Lacquered Birthday Cake

Normally for birthdays I just phone up a bakery and order a cake, simple, no stress, just pick it up and enjoy. However, having baked my daughter's birthday cake it was only fair that I would also bake my son's birthday cake and besides if I hadn't I know I would have heard something like -"mom loves me more because I got a homemade cake" to which my son would have responded with something like - "yes, but I'm mom's favourite".

I've been wanting to try the lacquered glaze in Heavenly Cakes by Rose Levy Bernanbaum for a while now so I knew for sure that I would use it on this cake. I also wanted the cake to be a genoise with a custard cream filling and frosted with a ganache. All of this sounded pretty good to me but in the end it wasn't the best combination of choices.

I made the genoise the day before using the recipe for Genoise Rose because it had five eggs in it and I thought it would give me more cake baked in a 9" x 3" round cake pan. This went off without a hitch. The cake baked up high, light and lovely and I could cut it into three layers.

Normally I use a recipe from The Five Roses Baking Book that makes a great custard cream that holds up really well in cake layers but I wanted to try something new. I decided to use a recipe for a chantilly custard cream in the Joy of Cooking and although it was good it just wasn't very stiff but once it cooled I managed to fill the cake layers moistened with coffee flavoured sugar syrup and all was well.

I made a simple ganache of chocolate and whipping cream and when this cooled I frosted the cake but this is where I realized that this wasn't the best choice for the light genoise because as I frosted the cake the cake's crust would lift off. I had to use a light hand so this would not happen. I also had to be careful frosting the sides of the cake as some of the custard was oozing out and made frosting difficult, but slowly I managed to frost the entire cake and by the time I was finished I thought the cake looked pretty good.

I had heard how easy it was to make the lacquer glaze and sure enough it was. Once it cooled to the proper temperature I poured it all at once over the cake making sure the sides were well glazed also. The only problem was that because the sides weren't prefectly straight, the glaze, which is unforgiving and shows any imperfections, was uneven here. The top was just fine and boy was it shiny.

After the glaze set a bit I wrote Happy Birthday Steven with royal icing and I was done.

If I had to do it all again I would not use a ganache for this cake because when it set it was just too stiff for the light cake and cream and slicing was difficult. A buttercream would have worked out better. We enjoyed it nonetheless and even had seconds.

Happy Easter!

Pollo Bianca

Many years ago the Toronto Star Starweek (a weekly TV guide) had a column called Mary McGrath's Chef’s Showcase where a reader could ask that a favourite recipe from a restaurant be featured. I have cut out many recipes from this section that appealed to me, especially if they were pasta dishes or great desserts. A wonderful carrot cake was featured here and has remained a favourite ever since. There are several recipes that I have torned out from this section that I've made over and over again and Pollo Bianca by chef Sandra Vattay of Pimentos is one of them. Pollo Bianca (gramatically I think it should be Pollo Bianco and that's what we call it), translated means White Chicken and the dish is aptly named because all the main ingredients are pretty much colourless; chicken breast, onions, garlic, mushrooms and cream, white wine and chicken stock. The only colour is in the sundried tomatoes and rosemary and the tri-coloured pasta.



It is one of those pasta dishes that you prepare when you don’t feel like cooking and spending hours tending a pot. It is also a recipe you make if you want to impress your guests - it's that good. That is also why I though this pasta dish would be a perfect entry for Presto Pasta Nights www.prestopastanights.com #156 hosted by Our Taste of Life and created by http://bernardosworld.blogspot.com. Pollo Bianca is a creamy chicken pasta dish simply flavoured with a bit of fresh rosemary which I snip off from two of my rosemary plants. I prepare all the ingredients before hand and place them in small bowls. Once this is done I put on a large pot of water to boil the tri-coloured fusilli (or rotini as I've use here) and then I cook the sauce. It could not be easier, and honestly you’ll wonder how something so good didn’t take hours to make.

It has been many years since I've cut out this recipe and I wonder if Pimento is still around and if Sandra Vattay is still chef there, probably not I imagine, as restaurants and chefs come and go and just as columns come and go as well, Chef Showcase is no longer featured in Toronto Starweek. I really miss it and I'm sure a lot of readers miss it as well.

