What A Difference A Day Makes

Wednesday morning, Sept 25

 

Like so many people in our state and our neighboring states, last week didn't end like it started. I have photographed this barn hundreds and hundreds of times for years. I've documented the sunrise in all seasons. When I walk into the kitchen each morning to get coffee, the old barn and the sunrise is my first view of the day.

Saturday morning, Sept 28

Then on Friday morning my sky view was unlike anything we had ever seen. Hurricane Helene blew right over us. Here. Hundreds of miles from the coast. In a place where hurricanes don't exist. Until last week.Typically by the time a hurricane makes its way this far inland, it's no longer a hurricane. The storm has lost most of its fury and we might get rain and wind. Not this time.

We were lucky. I almost didn't share the photos of this barn because our damage looks minor when you see what happened in North Carolina. We have watched in horror at the complete destruction others are dealing with. Communities are trying to figure out how to get children back to school. Our schools here start next week, two weeks post storm. Just north of us, they are digging wells at schools to provide water in hopes of reopening in a few more weeks.

We have more significant damage across our farm. Barns will have to be torn down. Roof repairs need to happen. But our house was untouched. And we had a generator that ran for a week. We were among the lucky ones. I only want to say how quickly things can change. In ways that we can't predict. 

Everything is  better with ice cream.

Now on to kitchen things. My cooking keeps getting simpler and simpler. And the internet provides endless possibilities of 2 and 3 ingredient recipes. I am fully aware that these shortcut recipes are not gourmet kitchen creations. But they are tasty. Good enough to make again. Some days "good enough" is as all I require.

Apple Spice Cake

This quick cake popped up a couple of times in the last few weeks. I had a can of apple pie filling in my pantry that needed to be used sooner rather than later. (Can't remember why I bought it a year or so ago.) I made this the day before the storm not knowing it would be our treat for days while the power was out.

The original used nothing but a box of spice cake mix and a can of apple pie filling. It reminded me of the Pumpkin Spice Muffins we have made for years. I had to adjust to use what I had on hand. Here is what I did:

APPLE SPICE CAKE

1 box yellow cake mix

1 teaspoon apple pie spice

1 can apple pie filling

about 1/2 cup water, enough to be able to blend ingredients

Blend the apple pie spice into the dry cake mix. Cut the apples in the canned filling into bite-size pieces. If the apples in the brand you have are soft, you could mash them up. 

Stir pie filling and water into the cake mix. Spoon into a greased 2-qt baking dish. Bake at 350º for 30-ish minutes. I watched until it got brown on top.

Sometimes I do have spice cake mix on the shelf. But the yellow cake and apple pie spice was great. You could use pumpkin pie spice, too, or even cinnamon with a little nutmeg. USE WHAT YOU HAVE!

The original recipe didn't even use water. I could not even get the cake and pie filling mixed, so I added water, about 1/2 cup, like the pumpkin muffins. Enough to mix things together. It's still a stiff batter. I just realized you could copy the pumpkin muffin recipe even further and make muffins. 

Also keep this recipe in mind if your circle includes anyone with an egg allergy. No eggs here!

And then last night Mother Nature brought us another unexpected event. But this was a wonderful one. Way down in the Deep South we got a glimpse of the Northern Lights. 

Doing Nothing? Hardly

Do Nothing Cake 

My blog breaks keep getting longer and longer, don't they? What can I say. I'm getting older and older. We have had a strange month here but things are getting back to normal. So I was back in the kitchen today. It's my turn to take dessert to book club. 

Easy Skillet Apple Pie

I planned to take somthing easy--like the Easy Skillet Apple Pie. It's always a winner. And it's a little bit of a show off recipe when you walk in with a cast iron pan. Easy to make, but I needed a trip to the store for apples and pie crust and ice cream.  Then my day didn't start like I thought it would. 

Brownie Pudding

Not to worry. I decided I would make a Brownie Pudding like the granddaughters baked this summer. Even easier to make than the apple pie. We have never had it at book club and I had all the ingredients here. It's so good. But it's so much better with ice cream. That still meant a trip to the grocery store. Time to change gears one more time.

Do Nothing Cake

Do Nothing Cake!!! Even the name suited my situation. A quick check in the pantry yielded both cans of crushed pineapple–a 15-oz can for the cake and an 8-oz can for the frosting. The only other ingredients are self-rising flour*, sugar, eggs and vanilla. It is a rare day when I don't have those basics on hand. Best of all...I didn't need ice cream! NO shopping needed today.

