(FTC disclaimer: the Damsel isn’t receiving anything except smiles and pounds for mentioning this book at the Old School)

Making cake the old school way is a world of difference from the cake-mix-in-a-box thing. Oh, heaven. And the frosting on the cake is the frosting on the cake.

Heh. The Damsel cracks herself up.

So we  first we had chocolate chips masquerading as frosting in this post, and now another version: chocolate ganache. Plenty of options for folks who live in fear of making buttercream frosting.

What is ganache, anyway? It sounds terribly fancy, but simply put, ganache is a mixture of melted chocolate and cream. That’s it. No clouds of powdered sugar or even butter. It’s quite versatile, as you can use it to make anything from a glaze to a truffle. Plus, it’s easy as kindergarten.

Take some thick, rich, calorie-laden heavy cream (whipping cream) and accept it into your life. Frosting ain’t no diet food, and the sooner you make peace with that, the better. 1 cup will make enough to frost a dozen cupcakes plus a little to spare.

Heat the cream to nearly boiling, but don’t let it scorch. It needs to just be good and hot for the singular purpose of melting the chocolate. Remove from the heat source.

Add 2 cups of chocolate chips or other chopped chocolate. Semi-sweet chips make a “dark” chocolatey frosting–not terribly sweet but with an intense chocolate flavor. The Damsel has embraced the dark side but won’t judge if you want to go milk chocolate. The higher quality chocolate you use, the better the taste. You can use flavored chips, too, if you like, or add a drop or two of flavored extract like peppermint or orange.

Stir until the chocolate is melted and the cream is completely incorporated.

Right now the ganache is pretty liquidy. You could pour it over a cake at this point and it would form a beautiful, smooth layer of dark brown heaven. If you want a spreadable frosting or filling between layers, let it cool and then beat it with an electric mixer. The cooler, the stiffer. When it’s cold, it can even be formed into truffle balls. This is the way to legitimately eat frosting all by itself, if you’re the kind who feels guilty about such things.

The Damsel figures if she made the frosting, she gets to lick the beaters. Only a grand-sprog could make her change her mind.

By the way, ganache can be nearly any ratio of cream and chocolate. The 1:2 shown here has the advantage of being yummy+easy to remember.

A tip of the sunbonnet to Lauren for the great Old School post idea.

Pretend you’ve baked a cake or some brownies, and you’re either too lazy to make frosting or you don’t have time to wait for the cake to cool. (Frosting a hot cake is a sad, sad thing to do…the frosting melts and runs and makes a mess. A hot mess.)

It’s easy to picture not having time to wait for a cake to cool. People are always suddenly having birthdays, it seems. Birthdays always seem to sneak up on the unsuspecting Damsel.

This works especially well for cakes served right out of the pan–like a Texas sheet cake.

Immediately after taking the cake/brownies from the oven, sprinkle a bunch of chocolate chips across the surface. For a Texas sheet cake, 2 cups was not too much.

Wait a few minutes and test the chocolate chips to see if they are all melty by taking a knife and attempt to gently spread them. When they are perfectly melty and soft, the chocolate chips will spread just like frosting. Proceed across the surface, using a gentle hand because the cake is hot and not as firm as a cool cake.

The Damsel really likes this because she’s a dark chocolate girl, and semi-sweet chocolate chips are “darker” than most regular frostings. Less sweet, more chocolatey. Mmmmm. If you are less hard-core about dark chocolate, you could always use milk chocolate chips. The Damsel will try not to judge.

After the cake is very cool, the frosting may crack when you cut it. To prevent this, eat the whole cake while it’s still warm. This is the Damsel’s wish for you.

Yield: 12 jumbo pretzels
Time: 3 hours

4 t yeast (active dry or instant)
1 t sugar
1 1/4 C warm water
5 C flour
1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 t salt
1 T canola oil
10 C hot boiling water
3/4 C baking soda
Pretzel salt to taste
1 egg, whipped until frothy




1. In the bottom of your Kitchen Aid or Bosch Mixer dissolve 1 t sugar and the yeast in the warm water. I just stir it around a bit with a spoon. Let it sit for 5 minutes, or until the mixture begins to bubble and rise.


