In the few months since my e-mail address has been printed along with this column, never have I received as much mail as after the publication of “Fruited cake”. Even two weeks later, letters keep dribbling in, with comments, questions, requests. So this week’s theme made itself known, thanks to the letters. It seems people love cakes and cookies, but have no access to decent recipes (which is a bit hard to understand about those with access to the Net) — or it could be that they don’t trust most published recipes and need, instead, a reliable source. Which it appears from all the mail, the column was. Well, the recipes were real ones: tried, tested and true.
Many correspondents asked about my mention of oil as a healthy, guilt-free substitute for butter in fruited cakes. The fact is, some cakes do ask for oil, but the ones in the published recipes didn’t, so I shouldn’t have brought in the oil story then.
Today I’ve concentrated on butter-free cakes, one each of apples and chocolate, as well as one with lots of butter, a poundcake, which was my mother’s absolute favourite. She made a tall cake in a Bundt pan, from McCall’s recipe, and it was perfect cake-ness; smooth, yellow, buttery, smelling of real vanilla beans (which she stored in the canister dedicated to cake sugar), and without nuts, fruit, chocolate or any addition to distract from its purity. It was made, as the name suggests, of equal amounts of the basic ingredients: “ye pound” each of butter, sugar, eggs and flour. Served thinly sliced, it was pure cake; it couldn’t be improved upon.
Old recipe books recommend serving it thinly sliced, with “a dish of berries or a glass of port”. But yesterday I had it with a fruit topping, courtesy Nirmala George, The Best Cook in the World, and I stand corrected.
DOUBLE CHOCOLATE CAKE
(10 servings)
1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar or granulated sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Heat oven to 180°C (350°F). Mix flour, brown sugar, cocoa, baking soda and salt with fork in ungreased square pan, 8x8x2 inches. Mix in remaining ingredients except chocolate chips. Sprinkle chocolate chips over batter. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until wooden toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool, remove from pan and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
NIRMALA’S STRAWBERRY COMPOTE TOPPING
(Makes about two cups)
400g ripe strawberries
200-300g powdered sugar
Juice of two limes
Wash, hull and dry strawberries. Slice large ones vertically; keep small ones intact. Reserve 3/4 cup for final garnish, macerated an hour or two in 2 tbsp powdered sugar.
On remaining strawberries, sprinkle sugar overnight or for 3-4 hours. Cook on medium heat until strawberries are permeated with sugar, but still firm. Stir in lime juice. Pour liquid on cut side of cake, letting juices run down sides. Arrange strawberry pieces evenly on cake. Refrigerate until serving. Just before serving, arrange uncooked strawberries on top. Whipped cream is unnecessary but gorgeous on the side.
POUNDCAKE
(30 servings)
9-10 egg whites
3 cups sifted all-purpose
flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups sugar
9-10 egg yolks
2 cups soft butter
2 tsp vanilla extract
Bring eggs to room temperature, about one hour. Preheat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and flour a 10-inch tube pan (or a 12 cup Bundt pan, or two 9x5x3 inch loaf pans). Sift flour with baking powder and salt. In large bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Gradually beat in one cup sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, beating after each addition. Continue beating until soft peaks form when beater is slowly raised. Gently transfer egg whites to medium bowl. In used large bowl, at high speed, beat egg yolks with remaining sugar, butter and vanilla, until light and fluffy: about five minutes. At low speed, beat in flour mixture, just until smooth and well combined. At low speed, gradually beat in egg whites just until blended, scraping side of bowl and guiding batter into beaters with rubber scraper. Turn batter into prepared pan(s); bake tube or Bundt 65 to 70 minutes and loaf 60 to 65 minutes, until wooden toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack for 15 minutes. Remove cake from pan, cool thoroughly on wire rack. Serve plain, cut into thin slices.
If using with topping, slice cake into half, using a sharp bread knife. Transfer cut cake half to serving dish. Spread topping on cut side.
APPLE CAKE
(15 servings)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
3 cups chopped tart apples
1 cup coarsely chopped nuts
Heat oven to 180°C (350°F). Grease and flour rectangular pan, 13x9x2 inches. Mix sugar, oil and eggs until blended. Beat for a minute with an electric hand held mixer. Stir in remaining ingredients (except apples and nuts) and beat for another minute. Stir in apples and nuts and pour into prepared pan. Bake until wooden toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean: about 35 to 45 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes in pan on wire rack, then take out cake and cool completely on wire rack.
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