Silver White Cake Surprise

"Let them eat cake" 

~Marie Antoinette

I didn't know what to call this cake.  I actually considered "My White Cake Ate Your Chocolate Cake," but Audrey gave me 'the look.'  The "don't be stupid, Mom" look.  When she's right, she's right.

I've been making Silver White Cake since I was a teenager.  It's a great 'from scratch' recipe because you simply measure everything but the egg whites into a bowl,  beat together, add whites, beat some more, and your done.  Really easy, and always out moist and delicious with a nice tender crumb. 

 Keith's birthday is today, so this was for him.  He is now 22, the same age I was when I had him.  This amazing young man was once my baby, when I wasn't much more than one.  Hard for me to believe. It went by so fast.

He's a vanilla guy, and loves this cake.  He told me at least 4 times today "That was great cake, Mom."  We love to please them, don't we? 

The original Silver White Cake recipe came from Betty Crocker's Cake Decorating, published in 1984.  I increased the recipe by 50% because I prefer a tall cake, and added the chocolate layer, so it wasn't straight up wedding cake.

Silver White Cake Surprise

3 1/3 cups all purpose flour

2 1/2 cups sugar

1 cup shortening

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons milk

5 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla

7 jumbo egg whites

1/3 cup cocoa (for one layer only)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Grease and flour 3 9-inch cake pans.  Beat flour, sugar, shortening, milk, baking powder, salt, almond and vanilla extracts in large bowl on medium speed, scraping bowl constantly, until blended. Beat on high, scraping bowl occasionally, 2 minutes.  Beat in egg whites, scraping bowl occasionally, 2 minutes.  Pour one third of batter into one prepared 9" pan, one third into another prepared 9" pan and then beat the cocoa into the remaining batter and pour that into the last 9" pan.

Start checking them at 25 minutes.  Be careful not to over bake.  A cake is done when you touch the top and it springs back.  Cool for 10 minutes, then turn one white cake onto cake plate, and the other two onto cooling racks.  

Creamy White Frosting

2 (1lb) boxes Confectioner's sugar

1 cup butter

1 cup Crisco

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk (might need a little more)

Beat ingredients on medium speed until smooth and of spreading consistency.  If necessary, beat in additional milk, one teaspoon at a time.

Hearty Sausage Vegetable Soup

"To feel safe and warm on a cold wet night, all you really need is soup."

~Laurie Colwin

I'm not a Summer girl, despite the fact that I live down the street from the beach.  I can't stand the heat, yet don't want to get out of the kitchen, so it's a conundrum.  Fall blows the humidity away, replacing it with crisp air, cool breezes and good hair days.  It is hard to imagine a place more beautiful than New England in the Fall.  Even the weeds turn color and look pretty.  I love the soups, stews, roasts, breads, crisps and pies that the season inspires me to yield.

The bones of this soup came from my friend, Fran.  This is no anemic soup.  You know, the kind that makes you want to sneak off to your local pizza parlor after dinner, so you munch a slice and feel like you ate something.  The broth is rich and loaded with hearty vegetables.  Now is the perfect time to make it, while you can still find good local zucchini and garden tomatoes.  My favorite sausage to use is hot fennel garlic Italian sausage.  As the soup simmers, the sausage imposes it's seasonings on the broth, adding a complexity you can't find in a can.  All you need is some crusty bread to round out a great Fall meal.

Hearty Sausage Vegetable Soup

1 pound hot Italian sausage

1 large onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, run through a garlic press (or minced)

2 medium garden tomatoes, chopped

1 carrot, sliced

1 medium zucchini, sliced

1/2 small head of cabbage, chopped

1/2 green pepper, chopped

1 (15 ounce) can tomato sauce

2 (10 ounce) cans beef broth

2 (10 ounce) cans chicken broth

1 1/4 cups red wine (or water)

1 bay leaf

1 tablespoon fresh basil, chopped (about 5 leaves)

1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped

1 cup uncooked Ronzoni small egg bows (or other small pasta)

Parmesan cheese for sprinkling at serving time

Remove sausage from casings.  Brown in a large heavy pan or Dutch oven and drain.  Add onions and garlic; cook and stir until tender, being careful not to burn the garlic.  Add all ingredients except pasta and Parmesan cheese.  Cover and simmer 30 minutes, add pasta and simmer 20 minutes longer, or until pasta is tender.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Serve with Parmesan cheese.  Serves 6.