If you google "do nothing cake" the traditional recipes have a coconut-pecan topping. Life is better for Daddy-O when he avoids nuts so when I saw this recipe in our rural electric co-op magazine years ago, I knew we needed to switch it up. I found this pineapple topping online and it worked so well that I can't imagine this cake any other way now.

It has been 10 years since this recipe has been here on the blog. It is definitely time to re-introduce it. 

DO NOTHING CAKE

2 cups self-rising flour
2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 large can (15-oz.) crushed pineapple

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Blend all ingredients together with a spoon. Pour into a greased and floured 9x13-inch baking pan. Bake for 25-35 minutes, or until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Icing:
1/2 stick butter
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 cup crushed pineapple, drained

Combine ingredients in a bowl. Blend well. Pour over hot cake.

PS...the cake was even better the next day. More moist.

All of the desserts linked above are delicious. All are pretty simple to make. But this cake is hands down the easiest to make and the easiest to take. One dish. No ice cream to keep frozen on someone else's kitchen. And it is every bit as delicious as the others. This is a moist, tender cake that we have loved for years.

*If you do not keep self-rising flour on hand, you can also google "do nothing cake" and find recipes that use plain flour, baking powder and salt. 

2022 - The Year Of Low Expectations

Quick & Easy Cake w/One Minute Chocolate Frosting

We are leaving 2021 in the dust and stepping into 2022. The best words I've heard about the new year is to make this the year of low expectations. (Look for @sarcasticlutheran post on Instagram for her full New Year blessing.) Yep. You read it right. Low expectations. We've had two years of things not going as planned and disappointment on top of disappointment and having hopes dashed. So this year, let's start out expecting so little of the world, of ourselves and of others, that when anything at all goes right, it is a reason for delight. I am okay with that.

But we did start our year as we always do. With the traditional black eyed peas and collards meal on New Year's Day. We eat peas to insure we have plenty of coins jingling in our pockets and the collards are for dollar bills—folding money. There were fewer of us around the table this time, so I made fewer side dishes. And we survived.

And again, as always, we celebrated Mommy's birthday. They so often are traveling home on her actual birthday that is has become our tradition to combine the New Year's Day meal with her birthday cake.

I spent a good bit of time yesterday trying to find this chocolate frosting recipe here on my blog. I've made it many times and just assumed (you know what they say about "assuming") that I had posted it here. It was nowhere to be found.

I finally looked in a couple of other places and found a old printed copy, complete with butter stains on the page. This is an old, old recipe that makes a fudge frosting that hardens about as quickly as you put it on the cake. That makes it a perfect match for a 9x13-inch sheet cake. I pour it on and spread it as fast as I can. I didn't even stop to push "cancel" on the timer. 

I found this recipe years ago when I didn't have the ingredients for some other favorite frostings. This uses the most basic of ingredients that I always have on hand. And now the recipe is safely tucked away here in the recipe index where I can find it next time.

ONE-MINUTE CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1 cup sugar granulated sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Melt butter in saucepan. Add sugar, cocoa, and milk to pan and stir. Bring to a full rolling boil and boil for 1 minute. Add vanilla. Remove from heat. Cool partially (not very long) and then beat with a mixer for 3 minutes or until spreadable consistency. Spread (or pour) on cake while the icing is still warm. It will get firm when it cools. 

I pour this over the 9x13 cake and work as quickly as possible. Next time I'll beat mine a little less than 3 minutes. 

Here is the cake I make most often. It never fails. 

QUICK AND EASY CAKE

2 cups self-rising flour 
1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup oil
1 cup milk
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla 

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl. Beat until well mixed. This can be baked in layers or a 9x13-inch pan. (Greased and floured, of course. Or, use baking spray.) Bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes, until golden brown and the top springs back when lightly touched.

There are a couple of other easy chocolate icing recipes here on the blog. And we also love the caramel frosting on this cake. We make the cake in layers for the caramel frosting.

I do not consider myself a cake baker, but with this basic cake recipe and these frosting recipes, I can get by.

Sometimes A Recipe Is More Than A Recipe

Lemon Pound Cake

Sometimes a recipe is just a recipe. But every now and then a recipe is more like a love letter. Or a sympathy card. Or a thinking of you card. This pound cake is one of those special recipes. Every time I make it I am reminded of a teacher who loved my children dearly. She loved all her students. She was a miracle worker as far as I could tell, teaching band class to middle school students. I marveled at how she could take several classes of seventh graders, most not able to read music, hand out assorted instruments and by mid-December put them all on stage and present a Christmas concert, playing songs we could recognize. It was a miracle. Year after year. 

