STRAWBERRY CAKE

A few weeks ago, I had some extra strawberries that weren't getting eaten. As usual, I didn't want to throw them away. I really wanted to make a Strawberry Cake with them. I had a fairly hard time finding a strawberry cake recipe that didn't utilize a box cake mix. I finally found this recipe on another blog called "Good Things Catered". It turned out really well. Next time I would do a few things differently, though. I really should have used Bakers Joy to spray the pan but instead I just sprayed with Pam and sprinkled on some flour. This cake is very delicate so it fell apart when I tried to take it out of the pan. I suggest a liberal spray of Bakers Joy and let the cake layers cool completely before trying to remove them from the pans. I had to freeze mine and then frost them. I also would suggest a whipped cream topping which I got from another website called "The Joy of Baking". I used a double batch of this whipped cream frosting for my cake. Next time, I'm going to use a layer of strawberry preserves in between the two cake layers. I may also try to make the cake 3 layers. This cake looks so pretty on the other blog with 3 layers. Look at the picture on Confections of a Foodie Bride blog. I wish she had given the recipe for the 3 layer version on that website. Oh well, I'll have to figure it out myself.


I also added some chocolate dipped strawberries on top for decorative purposes. They are so yummy too!


Katie’s Strawberry Cake


3/4 cup strawberry puree, room temperature (recipe follows)

1/4 cup milk, at room temperature

6 large egg whites, room temperature

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

2-1/4 cup cake flour, sifted

1-3/4 cup sugar

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

12 Tbsp unsalted butter (1 1/2 sticks), softened (not melted)


Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare two 8 inch pans: line outside with heavy duty foil (I used Bake Even strips) and spray inside with baking spray with flour.
In small bowl, combine puree, milk, egg, vanilla and mix with fork until well blended. In bowl of stand mixer, add sifted flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and mix to combine. Continue beating at slow speed and add butter. Mix until combined and resembling moist crumbs.
Add liquids and beat at medium speed for about 1 minute or until full and evenly combined. Stop mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl and hand beat for 30 more seconds. Divide the batter evenly among the pans and smooth tops.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (time will vary). Let cakes rest in pan for about 10 minutes and turn out onto wire racks. Let cakes cool completely (about 2 hours).

Source: Good Things Catered

Yields: 2 8-inch layers

Strawberry Puree

24oz frozen organic strawberries, thawed*

Thaw frozen strawberries in whatever form (sliced, whole, etc) and in whatever container/bag you have them in. Pour into a fine strainer placed over a bowl and let sit. Lightly toss the strawberries occasionally to remove any pockets of excess liquid. Reserve the liquid for another use or discard. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.

* You most certainly can use non-organic and you can use fresh strawberries if you don’t have a stash of frozen strawberries in your freezer. Just hull, slice and toss with a teaspoon or two of sugar and cover. Let them sit at room temperature for a couple of hours, or until nice and juicy. Place strawberries in a food processor or blender and puree.

Use leftover puree to fill the cake or fold into the frosting, if desired. It’s also fabulous spooned over ice cream… and eaten straight with a spoon. I used this puree in the cake and in the whipped cream frosting. It is good!

Yields: Approx 1 1/4 cup strawberry puree

http://www.joyofbaking.com/WhippedCreamFrosting.html

Enjoy!

The Creative Cook

Blue & Gold Cake Auction - Crazy Cakes

As promised, here are the rest of the cakes from the cake auction yesterday at the Blue & Gold dinner. Some people went all out! There were 2 camping cakes, a scouting cake, a train cake, another Blue & Gold cake and a shall we say a "potty" cake. I could not have bought the potty cake because there was no way I could ever eat that thing. What was inside the toilet looked all to real for me. The bakers told us that they used 4 cake mixes to make it. It was a real project. I dare anyone to eat that cake without upchucking. Could you do it? Well, maybe I could have eaten the plunger -- it was made out of pure chocolate!

The Creative Cook

Amish Sourdough Cinnamon Friendship Bread

To be perfectly honest, I wasn't out looking for a starter for Amish bread but when one of my guests at our get-together brought a batch and gave me the starter I was pretty excited. I had gotten two batches within the last year or so that I had to throw out because I didn't do what I was supposed to do with them and I was too busy to bake the bread. This time, I was determined to make it all the way through the 10 day process and bake the bread. I was successful! I did take a picture of a piece of my bread but I didn't have my flash on so the picture is very blue. Sorry.

