to use up leftover breakfast oats that are still lurking on the stove. But no, Maida's oatmeal cake is different. My notion of an Oatmeal Cake is a rather rustic, homespun sort of thing. Somehow, Maida's recipe tweeks that notion to include the impression of something just slightly more sophisticated.

I wanted to show you the cool oatmeal edges.

Maybe it's just the addition of dusting the baking pan with oatmeal prior to pouring in the batter. I mean, really, why didn't I ever think of doing this before. Everyone butters and flours the baking pan, but to butter and dust the pan with oatmeal, now that's pure genius. Maybe I'm easily impressed. This Oatmeal cake makes my old recipe look like milk toast.

Oatmeal Cake

1 cup quick (not instant or rolled oats) plus extra for dusting the pan
1 1/4 cup boiling water
1 1/2 cups sifted all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs large or extra large

• Place the one cup of oats into a bowl and pour the boiling water over the oats and allow to stand for 20 minutes.
• Adjust rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Butter a 9x13" metal pan ( I used pottery) Dust the pan all over with oatmeal and tap out the excess.
• Sift together the flour, soda, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg and set aside.
• In a large bowl cream the butter and beat in the vanilla.
• Add both sugars and beat well.
• Add the eggs and beat well.
• Beat in the rolled oats. ( mine were still pretty warm and I worried it would mess up the cake but it didn't, however it may have risen a little higher if the oats were cooler, I dunno)
• On low speed add the sifted dry ingredients scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula and beating only until incorporated
• Turn into the pan and smooth the top.
• Start to make the Nut Coconut Topping while the cake is baking.
• Bake for 40 minutes or until the cake begins to come away from the edge of the pan and springs back when lightly pressed with a fingertip.

Nut Coconut Topping
5 ounces of unsalted butter
2/3 cup of light brown sugar
1/4 cup of light cream
2/3 cup of walnuts or a nut you like or ( I believe you could skip it and replace with extra coconut)
3 ounces (one cup packed) shredded coconut (I used thick meaty chunks of coconut)

• Cream the butter, add the sugars, then the cream mixing well. Stir in the nuts and coconut.
• As soon as the cake comes out the oven, place small dollops of the topping gently all over the cake. As the hot cake slightly melts the frosting you can easily spread the dollops towards one another to cover the cake completely. (Yes Maida explains this process much more eloquently than I am)
• Place the cake under the broiler and watch it like a hawk until it is bubbly, and slightly brown.

I ate a small piece immediately while it was still smoking hot. A sliver mind you, hardly worth mentioning. Then another nice chunk after it cooled. Aimee had a piece for breakfast the next morning. Hey, she is a straight "A" student so she gets cake sometimes for breakfast. The rest was divided among three other family members and sent on it's way with paper plates and plastic wrap.

Bake and give it away. Give it away, give it away, give it away now.

Lemon Buttermilk Cake # 2

Looks can be deceiving. That's the case with this simple unassuming looking cake. It's lemon all the way. The cake pan is greased and then dusted with dry bread crumbs. This is only the second time my baking adventures have required me to dust with bread crumbs. (the first time can be found here) The result is excellent.
I found this recipe in Maida Heatters New Book Of Great Desserts. As with each recipe, Maida always tells you a little story about the recipe. The name of this cake includes the number two for good reason. Her first Lemon Buttermilk Cake which was published in her first dessert book, was apparently wrought with demons and the cake a failure. She wanted to recall each cookbook. Of course, this wasn't possible so she redeemed herself this wonderful version in her second New Book of desserts. The book was published in 1982 so it's not new anymore. New to me though.
Maida goes into great details with instructions to every recipe. I paraphrase her instructions. The ingredients and instructions are the same.

Lemon Buttermilk Cake #2

Finely grated rind of 3 lemons
3 tablespoons of lemon juice
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 pound (2sticks) butter
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large or extra large eggs
1 cup buttermilk
dry bread crumbs for the pan ( I made my own, it's pretty easy)

• Preheat the over to 350 degrees and arrange the oven rack one third of the way up in the oven.
• You will need a tube/bundt pan with a 10 cup capacity.
• Grease the pan (even if it is nonstick) and dust with dry bread crumbs, tapping the sides to remove loose crumbs.
• Place the lemon rind and juice in a small bowl and set aside
• Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt together and set aside.
• In a large bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until it is slightly soft.
• Add the sugar to the butter and beat until well mixed.
• Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
• In 3 additions add the sifted dry ingredients, alternating with the buttermilk in two additions, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula and beating only until smooth after each addition.

basically do this, add 1 cup of dry ingredients, mix to incorporate, scrape your bowl, add 1/2 cup of buttermilk and mix to incorporate, scrape your bowl, add 1 cup of dry ingredients and mix to incorporate, scrape your bowl, add remaining buttermilk and mix, scrape the bowl, then remaining dry ingredients and mix. I think this instruction was painstakingly wrote out because her first version didn't work. Nonetheless, I followed these instructions to the letter.