Turkey Saltimbocca

It was difficult to believe how delicious this was, considering it's simplicity.  This was another fabulous recipe from the BHG Ultimate Italian publication (available now).  The only thing I did differently was substitute Sherry for the white wine, since I didn't have any white wine in the house.  It was so good, I wouldn't do it differently next time.  And there WILL be a next time, and a next, and a next.....  Start to finish, it only took 20 minutes and it was incredibly simple.  Great for mid-week, but so good I would serve it to company.  In fact, this year I have "Main Dish" for our annual Christmas Eve progressive dinner and I may well just make this (yes, I think about these things this far in advance.....so shoot me!).

Turkey Saltimbocca


1/4 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
4 turkey cutlets (about 3/4 pound)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 slices deli ham
4 slices Swiss cheese
1/4 cup Sherry (or dry white wine)
1/4 cup chicken broth
2 tablespoons snipped fresh Italian parsley (optional)


In a shallow dish, combine flour, salt and pepper.  Place each turkey cutlet between two pieces of plastic wrap.  Using flat side meat mallet, pound turkey lightly, working from center to edges, to flatten slightly.  Remove plastic wrap and dredge cutlets in flour mixture.  Shake off excess.


In an extra large skillet, heat oil over medium high heat.  Add cutlets; cook 2-4 minutes or until brown on bottom.  Turn cutlets over; top each with a folded slice of ham and 1 slice of the cheese.  Add Sherry and broth.  Cook about 5 minutes until cheese melts and sauce thickens.


Transfer cutlets to a serving platter.  Spoon pan drippings over cutlets.  If desired, garnish with parsley.  Makes 4 servings.

Coffee Field

Never work before breakfast; if you have to work before breakfast, eat your breakfast first.                

~ Josh Billings

You know, life is funny.  I started this blog in July after I got laid off from the office job I'd held for 8 years.  Well, last week I went to one of my favorite places downtown to ask if they wanted to submit a recipe for Guest Recipe Sunday here on the blog.  Instead they offered me a job!  It's 180 degrees from what I was doing, but it suits my personality much better.  It would not have been listed in the paper, I wasn't looking for it, and I never would have gone looking for if I had not gotten laid off, so basically, this blog got me a job.  I have to tell you I was nervous starting something new (since there is already so much new in my life), but am already settled in and excited about working.  The thing is, I will be surrounded by extraordinary looking baked goodies all day, but if I have a piece of this coffee cake before I go in, maybe I won't be tempted to do a swan dive into the muffin display.

Mmmm, can't you just taste it?

This is my most used recipe.  Since I developed it about 6 years ago, I've made it at least 50 times.  Definitely on my top 10 list of favorite breakfast foods.  It used to frustrate me when I baked one (Bundt cake size) and it would be gone in just hours so I came up with a recipe that worked in a quarter sheet cake pan.

There's a story behind the name.  I have copies of the recipe at home, because people have requested it so often, but the title is "Margaret's Humongous Coffee Cake."  When my son was 18, one of his friends received a week rental of a house on Martha's Vineyard (graduation present) and invited Curtis and at least 6 other guys (and I actually let him go!).  I made this to send with them and the boys said "This isn't a coffee cake, it's a coffee FIELD!"  And that is what we've called it ever since.  

After it cools, I cut it up into individual serving pieces, wrap them in plastic wrap, and freeze them.  It's our go-to food for breakfast and snacks on the run.  One of my sons even prefers it in its frozen state.  The other one loves to bring it to the airport when he travels.  Personally, I pack a few hunks whenever I travel, so I don't have to eat some dismal hotel Continental breakfast, because it's bad enough if I can't find a decent cup of coffee, you know what I mean?  At least I can have coffee cake!

Coffee Field

1 pound salted butter, (2 1/2 sticks of it softened and 1 1/2 sticks left cold)

3 cups chopped walnuts

1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar

1 cup flour(for topping)

6 cups flour (for cake)

3 cups sugar

6 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla

3 teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 (16 ounce) cartons of sour cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease 1/4 sheet cake pan (12x15 inches).

You will need 3 mixing bowls.  first, prepare the topping.  In one bowl, mix the walnuts with cinnamon and brown sugar.  In another bowl, cut the 1 1/2 sticks of cold butter into the 1 cup of flour until the pieces are the size of peas.  Next, add 2 1/4 cups of the nuts mixture to the flour/butter mixture and use your fingers to smash it together until it is nice and crumbly.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the remaining butter with 3 cups of sugar and vanilla.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing after each.  Combine flour with baking soda, baking powder and salt.  Add to butter mixture, alternately with the sour cream, beating well after each addition.