Pollo Bianca

2 tbsp. butter
8 oz. boneless chicken breast, diced
salt and pepper
1 small onion
4 oz. mushrooms, quartered
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 tbsp. dry white wine
½ cup chicken stock
1 to 1½ cups whipping cream
2 sprigs fresh rosemary, chopped
1 oz. oil-packed sundried tomatoes, chopped
1½ cups cooked fusilli pasta (you can use 3 cups)
chopped fresh parsley, garnish

In a sauté pan brown chicken in hot butter. Season with salt and pepper. Add onion, cook 1 minute then add mushrooms and cook 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook 1 minute.
Deglaze pan with white wine, add chicken stock, cream, rosemary, and sundried tomatoes. Simmer gently until thickened. Add cooked pasta, parsley and spoon into two bowls. Garnish with fresh parmesan cheese if desired. Serve immediately.

Polka Dot Cake

I can whip up an ordinary plain cake quite easily, but making a celebration cake, one with buttercream frosting and piping decoration appropriate for the occasion is quite another thing for me. Let just say that with my limited knowledge when it comes to decorating a cake, I could never take on a task of making a wedding cake. The stress just thinking about it would surely raise my blood pressure to the point of needing medical attention.

However, having said that, on very rare occasions I will make a birthday cake. My daughter celebrated a birthday last week and I decided that rather than order a cake from a bakery, I would bake a cake for her. Andrea requested a chocolate cake so that part was easy enough. After flipping through the Cake Bible and Heavenly Cakes both by Rose Levy Beranbaum I decided on the Perfect All-American Chocolate Butter Cake from the Cake Bible. I was sure that I had two 9” x 1-1/2” cake pans lying around in my “not often used storage place” but they weren’t there. I must have thrown them out some time ago, probably because they were old and rusted. I had one newer pan that came in a set (why would they not have included two pans? who uses just one 9” x 1-1/2” round cake pan?) but that wasn’t going to help me any and I wasn’t about to go out to purchase one. I had recently purchased a 9” x 3” round cake pan and, although I am sure this would affect the height of the finished cake, I decided that I would use this pan and cut the cake in half myself. The cake was easy to assemble and I could tell that it would be rich and chocolaty. I poured it into the pan and wrapped the pan with a homemade cake strip from the instructions on Virginia Taylors’ blog and set the cake in the oven. It took about 45 minutes to bake in the one pan but by the time it was almost done the kitchen smelled intensely of chocolate.

The last two times I made the Neoclassical buttercream I used the KitchenAid mixer and even though I had been very careful to keep the syrup away from the beaters, the sugar syrup landed on the beaters and hardened on the beaters as well as the sides of the bowl as I was mixing it into the beaten eggs. I was afraid that not enough of the syrup had been incorporated into the eggs so I boiled a bit more of the corn syrup and sugar to make up for the hardened sugar. I am sure I upset the balance of the ingredients by doing this but in the end it seem to have turned out alright, except that it left my confidence frazzled as to whether I could ever whip up a really good frosting.

I was determined to give this buttercream one more try, only this time I would use a hand held mixer instead. I began with the eggs, beating them until they were light and fluffy, and when the sugar syrup boiled I poured it into the oiled measuring cup and held my breath. If only I had used a hand held mixer the first two times I would not have been so stressed this time.
This time the sugar syrup mixed beautifully into the eggs and I was very happy that none clumped onto the beaters. Now I just had to keep beating until the mixture was totally cooled. This seemed to take an awfully long time. I opened up the kitchen window to let the cold air in to help the process along, but it still took a long time. When it was finally coolish I began beating in the softened butter, and this process seemed to go off without a hitch. I thought a coffee flavoured buttercream would be nice with the chocolate cake so I added instant espresso granules mixed with a bit of water as per Rose's recipe. I was all out of coffee flavoured liqueur so I added a bit of brandy instead. For the first time I had a really nice buttercream ready to frost the cake.

I plainly frosted the cake with all the buttercream leaving none aside for piping decoration. I am not very good at piping so I decided to decorate it in some other manner. All I knew at this point was that I would use a chocolate plate and write on it - Happy Birthday Andrea - and place it on the cake as I had seen bakeries do. That part was easy enough; I melted semi-sweet chocolate and with an off set spatula smeared the back of a baking sheet lined with foil as evenly and thinly as I could with the melted chocolate.

