Let them eat cakes from scratch | The Honolulu Advertiser

Comment, blog & share photos

Let them eat cakes from scratch | The Honolulu Advertiser | Hawaii's Newspaper

Posted on: Wednesday, February 15, 2006

FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Let them eat cakes from scratch

By Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Columnist

•	Get a taste of the real thing

Got cake box? Probably not.

A cake box, back in the 1920s and into the 1950s, was where the cake lived. —as routine a piece of kitchen equipment as a bread box, the recipe box and the ice box. And there were always cakes. From scratch. In layers. With frosting.

As I research "The Island Plate," The Advertiser's 150th-anniversary cookbook to be published later this year, I'm struck by how differently the home cook views cakes today. If we plop a mix into a 9-by-13-inch pan, poke some holes in it and pour a tub of melted frosting over it, we have to work hard to keep from strutting around the kitchen.

But I love cake so much that, reading about those cake box days, I burn with envy — not so much envy of those eating the cakes as those baking them. A cake is such a satisfying and beautiful accomplishment.

That's why I was very excited when I came across "Cakes from Scratch in Half the Time: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Bake Cakes Forever," by Linda West Eckhardt (Chronicle Books, 2005). This 196-page trade paperback offers Eckhardt's tricks for getting a from-scratch cake into the oven in streamlined fashion. My experiments have convinced me that she's got some good ideas. These include:

Bring ingredients to room temperature before mixing. Soften butter, cream cheese or other refrigerated ingredients in microwave on low; immerse eggs in hot tap water.

Also before mixing, place oven racks in center, pre-heat oven, and prep cake pans with Baker's Joy nonstick spray instead of laborious and messy greasing and flouring.

Measure before mixing; gather mixing bowls, small dishes and measuring equipment. Place butter or shortening in largest bowl or bowl of stand-up mixer. Measure liquid ingredients in order of use. Measure and mix or sift dry ingredients together. Measure flavoring ingredients.

To hasten baking and assure a flat-topped, uncracked cake, use old-fashioned, inexpensive shiny baking pans and set the oven to 400 degrees. (I was skeptical, but this does work. Just check that your oven is properly calibrated — mine was 25 degrees hotter than the controls indicated.)

With cakes in oven, set timer and do NOT peek until minimum cooking time has elapsed.

While cake bakes, bring out cake racks and cake plate and make frosting, again gathering ingredients, bringing to room temperature and measuring before starting.

Cookbook orders taken: Orders for my upcoming cookbook, "The Island Plate: 150 Years of Recipes and Food Lore from The Honolulu Advertiser," are being taken now at www.honoluluadvertiser.com and at our information desk (605 Kapiolani, 8:30 a.m.-4:45 p.m. weekdays; 525-7620).

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos