Cake #16: Tunnel of Fudge Cake

I made this cake on 2/28/13 for a birthday celebration at work. Due to allergies, I made it without the walnuts. It was pretty easy to make, except for the part where you "grab a wooden spoon and flex those arms!" Stirring in the flour and cocoa took a bit of work.

The cake looks great but you're supposed to let it cool in the pan for ONE HOUR AND THIRTY MINUTES. During that time, it collapses a lot!

After all that cooling time, it still stuck to the pan and therefore did not look very pretty. The picture in the book looked much better. This is in the section of the book "Gimmie them Purdy Cakes". This might be easier said than done.

I was able to cover it up with the glaze so it didn't look too bad. But everyone agreed it looked like a giant doughnut.

I thought the insides would be oozing out like the picture in the book, but they weren't. Maybe I cooked it too long. Everyone said they liked it, and that it tasted like brownies. After a day or so, the glaze hardens a bit and isn't as good.

Cake #15: Cocoa Bread with Stewed Yard Peaches

I made this on 10/13/12 for a Toilet Retirement Party. Because it's important to have parties for such things.

The cake was easy to make, I used the kitchen aid and baked it in the toaster oven on the middle rack, but I made a note to use the bottom rack next time. Not sure why.
I made the homemade self-rising flour that the book suggested, adding 3 t of baking powder and 1 t of salt to 2 cups of white flour. Then I let it sit before cooking. The top really rose up a lot.
I used pears instead of peaches, since we have a pear tree. And it's ripe in October. I diced the pears with sugar and water. Then I made a note to next time- use a lot less water because the pears get pretty juicy after sitting in the sugar water. And to let them cook a lot longer on low. I followed the book directions, which was to let them simmer for 10 minutes. But the book was talking about peaches which probably don't take as long as pears. Plus, if you keep them on low until you are ready to eat them, they are already warm!

Then I put a note in the book that said next time, you could skip the fruit and just serve it with homemade ice cream. Yum.

Holiday Cookies!

Despite the million things to do during the chaos of the holidays, I thought it was important to make cookies with my 2 year old son. So we got out the cookie cutters and I looked for a sugar cookie recipe. I absolutely never make sugar cookies, so I looked in The Joy of Cooking for a recipe and I found a drop cookie recipe that looked like it might work. We made the cookie dough and then laid it out on the cookie sheet and tried to roll it. It was too sticky and wouldn't roll at all. So I tried to stretch it out and "stamp" it with the cookie cutters. The dough just stuck to the cookie cutters. I could tell this wasn't going to work. So I scooped up all the dough and tried again, on a new cookie sheet. This time I set the cookie cutter down and stuffed the cookie dough into it. They looked great!

Then I carefully decorated them with chocolate chips and baked them for about 12 minutes. Now I know that "drop cookies" are more like chocolate chip cookies and less like sugar cookies in that they expand quite a bit when they bake:

So, they don't look very festive. But they tasted just fine.
And I still don't know how to make sugar cookies.

Halloween Ideas

Every year for Halloween, we hand out candy from the Asian grocery store. Because it's fun. And can you imagine what the parents say when the kids bring home candy with no English, or even recognizable letters on it? Plus, it's fun to try it! This year's candy was Japanese, called "Happy Turn Day". That led to the discovery of this blog on Japanese candy.
Also, about 1/3 of the trick-or-treaters demand to know what we just put in their bags! I tell them to just try it- venture out from your Reese's and Hershey's and M&M's for once!
Another cute idea I might steal from someone else- I saw tootsie pops (still with the wrapping on them) with a kleenex draped over the top, tied with an orange string at the "neck" and a scary face over the candy part, making a ghostly looking treat. Much more fun than just handing out the tootsies on their own!