Once the chocolate was hard again I cut a rectangle with a sharp knife. I wrote Happy Birthday Andrea as best I could (not as easy as with a pen) with royal icing and placed it on the cake. Still the cake looked plain and it really did need to be jazzed up a bit. I had an awful lot of chocolate left so I decided that I would cut two sizes of circles using a melon baller for the larger circles and a decorating tip’s round end for the smaller circles. When I cut out enough chocolate circles I randomly placed them on the cake. As adornment this easy decoration did the trick and my daughter was very happy with her birthday cake.

The cake with the coffee buttercream was delicious, very chocolaty and dense.

Challah of a Mess

I probably I hadn’t baked a challah for well over a year. Before that I had been baking challah often and even became quite proficient at the fours strand braid, without having to refer back to the how-to diagrams in the Bread Bible. So having mixed up a bread machine recipe for challah in the morning I had a risen dough waiting for shaping.

Actually I thought I had it filed under memory and proceeded to braid the first challah without referring to the book. With four strands laid out before me, I began braiding that dough like it was nobody’s business, only to discover that as I was coming to the end, the whole thing wanted to lean over as if it wasn’t properly supported.

I tried straightening it out but that didn’t seem to help much, it just kept leaning over. I had done it all wrong – it didn’t look terrible but it wasn’t right. I wanted to take it apart and start over but by now the strands were sticking together and I would have made an even bigger mess of it all, so I left it as it was. There was one more challah to braid - I would redeem myself with this one - so I opened up the Bread Bible to the instructions for the four strand braid and sure enough I had completely forgotten that you had to bring the strands under instead of over as I had done. I had done this before so I thought I would get the hang of it again - this one would look like the challahs I had made in the past. Instead, the instructions were confusing me, and as I braided the strands I got a loose mess and not a tightly braided loaf. As though that wasn't enough, for some reason the dough seemed to be softer and it wasn’t holding its shape at all. Well now I was totally frustrated, and this time I just could not leave it as it was, so I tried to take the braid apart but the strands were sticking together even more than with the first challah because of the soft dough. What a mess! This one was worse than the first one so, exasperated, I bunched up the whole mass into a ball and divided it into three pieces, and rolled each piece out to braid the easier three strand braid. I began braiding from one end to the other, completely forgotting that you are suppose to start to braid from the center, braiding one end and then flipping it and braiding the other end. I hadn't shaped the strands very carefully either, so instead of having a nicely shaped loaf tapering at either end, it resembled a tornado.

Sometimes a loaf of bread just doesn’t turn out as well as we would like! The baked challah tasted good, it just didn’t look pretty. The next time I make challah I will practice on four pieces of strings like I used to before moving onto the dough.

As a comparison, I made this challah a while ago and is what I had hoped these challahs would have looked like.

Valentine's Days Dinner

I had been thinking about making an extra special dinner for Valentine’s Day all week and I knew exactly what it would be. For special occasions I like to make Short Ribs with Polenta and vegetables and Beranbaum's Best Buns. I will often make this for a dinner party because the short ribs are that good. I just couldn’t figure out what I wanted to make for dessert except that it had to be chocolate. The problem was this – I was intent on making a heart shaped cake but I could not find a heart shaped pan anywhere where I went shopping. I even went to the States on Saturday for a quick shopping trip and checked out three places including Target and I had no luck finding a heart shaped pan. I guess all the pans had been bought for Valentine’s Day and leaving it to the last minute didn’t help. The frustrating thing is that I will come across a heart shaped pan during the year and not pick it up because I figure I’ll get one closer to the occasion. Note to self: buy heart shaped pan when you see one.

At breakfast my husband Randy gave me a Valentine’s card and in it was a certificate for cooking lessons, privately or in a group, the choice was mine, with a chef. I looked at him and said “are you trying to tell me something?” In all honesty this is something I’ve always wanted to do so I was pretty happy. My gift to him was a nice bottle of wine to go with dinner, and I would bake a

chocolate cake (his favourite) for dessert.

