Parsley Snipping Time

I went out to snip some parsley for my salad and LOOK who got there first! Oh, my! Hope he will be a beautiful butterfly one day!

Another

Scripture Cake - Next Day

OK - so the flavor is excellent. The top is excellent too. The rest is dry and crumbly. I'm going to try a little thingy of mandarin oranges with my next slice and see if they fix the wee problem. Still yummy - but not fit for company.

I'm Baking - Scripture Cake

Almost lost my religion because I didn't wait until the butter was soft enough - but we'll see. They're in the oven. I made four mini loaves. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:1 cup Judges 5:25 last clause (butter)
1 cup Jeremiah 6:20 (sugar)
1 tablespoon I Samuel 14:25 (honey)
3 Jeremiah 17:11 (eggs)
1 cup I Samuel 30:12 second food (raisins)
1 cup Nahum 3:12 (dried figs), chopped
1/4 cup Numbers 17:8 (almonds), roasted and chopped
2 cups 1 Kings 4:22 (flour)
II Chronicles 9:9 (spices, such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice)
Pinch of Leviticus 2:13 (salt)
1 teaspoon Amos 4:5 (leavener, such as baking soda)
3 tablespoons Judges 4:19 last sentence (milk)

Cream first 3 ingredients. Beat in the 3 Jeremiahs (eggs), one at a time. Add next 3 ingredients and beat again. Sift together Kings (flour), II Chronicles (spices), Leviticus (salt), and Amos (leavener, or baking soda). Add to first mixture. Lastly add Judges (milk.) Bake at 325 degrees for 1-1/2 hours, or until done. If using foil mini pans, bake at 350 for 35-40 minutes, until done.

My #$%^&* Birthday Cake

Well, today is my birthday. Tomorrow my family will celebrate my special day with a lunch at Mom and Dad's. I, of course, volunteered to make my own cake since I AM the proud owner of a new KitchenAid mixer. It is now 8:42 pm and the cake is out of the oven. LOOK! My little friend Betsy helped me create this disaster. Never in all my attempts at baking have I/we fallen so short of the goal. JM's Dad's cake at least just fell off the plate. Mine fell off the plate and oozed magma all over the counter. I wish you could have seen it when I first flipped the pan over on the cake plate. For approximately 17.38 seconds it was a beautiful cake. Betsy says I need a cake tester. I think I need a man in my life who can bake - to hell with the tester. Does anyone want a slightly used KitchenAid mixer? By the way, I WAS somewhat distracted by the eggs that were coming to room temp (see below - note my birthday portrait in the tea kettle). Perhaps I should stick to photography! And, finally, Note To Self: One should never make one's own birthday cake...

Elvis' Favorite Pound Cake

• • 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened, plus additional for buttering
    pan
  • 3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) plus
    additional for dusting
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups sugar
  • 7 large eggs, at room temperature 30 minutes
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 cup heavy cream
  • Special equipment: a 10-inch tube pan (4 1/2 inches deep; not with a
    removable bottom) or a 10-inch bundt pan (3 1/4 inches deep; 3-qt capacity)

  Put oven rack in middle position, but do not preheat oven.
  Generously
  butter pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess flour.
  Sift together
  sifted flour (3 cups) and salt into a bowl. Repeat sifting into another bowl
  (flour will have been sifted 3 times total).
  Beat together butter (2 sticks)
  and sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale
  and fluffy, about 5 minutes in a stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment or 6
  to 8 minutes with a handheld mixer. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after
  each addition, then beat in vanilla. Reduce speed to low and add half of flour,
  then all of cream, then remaining flour, mixing well after each addition. Scrape
  down side of bowl, then beat at medium-high speed 5 minutes. Batter will become
  creamier and satiny.
  Spoon batter into pan and rap pan against work surface
  once or twice to eliminate air bubbles. Place pan in (cold) oven and turn oven
  temperature to 350°F. Bake until golden and a wooden pick or skewer inserted in
  middle of cake comes out with a few crumbs adhering, 1 to 1 1/4 hours. Cool cake
  in pan on a rack 30 minutes. Run a thin knife around inner and outer edges of
  cake, then invert rack over pan and invert cake onto rack to cool
  completely. (from Epicurious.com)

If it's good enough for the King, it's good enough for my birthday. Cross your fingers!

If I were a rich man,Ya ha deedle deedle, bubba bubba deedle deedle dum.

