My mother's birthday is tomorrow, and I am making a double batch of her mother's Devil's Food cake, which is an institution in our family..I posted the recipe in volumetric measurements in xaipete's Cake Flour thread several days ago..Visit the thread below for instructions on how to assemble and bake the cake..This cake batter makes excellent cupcakes, both mini and full-sized cupcakes..For best results use cupcake papers..

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/11396/cake-flour

Below is my grandmother's recipe converted to weight measures..All weights in grams are rounded up to the nearest half of a gram..

This recipe dates from approximately late in the second decade of the 20th Century..Attentive recipe readers will notice that this recipe calls for no salt..It does not need any salt as the leavening agents themselves are somewhat salty..Like most recipes of that vintage it was intended to be made with cake flour that had been sifted at least twice along with the other dry ingredients in the recipe..I recommend at least a 50-50 ratio of cake flour to all-purpose flour for the best tasting, most tender cake..100% cake flour will yield the best results..I also recommend frosting this cake with vanilla buttercream frosting as opposed to a chocolate frosting..The vanilla buttercream frosting will play off against the rich, moist chocolate cake far better than chocolate frostings will..

Bruce

Mom's Devil's Food Cake---circa 1917-1920

7 oz. cake flour  (199g)

2 oz. Dutch-processed cocoa  (57g)

1 teaspoon baking powder

The above three ingredients should be sifted together at least twice for best results..I use a small wire whisk to stir the ingredients around to more evenly mix them before sifting the second time..This usually eliminates the need to sift a third time..

4 oz. butter, or margarine, room temperature  (113.5g)

8 oz. granulated sugar  (227g)

2 large eggs, room temperature

8.3 oz. hot, strong coffee  (234g)

1 teaspoon baking soda

Yield: 2-- 8" round cake layers,  1- 9"x13" sheet cake,  16--standard-sized cupcakes in papers,  54--mini-sized cupcakes in papers

Baking Times at 350F: 8" round cake pans = 20-25 min,  9"x13" rectangular cake pan = 24-28 minutes,  standard-sized cupcakes in papers = 14-17 minutes,  mini-sized cupcakes in papers = 9-11 minutes

There was a recent post on cake flour and I had ordered a bag of K.A. Queen Guinevere cake flour in Dec.  It was time to test it  and I was very pleased.  I love Coconut on cake so I made the white cake recipe on the back of the bag...it was perfect for the coconut, cream cheese, butter frosting with a bit of my homemade strawberry jam in the center.  The only changes I made were to use 2% milk instead of cream and I had fresh x-large eggs so I reduced the egg whites by one egg.  The cake looks very small in the photo 'big strawberry'  but it is actually a 9" cake...plenty...I put half in the freezer wraped in foil and into a container.

Nice recipe on the back of the flour bag!  The egg whites make it nice and lite!

Sylvia

Can anyone direct me to a sight that explains and draws out the different shapes of Danish. I can sure make the dough but the finished product does not look to professional.

Thanks Everyone. I look forward to hearing from some of you.

Northwoodie

Hello all,

I made laminated danish dough in my baking class years ago, and I remember it worked well all but one time. The one time, during the proofing stage, all of the butter melted out. Today I tried to make cinnamon rolls at home. The dough was working perfectly until the proofing stage, at which time a lot of butter melted out (I proofed at about 85 degrees, definately warm enough to melt butter). The rolls still looked fine (not over proofed), so I baked them. The resulting rolls are limp and flat. Should I have proofed them at less than room temperature?

Thanks,

Adam

What is the best way to store a baked pastry item, such as an apple pie?

When it comes out of the oven and cools the pastry is nice and crisp. Usually I put it in the fridge, then the pastry becomes soggy.

Is there any way to keep it crisp? The apples I use are quite dry, not much juice.

After using up some Granny Smith apples that were a little past their prime earlier today to make an Apple Brown Betty that only turned out so-so; I remembered just how great an apple dessert can be if the baker truly puts some effort into its creation..After tasting, and being disappointed with, my efforts with the Apple Brown Betty I for some reason remembered the 20-Hour Apples that I made for the first, and only time, back in 2000..

The recipe comes out of the book Desserts by Pierre Herme..The execution of the recipe takes the better part of 24 hours, but in reality is simplicity itself..Why I never made the 20-Hour Apples recipe again after that first time I do not know..The apple filling that results from the recipe can be used in a variety of ways, and is quite simply the best tasting apple dessert creation that I have ever eaten, bar none..Chef Herme's recipe calls for a mixture of sweet and tart apples, such as Granny Smith and Fuji..I used all Granny Smith apples back in 2000 and thought that the resulting dessert filling was simply fabulous..If I could get my hands on some heirloom Gravenstein apples I am positive that the end result would be far tastier, with additional layers of apple flavor, than what I obtained with the Granny Smith apples..

I urge anyone that loves apple desserts to try their hand at this recipe..You WILL NOT be disappointed!!..

