Recipe Rustlers

When I lived in Texas, I became fascinated with the Texas rose rustlers, who find and "rescue" roses that have thrived for many years, with little or no attention, in a forgotten place such as an old cemetery or outside an abandoned house or along an fence. One of my favorite rose catalogs comes from this nursery, The Antique Rose Emporium, which was founded with rustled roses.

Many of these roses are antiques, old roses from the past that have survived in spite of neglect. The idea of propagating these roses--bringing these survivors out of the past and into the 21st century, thus preserving the variety--is honorable, in contradiction to the negative connotation of "rustling". But what a great name--The Rose Rustlers.

Some of us have become recipe rustlers. We find an old recipe in a forgotten cookbook, recognize its value, and bring it into our contemporary kitchens, where it again becomes a treasure to share with others.

One such recipe is from one of my oldest cookbooks, Better Homes & Gardens Cakes and Pies, which I received as a wedding gift in 1969.


Recently I spotted my old treasure at the top of my bookshelves and started thumbing through the browned, familiar pages. Several pages are stained with use, evidence of happy hours spent poring over and trying the recipes as a young bride.

Unlike many of today's recipes, I found that most of the cake recipes specified shortening and/or shortening and butter. Although I love using butter in my baking, shortening does provide a tender crumb that is not always present with the use of butter alone.

The recipe I chose to rustle was one for Buttermilk Cake, and the result was such good old-fashioned flavor and texture. The instructions are different from the usual "add dry ingredients to wet" and employ the use of an electric mixer rather than the KitchenAid. And with 6 egg whites, it was a mile-high cake!

Buttermilk Cake

3¾ cup flour
2¼ cup sugar
1½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoon soda
1½ teaspoon baking powder
3/8 cup butter
3/8 cup shortening
2¼ teaspoon vanilla
1½ cup buttermilk
6 egg whites

Sift dry ingredients into large mixing bowl. Add butter, shortening, vanilla, and 3/4 cup buttermilk; beat 2 minutes at medium speed on electric mixer. Add remaining buttermilk and egg whites (I whipped until soft peaks formed then folded into the batter.); beat 2 minutes longer. Bake in 2 greased and lightly floured 8 X 1-1/2 inch round pans in 350F (177C) for 30-35 minutes. Cool and frost.

Spring Peas, Spudnuts, and my Beautiful Mother

My mother will be 96 years old in July. She lives with my husband and me and is still incredibly young. She is a petite beauty who reads large-print books, writes letters, walks around the house for exercise, goes to the hair salon every week, and amazes her doctors. She is my hero.

One of my favorite culinary memories is watching my Mom shell peas on our porch steps one spring evening when I was 11. My Daddy worked until 9:00 at night in our small town pharmacy, my oldest brother was married, and my teenage brother was probably on a date. Consequently Mom & I were alone many evenings.

She had planted a tiny garden and had a nice little "mess" of spring peas gathered in a bowl. As we sat outside in the growing dusk, she showed me how to shell peas and we quietly talked. When the peas were all ready, we went inside and I watched while she made creamed peas. I'll never forget the taste of those peas--little bursts of sweet starchiness in buttery, creamy sauce. On that spring evening, between the shared sunset, the shared task of shelling, and the shared plate of fresh, simple food, a cherished memory was born.

Another culinary memory is one of her making Spudnuts, which are doughnuts made with potatoes or potato flour; Spudnuts were the Krispy Kremes of the 1960s. My brother was home from college one weekend and requested that Mom make doughnuts, specifically Spudnuts. Although Mom didn't have internet access and had very few cookbooks in her kitchen, she somehow managed to come up with a "copy-cat" recipe made with mashed potato-infused sweet yeast dough. She rolled the dough on her tiny countertop, used a little red doughnut cutter (wish I still had it!) to cut doughnuts, and let them rise on top of the oven. Then she fried them one by one in melted shortening in a deep saucepan and immediately dipped them in powdered sugar glaze. Those doughnuts were better than any we had ever had or that I have had since--I still remember biting into that light, crisp, sweet tenderness with the still-warm icing.

Mom doesn't think she was an inspiration to me in the kitchen. She refers to my grandmothers as the cooks in the family and talks about their incredible cinnamon rolls, sugar cookies, and pies. And although replicating their recipes has been my goal for many years, watching Mom in the kitchen is what I remember; by observing her, I learned basic skills, good habits, and the desire to please. Now I remember those days with longing and a touch of sadness, wishing I had paid more attention to what she was doing, wishing I had offered to help her (or even to wash the dishes), and wishing I had told her what a great cook and a wonderful Mother she was.