2. Add salt, 1/2 C sugar, oil, yeast, and 1 C of the flour. Mix for about 30 seconds.


3. Add the rest of the flour 1 C at a time. This recipe needs ALL 5 CUPS of the flour. It will seem a bit stiff at first, but the pretzels still turn out very soft with all 5 cups. You need this much flour, or your finished product will be more roll like than pretzel like.


4. Once all the flour is added mix on high for about 8 minutes.


5. Let the dough rest and rise for 1 1/2-2 hours. The dough needs to rise until at least doubled in size. This recipe takes a while to rise, but don’t cheat this step. The pretzels will be much more difficult to roll out if the dough hasn’t risen enough.


6. Heat your oven to 450 degrees.


7. Punch the dough down and divide it into 12 equal portions. I used a sharp knife sprayed with cooking spray and a cutting board for this step.


8. Place each piece on a sprayed cookie sheet and let them rest for 10 minutes. Don’t skip this step….unless you enjoy letting the dough rule over you while you shape it. Give it a rest an you will be In-Charge-Marge. Otherwise, the dough is very hard to manipulate.


9. Combine the 10 C water and baking soda in a large pot. Bring it to a boil.


10. While the water heats, roll each dough piece into a long thin rope. Twist it into a pretzel shape.


11. Put each piece (one at a time) into the boiling water for 30 seconds.


12. Place on a sprayed cookie sheet and brush the beaten egg over the top. Sprinkle with pretzel salt.


13. Bake for 8 minutes at 450 degrees. Enjoy!


We opted to leave the pretzel salt off on occasion. When they came out of the oven we brushed butter on the top and sprinkled them with cinnamon sugar…..delicious!

Awww! What’s cuter than a bunch of springtime-shaped cookie cutters?

Making rolled sugar cookies is way old school. The Damsel has been meaning to do a post about them for a long time. She’s put it off because, well, let’s face it. She has seven kids, and rolled cookies are not the fastest way to get flour and sugar into your mouth.

The Damsel doesn’t want to hear any sniping about the fact that three of her seven kids are grown up and don’t live at home. She likes her seven-kids-excuse and plans on using it for the rest of her life.

So. Sugar cookies. They really aren’t hard, and kids love to make and eat them.

Each one of these cutters comes with a free cookie and frosting recipe tied to it. Aww! The Damsel loves this one because dragonflies are her totem.

There are a billionty sugar cookie recipes, but today the Damsel is following the one sent with the cutters. But, of course, any recipe will do. This one is fast, easy, with only a few ingredients.

Soften 2 cubes of butter (1 cup) and throw them into a mixer bowl. Add 2/3 cup plain granulated processed unhealthy delicious white sugar. Mix it around a bit.

Have your 14 year old put one egg in because you can’t take a picture of yourself cracking an egg.

Ye olde teaspoon of vanilla. Then 1/2 teaspoon salt, and 2 1/2 cups flour. Mix everything until well blended.

Here’s a short video from Epicurious about mixing sugar cookie dough:

The Damsel said this was easy, but there is a hard part. You now have to chill the dough. Oh, the waiting! The cookie making party comes to a screeching halt. The recipe recommends 3 to 4 hours. The Damsel made it 2 hours before succumbing to the lure of the Pretty New Cookie Cutters. As far as she can tell, nothing bad happened. (Note: the video says 1 hour)

Preheat the oven to 350, and get yourself a cookie sheet, lined, if you like, with a silicone mat. Some folks lightly spray a bare pan with cooking spray.

Lightly flour your surface and roll out 1/4″ thick. Chilled dough is much less sticky, so you shouldn’t need much flour. By the way…1/4″ is thicker than you think it is.

Press the cookie cutter firmly down till you hit bottom and wiggle just a bit.

Pull dough away from the cut design until you can liberate it. With a design like this, with long skinny parts, you’ll have to be extra careful. The Damsel used a thin spatula to transfer them to the cookie sheet.

You don’t need as much space between the cookies as you normally would, since these cookies have no leavening (baking powder or soda) that would make them rise or spread very much.

Bake the cookies until they have the tiniest hint of color, about 8 to 10 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

There’s nothing shameful about eating a sugar cookie plain, but here’s a the frosting recipe that came with the cutters: 3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon melted butter, 1 tablespoon milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 1/4 teaspoon lemon juice. Whisk until smooth. The Damsel added bright yellow food coloring because it seemed springish, and she was way too lazy that day to make a bunch of colors.

