Archives for April 2010

Epic Fail. Or not.

April 30, 2010 By Anne Simpson

This latest frosting recipe is really giving me fits, I tell you! I tweaked it… and made it worse than ever! Like I said, epic fail. I promise you, one of these days I will get it right and share it with you, but today is not the day.

On a happier note (like maybe B flat, I think it might be my favorite), I also tried a new cake recipe, and Bingo! A hit! And a new favorite, as well. I found the recipe in the newspaper, oddly enough (who even reads a paper anymore? Not me… excepting, of course, the all important Food section), in a feature called Recipe Finder, where readers write in seeking long-lost recipes. This particular one that attracted my interest, was a vintage recipe for “Hot Milk Cake”. Apparently, the woman who contributed the recipe had been baking it for 50 years or more. That is a well-tested recipe!

I’ve only made it once, but that was enough to convince me: this recipe’s a keeper! It made nice high, sturdy layers with a rich flavor. It’s not a light and fluffy cake (I believe there is a similar recipe called Hot Milk Sponge Cake that would probably yield a fluffier version), but I love the moist density it offers instead. “Light and Fluffy” often means “Lacking in Flavor” - not so with this cake, which is bursting with sweet - but not too sweet - richness.

The best thing is that I cut the sugar in half and it still turned out perfectly! Sometimes cutting the sugar in cake recipes results in disaster, but not with this one. I love a cake that can withstand a little tweaking.

Without further ado, then, here’s the recipe:

Hot Milk Cake
4 eggs
1 cup raw sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
2 1/4 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cup milk
10 TBSP butter, cubed

Beat eggs on high speed until thick and lemon-colored, about 5 minutes. While they are beating, whisk together flour and baking powder in a separate bowl; set aside. In a microwave-safe container, heat milk and butter together until butter is melted;set aside. When eggs are finished beating, gradually add sugar, beating until light and fluffy. Beat in vanilla.Slowly add flour mixture to egg mixture, on low speed. Gradually add the milk mixture to batter, stirring just until combined. Pour batter into greased and floured cake pans (I used 2 8″ layer pans - you can use a 9×13 or bundt pan as well) and bake at 350F for 30-35 minutes.

This may not be as quick as a cake mix, but it’s still pretty QUICK. Using your time wisely by heating the milk and butter, and mixing the dry ingredients while the eggs are beating makes it come together a little faster.

I’ve only made it once so far, but my gut feeling is that this is an EASY recipe, one I like to think of as “sturdy” or fool-proof. Fail safe! Time and future efforts may prove me wrong, but for now I’m going to say it’s one of the easier cake recipes I’ve tried.

It does have a lot of eggs, milk and butter, so in that sense it isn’t exactly CHEAP. However, cake is generally a “special occasion” kind of thing, so it’s a fairly inexpensive extravagance. (How’s that for an oxymoron?!)

Cake is never HEALTHY. OK, maybe somebody out there in the blogosphere has made a truly healthy cake, but I bet you anything it doesn’t taste all that great. Two things make cake an unhealthy diet choice: sugar and white flour. I feel good about reducing the sugar in this recipe by half, but it’s still largely based on white flour. Even if I did use some whole wheat flour, it would still be an extravagance (there’s that word again). So enjoy sparingly.

2 Comments Filed Under: Dessert, On The Table Tagged With: cake

Me and My Black Thumb

April 28, 2010 By Anne Simpson

I know I am due for another frosting recipe, but even with me and my DH eating a slice a day, it takes forever to finish a cake around here! And it doesn’t help when my previously reliable frosting recipe ended up being not quite so reliable and now needs tweaking. I will commence tweaking tomorrow since the last cake is now down to one lonely and somewhat stale piece.

