Cake, cake, & more cake!!!

Keesha

🐟
Location
Canada 🇨🇦
Who doesn’t love cake?
What’s your favourite type?
Do you have a favourite recipe you’d like to share?

Cake is a special treat, meant to be savoured.
Today I made a gluten free carrot cake with cream cheese icing from scratch. It has dairy free modifications as options.

https://glutenfreeonashoestring.com/gluten-free-carrot-cake-cupcakes/

It’s very good. The only problem I had was waiting for the cake to cool long enough to add the icing. Nope. 🙃

The only thing I’d change is to add less sugar and omit the white chocolate chips. They made it too sweet.A4F1F7C2-8A4A-4658-B67E-91447F82E64F.jpeg
 

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Cake is pretty much a thing of the past for me.

When I do make one I prefer to keep it small and relatively simple.

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If you don't bake be sure to keep a SaraLee all-butter pound cake in the freezer and a pot of raspberry jam on the emergency shelf. ;)
 
This cake used to appear at all of our holiday celebrations, potlucks, and picnics.

I haven't made it in years but when I do I think of the old souls who made it for me.

If you try it I know you will enjoy it!

It is easy to make, travels well, and disappears quickly!
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Date Cake
1 1/2 -2 cups of whole pitted dates cut into pieces, one standard size package, don’t drive yourself nuts.
1 cup solid vegetable shortening (I use Crisco)
2 cups boiling water
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t vanilla
2 cups AP flour
1 cup roughly chopped walnuts

Mix dates, shortening, and boiling water. When the shortening has melted add sugar, eggs, soda, salt vanilla, flour and nuts. Bake in a 9 x 13 pan at 350 degrees for approximately one hour. I start checking after about 50 minutes. Cool to room temperature and frost using your favorite cream cheese frosting recipe. If you can find cream cheese with pineapple in your area use that instead of plain cream cheese.
 
I prefer to bake rather than just cooking. My family especially likes pound cakes. I've tried many different recipes for pound cake but always go back to the one my mother used that is tried and true. We call it the "beach cake" because she always made it to take when we rented houses at the beach for vacation.
 
"Let them eat Cake Recipes"....by Tse Wei Lim

"I’m working on a series about the economics and power dynamics of food in Singapore (where I grew up). At the bottom of this email is Fiona’s pandan chiffon recipe, exactly as it was sent to my mum. I have no idea who Fiona is, but this is the best pandan chiffon I’ve had, and I wanted to share the recipe not because of the excellence of the cake, but because I was struck by how remarkably serious the recipe".

"Remember that pandan chiffon is basically the Dunkin’ Donuts Old Fashioned of Singapore, consumed almost as the bycatch of a coffee break. Fiona’s recipe starts with making first pandan extract then coconut milk. Neither activity is particularly difficult, but to insist on both suggests competitiveness. She was, I think, tuning this recipe like a race car".


iu

Pandan Chiffon Cake (Fiona’s recipe)

Ingredients:
18 stalks pandan leaves
water
1 coconut, grated, or 300 ml coconut milk
9 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon caster sugar
8 egg yolks
160 grams caster sugar
150 grams cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method:
1. Make fresh pandan extract by blending the pandan leaves and a small amount of water (just enough to liquefy the pandan leaves) in a blender or a food processor. Make sure the pandan leaves are very finely ground. Strain the liquid and let it stand refrigerated, overnight.

2. The mixture will separate into two parts, water on the top and a thick, green juice that sinks to the bottom. This is the pandan extract and this recipe calls for 2 1/2 tablespoons of this juice. Gently pour away the water. If you have excess pandan essence, freeze it in ice cube trays for subsequent cakes.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

4. Buy fresh grated coconut from a wet market (300 ml is about 1 coconut’s worth of milk) and extract the fresh coconut milk by squeezing it from the grated coconut. To extract the coconut milk, you have to add a little water to the ground coconut and then wring the damp coconut in a cheesecloth or towel. I gave the recipe to a friend who was wringing dry coconut until her helper said, “Mam, must add water first.” Only buy the fresh coconut on the day of baking, as it will not keep more than a day.

5. Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar and the tablespoon of caster sugar until stiff. You can omit the cream of tartar, as I do, but your cake will have larger air pockets, as the cream of tartar helps to bind the beaten egg white tightly together.

6. In a separate bowl, add the remaining 160 grams of caster sugar to the egg yolks and whisk. Add the coconut milk and the 2 1/2 tablespoon of pandan extract together, then add the cake flour, baking powder and salt.

7. Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture gently and pour into a bundt pan. This recipe works best with a bundt pan to ensure that the chiffon rises and bakes evenly.

8. Bake the cake for 35 minutes, cool and slice the cake out of the pan with a thin bladed knife.

NB: My mum bakes at 75 min at 160C instead.
(Continue)
 
I prefer to bake rather than just cooking. My family especially likes pound cakes. I've tried many different recipes for pound cake but always go back to the one my mother used that is tried and true. We call it the "beach cake" because she always made it to take when we rented houses at the beach for vacation.
My mom used to make a nice pound cake when I was younger. We’d often have it with warm custard.
"Let them eat Cake Recipes"....by Tse Wei Lim

"I’m working on a series about the economics and power dynamics of food in Singapore (where I grew up). At the bottom of this email is Fiona’s pandan chiffon recipe, exactly as it was sent to my mum. I have no idea who Fiona is, but this is the best pandan chiffon I’ve had, and I wanted to share the recipe not because of the excellence of the cake, but because I was struck by how remarkably serious the recipe".

"Remember that pandan chiffon is basically the Dunkin’ Donuts Old Fashioned of Singapore, consumed almost as the bycatch of a coffee break. Fiona’s recipe starts with making first pandan extract then coconut milk. Neither activity is particularly difficult, but to insist on both suggests competitiveness. She was, I think, tuning this recipe like a race car".


iu

Pandan Chiffon Cake (Fiona’s recipe)

Ingredients:
18 stalks pandan leaves
water
1 coconut, grated, or 300 ml coconut milk
9 egg whites
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon caster sugar
8 egg yolks
160 grams caster sugar
150 grams cake flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

Method:
1. Make fresh pandan extract by blending the pandan leaves and a small amount of water (just enough to liquefy the pandan leaves) in a blender or a food processor. Make sure the pandan leaves are very finely ground. Strain the liquid and let it stand refrigerated, overnight.

2. The mixture will separate into two parts, water on the top and a thick, green juice that sinks to the bottom. This is the pandan extract and this recipe calls for 2 1/2 tablespoons of this juice. Gently pour away the water. If you have excess pandan essence, freeze it in ice cube trays for subsequent cakes.

3. Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius.

4. Buy fresh grated coconut from a wet market (300 ml is about 1 coconut’s worth of milk) and extract the fresh coconut milk by squeezing it from the grated coconut. To extract the coconut milk, you have to add a little water to the ground coconut and then wring the damp coconut in a cheesecloth or towel. I gave the recipe to a friend who was wringing dry coconut until her helper said, “Mam, must add water first.” Only buy the fresh coconut on the day of baking, as it will not keep more than a day.

5. Beat the egg whites with cream of tartar and the tablespoon of caster sugar until stiff. You can omit the cream of tartar, as I do, but your cake will have larger air pockets, as the cream of tartar helps to bind the beaten egg white tightly together.

6. In a separate bowl, add the remaining 160 grams of caster sugar to the egg yolks and whisk. Add the coconut milk and the 2 1/2 tablespoon of pandan extract together, then add the cake flour, baking powder and salt.

7. Fold the egg white mixture into the egg yolk mixture gently and pour into a bundt pan. This recipe works best with a bundt pan to ensure that the chiffon rises and bakes evenly.

8. Bake the cake for 35 minutes, cool and slice the cake out of the pan with a thin bladed knife.

NB: My mum bakes at 75 min at 160C instead.
(Continue)
This is most interesting. Lately I’ve been watching baking shows and I was quite impressed with all the different methods people used to get their flavours.
This Pandan Chiffon cake is one of those surprises. I bet it taste fabulous.
 
Interesting. I have never heard of "pandan" before. So now I understand it's a leaf and bakers in Asian countries use it to impart a desired flavor in baking cakes, etc. Now I wonder does pandan have a specific taste comparable to an ingredient we use in our baking or is it just to make the cake green?
 
I like just about any kind of cake as long as it doesn't have icing on it.

I really do not care much for icing because most of the time it's practically nothing but sugar and it's almost always too damned sweet. 🤮

I like cake for the cake. The soft, moist, delicately flavored bread-like foundation.

Same with donuts.

I like regular old fashioned glazed donuts, but my favorite kind are the unfrosted "cake" donuts and unglazed, unfrosted ones like the blueberry kind.

Just give me a nice cuppa coffee :coffee: or a glass of cold milk 🥛 to chase it with.
 

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