Coffee Cloud Cake

Because our chickens have finally started laying again - molting is such a pain - we have a lot of excess eggs. I have, therefore, been in search of recipes that use a lot of eggs.

There is a yummy sounding recipe in the New Good Housekeeping Cookbook called Coffee Cloud Cake that uses 6 eggs, so I decided to give it a try.

It turned out pretty darned tasty, and because some friends on Facebook asked for the recipe, I'm sharing it here.

Coffee Cloud Cake

6 eggs, separated, at room temperature
1/2 t cream of tartar
Sugar
2 C AP flour
1 C strong cold coffee
1 T baking powder
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t salt
4 oz walnuts, finely chopped

1. In large bowl, at high speed, beat egg white and cream of tartar until soft peaks form. Beating at high speed, sprinkle in 1/2 C sugar (I use about 1/3 C instead), 2 T at a time; beat until sugar is dissolved and whites stand in stiff peaks.

2. Preheat oven to 350F. In another bowl, on medium speed, beat 1 1/2 C sugar (I used a bit over 3/4 C only) and egg yolks with flour, coffee, baking powder, vanilla extract and salt until light and fluffy. With rubber spatula or wire whisk, gently fold flour mixture and nuts into beaten egg whites until just blended:

3. Pour batter into ungreased 10" tube pan. Bake 1 hour to 1 hour 10 minutes, until cake springs back when lightly touched. Invert cake in pan on funnel or bottle; cool completely in pan. With metal spatula, carefully loosen cke from pan; place on cake plate. Because I can't be bothered washing too any things, I just left the cake in the pan.

I still prefer citrus chiffon cake (which I might make this coming week), but this did smell incredible when it was baking! I think it would taste even better with a bit of chocolate or coffee whipped cream.

Let me know if you try this!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

I know you're getting hungry after having to read my tome on "how I write" last week, so I'll present you with a virtual piece (basically, go feed yourself!) of French Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Glaze. This was pretty tasty though not as good, IMO, as the Dom Deluise Chocolate Truffle Cake recipe.

French Chocolate Cake with Chocolate Glaze

1/2 C (1 stick) butter, softened
1 C almonds or filberts, skin on
3/4 C semisweet chocolate pieces or 4 1-oz squares
2/3 C sugar
3 eggs
grated rind of 1 large orange
1/4 C very fine bread crumbs

1) Butter bottom and sides of an 8" round cake pan, then line the bottom with baking parchment. Set aside.
2) Grind the almonds as fine as possible in blender (I used food processor) and set aside.
3) Melt chocolate in a double boiler over hot, not boiling, water.
4) Cream butter until very soft and light.
5) Very gradually add the sugar, beating constantly.
6) Add eggs, one at a time, beating hard after each addition. The batter at this point will look curdled but don't worry about it.
7) Stir in the melted chocolate, ground nuts, orange rind, and bread crumbs thoroughly.
8) Pour into prepared pan and bake at 375F for 25 minutes.
9) Allow cake to cool on rack for 30 minutes, then turn out onto cake rack (run metal spatula around the edge first). If cake doesn't drop easily, give the pan a bang with your hand. Lift off parchment carefully.
10) Cool completely before glazing. The center will not seem cooked but that's what gives it a soft texture.

Glaze:
2 1-oz squares of unsweetened chocolate
2 1-oz squares of semisweet chocolate
1/4 C butter, softened and cut up
2 t honey
toasted slivers of almond or whole filberts

1) Combine the two chocolates, butter, and honey and melt in double boiler.
2) Remove from heat and beat until cold but still pourable, i.e. thickened.
3) Place cake on rack over a piece of waxed paper or large platter and pour glaze over top. Tip the cake to let glaze run evenly all over and down the sides. Smooth if necessary with a metal spatula.
4) Garland the rim of cake with toasted slivers of almonds or filberts (I did the top).

A tasty way to end the month, no? Hope you'll like it!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Life's been good to me so far!

Thank you, Joe Walsh. ;)

Well, life for me is generally pretty darned good, but this month, I won me some goodies!

The first is this book "Cooking for the Birds" that I got from winning a haiku contest offered by WildBird magazine ( @WBeditor ) on Twitter.

This other set of goodies is actually for ds#1 who is the main birder in our family. The nice people at Audubon Guides (@AudubonGuides) found out that my 15 year old is an avid birder and sent a package for him, no strings attached! I have to say I did buy their birding App, but it was on sale for a great price and I was going to buy it anyway.

Their Mushroom App is on sale right now for half price, so you budding mycologists should get yours now.