In the meantime, I found out quite a bit about this stuff. Here is what I found out: (1) Not just the Amish can make the starter. There are several recipes on the Internet for starter. (2) You can freeze the starter. (3) You can freeze the bread once you bake it. One of the recipients of my starter told me she bakes them all throughout the fall and winter and then freezes them. (4) There are several variations of Amish bread including pistachio, chocolate and chocolate chip! (5) You can make the bread without adding the additional sugar. (6) You can bake it in a metal pan. The bread my guest brought to our party was baked in a metal pan and it was fantastic. (7) some people like getting Friendship Bread starters more than others. I felt weird passing out gallon size bags of this yellowish goo to my friends. I really didn't want to insult them or lose them as friends. But they should know that they don't really have to bake the bread. I promise I won't ask and you don't have to tell. You can do what I did several times and just toss the bag out if you don't want to bake it. Some people describe Friendship Bread as a form of baking "chain letter." I disagree because there is no bad luck associated with breaking the chain. Perhaps it's a racket started by the plastic bag manufacturers or the instant pudding companies but it is good cake. So, keep an open mind when someone hands you a bag of this stuff.

Amish Sourdough Cinnamon Friendship Bread*

· Don’t use any type of metal spoon, bowl or pan (glass, plastic or wood only)
· Do not refrigerate
· If air gets in the bag, let it out.
· It is normal for the batter to rise, bubble and ferment.
· You can go over by a day or two to feed the starter but you can’t bake it early!

Day 1: You received fermented batter in a one-gallon bag. Do nothing. Place bag on kitchen counter.
Day 2: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 3: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 4: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 5: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 6: Add 1 cup flour, 1 cup sugar, and 1 cup milk. Squeeze several times.
Day 7: Mush bag several times. You can open the bag to release air bubbles.
Day 8: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 9: Mush bag several times during the day.
Day 10: In a large non-metallic bowl, combine batter with 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 1/2 cups sugar, and 2 cups milk. Mix with a wooden spoon. Pour four 1-cup starters into four 1-gallon Ziploc bags. Give to family and friends with a copy of these instructions.

To the remaining batter in the bowl, add:

1 cup oil (or ½ cup oil and ½ cup applesauce)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour

3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 cup milk
1 large box instant vanilla pudding

Grease the bottom and sides of pans. In a separate bowl, mix 1-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and ½ cup sugar in a small bowl. Sprinkle half this mixture into two well-greased loaf pans before pouring in batter. Sprinkle remaining half on top. Bake at 325 degrees for an hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Makes two loaves or one 10 x 15 inch glass pan baked at 325 degrees for 45 minutes. Cool until bread loosens from pan and then remove.

*Bread, hah! What a scam. This is a yummy cake.

Cupcake Cake - 3 Dimensional Cake

DSCN0852

I decided to bake a cake for last Saturday's Spring Fair. They have a cakewalk every year and I wanted to bake something different but not too difficult. I bought a Wilton 3D Dimensions Cupcake Cake Pan. It helped me to creat an unusual cake. I will say that it wasn't quite as easy as I thought it would be. Let me first say that I am not trained in any way as a cake decorator. I also think that the end result (see photo) looks a bit more like a mushroom than a cupcake. Oh well. It probably would look better if I had used a stiffer type of frosting. I liked the look with the large sprinkles on it. I think next time I would make sure that I had some chocolate frosting to cover the white frosting that got all over the bottom of the cupcake. I didn't check to see but I'm sure someone took this cake home from the cake walk. I hope they enjoyed it. The cake batter needs to be able to hold up to decorations so I used the recipe recommended by Wilton on their website. Most the other cakes looked store-bought. At least I tried to make something different. I did my best.

Double Chocolate Pound Cake

Tools:
• Dimensions® Large Cupcake Pan
• Cooling Grid

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons instant coffee
• 1/2 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) butter, softened
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 4 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 cup mini semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease and flour or use pan spray with flour to prepare pan. In small bowl, dissolve instant coffee in water; stir in cocoa powder and mix well. Set aside to cool.

Stir together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt; set aside. In large bowl, beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla; mix well. Combine cocoa mixture and sour cream. Add flour mixture alternately with sour cream mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture, beating after each addition until smooth. Fold in chocolate chips. Spoon 4 1/2 cups batter into top of cupcake pan; spoon remaining batter into bottom of pan.

