Baking with Rivka
Jul. 11th, 2002 10:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaStart by hauling everything out onto the counter. If you didn't realize you were out of something, you want to find that out now. So: your recipe, in Mom's perfect Palmer School penmanship on a bright pink index card. Flour, in a clothespinned-shut five-pound paper bag. Additional unopened bag of flour, because the open bag is almost empty. Ceramic sugar cannister, giving it a surreptitious shake to make sure there's enough. Baking powder. Baking soda. Salt shaker from the top of the stove. Vanilla. Shortening. Two eggs. Leave the milk in the fridge for now to keep it cold.
In the indestructable metal mixing bowl from Good Used Stuff, measure out flour, filling the one-cup, half-cup, and quarter-cup mixing cups once each. Level each cup with the edge of the rubber scraper. The old bag of flour runs out three-quarters of the way through the first cup. Notice that the washer has stopped, and detour into the bedroom closet to gather up more laundry. Hey, didn't remember you had that sundress. Cool. Load it all into the washer and start it running. Decide that the Young Dubliners probably write good baking music. Put in a CD, walk back into the kitchen, remember that you'll have to hear the music over the electric mixer, and go back to pump up the volume. Turn the oven dial to 300, because the recipe calls for 350 and it's running about 50 degrees hot.
Open the new bag of flour and finish measuring. Two cups of sugar, in four half-cup scoops from the cannister. Three-quarters of a cup of Hershey's cocoa. One and a half teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda. Notice suddenly that the wine is gone, so you won't be having any in your bath. Think momentary dark thoughts about that woman who drank it all, and immediately laugh at your ridiculousness. Salt - you can't leave it out, but it doesn't hurt anything to use a half teaspoonful instead of the full teaspoon called for. Stir the dry ingredients together with a spoon, and think what you always do at this point: Look! I've made cake mix!
Two eggs. Crack each one sharply on the side of the bowl and break them directly in, which you don't let Misha do. Drop a shell in, reminding yourself why you don't let him do it, and fish it out with your fingers. One cup of milk. Half a cup of vegetable oil - use canola, despite the assurances from rasseff that olive oil makes a lovely cake. Two teaspoons of vanilla. Experience a moment of alarm when the vanilla bottle seems suspiciously light, because vanilla has historically been the number one cause of emergency shopping trips halfway through a cake, but there's definitely enough for cake and frosting both. Probably even enough for the next cake.
Find the beaters in the kitchen tools drawer and fit them to the ancient thrift store hand mixer. Set it to low just long enough to get all the dry ingredients wet, folding them away from the side of the bowl in smooth motions of your rubber scraper, and then turn it up to med. Keep folding and mixing long after it looks well-mixed and smooth, because lots of tiny air bubbles are the friends of moist light cake. Two minutes, at least.
Put some water in the teakettle and turn the burner up to high. Rinse out the liquid measuring cup so you won't curdle the few drops of milk clinging to the bottom. Get two fingers of shortening and grease the revolutionary new plastic cake pan, checking the directions to make sure that you really can put it in the oven. You can, but they want you to use the middle rack, which you should've done something about before you heated the oven. Rinse the shortening off your fingers, fish out an oven mitt, and move the rack from the top slot to the middle, grumbling. Put the revolutionary new plastic cake pan on a cookie sheet.
The batter is rich, velvety, and thick. It looks like a magazine spread for cake batter. The kettle is boiling, so pour a cup of boiling water and add it to the batter. Now it looks like a watery mess, thin and awful, little blobs of cake batter floating in pale brown water. Remember, as you always do, the first time you made the cake on your own, when you threw it out at this point because you thought you'd ruined it. Stir the batter with the rubber scraper until the water is fairly mixed in, and it doesn't look godawful anymore. Pour it into the revolutionary new plastic cake pan, scraping the sides of the bowl. Remember Misha asking whether it was really necessary to get all the bits of batter off, a question incomprehensible to the thrifty daughter of your thrifty mother. (What, are you going to waste some?) Put the cake into the oven and set the timer for 38 minutes, a good time to check for done-ness by lightly piercing the top with a fondue fork, because you never have toothpicks.
Update your LiveJournal. Gradually, smell the chocolatey goodness.
You'll want to frost the cake in the morning, when it's completely cooled. Unwrap a stick of butter and melt it in a shallow saucepan over medium heat. Dump an entire one-pound box of powdered sugar into the indestructable metal mixing bowl from Good Used Stuff and add a quarter-cup of cocoa and a teaspoon of vanilla. When the melted butter has cooled a tad, scrape it into the bowl along with four tablespoons of milk. (You can use as many as six, but you'll want to wait and see how thick the frosting turns out to be.) And then mix it on hi, working your rubber scraper furiously, watching the magic moment when frosting emerges from the ungainly heap of moist sugar, and spread it on the cake with great flourishes and sweeps. Happy birthday, Bill.)
