Strawberry Shortcake, minus the shortcake

Whip it!  Whip it good!

Whip whites to stiff peaks

The completed cake.  Turn out on a rack to cool.

Now it's the strawberries turn.

What the heck is shortcake anyway?  Am I the only one who wants to know?  Remember all those biscuits and scones I wrote about in other titillating blog entries?  Any baked good made with shortening, including butter, is a ‘short bread.’

There’s nothing wrong with short bread.  Eat a lot of them myself, but for strawberries and cream, nothing beats sponge cake.  Rather limiting?  Not if you pass up the commercially made, chemically enhanced, never rot in a hundred years, lining the supermarket shelves junk and make your own.

The first thing you’re going to do is look at the recipe I so thoughtfully provided and say to yourself….WAAAY too hard.  Wait a sec!  If it’s hard to make, I don’t make it!  Yes, my sponge cake takes a trivial amount of time longer than ripping open a cellophane wrapper and tossing some sponge gunk on a plate.  Tastes a hellofa lot better, too.  The question you have to ask yourself, punk, is:  Are you worth it?  Well, are you?

Rule one in cooking: Gather your family (or other freeloaders) in your kitchen.  Rule two:  open a bottle of delightful wine.  After that, cooking becomes a pleasure, followed by a wonderful meal, followed by unbridled ….wait a sec, that’s with your loved ones, not your family.  Common error.

Sponge Cake or Biscuit de Savoie

7 eggs, separated (no, not by size, color, or national origin – yolks and whites, fool!)

1 1/4 Cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 Cups sifted all-purpose flour

Soft, unsalted butter for cake pans (or spray cooking oil) + All-purpose flour for cake pans

Two 9 inch cake pans.  I use rectangular cake pans, but round ones are fine.

Set the oven to 350 ºF or 175 ºC

Cut out pieces of parchment to line the bottoms of the cake pans.  Brush the parchment with butter (or spray with oil) and put them in the pans.  Dust the pans with flour and shake out the excess.

Mix the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla in a bowl until the mixture is pale yellow.  I use an electric mixer.  Combine the flour with the yolk mixture to make a batter.

Beat the egg white until they form stiff peaks.  Hint:  if there is even one speck of yolk in the egg white, they will not beat to stiff peaks.

Fold a third of the beaten egg whites into the yolk/flour mixture.   When they’re combined, fold in the remainder of the fluffy egg whites.

Divide the batter between the two pans and bake in the center of the oven for about 25 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Turn the cakes out on a rack to cool.

Meanwhile, thinly slice your strawberries, put them in a bowl and mix with a spoonful or two of sugar.  I save a whole strawberry to decorate the top of each serving.

Whip the cream until it is thick.  Add a scant tablespoon of sugar and mix well.  Hint:  if you add the sugar first, the cream will not whip properly.

I think you can take it from here.  If not, you were correct not to attempt a sponge cake.  Confine your meager talents to peanut butter and saltines, or crunch your way through an uncooked package of ramen.

Apple Cake from the Lone Star State

Ready for coffee or a big glass of milk

Dough is stiffer than you're used to

Heaven in a bunt pan

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m all for healthy eating, as long as its done in moderation.  But, sometimes ya just gotta push those lily-livered, calorie countering, conscience messing, whiners away from your table.  Let ‘em take their guilt-troubled egos to the dry salad and celery stalk rabbit hutch, while you push your ponderous gut forward and gulp with all the gusto of a starving hog at the trough.

I’m talking fresh apple cake!  And plenty of it!  That’s the ticket.

What the hey!  Do apples even grow in Texas?  Hells, bells, ye of little faith and paucity of knowledge.  Pomaceous fruit grow all over the Lone Star State, although Texas can’t compete with Washington State, which produces 60% of the apples in the U.S.

For this particular apple cake, and generally for cooking with apples, the rule of my thumb is:  the more tart the better.  Tart apples have an intense flavor that overpowers their sweeter kin.  How many varieties of apple are there, anyway?  About 6000, counting hybrids and a few thousand non-commercial types.  Did you know apples are a member of the rose family?  I didn’t pick up on that in 9^th grade biology either.

Let’s get on to some cookin’ and then on to some eatin’!

2 Cups Sugar

1 1/2 Cups vegetable oil

2 Tablespoons vanilla

2 eggs, well beaten

1/2 a lemon

3 Cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons aluminum free baking soda

3 Green Apples, peeled, cored, and chopped

Heat the oven to 325ºF, or 165ºC

Oil and flour a bundt pan.

