Hi,
I haven't had much to say lately, and I may not for a little while.
However, as the question was asked, here is the recipe for the cake in the previous post.
Classic White Layer Cake (from
The America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook)
1 cup whole milk, at room temp
6 large egg whites, at room temp
2 tsp almond extract (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 3/4 cup sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat two 8 or 9-inch or one 9 by 13 inch cake pan(s) with vegetable spray and line the bottom(s) with parchment paper. Whisk the milk, egg whites and extracts together in a liquid measuring cup and set aside.
2. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Beat the flour mixture and butter together with an electric mixer on low speed until the mixture resembles moist crumbs, 1 to three minutes.
3. Beat in all but 1/2 cup of the milk mixture. Increase the speed to medium and beat until smooth, 1 to 4 minutes, scraping down the bowl and beaters as needed. Beat in the remaining 1.2 cup of the milk mixture.
4. Give the batter a final stir using a rubber spatula to make sure it is thoroughly combined. Pour the batter into the prepared pan(s) and smooth the top. Bake until a wooden skewer inserted into the center of the cake(s) comes out with a few crumbs attached, 20 to 25 minutes for the round cakes, 25 to 30 for the sheet cake, rotating the pan(s) halfway through baking.
I highly recommend everything in the this cookbook. The beauty of the test kitchen is that they figure out why stuff works, and what doesn't. I usually follow their recipes to the letter, though with my new dietary restrictions, I had to make some modifications.
For my cake I used soy milk and vegan golden buttery sticks to replace the dairy (sniff), and as I can no longer have tree nuts either (sob), I couldn't use the almond extract.
I was going to use all vanilla, and then I remembered that vanilla extract is made the same way that I made my
fruit liquors. So, I substituted 3 tsp of plum liquor for the almond and vanilla. It gave a light fruity taste to the cake that I quite enjoyed.
The topping was straight up jam.
We went to the farmer's market last week and bought a bunch of strawberries
and the Elder Hug-a-Bug and I made some freezer jam.
I used about 1/2 cup in the center and about the same on top.
The texture of this cake is really light and moist. It may be my favorite cake.
It is perfectly spectacular with whipped cream and fresh strawberries cut up, sprinkled with sugar and kept in the fridge for an hour.
It would also be a good cake to frost, though frosting is not my forte, so I never do it.
My needles have been very busy lately, so there should be a knitting related post coming soon, but until then I will just keep putting up pictures.
Make the cake.
It's really good.
And a mountain made of cheese
and Pirate Hieroglyphics.
The cliffs down there are made of sandstone. There was a lot of graffiti carved into the rocks, and the sand is quite yellow, reminding the kids of making macaroni and cheese.
