My experiment (long) wasRe: SC - Help with old recipe (OOP)
Peldyn@aol.com
Peldyn at aol.com
Fri Dec 10 14:17:35 PST 1999
STRANGE ADVENTURES IN COOKING: Episode I
It was now it was coming up on 12 of the clock and sleep so far had escaped
me. I decided to try and make my great-grandmother's recipe. What better
remedy for insomnia, says I?
I reread the recipe and assembled all the ingredients. I turned the oven on
to heat at 350 and jammed a knife in the door to hold it closed. Yeah, I
really need a new oven. I decided to make a few changes, some later came
about through necessity, but the change from 1 tablespoon water to 1
tablespoon vanilla was deliberate. I took the first egg and cracked it into
my egg seperator. Sigh, the yolk broke. I had bought 2 dozen eggs and so was
prepared for this, but I hoped it would be the only one I broke!! I set it
aside for the jelly and got out a clean cup and washed the seperator. The
rest of the eggs gave me no problem at all, they seperated cleanly, to my
relief.
I put them aside to come to room temperature and started on the butter/sugar
mixture. I used the 1/2 pound that Adamantius recommended. I creamed them
well together with my poor excuse for a mixer, it has only one beater, you
should see it! I added the vanilla, mixing well. I then sifted the dry
ingredients together including the baking powder. It was said that the baking
powder in those times was single acting, but all I had was the double acting
kind. I hoped it wouldn't affect the outcome of the cake too much. Then,
since the eggs were still too cold, I started to make the jelly. I had had
problems deciphring the number of apples so I went with my first guess which
was three. After peeling and coring, I used my metal box grater to grate the
apples. I then used it to grate the lemon rind. Now was cursing time!! How do
you get the itty bitty bits of lemon zest that have been grated off the
grater?? I used the tines of a fork to try and jab through the little holes
to free up the zest but got very little. Please, someone tell me, is there a
better way? I felt like I had lost most of the zest due to it being
permanantly stuck to that accursed grater!!! After a bit of swearing I added
the sugar to the apples and the feeble bit of lemon zest in the pot and
brought it to a simmer. I let it simmer until the apples were tender, about
10 minutes. I beat the one egg and added a bit of the apple mixture to it
mixing well and then threw it into the pot stirring as fast as I could. I let
it simmer a little more, picking out the bits of egg that had coagulated. The
egg addition didn't seem to have worked out well. The mixture didn't thicken
and I detested picking out the egg bits. I put it in the fridge to see if
cooling it down would thicken it some.
The eggs seemed warmer now so I started in on beating them. First I washed my
lone beater in hot, soapy water to make sure there was no fat on it. I then
tried to beat the eggs whites. I beat them for about 20 minutes on the
highest speed of my mixer. Try as I might I could only get about half of the
egg whites to foam. I ended up with nice stiff peaks on the top and liquid
egg on the bottom!!! I was so tired of beating that I almost threw in the
towel, but I kept on. I put the egg whites aside and beat the egg yolks until
they were lemon colored and thick. I mixed them into the creamed mixture and
then mixed in the flour mixture in halves. I ended up with what looked like a
thick cookie dough! Not one to resist temptation I tasted it, oh yum! I love
raw cookie dough! Now how was I going to mix the egg whites into it?
Realizing it was darn near impossible to fold egg whites into that, I was
glad I had failed on my egg white beating. I used the mixer and mixed the
liquid egg whites into the dough and when I was done, it was still pretty
thick, but of a more reasonable texture to fold in the egg whites. So I
carefully folded them in.
Now was time to get the pan. I had only one pan that would qualify as a jelly
roll pan and I had no parchment paper. So I greased it well and prayed to the
Goddess of Baking! I pour and scraped the batter into the pan and spread it
out even. I put it in the oven to bake and then checked up on the jelly. It
had not set!!! I put it back on the stove and mixed in 1/2 teaspoon of
cornstarch. I cooked it until it was thick and set it back in the fridge.
While the cake was baking I sat back and licked the bowl and beater. I know,
salmonella danger. Pfft! I laugh in the face of danger! Umm.. I did tell you
I can't resist?
The cake took about 25 minutes to bake and rose to be about 2 inches high!!!
I turned it out onto a towel (yes it did stick to the pan a little, but it
was not too bad.) I had sprinked with powdered sugar and rolled it up. I let
it cool about 15 minutes and then unrolled it and spread it with the jelly.
I rolled it back up and here was where it all fell apart, literally!! In
trying to get this massive roll onto a cake plate, it split! Oh well, that is
how the cookie crumbles, er cake splits! Since the cake was a little too long
for the plate I trimmed off the ends and ate them. Oh my! The cake tasted
like sugar cookies, had a texture somewhat like a cross between a sponge or
angel food cake and a pound cake and the filling was redolent of lemon!!
This is a cake I will definitely try to make again. I think I will make it in
two jellyroll pans though, since it was really too thick to roll up properly.
I am not sure if I will double the recipe for the jelly or not. If I spead it
a little thinner it will probably work for two cakes too. One strange comment
I got from my husband was, "What did you put in the filling, appleslaw?" The
grated pieces of apple were a bit slawlike in texture, I agree. I might try
the food processor next time.
Well, all in all it was an interesting night, though I did go to bed with a
tummy ache from all the cake! Did I tell you I can't resist? (wink)
Peldyn
============================================================================
To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
============================================================================
More information about the Sca-cooks
mailing list