Bake 60-70 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean. Cool cake in pan on wire rack 15 minutes. Turn cake onto wire rack to cool completely. To assemble cupcake ice top of cake's bottom half. Place top half of cake atop iced bottom half. Decorate as desired.
Serves 10-12.

Decorate as you wish but remember what I said about the frosting. I used a cake round that I bought at Walmart and I covered it with foil. I also liked a large box with foil to carry it to the Fair. It worked fine.

The Creative Cook

Mother's Day Marble Cake

A few weeks ago, D and I were at a Borders Book Store at our local mall. He was buying one of his many "favorite" books. He is definitely like me in that he is a big reader and has to own all his books. The library just doesn't "do it" for him. He used to get really annoyed with me when he was younger and I took him to the library because he hated to have to return the books. As we were heading towards the checkout, I spied a book called The Seven Sins of Chocolate by Laurent Schott. It caught my eye right away because D is also a chocolate lover like me. I showed it to him and he said, "let's get it mom." Well, I have yet to make any recipes from that cookbook. It turns out that more than half of the recipes contain some type of liquor or other. The recipe for this Marble Cake contained Grand Marnier. D is definitely NOT a fan of alcohol in baked goods. I decided to try this recipe anyway and leave out the inappropriate ingredients. The results were amazing. It is such a simple cake. The only thing that could possibly have made the difference is that I heeded Laurent Schott's advice and took the eggs and butter out of the refrigerator a few hours before I baked the cake. The other thing that may have made a difference is that I used the recommended Dutch Processed cocoa. I nearly always ignore that type of recommendation and just use what I have in my pantry. Fortunately, I didn't ignore it this time. This cake is absolutely luscious. I made a first cake from the original recipe sans the Grand Marnier and orange peel. It was meant for a 6 cup bundt pan but I have a regular size 12 cup fluted bundt pan. Needless to say, the cake was tiny. But it was so good that I decided to double it and make the full sized cake to serve on Mother's Day, too.

Here is the recipe. Do try it. I didn't see the need for any type of frosting or glaze. It is good enough without any. I guess you could sift some confectioner's sugar over it, if you wanted.



MARBLE CAKE
Adapted from The Seven Sins of Chocolate by Laurent Schott

Remember to take all the ingredients out of the refrigerator a few hours before making this cake – that way the batter will be perfectly smooth

Serves 12-14

3 cups all-purpose flour

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
6 eggs, at room temperature
2 teaspoons baking powder
6 tablespoons Dutch-processed cocoa powder

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Butter and flour a fluted-tube pan

Mix the flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and baking powder into a heavy-duty electric mixer on medium speed until very smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide the batter in half, add the cocoa to one half, and mix well.

Drop alternate, irregular portions of the two cake mixtures into the pan to create a marbled effect. (I also used a butter knife to run through the batter to marble it.)

Bake for 45-50 minutes. Check that the cake is done by inserting a wooden toothpick into the center. When it comes out dry, remove the cake from the oven. Turn out onto wire rack to cool.

UPDATE: Comments from some of my guests were that this cake was "dry." That is a typical comment on cakes that have been made from scratch. People are used to eating box cake mixes. This definitely is NOT a box mix. I would suggest that you serve this cake warm from the oven or pop the pieces into the microwave for a few seconds. This will bring out the flavors and hopefully you won't get the "dry" comments.

The Creative Cook

Happy Mother's Day!

SPONGE CAKE WITH MOCHA BUTTER CREAM FROSTING & ALMONDS

I am having the family over for Mother's Day. My sister and I decided weeks ago that everyone would come over to my house for pizza and cake. It may sound strange but it was an idea to keep me from having to cook on Mother's Day. I thought it would work out fine. We'll see.

