Sponge Cake

If you want to eat something with the texture of a sponge but much better flavor, then this is the cake for you. It is rather easy to make and doesn't involve any non-standard baking ingredients. Your sponge can even have any flavor you want as long as you have the extract for the flavor desired.

I have never made a sponge cake before this baking venture. The cake seems like a more dense version of an angel food cake. I used vanilla extract for my sponge cake even though the recipe calls for orange extract. I think I would have liked it better if I added lemon juice instead. I'm not really sure what people do with sponge cake. Do they frost them? Do they pour fruit and juice over a slice? If you know, please tell me!

Sponge Cake (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

4 eggs, separated

3 T cold water

1/2 t salt

1/2 t cream of tartar

1 1/2 C granulated sugar

1 3/4 C sifted flour

1/2 t baking powder

1/2 C boiling water

1 t orange extract

In a mixing bowl, beat together the egg yolks and cold water for 10 minutes. I used a medium speed. The egg yolks will be nice and fluffy (the soft peak stage) after 10 minutes.

If you have another mixer, beat togeter the egg whites, salt, and cream of tartar until stiff. If you don't have multiple mixers, just prepare the ingredients for later.

In yet another bowl, stir together the sugar, flour, and baking powder.

Once the egg yolks have beat for 10 minutes, alternate adding the dry ingredients and the boiling water. I made three additions of dry ingredients and two addtions of water. Stir between each addition until well blended.

(At this point, clean the beaters and beat the egg whites until they are stiff if you only have one mixer. Yes, I know, not everyone has a stand mixer and a hand mixer.)

Fold the stiff egg whites into the egg yolk batter until just blended. The batter will be nice and fluffy.

Pour this nice and fluffy batter into an ungreased angel food cake tube pan.

Bake at 350 degrees for one hour. Check at 50 minutes to see if it is done. My cake only took 52 minutes to bake.

Note: I'm not sure if this kind of cake requires it, but I cooled the cake (in the pan) upside down on top of a narrow neck bottle. This is what you do for angel food cake so it doesn't fall. It can't hurt to do this for the sponge cake, too!

Enjoy!

Pie (Pastry) Dough

I realized yesterday that I never shared the recipe for pie crusts! This is the recipe that my grandma used all the time for the hundreds of pies that she made. It is pretty easy to make. This dough can be used right away or frozen for a few weeks (or more?).

If you want very flakey crust, be sure that the wet ingredients are cold. Also, mix with your hands as little as possible. The heat from your hands does something to the dough and it won't be as flakey after baking.

Pie (Pastry) Dough (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

4 C flour

1 T sugar

2 t salt

1 3/4 C shortening

1/2 C water

1 T vinegar

1 egg

In a bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, and salt.

Add the shortening and cut it into the dry ingredients. Cut it in with either a fork or a pastry blender if you have one. (Here is a link if you don't know what one is!) Once well combined, you will have a bunch of crumbles.

In a measuring cup, lightly beat together the water, vinegar, and egg.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry crumbles. Mix in with the fork (or pastry blender) as much as you can. I had to finish the mixing by hand. I did this by folding the dough onto itself until it seemed combined completely.

The baking of this dough typically follows the directions of the recipe you are using it in.

Suggestion for leftovers: Roll out the dough to 1/8 to 1/4 inch thickness. Place on a baking sheet. Lightly butter the top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Bake this at 350 until lightly browned. Cool and enjoy!

Pie: A Tart o' Apple

Sometimes we really crave li’l apple desserts. Foolproof recipes reproduce one of the luscious pies, create an edible tart, and all provide joy. No uneaten leftovers exist – we demolish complete pies. A delicious venture; I ensure enjoyment. The miniature palatable pie created below, I – maybe possibly we – celebrate amazing math constants with. Bake, taste, celebrate Pi Day…

Pie: A Tart o' Apple (Printer-friendly PDF Version)

3 baking apples, peeled and cubed or sliced

1 pie pastry (unbaked)

4 T brown sugar

1 t cinnamon

5 t flour

9 t butter (melted)

Make your pie pastry if needed. I made my own pie pastry because I wasn’t sure how the pre-made pastry would work out. If you don’t know how to make pie pastry, buy premade and reduce the problem to one already solved.

Roll out the pie pastry and cut out large congruent circles. Smush these large circles along the inside of well greased muffin cups. Be sure the diameter of the pastry cutouts is larger than the diameter of the muffin cups! (A bit more than radius plus height, if you feel like measuring.) Sprinkle flour in the pastry lined cups.

