For Your Culinary Indulgence, I Give You... Cherry Chip Cake

Yes, you read it right - Cherry Chip Cake. The kind that comes in a box and sometimes goes on sale for less than a dollar. Now, before you cast all manner of shame in my general direction, please consider these points.

• Cherry chip cake brings back fond childhood memories, especially if you are my wife.

• It was Mother's Day and we needed a cake.

• The cake can be (and was) upgraded.

If you still aren't ok with it, just look at the picture for a short while and see if you don't start rummaging for an available cake mix.

Now you may be saying 'this doesn't look like cherry chip cake at all, maybe carrot cake or spice cake' but I can tell you that it is cherry chip though it does share something in common with carrot cake. It is frosted with cream cheese frosting - almond cream cheese frosting. The cake itself is bespeckled with flax since we substitute hydrated flax seeds for the egg. The flax is due to allergies, but it also happens to be cheap, very nutritious, and results in a somewhat denser and moister cake. I think it's an improvement. We paired the frosting with bitter-sweet chocolate chips.

The vanilla ice cream actually wasn't all that good with this cake, but it looks nice for the picture, right? This cake goes very well with a game of Mille Bornes. So there you have it - resourcefulness and a trip to the pantry makes pictures you can post to the high-brow food blog and a fun night (oh yeah, and a way to celebrate Mother's Day).

Last Bread Post

I know that the blog's been a little bread-heavy lately, but I already lost a significant amount of time in taking these pictures, so now you're going to lose an equally-significant amount of your life reading about them.

I had a difficult time making any good sourdough bread for quite a while (examine the two loaves below on the right). During that period I enjoyed some nice sourdough pancakes and quite a few pizza crusts. The loaves of bread were elusive however. I finally decided to put the jar of sourdough in the corner of the fridge for a time-out until it learned its lesson.

Frustrated, I moved on to some other nice recipes, such a slightly-sweet swedish rye bread (loaves on the left). I baked those loaves mostly just to teach the jar of sourdough that it could be done.

After a sufficient break I decided to try the sourdough again. This time I approached it with some changes. First, I added a significant amount of yeast. I know that a long rise leads to better taste, but I was surprised how long it would take to rise in the past. Sometimes overnight wasn't even enough. I also did away with the recipes, since those clearly weren't working. Below is the resulting loaf. It's a little uneven and didn't rise quite as much as I'd hoped, but at least it's edible this time.

Sourdough Round

I've been cooking with a sourdough starter that I got from David (that he got from Steve (that Steve got from the air in his house)) for a couple months now, trying my hand at bread, pancakes, and biscuits. I've been pretty disappointed with the bread, though, which turns out dense and pretty flavorless. I guess I'm just too accustomed to FrankenBread from the store.

But I believe a sourdough should be pretty sour and tangy, and also have a lot of air pockets inside. So I was intrigued to try Janell's d0llar-a-day bread recipe. It turned out pretty good, though I'd still like to have more of the sourdough flavor and a few more air pockets in the bread. Maybe I need to let it rise more. (Steve/Rachel, do you have any thoughts here?)

Nothing prettier than a fresh, piping-hot loaf of sourdough bread.

You'll have to imagine the heavenly smell and steam rising from these slices.

All tucked away in its bread bag (thanks, Rachel!) to cool off overnight.

Meringue Clouds

This actually happened almost two months ago (so no need for me to feel guilty about posting them during Andy and Janell's self-imposed dollar-a-day diet).

When Steve was in town in January we made meringue clouds. These are the "clouds", which are basically egg whites, sugar, an extract (we used almond), and a bit of cream of tartar whipped to stiff peaks. They bake and then sit overnight.


Then we mixed together sour cream and whipping cream with some sugar and a little more extract (again, almond). That cream mixture got spooned on top of the clouds, and we placed a couple spoons of fruit on top. Fresh fruit is hard to come by this time of year, so we bought frozen fruit and let it thaw before spooning it on.



The experience of eating these is unlike anything else I've ever eaten. The cloud is crispy on the outside, but quickly becomes chewy as you bite into it (the cream mixture helps contribute to this chewiness). The cream mixture itself is pretty light with just a tinge of sour (from the sour cream). And the fruit rounds out the flavor nicely. I think you could use almost any fruit, so long as it has a little bit of sauce with it. Here's the recipe we used.