For my birthday in September, my daughter gave me three Julie Child books; Mastering Vol. 1, My Life in France which I enjoyed very much and Julie & Julia by Julie Powell which I haven’t started yet. So I’ve been on a Julia Child kick lately - I even find myself thinking French phrases while making a JC recipe and I can’t speak French for beans, except that being Canadian you can’t but be exposed to some French. I had made a Reine de Saba (Chocolate and Almond Cake) iced with a Glaçages au Chocolate (Chocolate-butter icing) in the fall from Mastering Vol. 1 and it was quite good. So that's what I finally decided for dessert; it met the criteria for chocolate, and though it was baked in a round pan it was made from the heart.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Braised Short Ribs in Red Wine

by Bonnie Stern

· 6 lbs. short ribs, cut in thick chunks or strips
· 1 tbsp. each salt, pepper and smoked paprika or regular paprika
· 2 tbsp. olive oil
· 2 onions, chopped
· 3 cloves garlic, chopped
· 2 cups dry red wine
· 28 oz. plum tomatoes, crushed with juices
· 1 cup beef stock
· 1 tbsp. chopped fresh parsley

Heat oil in Dutch oven or roasting pan. Brown short ribs well on all sides. Remove from pan. Discard all but a few tablespoons of oil.
Add onions and garlic. Cook until tender. Add wine. Bring to a boil. Add tomatoes and stock. Heat. Place ribs in sauce; cover directly with parchment paper and then with lid or aluminum foil.
Place in a 350 F. oven for 2½ to 3 hours or longer, until meat is very tender. Remove to serving plate and keep warm. Skim fat from the sauce. Reduce sauce, if necessary, by cooking without a cover until slightly thickened.
Combine the sauce with the ribs and sprinkle with parsley.
Note: If you like you can add a sprig of rosemary tied in cheesecloth to the sauce.

Beranbaum's Best Buns

These delicious, preservative-free buns can be made in just 3½ to 4 hours with no more than about 45 minutes of actual work — less than 30 minutes if using a food processor (see TIP, below). The recipe can be doubled and the extra baked buns frozen to have on hand for a speedy summer supper. The added crunch of sesame seeds sprinkled on top of the buns is nice; a mixture of seeds and grains kneaded into the dough provides still more fiber and flavor.
· 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, plus more as necessary
· ¼ cup whole-wheat flour
· 1¼ teaspoons instant yeast, such as rapid-rise or bread machine yeast
· 1½ teaspoons fine sea salt
· 1⅓ cups room-temperature water
· 1 teaspoon mild honey, such as clover
· ¼ cup olive oil
· ¾ cup toasted mixed seeds, such as cracked flax, sesame, poppy, sunflower and pumpkin, or 1 tablespoon sesame seeds for the topping (optional)
Milk or water, for brushing the tops of the buns (optional)
In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, whole-wheat flour and yeast, then the salt. Add the water, honey and oil. Using a mixer with a dough hook on medium speed, or by hand, knead the dough for 7 minutes (10 minutes by hand) until smooth and springy. The dough should be soft and just sticky enough to cling slightly to your fingers. If it is still very sticky, knead in a little flour. If it is too stiff, spray it with a little water and knead it. Allow the dough to rest, covered, for 20 minutes and then knead in the seeds, if desired.
Set the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and lightly spray or oil the top of the dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in a warm spot. Allow the dough to rise for about 1 hour or until it has doubled. (The indentation from a finger stuck into the center of the dough should remain.)
If you plan to bake the hamburger buns the next day, press down the dough and place it in a large, oiled resealable plastic food storage bag, leaving a tiny bit unzipped for the forming gas to escape, and refrigerate it. Take it out of the refrigerator about 1 hour before shaping.
When ready to shape the dough, set it on a very lightly floured work surface and form it into a log. With a sharp knife, divide it into 8 equal pieces. (If you prefer very large buns, you can divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.) Shape each piece into a ball by cupping your hand over the dough and rotating it. It works best if you use only as much flour as you need to keep the dough from sticking. A little resistance helps to form a round ball. Keep the balls of dough covered with damp paper towels to prevent drying; allow them to rest for 5 minutes.
Transfer the dough balls to a parchment-lined baking sheet or inverted sheet pan, leaving enough space between them to allow for a 4-inch bun. Flatten the balls to a height of about 1 inch. (If the dough is very elastic, you can flatten them again after 15 minutes of rising.) If using the sesame seeds, brush the dough lightly with milk or water and sprinkle with the seeds. Cover the balls with a large inverted plastic box or with plastic wrap lightly coated with baking spray, and allow them to rise for 1 to 1½ hours, or until almost doubled; when the dough is pressed gently with a finger, the depression should very slowly fill in.
While the dough is rising, set the oven rack toward the bottom of the oven and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it. Set a cast-iron skillet or heavy baking pan on the floor of the oven or on the lowest shelf. Preheat the oven to 425° degrees for 45 minutes or longer.
Mist the dough with water, quickly but gently set the baking sheet on the hot stone or hot baking sheet, and toss ½ cup of ice cubes into the pan beneath. Immediately shut the door and bake 15 minutes. Rotate the pan front to back and bake for 3 to 5 minutes or until the buns are golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. (An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center will read 200 to 210 degrees.) Transfer the buns to wire racks until they are completely cool or barely warm.

