March » 2011 » An Hour In the Kitchen

The importance of splurging: part two and how to make a cake with your bare hands

This is the second time my husband has requested a strawberry cake. I think it is the long winter that gives him a craving for a summer taste. For his cake, I followed a recipe in a book that my brother and sister-in-law gave me called the Mystery Chef’s Own Cook Book, ©1934.

The author, John MacPherson, had one very good reason for wanting to remain a mystery — his mother. Apparently, she was “horrified” that her son had taken up the hobby of cooking. In fact, she recommended that he “keep it under his hat.” I guess cooking didn’t seem like the thing a man should be doing in the ’30s.

I like two things about this recipe. One, the ingredients were few and simple. Two, he recommends that all the stirring be done with your hands. Not by hand, as in with a wooden spoon, but with your hands. Whether this was a lack of an electric mixer, which were pricey in the 1930s, or his predilection for making a big mess, I couldn’t tell you, but I was intrigued by the idea. I’m no stranger to pushing my sleeves up past my elbows and digging in, so I gave it a try,

Squishing the butter and sugar together was kind of fun. When I added the eggs and milk, it got very sloppy. If you ever decide to go this route, I recommend a few things. First measure all of your ingredients and have them in containers that you can easily pick up with slimy hands. Or have an assistant to dump all the ingredients as you need them. Better yet, find a kid and have them do all of the mixing while you add the ingredients. I think that would be a win-win solution.

I now know that if I find myself with a hot oven, flour, butter, baking soda, eggs, milk, sugar and a bowl, but nary a spoon in site, I can still confidently make a cake. Step aside, I would tell my hapless cohorts; I’ve done this before.

Strawberry Cake

Modified from the Mystery Chef’s Master Butter Cake recipe. If you are too much of a wimp to mix this with your hands, then by all means get the electric mixer out.

Ingredients
6 tablespoons butter
1 cup granulated sugar
3 eggs yolks
1 1/2 cups of sifted flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup of milk
1/2 cup of sliced strawberries (fresh or frozen)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 egg whites
1/2 cup strawberry jam

Method

Heat oven to 375.
Butter and flour two 9-inch round cake pans
Measure all ingredients and have them ready to use.
Sift all dry ingredients together and set aside.
Beat the egg yolks until they are thick and lemon in color.
Place the butter and sugar into a large bowl and squeeze the butter with your hands until it is well mixed with the sugar.
Add the egg yolks and continue to mix with your hands.
Slowly add the flour mix and continue to mix with your hands.
Add milk, strawberries and extract and mix some more. It will be a bit runny and you’ll start to question the whole mixing with your hands technique.
If you don’t have an assistant, you will have to stop and wash your hands at this point to whip the egg whites. They can’t be whipped before hand. Whip them until they form soft peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter. I found this the hardest part and probably over mixed, which resulted in a cake that didn’t rise as much as I would have liked.
Divide the batter into the two prepared cake pans. Place pans on the middle rack and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely before frosting.
Spread strawberry jam on one cake layer. Place the other layer on top and frost with strawberry cream-cheese frosting.

Strawberry Cream-Cheese Frosting

I tried mixing this with my hands, but quickly gave up and grabbed my immersion blender.

Ingredients

1 cup chopped strawberries (fresh or frozen)
3 tablespoons butter, softened
8 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons almond extract

Method
Using a hand mixer or immersion blender, blend all ingredients until smooth. If your frosting is runny, either chill until it sets a little or slowly pour it over the cake and allow it to drip down the sides (that is what I did).

The importance of splurging: part one

In my last entry, I wrote about the evils of sugar, but this week I’m turning a blind eye and splurging! My husband’s birthday and mine are eight days apart. They are close enough that, if we celebrated in the middle of the week, we could share a cake. But then where is the fun in that? We each wanted our own, which meant two cakes in eight days.

I love baking cakes. While my husband has made many delicious cakes for me, this year I wanted to bake my own. I find it very indulgent and an excellent way to celebrate yourself, something everyone should do.

My cake needed to fit the following criteria — no white flour, no white refined sugar and no canola oil (or other polyunsaturated vegetable oils).

My husband’s pleas, I mean, requests, were white flour, white sugar and strawberries.

For my cake, I did a healthy take on a recipe my mom always uses for chocolate cake. You can find it right on the box of Hershey’s cocoa mix and it is easy and delicious, though my version uses honey, olive oil and white-wheat flour.

A healthy version of Hershey’s “Perfectly Chocolate” Chocolate Cake

Ingredients
1 3/4 cups white-wheat flour (or half white-wheat and half white)
3/4 cup cocoa
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups of honey
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
3/4 cup boiling water

Method

Heat oven to 350° F. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans.
Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
Add honey, eggs, milk, yogurt, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed for about two minutes. Stir in the boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.
Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until wooden toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely before frosting.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients
6 tablespoons butter, softened
8 ounces of cream cheese
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup maple syrup
2 teaspoons almond extract

Method
Using an electric hand mixer or immersion blender, blend all ingredients until smooth.