But in the meantime, I was very excited today because I was actually able to harvest a few leaves from my little mini lettuce garden, shown above. There were enough mature leaves for me to create a little side salad for my lunch:

Let me hasten to assure you, I am no green thumb. I have one tiny little plant in my house that I have, by some miracle, managed to keep alive for a few years. That’s about all I can handle inside the house. I’ve done a little better with outside plants, but considering I have not even a “bit of earth”, a phrase from a song in one of my favorite musicals (see the vid below!), The Secret Garden, my plants are still in containers. My philosophy is that when plants are in the ground, at least they have God to take care of them with his bounty of soil, sun and rain. But in containers on my balcony, the soil is fake and the rain doesn’t fall on the plants unless the wind drives it sideways. The sun has to come sideways, too, so you see my dilemma.

You know the old saying? “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Every spring, I take a deep breath. And try again. I have had some success. Last year, I had little cherry tomatoes. Until I forgot to water the plants - oops. In previous years, I’ve had great success with herb gardens, but something always goes wrong at some point before the season is over. But I keep trying! And I enjoy the success that I achieve, limited though it may be.

Like my cute little salad. It may be the only bounty I enjoy from my little lettuce garden, but it’s something! I will celebrate my success, minor as it is, and hope the minor successes add up to something bigger in the future.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: At Home, Garden, Home, On My Mind, Reflections

Frittata Frittata

April 23, 2010 By Anne Simpson

It’s a fun word to say: frittata. Or to sing: frittaaaaata, frittaaaataaaaaaaaaa, friiiiiiittataaa-aaa-aaa-aah!

Oops. Sorry. Got a little carried away there.

Ahem, back to the frittata, which sounds very fancy and very Italian opera but is really just a baked omelet. Which is very appealing to me, because, well, my omelets always eventually turn into scrambled eggs. Leaving the omelet to bake safely on its own in the oven instead of trying to flip it at just the right moment on the stove-top results in a beautifully fluffy, round, easy-to-slice-and-serve, very elegant, very Italian (not really) frittata. Looks better. Sounds better. Tastes just as good. What more can you ask?

Not-an-Omelet Frittata
8 eggs
2 TBSP water
1/2 cup goat cheese, crumbled
4 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
2 TBSP fresh cilantro (or 2 tsp dried)
1 TBSP fresh dill (or 1 tsp dried)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Crack the eggs open into a medium bowl. Add water, and whisk or beat until well blended. Stir in the goat cheese, bacon and seasonings. Top with cheddar cheese and place in a greased pie pan. Cook at 350F for 30 minutes or until golden and puffy.

Of course, you can substitute whatever you have on hand or whatever you like for the cheeses, bacon and seasonings. Sausage or diced ham work very well instead of the bacon, and mozzarella is a delicious alternative to the goat and cheddar cheese.

Since it has to cook for 30 minutes, it’s not as QUICK as an omelet or scrambled eggs, but it’s still a pretty quick dinner.

Certainly EASY, that’s for sure - no flipping required!

Eggs are always a great CHEAP main dish for dinner or breakfast. I can occasionally get a dozen eggs on sale for .99, and I can often get an 18ct package of eggs for $1.50. Either way, it’s less than $1 for the eggs in this recipe, and not too much more for the bacon and cheese. I try not to pay more than $2 for a package of bacon, and 4 slices is a quarter or less of most packages, meaning about .50 for this recipe. I buy my cheese in 2 lb blocks at the warehouse for around $5, so I would estimate less than $1 for the portion used in this recipe. Add some toast and fresh fruit, and you have a well-balanced delicious and inexpensive meal.

It’s very HEALTHY, too, notwithstanding the bacon and/or sausage. To be honest, what concerns me most about bacon is the nitrites and nitrates used to preserve it, so if you can get nitrate-free bacon, so much the better. Also, 3 slices of bacon is considered one serving, and since this recipe uses only 4 slices, each serving of frittata has only a partial serving of bacon in it. You probably already know that eggs are a great source of protein and healthy fat, but did you know they are also an excellent source of vitamin D? Experts say vitamin D deficiency is on the rise, so what are you waiting for? Get crackin’!

Sharing at The Local Cook.