The Carrots and Brussel Sprouts recipe is in Epicurious and the Reine de Saba is in Julia Child's Mastering Vol 1. and if you don't have the book you can google it.

Duivekater - A Lazy Bakers Project

This is my first entry as a Lazy Baker and I must admit that in the past I secretly wished that I was part of the group so when Melinda invited me to participate, I was thrilled. The Duivekater, a sweet Dutch bread usually made between St. Nicholas, December 6, and Epiphany, January 6, was chosen by Melinda as a Lazy Bakers project and you cannot get much lazier than this.

Most breads are lazy projects, after all there are only a few minutes of actually prep time and then while the dough is rising you can go about your business or just continue to be lazy. The recipe is straightforward with no pre-ferment, no toasting or skinning of nuts (an exercise in futility especially with walnuts), no soaking of fruit, and no fancy shmanshy ingredients that you can’t find in your local supermarket.

I threw all the ingredients into the KitchenAid and using the dough hook mixed the dough. The dough was quite stiff I thought, and even though the recipe states that it should be on the stiffer side, I thought it could use a bit more milk. I carefully added a few drops of milk until the dough softened somewhat and continued kneading for a few minutes.

I placed it in my dough rising container. This large bread crumb container is the perfect size for many of the breads I make so rather than throw it out I converted it to a dough rising container. I measured and marked it with a permanent marker to accurately show when the dough doubles. I was quite pleased with myself and for my contribution to a greener earth.

After about two hours I removed it from the container and shaped it into a ten inch torpedo shaped loaf. I made a four inch cut in the middle of each end and pulled the pieces to elongate them. I looked at the cut dough and thought it looked like a huge deadly virus sent by aliens to invade our earth. It does look rather sinister doesn't it? I was surprised how easy it was to stretch out the cut pieces without them receding back especially since I hadn’t rested the dough. I coiled the ends inward as the picture showed and placed the dough in a plastic bag for the final rising. About an hour later it was ready for the egg wash and decorative slashes.

I wanted to be creative with the slashes but after some thought I combined a couple of designs I had seen on the internet. Slashing was pretty easy too – I thought I might have trouble with the intricate design but the stiff dough allowed the sharpened knife to slash the dough effortlessly. I placed the Duivekater into the preheated oven and set the timer for 35 minutes. As it was baking a lovely scent of bread baking and citrus wafted through the kitchen. Halfway through baking I looked in to see how it was doing and everything looked good except some of the deeper slashes had opened up a bit too much making the design not as sharp, otherwise I thought the bread was quite handsome and not alien at all.

I had a slice after dinner and thought it was quite nice with the flavour of citrus and cardamom coming through with just a hint of nutmeg and I thought it would be perfect with a cup of tea. My daughter said it reminded her of panettone and my son said he really liked it and went for a second slice. The next day I brought some over to my parent's for them to enjoy and by evening the entire loaf was gone. I enjoyed making this bread – I hope the Dutch approve.

Sourdough Bread

My sourdough culture turned three last November and I’m so happy that after three years I have made countless loaves with it and that with regular (and sometimes not so regular) feedings it is still alive and kicking. There was a time before its birth that I thought I would probably never make sourdough bread.