So on this Mother's Day 2008, I honor my little Mommy, Ruby, and thank her for being my inspiration and for encouraging my passion for baking and my joy in the kitchen. I love you, Mom.

What Do Bakers Do On Their Day Off?

They watch their garden grow.


They beg their roses to bloom.


They make homemade ice cream.


Then they eat it.


They read other people's blogs!
Here's an interview with the delightful Julia
from A Slice of Cherry Pie

And they wish they could be Molly
of the beautifully written Orangette.

They search for recipes. As if they didn't have enough already.

They read books! OK, they read cookbooks.


And unbelievably, THEY BAKE!


A good vacation is over when you begin to yearn for your work. ~Morris Fishbein

It's nice to have a day off. But I know I love baking when, even on my days off, I can't stay out of the kitchen.

Panic-citement

One of the things that has surprised me the most about building a business is that baking for profit is even more satisfying than baking for "pleasure". In fact, the pleasure is magnified. It is magnified because of the panic that accompanies it (somewhat like the panic/pleasure of a roller-coaster ride). Some days the panic becomes sheer terror.

On those days, my head spins with "will it bake right"--"will I finish on time"--"will it look right"--"will they like it". I hover anxiously near the oven to make sure my cupcakes are rising or the muffins aren't burning, or the juice hasn't bubbled over on the cobbler crust.


The cobbler always bubbles over.
More often than I'd like, the cupcakes fall.
But I haven't burned a muffin. Yet.

Another cause for panic is the customer request: "Can you make...?" to which my answer is always "Certainly, no problem!" Confidence on the outside, fear and trembling inside the apron. But always with the panic is the excitement of the challenge, the creative process of inspiration, planning, and implementation, and the anticipation (and anxiety) of the presentation.

Sometimes I wonder if panic and angst will always be part of my baking ventures. But the utter joy and satisfaction I find in the process (and yes, even the terror) is worth every nail-biting moment. And the worry keeps me from gaining too much weight from sampling the goods.

I Like Big Buns and I Cannot Lie

Only in a grocery store can one make the statement "I want bigger buns" and make perfect sense. Packaged hamburger buns are tiny; although I didn't whip out my measuring tape, I would estimate they are about 4 inches in diameter. Even the ones labeled "giant" are only a half an inch wider. My hubby makes huge patties for the grill, so the buns must accommodate. The solution? Homemade buns.

The best recipe I've found for homemade hamburger buns is by Marg on RecipeZaar and can be found here. With one bite of a juicy charcoaled ground beef patty wrapped in that BIG, tender bread, fragrant with yeast, the mixing and rising time becomes a distant memory.

This recipe is very adaptable to additions such as whole wheat pastry flour, herbs, sesame seeds or poppy seeds. The last time I made them I added chopped fresh rosemary to the dough.

Try it. You'll never want small buns again.

Happy Mistakes - Inside Out German Chocolate Cupcakes

I started to call this post "Happy Accidents", but I'm afraid it wasn't like that. It was a full-blown mistake.

My order from the coffee shop for which I supply baked goods was for German Chocolate Cupcakes. Oh sure, that's easy--"no problem" was my response. I didn't have a go-to recipe, so I finally settled on Magnolia Bakery's recipe for the cake, and a new-to-me recipe for the filling (recipe below).

I first made the filling, which specifies condensed milk along with the traditional ingredients of egg yolks, coconut and pecans. But I got a little bit distracted and added the German Sweet Chocolate into the pan with the rest of the ingredients! It had already melted into yummy, buttery, chocolatey gooey-ness before I noticed my mistake. But - it was delicious, so I plunged ahead with it.

Magnolia's recipe is a little bit tender for cupcakes, and some of the cupcakes fell a bit in the middle, but the result is moist, melt-in-your-mouth goodness.

After the cupcakes cooled, I dipped them in a nice chocolate glaze, which I found on Allrecipes here and added a generous dollop of the goofed-up chocolate filling on top.

Chocolate overload? You bet! I sent some of the fallen rejects to the office where my husband works, and in the words of one of the staff, it was "better than sex". You be the judge.

Chocolate Coconut Pecan Filling
1-1/2 cups sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup salted butter (1-1/2 sticks)
2 oz German sweet chocolate
4 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups shredded sweetened coconut
1-1/2 cups finely chopped pecans

Place milk, butter, chocolate, and vanilla in medium saucepan and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally until butter and chocolate are melted and combined.

