We live in a Topsy Turvy World

I'm just glad that it's not called the topsy turvy pineapple upside down cake. If that were the case, I'd have to come up with a new set of lyrics for "I Am a Model of a Modern Major General" and honestly, I'm really not up to that task.

And, just to get it stuck in your head...here's the first verse:

I am the very model of a modern Major-General,

I've information vegetable, animal, and mineral,

I know the kings of England, and I quote the fights historical
From Marathon to Waterloo, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters mathematical,
I understand equations, both the simple and quadratical,
About binomial theorem I'm teeming with a lot o' news,
With many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse.

and a picture of Henry Litton playing that wonderful part in Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance.

We made the Pineapple Upside Down Cake (CB pg 92). Every so often we think a recipe is going to turn out the way we want it to, that we are going to like it and it'll just be beautiful. This was one of those times. 

(Did you see that opening photo? J got a new camera and now we're all about the lighting and the cropping and the making the pictures sing with beauty.)

Once you get the butter and brown sugar moistened in the pan, you place the rings of pineapple on the bottom and put cherries in the wholes and fill in around them with pecans. Then you mix the yolks and sour cream, mix up the dry ingredients and add butter, remaining sour cream and aerate for 1 1/2 minutes. We decided against doing that as in previous cakes, we suspect this had lead to holes. We mixed it until it formed strings of dough that connected the paddle to the bowl- only 20 or 30 seconds. It looked really pretty in the bowl. Why would this differ from RLB's instruction? Maybe we beat at too high a speed? Maybe we can't tell time? Who knows. The important thing is that we are not stubbornly following the recipe and have learned from our experience. When the batter looks "pretty" as we call it, stop beating. Good enough!

Then you pour it into the pan and bake 40 - 50 minutes. It was really that simple. Our cake was done at about 45 minutes. The top was a nice golden brown and it was firm, but springy.

This cake had a moist, loose crumb, and was springy and hole free, when we cut into it. We couldn't wait. And Rose did say it could be served warm or at room temperature.

My one change would be to cook the brown sugar/butter mixture a bit as the top didn't caramelize quite as much as I'd have liked it to. One of us suspects that is due to the addition of pecans which hog valuable surface space on the cast iron skillet. J was very reluctant to include the pecans, she might have even used the word blasphemy at one point. I thought they were very good. This was one cake we didn't want to share. But given my New Year's resolution, we decided to give a slice or two to Dave and Natalia, who reported enjoying it.

We also made Swedish Pancakes (CB pg 108). Somehow in Carb Fest '08, we missed one pancake recipe. These were light and lovely, a cross between a crepe and a pancake with more egg. The hint of lemon zest in the batter added just the right amount of perk. RLB suggests the traditional Swedish lingonberry sauce as an accompaniment, or a dusting of powdered sugar. We used boysenberry jam, whipped cream and raspberries, and they were a stupendous light bite.

The directions for mixing are only one sentence! So, they are simple to make and an elegant approach to breakfast. They were a perfect transition from Pancakes and Waffles to Crepes. We will have Crepe Fest '08 in a couple weeks, so look out!

This next week, we will be on hiatus. My work takes me to Pittsburgh for training. We will return to baking and all it's glory on the 21st. J may dazzle you in the meantime with the German Chocolate Cake that K enjoyed on his birthday, or more dog biscuits - she and her mother have been testing some new recipes for our 4 legged friends, or who knows what.

My main goal for doing this blog was to spend time with Janet. Together, we make each other laugh and think. My secondary goal was to become comfortable with baking. Happily, both of those goals have come true.

Today J and I were talking about what we'd like to do once we finish the Cake Bible. A few things became clear: 1. We will continue, but obviously we won't be rebaking the Cake Bible, 2. We will try things we've not tried, paella, bread baking (I've not once made a good loaf of yeast bread).

