January 31: Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake

When I resolved to bake a cake every Saturday, I was a little concerned about how I would handle the busiest Saturdays.  Today is the first real challenge to my baking schedule.  Our daughter, Autumn, made it to the final round of interviews for the Georgia Governor's Honors Program this summer.  She was nominated for Chemistry and, since she intends to go to medical school, she is thrilled to have made it this far in the selection process.  Her interview was at noon, at a school approximately an hour away.  So, a great chunk of baking time in the middle of the day was lost.  Add to this a Reading Bowl meet for our seventh-grader and a performance tonight of annual lampoon skits at the high school (Autumn wrote the Junior class skit)...

Thus, I have a decided to "let a Bundt cake do the talking."

I have a few Bundt cake recipes in my repertoire that are delicious for a party or to give as gifts.  One is my Lemon Picnic Cake.  It disappears quickly at every gathering and I make it often, especially in the warmer months.  I have great Bundt-style recipes for Cardamom Coffee Cake and Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Glaze.  I considered all of these for today, but it has been a couple of years since I made my Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt cake. Plus, I realized last weekend that I haven't included anything chocolate in the Saturday Cakes yet!

The recipe is from Cook's Illustrated magazine, January 2004.  One of the things I liked about the recipe when I first tried it was the instruction to brush the grooves of the pan with a slurry of butter and cocoa as a release.  I have since used that as a release for other chocolate cakes in shaped pans and tube pans.

Next Saturday:  Caramel Cake, Take Two

January 24: Allgood Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

Up until my fourth-grade year, I had been a Montessori child.  I began public school that year highly prepared academically and behaviorally.  I was, however, wholly unprepared for lunch in a school cafeteria.  My mother had been sending me to Montessori school with a lovely, balanced, healthy lunch every day.  I carried a hand-painted, metal lunch pail filled with good food and a cloth napkin (color coordinated with the pail).  My lunches had contained sandwiches on whole grain bread along with Dannon yogurt that had been frozen the night before to defrost by lunchtime.  My homemade lunches never contained any treats but fruit.  In an effort to fit in, I left my lunch pail at home and opted to buy lunch and milk at my new school.

I was pretty surprised when a square slice of pizza served with canned corn and my choice of (chocolate!) milk was handed to me on a plastic tray by a lady in a hair net.  But I will never forget the shock I received the first day the cafeteria offered Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.  My homeroom teacher read the lunch menu aloud during morning announcements and I was thrilled that one of my absolute favorite desserts was on offer that day!  At lunchtime, I stared down the line of stainless steel and glass, past whatever entree and side dish was being served and saw the craziest-looking Pineapple Upside-Down Cake I had ever seen.  It was just YELLOW CAKE with some pineapple slices and sad cherries!  Dubious, I tasted the alleged Pineapple Upside-Down Cake anyway.  More is the pity.  That cake tasted just as boring as it looked; it wasn't real Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.

I chalked-up the disappointment to the public school experience, alongside field day and having to learn to play "Suicide is Painless" on the recorder.  It took years of real-world experience for me to realize that the divine upside-down cake I had eaten before fourth grade was an outlier made only by the ladies in my family.

My great-grandmother, Judith Allgood Page, made a dessert every Sunday for midday dinner.  It was usually a simple dessert like a chess pie, banana pudding or strawberry shortcake made with store-bought sponge cake cups.  But in the wintertime, she often made Pineapple Upside-Down Cake and served it with whipped cream.  Her cake was made with rich, spicy gingerbread cake and a gooey layer of glazed pineapple rings and cherries.  When I was growing up there was a delicious gingerbread cake mix made by Dromedary that made upside-down cake easier.

When I started cooking on my own, I searched for the Dromedary mix in its distinctively retro orange/yellow/white box.  I had a terrible time trying to find it, so I gave up and started a quest for an alternative from scratch.  In the October 2000 issue of Gourmet magazine, I found the perfect recipe in the "Letters From Our Readers" section.  Mrs. Lindsay's Gingerbread Cake recipe makes my ideal Pineapple Upside-Down Cake.

Pan prepped with butter, brown sugar,
pineapples, cherries

My mother always made her upside down cake in a square pan.  A square pan seems more gingerbread-y than a round pan or the cast iron frying pan some upside-down cake recipes recommend.  As I prepared to bake, I was disappointed not to find my square cake pan.  (Some of my excessive collection of cooking implements are packed away in storage.  Our last house had an enormous kitchen and my collection had grown to a size that our current home cannot possibly support.)

The final product

I figured, the square pan is packed away and more cake is never a problem so, I doubled the recipe and used my 9x13x2" pan instead.