Leave a Comment Filed Under: Breakfast, On The Table Tagged With: eggs

Decadent (and not so decadent) Indulgences

April 17, 2010 By Anne Simpson

To my great sadness, Sweet has moved from Ellicott City to the big city: Baltimore. I’m happy for them but sad for me:(.

First let’s get the decadence out of the way. Today I went into a quaint little town called Ellicott City. It’s my favorite kind of town, the kind with quaint little streets and quaint old buildings and quaint little shops… and quaint coffee shops!

See how quaint? And here’s some more quaintness:

Last week, my DH and I took his mother there for her birthday, and we stumbled across this (quaint) little bakery that had the most amazing. donuts. ever. Now normally, I don’t eat donuts. They are on my do-not-ever-eat list. However, when we went into this (quaint) little bakery/cafe called, appropriately, “Sweet.“, these little beauties immediately caught my eye:

Now wouldn’t that catch your eye? I looked around for something a little less… sweet, but I was drawn back to this amazing more-than-a-donut confection. I lost all willpower when my DH ordered one for himself, and, like a lamb led to the slaughter, I ordered one for myself also. Enjoyed it immensely, and dreamed about it all week long, and so dragged my DH back into Ellicott City today so we could get another one. Well, I didn’t exactly have to drag him… here he is enjoying one himself. (If I never blog again, you will know it is because I am dead.)

Yes, those little donuts are definitely decadent. Not to be enjoyed on a regular basis - two in a week and a half is really a bit too much! So I’m going to stay away from Ellicott City for a while, and enjoy some slightly less decadent treats from my own kitchen.

As promised, I have a few more powdered-sugar-free frosting recipes up my sleeve. The next one I present to you is a non-powdered-sugar cream cheese frosting - yes, such a thing does exist! Two caveats:

1. It has a strong cream cheese flavor, so if you don’t like cream cheese, you won’t like this frosting.
2. It doesn’t make a whole lot, just enough to cover one 8″ or 9″ layer. If you want to frost a 9×13 or a layered cake, it will need to be doubled.

But what makes all that worth it is the fact that it has only a couple tablespoons of sugar, and 1 tablespoon of honey! The great thing is that it doesn’t need anymore sugar than that - the flavor of it as it is, is perfect. I used it to frost this apple spice cake, and I think it would be delicious on any carrot, banana or plain spice cake. I’ve also used it to frost cinnamon buns instead of a glaze or regular cream cheese frosting… yum! It was also particularly delicious, as I recall, on a pumpkin cake last autumn.

I have to admit, this recipe is not original (far from it). I found it on AllRecipes and tweaked it just a bit (although it’s very good as is).

No-Powdered-Sugar Cream Cheese Frosting
8 oz cream cheese, softened
2 TBSP turbinado sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 TBSP honey

Beat cream cheese until smooth. Add remaining ingredients except for honey, and beat until well blended. Add honey and beat until fluffy (not too long). Frost.

Be sure the cake is cool to the touch before attempting to frost it with this frosting, as it’s rather thick and will catch on any crumbs. A crumb coating with jam might be useful as well.

This is a super QUICK frosting, actually one of the quickest I’ve ever made.

It is also incredibly EASY. Of all the powdered-sugar-free frostings I’ve made, probably the easiest.

It has very few ingredients, so it’s relatively CHEAP, especially if you buy the cream cheese on sale (I always stock up on it when it is on sale for $1 or less. Walmart SuperCenters carry 8oz bricks for around $1 also.).

It is certainly one of the HEALTHY-est frostings I’ve ever come across, mainly because it has so little sugar. Cream cheese is one of the more processed dairy products, so I wouldn’t necessarily call it healthy, but when compared to the typical ingredients in a typical frosting, it’s definitely an improvement. It is certainly a lot less decadent than the frosting/filling you see in that donut above!

5 Comments Filed Under: Dessert, On The Table Tagged With: frosting

Better than the Box – Mac n Cheese!