In a small mixing bowl, combine the cinnamon and brown sugar. Add this to the cubed apples, which should be in a separate mixing bowl, and stir together very well. Mix in the melted butter. 

Scoop the sugar coated apples into the pie pastry lined muffin cups. You can try to be fancy and add criss-cross pie pastry lines to the top. That would give a greater crust to apple ratio, so only do that if you really enjoy pie crust. Your set of tarts can be either open or closed.

Bake at 360 degrees for 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool for 15 or so minutes, remove the tarts from the muffin cups, and eat. No forks required, just hands.

Enjoy!

Happy Pi Day!

Note: In the title & introduction, punctuation doesn’t count and dashes are used in place of zero. I only made it through 65 digits.

Cream of Potato-Celery Soup

I didn't expect this soup to turn out to be so wonderful. My low expectations were partly due to how non-perfect the tomato soup turned out and partly due to the fact that I only recently discovered how awesome potato soup is. If these recipes continue to make delcious foods, I am going to be making everything from scratch instead of buying premade foods.

This soup is not for people who don't like celery (or are allergic to it!). The celery definitely provides a distinct flavor. I'm not sure how much the chicken bouillon alters the flavor, so if you are a vegetarian you can possibly just leave it out. Or, if you don't want to use the bouillon cube for other reasons, you can substitute one of the two cups of water with chicken broth.

Two medium sized potatoes were enough to get the two cups of cubed potato pieces. The celery leaves can be found on the inside of a bundle of celery stalks or on top if they aren't removed before the store obtains them. I really don't know if those add flavor, so you can possibly leave them out and add a bit more celery if you are silly and buy precut celery.

Cream of Potato-Celery Soup (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C peeled, raw, cubed potatoes
1 C thinly sliced celery
2 T chopped celery leaves
2 T minced onion
2 C water
1/2 t salt
1 C scalded milk
1 T margarine/butter
2 T flour
1/4 C cold milk
1 chicken bouillon cube
salt and pepper to taste

Chop up the potatoes, slice the celery, chop the leaves, and mince the onion. Throw all of this into a nice sized pot with the water and salt.

Bring the contents of the pot to a boil. Place a cover on the pot, reduce the heat, and simmer for 25ish minutes.

After this pot contents boil for the 25ish minutes, start to scald the milk. While the milk was scalding, I smashed a lot of the potatoes against the inside of the pot with a wooden spoon. I didn't want the soup to be very chunky! You can do this or not. You are the one who will be eating it.

Pour the scalded milk into the pot with the potatoes. Add the butter or margine as well. Mix this all up.

Meanwhile, add the flour to the cold milk. Stir well. If the flour leaves some lumps in the milk, you may end up with mini dumpling type things in your soup. Pour this thickened milk into the pot of potato soup. Stir in well and simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. This will thicken the soup. Add the salt, pepper, and bouillon cube at this point.

Serve the soup while hot. Eat with a spoon. Or drink with a thick straw. I guess you can also pour some into a mug and just drink it that way. I won't restrict your soup eating options.

I made a double batch of this soup. Two days later, it heats up and is still very yummy.

Enjoy!

Blueberry Muffins

Muffins are delicious and easy to make. I think I've mentioned that a time or two. They may be evil in the mini form, but they seem to be happy and content in the blueberry form.

This recipe comes straight from one of the recipe books I have, unlike the previous muffin recipes which I pieced together from the internet. The main part of this muffin is delicious and moist and the blueberries go with it very well. I have used a few a muffin recipes where the batter is awful and the fruit can't even save it. Since this recipe is very simple and results in edible food, I will make them in the future.

Since few people here seem to like blueberry muffins, I cut the recipe in half which made 9 muffins. The muffins are amazing and I'm glad I decided to make them today! They are so good that my nephew tried to eat my hand to get more. There aren't many muffins left and I just made them a few hours ago.

Blueberry Muffins (Printer-friendly PDF Version)
2 C flour
1 C sugar
4 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C vegetable oil
1 C milk
1 t vanilla
2 C frozen (thawed) or fresh blueberries

Place the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and stir them up a bit.

Add the wet ingredients and mix until combined. The batter will be lumpy, so don't over mix.

Fold in the blueberries until they seem distributed rather well. Shouldn't take much effort.

Spoon into greased muffin pans or liners. Fill them 2/3 full. Sprinkle the tops with cinnamon sugar if you want.

Bake at 400 for 18 - 20 minutes.

Enjoy!