She was tough as nails in the classroom. She had to be to create music out of potential chaos. (Do you remember your seventh grade?) But there was always love underneath the tough. This pound cake was her calling card. I don't know exactly how many she brought to us over those band years. I particularly remember the one I found waiting on us in the front seat of our car. The cake was still warm. I don't have a clue what had happened that time, but this cake was waiting on us when we got home. It was her way to say "I care." Those were some hard years for us as we cared for ailing parents (all of them) and our older daughter had a serious surgery. It felt like we lurched from one challenge to the next for a time. But when it started to feel like too much, a cake appeared. And I knew we were not alone.

Paula was generous enough to share her recipe with me years ago. But like many of those special recipes I never thought mine was a good as hers. But last week I think I hit the mark. It was my shining pound cake moment! This was an early birthday cake for Jessica. I went down to play with the baby while she packed and packed and packed. They are moving soon. I am pretty sure that both of us worked off any extra calories from the cake.

I had a learning curve with this recipe. I remember the year I wanted to make one for a baby shower. The first one rose so high that it collapsed and ran down the outside of the pan. When that one finished baking (it still tasted good) I cleaned it all up and made another one. By supper time, I had made FOUR pound cakes to get one that looked good enough to serve. So glad those learning days are behind me. But the nice thing with pound cake is the homely ones still taste good. I figured out that I was over mixing the batter after I added the flour and milk. Too much air was incorporated and they puffed up too much. Now I make sure to mix it plenty good with the butter/sugar/egg part, but not overdo the flour part.

For the most part, I like pound cakes plain—no frosting. If it's a really good one, it doesn't need anything else. But this time I added a lemon glaze to Paula's recipe. It was a birthday cake. And we like things really lemony. 

You mix this in the standard pound cake method. Paula's directions didn't quite tell me step-by-step. But in the years since, I have made many pound cakes (mostly chocolate) and have a better handle on how it's done.  Check my notes that follow the recipe. 

LEMON POUND CAKE

2 sticks butter, softened

8 tbsp. butter Crisco

3 cups sugar

5 large eggs

1 cup milk

4 cups plain flour (I like to use White Lily flour for this)

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon lemon flavoring

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cream butter, sugar and eggs until consistency of paint; then add dry ingredients alternately with milk.  Add flavorings last.

Bake for approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes at 325 degrees in a floured and greased tube pan.

This cake freezes well.

That is the recipe just as I got it from Paula. I've always teased her that I needed to know what brand of paint she used. 

Make sure your lemon flavoring is not old. I use a lot of vanilla and it doesn't have time to sit on the shelf long. But lemon flavoring is another matter. If it doesn't have a good strong lemon smell, go buy a new bottle. Like I had to do.

Standard cake directions apply here. If you are not a cake baker, let me help you out...

• Whisk baking powder and salt into flour to blend it in.
• Cream butter and shortening until lighter and fluffy. Add sugar and mix well, until sugar is nearly dissolved.
• Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each one.
• Add flour and milk alternately, starting and ending with the flour, mixing just until blended after each addition.
• Add lemon flavoring and vanilla extract and mix another 30 seconds. 
• Use a spatula to scrape to the bottom of the bowl and make sure everything is mixed.
• Pour (or spoon) into a well greased tube pan. (I use Baker's Joy to grease the pan.) Spread it evenly. 
• When done, let cake cool in pan on a rack for about 15 minutes. Turn out and cool completely.

I didn't use a recipe for the glaze. Just mixed powdered sugar, fresh lemon juice and a little melted butter until it tasted good and was the consistency to drizzle. I'm sure you can look up measurements if you need them.

If you have an extra minute, go read what the Bitter Southerner has to say about pound cakes. There are some excellent tips there. One day I'll try their recipe. And I want to make the other recipes in that article as well.

Here is my "fitness trainer" for the week. This was one of her rare, still moments. Oh, those are long, tiring days. But then you blink and that hard part is over. Glad I got to spend some extra time with her. While I can still keep up!

 

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Chocolate Chip Pound Cake

Okay. Okay. You know I always aim to start the new year by getting back on track with my meal plans. I try not to get far off track over the holidays, but I do let myself enjoy some traditional treats. Then, BAM! It's back to business. I do this because making better food choices makes me feel good. I do this because I love how those healthy foods taste. My lunch today was a huge salad and it was so good after some heavier foods (also good) we've enjoyed the last few weeks.