Then, shockingly, there was an Attack of the Fourteen Year Old Girls. Three. At Once. Resistance is Futile.

And then a sixteen-year-old floated through the kitchen, and it was all over. This pretty much covers the reason why there are no pictures of beautifully decorated, pristine cookies for you to see.

The Ann Clark company has offered the Damsel’s students a discount on their website. BLGA19. It is good thru 12/31/10 and provides a 10% discount at checkout. These are very nice people…a family-run business, and the Damsel highly recommends you have a look around their website. Cutest Cookie Cutters Plus they have a blog with lots of fun ideas for using cutters, many of which the Damsel had never thought of. The Blog

And finally, here are the recipes in a more cut-and-pastable form:

Sugar Cookies

Cream: 1 cup butter, 2/3 cup sugar

Beat in: 1 egg

Add: 1 tsp. vanilla, 1/2 tsp. salt, 2 1/2 cups sifted flour.

Mix until all ingredients are well blended. Chill dough 3-4 hours before rolling.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Roll out 1/4″ thick and cut. Bake about 8-10 minutes or until barely colored. Remove from cookie sheets and cool on wire racks.

Frosting

3/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 tbl. melted butter, 1 tbl. milk, 1/2 tsp. vanilla, 1/4 tsp. lemon juice.

Whisk all ingredients until smooth.

How many times have you looked for cake flour at the market and either couldn’t find it, or cringed at the price?

Could it be true that it’s really THIS EASY to make your own cake flour?

Mix one cup of all-purpose flour with 2 tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift twice. Measure your cake flour after sifting.

The Damsel has heard that cake flour has a higher starch content than regular flour, and adding corn starch will simulate that. She hasn’t tried it personally but cooks she trusts and respects swear by the stuff. She usually backs slowly away from recipes that call for fussy stuff like cake flour. No more.

Think of the new vistas of baking that have just opened before your eyes.

These granola bars are not guaranteed to be low-cal, but at least they are made of natural ingredients, without preservatives and other mysterious chemicals. And they cost much less than store-bought, so there’s that.

A more easily printable version of the recipe follows the pictures. (Cut and paste)

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Find an 8×8 cake pan. Line it with a piece of parchment paper, allowing it to lap over two of the sides. Spray the whole affair with cooking spray, including the sides of the pan not covered by the parchment paper.

In a large bowl, measure the oats (both the blended and the not-blended), sugar, salt, cinnamon, nuts and fruit.

Stir thoroughly until the cliques have been eliminated and all the ingredients are forced to be friends with each other, no matter their social status.

In a smaller bowl, combine all the rest of the ingredients: all the sticky, wet stuff. The Damsel used peanut butter because it exists in her house, but another type of nut butter would be yummy too. Perhaps even Nutella.

Sternly mix this into the large bowl of dry ingredients until everything is equally crumbly.

Press tightly into the prepared pan. Bake for 35-40 minutes, until it gets a bit of a suntan around the edges and across the top.

When the Damsel got to this point, she lost control and put a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips on the top of half of the hot bars. After the heat melted the chips, she spread them a bit with a knife, like frosting.

Cool for 15 minutes in the pan and attempt to fend off the children and menfolk who are now sniffing around your ankles. It’s gotta cool, baby. Waiting is agony, but somehow, some way, you’ll get through it.

Take the granola bars out of the pan in their parchment paper sling and let cool further on the rack.

Cool completely, as in COLD, as in Refrigerate Before Cutting, or you will experience the above pictured crumbling issues. Then you will regrettably have to eat the crumbles to destroy the evidence. The Damsel sincerely apologizes for the calories. Also, to help everything hold together better, next time the Damsel plans to try honey in place of the granulated sugar called for in the recipe.

On the right we have “Yummy.” On the left we have “Freaking Amazing and I Can’t Stop Eating These.”