I had tried to develop a sourdough culture once or twice with poor results, mostly due to incomprehensive instructions. I would console myself that I really didn’t like San Francesco Sourdough that much anyway, so why would I want to maintain a culture to make bread that I wasn’t crazy about? And besides, didn't sourdough bread take hours and hours to rise? Little did I know then that sourdough bread made at home bears little resemblance to store bought sourdough, and that with the addition of commercial yeast the rising time wasn't more than bread made without a starter. It wasn’t until I purchased The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum and read the lengthy and informative chapter on sourdough once or twice that I felt I had the confidence to try again - after all I really really wanted to make a bread with yeast that I cultured by simply allowing water and flour to sit for a few days. I set out my bowl of bait and hoped that this simple mixture of flour and water would capture the yeast around me. I watched it closely for the first few days for any sign that it had gone bad. Everything so far seemed to aim toward success; the scent of paint, the small bubbles forming on top, and the absence of colour that would indicate spoilage. I think it was on the third day that my culture more than doubled and I was so thrilled I felt as if I had actually given birth to a child that I would love forever. But it wasn’t done yet, I still had to continue feeding this lovely mass for a least a few more days. On the fifth day something had terribly gone wrong, or so I thought, because when I checked on it, it just wasn't as active as it had been the day before, even though I had fed it, there was no sign of life whatsoever. What had gone wrong!? I quickly went to Rose’s blog and issued an S.O.S (save our sourdough). She advised, "each sourdough seems to have a mind of its own so be patient and it surely will develop as it should", so, relieved, I continued feeding it and sure enough just one day later it was active again, it was so active that the first name that popped in my head to call it was Casanova. I thought that was pretty funny at the time but when I told my daughter she just looked at me and said, “that’s gross Mom”. My starter has remained nameless ever since. My baby may not be referred to by a proper name but it always responds enthusiastically to feedings. Sometimes I wonder if with all the feedings it has received if any molecules from the original batch are still present.

Nonetheless, I have made many loaves of bread with my reliable little starter and some have become favourites, but my all time favourite is the Sourdough Bread recipe from The Best of Better Baking.com by Marcy Goldman & Yvan Huneault. It is the first recipe I tried with my new starter and the one I make the most. It is truly exceptional bread. This recipe has some commercial yeast in it, but I’ve cut down the amount I use by half with very good results. I have even made it omitting the commercial yeast altogether - it just takes a little longer to rise and produces a slightly more sour loaf. I highly recommend this bread.

Sourdough Bread

Sourdough Bread from The Best of Better Baking.com by Marcy Goldman & Yvan Huneault

1½ cups liquid white sourdough starter at room temperature and recently refreshed
1½ cups water
2 teaspoons (I use 1 teaspoon)
½ tsp. malt powder or packed brown sugar
1 tbsp. salt
1 tsp. sugar
3 tbsp. olive oil
2 tbsp. semolina (optional)
4 to 5 cups bread flour

In the bowl of an electric mixer, stir down the starter to deflate it. Stir in the water, yeast, malt powder or brown sugar, granulated sugar, olive oil, semolina if using, and 4 cups of the flour. Mix to make a soft mass. Let rest for 10 to 12 minutes, add the salt and gradually add more flour as required to form a soft dough. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured board and form it into a ball. Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, and let the dough rise for 30 to 45 minutes, or until almost doubled.
Gently deflate the dough. Spray the top with nonstick cooking spray and return the dough to the bowl and cover with plastic. Let rise for 1 to 2 hours or until puffy and 75 to 80 percent larger in volume. Gently deflate the dough. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured surface and form into a large ball. Place it on the prepared baking sheet and spray the dough with non-stick cooking spray. Cover with plastic and let the dough rise for 2 to 4 hours, or until puffy.
Preheat the oven to 500°F. Using a sharp knife make 3 or 4 diagonal slashes 1½ inches apart on the top of the loaf. With a spray bottle mist the dough with water and then dust it with flour. Place in the oven and immediately lower the heat to 450°F. Throw in ½ cup of ice cubes on a shallow tray placed on the oven floor. Bake for 10 minutes then lower the heat to 400°F. Bake for an additional 35 to 45 minutes, or until the loaf is well browned. Let cool on a wire rack for at least 30 minutes before serving.
Instead or making one large loaf divide the dough in 2 or 3 pieces and form into a long loaf.
Note: You can omit the yeast, but rising time will be longer.