April 15, 2010 By Anne Simpson

I was seriously going to make a cake today and frost it with my favorite non-powdered sugar frosting, but then I looked in my sugar canister and realized… oops, no way I had enough sugar to manage that! But no matter, here’s something I’ve been wanting to blog about for a while now anyway…. homemade mac ‘n’ cheese!

I may possibly have tried every mac n cheese recipe on the planet in my attempts to find one that fits all my requirements. What exactly were my requirements?

-Stove-top, no oven required
-Healthy ingredients
-Quick
-Easy

Unfortunately, the easiest recipes, the ones that did not require a Bechamel/Mornay sauce, were unreliable and not always tasty, also a necessary requirement. I particularly loved one recipe that used yogurt in the sauce, and I still occasionally make that one, but it needs some tweaking before I can share it with you.

The recipe that I settled on is a stove-top recipe, but it does require a sauce. Don’t let that stop you, though, this sauce takes me about 10 minutes, start to finish (which would probably horrify a professional chef who would typically cook the sauce for 15 minutes or so - but I’m not a professional chef, so I don’t care!).

Homemade mac n cheese is really so simple, no one needs to resort to the box, which incidentally, has very little cheese. If any. It does, however, have preservatives, artificial flavors, and artificial colors. And it’s kind of slimy. Did you ever notice that? Homemade mac n cheese is never slimy, I promise.

I started with the Creamy Macaroni and Cheese recipe here, and adjusted it to fit my purposes. Scroll down for a printable version.

Homemade StoveTop Mac n Cheese
1/2 lb small sturdy pasta (such as macaroni, rotini or the like)
2 TBSP butter
2 TBSP flour
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 TBSP honey mustard
freshly ground black pepper
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Prepare pasta according to package directions. While it’s boiling, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

Sprinkle the flour over the butter, and stir and cook until it’s well blended:

Cook the butter and flour, still stirring, about a minute or so, to make sure the flour is thoroughly cooked and there’s no raw flour taste in the final product.

Combine the milk, cream and broth in a liquid measuring cup, and slowly pour into the flour mixture, stirring all the while to combine it thoroughly. Continue stirring mixture until it is smooth and well blended.

Continue stirring until it’s bubbly, and then continue stirring and cooking for 4-5 more minutes (or up to about 15 minutes) until the sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in the black pepper and mustard.

Remove from heat and stir in the shredded cheese:

Keep stirring until the cheese is thoroughly melted, and you have a deliciously, creamy, golden sauce like this:

Add the noodles and stir them into the sauce until thoroughly coated. Cover with the lid of the saucepan and allow it to sit for a few minutes while you prep the rest of your dinner.

Serve and enjoy!

Prepare pasta according to package directions. While it’s boiling, melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour over the butter, and stir and cook until it’s well blended. Cook the butter and flour, still stirring, about a minute or so, to make sure the flour is thoroughly cooked and there’s no raw flour taste in the final product. Combine the milk, cream and broth in a liquid measuring cup, and slowly pour into the flour mixture, stirring all the while to combine it thoroughly. Continue stirring mixture until it is smooth and well blended. Continue stirring until it’s bubbly, and then continue stirring and cooking for 4-5 more minutes (or up to about 15 minutes) until the sauce is slightly thickened. Stir in the black pepper and mustard. Remove from heat and stir in the shredded cheese. Keep stirring until the cheese is thoroughly melted, and you have a deliciously, creamy, golden sauce. Add the noodles and stir them into the sauce until thoroughly coated. Cover with the lid of the saucepan and allow it to sit for a few minutes while you prep the rest of your dinner.

This is just a bare-bones recipe. You can dress it up however you want with whatever you have on hand. A few ideas:

-Use different cheese, such as mozzarella.
-Combine cheeses.
-Add a little Parmesan
-Add some herbs, like parsley
-Add a meat, such as bacon, ham or shredded chicken
-Add vegetables (My DH draws the line at this. One doesn’t mess with his mac n cheese.)
-Use Worcestershire sauce instead of the mustard
-Use a small amount of dry mustard instead of prepared mustard.
-Use spicy brown mustard, or regular

See how much fun you can have?