Spread half the cake patter in the pan.  Sprinkle what is left of the brown sugar-nut mixture over the batter.  Add the remaining batter by spoonfuls and spread evenly over the nut mixture.  Sprinkle the crumb topping evenly over the batter.  Bake 1 hour, or until a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.  Depending on your oven and weather conditions, it may take 5 or 10 mins more.  

Chicken Fried Rib Eye

I just hate health food.  ~ Julia Child

I have always wanted to make this.  Being a traditionally Southern dish, I didn't have much exposure to it.  You rarely find it on menus in the Northeast.  In fact, I can hardly say it without adding the Southern drawl "chicken-friiiiiied."  Bandera and Lamesa Texas, each claim to be the birthplace of the dish.  I saw the Neelys whip it up on the Food Network last month and they got my mouth watering!  My recipe is a tweaked version  of theirs.  While theirs called for cube steaks pounded thin, I used beef rib-eye steaks that were about 1/3 of an inch thick and made a bit more gravy with extra kick.  

Weeknights are busy here.  The girl plays field hockey and if she has a game, we're not walking in until 6 or 7, so I need something I can whip up quickly. Steak is one of my family's favorite things and I didn't think it was possible to prefer it more than nice, juicy, and simply grilled. But I was wrong. Start to finish, this meal was done in less than 30 minutes, and it was AMAZING. A unanimous opinion I might add.  These three Yankees LOVE chicken fried steak!  It's in the rotation now.

Chicken Fried Rib Eye

1/2 cup vegetable oil

4 thin sliced beef rib-eye steaks (1/4 to 1/3 inch thick)

1 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon salt

freshly ground black pepper

1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

1/4 teaspoon paprika

3 eggs, beaten

2 cups milk

1/2 teaspoon onion powder

2 cups milk (I used 1% and gravy came out phenomenal)

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Set oven to 150 degrees. Add oil and let it get hot. Oil is heated when you drop a little flour in and the oil spits.

Mix the flour, salt, pepper, cayenne and paprika together and pour onto a plate.  Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl.  Dredge the steaks in flour, then drag through the egg, then back into flour to coat both sides again.

Reserve a 1/4 cup of the flour mixture.  

Carefully add steaks to skillet in a single layer.  Cook until golden brown, 4-6 minutes on each side.  When finished, place on a cookie sheet lined with paper towels. Hold in warm oven until all the steaks are done.

When all the steaks have been cooked, pour off all but 3 tablespoons of the cooking oil and lower the heat.  Add the reserved flour mixture to the oil with a whisk, stirring to create a paste.  Cook, stirring, one minute.  Slowly start adding the milk while whisking.  Season the gravy with salt, pepper and onion powder.  Let cook until thickened.  Pour gravy over steak and garnish with fresh snipped chives.

Chocolate Cannoli

Forget Love - I'd rather fall in chocolate!

Sandra Dykes

The first cannoli I ever had was at Villa Francesca in the North End of Boston. It was Fall of 1984, and I was a freshman in college.  The North End, which is considered Boston's Little Italy, is a small (1/3 of a square mile) neighborhood, cut off from the rest of the city by an interstate.  I lived in the Back Bay, but the North End was warmer, homier, and reminded me a little of Brooklyn.  Down Hanover Street, there was one small shop after another with windows full of Italian pastries or cheeses.  Fascinated, I stopped in one shop and watched as an artisan made beautiful, miniature, realistic looking fruit out of marzipan.

Inside, Villa Francesca was like no other restaurant I had ever been to.  It was narrow, and the walls were bare brick, with little round tables draped with white cloth.  It was charming with an air of romance, like a movie set from the '40's, where you might find Bogey and Bacall, or maybe Al Capone (no wait, that's Chicago). Billy Joel's "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" played in my head.  The food was amazing, the best I'd ever had up to that time.  The only thing missing was a hot date, (I was with my family-no offense, Mom) preferably a ringer for Oliver Martinez.

My hot date..also born in '66.  It was a good year.

A waiter approached our table wheeling  a silver cart topped with a pyramid of fresh cannoli shells.  Taking a big white pastry bag, he filled the shells for us.  Wow!  I was hooked on their cool, creamy goodness.  I brought 4 back to my dorm and guarded them with my life.  Breakfast, lunch, dinner and dessert. When I saw the recipe for chocolate cannoli in the recent BHG Ultimate Italian publication, I had to make them.

