cooking action lately

Not much at all, I'm sad to say. The only baking I did last week was a pineapple upside down cake for my brother's birthday, And I forgot to get a photo of that. I didn't even bake brownies and boy was _I_ sorry about that....
But this week I made up for it.  I baked a blueberry swirl cake. Basically, I made a yellow cake and swirled some blueberry pie filling in it. It looks pretty ugly because, as you know, blueberries mixed in something looks grayish. I put blueberry pie filling inbetween layers and frosted with a vanilla buttercream frosting that I sort of winged it on. I couldn't find the recipe I use all the time (I know, I got to be better organized). So I thought I could recreate it from memory. Turns out I was wrong. I think it will be okay, at least I hope so.
I also made brownies (but of course). I made them the "normal" way but instead of 6 eggs, I used 5. I wanted to see what type of effect that would have, chewy or fudgey. We will see - and taste.
Believe it or not, I am already starting to think about Thanksgiving dinner. I'm thinking instead of ham, I'll make chicken and noodles like my mom used to make (not for Thanksgiving). My oldest cat and I really love eating the ham, but secretly even we get tired of it after a few weeks.  I should run the idea by my beloved, see what he thinks.
I try not to mess with the Thanksgiving menu too much, I'm a traditionalist. But I do think the chicken and noodles would be warmly received at Thanksgiving.
Nope, haven't thought of what to bake, Of course rolls, lots and lots of rolls. I tried making sweet potato rolls one year and they just weren't all that special. Perhaps it was the recipe or I messed it up, but there was no great sweet potato taste. So the usual dinner rolls and the potato rolls will be fine.
That's all I got for now. I should think about getting my lunch together for the week (boo! hiss!), but it must be done. Work, the curse of the eating class;)
_enjoy_

Betty & Pam save the day

Yesterday, I decided I would make my love's birthday. It's a filled cake, I'm sure I described it before. Last year, I used a sort of delicate vanilla cake and it didn't stand up to the Bavarian cream. So I decided to make a few changes this year - going with vanilla mousse with strawberries in it and a sturdier cake.
I decided to try a cake from an ancient recipe (okay, it's older than me so that makes it pretty old;)) and I should have know I was in troble when it called for 4 teaspoons baking powder. Just because a recipe is in an old cookbook doesn't mean it's good. Plus the page was completely clean, no evidence the recipe had ever been used. I baked the cake (40 minutes at 375 degrees - not kidding, 375 degrees). First, it took longer than 40 minutes to bake all the way through. Okay, strange, but maybe some weirdness.
But to depan it! well, I throrougly  greased the pan with Crisco. The filled cake pans are a little weird and I thought I'd go that route. The cake would _not_ come out of the pan. I tried the few tricks I knew to depan a cake, but it didn't work. So when the pan finally released, a good portion of the cake stuck to the pan.
Or maybe I should refrain from using the word "good". That cake was one of the driest cakes I ever made in my life - it was like a very stale generic yellow cake. My love suggested I cut it up, cover it with the mousse and it should work out. And probably he was right. But I said no, I'll make another cake. The birds were happy about that.
I turned to my buddy, Betty Crocker. I used the recipe for "Bonnie Butter Cake" and coated the pans with my other cooking buddy, Pam. The cake tastes great and depanned like a dream.
I got to finish adding strawberries to the mousse and make the frosting, But I just wanted to give a huge thank you to my cooking pals, Betty Crocker and Pam - they never let me down.