Pinwheel Cookies

I was looking for a 1960s era dessert for Mad Men devotees, and this one fits the bill.  Though you may not be able to complete these in time for tonight's season premiere, unless you start RIGHT NOW -- these cookies require at least two hours to firm up in the refrigerator.

Pinwheel cookies, as you might imagine, are a bit labor intensive.  Betty wouldn't tackle them, but might direct her household staff to whip up a batch.  Trudy Campbell might make them; I can certainly picture these on her dining room table.

These cookies are perfect for those who think sugar is the devil -- they call for only 1/2 cup, so the sweetness does not overwhelm the sandy texture, which is contributed by the ground nuts.  These were such a hit at my house today that I doubt any will be left when Mad Men begins.  (I hope it gets me out of making dinner, as everyone will be full from cookies.)

Below is *some* of the mis en place.  Even though one should measure out and prepare all ingredients before starting a recipe, I never do.  Usually, it's fine.

Beat the butter and sugar, then add the egg yolk.  When combined, mix in the nuts and flour.

Divide the dough in two portions and add one ounce of melted chocolate to one.

Et voila, as Megan Draper would say.

Refrigerate for at least one hour.  Next, roll out each dough and then place the chocolate atop the white one. Run your rolling pin over this to combine.

Roll like a jelly roll, staring from the long end.  It won't be perfect, at least mine wasn't.  I strongly advise eating the scraps.

Cut the roll with a sharp knife, so you have something that resembles the cookie below. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet; they can be fairly close together, as they don't spread much.  Bake for about 11 minutes.  Bon appetite!

Recipe below. Some production notes: I used butter for the shortening and walnuts for the nuts.  This makes about 36 cookies.  I baked them for about 11 minutes.

Chocolate Coca Cola Cake

Some may ask, If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?  In the Cake Bakes kitchen (not a place known for metaphysics) we had to ask ourselves, If a cake is baked and not photographed, did it really exist?

Yes, this happened last weekend. As I entered the kitchen to photograph the last slice of Chocolate Coca Cola Cake, there sat the DH (with the telltale crumb on his chin) and an empty plate before him.

Not wanting to bake this cake again, for there are so many recipes and so little time, I'm bringing you this cake without a proper photo of the finished product.  At top is a picture of the frosted cake, while still in the pan, so it's difficult to get a sense of it.  Cut, it looked "something" like this, below.  (Thanks, Google Images.)

Chocolate Coca Cola Cake is filled with all sorts of "bad" ingredients: cola, miniature marshmallows, etc., but the end result is quite delicious.  It's origin is said to be southern and, though I've never been to a Cracker Barrel restaurant, I've heard it's a dessert item there. I served this at Peaster (our Passover Easter holiday mash-up celebration) and it was *very* well received.

One thing that distinguishes this cake is that many ingredients in the cake (butter, cocoa, marshmallows) are also used in the frosting.  Also unusual, is that both the cake and frosting are started on the stove top, and not in the Kitchen Aid.

Start by placing the cake ingredients in a saucepan.

Stir until well combined and the marshmallows melt completely.

I transferred the mixture into a bowl before adding the flour and other dry ingredients.

While the cake is baking, start the frosting.  It will look a lot like the batter (but uses only one stick of butter).

The recipe, credited to Alma, was in a large collection of Amish recipes I purchased a few months ago.

Easter Chocolate Pudding

Here's a five-minute Easter dessert sure to please children and adults.  This old-fashioned chocolate pudding can literally be put together in minutes with everyday ingredients -- milk, chocolate, sugar, salt, butter, cornstarch and salt.

This is a godsend for those pressed for time, like me.  At our house, we're celebrating both Passover and Easter tomorrow (the DD calls it Peaster), so between the brisket, the chicken soup and ham, I was looking for a really easy dessert.

Chop one square (one ounce) of unsweetened chocolate.  Melt it in 1/2 cup of milk.

Heat the remaining milk in a two-quart saucepan and add the melted chocolate mixture.  Next, add the dry ingredients (which you've sifted together).  Cook until thick -- it took less than five minutes.