So, why is there a picture of a cake at the top of this post? Because we celebrated not one, but TWO birthdays in the first four days of January. We could not be together for a party but I did bake a cake for us so that we could celebrate virtually. Zoom has become our friend. 

While I was doing my post-holiday refrigerator inventory, I discovered that I had extra sour cream and eggs that needed to be used quickly. I also found a box of yellow cake mix in the pantry that was about to pass its "best by" date. And as part of the same "regroup" effort in the kitchen, I cleaned out a drawer with recipes that have collected over time. And there it was—a cake recipe that was easy and that called for the ingredients that I needed to use. Perfect!

I don't use a lot of cake mix, but I do like to keep a box or two on hand, mostly for the pumpkin muffins we enjoy and the honey bun cake is excellent when I need a quick dessert to take somewhere. I had made this cake once before, but I had forgotten how good it is. When I made it before, I used regular size chocolate chips. This time I happened to have the mini chips on hand. Maybe that's the difference. A tiny nugget of chocolate in every single bite.

CHOCOLATE CHIP POUND CAKE

1 box yellow cake mix (without pudding)

1 (6-oz) box instant chocolate pudding (this is the family size box)

1/2 cup sugar

2/3 cup water

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 (8-oz) container sour cream

4 large eggs

6 oz. mini semisweet chocolate chips

Confectioners sugar for dusting

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray a 12-cup Bundt pan (or 10-inch tube pan) with baking spray.

Add cake mix, pudding mix, sugar, water, and oil to a large bowl and beat with electric mixer for about 2 minutes, until creamy. Add sour cream, mixing well. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mixing at low speed just until blended after each addition. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pan.

Bake 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 10 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely on a wire rack. Dust with confectioners sugar before serving.

Little Lady enjoyed her first birthday cake. We enjoyed our cake on her birthday. And I've been happy to share a few slices with some others. I returned a cake carrier to a cousin. My mother never returned an empty dish. So taking a page from her book, I added a couple of cake slices to the plate. This morning I dropped a meal off at the front door of friends who are both home sick with Covid. I added a couple of slices to their meal package. How good it is to show we care by sharing food!

Now, I need to tell you about how I actually mixed this cake. Not sure where my head was—I've made this before and these are standard cake mixing instructions—but I dumped everything into the bowl all at once. When I turned the mixer on the first time, dry ingredients flew out of the bowl. I realized my mistake at that point. So I used a spatula to mix the wet and the dry ingredients just enough so that I could use the electric mixer. And I mixed the whole concoction enough to make sure it was well blended and creamy before I stirred in the chocolate chips. And glory be...the cake was perfect!

Apple Cake w/Brown Sugar Frosting

Old-Fashioned Apple Cake w/Brown Sugar Frosting

This morning I'm putting this recipe on the blog so that we don't lose it. It's straight from King Arthur, who says it's their most requested apple cake recipe. It tastes like fall. It was good enough that Jessica made it twice. In one weekend. She made one so that we would have a treat. And two days later, the cake was gone but Todd was here, and he asked, "Can you make another one?" One of those times she measured the dry ingredients ahead of time. That made it so easy. Peeling the apples is the labor intense part. 

We did decide that the frosting is really sweet. Almost too sweet for us Southerners who love sweet. (And we live in the land of Krispie Kreme.) It's almost like brown sugar fudge. But did she change it on cake #2? No. Made it exactly like the first one. And the second cake disappeared as fast at the first one. 

Find the original recipe here. There are more mixing tips, including how to make a gluten-free version, and how to make a less sweet frosting. I am posting it here just like Jessica made it.

OLD-FASHIONED APPLE CAKE w/BROWN SUGAR FROSTING

Cake:

2-2/3 cups all-purpose flour

1-2/3 cups sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoon apple pie spice*

2 large eggs, room temp

1 stick (8 tbsp) butter

4 cups peeled, finely chopped apples

1 cup chopped toasted pecans, optional

Frosting:

7 tablespoons butter

2/3 cups brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup milk

2-1/4 cup powdered sugar

3/4 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 375º. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with cooking spray. Mix all cake ingredients, except apples and nuts, in large mixer bowl. Mix just until mixture comes together and becomes uniformly crumbly. Stop mixing at this point. You don't want the mixture to turn into a cohesive mass.

