Tip of the Day - Chocolate Cake Secret Ingredient

Anytime you're making a chocolate cake (either from scratch or pre-made mix), include a tablespoon of distilled white vinegar. You won't be able to taste the vinegar in the finished product, and you'll be amazed at how moist and springy your cake will be.

Strawberry Bread

My favorite part of summer is eating fresh berries with a splash of cream. This bread can be served with vanilla ice cream for dessert, or could be sliced and used in place of plain bread for delicious french toast.

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups sliced fresh strawberries (this is roughly approximate to 1 pint - a lot of times I throw in a few extras)
1 cup granulated white sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 tsp Vietnamese Cassia cinnamon. If using "regular" cinnamon, use a full tsp.
2 eggs
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 stick of melted butter (not too hot! - just barely melted)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease and flour or use non-stick cooking spray inside a standard size loaf pan. Rinse, core and slice the strawberries. A bonus hint for the day - a tomato corer works wonders for coring strawberries. Sprinkle with 1/2 cup of the sugar. In a large mixing bowl, blend together the remaining sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. In a medium bowl, beat the eggs until just foamy, add the vanilla and melted butter. Stir in the strawberries. Combine the two mixtures, blending until the dry ingredients are just moistened through. Scrape the batter into the pan and bake for 60-70 minutes, or until a toothpick of piece of uncooked spaghetti inserted into the center comes out clean. Remove the pan from the oven and cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes before removing the bread from the pan.

The first time I tried this recipe (largely adopted from one we picked up while perusing Penzeys Spices - www.penzeys.com) I wasn't so sure about the cinnamon and strawberry combination, but after we ate the loaf we agreed it was heavenly. I buy my cassia cinnamon from Penzeys, and while it's spicier and more intense than regular cinnamon the taste is incredible.

There are a few things that I think one needs to spend money on to buy quality kitchenware namely... good properly sharpened knives, good cookware, and good spices. Once you've used good quality items in these categories (it took me 25 years before I did for some of them!), you'll never go back to using just any old thing.

After the requisite cooling time, I took the bread from the oven and ate a piece with Garofalo burro di buffala - a pale gold butter made from buffalo milk and Ficoco, a fig and cocoa spread from Croatia.

April's Southern Style Banana Pudding

Banana pudding was a fixture in my mother's family for holiday meals - always prepared by my great grandmother - "Granny". Granny also always made a "cherry salad" (a concoction consisting of cool whip, cherry pie filling, coconut, pecans, sweetened condensed milk, crushed pineapple, mini-marshmallows and maraschino cherries). I can't say that I miss the cherry salad that much, but the banana pudding - I really long for at times. Granny's recipe for banana pudding was actually a recipe for banana cream pie filling - from a 1940s two-volume "Encyclopedia of Cooking." I have those cookbooks now - their pages dogeared and stained. Today I was craving comfort food that reminded me of my childhood.

So I folded and made homemade banana pudding. My recipe, which differs quite a bit from her old stand-by follows. And no, it is not "good" for you - despite the addition of bananas. But it is quite good.

Ingredients

1 cup sugar (cane sugar works best, but plain old granulated white sugar is fine too)
1/2 scant cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
3 cups skim milk (1 cup set aside - I'm sure that 2% or whole would be decadently good - but well, we only use organic skim - so that's what I used in the recipe, and it was plenty rich)
1 can evaporated milk (will be about 1.5 cups - do NOT use sweetened condensed milk - it is NOT the same thing)
1 tsp. (or more - I use a little more) of vanilla. Do not use artificial vanilla extract - buy the real thing. I buy mine from a Latin market - imported from Mexico. It's delicious and I'm sorry but the fake stuff just doesn't compare.
1 tbsp. unsalted butter (NOT margarine)
3 egg yolks (throw the whites out, make an omelet, I don't care - but in my family, banana pudding does NOT have meringue on it)
4-5 ripe bananas
1 box of Vanilla Wafers (use the "real" thing - not a knock off).

Tools you'll need: a deep pan, a glass bowl of some kind to serve it in (you can use a 13x9 casserole dish, or any size pan really - but I like the way it looks in a clear glass bowl), a decent whisk, a glass measuring cup or bowl and measuring spoons.

Directions

Open the evaporated milk and pour it along with 2 cups of the milk into the pan and set the heat on the stovetop to a medium high. You want to slightly scald the milk. Once scalded, turn it down just a bit. Add the butter, chopped into little bits. Reserve the other 1 cup of milk for later. Add the 1 cup of sugar and salt and whisk into the warm milk. While the sugar dissolves into the milk, separate the eggs, and put the yolks into a glass measuring cup. Beat until yellow and lightly frothy - and add the vanilla directly to the egg yolks. If the eggs you use are particularly small, you can use four.