Whisk egg yolks in medium bowl. Whisking constantly, add part of hot milk mixture to egg yolks until combined. Whisk mixture back into saucepan and cook, stirring constantly until mixture thickens slightly, about 5 minutes.Remove from heat; stir in vanilla, coconut, and pecans. Cool completely. May be refrigerated in airtight container up to 2 days.

Twice-Baked Cherry Pie

When I was a kid (not a kid-at-heart, but a real kid) Mom used to make birthday cakes for her friends. Between laundry & ironing and making three meals a day and taking care of the house, she didn’t have a lot of time to bake. A cake mix saved the day for her, and she usually made a yellow cake or a chocolate cake with chocolate icing. Nearly every time she made a cake (for someone besides our family), she would have trouble with it sticking to the pan and it would inevitably come out in pieces. She would do her best to artfully cover the cake with icing, while bitterly railing about the fact that “every time I make a cake for someone else it has to stick!” and how it always came out perfect if it was staying at our house. I would philosophically tell her that no one really cared as long as it tasted good and secretly wonder why it upset her so.

I suspect that Mom’s time constraints took their toll on her extra-curricular baking by causing her to hurry. Hurrying is a deal breaker in the kitchen.

Since starting a baking business last year, I have had ample reason to recall those early memories. An excellent example is a recent order for a cherry pie.

I consider cherry pie to be my trump card in the world of baking. I found a recipe many years ago that produces a near-perfect replica of my Granny Mitchell’s cherry pie—tart cherries in a sweet almond-scented filling, all encased in a golden flaky crust. I’ve never had a failure in a cherry pie. That is, until yesterday.

I planned to bake the pie and deliver it, warm and fragrant, to the restaurant. Everything went fine—I even took a picture of the pre-baked pie as well as the finished product, visualizing a triumphant blog post anchored by pictures of a magnificent pie.

Here is the pie waiting to be baked into glorious perfection.

What proved to be my undoing was the same problem that faced my mother so long ago—I got in a hurry. Baking is an art that should never be sandwiched in between appointments, and that’s what I tried to do. Poor scheduling caused me to pull that exquisite pie out of the oven before the juice, sugar, and flour had a chance to bubble into the ideal gel that encompasses and complements the tart cherries.

Here, the pie looks done, but the deceptive façade masks the watery filling beneath.



Yes, I said watery. Hours after I delivered the pie to the restaurant, I returned to deliver some other goods, and I happened to look at my pie displayed inside a glass dome. Where one would normally see a glistening ooze of lovely pie gel, there was a pool of reddish-pink water. Ewwwww. I snatched up the pie to take it home, telling the astonished but tolerant owners that I would bring them another one in the morning.

When I got home, Mom, bless her heart, took one look at the pie and said, “You just need to bake it a little longer, it’ll be fine.” So that’s what I did, and 20 minutes later the pie was fine and tasted quite delicious in fact. So we kept that one and ate it. I made the restaurant another cherry pie--took my time and baked it properly.

Lesson learned? Don't hurry--a good thing to remember about many things.

Bakery is still burgeoning.

Gimme Some of That Eggnog - Cake That Is

This is actually about Christmas spirit--no, not the liquor kind of spirit. Although I did find some REALLY good pomegranate liqueur the other day; but I digress.

This is about the Christmas spirit I didn't have this holiday season. You know, the kind that is precipitated by warm childhood memories, the Clydesdale horse commercial, It's a Wonderful Life reruns, and the rich, nutmeg-y smell of eggnog. I didn't have the Christmas spirit that I expect every Christmas season, and it was beginning to bother me.

Even the normal kitchen activities--baking those great cranberry-dotted breads, big thick, soft sugar cookies, melting chocolate for candies--enjoyable as they were, didn't bring it on. In fact, all my warm fuzzy memories of Christmases past were making me downright melancholy.

What finally coaxed my lazy spirit into being was not hearing Bing sing "White Christmas" or the ambrosial steam from a glass of wassail or placing the old quilt as a blanket under the Christmas tree. It was a comment from an acquaintance about some discouragement she was experiencing. With my heartfelt "buck up--it'll get better", my elusive Christmas spirit came bouncing back, as comfortable and familiar as my favorite pair of musical Christmas socks. My gift to her was encouragement, and with that humble gift, my spirit was gifted in return.

Not finding my Christmas spirit in nostalgic expectations led to something infinitely more lasting for me.