Add apples and nuts if using. Mix until apples release some juice and stiff mixture becomes thick batter. (Dough will be between cookie dough and brownie batter.) It may take about 3 minutes using a stand mixer. (Jessica says you need a stand mixer for this. Don't try to mix by hand.)

Spread batter into greased pan, using wet fingers to spread it if necessary. Bake cake for 45 minutes, or until toothpick put in center comes out clean. (Or with just a few crumbs clinging to it.)

Remove cake from oven and place on rack to cool while you make frosting.

To make frosting:  Melt butter in medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in brown sugar and salt and cook, stirring until sugar starts to melt and mixture becomes fairly smooth. Add milk and bring to a boil.

Remove syrup from heat and pour into a medium mixing bowl (but large enough to hold all the powdered sugar.) Let syrup cool for 10 minutes. 

Pour powdered sugar into warm syrup, then add vanilla. Whisk everything together until thoroughly combined. Work fast because frosting stiffens up quickly as it cools.

Pour warm frosting onto cake, spreading it quickly over entire surface. (Have an offset spatula ready to spread. Don't lose time digging through the drawer to find it.)

Serve cake warm or at room temp. Store, covered, at room temp for several days. (Ours didn't last that long.)

* No apple pie spice in your pantry? Mix 1 tsp. cinnamon, 1/4 tsp. ginger and 1/4 tsp. nutmeg to make your own.

It is awfully quiet here this week. Like grandparents everywhere we would love to see the little ones more than we do. But we are thankful for photos and good memories. This is Little Lady playing with the decades old Fisher-Price farm that belonged to her mommy and aunt when they were the little girls here. I didn't save all the toys, of course, but I'm happy I did hang on to a few. It's fun to see them in use again.

Bakes Like A Champ

Triple Chocolate Cake

Oh my goodness...what a difference a few years make. From baking super quick and easy things when she was in 4th and 5h grades, Big Sister has moved into the big league of baking. When she came to the lake for week #2 of our family time, she told me she was bringing a cake. Everyone brought food to share. But no one had planned any dessert. Except for Big Sister.

And she outdid herself. I have been choosing carefully at each meal, trying to make a difference in how I feel. And to have good lab results next time at the doctor. Seriously, people. I ate three slices of this cake. I will give Big Sister credit...she didn't cut me the biggest piece. But if she had, I would have gladly eaten it.

She had baked the same cake earlier in the summer for another family event. She told me that from now on if she needed to take food to a gathering, this was going to be her signature food. And now we are all trying to figure out how to concoct another "gathering" so we can enjoy a second cake. The cake is delicious. The frosting is divine.

Don't let the coffee scare you off. Big Sister said it did smell "very coffee-y" before it baked, but it does not taste like coffee when it's done.

TRIPLE CHOCOLATE CAKE (from SallysBakingAddiction.com)

1-3/4 cup all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)

3/4 cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (she used Ghiradelli)

1-3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons espresso powder, optional (she didn't use this)

1/2 cup canola oil

2 large eggs (room temp)

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 cup buttermilk

1 cup freshly brewed strong hot coffee (or hot water)

chocolate chips for decoration, if you'd like (that's the chocolate #3)

Preheat oven to 350º. Grease two 9-inch cake pans, line with parchment paper, then grease parchment paper.

In a large bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and espresso if using. Set aside. 

In another bowl, mix oil, eggs and vanilla together on medium-high until combined. Add buttermilk and mix until combined.

Pour wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add hot coffee (or hot water.) Beat on low speed until completely combined. Batter will be thin.

Divide batter evenly between pans. Bake for 23-26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Remove cakes from oven and place on racks.  Allow to cool completely in pans

CHOCOLATE BUTTERCREAM

2-1/2 sticks (1-1/4 cups) unsalted butter, softened to room temp

3 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

3-5 tablespoons heavy cream (or half-and-half or milk) at room temp

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

With a handheld or stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed until creamy, about 2 minutes. Add confectioners sugar, cocoa powder, heavy cream, salt and vanilla. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, then increase to high speed and beat for 1 full minute. DO NOT OVERWHIP. 

Add 1/4 cup more confectioners sugar or cocoa if frosting is too thin. Or, another tablespoon (or 2 or 3) of cream if frosting is too thick. Adjust until it's the consistency you want. Taste. Add more salt if needed. (Maybe a pinch.)