This is definitely a QUICK alternative to the box method. Even if you have to shred the cheese (I always buy my cheese in blocks because it’s cheaper and has fewer - or no - preservatives), a food processor makes short work of that. There’s no excuse to resort to the box, which has absolutely no nutritional value.

EASY, too. A basic white sauce with cheese, and some boiled noodles. What could be easier? The box? Not really. You still have to boil the noodles and make the sauce from the cheese packet.

CHEAP, yes. I have seen the boxed variety for ridiculously low prices that homemade can’t compete against, but this is still a cheap main dish. Also, this recipe makes more than one box, AND the ingredients are healthier… and tastier!

So much more HEALTHY than the box!You may balk at using real cream - if it helps, you can use evaporated milk. It would be even healthier with some veggies thrown in there, but like I said, one doesn’t mess with DH’s mac n cheese. And be sure to use a healthy variety of pasta. I like to use Barilla Plus because it has whole grains, but it doesn’t have a different taste or texture. It also has more protein than regular pasta, so it makes a more suitable main dish.

2 Comments Filed Under: Dinner, Lunch, On The Table Tagged With: macaroni and cheese

Frostings Without Powdered Sugar: Fluffy Coffee Frosting

April 9, 2010 By Anne Simpson

Why no powdered sugar, you ask? The answer requires a bit of explanation. I’ve been involved in an on-going process of improving my diet, removing the unhealthy and adding in the healthy. Every now and then, I get stuck for various reasons, most often because the healthy stuff can be expensive (for example, organic meat. I would prefer to buy organic meat all the time, but right now, it’s unaffordable for me.). Sometimes, though, I just get a creative mindblock, and I don’t know how to replace an unhealthy item with its healthy counterpart. Like powdered sugar. I got rid of regular sugar quite some time ago, and replaced it with turbinado sugar, which, while still not healthy, is less processed than table sugar and manages to maintain some nutritional value. I also use honey whenever possible. However, I still kept brown sugar and powdered sugar on hand, because, even though they come from regular granulated sugar, they seemed irreplaceable in certain dishes and baked goods. I’ve since discovered that turbinado sugar nicely replaces brown sugar in a variety of things, but powdered sugar still had me stumped. How do you make a glaze or a frosting without powdered sugar? The vast majority of frosting recipes (Buttercream, the favorite by far, for example) all require several cups of powdered sugar. I consoled myself that I made such things rarely anyway, so it was no big deal to have that minimal amount of powdered sugar.

Until some time last year, when I seriously began researching different frosting recipes that did NOT call for powdered sugar at all, or in such minimal amounts that it could easily be replaced with something else. I was surprised to find that such recipes do exist, and furthermore, they add a lot more flavor and texture to your cake than the typical powdered-sugar-rich frostings do. I’ve crossed the bridge and have burned it behind me. Goodbye, powdered sugar! I don’t need you anymore!

The first powdered-sugar-free frosting I’m going to share with you is the one I used to top the Moist Chocolate Cake I made for my sister-in-law the other day. Because she likes mocha, I made the frosting with coffee to go with the chocolate flavor in the cake, but this frosting can be made in pretty much any flavor you desire. Just replace the coffee with an equal amount of water, and then when you are finished beating the frosting, add a teaspoon of some flavoring (such as vanilla, or almond).

This recipe is an old-fashioned standard often called “Seven-Minute Frosting”. To be honest, I don’t know why it’s called that, because you cannot rely on the clock to be sure you’ve beaten the frosting the right amount of time. Many variations exist on the recipe, most of them calling for oodles and oodles of sugar with oodles and oodles of corn syrup on top of that. Corn syrup being something else I try to avoid, I went with the recipe that called for the least amount of sugar, and used cream of tartar instead of corn syrup. Trust me, it’s plenty sweet enough, even with coffee as the liquid!