Since I love to bake, I decided to make a replica of one of my family's favorite cakes from way back when we lived in Brooklyn. It was a Mocha Cake with Almonds. It came from a famous bakery called Ebinger's. The Ebinger's Bakery is long gone but our memories linger on. With my sister's help, I created this cake that I hope is somewhat close to the one we used to get from Ebinger's. My sister C told me that the layer cake part was a sponge cake. My brother A disagrees and says it is was a regular yellow cake. I guess we'll find out tomorrow when we cut into it. I know the frosting and the almonds are right. It can't be too bad, can it? The sponge cake itself was pretty easy. Most of the sponge cake recipes I read would make a very large sponge cake for a jelly roll pan. I finally found one that made two 9-inch layer cakes. This recipe differs from a traditional sponge cake because it does contain a small amount of butter. Most sponge cakes simply consist of eggs, milk, flour, baking powder, sugar and vanilla. The most important thing to remember when making this cake is to add the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture very quickly so you don't lose the texture. Apparently, if you don't add the flour quickly your cake will taste more like a kitchen sponge than a sponge cake! I tried my best to do it right. It sure looks pretty to me. I can't wait to taste it tomorrow!

Sponge Cake
from Cooks.com

4 eggs
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/4 cup butter
1 cup boiling milk
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder

Beat eggs until very light. Beat in sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat in butter and boiling milk. Sift together flour and baking powder and beat in very quickly. Immediately pour into a prepared pans. I used parchment paper at the bottom of my pans because I read that no butter should be used on sponge cake pans. Makes two 9-inch layers or one 13 x 9 inch oblong. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes or until cake tests done.

Mocha Butter Cream Frosting
from recipezaar.com

1 cup of unsalted butter at room temperature
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon milk
6 ounces semisweet chocolate (I used chocolate chips)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1-1/4 cup confectioner's sugar, sifted
3 teaspoons instant espresso powder

Melt semisweet chocolate in a double boiler over simmering water or in a microwave in 30 second increments and set aside. The temperature of the melted chocolate should be lukewarm before adding it to the butter (around 10 minutes).

Cream butter on medium speed until smooth. Dissolve the espresso powder to the instant coffee in the 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of milk. Add the melted chocolate and coffee-milk to the butter and mix well. Add sugar gradually and beat until creamy and smooth. Apply to cooled layer cake. After frosting the cake, add the sliced almonds to the sides of the cake.

UPDATE: My sister's comments were that the Ebinger's cake had 3 or 4 layers, not 2. She also said that the frosting was a little thicker than it should have been. I will try this again and cut the two 9 inch layer cakes in half and then figure out a way to make the frosting lighter - maybe add a bit less chocolate and a teaspoon less of the espresso coffee. It was tasty, though. Just not the same as Ebinger's. I appreciate her honest evaluation. Thanks!

The Creative Cook

Pastel de Tres Leches

Pastel de Tres Leches

No, I am not Mexican but last week my husband asked me if I could make something (or help him make something) for the Cinco de Mayo celebration at his office. A lightbulb immediately went off in my head. I remembered that my niece M had sent me a delicious looking Cuban cake recipe that she had gotten from a friend of hers. M is half Italian and half Cuban. She enjoys the cuisine of both cultures. I did some reading about Pastel de Tres Leches and found out that it may have originally been made in Mexico. It is traditionally made for Cinco de Mayo celebrations. I'm glad M shared this recipe with me. If you want some more background information on Tres Leches Cake, click here.

Pastel de Tres Leches

Cake:

4 whole eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder

Milk Mixture:

1 can condensed milk
1 can evaporated milk
1 can half & half or whole milk (use the empty condensed milk)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 Tbsp light rum (optional)

Whipped Cream Topping:

1-½ cups whipping cream
1 cup confectioner’s sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla

Strawberries (approximately 12)


Preheat the oven to 350°

Butter the sides and bottom of a 9 x 13 inch aluminum container.

Add the baking powder to the flour and mix it in a little with a spoon/fork.

Beat 4 whole eggs at medium speed. (For high altitude, use jumbo size eggs.)
Slowly add the 1 cup of sugar (as if you’re making merangue).

Once you’ve added all the sugar to the eggs, add the flour and baking powder and mix.

Add the batter to the prepared pan and bake. Set the timer for 25 minutes but watch it. It’s ready when the top gets light brown. Do the toothpick test. It’s a little like a soufflé so be careful setting it down, it might collapse in the middle. (If the cake deflates, don’t worry, it’ll all be covered up with the whipped cream topping.)

Once it’s cool, make little holes all over the cake with a toothpick or a knife.

In a blender, put the 3 milks, the vanilla and the rum. Blend well.

Pour the milk mixture over the cake slowly. Not all at once. Pour a little, let it soak in and then some more. Place cake in the refrigerator for 4 hours or overnight.