Speaking of getting freebies, a friend gave me a large bag of grapes, so I got to make some jam. YES!  Thanks bunches, Carol!  ;)

After making jam, I painted my front door, after having serious red-front-door envy (thanks for nothing, Amber and Sherrie).

I experienced a moment of panic when I realized that it was middle of September and I hadn't started chemistry labs for my older son yet. Thanks to Meg's materials, I had no problem getting going on them. I decided that because ds#1 doesn't have anyone to do labs with this year, ds#2 can do them with him. Ds#2 would be in grade 8 if he were in public school, while ds#1 would be in grade 10.  However, doing the labs together reminds me of just how far apart they are sometimes. While ds#2 works pretty much at grade level, ds#1 works at the level of at least a sophomore undergraduate, if not as far up as senior. This is lab 2; the colors aren't food coloring or markers. They were all chemical reactions:

This little guy made me smile. It was hanging out outside our bedroom window. Duude, you're not camouflaged with our screen. I can see you! Silly stick insect.

And because Suzanne asked about them, I have to share photos of the mixing bowls I inherited from my MIL:

The one on the far right is the yellow Pyrex dish I use for pretty much everything. The one on the far left is a blue Pyrex bowl in the same set. Here's a close-up (pardon the gunk on it...I had butter and shortening in it just before I took the photo) :

Alas, I don't have another bowl in the set...but I would be totally happy to receive one as a gift!  ;)

Another thing that makes me happy is when a dessert works out. However, even when it doesn't work out, it still makes a decent breakfast. This Coconut Banana Cake was just so-so.  I think if I'd used all cake flour like the recipe asked and also used a fresh coconut, it would have been pretty darned good. Man, I haven't had a fresh coconut in forever.  I miss living in the tropics sometimes.

If you want to try making this yourself, here's the recipe, from The New Good Housekeeping Cookbook:

Lemon curd filling - homemade or store-bought
2.25 C cake flour
1 C sugar (I always halve the amount)
3/4 C shortening
1/3 C milk
2.5 t baking powder
1 t vanilla extract
1/2 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
2 eggs
1 C mashed ripe banana (about 2 bananas)
1 Coconut (about 2 pounds) or 1 7oz pkg flaked coconut

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease and flour 2 9" round cake pans.  Into large bowl, measure flour and next 9 ingredients. With mixer at low speed, beat ingredients just until blended. Increase speed to medium; beat 2 minutes, occasionally scraping bowl.

2. Pour batter into pans. Bake 25-30 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean.  Cool in pans on rack 10 minutes; remove from pans and cool completely.

3. While cake is cooking, prepare and shred enough coconut to make 2.5 cups shredded coconut. Wrap shredded coconut in plastic wrap and refrigerate (along with remaining coconut).

4. In small bowl, with mixer at medium speak, beat heavy cream until stiff peaks form.

5. On plate, place 1 cake layer, rounded side down; evenly spread with lemon-curd filling. Top with second layer, rounded side-up, lightly pressing cake onto filling.  Frost side and top of cake with whipped cream; pat shredded coconut into cream. Refrigerate cake.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Numba one son turns 15!

I have a back-log of a couple of posts; I'd started writing them, but because I wasn't really blogging, or reading blogs, I never posted them. So in the spirit of "feast or famine", I will dump them on you in a matter of days. ;) Here's the first:

It's not possible because I haven't aged a day since he was born. I am still in my early 30s as far as I can tell.

Yeah, I lied. The kids have aged me beyond recognition. I'm just a shell of the vibrant person I once was.

I lied yet again. The truth lies somewhere in between: I'm not 32 years old - my age minus 3 months when ds#1 was born - but I'm not decrepit either. I hate the idea of staring at Five-Oh, but I look forward to my AARP membership for those fabulous discounts! What am I complaining about anyway? At least I'm not a grandmother. (The idea of being a grandparent in my 40s really makes me queasy.)

But this isn't about me, even though I do go on. Ds#1 turned 15 on the first of February. We got hit by an ice storm that day, so we never took him out for a special dinner, nor cooked him one, as is our tradition. In fact, our power went out for about 21 hours, and I didn't even make him a cake until the weekend.

He chose Mocha Chiffon, and it turned out pretty well. I got the recipe from the Company's Coming cookbook I got from my mom's stash of cookbooks after she died.

Mocha Chiffon Cake
2 1/3 C sifted cake flour
1 1/2 C granulated sugar
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
1 T instant coffee granules
3/4 C hot water
1/2 C cooking oil
5 egg yolks, room temp
1 t vanilla
1 C egg whites, room temp
1/2 t cream of tartar
3 oz semisweet baking chocolate, shaved thinly

Preheat oven to 325F. Wash angel food tube pan in hot soapy water to ensure it is totally grease-free. Sift first 4 ingredients into bowl. Make a well in the center.