Homemade Granola Bars (adapted from smittenkitchen)

1 2/3 cups rolled oats (the Damsel used regular but quick is okay)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (next time the Damsel will try honey here)
1/3 cup oats, blended on high in blender until floury
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 to 3 cups dried fruits and nuts *
1/3 cup peanut butter or another nut butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons melted butter
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

Optional chocolate chips

*Suggestions: Dried cranberries, apricots, pecans, sunflower seeds, coconut, walnuts, sesame seeds, pepitas, dried apples or more chocolate chips. The Damsel used 1/4 cup sesame seeds,  1/2 cup dried cranberries, 1/2 cup raisins,  1 heaping cup  pecans and 1/2 cup dried coconut flakes.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 8″ x 8″ x 2″ pan in one direction with parchment paper, allowing it to lap over the opposing sides. Lightly spray the parchment paper and the exposed pan with non-stick spray.

Mix dry ingredients and wet/sticky ingredients in separate bowls, then combine. Press into prepared pan.

Bake the bars for 35-40 minutes, until golden brown around the edges. Cool completely before cutting.

Don’t worry. All is not lost. It’s not necessary to pack up the kids and head for the nearest market for a fresh bag. (If the Damsel had to do that, she’d be hard pressed not to just buy cookies already made and save herself the trouble, as long as she was at the market.)

The Damsel recognizes that mood is important in cookie baking.

Grandma’s favorite trick was to put a piece of bread in the brown sugar container, make sure it was closed tightly, and come back the next day. “Tomorrow” is always a good day for making cookies.

Or, you could use slices of apple. Or a piece of lettuce. Or you could even soak a shard from a broken clay pot, and close that up with the boulder-o-brown-sugar. You can see a pattern begin to emerge–add moisture to the sugar in a controlled fashion. The Damsel testifies that this works, and the brown sugar is in “like-new” condition after a day or two.

But what if you need brown sugar NOW? The Damsel admits, there are times when your back is against the wall when it comes to cookies. Sometimes there’s just no waiting till tomorrow.

You can put the lump in the blender/food processor, if your machine is up to it. After a few ear-splitting minutes, you’ll have brown sugar powder, which can then be measured as usual.

Or, even easier, just nuke the thing. Put the sugar into an open container. Set a bowl of water beside it, and microwave for a minute. Check it…if it’s still not quite soft, you can go again, but just make sure you stop before it melts. That would be considerably worse than having it hard.

Or go old school, and heat it in a 250F degree oven. Check every few minutes until it’s soft enough to measure.

Here’s a brown sugar measuring shortcut: The Damsel does not do that thing where you pack the sugar into a measuring cup with a spoon. Just stick the measuring cup right inside the plastic brown sugar bag, and press the sugar into the measuring cup with your fingers–pressing from the outside of the plastic bag. Does that make sense?

Someone, please tell the Damsel she makes sense. Just once in her life.

So what is shortbread? It’s sort of a cookie, although it can be baked either in cookies or a slab that you cut up. The Damsel assumed they call it “short” because it contains no leavening–no yeast, no baking powder, no nuthin. It doesn’t raise…it stays short. But actually, it’s called that because it contains such a lot of butter (read: shortening).

Memorize this recipe: 1 cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 cups flour. Got it? That’s it.

Cream the butter and sugar together in whatever way seemeth you best. The Damsel uses her “Not A Kitchen-Aid Mixer” on a fairly brisk speed.

Add the flour, a little at a time, beating sternly. The dough looks crumbly rather than a cohesive ball.

Turn out onto a lightly floured counter and knead until smoothish. It shouldn’t be sticky at all. If it is, knead additional flour in, up to a whole cup. (The Damsel ended up with about 2 1/3 cups total)

Press it into a 9×13 cake pan with your fingers. No need to spray the pan first. The dough is mostly butter, after all. (Alternately roll out on the counter, cut into shapes, and then place on a cookie sheet. Prick them with a fork if you feel like it.)

Roll it a bit with a mini rolling pin or a plain old drinking glass.

Bake a long time. 45 to 55 minutes at 300 degrees F. , until golden. Don’t look for a dramatic color change…it comes out pretty “gently golden.”

Let it cool, and cut into bars.

Have a glass of cold milk handy.

and…thanks for the photos, emeraldlens.info!

P.S. Click here for a wonderful story about shortbread by Thomas S. Monson, President of the LDS Church.