Whipped Cream Topping: When ready to serve, combine the whipping cream and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar, whipping until thick. Spread over top of cake. Place the strawberries on top of the cake in rows.
Because of the milk in the cake, it is very important that you keep the cake refrigerated until serving.

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

The Creative Cook

Buttermilk Brownie Cake

I promised you this recipe on Monday but I didn't get a chance to post it yesterday. Sorry! It went over very well at my house. Even D who is even picky about desserts, loved it. The recipe comes from Connie Mrachek who said it was her grandmother's recipe. I read about it in the American Profile magazine.

Buttermilk Brownie Cake

Cake:

2 cups granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup reduced-fat buttermilk
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


Frosting:

1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup reduced-fat buttermilk
1 (1-pound) box confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a 15-by-10-inch baking pan.
2. To prepare brownies, combine granulated sugar, flour and cocoa; mix well.
3. Combine 1 cup water with oil and butter in a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil; add to flour mixture and mix well. Add buttermilk, baking soda, eggs and vanilla. Beat well by hand and pour into pans. Bake 20 to 25 minutes, until a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Cool completely on a wire rack.
4. To prepare frosting, combine butter, cocoa and buttermilk in a saucepan; bring to a boil. Remove from heat. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar and vanilla with a mixer at low speed. Spread evenly over cooled brownies. Serves 48.

Enjoy!

The Creative Cook

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Yesterday was B and my 17th wedding anniversary. I can hardly believe we have been married that long. It really seems like only yesterday that we walked down the aisle together. B gave me (very unexpectedly) a beautiful bouquet of a dozen red roses last week. We don't usually do much to celebrate our anniversary but with D around he likes to celebrate. On Sunday morning, D made a special effort to bring me breakfast (not in bed but at the kitchen table) and he sat and ate with me. I mean he actually sat at the table and ate with me and didn't run off before I was done. It was a really nice treat. On Sunday afternoon, we had my parents, my sister and her husband and my nephew S and his wife over for cake. I had decided to bake Sara Moulton's Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake because my sister gave me a box of blueberries she had in her fridge for a while. She was going away to her high school reunion for the weekend and figured they would go bad if someone didn't use them. I rose to the challenge and did some baking. Fortunately, she was home in time to celebrate with us on Sunday afternoon. The cake came out great as usual. This is one of the recipes I have made several times. I saw Sara Moulton make it on the Food Network probably eight or nine years ago. I am not sure if she still has a show on Food Network. No matter. This recipe is wonderful. You will definitely enjoy it. She suggests using fresh blueberries rather than frozen. I used only 2 cups of blueberries rather than 3 because that was all I had. It really tastes better with the full 3 cups of blueberries in it. It was still very good, though. My nephew S can testify to that. He ate 2 pieces at my house and took some home. Thanks S! I also made Chocolate Buttermilk Cake which I will share with you tomorrow.

Blueberry Cream Cheese Coffee Cake

Filling

12 ounces Cream cheese; softened
1/3 cup Sugar
1 Egg
1 tablespoon Fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Streusel

1 stick unsalted butter; softened
1 cup Sugar
2/3 cup Flour
1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

Batter

1 stick unsalted butter; softened
1-1/4 cups sugar
2 Eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
4 cups Flour
1 tablespoon baking powder; plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon Salt
1 cup Milk
3 cups picked-over blueberries

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and butter a 13- by 9-inch glass baking dish. Do not use a metal baking dish.

Make filling: With an electric mixer, beat together cream cheese and sugar. Add egg, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat until smooth.

Make streusel: In a small bowl blend together streusel ingredients until crumbly.

Make batter: In another bowl with an electric mixer beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, and vanilla and beat on high speed until light and fluffy. In another bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt and in batches slowly beat into butter mixture alternately with milk. Fold in blueberries gently but thoroughly.

To assemble cake: Spread 2 1/2 cups batter in bottom of baking dish and spread filling evenly on top. Drop spoonfuls of remaining batter on filling and spread evenly (be careful not to mix layers). Sprinkle streusel evenly over batter.

Bake coffeecake in middle of oven 1 hour and 5 minutes, or until golden and a tester comes out clean.

Cool coffeecake completely in baking dish on a rack.