I was fortunate in that my local market bakery was willing to sell me some empty shells, and they were GOOD. If you can get your hands on some shells, then putting the cannoli together is very easy.  It took me ten minutes. The publication includes a recipe for homemade chocolate shells, but I did not want to share that with you without trying it out first, and I need to buy some cannoli cylinders before I can attempt them.  

Chocolate Cannoli

1 15-ounce carton ricotta cheese

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 rounded tablespoon cocoa powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon finely shredded orange peel (not having an orange, I substituted 1/2 teaspoon Grand Marnier)

1/4 cup finely chopped dark or bittersweet chocolate.

10 cannoli shells (either packaged, or from your local baker

For the dark chocolate, I used Trader Joe's 85% cacao Chocolate Lover's chocolate.  Instead of chopping it, I grated it on a microplane zester.  In a medium bowl, stir together ricotta cheese, granulated sugar, cocoa powder, vanilla, and orange peel until almost smooth.  Fold in chocolate.  Cover; chill for 30 minutes.  Spoon filling into a pastry bag with a large open star tip. You can find inexpensive disposable bags at most grocery stores now, and certainly at craft stores.  I used a #32 tip.  If you don't have, or have never used a pastry bag,  don't sweat it.  Fill a ziploc bag, cut a corner off and fill them using that.  I've done it before.  Dip the ends of the cannoli in mini chocolate chips.  Still beautiful and tasty.  

Colcannon

What I say is, if a man really likes potatoes, 

he must be a pretty decent sort of fellow.

A.A. Milne

Colcannon (a traditional Irish song)

Did you ever eat Colcannon, made from lovely pickled cream?

With the greens and scallions mingled like a picture in a dream.

Did you ever make a hole on top to hold the melting flake

Of the creamy, flavoured butter that your mother used to make?

 chorus:

Yes you did, so you did, so did he and so did I.

And the more I think about it sure the nearer I'm to cry.

Oh, wasn't it the happy days when troubles we had not,

And our mothers made Colcannon in the little skillet pot.

Someone recently asked me why I'm not showcasing more Irish recipes.  Have you tried Irish food? (Just kidding!) (Not really.) (Please don't kick me out of the clan.) Actually, I love Irish food, with the exception of blood pudding.  That's one of those things you need to grow up with for it to be comfort food.  As an Irish American, and a child of New England in the '70's, my idea of comfort food is a fluffernutter sandwich with a glass of coffee milk.  

Seriously, I do love Irish food, but if that's all this blog was about, I'd run out of material in about two months, since I don't actually live in Ireland.  I cook EVERYTHING I like, and the only things I don't like are okra and liver.  You'll see a little bit of everything sprinkled with Irish recipes here and there,  but no gumbo or Pâté, ever.

Colcannon is not something I grew up with.  I actually didn't start making it until I found the recipe in 2004 in the Gourmet Cookbook edited by Ruth Reichl, and this recipe is adapted from that one.  I brought it to a friends house and it was a hit.  The recipe has been requested several times.  It's a simple dish, and meant to be simple; inexpensive, satisfying and delicious.  Too much embellishment would make it something it's not supposed to be.  You could melt cheddar cheese over it, but then you would have turned it into Rumbledethumps (I'm not making this up), which is a Scottish dish. Not the same thing at all.  The shorter, cool nights of Fall are a great time to revisit this dish, after all, Saint Patrick's Day is just too long to wait!  

Colcannon

2 pounds white potatoes (about 8 medium)

3/4 to 1 cup milk

1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter

1 pound cabbage (one small head, like the one shown above)

1 small leek, washed well and sliced thinly (only the white part..about 1/2 cup) *optional

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Peel and quarter potatoes.  Put in a 5-quart pot and cover with cold water.  Bring to a boil and cook until potatoes are tender, about 20-25 minutes.  Meanwhile melt 4 tablespoons of the butter and sauté the cabbage with the leeks, carefully, with letting them brown too much.  As soon as they are soft, add 1/2 cup milk and turn burner to its lowest setting, so they barely simmer.

When potatoes are tender, drain off the water and add the remaining butter, salt, pepper and garlic powder.  Beat with a hand mixer, adding just enough milk to whip them.  Now stir in the cabbage/leek mixture.  If that doesn't loosen it up enough, you can add a little more milk until they are the desired consistency.

*If you don't add leeks, then add 1/2 teaspoon onion powder.