Baking Articles

Grandma Linda asked:


Just the thought or a picture of a chocolate cake is enough to make most of us mouths water.  And for us chocoholics, there’s nothing much better.  Remember the wonderful old-fashion chocolate cakes your mother and/or grandmother used to make?  Now you can make them too.  Here are some delicious chocolate cake recipes that could have come straight from that little old recipe box that sat in your grandmother’s kitchen.

 Miz Maxine’s Chocolate Fudge Cake

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup butter (margarine)

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 1/4 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp soda

1/2 cup cocoa

1 1/2 cups boiling water

Cream sugar, butter, eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk together. Sift dry ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with the boiling water. Bake in a 9 x 13 inch pan in a 350 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes.

CHOCOLATE SAUERKRAUT CAKE

2 1/4 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups sugar

2/3 cup shortening or butter

3 eggs

1 1/4 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1 cup water

1/2 to 2/3 cup sauerkraut, chopped, rinsed, drained

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together shortening and sugar. Add eggs; mix well. Add vanilla, salt and cocoa. Sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Alternating, add flour mixture and water. Fold in sauerkraut. Bake in a greased and floured 9×13-inch pan at 350 degrees for 35 to 45 minutes. Frost with your favorite frosting.

MARTHA’S CHOCOLATE CAKE

1/4 lb butter

1/2 cup shortening

1 cup water

4 tbsp cocoa

2 cups sugar

2 cups flour

2 eggs, beaten

1/2 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

1/2 cup pecans

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Mix butter, shortening, water, and cocoa in pan and bring to a boil. In bowl, mix sugar and flour. Pour liquid mixture over dry ingredients and ten add eggs, milk, vanilla, and pecans. Cook in a greased and floured loaf pan 20 to 30 minutes at 325 degrees.

ICING

1 1/4 lb butter

4 tbsp cocoa

4 tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 box powdered sugar

Five minutes before cake is done start the icing. Melt butter, cocoa, milk in pan. Add vanilla and powdered sugar. Mix in 1/2 cup pecans. Ice cake while it is hot.

Enjoy!



Don

Abdrew Krause asked:


The baked New York style cheesecake recipe, on its surface, looks like one of the more simple dessert recipes. It’s a fairly simple set of ingredients, and the mixing and baking is fairly straightforward.

So why does it so often go wrong? Well, part of the problem is in the name: cheesecake. Right there, you expect it to act like a cake in the baking process. The problem is, it’s not really a cake at all. If you were to take a hundred cooking school graduates who had never heard of cheesecake and present each of them with a slice of baked New York style cheesecake, all of them would most likely identify it as a pie… or at best a custard.

Let’s start with the crust. Cakes don’t normally have a crust other than what bakes up when they cook, right? Well, your cheesecake needs a crust or you’re going to have containment issues. This is not usually a traditional piecrust, but rather a blind baked mashed-together construction made of graham crackers, cookies or other baked goods.

Then there’s the composition of the cheesecake itself. The baked New York style cheesecake begins life as a very thick batter that bears a vague resemblance to traditional cake batter, except for the fact that it contains little or no flour depending on your recipe.

The baking is different, also. One of the secrets to New York style cheesecake success is a fairly moist baking environment, which means using a water bath. Have you ever seen a cake recipe that called for the pan to be placed in a larger pan with water in it?

So, for cheesecake success, you might want to stop thinking about it as a cake. Think of it as a pie-cake hybrid, or better yet as custard that needs some extra care in the preparation, but will yield sweet rewards when it’s done. The baked New York style cheesecake recipe is simple, but can be unforgiving if you don’t treat it right.



Daniel