The Damsel grew up on delicious homemade rolls. The Damsel’s mother is more than a master baker when it comes to rolls–she’s an artist, and Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without them. And so it seems that homemade rolls must grace the Damsel’s table.

The problem is, the Damsel’s mama is in Spain at the moment, and she has cruelly refused to Fed Ex rolls home. Downright mean, but that’s reality. The Damsel contemplated trying to make them herself, but she got discouraged when she recalled her mother’s recipe requires a couple of square miles in countertop space, a battalion of baking sheets, and a second oven.

To get rolls light as air, you need a sticky dough. The stickier the better. More flour will make them stiff and dense, so you try to add as little flour as you can–except that makes rolling out the dough challenging, to say the least. You have to strike that perfect balance between sticky and manageable.

Unless you bypass the whole issue by making batter rolls.

These batter rolls are so sticky, you don’t roll them out at all. You spoon them into muffin tins, thus allowing the end result to be as fluffy as you wanna be. Yeah, they look sort of rustic and muffin-like. But they taste good–light, fluffy, buttery. And you go nowhere near a rolling pin. Yessss! If you have pinnophobia, (fear of rolling pins) these rolls are for you.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F. Put 3 cups of warm water into a mixing bowl, and sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of yeast. (Buy bulk yeast if you can–it’s so much cheaper than the little packets) Add 1/2 cup sugar. If you’re concerned about how “live” your yeast is, wait a minute or two at this point.

The yeast will dissolve and get sort of globby/foamy, signaling you’re good to go.

In no particular order add 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon salt, 2/3 cup shortening, and 3 cups of flour. Beat sternly, and then add 3 more cups of flour until the batter is nice and smooth. Add up to 1/2 cup more flour if you must, but the dough should be VERY sticky. Let raise until double.

Haul out 2 12-holer muffin tins and spray with Pam, or your aerosol grease of choice.

Fill each muffin cup by spooning in the dough. The Damsel uses two spoons, in a take-off of the drop-cookie method, except it’s way gloppier. 2/3 full would be ideal. The Damsel often fills them fuller, even though she feels bad inside for it. It’s just that this recipe makes a little bit more than 24 rolls’ worth, and she can’t stop herself from putting an eensy bit more in this cup, and then that cup, and well, you can see where we’re going from here.

Let these raise until nicely puffed over the muffin tin, or until you just can’t wait any more.

Bake for 13-15 minutes. Tip them out to cool slightly before hogging them down.

The last time the Damsel made these rolls, she caught one of the sprog sneaking upstairs with five of them stuffed inside his shirt. They’ll be a hit at your Thanksgiving table too.

Grandma Whittaker’s Spudnuts

1 qt. Milk scalded and cooled

Dissolve 7 TBSP yeast in 1 cup warm water w/1 TBSP Sugar

In big bowl cream:  8 TBSP shortening & 1 cup sugar

Add:  4 beaten eggs, 2 cups mashed potatoes (can use instant), 3 tsp salt, cooled milk, yeast mixture, and approx. 14 cups flour a few cups at a time, stirring after each addition.

Let rise, then punch down and roll out about ½ inch thick.

Cut out and let raise again on cookie sheets.

Fry in hot oil, and dip in glaze made of 2lbs. Powdered sugar, 1 cup hot water, 1 tsp vanilla. Makes approx 100 spudnuts.

Now, the first thing I would warn against is using too small a container for dissolving the yeast (see picture).

Don’t be afraid to add more flour to the dough.  I added a little bit more to all but one batch.  You want the dough to feel like bread dough.  If it’s too wet, add more flour.

As you can see, we use the same pan to fry the doughnuts in hot oil that we’ve used for years.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Wooden dowels make the perfect drip-dry hangers for the doughnuts.  Once you get good at it, you can use a wooden dowel to scoop the doughnuts out of the hot oil, and to dig them out of their powdered sugar glaze bath.

We ended up doing 4 batches for Halloween based on last year.  The only trouble–we bought new “cookie cutters” to cut the doughnuts out, and it turned out the new cookie cutter was smaller than the old one. Thus: more doughnuts.

We didn’t mind taking care of the leftovers.

Annie Whittaker

www.anniesmainstreetfloral.com

www.flowerbizbuzz.blogspot.com