Clinton Street Social Club

18 1/2 S. Clinton St., Downtown Iowa City

I was told to go to this place without the kid and to order the cheese curd appetizer. I did just that. As a bonus, I took the husband too. I got there on a Friday night at about 6:00 and although it's already upstairs, we were seated up up stairs! (3rd floor)

The atmosphere is great: brick walls, just the right lighting, a view of the Clinton/Washington intersection. We ordered a bottle of wine for $32- a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir. Having lived in the Willamette Valley, my opinion of the wine was "eh" but you pay for the atmosphere.

The cheese curds were fantastic. Other items I recommend are the root vegetables and the salmon cakes. We tried the poutine because I had never had it. My opinion of it was "eh".

The waitress wrongly estimated the wait time for the salmon cakes to be "about 15 minutes because they are really busy in the kitchen". This was getting close to 7:00. The wait time was well over 30 minutes, and because we needed to be somewhere, we had to take them to go.

The bill came to $68 plus tip. We did get a little more food than we needed, so I'd say expect to pay around $60 for two.

Next time I think I'll try something other than wine too, they have a good selection of alcoholic beverages.

In conclusion, the atmosphere is great, some of the food is pretty good and as long as you're throwing down the cash, plan to stay there awhile, especially if it's 7:00 on a Friday night.

Apple Cider Vinegar

A friend of mine just posted this link on Facebook, which I wanted to share. I have a few recipes that call for Apple Cider Vinegar, and I happen to own this very brand in 1/2 gallon jugs. I have not tried drinking it w/ water yet but I do drink a lot of coffee and wine so I'm thinking that I should start.

Cake #14: Chocolate Pound Cake

That's right, CHOCOLATE! Finally. It took 14 cakes and a year and a half but I finally made it to the CHOCOLATE section. And, fittingly enough, on my birthday! And, fittingly enough, on page 77 on 7-7! It was meant to be.

Photo taken by a very tall man.

After giving her enough crap about making me bake my own cake for my birthday, my mother made sure to help with this cake. So she did all the grunt work.
It was a pretty easy cake to make, though. The basic idea with pound cakes is that they had a pound of butter, a pound of sugar and a pound of flour. And I  can't think of any other type of cake (or anything really) that calls for 3 cups of flour AND 3 cups of sugar AND 3 sticks of butter! Actually, make that 1 stick of butter and 2 sticks of margarine. I'm not sure why you use margarine in addition to butter. Guess I shouldn't complain. That's only 3/4 of a pound of butter. Oh, and 5 eggs. I think I've said before that you should read through the recipe BEFORE starting to make it. I know this. I usually do this. But, for some reason, it wasn't until the cake was all ready to go and we were pouring it into the pan when I noticed the part that said it needs to cook for 1 1/2 hours. Oops. It was after 10:00 at night, but we managed to stay up until the timer went off. Then it wasn't done, but it had risen about an inch above the pan and it looked good! Another five minutes. Still not done. Another five minutes. Nope. So we left it in the oven and turned the oven off. That seemed to work. I made a note on the first page "long cooking time!" so that I won't make that mistake again.

That dent in front? Somehow a kitchen drawer managed to gouge the cake. Not my fault this time.

The next morning we sifted some powdered sugar over the top. At home, I would use a tea strainer. At mom's, I used some kind of sifting device that she had. It worked, although we dumped a bit more powdered sugar on it than the picture had.

My cousin brought a Chinese candle which is displayed on top, and was pretty fun to watch (and blow out).

We ate it with vanilla ice cream, which turned out to be a good thing since the consensus was that it tasted similar to ice cream sandwiches. Only better. Much better. I said it seems like ice cream sandwich chocolate comes apart more, like it's more oily. Maybe it's made with oil and this cake is made with butter, part margarine. Maybe that's why the margarine is necessary. But it was a very good cake. And also very good several days later, cold from the fridge.

Then the neighbor next door brought over an amazing Coconut Cream pie. I can officially tell you now, after extensive experimentation, that the Chocolate Pound Cake goes well both with vanilla ice cream and Coconut Cream pie!