In the indestructable metal mixing bowl from Good Used Stuff, measure out flour, filling the one-cup, half-cup, and quarter-cup mixing cups once each. Level each cup with the edge of the rubber scraper. The old bag of flour runs out three-quarters of the way through the first cup. Notice that the washer has stopped, and detour into the bedroom closet to gather up more laundry. Hey, didn't remember you had that sundress. Cool. Load it all into the washer and start it running. Decide that the Young Dubliners probably write good baking music. Put in a CD, walk back into the kitchen, remember that you'll have to hear the music over the electric mixer, and go back to pump up the volume. Turn the oven dial to 300, because the recipe calls for 350 and it's running about 50 degrees hot.
Open the new bag of flour and finish measuring. Two cups of sugar, in four half-cup scoops from the cannister. Three-quarters of a cup of Hershey's cocoa. One and a half teaspoons each of baking powder and baking soda. Notice suddenly that the wine is gone, so you won't be having any in your bath. Think momentary dark thoughts about that woman who drank it all, and immediately laugh at your ridiculousness. Salt - you can't leave it out, but it doesn't hurt anything to use a half teaspoonful instead of the full teaspoon called for. Stir the dry ingredients together with a spoon, and think what you always do at this point: Look! I've made cake mix!
Two eggs. Crack each one sharply on the side of the bowl and break them directly in, which you don't let Misha do. Drop a shell in, reminding yourself why you don't let him do it, and fish it out with your fingers. One cup of milk. Half a cup of vegetable oil - use canola, despite the assurances from rasseff that olive oil makes a lovely cake. Two teaspoons of vanilla. Experience a moment of alarm when the vanilla bottle seems suspiciously light, because vanilla has historically been the number one cause of emergency shopping trips halfway through a cake, but there's definitely enough for cake and frosting both. Probably even enough for the next cake.
Find the beaters in the kitchen tools drawer and fit them to the ancient thrift store hand mixer. Set it to low just long enough to get all the dry ingredients wet, folding them away from the side of the bowl in smooth motions of your rubber scraper, and then turn it up to med. Keep folding and mixing long after it looks well-mixed and smooth, because lots of tiny air bubbles are the friends of moist light cake. Two minutes, at least.
Put some water in the teakettle and turn the burner up to high. Rinse out the liquid measuring cup so you won't curdle the few drops of milk clinging to the bottom. Get two fingers of shortening and grease the revolutionary new plastic cake pan, checking the directions to make sure that you really can put it in the oven. You can, but they want you to use the middle rack, which you should've done something about before you heated the oven. Rinse the shortening off your fingers, fish out an oven mitt, and move the rack from the top slot to the middle, grumbling. Put the revolutionary new plastic cake pan on a cookie sheet.
The batter is rich, velvety, and thick. It looks like a magazine spread for cake batter. The kettle is boiling, so pour a cup of boiling water and add it to the batter. Now it looks like a watery mess, thin and awful, little blobs of cake batter floating in pale brown water. Remember, as you always do, the first time you made the cake on your own, when you threw it out at this point because you thought you'd ruined it. Stir the batter with the rubber scraper until the water is fairly mixed in, and it doesn't look godawful anymore. Pour it into the revolutionary new plastic cake pan, scraping the sides of the bowl. Remember Misha asking whether it was really necessary to get all the bits of batter off, a question incomprehensible to the thrifty daughter of your thrifty mother. (What, are you going to waste some?) Put the cake into the oven and set the timer for 38 minutes, a good time to check for done-ness by lightly piercing the top with a fondue fork, because you never have toothpicks.
Update your LiveJournal. Gradually, smell the chocolatey goodness.
You'll want to frost the cake in the morning, when it's completely cooled. Unwrap a stick of butter and melt it in a shallow saucepan over medium heat. Dump an entire one-pound box of powdered sugar into the indestructable metal mixing bowl from Good Used Stuff and add a quarter-cup of cocoa and a teaspoon of vanilla. When the melted butter has cooled a tad, scrape it into the bowl along with four tablespoons of milk. (You can use as many as six, but you'll want to wait and see how thick the frosting turns out to be.) And then mix it on hi, working your rubber scraper furiously, watching the magic moment when frosting emerges from the ungainly heap of moist sugar, and spread it on the cake with great flourishes and sweeps. Happy birthday, Bill.)
no subject
Date: 2002-07-11 09:07 pm (UTC)Q: How come an “ancient thrift store hand mixer?” I strongly recommend looking in the vintage and retro stores along Reed Street for an inexpensive-yet-authentic pre-1960 Mixmaster; my Model 7 (ca. 1948) is still doing yeoman service, and handles heavier loads than hand mixers, without blinking.
The Young Dubliners were through here t’other week for a pub gig; they had a night off from opening for Jethro Tull and their Austin fans made such a commotion, they went out of their way to play here. I got to hear them doing an hour’s unplugged promo appearance on the local NPR station, and was only discouraged from going to the show by the knowledge that the pub they were playing would be (a) far too small for the volume they play, and (b) far too crowded and smoky for any kind of comfort.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-11 09:18 pm (UTC)Because it's what I bought, ten years ago, when I needed a mixer, and it's still going strong. Someday I hope to have a KitchenAid, though.
no subject
Date: 2002-07-11 10:07 pm (UTC)It's kind of like seeking Nirvana ...
no subject
Date: 2002-07-11 11:23 pm (UTC)