Pour into small custard cups.  The recipe says five, but I filled just four.  I guess in the 1940s, when this recipe card was written, portion sizes (and the average American weight) were much smaller (and lower) than they are today.  Refrigerate until cold.

Now, the fun begins.  Form nests using sweetened coconut (like Baker's) and fill each with three jelly beans. I used the Jelly Belly brand, but any will do.

This recipe card is from one of the very first boxes I purchased in Akron.  I always avoided this recipe, since it was thickened only with cornstarch and lacked eggs, which add richness.  If you want to really guild the lily, you can use this richer pudding recipe, though this simpler one is quite nice, and easier on the waistline.

Fabulous Passover Treats

Passover is all about freedom.  And, of course, food.  At the Cake Bakes household, we're having an Easter and Seder mash-up next weekend (due to scheduling conflicts poor planning on my part) but meantime, I'm delighted to share the best of our Passover baked goods, two of which I made tonight.

Matzoh Buttercrunch
Pictured at top is the amazing matzoh buttercrunch, an addicting treat sure to torpedo diets everywhere.  It actually is a derivative of a very old American dessert (caramel and chocolate atop soda crackers), but baker/writer Marcy Goldman updated it for the holiday.  Click here for the recipe.

Farfel Muffins
Farfel muffins are a favorite of my family of origin.  Unfortunately, I've never been able to create the same texture that my grandmother achieved year after year.  But they're still quite good and I'll keep on trying.  Click here for the recipe.

Matzos Cookies 
Next up are Matzos Cookies from The Way to a Man's Heart: The Settlement Cookbook, an unusual and delicious drop cookie.  Click here for the recipe.

Perfect Passover Sponge Cake

I've achieved sponge cake nirvana.  This is a light and moist sponge cake -- so delicious that you won't even notice the lack of butter and flour.  It is the perfect Passover dessert.

After my two recent failures, I was especially pleased that this cake was a success. The recipe, handwritten on a page of an old calendar, was given to me by Arthur Schwartz who inherited it from his mother.  In addition to the wonderful texture, the cake has a lovely citrus note from the lemon and orange zest and juice.

It's important to begin with room temperature eggs.  If you've just arrived home from work and your eggs have been in the fridge all day, no problem.  Just place them in a bowl and cover with warm water for a while while you prep the other ingredients.

Chop the nuts (or chocolate) and zest and juice the fruit.

Measure out the cake meal and potato starch.

Beat the yolks for a long time ("beat yolks good" says the recipe) until light in color, then add the sugar and beat the mixture even more until the yolks become very light in color.  (Do not let the sugar and eggs sit in the bowl without mixing, for the sugar will "cook" the eggs and you'll end up with small bits of scrambled egg.) Mix in the citrus and the dry ingredients.

When this is finished, turn your attention to the egg whites.  Beat until stiff peaks form.  I always add some cream of tartar at the beginning to avoid overbeating the whites. While separating the eggs, one of the yolks broke and some got into the whites.  I carefully spooned it out and, as you can see below, didn't have a problem.  (Egg whites can be finicky when fat or grease gets in the mix.)

Carefully fold the whites into the batter, using a large spatula. Combine until there are no visible white streaks.

Pour into a 10-inch tube pan.  No need to grease the pan, but based on my previous cake fail experiences, I put a round of parchment paper on the bottom for added insurance. (Not sure it was needed.)  Smooth out the top and pop in the oven, which you've preheated to 325 degrees.  You should preheat the oven for at least 20 minutes to ensure it reaches the proper temperature.

When the cake is done, invert it until cool. (My pan has "legs" but if yours doesn't, simply place it atop a wine bottle.) Then turn upright and run a knife around the outside edges to loosen the cake from the pan.

I shared the cake with the ladies at Henry Street's Home Planning Workshop, below, where Ruth Taube, second from left, has been teaching knitting, sewing and crocheting to neighborhood residents since the 1960s!  She's in her late 80s and still going strong.

The recipe is below.  I used about one cup of chopped walnuts.  Next time, chocolate!  The "cake flour" refers to cake meal, available this time of year.