This means more field trips, more variety in our recipe choices and we'll probably throw in some food history as we learn it and through all that come to a better understanding of this wonderful thing called cooking.

Don't be surprised if you show up and it's no longer just about cakes.

robb

New Year's Day Carb-Fest 2008

I know that there is a way to make sense of why J and I continue to do a blue

million recipes at the same time. Our birthday cake for our 3 year old friend Lila had three layers, a filling, a frosting and dacquoise. Our Brioche day had three recipes and required 2 days. Our last baking installment, I should just call it a Baking Event is lay spread in front of you. Quite like the Whore of Babylon, in all her carbohydrate laden glory. (Ok, not the best simile as it meant as an allegory of Rome and it's brutality. Gotta love Wikipedia.)

There is scuttlebutt about that carbs are bad for you. And, they may be if you set down to a table that looks like ours. Here is what we made: Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes (pg 100) & Blueberry Buckwheat Pancakes (pg 102). So is that enough for you?

Oh, you say, I can eat more carbs than that. We also made Buttermilk Waffles (pg 103) & Marion Cunningham's Raised Waffles (pg 105). Still not enough carbs you say.

Well, we also made the Best Buckwheat Blini La Tulipe (pg 106). Ha ha, you have fallen. You are no match for our mighty table laden with carbs.

J and I tend to binge bake I've noticed. So, alas, has my waist. New Year's resolution is to hit the gym twice a week. I've put on 10 pounds since we started this blog. Ok, that's not really true. Sadly I put on 10 lbs, but it was just since November 1.

Once we got our rhythm, we were able to bang them out quite efficiently. Initially, the pancake recipes didn't really work the way that we were used to. There was a lot of cracking and softness to them that we didn't expect. This was rectified by turning up the heat and cutting back on the blueberries. I am the culprit who over stuffed the pancakes with blueberries. But really 6 berries as Rose prescribes?! It just isn't right.

This little falter, caused us to mistime the serving of our fellow guests. This iritated us quite a bit, and it left M a bit hungry, but at 12:30 we all sat down for our brunch. Sadly, the food was to begin at 11:00 ish. Even I can't accept an hour and a half as "ISH". But once the food was served and the champagne was poured, I don't think a soul really minded.

The Buttermilk Pancakes were good and worth a try. Light and airy, if not exactly fluffy as some prefer, they still had the strength to stand up to the maple syrup I love maple syrup. MMMMM....


The both types of waffles were a bit limp (a problem with many waffles) when we finished them in the waffle iron. J had a great idea -- as is usual -- let's toast them she said. The toasting helped the Buttermilk waffles so much that our guests raved about them. The Raised Waffles weren't as well received, although the toasting did help them.

Often I ask J if we'd have liked this recipe better if we weren't trying to compare it to our other recipes on the table. We've never come up with a simple answer for that. On some things, yes, they pale only in comparison. In other things, they just weren't our cup of tea -- can anyone say chestnut cake? (I find it especially difficult to assess an item if I already have - get ready for me to sound really full of myself- a perfected recipe. For waffles, I worked for several years to find and create exactly what I want. It's not like it happened overnight, to be sure! I tried many recipes and experimented and added and subtracted and adjusted and can now reliably make a waffle I really like. It's crisp on the outside, fluffy and tasty on the inside. And, for pancakes, you just can't beat the recipe on the bag of Aunt Jemima's self-rising flour. That I wasn't dazzled by the CB recipes doesn't surprise me, but I didn't expect to be disappointed. I really was unimpressed by the pancakes- too thin, rubbery texture, no buttermilk tang, no crumb for butter to melt into. Do they suffer by comparison? Absolutely. But, that might be because they're not so terrific. -J.)

Here is what happens when you've sat at a table full of friends and had a bit too much champagne and there are only a few bits and pieces left on plates....

