Lindacakes

Read upthread some -- there's a mail order place. I ordered some. I hate the person that shared THAT secret. Sooooo good, you cannot stop eating them.

Perhaps I should be embarassed, but I second that butter/confectioner's sugar/milk/vanilla recipe for the icing. Red cupcake papers. Red velvet cake? Best not to, everyone will poop red and become alarmed. White cake with pink frosting and a red cinnamon heart on top. A little nippular, though.

Chocolate covered coconut, coconut haystacks. I vote for the coconut cream pie, though. With ten pounds to work with, man, you could p-e-r-f-e-c-t that thing! Congo bars with coconut. Glue it to a bikini.

Who the hell is Mrs. Milman?

I was born in Ohio, love to see a local boy make good. I'm thinking about the gustatory pleasures of being a resident of the White House. Press 4 on the telephone. "Kitchen!" Yes, this is the first child. I'd like to have a freshly prepared Napoleon brought up. I'm willing to wait for it. Can you have it for, say, seven? Pardon me? Oh, yes, traditional recipe, please. Nothing fancy. Thank you for asking, yes, I'd like to have the entire batch. Just serve it in my room, okay? One fork is fine.

Incidentally, when I am that age I intend to eat nothing but sugar.

CaliPoutine, and anyone else on this thread who is cooking for seniors, You are one hell of a wonderful person. You are putting so much creative energy and enthusiasm into your job, it's bringing tears to my eyes. My mother lives in a low-income senior apartment building. She really gets into the monthly birthday meals and special occassion meals they have there. I like to think there are people behind it like you. I hope your kindness is returned to you ten fold.

I worked very hard at perfecting my pie crust as I had an ideal (my mom's, I was lucky) that I wanted to achieve. In the process, I took a class with Carole Walter that changed the whole thing for me. I made it by hand until I had it perfect, then I switched to the food processor. Carole told me to go home and make four more pies the same week. It took me longer, but I made a lot of pie. Some of what follows is Carole, some is experience. Here's a couple of tips -- Freeze your fat. I'm assuming you have to use the recipe you are given so the type of fat(s) is not in question. I won't go there, but it's a big topic. Slice your fat, once frozen and stick it back in the freezer. Chill every utensil you plan on using. Chill the room. When you cut the fat into the flour, don't go down to pea size. Pea size is too small. Twice that. If you cut with a pastry cutter, do not rock or twist the pastry cutter, which is the natural thing you want to do with it -- it's curved. Chop with it. I find you get better control cutting with knives. Add the smallest amount of water you can get away with. The amount you need to use depends on the atomosphere that day. It will vary. When you add the water, sprinkle it around the entire perimeter of the bowl and work it down to the center. Work it as little as possible. When you form the disk of dough to put in the fridge, dust it lightly on the outside with flour. This creates a seal. Wrap it in plastic. When you roll your dough out, use as little flour as possible. Do not roll back and forth. Roll from the center outwards. Work the face of the clock. Center to 12. Center to 3. Center to 6. Center to 9. Quarter turn. Go around the clock again, doing more numbers. Quarter turn. Etc. I found that the rolling pin I was using made a big difference. I got a large, solid maple one that spins very easily. If you see penninsulas and inlets forming, fix them right away. Cut the peninsulas off with a bench knife, patch the inlets. Don't use the rolling pin to try to fix them. Good luck! Perfect pie crust is totally worth working for!

atCake, you are from Avon -- do you remember Hough's Bakery?

Hey, K8, I work in publishing and I can vouch for the truth of the statement that you can't believe everything you read in books. What interests me about the quote is that everyone wants to lick the bowls . . . What a concept. Magnolia is a very chaotic place, very tiny and crowded, the cupcakes are serve yourself (as in who touched it and coughed on it before you grabbed it) and there are staff members sort of chaotically using their Kitchen Aids in the middle of everything -- the thought of adding unwashed fingers into the bowls on top of it kind of sets me over the edge . . . You may wonder why I indulge if I feel this way. I love cake. Sometimes I break down and eat inferior cake in a pique of cake need. I've been baking to use up the Nuts and Fruits of Christmas past and last night I made a nice pumpkin cake, I'm sure, due to cake fantasies induced by this thread.

I forgot to answer the oven question -- I don't have a convection oven or anything -- I have a very old gas oven that needs a new gasket and the temperature controls are off. But it works.

I'm glad I was able to be of help. Poor fruitcake has such a bad reputation and it is so very fun to make and really satisfying to eat. I'll email you a couple of recipes from home.

I believe New York has already started and burned its way through a cake mix trend -- it was called the cupcake craze and was based on a Sex in the City character visiting the Magnolia Bakery, bastion of cake mix and sugared Crisco offerings.

Well, I would actually argue that a wedding cake is also a class issue. As are many of the symbols of the wedding itself -- symbols of the class of the couple, the status of the bride, etc. Class is not necessarily about taste bud reaction. Case in point, many of the dishes that are now making Mario Battali famous with the people who can afford to eat in his restaurant were originated by Italian peasants. Hamburger is now the hot food in upscale New York restaurants. A trend started by a restaurant that copied the White Castle mini burger concept . . . I completely enjoy a slice of white sheetcake with sparkly white icing that is clearly not made with butter. I crave this taste sometimes, and my favorite example comes from my hometown bakery and is based on Hough's Bakery (Clevelanders will recognize this) childhood experiences. So I totally relate to the "box cake taste" concept. I like it. On the other hand, as a baker, it is important to me to experience shopping for my ingredients (organics, farmer's market, best fruit and nuts), create a mise en place with them (a big part of the relaxation of cooking, very sensual) and then combine them in the alchemy (often shared with me by some master of the art such as Nick Malgieri) that results in a delicious, tasty, fresh, extremely pleasing eating experience. As far as I know, I cannot go into Key Food and buy a box of that.