I'm lucky enough to work on Manhattan's Lower East Side, home of the Streit's matzoh factory and snapped these pictures (exterior of the shop, Passover cake mixes and matzohs hot off the press) when I purchased the cake meal there.  

Not Another Cake Wreck!

Oops, I did it again.  Only worse.  This mess is *supposed* to be Arthur Schwartz's family's sponge cake, one that both his grandmother and mother made every year for Passover.  So I can't blame the recipe.

I was thrilled when, a few months ago, Arthur handed me a folder filled with handwritten family recipes. For years, I've cooked and baked from recipes Arthur posts on his own blog, FoodMaven.com; all have worked beautifully and so I was especially excited to bake from his own family recipes.

It started out just fine. Below is the mis en place.  Just four ingredients -- eggs, sugar, lemon and potato starch.

The first disaster occurred when I poured the batter into the nine-inch removable bottom tube pan that I had purchased at a flea market.  As the batter leaked from the bottom and onto the table and floor, it became all too clear why the pan cost only $1.

I quickly transferred the remaining batter into a solid tube pan and crossed my fingers.  (And tossed the flea market "find" into the recycling pail.)

The cake rose beautifully in the oven and the aroma was so good that even the DS, home for the night, remarked on it.  After 40 minutes, the cake seemed done so I removed it and, as per the instructions, inverted the pan until the cake was cool. That's when the "fun" began.  Unlike my most recent debacle, where the inverted cake (still warm) fell onto the counter with a thud, this one wouldn't budge. Using one knife to loosen the cake from the pan, and another to bang hard on the top, I attempted to release it, creating so much noise that the DH rushed downstairs to check on all the kitchen commotion.

It finally did release, but in five easy pieces.  And the top of the cake had a weird, rubbery texture, something I'd never seen and hope never to again.

What went wrong?  A couple of things. Not having the right pan, for starters.  And, looking back, the whites didn't whip well.  I used the Kitchen Aid instead of an electric hand mixer (my go-to for this). There was some liquid remaining in the bottom of the bowl and, while the whites were stiff, they seemed to lack volume as I was folding them into the yolk mixture.  I also think it could have baked a bit longer. And maybe, just maybe, I'm not meant to make sponge cakes -- this isn't the first struggle I've had with them.

Here's the recipe, written in Arthur's mother's beautiful handwriting. The "Mom" refers to her mother.  I may try it again or, more likely, make another from Arthur's collection. Though the pieces of cake that I salvaged were very, very good. Light-as-air texture and a wonderful lemon flavor. Too bad the rest of the cake was heavy-as-lead.

Spring Blossom Cake Fail

I'm quite ready for winter's end, and thought I'd I do my part to hasten the arrival of warmer weather by baking Spring Blossom Cake. Let's just hope that God, wherever she is, has better luck.  My cake was a total fail.

It was disappointing on so many levels -- uneven appearance, poor taste and texture and, not to mention, the waste of time and three farm-fresh eggs.

All looked promising in the beginning. I mixed the eggs, lemon and flour, and folded the meringue into the batter.

But when I remove it from the oven and turned the pan upside down to cool (as per the instructions), the cake plopped out of the pan and on to the counter. (Forgive me for not photographing that hot mess -- I was so shocked that I forgot).

 Even though quite a bit of the cake remained stuck in the pan, I slid a spatula under the cake and carefully moved it onto a cooling rack, thinking I could fill the empty places with extra frosting. That is, until I tasted some of the cake stuck in the pan. It was not good.  Not sweet.  An odd rubbery texture.  There was no salvation, no promise of spring or anything else.

Of course, that didn't prevent me from eating way too much of that mistake (for research purposes, I told myself as I cut a third slice).

I flipped what remained upside down in order to cover it in plastic wrap and discovered that it looked fine.  Now if it had tasted fine, I would have been angry at myself for "ruining" the cake by cutting it.  Lesson learned: Sometimes, looking at something from another angle makes all the difference.

Here's the recipe.  Don't try this at home.