20-Hour Apples

Pre-heat the oven to 175F

6 Granny Smith tart apples, preferably organic

4 Fuji sweet apples, preferably organic

4 tablespoons organic unsalted butter, melted

1/2 cup organic granulated cane sugar

Finely grated zest of 1-2 organic oranges

Pyrex 8"x8" square baking dish, buttered

6" diameter ceramic souffle dish half filled with baking weights (dried beans)

heavy-duty plastic wrap

Peel the apples..Core them with a suitably-sized apple coring tool..Cut the apples in half through the core..Using a very sharp knife slice the apples across the core into slices that are as thin as you can make them..The thinner the better..Twice the thickness of a piece of printer paper is about what you want to shoot for..Try to keep the slices of the apple halves neatly together..Pick up the entire half of the thinly sliced apple and fan out the slices in the bottom of the buttered baking dish as evenly as possible..Repeat the slicing and fanning out with additional apple halves until the bottom of the dish is covered in a single layer of fanned out ultra-thin apple slices..Now, brush melted butter over the layer of sliced apples..Sprinkle the layer of buttered apples with a thin layer of granulated sugar, followed with some of the finely grated orange zest..Repeat these steps until all of the apples have been used up in this way..Tightly wrap the baking dish with plastic wrap taking care to stretch it tightly across the dish like a drum head..Turn the dish 90 degrees and repeat the wrapping process..Take a sharp, pointed paring knife and poke a series of holes through the two layers of plastic wrap every inch, or so..Place the dish on a 1/2 sheet pan..Place the souffle dish half filled with dried beans on top of the plastic wrap, taking care NOT to cover up all of the holes that you just poked in the plastic wrap..Place the sheet pan with the weighted, plastic wrapped baking dish into the 175F oven..Do not worry!!..At 175F the plastic wrap will not burn..It will shrink up, and some of it might stick tightly to the Pyrex dish, but ir will easily scrape off later..Set a timer for 10 hours, and allow to bake until the time is up..Remove everything from the oven..Spill the beans out onto the sheet pan and allow them to cool to room temperature on a cooling rack..Cool the wrapped dish on a cooling rack to room temperature without removing the plastic wrap..When the apples are at room temperature, place them in the refrigerator with the weighted souffle dish back on top of the apples..Cool in the refrigerator for 10 hours..When the 10 hours in the fridge are up, remove the dishes from the refrigerator, and unwrap the apples..

The end result should be approximately 4-5 cups of a jam-like apple filling where the apples still maintain some semblance of their original shape..The taste will be out-of-this-world fantastic with an apple intensity that has to be experienced to be believed..Organic ingredients are a must for this recipe, and will pay the baker back for their higher costs in additional layers of flavor untainted by petrochemical residues..

Do not get hung up on the equipment suggestions, just use whatever equipment that you own..The ingredients are the key to 20-Hour Apples..

20-Hour Apples are fantastic over a great vanilla ice cream..They also make a fantastic tart filling, cake filling, danish filling, etc..I am sure that any baker can come up with dozens of ways to use this filling..

Bruce

Here is my Finnish mother inlaw's recipe for Gingerbread Cookies! It is hard to duplicate them just like hers because their ingredients taste different and they have a lot of different flours and different syrup too. These are still really good with the crushed cardamom! Enjoy! Julie J

Finnish Gingerbread Cookies

1 ¼ cup sugar
1 ½ cup dark Karo syrup (not brown sugar Karo syrup)
4 tsp. crushed cardamom (not ground**)
1 large orange (grated peel only)
1 ½ tsp. cloves
3 ½ tsp. ginger
3 ½ tsp. cinnamon
2 sticks butter (1 cup)
½ cup whipping cream
8 cups flour
2 eggs
2 tsp. baking soda

Put the sugar and the next 6 ingredients in a pot on the stove and stir until it boils. Turn off heat and add butter and stir until melted. Cool for a while on the stove and stir in cream when it is still warm.

Add baking soda to flour and sift. Transfer contents of pot on stove to a pretty large bowl. Add flour and egg gradually with a mixer until a dough forms. Cut into 6 pieces and wrap in plastic wrap after shaping into a rectangle. Chill overnight. Roll out between 2 sheets of white parchment paper (approx. 16 inches long) that fit on a cookie sheet. Cut out gingerbread and bake at 375 degrees for about 6 or 7 minutes on the sheet you rolled them out on. Store in airtight tin can.

P.S. I put my dough in the freezer for about 2 months before Christmas for added flavor, and then I can bake one or two packs at a time, instead of trying to do the whole recipe right at Christmas!

Enjoy! These are much better rolled out really thin and baked crispy!

** I bring home crushed cardamom from Finland, and you can only buy whole pods of cardamom or ground cardamom in the U.S. You can make it with ground cardamom, but I don't think you will get the same bite of flavor with the ground that you do with the crushed cardamom. You bite into the seeds and get a nice burst of flavor with the crushed cardamom. You can order cardamom seeds online without the green pod, and crush them in a coffee grinder until they have a sand-like consistency. The crushed cardamom feels like sand. I've tried taking the green pod off the whole pod of cardamom and it was such a task, that I would order the seeds online! Enjoy!

I just made Danish using M. Suas' recipe from his Advanced Bread and Pastry.  So this is what Danish is supposed to taste;  I've only had the 2nd rate versions from stores before.

I have leftover pastry cream and frangipane.  Can they be frozen?

hi i know making croissants can be a lengthy project but i have made excellent danish and puff pastry using  the processor. this i tried from nigella lawson's baking book from a recipe adapted from beatrice O. (the great scandinavian baking book). anyway, the whole point is the butter thats usually rolled in after the dough is made is actually mixed in with the dough right from the very beginning and then you do the usual letter folds. so what im after now is a recipe for croissants that i could try using the same processor method. appreciate any feedback thanks heaps.

I am looking for a very tender cinnamon roll recipe containing mashed pototoes that has been converted to weights..I used the search function here at TFL and found Zolablue's cinnamon roll recipe, but it is all volumetric measures, not weights..Has anyone here converted her recipe to weights..Or perhaps, has a similar recipe that is already worked out for weight measurements..Either grams or ounces is fine with me..My scale, and my mind, will handle both grams / kilograms, and ounces / pounds..

Thanks, Bruce