Is this not the most beautiful cookware you have ever seen in your whole entire life? It certainly is to me, so, if I were into coveting, I would covet this stuff! If I had a man with a million dollars (or a million men with a dollar), I would be the oh so proud owner of this very set. Guess I better find that man....

For those of you with money, it is Ruffoni Hammered Stainless Steel from Williams Sonoma. If you buy it, may I come over and visit it?

In Search of: THE PERFECT POUND CAKE

I may not have it in me to make the perfect pound cake but I haven't given up yet. As I have talked to great cooks, here are some of the suggestions I have gotten:

1. Start with a cold oven.
2. Start with a preheated oven.
3. Use only unsalted butter.
4. Any butter will do. Don't use margarine.
5. Margarine will do.
6. Start with all ingredients at room temp.
7. It doesn't matter what temp the eggs are.
8. Spray the pan.
9. Never use spray in the pan. Always grease and flour the pan.
10. Only use an old tube pan. Never use a bundt pan.
11. Only use a bundt pan - the cheaper, the better.
12. Use only cake flour.
13. Use only plain flour.
14. Don't over-beat the batter. Just beat it until it looks right.
15. Beat the hell out of the batter.
16. Undercook it just a bit to get the "sad streak."
17. Never undercook your cake. You will get that nasty sad streak.
18. Don't walk in the kitchen while the cake is baking.
19. Don't open the oven door while the cake is baking.
20. Nothing really matters but how much LOVE you put in the cake.
    

Great cooks use terms like "looks right" and "little bit." They use definites like always and never. They know when it "smells done."

I think I should now keep trying and quit asking. Then one day when I have found my way to do it just the way I want it, I'm going to find me someone who just bought a new KitchenAid mixer and confuse the hell out of 'em!

Home-Baked Goods 2 - I DID IT!

I did it! This is my second attempt and 100% of that sucker came out of the pan! Hooray! It is a Williams Sonoma Almond Bundt Cake. Actually, I'm sure I just paid big bucks for a box of sugar and flour - but it DID come out of the pan.

Now - tomorrow at lunch we find out if it's edible! Cross your fingers, please. And. Coach, things are looking up!

Home-Baked Goods - The Fun Starts Today

Back in my old principal-ing days, Coach Kidd would always ask me about bringing in home-baked goods. He seemed to be serious, as if I should be expected to bring in goodies for such a great staff. Didn't he know that I was a busy woman who could not concern herself with such as that? Didn't he know that I didn't even have a cake pan - much less a mixer? Didn't he know I thought he was great even if I never made him a pound cake?

When all my friends were getting married (some of them over and over) and having showers and receiving mixers and cake pans, I was in school and working. (Not that Mom didn't warn me - she asked if I would be happy spending my life with my books - and yes, I am pretty happy with them...)

But I must admit that I have fond "growing-up" memories of home-baked goods. Mom and I would bake - with varying degrees of success. Once we had the GE oven man come check the oven. When it was found to be calibrated exactly right and performing properly, Mom and I had to take a bit of responsibility for a few disasters. But we got quite good with Lemon Supreme and Prune Cake (Yes, you read it right - had a jar of baby-food prunes in it - tasted like spice cake.)

My grandmother and my aunts were/are great cooks. I watched them for years and learned a lot.

Martha's Mom and Dad were pound cake bakers. I loved to show up when the cake was in the oven and the milk glasses were in the freezer! Yummm!

My sister and I would bake and still do, actually. We're still perfecting our cookies with royal icing and she's a pro with the gingerbread house. JM and I made a pecan pie once and left out the sugar. About half way through the baking time, we found the sugar bag still out and added it then. It was perfect, teaching us that all these silly steps in these recipes are not all really necessary. And the carrot cake I made for JM's dad's birthday cracked and fell off the plate - so I delivered it in baggies and he said it was the best cake he had ever eaten. He was a precious, precious soul!

Well, I bought my new mixer today and I'm ready to figure out how to bake. I made my first pound cake tonight and I'm proud to announce that over half of it came out of the pan. I felt compelled to eat all that part that stayed in the pan and I'm sure I'll feel better tomorrow.

If you have recipes I must try, send them on - and please don't leave out any key ingredients - I'd never know it!

So, Coach, give me a bit of time to practice and then come on over. The home-baked goods will be waiting!