By: Sara Moulton, Gourmet Magazine 1989

Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake

As my fellow blogger, Cathy of My Little Kitchen reported a few weeks ago, the Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake was nominated to the Maryland General Assembly in a bill to be named as the official Maryland State Dessert. I just read in the Carroll County Times yesterday that the bill was successful! I am happy to provide you with a recipe for the newly appointed Maryland State dessert. As mentioned in the Carroll County Times, the cake's presentation seems to be more important than the recipe itself. Some of the recent write-ups on this dessert indicate that you could use a box cake mix in place of the recipe and then make the frosting and prepare it in its signature 10 layers. I would think that making the 10-layer cake from scratch would definitely take more time but that it would be a good investment because your cake would be an authentic Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake. No one seems to know when the first Smith Island 10-Layer Cake first came out of the oven but it has been around for at least 4 generations. Apparently, on Smith Island this cake is so common that it is just referred to as a "layer cake." Here is the recipe I found for the Smith Island Ten-Layer Cake.

Smith Island 10-Layer Cake

For the cake:

2 cups sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter, cut into chunks
5 eggs
3 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Heaping teaspoon baking powder
1 cup evaporated milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup water

Cream together sugar and butter. Add eggs one at a time and beat until smooth. Sift together flour, salt and baking powder. Mix into egg mixture one cup at a time.

With mixer running, slowly pour in the evaporated milk, then vanilla and water. Mix just until uniform.

Put 3 serving spoons full of batter in each of 10 lightly greased 9-inch pans, using the back of the spoon to spread evenly. Bake 3 layers at a time on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 8 minutes. A layer is done when you hold it near your ear and you don't hear it sizzle.

Start making the icing when the first layer goes into the oven.

Let the layers cool a couple of minutes in the pans. Put the cake together as the layers are finished. Run a spatula around the edge of the pan and ease the layer out of the pan. Don't worry if it tears; no one will notice when the cake is finished. Use two or three serving spoonfuls of icing between the layers. Cover the top and sides of the cake with the rest of the icing. Push icing that runs onto the plate back into the cake.

To Frost the Cake:

Take 1 slightly cooled layer and spread with cooled frosting. Add crushed candy randomly on layer. (Whatever your favorite is -- candy is optional as well.)

Add next layers, frosting, candy and repeat process until the 10th layer. Do not add candy to the final layer.

Finish frosting the cake and sides. You may have to wait to ice the top and sides until the icing cools.


Chocolate Icing for 10-Layer Cake

2 cups sugar
1 cup evaporated milk
5 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 to 1 teaspoon vanilla

Put sugar and evaporated milk in a medium pan. Cook and stir over medium heat until warm. Add chocolate and cook to melt. Add butter and melt. Cook over medium heat at a slow boil for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir occasionally. Add vanilla. Icing will be thin but thickens as it cools.

If you haven't seen a picture of this cake, you need to click on the link I put on the title of the recipe. It is one enormous cake. The State of Maryland may be small but we have one gigantic state dessert. What does that say about Maryland, I wonder?

If you ask me, this cake sounds like quite a bit of work. It seems to me that you would be eating mostly icing but for the chocoholic in me, that's o.k. If you want to see an authentic Smith Island lady named Mary Ada who bakes these cakes all the time, click here to watch a video of her that was on WJZ news last month. It is interesting that she can bake this cake and have everything cleaned up, washed and put away within 20 minutes! I find that amazing. I probably couldn't even have the batter ready for baking in 20 minutes.

The Creative Cook

Chocolate Chip Cake

Recently, I have been thinking about chocolate chips. You already have my favorite oatmeal chocolate cookie recipe but I have another favorite chocolate chip recipe. This one is for chocolate chip cake. It is really yummy. Just sitting here thinking about it, I can smell it baking in my oven. The recipe is from another unusual source. It comes from my favorite Lang calendar. My sister would buy that calendar for me every year. Then one year it just disappeared. Lang stopped publishing it. It was called the American Kitchen Calendar. I have several recipes from it in my favorite recipe drawer. This one is from the 2003 American Kitchen Calendar. Enjoy!

CHOCOLATE CHIP CAKE

1 box Duncan Hines Yellow Cake Mix
4 eggs
½ cup water
½ cup Wesson oil
4 oz pkg German Chocolate, grated
8 oz sour cream
6 oz pkg. chocolate chips, miniature
1 box Jello Instant Vanilla pudding

Mix above together well. Pour into greased bundt or tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. Cool and remove from pan. Frost if desired or sprinkle with powdered sugar.


The Creative Cook