You find yourself about ready to eat a Jimmy Dean sausage pattie, topped with sour cream, chopped green onions and a perfectly crisp blini. And really, it doesn't get any better than that. Well, the smoked salmon on the blini with sour cream might be a match. The blini, we all agreed were quite tasty, and cooked without difficulty. While we don't exactly run in the circles where caviar is served as the norm, we could adopt these blini as our standard, if we had need of such a thing.

For this, our first blog entry for 2008, you may have noticed, there have been some changes made. J and I have realized that this exercise has challenged us to become better bloggers. Just looking around the web, we found ourselves wanting to step up to the proverbial plate.

You may have noticed the new Daring Bakers logo on our website. We've joined this group of intrepid gourmands as they rise to monthly challenges. (J will have more on that in an upcoming blog entry). Try checking out some of the websites of other Daring Bakers. Some have posted comments on our Daring Baker's Challenge entry for December 23. Take a moment to look at some of their blogs.

Daring Bakers and other bloggers have become an inspiration to us as we are striving to learn more about this medium.

Everything's Bake in 2008

Bake through

Robb

Project Lila

Robb and I had a wonderful opportunity to make a cake for the 3rd birthday of Lila, the daughter of our friends Geoff and Hillary. Her birthday was on Thursday December 13th, and the celebration continued through that weekend. Lucky girl!

This post has obviously taken some time, but we've had a lot of real life stuff happening, some of it happy and some of it sad, and we are able to get to writing about this really fun time now.

Lila loves princesses and pink. So, castles, tiaras, pink, pink, pink, polka dots, flowers, whimsy, pink, pink, gowns, frills, etc. swam around in our minds as we thought of lots of possibilities. We hoped to include only edible items, this is obviously a big limiting factor for novice decorators, but we were willing to be pushed to (and beyond?) our limits. We considered that cake that is shaped like a gown, with a waist-up barbie sticking out the top. Seemed too predictable... although we did purchase the pan, and some scalloped edge pans that looked like they might be useful: 6 and 8 inch just in case. We also knew that we wanted sparkle and did I mention, pink? We found some pink gel food color (and a zillion other cool colors, too), flaky edible pink glitter, some pink food spray- yes like pink spray paint, also some really cool stuff called lustre. It's a powder that you can brush on and it's really sparkly. We got some of that in dark and light pink, white and pearl. We knew that we wanted the cake to look top notch and that our frosting skills are ok, but not professional looking. We decided that we would have the best luck creating a smooth cake with fondant. We got some pre-made fondant, and also made some (recipe in the CB pg. 307), and discovered in a practice coloring and rolling session (see the Art Deco cake) that they were virtually identical. And easy to work with- really easy! We were so confident, we didn't give the fondant another thought.

Originally, Robb and I had a design that included two tiers: one 9 inch round, topped with one 6 inch scalloped, each with some combination of cake and fillings, and a pointy princess hat on top. The 6 inch layer was to hover over the 9 inch layer by about a 1/2 inch or so. We figured that we could make the pointy princess hat out of caramel, similar in concept to a caramel cage that we've all seen placed over fancy shmancy desserts. For the cone shaped mold we considered foil, but realized that we'd have trouble getting it smooth enough. We ended up making one out of radiator screen. We thought that would be smooth and flexible and could withstand the hot sugar. We also tried a styrofoam cone covered with foil, and hoped the foam wouldn't melt. We planned to get it colored pink or close enough with all manner of the pink items listed above. We tried it out and for a number of reasons, did not get a good result. #1 we overcooked the caramel, #2 the radiator screen mold was too wide and short, #3 the application of caramel wasn't uniform enough to produce a strong enough caramel network to withstand the prying needed to unmold it, and #4 and most problematic for this project, it didn't color very pink with the stuff we had to work with. I think that it could be done, but we made this discovery on the Tuesday before the party. Yikes! So, we relaxed our restriction about edibility and agreed to use a plastic tiara. That was a tough choice, but a pragmatic one.