The entire house smells like a warm, spicy heaven.  I served each slice with lightly-sweetened whipped cream.

There is plenty for leftovers; some for the neighbors and a special slice for Mom.

Next Saturday:  Chocolate Sour Cream Bundt Cake

January 17: Victoria Sponge Sandwich

My television binge-watching is devoted to three types of programs:

• British Dramas (ie. Downton Abbey, Call the Midwife, London Hospital)
• Crime Procedurals/Mysteries (Foyle's War, Vera, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, Sherlock, Elementary, Law & Order)
• shows about art and antiques (Antiques Roadshow, American Pickers)

The very best are the shows that combine two or more of the above categories.  Don't get me started on British Antiques Roadshow, it is as addictive as any drug!  In watching different British programs (programmes, should I say?) I have noticed that a majority of tea times include a classic cake called a Victoria Sponge.  I especially remember an episode of Midsomer Murders that featured a Victoria Sponge contest at a town fair and showed the ladies of the hamlet anxiously awaiting the judges' assessments of their cakes.  In a few shows set in current day, the "tea-requisite" Victoria Sponge comes from a supermarket in a box.

Since I had never tried a Victoria Sponge, and in honor of the current season of Downton Abbey, I made one today.  The cakes consist of two layers of sponge cake with filling sandwiched between the layers and the whole thing topped with powdered sugar.  Named for Queen Victoria, the cakes traditionally feature a filling of raspberry preserves and sweetened whipped cream, though I have seen many recipes featuring strawberry preserves, fresh strawberries or buttercream filling.

Since Downton is my muse and Upstairs Downstairs inspired that show, I chose Mrs. Bridges' Upstairs Downstairs Cookery Book as my source for the recipe.  My copy of the cookbook is a hand-me-down from my mother who probably bought it during the original broadcast of Upstairs Downstairs in the 1970's.  The book is a paperback and is missing its cover and choice bits of the spine.  

The recipe goes together differently from other cakes I have made; the eggs are beaten then added and the milk is not added alternating with the dry ingredients.  For that matter, no specific amount of milk is even prescribed.  I have included the entire recipe, below.

The classic recipe for a Victoria Sponge is that the weight of the separate ingredients equals the combined weight of the eggs.  Thus, the weight of three medium-size eggs, or 'standard' eggs would be about 6oz, and so you would require 6oz each of flour, sugar and butter.  Cream the butter and the sugar, beat the eggs and add them slowly by degrees.  Sift the flour (use self-raising; or plain flour with 2 teaspoons baking powder) with the salt, and beat into the mixture.  Add enough milk to make a soft dropping consistency, and pour into prepared 7-inch cake tins.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean.  When cold, sandwich together with raspberry jam, and whipped sweet cream, dust the top with sifted icing sugar.

That's it.  That is the recipe.  As I prepared it, I made a few adjustments, but only as absolutely necessary. Three extra-large eggs weighed 180g, so I used 180g of flour, sugar and butter.  You will also notice that I used the metric measurements, since the UK now uses metric.
I used King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour, not because of Camelot, but because I love the brand.  The recipe refers to "the salt."  The salt of unknown quantity.  I decided upon 1/2 teaspoon, since that is what most cakes require.  "Enough milk" in this case was a little less than 3/4 of a cup.  I also used 8-inch cake tins, because I don't yet own any 7-inch ones.  Due to the wider, thinner layers I only baked them 23 minutes at 350 degrees.  Now, some creative license was taken with the jam filling...  As a rule, my family doesn't care for raspberries or their jam.  So I broke from Mrs. Bridges' recipe and used strawberry jam with whipped cream.

The cake turned out beautifully.  The layers were smooth, buttery, tender, and not-too-sweet which were perfect complements for the tangy jam and light whipped cream.

The consensus around our house is that I was a little heavy-handed with the jam.   I will certainly try this cake again due to its ease of preparation and the tasty but not too sweet result.

I might try it with another type of jam; my family is clamoring for blackberry!


Next Saturday:  Allgood Pineapple Upside-Down Cake

January 10: Caramel Cake

Caramel cake is one of the quintessential Southern cakes of pot-lucks and small-town-lore.  There are cooks across this region whose kitchen bona fides are entirely based on the irresistibility of their caramel cakes.  I'll bet that my great-grandmother, Lexie, was one of those cooks.  However, it has never been a cake that I had any desire to bake.

I am sure that there is a "nature vs. nurture" aspect to each person's connection to food.  Objectively speaking, is it appealing visually and does it taste good to you? And, equally as important, what were you fed as you were growing up and developing your tastes?  Does the memory of the person who taught you to make it cause you prejudice?  I'll admit it.  I have never had a caramel cake that I thought was anything special.  Possibly, it is due to the fact that my mother and my mother's grandmother never made caramel cakes and they are the ladies who taught me most of what I know about baking.  Therefore, I don't have a nostalgic connection to caramel cake (even though I love caramel).