Traditionally, a double boiler is used for this recipe, but if you don’t have one, that’s fine! Just use a sturdy glass Pyrex-type bowl (one that can withstand high heat) on top of a saucepan. Before you start cooking, make sure the bowl fits well in the saucepan. It should be snug but not tight (easily removed but not loose), and there should be several inches between the bottom of the bowl and the bottom of the saucepan. The bowl should rest safely in the saucepan without you holding it there to stabilize it. And be careful, because the bowl WILL get hot.

What you will need for sure is a hand-held electric mixer. The mixture has to be beaten while heated in the double boiler, and there’s no way to do that with a stand mixer.

Scroll down for a printable version.

Fluffy Coffee Frosting
2 egg whites
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
1/3 cup strong coffee
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

This process supposedly takes about 7 minutes, but don’t bother going by the clock. When you lift up the beaters (after turning the mixer off!), you should see stiff peaks remaining, like this:

When you see that, remove the frosting from the heat, and beat it until you reach the desired consistency (this won’t take long at all.) If you are using water instead of coffee, add a teaspoon of flavoring such as vanilla or almond and beat until it’s blended in. Now you’re ready to frost your cake.

I like to use my silicone spatula for basic cake frosting

Be very sure your cake is cool to the touch before attempting to spread this frosting. If your cake is cool enough, this frosting will go on smoothly without a problem, but if it’s still warm, the frosting will stick and catch and make a big mess. Once the frosting is spread, you can use the flat side of the spatula (or a knife) to create some texture in the frosting. Swirl it around in big or little swirls, or press it against the frosting and lift straight up to create mini peaks all around, which is what I did. I also sprinkled a little cocoa powder for an extra touch:

Grated baking chocolate could also be used, or sliced strawberries, or other fruit. Even mint leaves would be pretty.

Fluffy Coffee Frosting
2 egg whites
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
1/3 cup strong coffee
1/4 tsp cream of tartar

Bring an inch or two of water to boil in the saucepan. Mix all the ingredients thoroughly in a glass bowl, using a hand-held electric mixer until well blended. Place the glass bowl on top of the saucepan, and continue beating with the mixer until stiff peaks form. This process supposedly takes about 7 minutes, but don’t bother going by the clock. When you lift up the beaters (after turning the mixer off!), you should see stiff peaks remaining. When you see that, remove the frosting from the heat, and beat it until you reach the desired consistency (this won’t take long at all.) If you are using water instead of coffee, add a teaspoon of flavoring such as vanilla or almond and beat until it’s blended in. Now you’re ready to frost your cake.

This is a pretty QUICK frosting, I would say, definitely less than 10 minutes, start to finish.

I always thought it was more of a difficult frosting, but to be honest, it’s very EASY. It does require some equipment, like the hand mixer, and it does require some perception as far as when it’s finished beating.

This recipe is CHEAP in comparison to the others that called for twice as much sugar, and 3 or 4 egg whites. If you don’t have cream of tartar, that would be an expensive outlay just for one recipe, but you only use a tiny amount, and then you have it on hand to use again in this and other recipes. And, instead of buying an additional sugar product (powdered sugar), you can just use regular sugar.

HEALTHY? Well, it doesn’t have powdered sugar, so that’s something. No corn syrup, either, which is a benefit. It does have egg whites which are healthy. Other than that, about all I can say is, enjoy sparingly!

Need more healthy dessert recipes? I highly recommend

Katie Kimball’s Smart Sweets, available for only $9.95!

3 Comments Filed Under: Dessert, On The Table Tagged With: coffee flavored frosting, powdered sugar free frosting

Better than the Box – Moist Chocolate Cake

April 8, 2010 By Anne Simpson

These flowers have nothing to do with Moist Chocolate Cake, but I thought they were pretty and I wanted to share them with you. Aren’t they pretty?