Meringue Clouds
5 egg whites
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1 C. sugar
1/2 tsp. of an extract (almond, vanilla, etc.)

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks and gradually add sugar till firm and glossy. Then add and carefully mix in the extract. Spoon onto parchment paper and bake in a 275º oven for 45 minutes. Turn off oven at this point and let them remain in the cooling oven for 20 minutes.

Cream
1 C. heavy whipping cream
1/2 C. sour cream
1/4 C. sugar
1/2 tsp. of an extract (same one used in the clouds)

Beat these ingredients until they reach soft peaks.

To prepare, spoon cream onto clouds and let rest for 10 to 15 minutes. Then spoon berries (or other fruit) on top and enjoy.

(Little Debbie) Cakes

Some of you may remember my indulgent fondness for the 25-cent Little Debbie snacks from Wesco. While the gas tank was happily lapping up gallons of hydrocarbons, I was inside similarly fueling up on my own preferred oil (of the partially hydrogenated variety). So dearly did I love those things (Swiss Cakes were my favorite, although I'd honestly eat any that came my way) that I remember sitting in the car and explaining to Mom that when I began to earn a dependable salary, I would eat at least one of these per day. The primarily limitation with those 25-cent snacks was clearly financial, see.

So it likely comes as no surprise that as I have now fully matured my thoughts have returned to how this declaration made in youth could be best realized. Actually, I borrowed a baking cookbook from Janell recently and I just wanted to post some evidence on here to convince her that I really am using it. (I promise I'm not just gnawing on the pages, Janell!)

I'm not sure what these are called, but they are highly reminiscent of something with which I would have walked out of Wesco. The first step was to make a devil's food sheet cake. It was relatively easy and fun. I'm not sure what differentiates a devil's food cake from a regular chocolate cake. Considering that there's a comprehensive cookbook sitting on my desk within half an arms reach, I must confess that my lack of certainty is crouched entirely in laziness. After baking the cake I flipped it out of its pan, upside-down.

The next step called for taking a very large biscuit cutter and cutting out some cakes that resemble hockey pucks. Tragically, not all of the sheet cake is required to make these cakes. I was forced to eat the scraps, as our trash can was full and I was unable to empty it due to baking duties.

In the next step, I semi-carefully carved out the insides, taking note to save a coin of chocolate to fit back over the top. This was little carving a pumpkin, in a sense. And by pumpkin I mean those little tiny gourds that you can't really carve.

I made some whipping cream, placed it in a ziplock bag and snipped the corners of the bag to make a poor man's pastry bag (because even poor men need their pastry bags). After squirting a toothpastesque blob into each cake, I put the chocolate cover back on the top and got them ready for the weeping and gnaching of teeth.

The chocolate cover was very simple. I took a cup or two of whipping cream (almost boiling) and poured it over a bag of bittersweet chocolate chips. After stirring it around, the chips all melted and it formed a highly viscous slurry that was difficult to prevent from flowing into my mouth. As it cooled, it began to thicken. The trick was pouring it over the cakes while it was still reasonably fluid but not too soupy.

I let the cakes chill for a while outside and the chocolate hardened considerably. Because the chocolate made a molten mess all around the base, I trimmed around the perimeter with a knife and then moved the cakes to their final resting spot.

An Apple a Day

I ate several pieces just to be sure I got a whole apple.

This is a simple apple tart from a cookbook my friend Casi got me. It's just sliced apples with a custard around it, but I really liked it. It didn't have any cinnamon which sort of surprised me, but in the end I liked how it brought out the taste of the apples.

Because I have Two Fancy Mustards

I'd like to get in on the fun with two original compositions. These beauties are no more, but I can try to recreate them if anyone is interested in the scanwich.

On the Left...
A Home-made Bun
The Blueberry Store's Blueberry Mustard
Shaved Virginia Ham
Crisp Bacon


On the Right...
A Home-made Bun
Brownwood Farms' Famous Kream Mustard
Thick-Chopped Turkey Breast
Shaved Virginia Ham
Crisp Bacon
Sharp Cheddar


Be sure to check out The Blueberry Store if you're looking to expand your gourmet mustard collection, or even if you're just getting low on blueberry meats.