Kitchen Wench

Let me say a few words about Martha Stewart.

Yes, she broke the law, yes, she is creepily perfect, and yes, she is icy, brusque, and makes  her tv show guests hilariously uncomfortable.  But she has never steered me wrong in the kitchen.  And for that, I love her.

Late spring and early summer is rhubarb season in these parts, and I have a thing for going on seasonal food binges.  I recently bought out the half the rhubarb section of Safeway and turned those sour red stalks into delicious baked goods.

My friend Tracy pointed me to this recipe, and as soon as I saw how much butter was in the cake, I knew it would be a winner.  (Too much butter to fail?  Kind of like too big to fail?  Er, anyway…)  The kicker is the addition of the crumb “topping”, which really ends up being at the bottom of the cake.  This basically boils down to little butter and sugar blobs being absorbed into a sour cream cake batter.  Excessive?  Maybe a little.  A good thing?  Without a doubt.

Read the rest of this entry �

Cake is kind of my white whale.  For the longest time, I just couldn’t get it right, despite being able to handle seemingly more complicated things (e.g., pie crust) without incident.  After a slew of failures early on in my baking career (bundt cakes that got stuck in the pan, layer cakes that resembled the leaning tower of Pisa, etc), I came to the sorry conclusion that I might just be better off buying a box mix.  But you can always tell when cake comes from a mix — it’s moist and has a nice texture, but it never tastes homemade.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy my fair share of artificially-flavored things, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the taste of real butter or vanilla.

But this cake  is practically idiot-proof:  it is tender, moist, and light every time.  Just like a box cake, except it tastes about a million times better.  The secret is in the buttermilk.  I’ve never baked anything with buttermilk that didn’t turn out amazing.

The original recipe calls for raspberries, but you can use any berry you want.  The other change I made is the addition of almond extract.  Having made this cake several times now, I find that it’s a bit dull with just vanilla.  The almond brings out the sweetness and lightness of the cake and contrasts wonderfully with the berries.  If you don’t like almond flavor, some citrus zest would also work nicely.

Read the rest of this entry �

Every year, Lee’s mother mails him a birthday care package. Aside from presents, it always includes a box of angel food cake mix, as well as candles, balloons, and paper plates and napkins. It’s sort of quaint, because no matter how old he gets, the care package is exactly the same. This is not limited to birthdays. For the last two years, we have received plastic eggs, candy, easter grass, and an egg dying kit for Easter. This package is usually accompanied by a phone call explaining that Lee can open the box early if we want to dye the eggs the night before. I am 24 years old and have not dyed an Easter egg in over a decade.

While I don’t dye the eggs, I do make the cake. (I’m not really sure if the cake mix is really for him so much as me, since I can’t really imagine Lee making himself a cake.) In my early baking days, I attempted angel food cake from scratch, not realizing it was one of those fussy recipes that require precision and good technique.  My cake puffed up nicely in the oven, but quickly deflated into a lumpy mess once I took it out.

The mix, however, is completely idiot-proof. You add water and, through the magic of chemistry, the mixture foams to 3x its original volume. Then you pour it into the pan and bake it. Unlike many box cakes, which have an artificial taste, I think box angel food tastes pretty darn authentic. I like to add some extra vanilla and almond extract, so it tastes like a giant, almond-y marshmallow.

This year, I decided to mix it up with some cupcakes, which are oh-so-trendy right now. I wanted to make mine sparsely beautiful, like Nigella’s fairy cakes. Per her recipe, I whipped up some royal icing and spread it on the tops with the back of a spoon. But, unlike Nigella, I didn’t have any cute little sugar flowers or fondant cut outs to stick on top of my cupcakes. After digging through the pantry, all I came up with were some raw almonds and leftover Christmas sprinkles. So, I did the best I could, given the circumstances. I think they look decently cute, if not ideal.