World of Baking by Dolores Casella. It's out of print. You can get it on eBay or half.com. How to make a fruitcake less sweet? I would imagine, adding less sugar to the cake batter. Or, actually, less fruit. You may want to up the nut ratio a bit and cut down on the fruit. Or include less sweet, tarter fruits like cranberries. Dates are terribly sweet and when I get too many in my fruitcake I'm displeased. Too sticky sweet. Ditto on figs. You may want to stick with all dried fruit and avoid candied fruit. One of the wonders of fruitcake is the opportunity to make interesting fruit and nut combinations. Janet has an interesting light fruitcake recipe above and her explanation of her dark fruitcake vs. her light fruitcake shows up what I'm talking about. An easy way to ease in to fruitcake is to try a fruitcake cookie -- Maida Heatter has a wonderful cookie called the California Fruit and Nut Bar -- something like that. One steams three fruits -- I believe date, apricot and fig -- and puts them into a cookie with either walnuts or pecans, I forget. A bar cookie. That tastes a great deal like fruitcake without the expense of time and money. Not as satisfying, but a baby step. I can email this to you if you PM me, which will remind me to do it when I'm at my home computer.

An excellent book on this subject is Following the Bloom: Across America with the Migratory Beekeepers by Douglas Whynott. Published by Penguin in 2004. This is a sad story, and a frightening story and shows us how far removed we are from the growing of our food. Our government doesn't seem to know to include pollenation under the protections of the agriculture department . . . I realize that without thinking, I've stopped buying honey from stores. I've gotten it from beekeepers I meet online, an acquaintance of my mother's, a stakeholder in an urban greenspace. God bless the young beekeepers, the old beekeepers, the migratory beekeepers, the thousand hive beekeepers . . .

You can get the King Arthur magazine at Barnes and Noble. Shirley Corriher is supposed to come out with a baking book, but that's been in the works for some time.

Are you asking what books about food we'd like to see stocked in a bookstore?

Hee, hee. I think Janet and I are the resident fruitcake supporters. We support your ravenous chase for fruitcake. Try this book -- Favorite Fruitcakes: Recipes, Legends and Lore from the World's Best Cooks and Eaters by Moira Hodgson. You can get it from Amazon. Dolores Casella's World of Baking (also out of print, but available from Amazon or eBay) has a healthy section on fruitcake. Enjoy your quest for the perfect fruitcake.

I think what we're saying without saying it is that cake mix is a class issue. As food increasingly becomes a class issue -- a global class issue. Last night I went to Citarella to buy fresh fish, organic eggs, organic yogurt and olive rolls. And I gave some money to the man begging out front, the one with one foot. And I was acutely aware of food as a class issue.

Love that cannoli taste? Can't find the shells? You can use the cream for other things -- I served my leftovers with bananas and strawberries for breakfast the next day. And I honestly think it was the best dessert I've ever had!!! Light and very thin vanilla cookies sandwiched with ricotta cream? This might work because the real cannoli greatness is in the thinness of the shell.

This makes me laugh because until a few years ago, I used Duncan Hines brownie mix. Then I discovered Nick Malgieri's Supernatural Brownies. This is the only recipe I have memorized and I can make it nearly as fast as a box. You could not make me eat a boxed brownie again.

Who doesn't like cannoli? Buy the shells, they are not worth it to make. Make the ricotta cream with fresh raw sheep's milk ricotta from an Italian specialty store. If you can swing it, angelica bits in the cream. Chopped high quality bittersweet chocolate. People will follow you home. Not a traditional recipe per se, but hazelnut cake tastes Italian to me all the time, and Nick Malgieri's Browned Butter Hazelnut Financier is one of my absolutely favorite cakes. No frosting required.

The method I used, with my notes: Candied Cherries 1 pound fresh cherries, rinsed, stemmed and pitted 2 cups granulated sugar 1/2 cup water 1/2 lemon 1 cup apple juice In a non-reactive saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil. Add the cherries and the lemon half. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook until syrup is red and slightly thick, about 20 minutes. Cover and let stand 2-3 hours, or overnight. Strain the cherries, reserving the syrup, and set them aside. Discard the lemon half and add the apple juice to the syrup. Bring the syrup to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Return the cherries to the syrup, reduce the heat and cook slowly until the syrup is thick. Heat to about 220 degrees if you are using a candy thermometer. Remove from heat and cool. The cherries can be stored for at least six months in the refrigerator. NOTE: I would do the reduction, then add the cherries for a few minutes at the end, and then allow to cool. A pound and a half of cherries cooked down to one pound, maybe less, based on how shriveled they were at the end. The cherries begin to wrinkle and lose their shape at the end. So, less cooking is optimal. The reduction takes a lot longer and at a higher temperature than is indicated here.

I candied cherries when they were in season for fruitcake that I baked this fall. The cherries sat for six months or so in the fridge, so I kept them in the syrup. When time to use them, I drained the syrup, and froze it. Nightscotsman's recipe at the beginning of the marshmallow thread calls for strawberry puree. I'm planning on adjusting his requirements for the cherry marshmallows. I'm contemplating throwing in some flecks of cherry. The cherry candying experiment went extremely well. I cannot believe how beautiful and delicious the outcome was. I'm looking forward to the cherries in the farmer's market this summer -- I'm going to candy at least three pounds of them. The results are that good.