The trick to frosting a cake is to first apply a thin layer of frosting. This is called a crumb coat. Don’t worry if it isn’t pretty and bits of the cake (the crumbs) show. After applying the crumb coat, chill the cake for 15 minutes or so. The second coat should go on much smoother and you’ll have a beautifully frosted cake.

Part of Monday Mania.

So, what’s wrong with sugar anyway?

The American Heart Association’s main push for decreasing the amount of added sugar a person eats is that adding such empty calories may lead to weight gain and weight gain can lead to heart disease.¹

If that was all there was to it, I might not change my habits. I have a terrible sweet tooth. If my weight goes up, I cut calories across the board and don’t just zero in on sugars. But, as I’ve found out, there are other reasons to limit sugar.

Here are two good ones:

Excess sugar consumption may lead to insulin resistance.^{2, 3}

When you eat sugar, your blood sugar levels rise. Then, your pancreas releases insulin to help move sugar from your blood into your cells. As blood sugar levels go down, your insulin levels return to normal. Over time, it takes more and more insulin to get the job done. It is thought that, eventually, your pancreas sort of wears out and may be less effective at lowering blood sugars. Excess sugar builds up in the bloodstream and you’ve got a stage set for type 2 diabetes.⁴

Excess sugar consumption promotes inflammation in the body.^{5, 6}

Apparently, inflammation is the real killer and is thought to be linked to a host of ailments, including heart attacks, strokes and dementia.

One thing to look at is the amount of “added sugar” in your diet. Added sugars are just that, sugar (whether it is refined or unrefined) added to a product.

According to the American Heart Association, women should limit their intake of added sugar to about six teaspoons (or 24 grams) a day. For men, it’s about nine teaspoons (or 36 grams). One 12-ounce can of soda can have eight to 12 teaspoons of added sugar. Ouch.

Naturally occurring sugars are found in fruits and vegetables (fructose) and milk (lactose). Naturally occurring sugars aren’t empty calories. With them, you are getting vitamins, minerals and/or fiber, a.k.a., the good stuff you need in your diet. If you are keeping track of your carb intake, be sure to add any naturally occurring sugars in your count, but you don’t need to fret too much over them when watching out for added sugar.

Spotting added sugar requires a bit of label reading. Food manufacturers aren’t required to separate naturally occurring sugars from added sugars. The ingredients to look for in prepared products are sugar, high fructose corn syrup, molasses, cane sugar, corn sweetener, raw sugar, maple syrup, honey, concentrated fruit juice and anything that end with “ose,” such as maltose, dextrose or sucrose. As my nephew Brennen once told me, if it ends with “ose,” it’s gross.

For now, I’m going to pick on refined, white sugar. Some say it’s the devil incarnate. I’m not quite ready to go that far, but I don’t think it is doing your body any favors, even in moderation. When you eat white, refined sugar, not only are you spiking the level of sugar in your blood, you aren’t giving any nutrients to your body.

The reason to switch to less-refined sugars is they offer a bit of nutrients along with their sweet kick. Raw honey has enzymes; molasses and maple sugar have trace minerals. Plus, I just think it is a good idea to choose foods that are closest to how they are found in nature. I don’t like my food mucked around with.

Switching to less-refined sugar isn’t a license to eat more. It’s still sugar and will spike your blood levels and add calories.

When you do indulge in a sweet treat, eat one that has a little fat in it, like whole-milk ice cream or a dark chocolate bar with nuts. According to Sally Fallon, author of “Nourishing Traditions,” adding fats to sweets “slows down the absorption of sugar into the bloodstream while providing fat-soluble nutrients …”

Yes, that means whole-milk ice cream with nuts is back on the menu! Especially if you can find it sweetened with natural sugars or make it yourself.

Here are some of my favorite natural sugar recipes:
Pear Walnut Cream Cheese Wontons
Pasteli- Sesame Honey Candy
Almond Date Balls
Peanut Butter Cups
Maple Syrup Bread Pudding
Maple Pralines
Maple Turtles
Almond Joy Knock Offs

Food for Thought:
“Sugar in any form or refined carbohydrates (white food) drives the good cholesterol down, cause triglycerides to go up, creates small damaging cholesterol particles, and causes metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes. That is the true cause of most heart attacks, NOT LDL cholesterol.” Mark Hyman MD; Why Cholesterol May Not Be the Cause Of Heart Disease

end notes
¹ http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3068932
² http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/292/8/978.extract
³ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17709452?dopt=Abstract
⁴ http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/type-2-diabetes/DS00585/DSECTION=causes
⁵ http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg/updates/What-you-eat-can-fuel-or-cool-inflammation-a-key-driver-of-heart-disease-diabetes-and-other-chronic-conditions.shtml
⁶ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17402291?dopt=Abstract