All Cakes Considered - Melissa Gray [30]
It may have something to do with baker’s preference. This recipe will give you a moist, dense cake if you follow the directions as written. I suspect since the baking powder is added later, it has less time to react to the liquid and there is also less beating here (less beating = less air in batter). When I tried the recipe with the standard mixing procedure, I got a lighter, fluffier, and much taller cake, which rose about an inch above the cake pan. A different texture, but the same taste. I prefer it denser, so I go with the original mixing instructions.
If you collect recipes, you’re going to come across a lot that don’t conform to that standard mixing technique. Always follow directions as intended, then experiment with your technique when you’ve muscled up your skills.
Mary Carole Battle’s Mother’s Wacky Cake with Seven-Mlinute Frosting Chocolate Cake With Less Fuss
NEW TECHNIQUE ALERT!
SEPARATING EGGS
Speaking of totally different mixing techniques (see the facing page), All Things Considered did a series one year, asking listeners about what foods meant summer to them. Mary Carole Battle of St. Petersburg, Florida, wrote in, saying it wasn’t summer unless a wacky cake was involved. She told us about celebrating her birthday when she was a kid. It’s on August 17, and she would celebrate with a friend who also had a birthday around that time. The friend’s mother would put a fancy, store-bought cake in front of her daughter, and Mary Carole’s mother would put a wacky cake in front of Mary Carole.
Michele Norris interviewed Mary Carole to find out how to make the cake, which involves no butter, no eggs, and no milk. In fact, the Seven-Minute Frosting takes more time to make than the cake!
After the story aired, we were bombarded by more listener e-mail. People wrote in about their wacky cakes, which were called crazy cakes, Joe cakes, and WW II cakes. We were told that this cake, with its dearth of dairy products, was a desperate homemaker’s answer to wartime shortages. Regardless of its real name and origin, it’s a fun and easy cake to do, especially with a competent seven-year-old. And it tastes pretty good!
This cake will serve about 8 to 10, depending on how you slice it.
* * *
YOU’LL NEED
A 9-inch square or round baking pan
1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup unsweetened cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon white vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup cold water
Seven-Minute Frosting (recipe follows)
1. Center a rack and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray the sides and bottom of the pan with baking spray.
2. In a large mixing bowl, dry whisk the flour, sugar, salt, cocoa, and baking soda together.
3. Make 3 holes, or “wells”, in the dry ingredients. Pour the vanilla extract into one well, the vinegar into a second one, and the oil into the third.
4. Pour the cold water over the mixture, and stir until no longer lumpy. Feel free to use a hand mixer or a pair of Popeye arms (you have been eating your spinach, haven’t you?), which you will need soon for the frosting.
5. Pour the batter into the pan and bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick or thin knife inserted in the center comes out clean.
6. Cool the cake in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove the cake from the pan using our plate-over-pan method and flip it onto a cake rack (see page 28). Continue cooling the cake and frost it. Or simply frost the top of the cake and serve in the pan for even less fuss.
Seven-Minute Frosting
This makes enough frosting to heavily ice a 9-inch cake, or the top of a cake baked in a 10-inch tube pan.
* * *
YOU’LL NEED
A double boiler, real or improvised (see step 2)
A hand-held electric mixer OR somebody with Popeye arms
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
¼ teaspoon cream of tartar
⅓ cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1. Separate the eggs.
2. Mix the egg whites, sugar, cream of tartar, and cold water in the top part of a double boiler, OR in the