Funny how in making this cake, the actual cake part wasn't our focus. We were feeling fairly confident in our ability to make tasty cake and had dwelled completely on the look of it. In our batting ideas around stage, we had talked about an almond flavored cake layer with some kind of pink filling. That would have been fine I'm sure, but like a lightening bolt I was struck with the idea of making the inside look like Neapolitan ice cream. Brilliant! We decided on chocolate, raspberry, and vanilla, with raspberry puree between the layers and the wonderful raspberry mousseline buttercream for frosting (see our July 17, 2007 post for our raves). We still had to pick which cake recipes, so we looked back through our notes of butter cakes and decided that we like the Chocolate Domingo and the White Velvet Butter Cake best. We agreed that we could just color some of the white cake pink and call it raspberry, which we did. The only adjustment that was made to the cake recipes aside from coloring one batch pink, was some brown and red food color was added to the chocolate layer. In a practice muffin-sized version, the chocolate layer took on a slightly chalky look once it was cut. The brown and red made it just enough richer- or my imagination said it worked! Lastly, in addition to the cake layers, raspberry puree and yummy buttercream, I thought it would be good to have an almond dacquoise layer to add a bit of nice texture. Robb agreed once he tried the muffin-sized mock up. I think this may have been his favorite part! (It definitely was. A good crunch in a lovely cake!)

So, we come to Friday night, the night before her party and we have tickets to see Paula Poundstone (right here in Peekskill at the wonderful Paramount Center for the Arts) and we get started on assembly and decoration AFTER the show. We at least had the cake layers assembled: chocolate, raspberry puree, dacquoise, pink layer, raspberry puree, dacquoise, white layer, all covered with a thin layer of the raspberry mousseline buttercream, and the same for the 6 inch layer, except that the scalloped edges got lost in the trimming and it turned out to be round. That's ok in the big scheme of things. But, oh boy, we enter murky territory...

We got the fondant colored pink finally- it took a bit of time and a total scrapping of the first attempt. Fuschia isn't really pink, at least not in the way we wanted. Adding more and more of a color that isn't what you want doesn't magically make it the right color- go figure! Lessons learned- color a little bit at a time instead of 4 pounds worth, and use pink food color if you want to end up with pink fondant! (Ok, I'm a hair colorist and I know this, but somehow after seeing Paula Poundstone, it didn't come to me in a blinding flash, until the 4 pounds were already a lovely shade of a too violet fuschia.)

We had a heck of a time getting the fondant on the cake this time. The Art Deco cake was simple, partly because it was very wide and only an inch tall. So much for smooth sailing. Our 6 inch layer was at least 6 inches tall,and we ended up with a LOT of excess fondant on the sides and had a terrible time trying to smooth it. In fact, we took so much time trying to get it sorted out, it got hard. So, we ended up with a sort of bustle of fondant on one side of the cake, and a couple of seams. We were strategic with some fondant ribbon placement and all in all I think the "bustle" area looked suggestive of flowing hair at the back of the tiara. We stuck on some flowers and dusted the whole thing with the fantastic lustre mentioned above. Some princess ribbon on the tiara added to the flowing look.

Given the excitement of the fondant effort on the 6 inch layer, and that it was past midnight, we figured we'd go with buttercream for the bottom layer. We had a terrific polka dot ribbon and I was especially keen to see it wrapped around the base of the cake; minimalist and classy. We topped it off with a small branch of alstroemeria. (I think this small hand-held bouquet is called a tussy mussy or something similar- from Victorian times.) Lila enjoyed the flowers, carrying them around and then later in the day when she was tired, she got to tear them up into very tiny pieces. What a bonus!


We intended to have the layers stacked, but the pinks clashed and the style was quite different for that to make sense. With the overhanging fondant, we did need a pedestal for the smaller layer, so it was perched on some columns with a fluffy cloud of organza ribbon beneath.