To Assemble:  If cakes  have a dome on top use a long serrated knife and slice a thin layer off to level. (Can save crumbs from this step and use to decorate top of cake, like Big Sister did.) Place one layer on cake plate. Cover with frosting. Top with second cake layer and spread remaining frosting over top and sides. You can edge the cake in chocolate chips if you need more chocolate.

Refrigerate cake for at least 30-60 minutes before slicing. This helps it hold its shape. Store leftover cake, covered, in refrigerator. 

(You can find many more tips for this cake at SallysBakingAddiction.com )

The Times They Are A'Changin'

Honey Bun Cake

It doesn't quite feel appropriate to write the blog post I wanted to share today.  With so much upheaval and uncertainty, that can wait. (I planned to make a recipe I enjoyed on our beach trip but my store was out of the main ingredient.)  Like the rest of the world, I've been watching and listening to the warnings about Corona virus for several weeks now. But last week—our last night at the beach for our annual girls get-away—when we heard that the NBA had cancelled the season and March Madness had cancelled, things immediately felt different. Since that night it seems like the world as we know it has changed. 

Being the person I am—inveterate disaster planner here—for the last few weeks, I had been buying a few extra things each trip to the grocery store. We live so far from stores that I stay pretty well stocked anyway because discovering I'm out of something mid-recipe is more than annoying. It's a 45-minute round trip to pick up a single ingredient. I try not to run out.

But as the concern ramped up, I have found myself thinking probably like my grandmother did during the Great Depression. And like my mother did when dollars were short. They did this for a very long time. This time we hope it's a temporary supply shortage of some items. But right now the shelves in my small local store don't look like they did last week. I've thinking hard about what is essential and what could we live without. The "live without" list is by far the longest.

Before I baked a cake this morning, I looked at the recipe and thought, "Hmmm.....I have 9 eggs here. This cake calls for four. How long with the remaining five eggs last me? Do I really want to make this?" Will there be an egg shortage this week?  No clue. We are in "who knows" territory until further notice. I am now thinking ahead about menus for the week. I'm checking what I have here. I am planning like I should do all the time. And I'm being more careful not to waste anything. Leftovers are looking better and better. 

Much will be learned in the coming weeks and months. Less things taken for granted. Let's not panic, but let's be very thoughtful about decisions we make. So take care, dear readers. Be kind to one another. Especially to those who are out of work with income uncertainties and business owners who will struggle. And practice patience with those poor folks who are working so hard to keep us safe and fed and well. 

Don't forget to eat the good healthy foods that help us stay well, but if you are practicing social distancing, you may be looking for a little treat. Here is an oldie-but-goodie recipe. It's perfect with a cup of coffee. If you have kids at home (our schools are closed) this is an easy one for them to make. My cake just came out of the oven. Daddy-O is just waiting for it to cool.  

HONEY BUN CAKE

1 box yellow cake mix

2/3 cup vegetable (or canola) oil

4 eggs

1 cup sour cream

1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x13-inch pan. (I just used regular PAM.)

In a large bowl, beat cake mix, oil, eggs and sour cream with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds and then on medium speed for 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Spread half of batter in pan.

In a small bowl, mix brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon. Sprinkle over batter in pan. Carefully spread remaining batter over pecan mixture. Bake 44-48 minutes or until deep golden brown.

In another small bowl, mix powdered sugar, milk and vanilla until thin enough to spread. Prick surface of warm cake several times with fork. Spread powdered sugar mixture over warm cake. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

This time I needed to add another teaspoon of milk to the powdered sugar. The glaze should be fairly thick—kind of like honey, but when you spread it over the hot cake (work quickly), the heat from the cake melts it enough to spread. I used a large spoon to drizzle the frosting over the cake, then used the back of the spoon to spread it.

Lemon Bundt Cake

Lemon Bundt Cake

If you need a dessert for this weekend, here is an easy cake from a new cookbook. When we went down for Baby Girl's birthday party, I flipped through a cookbook that Mommy was giving to Jessica for HER birthday. (Baby Girl's party was held on her aunt's actual birthday.) It looked like a good one and I said I thought I'd pick one up for myself at the bookstore before we left town. Fast forward a few days and I found myself babysitting a sick child for the rest of that week. I never got to the bookstore.

I was greatly surprised to receive a package in the mail a couple of days after I got home from the intensive babysitting. Mommy had sent this to me as a "thank you for rescuing us" gift. I have the most thoughtful daughter. If you still buy cookbooks, this is a good one. Recipes are family friendly. Real food for real people. (Jessica has already tried several of the recipes.) I think the recipes are very well written.

