Sandy’s chocolate cake

baking, dessert 9 Comments

You know how it goes: you remember a food as being life-alteringly good.  You build it up and build it up in your mind till you just can’t stand it anymore. You hunt and track down the recipe and make it… only to find that it’s just not as great as you remember.

That was not the experience I had with this cake. Not even close!

Ten years ago (!!!) my dear friend Sandy made this cake for me and I have remembered it ever since then as kind of being the be-all, end-all of chocolate cakes. It was moist and chocolately and amazing and delicious and worth every single calorie in it (are we still counting those?). I finally got the recipe from her and made my own this week. It is everything I remembered and more.

The Kiddo’s babysitter left for college recently (the nerve!) and we wanted to send her something sweet from home, so I made mini loaf cakes rather than the original Bundt form in the name of easier mailing. I’m happy to report it worked just fine.

You will need (you will die at how easy this is):

  • One box yellow cake mix — not the kind with pudding in the mix
  • One box instant chocolate pudding (3 3/4 oz)
  • One box instant vanilla pudding (3 3/4 oz)
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 4 eggs
  • 1 1/2 cups water
  • 1 cup chocolate chips

Do you see what I’m saying? Something that tastes this good should surely involve more effort.

Sandy’s directions:

  1. Grease and flour a 10 inch tube or Bundt pan; in my case I used three mini loaf pans (8x3x2)
  2. Combine cake mix, pudding mixes, oil, eggs, and water and beat 2-4 minutes at medium speed till everything looks smooth
  3. Stir in chocolate chips
  4. Bake in prepared pan(s) for 50-60 minutes at 325 degrees (the mini loaf pans took about 45 minutes) till a toothpick in the middle comes out clean.

The beauty of this cake is that it keeps getting better — it’s even more incredible the second day and so on, so it’s perfect for mailing.

Go make this now. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. Make the cake. You will not be sorry.

Omelettes a la Julia

breakfast 4 Comments

“How about dinner in half a minute?”

Okay, you have my attention. The truth is that I tried for years to learn to make omelettes and they were always, without fail, consistently awful. Rubbery and browned and thick and generally unappetizing. I don’t remember how who “taught” me to make them, but it involved flipping them like a pancake and the results were horrid.

One look at this video of Julia Child making omelettes and I’m converted. Did you know these could be so easy? I certainly did not! But it turns out they are. And in the time it takes The Kiddo to say “I don’t wike it” I’ve got my new standard breakfast almost ready to go. It’s insanely easy to throw in some chopped up whatever-was-for-supper-last-night and a little cheese and I’ve got a meal. This one has chopped colby jack cheese and some leftover turkey from Martin’s, one of middle Tennessee’s greatest treasures: a BBQ joint which you really, really must try at some point in your life. Anyway, the protein in this omelette keeps me going all morning, and the fresh eggs are amazingly nutritious, tasty and pretty. By the way, as long as you’ve made the trip down to Martin’s, you can’t leave without stopping at the Nolensville Feed Mill too. Julia child said she was very careful about where she buys eggs, and so am I —  the Feed Mill is the only place I’ll buy eggs. Don’t you love their gorgeous yellow color?

Your turn! What would you put in an omelette?

Oven fries

kids, sides 8 Comments

McWho? These are great! Can you believe they’re not fried?

Here’s how to satisfy your french fry craving without gobbling trans fats:

All-oven method:

  1. Slice a potato (or two — that above is actually just a half a potato) and let the slices soak in hot tap water for at least 20 minutes — just like the oven roasted potatoes
  2. Lay them out on paper towels to dry and preheat your oven to 400F with the cookie sheet in the oven
  3. When the oven is preheated, scatter the fries on the hot cookie sheet, spritz with a little nonstick spray and sprinkle with salt (or you can toss with oil and salt before they go in the oven)
  4. Bake until crispy and cooked through, about 30 minutes. Preheating the cookie sheet means that it starts crisping the underside of your fries immediately, and meant that I didn’t need to turn them halfway through cooking. Bonus! Try it and see if you like the results

Par-boiling method:

  1. Slice a potato or two and let the slices soak in hot tap water for at least 20 minutes — just like the oven roasted potatoes
  2. Now boil the slices until just starting to soften — it took mine about five minutes
  3. Spread on paper towels to dry while your oven is preheating to 400F with the cookie sheet in the oven
  4. When the oven is preheated, scatter the fries on the hot cookie sheet, spritz with a little nonstick spray and sprinkle with salt (or you can toss with oil and salt before they go in the oven)
  5. Bake until crispy, about 15-20 minutes

The bonus of the par-boiling method for me is that I can boil up a bunch of fries and freeze them (flash freeze in a single layer, then move to a zip top bag so they don’t become a giant clump of frozen potatoes). When The Kiddo wants fries with lunch I can pull some out to thaw while the oven preheats, then toss with olive oil and bake. He thinks he’s getting away with eating french fries; I’m getting potatoes and healthy olive oil in his tummy. It’s a win-win!

Take a look at the Rookie Chef’s version too — I love that there are so many different variations on these!

Ice cream cone cupcakes

dessert, kids 12 Comments

It’s another episode of cooking with kids!

With The Yankee out of town, I planned a weekend of all kids, all the time. These were made with help from The Kiddo, five year old twins and a nine year old. Woohoo! With all that “help” speed was off the essence. For this project we used:

  • A box of cake mix (the kids love Funfetti)
  • Frosting (again, Funfetti for us)
  • A box of two dozen ice cream cones (with flat bottoms so they’ll stand up on a cookie sheet)

To bake them, we put a 1/4 cup of batter (it won’t look like enough, but it is) into each ice cream cone and baked them on a cookie sheet at 350 till the tops sprung back when touched (by me! No kids in the oven!) — about 25 minutes. I set them on a rack to cool while we watched a movie. Enchanted, if you must know.

After they were cooled we busted out the frosting. Did I mention speed was of the essence? Here’s how we did it:

  1. Holding the ice cream cone cupcake upside down, dunk it down into the frosting — right up to the edge of the ice cream cone
  2. Pull the cone back out of the frosting while twisting with your wrist
  3. Voila! You have a cute little twist on the top of your cupcake. Decorate with sprinkles and eat for breakfast save for a more appropriate time of day

Now then. Do these turn out the most amazingly professional looking cupcakes you’ve ever seen? Heck no. But it does let the kids get involved, and gets the cupcakes finished before you’ve they’ve eaten all the frosting with a spoon. Isn’t that a large part of the goal here? 😉 And these are great for parties! The ice cream cones keep the kids from getting their fingers messy, and there are no pans to grease, and no papers to dispose of.

Enjoy!

Happy birthday, Julia Child!

uncategorized 3 Comments

From this article, in response to the question, Do you think people have become afraid of food?

“Definitely. They’re afraid of it nutritionally. They’re afraid of fat. And they’re afraid of germs. Some people are just afraid to eat. They’ve lost the joy. Not me! I eat eggs all the time, but I’m very careful where I buy them….

“I think there’s misinformation about nutrition. At the American Institute of Wine & Food” — a California nonprofit foundation dedicated to the advancement of gastronomy, which Child helped found in 1981 — “we say: ‘Moderation. Small helpings. No snacking. No seconds. A little bit of everything, because you never know what you may be missing. And have a good time!’

Who could say it better? Enjoy something fabulous today!