The cakes were well received, the taste was great. And despite being mashed into slices with the side of a dull cake server, it held up pretty well. We had a great time thinking and planning for this one! We learned a lot in the process- found some good sources for supplies and interesting products. To some extent executing this one was less fun- there was even a moment for one of us of laying on the kitchen floor and trying not to lose it. But, we're troopers! We made it through and isn't that what this blog project is all about...

Bake through!

Janet

Daring Bakers challenge

Just a quick post... more about the daring bakers group shortly... we have departed from the Cake Bible on this one.

The Yule log, or Buche de Noel as some of us might call it was a great success. It is a basic yellow genoise and a very yummy coffee buttercream For the filling, we chose cranberry, which turned out to be a very good selection. It was pretty simple: cranberries, a left over can of cranberry sauce that never got used at Thanksgiving, and a LOT of ground cloves, some apple cider vinegar, and so on. It was a chutney really, and modeled after one we recently enjoyed from Trader Joe's. It wasn't so sweet which worked out very well becasue the cake itslef was really sweet, too sweet actually. The contrast of tart cranberry, spice, and coffee buttercream is pretty darn good.

The mushrooms are marzipan, and were a treat to make, the evergreen bough is rosemary that was still hanging in there in the snow covered garden. I'm very pleased with the festive look.

Like I said, more about what the daring bakers are next time- back to holiday guests and fun.

The New Math

Ok, we decided a long time ago to do the all the brioche recipes over December 3 & 4. It seemed like a good thing to do and we put it in our calendars weeks ago. I was afraid if I didn't do it, I'd end up scheduled teaching a class on the Monday and leave J the excitement of roll out, fold, roll out, wait, fold, wait, roll out, place. Truly, since it was on my calendar when I got the email for open days to teach in December, I could honestly not include those days as open.

Well, the week before, we were discussing what we were going to do and realized that about two recipes later, there was a sticky bun recipe that used the brioche as its base. Again, any forethought shown in this blog goes to J. She's the one that finds all these connections. It's times like these that I feel like I'm just along for the ride.

There was this great moment when we were doing three batches of yeasty bread type cakes and rolls, and had doubled one, even though we really could have just tripled it and had two batches to work with since the sticky buns and the struesel brioche start with the very same dough. It was confusing, and it looked like a comic kitchen. I sorta half expected the Three Stooges to come out and poke our proofing yeasty bread type things for fun and hilarity.

We did manage to make three batches, and never had to throw any out and start over, thank you very much. It's really much easier when you double -- if you forget to double you can always add. Halving on the other hand is a bit different. By the time you discover you forgot to halve the leavener, your zucchini bread has exploded out of the pan onto the bottom of the oven- not saying that's ever happened of course.

Just as RLB cautioned, we did find that we were overtaxing the motors on our two food processors when we were making the brioche. We ended up using the Kitchen Aid mixer. The virtue of using the food processor is lost on us, next time we will begin in the stand mixer and just stay there.

Our day started with the La Brioche Cake (CB pg 76) which is used in the Praline Brioche (pg 171). It started with making a sponge the night before. Relatively simple process. Actually nothing we did for any of these recipes was difficult or required a lot of hands on time. While it took about 2 days to make them, we only had to be in attendance on them for about 15 minutes.

I loved the fact that we start on Monday and when we get to cooking on Tuesday, it's only in the oven for 15 minutes!

After all the work, the Praline Brioche wasn't one of our favorites. So much so that we never even took a picture of it after we sliced and soaked and frosted. You are asked to make a cake which is not really a cake, but a giant domed mass of brioche in a 9" springform pan- see below,
then cut away more than half of it to have a crustless 7 1/2" by 1 3/4" disc of brioche. Then into this relatively small amount of cake, you are to let it absorb, practically submerging it, almost 2 cups of rum syrup. Then the the sodden layer gets frosted. All that manhandling -- or should I write person handling as J did quite a bit of that herself? :) -- seemed for naught. The texture was a bit weird, as in wet, and the rum was totally overpowering although the sugar put up quite a fight in that battle. This is one that I might think of making again only because it seems like it should work. It seems unlikely that what we produced could possibly have been near the mark, despite following the instructions explicity. Really, I think it was the fabulous Coffee Caramel Silk Buttercream (pg 242) that makes me such an optimist- what a delicious buttercream.

