Monday, August 22, 2011

I just bought these pans!





The next recipe for Club: BAKED requires 2-8" pans. I only own 9" pans, so I splurged and bought a set of Parrish's Magic Line 8" round aluminum cake pans. I opted for the 3" deep pans rather than the 2" deep pans. I'm wondering if there are any cons to 3" deep pans? Who knows? I'm sure these will be fine for my needs.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Club: BAKED: Sunday Night Cake



This is the latest installment of Club: BAKED. This week is hosted by Julie at Little Bit of Everything. I love this simple, subtle cake.


I like the simple list of ingredients. I like the subtle tartness added by the sour cream. I like the subtle cinnamon. I was tempted to really increase the cinnamon, but I'm glad that I stayed true to the recipe. Cakes don't need to be showstoppers. As the name implies, this is an everyday kind of cake. Not too sweet, not too heavy. This cake's simplicity reminded me of smittenkitchen's Everyday Chocolate Cake which (if my memory is correct) uses only one bowl.


I sprinkled sugar and cinnamon on the batter before I baked it. I used a 9" springform pan. I started checking the cake at 35 minutes, but it continued to bake for about 15 minutes more for a total of 50 minutes. You can actually see all the holes I poked while trying to make sure it baked all the way through. Even though the frosting sounded dreamy, I skipped it because it seemed too heavy for a mid-August treat.

I was surprised that the recipe did not include vanilla. It seems like all recipes contain vanilla! I did not miss it as we eagerly cut the cake while it was still cooling on the rack which explains the crumbles. This cake seems infinitely adaptable. It also reminded me of Mark Bittman's Olive Oil Cake (p. 852 in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian). Maybe leave out the cinnamon and add lemon or lime zest with vanilla? Or pump up the spice by adding cardamon or ginger or cloves with an orange glaze?

I mark each week's recipe with my pink dino bookmark. I read through the recipe several times before I bake it. Stella tries to re-claim the pink dino, but I always manage to keep it. This time it was super easy because I distracted her with cake!




Thursday, August 11, 2011

The Help

I resisted reading this best seller by Kathryn Stockett. So many people recommended it, but I was hesitant. I'm not sure why, but something about it kept nagging at me. I finally read it this summer when my book club selected it. I was drawn into the story. The book is well written which makes it an easy summer read. The characters are very real and I appreciated the humor sprinkled throughout.


The movie will start showing in theaters everywhere this week...but I still have a nagging feeling about this book. What is my problem with it? I think it comes down to the sense that in the story, the black maids needed white intervention to join the civil rights movement. Don't get me wrong. I know white people played a role in the civil rights movement; however, it was a supporting role. Black men and women fought that fight. They were the main characters.


Why do books and movies find it so compelling to center the civil rights movement around whites?

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Tomato Pie, oh my!

The universe is telling me to bake a tomato pie. First, a colleague posted pictures of a tomato pie on Facebook. She cobbled together the recipe from several other recipes until she got it to taste just like the pie she ate from a restaurant in Austin. She posted the recipe after several friends begged her to.

A few days later, I received the July/August 2011 issue of the Food Network Magazine. Guess what's on the cover? Yep, Heirloom Tomato Pie. Then I'm flipping through August 2011 issue of Bon Appetit. You can imagine my surprise when I turn the page and find a recipe for Tomato and Cheddar Pie (p. 90). Should I stop or keep going? Let's keep going! I received a tweet from Cafe Sebastienne located in the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. If you're in the Kansas City area, this is a lovely lunch spot. Guess what's on their dinner menu? A heirloom tomato tart with Green Dirt Farm's sheep milk cheese, extra virgin olive oil, wild arugula, and basil pesto. Doesn't that sound incredible?

Alright already, I'll make the pie.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

America's Test Kitchen YouTube channel





Someone re-tweeted an America's Test Kitchen tweet that included a link to ATK's How to Dice Onions video. They have 70+ videos on their channel. This channel is going to come in handy and save me lots of time. I'm now following ATK on twitter, too.

Monday, August 1, 2011

Club: BAKED: Chocolate Mint Thumbprints

This is the latest installment in Club: BAKED. Be sure to check out Jamie's post for the recipe at Random Acts of Food. You know it's going to be a fun recipe when you get to use 4 types of chocolate including Andes mints. In the introduction to this recipe, the authors assert that it's a tragedy that recipes with mint are generally reserved for the holidays. I fall into this camp because, even though my tiny kitchen was hot as I baked these late on the last day in July, I kept thinking about the holidays. I found myself humming Jingle Bells and Feliz Navidad!

I was surprised that the recipe didn't require baking soda or baking powder. Two sticks of butter seems excessive, but what's wrong with a little excess every now and again? I appreciated the chilling time which lets you divide the time into 2 chunks which is great if you have a toddler (or other time commitments). I should tell you that I do not like to get my hands dirty. I tried to use a spoon and melon baller to mold the dough into balls, but I ended up using my hands...which meant I washed my hands about every 3 balls. I used the end of a wooden spoon to make the indentations. It made kind of large indents, but the cookies turned out great. The dough is a strange combination of sticky and dry. I probably let it soften too much, but the balls were crumbly when I tried to use the dough straight from the refrigerator.

The finished cookie is airy and light with a tender delicate crumb. The mint flavor melds perfectly with the chocolate. The recipe made 38 cookies. It would be fun to use different varieties of coarse sugar for different holidays (like orange for Halloween).