A few days after that, Jessica came home for the weekend. By then I was in full blown sick mode, spending my days curled up under a blanket. So to entertain herself, she baked a cake from the new cookbook. She had already looked through hers and picked this recipe out. And I had all the ingredients on hand. She cautioned, "Be careful not to over bake this one." She thought she could have backed off the baking time a couple of minutes. But, like the banana bread that we love, the moistness improved after a day or two. 

My banana bread recipe says to let the loaf "ripen" overnight before you slice it. And I know my pound cake is like that, too. It's better if I make it a day or two ahead. I do not know the science behind this, but I know these baked goods do improve after resting. The big plus is these make great recipes when a make-ahead dessert is needed. 

I have made similar recipes using a cake mix. Homemade is better. And truly not much harder. That gorgeous glaze in the photo? Jessica's glaze was much thinner. Still delicious, but it didn't look like the book picture.

LEMON BUNDT CAKE

3 cups all-purpose flour
grated zest of 2 lemons
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1/2 lb) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 cup buttermilk

Lemon Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 to 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (more if needed)

Preheat oven to 350º. Spray 12-cup bundt pan with baking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, lemon zest, baking soda and salt. Set aside. With mixer, cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy about 3-5 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. With mixer on LOW, alternately add flour and buttermilk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Mix until just incorporated.

Spoon batter into greased bundt pan. Drop pan lightly on countertop to remove any bubbles.
Bake about 50-55 minutes, until toothpick in cake comes out clean. (Start with lesser time. Check and bake more if needed.)

Cool in pan, on rack for 20 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely. While cake is cooling, make glaze. Whisk lemon juice into powdered sugar, adding more juice as needed to make a soft glaze. Place cake on serving plate and drizzle glaze over it,


As I said, this was even better on the second day. Thanks to Jessica for baking us a treat while she was home. And now, bless her heart, she is the one home with the same crud that we have all had. Summer cannot come too soon if it means a break in this pass-the-germs-around game we seem to be playing!

Weekend Detour

Our birthday party weekend took a detour last week. Life is like that. One week ago we headed down the interstate to celebrate two birthdays, car fully loaded with cake and gifts. And small suitcases packed for a two-night stay.

The little girls enjoyed a gymnastics party which was fun to watch. (So glad they didn't invite the grandmamas to participate!) And that evening, Daddy-O and I drove into the city and enjoyed a grownup dinner out for the second birthday. On Sunday we had planned to have brunch and then head home.

But Mommy sent a text that the night was a long one and they were headed to the doctor that morning. Since I was still so close, Daddy-O drove back that way and dropped me off for a few days of Mimi duty. I'm not always available to be helping hands, but this time I could do it.

Just taking over the chauffeuring chores—the school drop-off and pick ups, going to ballet lessons, etc—gave Mommy a break. If you've ever driven kids anywhere, you know that car conversation is the best. This time it was just Little Sister and me going back and forth to school. You find out so much with this one-to-one time. And I LOVE getting to watch the ballet class.

Baby Girl stayed home from school this week. She and I kept busy. We played lots of games, read books and we might have sneaked in a few cartoons. Peep & The Big Wide World is a favorite. For both of us.

When she was feeling better, we tackled the thank you notes for her party gifts. It makes me so happy that these girls are learning the importance of "thank you" notes at this very young age.

I will never win a prize for a beautiful cake, but this is an old family recipe that never lets me down. My Aunt Betty was famous for this cake. And Baby Girl requested it for her birthday.

 CHOCOLATE POUND CAKE

1/2 lb butter (2 sticks), softened

1/2 cup Crisco shortening

3 cups sugar

5 eggs

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

4 tablespoons cocoa 

1 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Cream butter and shortening. Add sugar and cream together well. Add eggs, one at a time, beating after each egg. Put flour into a bowl and add baking powder and salt. Sift the cocoa into the flour mixture and whisk all of these dry ingredients together. (Or sift all of the dry ingredients together.)

Add dry ingredients alternately with milk to butter/sugar mixture, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients. Add vanilla.

Bake in a greased and floured tube pan for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

Let cool in pan for about 15 minutes before turning out.

And when Ellen at our church bakes a chocolate pound cake, she adds a thick chocolate frosting. After years of serving plain, unadorned cake (which I love) I asked Ellen for her frosting recipe because Mommy loves it that way. I must admit, it does seem more like a party cake when it is frosted. Be sure to read the notes at the end.