Here’s the cake:

I have to admit something here. I never make a cake from a mix, but not because I am a great cake baker. Far from it, in fact. Cakes I bake tend to be dry and crumbly, undercooked or overcooked, or just plain not very good. However, I persevere because I find the ingredients in a box mix to be, in a word, scary. Hydrogenated oil (i.e. trans fats) is something I avoid like the plague mostly because it is kind of like the plague. Then there are those un-pronounceables that always make me wonder if it’s food or a chemical reaction.

When I decided to make a cake for my sister-in-law’s birthday the other day, and knowing my propensity for dry and crumbly cakes, I specifically looked for a recipe described as moist. I found one at AllRecipes, and tweaked it based on the reviews (which, by the way, is one thing I LOVE about AllRecipes!). Can you believe I only adjusted the sugar by a quarter cup?! Sometimes I think my dry cakes are the result of attempting to remove too much sugar; besides, I have a chart that shows you the minimum amount of sugar you can use in a recipe, and 1 1/2 cups was pretty much it for this cake. I made some other minor changes, notably to use real butter instead of margarine (trans fats again!) and an easier measurement for the cocoa powder.

Most cake recipes are probably not as quick, easy or fail-safe as the boxed mix variety, but I have stumbled across some great tips along the way that certainly help.

1. Always bring butter and eggs to room temperature.
A quick and easy way to bring butter to room temp is to slice it into tablespoons. It will take 5 minutes or less to bring it to room temp this way. Eggs can be placed in a bowl of warm water, but this is not necessarily completely effective.

2. Beat the butter before adding sugar.
Most recipes say to beat butter and sugar together, but it actually improves the cake’s texture if the butter is beaten first. Place room temp butter in the mixer and beginning on low speed, gradually increase the speed until you’re at about med-high. Once butter is smooth, beat in the sugar, then proceed with the rest of the recipe.

3. Measure flour carefully using the scoop-and-scrape method.
And if a recipe calls for sifting, be sure to follow through, because that will most definitely affect the final product.

4. Cool cakes on a wire rack.
This allows the cake to cool evenly. Also, if it’s left in the pan on the stove-top (as I have been known to do), it may continue to cook a little too much, resulting in heavy dry cake.

Better-than-the-Box Moist Chocolate Cake
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter
1 1/2 cups turbinado sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1/2 cup water

Whisk the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. In a mixer, beat butter until smooth; add sugar. Continue beating and add eggs one at a time until well blended. On low speed, add dry ingredients, alternating with the milk and water (mixed together), just until blended. Pour batter into greased and floured (or use cocoa powder) round cake pans or a 9×13 pan. Bake at 350F for about 40-45 minutes, until top is springy and toothpick comes out clean. Cool in pans on wire rack for about 5 minutes; loosen from pan and release to cool completely on wire rack before frosting.

As for the frosting, I’m going to be working on a series of posts featuring powdered-sugar-free frostings, so stay tuned for those!

This may not be as QUICK as a boxed mix, but it really doesn’t take too much more time. If you slice up the butter and set the eggs in warm water while you mix the dry ingredients, they should be ready to go in the mixer by the time you’re done. Prep the pans and preheat the oven before you ever start to save time at the end.

This is, however, one of the EASY-er cakes I have made, and seems sturdy enough of a recipe to handle minor adjustments. It was a cinch to bake and remove from the pans, and the layers were nice and high, and moist as the name promised. Not every cake recipe is so obliging!

It’s CHEAP, too, using only basic baking ingredients most people have on hand at any given time. To be honest, I haven’t priced cake mixes in a long time, so I don’t even know how it would compare, but I do know this: one box of cake mix makes only one cake, but packages of flour, sugar, eggs and butter can make multiple cakes. In the long run, it seems more cost-effective to bake cakes from staple ingredients you already own than to purchase a separate box just for that purpose.

One could hardly describe this cake as HEALTHY, not by a long shot. However, it is free of trans fats and the dreaded “unpronounceables”, artificial flavors and colors. It also uses the minimum amount of sugar, so in comparison, it is healthier than a cake mix. But not healthy enough to eat on a regular basis, so I think I will save it for birthdays and the like!