• Stir the juice and rind into the batter.
• Pour into prepared pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula.
• Bake for one hour to one hour and fifteen minutes. (Mine only took 50 minutes)
• A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean and dry.
• As soon as the cake goes into the oven mix up the glaze.

Glaze
1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
1/3 cup granulated sugar.

Mix the juice and sugar and let stand, stir occasionally while the cake is baking.

Remove the cake from the oven and let it stand for minutes. Turn out onto your cake plate and using a pastry brush, glaze the cake with every drop of the syrupy delicious glaze.

You won't end up with a frosted looking cake. Trust me though the glaze is fantastic and after you taste it, you won't mind the plain look.

Buy a whole bag of lemons. I used 7 lemons to make this cake. I had lemons and buttermilk that needed to be used up so it was a perfect cake for me to bake today.

I hope you will try this one. It's really great.

Now who should I give this cake to? I might try freezing it and see what happens. If it lasts that long.

 

Yeah, I'm classy, I use paper plates for dessert.

 

Brownstone front cake

In the late 19th century this cake was thought to look like the fronts of the Brownstone homes that lined the streets of Philadelphia. This style of architecture was very popular. I can see how the name fits. What do you think? Does this picture resemble the stones of these old homes?

Brownstone front cake will never be one of those queries that the Google machine goes crazy over. I mean really, very few people will intentionally type those words into their search. The lucky few unique souls that do will be rewarded with one wonderful recipe. A recipe which is a long lost memory of a delicious cake.

You may have noticed this fact, I rarely post recipes that are of a trendy nature. Nope, not one single cake pop can be found here. I'm more likely to tell you how to cook venison or red onion jelly. Brownstone front cake is no exception to my normal style (or lack thereof). Tucked in among the pages of The Cleveland Press Olde Time Recipes by Barbara Bratel are many unique recipes. This cake is a keeper. Not trendy but, pretty note worthy.
I hope the folks at the free community dinner will find it interesting. I use to bake, eat, get fat. Now, I bake, donate, and get excited. Excited to know my baking hobby can feed someone who may not ordinarily have home baked goodies, or food for that matter. This cake is interesting, a chocolate coffee caramel flavor. Not ordinary or run of the mill.

Brownstone front cake

1 cup boiling water
2 squares unsweetened chocolate
2 1/2 cups of sifted cake flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 cups light brown sugar, firmly packed
2 tsp. vanilla
2 eggs
1/2 cup buttermilk

Pour boiling water over chocolate and set aside while preparing cake batter.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Cream butter, add sugar gradually and continue creaming until light and fluffy.
Mix in vanilla. Beat in eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.

 Stir chocolate mixture, add buttermilk to the chocolate mixture, and blend thoroughly.

Add dry ingredients alternately with the chocolate mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Stir mixture until it is very smooth.

Pour into a greased 9x13 pan and bake in a preheated 350 degree over for minutes, or until cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Let stand in pan for 10 minutes, then remove from pan and transfer to wire rack to finish cooling. Frost top and sides with frosting.

Mocha Frosting

1/2 cup softened butter
1 pound sifted powdered sugar
2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa
1 egg yolk (pasteurized of course)
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tablespoons strong coffee (I used 3 and 1/2 tablespoons)

Cream butter and blend in one cup sugar and cocoa. Add egg yolk, salt and beat well. Add remaining sugar and coffee (add 1 tablespoon ) at a time and use more or less as needed) Beat until smooth enough to be spreading consistency.

 

Spring!

The sunrise this morning in my part of the world was a beauty. After a long torture of winter, it was nice to enjoy my morning coffee on the back porch without freezing. Spring brings lots of extra work. No complaints from me though. It's time to dig in the dirt and make our new home attractive on the outside. With the beautiful sunrise, my energy is rising too. I feel motivated to start working on the herb garden.

I brought my chives from the old herb garden to our new home and I see they have wintered over well and are thriving in a little space between two rocks. The rest of my herbs were left behind at the old house. Essentially I am started this new herb garden from scratch.

I can't imagine a summer without fresh cilantro, chives, oregano, and sage. It's time to get down and dirty. I hope the weather holds out for me, at least for a few days, so I can get a tasty little patch of cooking herbs started.

Happy Spring!

Moravian Sugar Cake and Ohio Bicentennial Collectors Cookbook

Three things.

• Sugar Cake childhood memories

As a child we would travel to North Carolina to visit my Aunt. Those were great days indeed. My cousins and I would laugh and bicker and pout and laugh some more. One particularly fond memory of those days were our trips to Old Salem in Winston Salem. Oh, those glorious Sugar Cakes. The thing about packing a bunch of female cousins into a car and heading out into the Carolina heat, it's a guarantee that someone will be mad by the time you get there. The absolute worst pouting fit of my life occurred over Sugar Cake. Sugar cake is worth pouting over. Much to my surprise, there are two recipes for Moravian Sugar Cake in the Ohio Bicentennial Collectors Cookbook. The cousins, my Aunt, and sugar cake are the fond memories. Pouting till my lips hurt, ah that's what pre-teen girls do best.