Put the sugar, oil, vanilla, and beaten eggs in a bowl and beat well.  Squeeze the lemon juice into the mix and beat again.

Ditch the electric beater and use a big wooden spoon to stir the flour mix into the bowl of sugar/oil. The dough will be stiff, but not to worry.  Now add the chopped apples and stir well.

Put the dough into the bundt pan and pop it in the oven.  Bake for 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours.  When a knife comes out clean, the cake is ready.  Slip a knife around the inside of the pan, and then let the cake rest for about ten minutes.  Now invert the pan on a plate and the cake will come out cleanly.  The aroma is going to tantalize your nostrils and take your kitchen back to grandma’s glory days!

Time to brew some coffee, slice some cake and lock the door to keep out the nosey neighbors and those suddenly hungry health addicts who just raced back from the rabbit hutch.

Cake By the Pound

Golden, moist, and delicious

Don't be fooled.  Use 5 Eggs!

Pound cake goes way back in my family, to when we had a few less pounds to worry about. No wonder we love it.  It’s got all the good stuff: heaps of sugar, butter, flour, milk, and eggs.  Well, as they say, everything in moderation, but in the case of the most delicious pound cake you’ve ever tasted, you have to moderate your quest for moderation.  Either that, or do what we do.  Invite friends over and let them slather the calories down their own greedy throats.  I gave mine to a ton of friends, and both of them gobbled it right up.

A bit of history.  It was way, way back in the 1700’s when Dawg Pound, a delirious baker from Halfbakeshire, and his first wife, Wright Ata Pound, having tired of producing meat and potato pies for the undernourished, decided to deliver a hammer blow to those slight of waist and lacking in bulk.  The recipe they threw together called for a pound each of butter, flour, eggs, and sugar.  Thus the Pound Cake was born.  It was not until centuries later that a foursome of doctors, quite by accident, discovered the real advantage of pound cake.  It raises cholesterol, thus necessitating the consumption of copious quantities of red wine! Oh, what a happy day that was.  Church bells rang!  People danced in the streets.  Thus began the quaint custom of ‘pounding down’ a few.

This recipe cuts considerably the traditional quantities of  a pound of this and a pound of that, but nothing is lost and a lot is gained.  If you’re used to pound cake that is dry and flavorless, you’re in for a culinary rebirth.  This one is so rich and moist you’ll sneak back in the kitchen late at night, when calories don’t count.

Pound Cake

3 Sticks of butter, or two sticks of butter and half a cup of shortening

(Those substituting margarine will be bound over to the authorities.)

3 Cups of sugar (Diet chemical users, please just shoot yourselves now)

5 Eggs (I use ‘free range’ eggs, spawned by chickens training for a marathon.)

3 Cups of flour (No, I don’t grind my own, but I grind my teeth at the question.)

 1/2 teaspoon baking powder (Aluminum free, natch!  We ain’t makin’ cars!)

1 Cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon lemon extract  (only if you’re a timid mouse, governed by indecision and fear of failure;  otherwise use a Tablespoon of freshly grated lemon rind.)

Pre-heat oven to 325ºF or 165º C.

Cream the butter (or butter and shortening), add the sugar and beat until they are combined.  (I use my food processor to this point, then switch to hand mixing for a less fluffy consistency.)  Add the eggs one at a time, while continuing to beat the mixture.  Sift together the flour and baking powder.  Add the flour and the milk, a portion at a time, to the bowl of butter, sugar, and eggs.  Mix until everything is combined.  Add the flavorings and beat again.

Pour the batter into two, well greased loaf pans and bake for 1 1/4 hours to 1 1/2 hours.  Test occasionally by inserting a knife.  When the knife comes out clean, the cakes are done.

Note:  If the cakes are browning too fast, cover with a sheet of aluminum foil.

There are various ways to serve pound cake, other than slicing and slamming it down freestyle.  A friend’s mother likes to butter and toast the slices and serve them with a dollop of vanilla ice cream on top.  Sliced, sugared, strawberries on top, is another good way.  I eat my slice plain, with a cup of milk, because I'm a good boy and that’s the way my mother taught me..

There are also many variations of the cake itself.  I sometimes add nuts.  Pecans, or toasted almond slivers work well.  The cake may also be dusted with powdered sugar.

However you make it and serve it, your pound cake is going to make people view you in a new light.  No longer will you be the just another dog in the pack.  You’ll be the leader of the pound.  Whoops, gotta run.  Time for my dose of red wine.