Honestly, I always found carmel cakes to be cloyingly sweet, ofttimes with caramel icing that is sandy in texture.  Even caramel cakes that have a smooth-looking icing often end up with a mouth-feel like tile grout.  I have never been impressed by a caramel cake, not once.  I want a caramel icing that is worthy of the lovely flavor of the carefully burnt sugar.  I want the icing to resemble chocolate ganache in density and luxuriant texture.  

On Saturday I started my first carmel cake with a minimum of research, an overabundance of confidence, and the lack of an essential piece of equipment.

Just before I graduated from college, my parents gave me my first new cookbook.  I already had family cookbooks that had been handed-down, Mom's recipes that she had hand-written on sheets of notebook paper, and my own collection of magazine clippings.  But on my birthday in 1991, my parents presented me with an autographed copy of New Southern Cooking  by Nathalie Dupree.  Nathalie Dupree is a cooking legend in Georgia having taught at Rich's [department store] Cooking School, hosted her own cooking show on public television and owned successful restaurants specializing in southern cuisine.  Why not try Nathalie?

So, when her caramel cake recipe in New Southern Cooking stated "There is a grainy texture to the icing since the last batch of sugar is never dissolved," I moved on.  But, I didn't go too far.  I referred instead to her recipe in Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking.  There were a few differences between the two recipes, and I thought that the one without the disclaimer about "grainy" icing was preferable.  In preparation last week, I checked the kitchen drawer to confirm that I had my candy thermometer; the recipe requires that the caramel be at 240 degrees, or soft ball stage, when you begin to cool and beat the icing.

I decided to go whole hog on the carmel and make the cake in four layers, allowing for the maximum caramel-to-cake ratio.  The cake layers from Nathalie's recipe came out beautifully, with a smooth, fine texture.  Then I started the icing.  In two heavy pots, I started melting the sugar and heating the second cream-and-sugar component, using separate spoons and a watchful eye.  Then, I reached into the drawer for the thermometer so I would be ready at the crucial "soft ball" moment.  Removing the "protective" plastic sheath, I found that the glass of the outside vacuum-sealed tube had been broken off at the end. [Expletives Deleted]  In anger, I violently threw the thermometer into the garbage can.

It is appropriate to tell you now, Allgood girls have a history of throwing any household gadget into the backyard in a fit of frustration when it ceases to live up to expectations.  Family members know to exercise caution whenever cussing is heard from the kitchen.  You never know when an iron, frying pan or blender might come flying out of the back door.  Alas, I have no pictures of the offending thermometer to post here, but I also don't have a thermometer in my yard.  I recovered, feeling proud of my emotional restraint, and decided to barrel ahead and judge the stage of the candy by classically testing it, dropping a little into ice water to see if it forms a soft ball.  

I arrived at my assessed soft ball stage, cooled the caramel, and tasted the results.  The flavor was amazing; buttery, deep and rich.  But, at this point the caramel was too thin to spread.  I proceeded to the next step and beat the caramel using a stand mixer.  Nathalie's recipe states that the caramel should be the consistency of peanut butter and that heavy cream could be added during the beating process to improve the consistency and make it spreadable.  My caramel was never the consistency of peanut butter, but after much worrying on top of the frustration of the broken thermometer, I gave up and iced the cake with my caramel concoction.  The icing that resulted was grainy and slowly traveled from wherever I spread it to someplace it wanted to go.  I fought a losing battle trying to make the cake look pretty.

Overall , my family thought the cake tasted delicious.  Some of the reviewers thought that four layers threw the caramel quantity over-the-top.

Let me just say that I was again disappointed by a carmel cake...

I have learned several significant lessons, though:  

First, actually inspect your tools before you start on a project.  A cursory glance in a drawer will not do.  

Second, I must have no idea how soft ball stage caramel is supposed to look.  I can count on one hand the number of times I have ever made candy and I never made caramel before.  I absolutely need a thermometer until I know better.

Third, there IS such a thing as too-much-caramel.  Next time I will only make three cake layers.

In a few weeks I will attempt a second caramel cake.  In the meantime, I am off to buy a new candy thermometer and do a little recipe research...