• Ohio Bicentennial Collectors Cookbook

I found my copy of this book at a flea market. It's a keeper. The Moravian Sugar Cake recipe I made from this book isn't exactly as I remember from childhood. It's good, don't get me wrong. It's just not exactly like the cake sold in Old Salem. I'm not a recipe super sleuth and I doubt highly that I will ever tinker and try to adapt and turn this into pout worthy material. I particularly liked drizzling the light cream over the cake prior to baking and watching it turn into a golden caramel topping. The recipe takes time. It's a double rise, a slow rise. The cooking of the potatoes to mash and add to the dough seemed authentic to me. Overall, I like this recipe. My search is still on for that authentic version. Maybe Moravian Sugar Cake just tastes better when you are crammed into a backseat with 5 of your cousins. Yep, that was before seat belt laws.

• Pottery vs. Metal

I own two 9x13 pans. One is pottery, the other metal. As soon as I noticed that the recipe for the Moravian Sugar Cake would bake in two 9x13 pans I thought it was a perfect chance to do a little side by side comparison. As for this recipe, the pottery pan baked a fuller, lighter, more evenly baked result. Each pan was prepared the same, the dough was of equal amounts, rise time the same, well you get my point. The only variable in my experiment were the pans. Hands down the pottery version won the contest. My bake time was about 3 minutes longer in the pottery. It was such a slight difference that it's hardly worth mentioning.

To sum it all up. Seat belt laws are good. Sugar cake tastes best when you are 11ish years old. Nothing beats a good 9x13 pottery bake pan.

 

Grandpa

Today marked a special day in our family. My children have been blessed with a Grandpa who is loving and caring. Grandpa retired from his life long career of dentistry this week. Although, I never have called him by the title of Dad, he has been a father to me. There's no real reason why I never adopted calling him by that title. He certainly has been everything a father should be to their children.

At the age of 80 years old and a career of 57 years David is now free to nap when he wants. He mentioned something about chickens and alpacas. One never knows. He's a determined man and we may very well find that he's become a chicken farmer.

I hope my children will take to heart his example and dedicate themselves to a career they love. My mom has been blessed with a loving husband. She is aging too. I'm glad she has him by her side and as a result of his retirement they will have more time to spend together as they grow older. My children will be lucky to find a relationship like I have with Mister and my mother has with her David.

A milestone for our family has been marked. Grandpa has retired.

Where has the time gone? It seems like only yesterday that my Mom was remarrying after my father's death. I was a young woman. My mom was younger than I am today. It's very surreal to see my parents aging and watching my children become adults with their own lives. I've been blessed.

We marked this milestone with a few gift wrapped books, a funny card, and a nice lunch at a local steak house. Afterwards we returned back to my parents house to share in some coffee and ice cream cake. A humble celebration to mark the accomplishment of an outstanding career.

We love you Grandpa! Enjoy those naps.

 

Frozen Bananas

And just like that, it occurred to me. Why not peel overripe bananas, put them in a freezer bag and smash them, then freeze them. It's easy to portion the amount of fruit to coordinate with your favorite recipe. Anytime you need, say 1 cup of smashed bananas, there you have them.

I have been known to toss bananas, peel and all right into the freezer. Eventually the frost covered black mass is hauled out and thrown away. This will never happen again. Instead, there are neatly labeled, perfect portioned, pre-smashed bananas in the freezer.

I sprinkled Fruit Fresh over my bananas prior to freezing them. After one week in the freezer, the bananas retained their color and tasted fine in my recipe.

Certainly I cannot be the only person who has done this. However, I feel like a genius because the idea was all mine.



 

Black and White Biscotti: King Arthur Flour

Black and White Biscotti: King Arthur Flour

Have you baked Biscotti? It wasn't exactly my plan to make biscotti. I just needed a recipe that used espresso powder, and there it was. I liked them. You might like them too! Give it a whirl.

 

Here's a photo of my Biscotti!
Since the recipe was such a success the first time around, I decided to switch it up a little bit. We liked the chocolate layer so well, it seemed only natural to make a chocolate cherry version. I didn't divide the dough or reserve half of the dough for the "white" portion. Instead, I added 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder and doubled the espresso powder to the entire dough. I had dried cherries in the pantry, after giving them a nice coarse chop, I threw 3/4 cup of cherries into the dough. Yep, my chocolate cherry version is good too! I turns out homemade biscotti is relatively easy and every bit as good, if not better, than the fancy schmancy store bought kind.

If Robert were here, I would bake him Biscotti and Raymond would not get any! Ha, see there Marie, I can baked Biscotti too.


 

Sage Advice

"A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body" Ben Franklin.

Sometimes it's good to take the long way home.