Oatmeal Raisin Bread & Whipped Cream Cake

Often when I'm flipping through bread books I'll come across recipes that I would like to bake, but then as I scan down the list of ingredients, buttermilk powder is listed as an ingredient. I have a mental list of items at the back of my mind which I'm always on the lookout for when I'm shopping and buttermilk powder has been there for a while. I know you can get this item, otherwise it wouldn't be listed, but when I've shopped at my local supermarket or any other supermarket within a five mile radius I can never find it. Well my luck finally changed when I was shopping at the bulk food store recently. I know I had checked for it here many times before, never to be found, but I persisted and as I looked over each bin, this time, there it was near the skim milk powder which, by the way, you can find everywhere. Not only did they have buttermilk powder, there in a bin nearby I finally spotted dry milk. I came close many times to ordering dry milk from King Arthur but shipping to Canada was more than double the cost of the item so I resisted. Dry milk differs from milk powder in that dry milk does not dissolve in water, and is used in bread recipes and eliminates the scalding milk step. I had no idea what recipes I would be baking with either of these ingredients, but I scooped a bit of both into small plastic bags and came hope quite satisfied, having hit two birds with one stone.

I went through my bread machine baking book where I had seen the buttermilk listed in many of the recipes and came across Oatmeal Raisin Bread. I love raisin bread and this one had oatmeal in it, how bad could that be I thought, well not bad at all, so I eagerly assembled all the ingredients into the pan as described and set my machine to work. How easy is that! This time to keep things simpler I didn't bother to convert the recipe to the sponge method, I could always do that next time. This recipe is loaded with raisins which I like. Often bread machine recipes skimp out the amount of raisins added to the dough and I will normally increase the amount to my liking but I didn't have to this time because this recipe is loaded with raisins.

The dough was nice to work with and before I knew it, it was time to shape the dough into loaves, allow to rise and bake. About a half an hour later the house smelled divine and the bread was done. The bread was quite good, certainly better than any bread you find in your grocery store bakery department. I'm sure the buttermilk improved the flavour from a loaf made with skim milk powder but I didn't have one to compare it to so I couldn't do a taste it. I certainly will make this again.

Oatmeal Raisin Bread

Makes 1 loaf (1.5 Lb. or 750 gr.)

1-1/4 cups water

1-1/4 tsp. salt

2 tbsp. granulated sugar

2 tbsp. shortening

3 cups all purpose flour or bread flour

1/3 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup buttermilk powder

1-1/4 tsp. bread machine yeast

1 cup raisins

1. Measure all ingredients except raisins into baking pan in the ordr recommeded by the manufacturer. Insert pan into the oven chamber.

2. Select Basic Cycle or Sweet Cycle.

3. Add raisins at the "add ingredients" signal.

Or

1. Select dough cycle.

2. Add raisins.

3. Transfer dough from pan to a greased bowl to rise until doubled.

4. Deflate slightly and give two business turns and return to bowl.

5. Allow to rise until doubled

6. Deflate slightly and roll to fit a 4 x 8 bread pan.

7. Allow to rise until doubled.

8. Bake in a preheated 375 F. oven for about 35 minutes or until internal temperature reads 205 degrees.

I am not a member of the Heavenly Cake Bakers, but I do look forward each week to what was baked. There are so many wonderful cakes in the book like the Plum Ingot cakes that I can't wait to bake when plums are in season again, but recently Marie Wolf (Heavenly Cake Place)posted the Whipped Cream Cake and I couldn't wait to bake it.

My photo of the finished cake doesn't do it justice but if taste could be photographed then this photo would win first prize.

I had never made a cake where the cream is whipped and then the rest of the ingredients are added. The batter was so light and lovely. I greased the pan with Pam then floured it but after baking I had a bit of trouble removing the cake from the pan. A small piece of cake stuck to the pan but I gently removed it and placed it back on the cake. You could hardly tell after I sprinkled on the icing sugar. I had a slice with some whipped cream and wished I had had some macerated strawberries to go with this cake, one of the best tasting cakes I've ever had.