This is The Holiday Hallelujah Streusel Brioche (CB pg 94) and it was really similar to the previous in process. The recipe states that it freezes well and since we'd been pretty much brioched out, we froze it. J and K brought some over for the holiday party that M and I throw every year. (One of the happier things that took up some of our time this last month). This recipe did hold up well in the freezer. It was a nice addition to the other cloying sweets that we had on our table. It was eaten quickly. With many compliments. The texture was a bit dry to me. But others disagreed, they said it was flaky, which might have seemed a bit odd since it was a yeasty cake, not a pie crust. But a good brioche has a texture that is a cross between flakes of yeasty dough and the crumb of cake.

MMMM sticky buns (CB pg 98) These were very much worth the effort that we made them again for our Carb Fest 2008 (More on that in the next installment).

These start out with the exact same dough for the Streusel Brioche. Then you top (or is it really, bottom) them with butter light brown sugar and pecan halves. This is the most dreamy, melt in your mouth, smells like a home should smell like bit of baking we have done. It comes out all toasty and gooey and if you stop to think about it for any amount of time at all, everyone has beaten you to them and all the sticky buns are gone.


As you can see, these are well worth the work.

Bake through....

Robb

Fondant ain't so bad after all.

Well, this is a long time coming. J & I set to work right after Thanksgiving. The Tuesday after, we bit the bullet and did the Art Deco Cake, including working with fondant, and the crumb cake.

Could we have chosen two more dissimilar cakes?

We were excited and I have to say for me, a bit scared of the fondant. Honestly, I don't like fondant on my cakes and usually peel it off like it's the rind of a cheese. But now that I've worked with it, it's quite fun really.

Let's back up....
Our first cake was the Chocolate Oblivion Truffle Torte (p 84). I guess I shouldn't say ours as J did all the baking of this as it needed 24 hours in the fridge. According to her, it was simple. Really, it's only three ingredients. Yes, three: Chocolate, butter, eggs. Amazing what can be done with eggs.

When I arrived on Tuesday, 11-27, it was a thick, dense, rich, chocolate colored torte not too high, but remarkably heavy.

We had decided to do this as the Art Deco Cake (p 204). Here is where the fondant comes in. We decided to decorate only one layer. Remember J doesn't like chocolate that much, and really why would two couples need enough cake to serve 50? That's just crazy talk.

So, we followed the directions of covering the torte in a layer of white fondant, and created green stripes to mimic the art deco feel of the picture. We really enjoyed working with the fondant and J is excellent at creating an even color with food grade dyes.

This is a good thing since we are doing the cake for our friend's 3-year old daughter next week, and our design has a lot of fondant in it. We'll post about it as well....since we won't have a Cake Bible cake that week.

This concluded the Custard Cake Chapter for us. So, on to the Breakfast Cakes Chapter with the other cake we did, the Sour Cream Coffee Cake (p 90).

Simply put, unanimously, the cake rocked. Never has everyone liked a cake, until this one. My only complaint, if it can be called that, I would have liked more streusel topping. That is usually the case for me. I love the "extra streusel topped" Entenmann's coffee cake. And most times, I make a double recipe of the topping, but not this time.

This cake had a layered effect. Once you have the dry and wet ingredients combined, you put about 2/3 of the batter in the bottom of the pan then sprinkle with some of the streusel topping. Then, place the remaining 1/3 of batter on top in "large blobs" then spread it out. Then sprinkle the remaining topping on top and bake for about 60 minutes. It seemed like a long time, but it did take the time suggested.