Slowly sprinkle in a little bit of the flour at a time into the warm milk and sugar mixture while constantly whisking until all is incorporated. Continue cooking over medium heat until thickened to the consistency of very thick pudding. Take off of heat, and put about 1 cup of the heated pudding into the egg yolk and vanilla mixture. Quickly mix together, and then pour back into the pudding in the pan (this keeps the eggs from curdling or turning into scrambled eggs). Keep off heat and whisk thoroughly every five minutes or so.

In the meantime, open the box of Vanilla Wafers (go ahead and feel free to steal a few to snack on, but don't get crazy). Layer one full row on the bottom of whatever bowl you will serve the pudding in. Peel bananas and slice thinly. Put another layer over the vanilla wafers.

After the pudding mixture has cooled, whisk in another 1 cup of cool milk to thin it a little (as it cools, it will thicken up surprisingly). Pour 1/3 of the cooled pudding mixture over the bananas in the serving bowl. Repeat layers - ending with vanilla wafers. Cover with saran wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours. Serve with a sprig of mint or a dollop of whipped cream.

It's amazing comfort food - that was present at every church social I can remember. Unfortunately way too many people rely on boxed pudding mix - which is just horrendous. Homemade sounds like a lot of work, but all together it takes about 30 minutes to prepare, plus extra refrigeration time. Apparently the dish doesn't have much of a following outside of Texas and the south - but try it. You'll thank me later. Your hips won't... but your tastebuds will.

Pumpkin Spice Cake

Ingredients

1/2 cup plain applesauce
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups white sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tbsp. maple sugar
1/2 cup chopped roasted pecans (may be omitted)
dried cranberries
cream cheese frosting
1 tbsp. maple syrup

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 10 inch bundt or tube pan. Do not forget this step, or your cake will remain stuck in your pan and you will NOT be able to get it out in one piece.

Cream applesauce, oil, beaten eggs, pumpkin and vanilla together.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking soda, ground nutmeg, ground allspice, ground cinnamon, ground cloves, maple sugar and salt together. Add the flour mixture to the pumpkin mixture and mix until just combined. If desired, stir in some chopped nuts being sure to reserve a few for garnish. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cake cool in pan for 5 minutes (on a wire rack is best) then turn out onto a plate. While still warm (but not hot) mix together some cream cheese frosting (you can use prepared icing) and a tablespoon of maple syrup. The mixture will be thin. Drizzle over cake. Garnish with dried cranberries and roasted pecan pieces.

The cake is very dense, and is only slightly sweet. Nicely accompanied by apple cider.

Banana Split Bread

My first "real" job aside from babysitting was as a drink/ice cream girl at Sonic the summer I turned 14. One of the favorite items on the menu for customers during the sweltering Texas summers was a banana split.

This quick bread is a twist on those flavors strongly reminiscent of many childhood afternoons. It's delicious warm out of the oven, but would be equally good at room temperature. I imagine the tastes would be greatly enhanced with a scoop of homemade vanilla ice cream on the side. If there was a way for me to buy Bluebell ice cream up here - sigh... that would be dangerous.



Ingredients

1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup crema Mexicana or sour cream (you can use a low-fat version if you want)

1/4 cup fat-free milk
1 teaspoon Mexican vanilla. (I always use Mexican vanilla in baking. Trust me, once you've used it, you won't ever use artificial vanilla flavor willingly again)

2/3 cup mashed red bananas (about 3 red bananas. Look for them in the produce section, and pick ones that have reddish/purple skin. They have slightly pink flesh and almost a raspberry laced flavor). You can use the "normal" Cavendish banana, but if you do, you'll only need about 2-3 medium bananas, and the flavor will be a little less intense.

8 maraschino cherries, drained and chopped
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1/2 cup miniature semisweet chocolate pieces
1/2 cup sliced fresh ripe strawberries
Nonstick cooking spray or butter - to grease inside of pan

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly coat the bottom and sides of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.
In a large bowl, stir together all-purpose flour, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Make a well in center of flour mixture; set aside.
In a medium bowl, combine crema, milk, and egg. Stir in mashed banana and vanilla.
Add crema mixture all at once to flour mixture; stir just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Fold in chopped cherries, pecans, strawberries and chocolate chips.
Spoon batter into prepared pan. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Remove bread from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. Makes 16 slices.