Hot Milk Cake
2 large eggs
1 cup granulated (white) sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose (plain) flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1 Tablespoon butter or margarine
Preheat oven to 350◦F. Grease or line an 8x8 inch square pan.
In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until frothy. Gradually beat in 1/4 cup sugar at a time. Beat in vanilla. Stir in flower, baking powder, and salt.
In a small saucepan over medium heat, heat together the milk and butter until hot and butter is melted. Slowly pout over batter and stir to combine. Spread in prepared pan.
Bake for about 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
This is a very quick and easy small cake recipe that could be the basis of many great desserts. Although it contains very little fat, it is very moist with a soft crumb and nice basic white cake flavor. It could be used as a lighter pound cake option for trifles, or a basic birthday cake. Sometimes this recipe is featured with a topping of brown sugar and cream and either nuts or coconut, which is then broiled for a self-frosted cake called Lazy Daisy cake. I used this cake as the base for my cherry ball cake.
Quick Golden Cake Layer
1 cup all-purpose (plain) flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup butter or hard margarine, softened
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1/4 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350◦F. Grease and flour an 8 or 9 inch round cake pan.
Put all ingredients in a large bowl. Mix to moisten, then beat 2 minutes until smooth. Pour into prepared pan.Bake for 25-30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
This easy layer cake recipe is super simple, super quick, and makes a nice white cake layer to build on, that is firm for ease in decorating. It also comes in handy when you only want one layer and not two.
Paré, Jean. "Fruit Flan." Recipe. Cakes, Edmonton Alberta: Company's Coming Publishing Limited, 1990. 104.
Yesterday I showed you my Apple Streusel Coffee Cake. It was soo good, and now there is barely any left!
Today I realized that I did not include the recipe. So I will do that now. It is a bit lengthy, but totally worth it. Tomorrow, I promise I will have something new baked to show you. This is the full-sized recipe, because if it is halved, it disappears way too quickly!
Apple Streusel Coffee Cake
2 Tbsp. white vinegar
1 3/4 cups milk
STREUSEL
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 cup cold butter (or hard margarine)
CAKE
3/4 cup butter (or hard margarine), softened
1 3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
2 medium cooking apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
Measure vinegar into 2 cup liquid measure. Add milk to equal 1 3/4 cups. Let stand for 10 minutes to sour.
STREUSEL Combine first 4 ingredients in small bowl. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Makes 1 3/4 cups topping.
CAKE Beat butter and sugar in large bowl until light and creamy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla. Stir. Combine next 4 ingredients in medium bowl. Add flour mixture to butter mixture in 4 additions, alternating with milk mixture in 3 additions, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Spoon 1/2 of batter into greased 9x13 inch pan. Spread evenly.
Arrange apple slices close together in single layer over batter. Sprinkle about 1/2 cup topping over apples. Spoon remaining 1/2 batter over top. Spread evenly. Sprinkle with remaining streusel topping. Bake in 350◦F oven for about 55 minutes until wooden pick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cuts into 15 pieces.
Paré, Jean. "Apple Streusel Coffee Cake." Recipe. Baking Simple To Sensational, Edmonton Alberta: Company's Coming Publishing Limited, 2004. 104.
Soft, moist cake, tender apples, and a sweet and spicy topping: it's Apple Streusel Coffee Cake! This cake is a delight to make and eat. It consists of a layer of white cake, a layer of apples, and a layer of streusel, followed by another layer of cake and another layer of streusel. The cake is very moist, with a tender crumb; the apples soften and melt into the cake; and the topping is light and full of cinnamon. I got this recipe from Company's Coming "Baking Simple To Sensational", and it is fantastic!
This recipe has several steps and layers which makes it a bit more time consuming, but I really enjoyed making it. It was relaxing and fun. Because I like to try as many different recipes as possible, and there are always several baked goods around, I halved this recipe like I do many others. Instead of using a 9x13 inch pan, I used a 9x9 inch pan. My pan was also glass, so I had to put it in at 325◦F instead of 350◦F, but because it was a smaller size, it baked in 5 minutes less. Will definitely be making this again, a fantastic fall comfort food!