It was crumbly, and light and moist and really good with coffee. I guess that is why she called it a coffee cake. And, it smelled like all the good smells of a grandmother's kitchen.



I don't want this to feel like the reading of the minutes of previous meetings, but there is a bit of unfinished business from the previous post......

Fruitcake follow up: My sister in law loved the fruitcake. She said that the rum was mellow, but with enough kick to stand up to the sweet fruit. It must have been a hit as all of it was gone when we left Saturday morning.

And for those of you who know the reason I was I Indiana for so long, my 21st High School Reunion!, it went well. Got to meet up with a bunch of people who I've not seen for about 20 years. And to think these are the people I spent every day during the school year and much of the summer as most of us were in marching band together. I know, it's hard to imagine that I was in marching band, but I was (I played the Bass Drum - loud and plodding, just like me.)

20 years ago, I couldn't conceive of a time without Bekki, Teresa, Kelly or Mike around. Hopefully, 20 years from now, I won't have to conceive of a time when J and I aren't baking.

Bake through everyone,

Robb

Who you callin' a fruitcake?

Well everyone, this will be short. M and I are about to head over to J and K's house for dinner. Sort of a pre Thanksgiving dinner as M and I are heading to Indianapolis (see previous post's pic of my home state). The folly isn't that we are flying on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the folly really is that we are driving to Indianapolis. Yes, driving. All 753 miles of it. In, according to Google, 12 hours. Somehow, I doubt that time will be right.

Anyway, J and I baked today. We realized we hadn't seen each other since our last installment on cheesecake. Remember all that superfluous information about a bain marie?

We still haven't figured out what to do with all that left over cheesecake. Although, if there is a way to incorporate it into something, I bet we find it. Julian suggested using it in a buttercream. That sounds completely interesting. Wonder how that would come together.

This time we baked the Less Fruity Fruitcake (p 66). We finally found all the fruit cake mix candied orange, lemon, cherries and pineapple and citron that we could handle. I bought the fruit cake mix and J bought the citron, interestingly we independently picked up 4 tubs each. We'll be ready for future candied fruit needs!!

This recipe rocked. I thought the rum added just a hit of spice, and warmth. It definitely brought out flavor. This is the first recipe, I think, where we got to cream the butter and the sugar. It was brown sugar, but we did get to cream. Honestly, if you've made any regular cake, this followed that method. After the creaming, add the dry ingredients in thirds with the milk/molasses mixture in between.

Then scoop into muffin tins and bake. This was so simple and the results were so outrageously good that both J and I thought we'd do it again.

It is so good, that I'm taking all the little beauties with me to my family in Indiana.

I'm sorry for the rush on this, but I was afraid I'd forget to write it if I waited for us to get back from Indiana.

One last thing, I had a idea flash while standing in line at Wal Mart. I call this cake:

The Cheater's Cake

1 box of yellow cake mix
1 can of pumpkin, (15 oz or so)
1 bag of chocolate chips (11 or 12 oz or so)
1 tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice

2 tubs of cream cheese frosting

To the cake mix, add the chocolate chips, stir to dust the chips. Then add the pumpkin. Continue adding all the ingredients called for in the instructions for your particular boxed cake mix, leaving out any liquid. After you have incorporated all the other ingredients, add the liquid (water, milk) a little bit at a time. When the batter seems to be right for cake batter, stop adding liquid. (When I did it, I only used 1/2 of the water.)

Pour into two 9" round cake pans.

Bake according to package directions. Then cool.

Frost with tubs of cream cheese icing.

Changes from first attempt: I found that 1 tub wasn't quite enough to really frost it. And the cake could use a bit of Pumpkin Pie Spice to add a bit of zing.

It's the first cake in a long time that M and I ate all of. It was quite nice.

Well, that's all for this pre Thanksgiving post.

Bake through, or since it's the holidays, Eat Through.

Robb