And getting back to the eggnog...although I don't bake with cake mixes as much as I used to, this is a nice recipe for Eggnog Pound Cake that I found on Allrecipes.com.

Eggnog Pound Cake

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 cup eggnog
3 eggs
1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

In a mixing bowl, combine ingredients and beat on low until moistened, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat on medium for 2 minutes. Pour into a greased and floured 12-cup fluted tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees F for 40-45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 10 minutes; invert onto a wire rack.

I drizzled an icing of powdered sugar, butter, eggnog, and butterscotch schnappes (now that's Christmas spirit!)

"Pumpking" Pie

Yes I know it's misspelled. Every time I type "pumpkin" it just seems natural to add a "g". I actually saw it misspelled the same way on another website just last week.

My opportunities to misspell pumpkin were numerous before Thanksgiving because I made a list of all the pumpkin possibilities I wanted to try for Thanksgiving dinner. My choices ranged from Pumpkin Cheesecake to Pumpkin Streusel pie to pumpkin pudding, just to name a few. Oh, and pumpkin cupcakes.

I think I gave myself too many pumpkin choices, because along with Honey Crunch Pecan Pie, Apple Crumble Pie, Sugar Cookie Cutouts, and Sweet Pumpkin Cupcakes, I ended up making a plain and simple Libby's pumpkin pie. With the other, more interesting desserts on the table, just a few pieces were eaten, including the sliver I got (just to make sure it was OK, mind you). After dinner, I put it in one of the refrigerator drawers, then forgot about it until three days later. By that time, I was worried that it was past its prime, so I furtively threw it into the trash (I had to be furtive because Hubby was looking for it.)

Because Hubby had asked so plaintively for his pumpkin (I just typed pumpking again) pie, I decided to make another pumpkin pie on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I wanted to try something different, because now I had the time to start testing those other pumpkin recipes that I had eyed so avidly while planning the Thanksgiving menu. I chose a pumpkin pie recipe that listed honey as the sweetener. It baked up beautifully and I proudly served it up. Hubby always has his pie top-heavy with Cool Whip, and as long as it tastes like pumpkin, he is happy. (After all, this is the man that, on a distant past Thanksgiving when I was so sick I forgot add sugar to the pumpkin pie, did not notice because most of his mouthfuls were filled with airy bites of faux whipped cream.) I had two pieces of the honey pumpkin pie, because I was pumpkin hungry, and it was good.

Now here is the sad truth: I missed my Libby's pie. That pie--the one I threw away--was really good. It was the old tried and true recipe, with the good, earthy mouth-feel of pumpkin, just the right amount of sugar, and the familiar--and perfect--blend of spices.

So next year, with the possible exception of a pumpkin cheesecake, I think I will stick with Libby's "Pump-King" Pie--why mess with perfection?

The Bread Whisperer

Coaxing bread to rise...somewhat like making a pie crust, it mocks the confidence of the most experienced baker. While reaching around to pat myself on the back, I will state that I find it easy and enjoyable. My secret? I think there are 3 elements to successful bread-making:

- Proofing the yeast
- Creating the atmosphere
- Relaxing in the moment

I used to buy Fleischmann's Rapid Rise Yeast, and I still think it is a good product. Now that I consider myself a fancy professional and think I need more exclusive (expensive) elements in my kitchen, I order the good stuff--SAF Gold Instant Yeast--from King Arthur Flour. It is available in a one pound package and doesn't last long in my kitchen, so I buy two packages at a time. My very favorite yeast is Fermipan, but it is hard to find.

The whole proofing process is just so darned easy, I almost hate to reveal it. Simply get a cup of warm water from the tap, add a teaspoon of sugar, and add the yeast. Mix it well, and let it sit. Within 10 minutes a bubbling, fragrant mass rises above the water and is ready to add to the remainder of the recipe ingredients. Proofing the yeast used to be essential to ensure that the yeast was still alive. I know that with my mega-yeast, this step is really unnecessary. But it is part of the Bread Whisperer's routine.

The atmosphere in which bread can rise is one that Goldilocks would approve--it is neither too hot nor too cold. Bread dough seems to like my cold oven with the oven light on--the light provides just enough warmth. Sometimes I simply place the dough beneath my under-counter light, and that also works well. Make your dough comfy, and it will thank you.

Making bread is my glass of wine. How satisfying it is to whisper yeast and flour into dough that I can play with, loll about the kitchen while it rises, breathe its ambrosial scent while it bakes, and then butter a slice straight from the oven...really, I shouldn't get paid for this.