Next Saturday:  Victoria Sponge Cake from The Upstairs Downstairs Cookery Book in honor of the new season of Downton Abbey

January 3: Pound Cake

My first cake-baking-Saturday has arrived and only a pound cake will do.  I have decided that there is no single, perfect pound cake recipe.  Each recipe book I have read, even those dating back to the nineteenth century, has more than one recipe for pound cake.  I used to wonder why.  I thought it was baker's hubris that made so many think that theirs was the fool-proof version that everyone needed.  I was overwhelmed by the different versions.  For years, I begged my great-aunt Roxie for her recipe (she never gave it up, even after I put my Granna up to asking her for it).  But after I got married, I realized that the success of a pound cake recipe is solely determined by the audience.

Every family has their own definition of what makes the perfect pound cake; it might even lead to a dispute, with each person in a family having a different preference.  Is your favorite pound cake fine-crumbed and smooth?  Or dense and moist?  Slightly dry and begging to be toasted with butter or covered with fruit?  Is the crust nutty brown with crunchy edges?  Or is it caramel brown and moist like the cake inside?  Cake flour?  Or all-purpose?  What kind of all-purpose? Southern soft wheat?  Or Yankee-fied unbleached?

Keith's favorite cake in the entire world is pound cake.  Period.  After we married I made several pound cakes from various recipes; my mom's recipe from decades ago, recipes from magazines and books.  None of these seemed like THE ONE.  Keith likes his pound cake dense and moist to the point of having a texture almost like a "sad spot."  My mom referred to a spot in the middle of a homemade pound cake that didn't turn out just right or seemed undercooked as a "sad spot."  It didn't make the cake bad, just imperfect, and the girls of family Allgood strive for picture-perfect results!  It made me crazy that Keith's favorite part of the cake was the part I always considered an imperfection.

So, I kept searching.  We Allgood girls have often relied on recipes printed in The Farmers & Consumers Market Bulletin from the Georgia Department of Agriculture.  The recipes in the bulletin always resided on the Bulletin's newsprint pages alongside classified advertisements for farm equipment, foals, piglets, chicks, seeds or bulk pecans.  Every recipe was submitted by a reader of the bulletin and I have never had a bad result from one.  So, I turned to the Market Bulletin to find a recipe for a Keith-kind of pound cake.  The recipe for Whipping Cream Pound Cake came close to his ideal, but still needed a few alterations and additions to make it perfect.  I finally got it!  I even made a few more alterations and made a perfect gluten-free version.

The top crust turned-out a little uneven in color this time (first Saturday Cake nerves?)

Next Saturday, in honor of my great-grandmother Lexie, I shall make a caramel cake.  It will be my first ever attempt at this Southern classic.

Resolved

After my visit with Granna, I remembered that her sister, Roxie, made a cake every week. As I recall, Roxie usually made pound cakes and was so well-known for them that she earned extra money baking them for folks all around Meriwether County.

At home, I considered my collection of out-of-print cookbooks, most containing little slips of paper marking the pages of recipes that appealed when I first read them.  I started collecting vintage cookbooks just after college when my mother and I found a copy of the Atlanta Woman's Club Cook Book from 1921.  With chapters titled "Secrets of Kitchen Happiness" and "Queen Sweet Potato" plus recipes from all of the prominent ladies of the club, we were hooked!  It was a treasure.  Mom bought the book and told me that I could only have it after she died.

After that, I was on a quest.  I searched high and low for my own copy of the 1921 AWC Cook Book.  Along the way I have found many fantastic cookbooks; the best ones with inscriptions to new brides, hand printed recipes on scraps of paper, or pages stained with grease and vanilla extract as testaments to the previous owner's favorite recipes.  Around 1998, I found my Shangri-La in New York's Greenwich Village and it is called Bonnie Slotnik Cookbooks.  A small store, tended by Bonnie, herself, with book cases floor-to-ceiling full of cookbooks.  Visit her bookstore online, but plan a trip to New York to see it in person.

For years, I routinely begged my mom for the cookbook, as I was having no luck (even with Bonnie's expert assistance) finding my own copy.  Always Mom replied, "you'll get it after I die."  In 2006 she made a liar out of herself by surprising me with the cookbook on my wedding day.  She included a note advising me to pay special heed to chapters III and VII; "Budgeting Your Time" and "Needful Facts for Housewives."  I was a bride! And I had an inscribed cookbook treasure for a dowry.

Granna's story (and Keith's desire for a cake every Saturday) got me thinking about procrastination and all of the recipes, bookmarked but unmade, residing on my bookshelves.  I thought about tried-and-true recipes that we love but that I only make for special occasions. I waxed nostalgic for the cakes that the women on both sides of my family prepared and had taught me to make.  Then I embraced the idea of baking a cake every Saturday and at Keith's encouragement I decided to make it my New Year's resolution.

I shall bake a cake every Saturday this year.

This Saturday:  Pound Cake