Well, along with my Halloween Cupcakes, I've also got a Halloween Witch Cake to show you. I baked a simple white cake in a 9x13 inch pan, cut it into four basic shapes, and reassembled the shapes to resemble a witch's head. I didn't come up with this on my own - I found the idea online. Then I frosted the cake and piped on icing decorations. I made this for a cake walk for a fundraiser.
I guess if I had made the witch's face green, she would look more like a witch and less like a clown, but I don't particularly like to eat green icing, so I left it a pasty white. I also did not use the traditional Halloween colors, black and orange, on either this cake or the cupcakes. This is because I only have a simple kit of liquid food coloring bearing just four colors: red, blue, yellow, and green. I don't really have use for a complex set containing a variety of different colors. From experience, I know that orange is a very difficult color to achieve, especially with large quantities of icing (you'd think they would include a vial of orange instead of green, as green is quite simple to make). Black is also nearly impossible, although I did manage to make grey once. I know you can buy paste food colorings in black and orange, but they contain a lot of dye. I usually don't even use colors as vivid as the witch's hair, in order to use as little food dye as possible. You can also buy tubes of premade orange and black icing, but they don't taste nearly as good as homemade. So that's my Halloween witch! And you never know, I may use the same idea and make a clown cake someday!
Today I whipped up a batch of Halloween Cupcakes. I used a basic white cake recipe and a simple icing. I made some mummies, by piping long strips with my basketweave tip; some eyeballs, by drawing an eye and piping red squigglys, and some simple "BOOs". They were quite fun and quick to make. Here I have them displayed on my cupcake rack with a jack-o-lantern puppet and a skeleton toy on a Halloween tablecloth. Halloween is just around the corner!
To go with our Beer Can Chicken yesterday, I made a cake to cook on the barbecue as well.
I found this idea to be very intriguing, and I just had to try it.
The recipe was published in Company's Coming "Barbecues".
White Cake
1/2 cup butter or hard margarine, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup milk
Cream butter and sugar together well. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Add vanilla. Stir.
Mix flour with baking powder and salt. Add in 3 parts alternately with milk in 2 parts beginning and ending with flour mixture. Pour into greased 9x9 inch (22 x 22 cm) pan.
Place pan on medium grill over indirect heat. Close lid. Bake for about 25 to 30 minutes until an inserted pick comes out clean. Rotate pan after 15 minutes. Serve hot with ice cream or cool, and frost. May also be baked in 350◦F (180◦C) oven for about 25 to 30 minutes.
After the meal was finished cooking on the barbecue, I just popped the cake on to cook while we ate supper. It was done cooing around the time we finished eating, and I decided to serve it warm, but with hot caramel coffee sauce instead of ice cream. It was delicious! This is a good way to save energy if you already have the barbecue on, or if you want to avoid heating up your entire house with the oven. Since this cake is a basic butter cake recipe, it does not have a whole lot of flavour on its own. For this reason, I STRONGLY RECCOMMEND you use real butter (not margarine) and real vanilla extract (not artificial or imitation) to get the best of this cake's flavour. It should also be served with a little something, whether it is sauce, ice cream, or frosting, but not alone. It is a nice, light cake, but I would not use it as a master cake recipe for birthday cakes and such, as it lacks a little something needed for those. I'm sure you could spruce this recipe up a bit though. I also used a disposable 8x8 inch foil pan, as I was a little worried about what our old barbecue might do to my good pan. Surprisingly, the pan came out in reasonably good condition, although the bottom was a little greasy from the chicken juices beforehand. Another interesting idea would be to bake the cake beforehand, let it cool, then cut it into pieces and grill the pieces directly on the barbecue, for a double-barbecued cake! I'll have to try that next time, as I would definitely make this recipe again!
Paré, Jean. "White Cake." Recipe. Barbecues, Edmonton Alberta: Company's Coming Publishing Limited, 1991. 66.