CHOCOLATE FROSTING

1 box 10-X powdered sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons butter, softened
5 tablespoons evaporated milk, plus more to make it creamy & spreadable

Sift sugar and cocoa together. Add softened butter and milk. Mix on medium to high speed, adding more milk by the tablespoon as needed, until it's spreadable. Work quickly to frost cake, as frosting sets up.

This never sounds like enough butter. But it is. And the recipe says "plus more" after you add the 5 tablespoons of milk. I looked back over this blog and one time it says I added an extra 1-1/2 tablespoons. This time I added probably another FIVE tablespoons. Just add the extra one tablespoon at a time until you get a a frosting that is soft enough spread on the cake. 


I'm back at home, a few days later than planned. But happy that I could be there to help. I learned that two days worth of clothes will last for six days if necessary. This was like a practice run for a big trip I have coming up in several weeks. And this morning, I only have minimal laundry to do.

Fingers crossed everyone stays healthy for a while. Me, included. I was showered with love..."Mimi, I wish you could stay here all the time"...and I was showered with germs. ACHOOO!!! My thinking is that the love will germ-proof me.

In One Weekend

Apple Cake

Before I left at the end of last week, I baked a quick-to-make cake for Daddy-O so he would not feel neglected or forgotten. So quick to stir together that I mixed it while still in my pajamas. Popped it in the oven to bake while I took a shower. With nearly an hour baking time, I had plenty to time to get ready before it was done.

The apple cake was ready for Daddy-O to sample before I left. He came in from feeding cows and was happy to find a treat waiting. A warm cake, fresh out of the oven.

My weekend trip to see the grandchildren had a two-fold mission. One...make sure that Baby Girl had an angel costume for her preschool Christmas program. And two...to attend Little Sister's piano recital. Soon after I arrived at their house, I pulled out the little sewing machine I bought the last time I was there and set it up on their dining room table and set to work.

Baby Girl discovered she did not like trying on garments in progress. She didn't like getting stuck by the pins in the first try-on. Who would? But her mommy told her that a few sticks are part of having a mommy or grandmother that sews for you. Thankfully, when it was done, she climbed up on the sofa to see herself in the mirror and all was good.

Little Sister had her Christmas piano recital the next day and played like a seasoned professional. Having an audience didn't seem to bother her in the least. I was so happy that they live close enough now that I could go watch her play.

And the *next* day, I loaded up and pulled out of their driveway an hour before the sun came up and drove straight to church in time to ring handbells at our morning worship service. It's a three hour drive. This time a third of it was in the dark, in the rain, in the fog.

And when my very tired self finally got back to my own house, I found the best surprise waiting for me. A dear friend had created a yarn advent calendar for me! A yarn a day from now until Christmas. For the first time in forever, we do not have a paper advent calendar in our house. I made sure the children (grown and little ones) all got home. But somehow I skipped us. Thanks to this friend, we will count down the days until Christmas with yarn. (There was also the perfect knitter Christmas mug tucked in that stuffed-full-box.)

And in a blink, the whirlwind weekend was over.This morning I'm in recovery mode. Sometimes if Daddy-O wakes up before me, he brings me coffee in bed. I asked last night that if that happened today, please bring it in a Christmas mug. And that's what happened. He is THE best.

Here is the recipe for the "one bowl apple cake" that took two bowls. One bowl for the wet ingredients and the apples and one bowl to mix the flour and baking powder together. The cake begs to be served with a cup of coffee or tea. Or, maybe a glass of milk. Daddy-O did tell me that after a few days (I left him with a whole cake to eat by himself) it got "wet and sticky". So maybe this is best eaten in the first day or two.

ONE BOWL APPLE CAKE (that really takes two bowls)

2 eggs

1-3/4 cups sugar

2 leaping teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 cup oil

6 medium apples

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, mix the eggs, sugar, cinnamon and oil. Peel and slice the apples directly into the bowl, stirring them in as you go to keep them from turning brown. (I sliced them thin.)

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix well until all of the flour is absorbed by the wet ingredients. Pour mixture into a greased 9x13-inch baking pan, or two 9-inch round pans. Bake for 50-55 minutes for 9x13 pan. Might be less if you use the round pans.

I will admit that I had my doubts about this recipe when it was mixed up. It looked like apple slices barely coated with batter. But it baked into a lovely cake, crusty on top and dense with apples. 

As I was trying to salvage some files from an old computer, I found this recipe that I had saved years ago. Glad I stumbled across it and was able to print it out. That old computer is on it's very last legs.