Dissolve coffee in hot water. Cool.

Put cooking oil, egg yolks, vanilla and cooled coffee into well. Set aside. Don't beat yet.

Beat egg whites and cream of tartar until very stiff. Set aside.

Using same beater, beat egg yolk-flour mixture until smooth. Fold 1/4 at a time gently into egg whites. Add shaved chocolate. Fold in. Pour into ungreased 10" angel food pan. Bake in oven for 60-70 minutes. Invert pan until cake has cooled. Frost with frosting of choice.

And on a completely unrelated thought, here are the socks I finished knitting in January. I'm staying on track with my projects resolutions so far, but I don't know how much longer I can keep it up with more writing and critiquing on my schedule.

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Because my brain is in the shop...

...I'm going to subject you to some random firings of the handful of neurons they left behind to hold me through the week. :}

We had a couple of weird and unexpected hail storms a couple of weeks ago. The one that woke us up in the middle of the night produced marble-sized hail. (Incidentally, the leaves are large sycamore leaves, not maple leaves, so the hail is bigger than you think) -While Annie (Imagine & Create) is watching out for polar bears - doesn't that sound exotic? - we're watching out for the copperheads that have decided to take up residence under our blueberry bushes right next to the house:I just saw some pretty tomatoes over at Cake's blog (Rake Shovel Hoe), which reminded me that I'd taken photos of our own red beauties:
And while we're on the subject of veggies, I had the kids harvest about 10 pounds of corn yesterday. After I shucked them, I decided that they were too pretty to go without a photo:A few weeks ago, dh decided to try making a ratatouille because we were over-run with eggplants. Before baking:
After bakng: It looked better than it tasted, so he went back to making borani with the eggplants we harvested later.

This year has been a bumper-crop year for chanterelle mushrooms. This is just one of the many grocery bagfuls dh and the boys harvested:After cleaning the bag of 'shrooms up, and laying them out to dry:Dh cooked them various ways: sauteed in butter, sauteed with green beans, and, my favorite way, cream of mushroom soup!

It's been too hot to do much baking lately, but we had a piece of carrot cake for dessert when we had lunch with my FIL over at his assisted living home, and that got us hankering for more, so I made one. It was very tasty!Do you have any odd, random thoughts for me? Any grand plans for the rest of the weekend? I hope to read the wonderful stories that Blonde Duck (A Duck in Her Pond) sent my way as part of the gift swap back in July!

Happy Sunday to you!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." ~ Douglas Adams

Late cake and Shout-out

It's a good thing ds#2 is easy-going sometimes. I finally got around to making a cake for him today...several days after his birthday. But, I think he'll agree it was worth the wait. The Walnut Mocha Torte is very, very tasty!And huge thanks to Anne-Marie (The Soap Queen blog) of my favorite supplier, Bramble Berry, for the shout-out on my sushi soap!! It was quite a thrill to be featured on Anne-Marie's blog! You can see more pics of this soap at my other site.

Now, I really must go to do some writing before I fall farther behind. Happy weekend to all!

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim

Award, cake, and useful chair

Julie of Cool Mom Guide gave me a lovely award this morning - thanks, Julie! The rules are to post 6 things I value and 6 things I do not and then pass the honor to 6 other incredible bloggers.

6 things I value:
Honesty
Kindness
Fairness
Altruism
Objectivity
Generosity

6 things I don't value:
Whininess
Manipulativeness
Underhandedness
People who don't respond to smiles
Ignorance - unwillingness to learn something new or have an open mind
Illogic

6 people to tag
Well, I'm going to have to go with my usual policy of letting you decide if you want to play. :) Notice I didn't put "wishy-washiness" on my list of things I don't value...haha!

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On a totally different note, I made a German Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Pecan Frosting on Sunday. I gave 3/4 of it to our dear friend, C, and her family because they are the most generous people we know. It's because of the fact that they're not wealthy that their generosity becomes the most obvious. While not much to look at, the cake turned out to be quite tasty. I had to stop myself at 2 pieces yesterday or my kids wouldn't have any to eat. ;)Have you ever found unintended uses for things? I needed to roll a hank of yarn into a ball to start knitting a sweater, and the kids were off doing their own thing, so I used the arms of this antique chair that my MIL had given to us to help me roll yarn. It was a good use for this otherwise underused chair. "The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." ~ James Oppenheim