Old-Fashioned Chiffon Cake

When was the last time you made a chiffon cake? Or, have you ever made one? Maybe you’ve never even tasted one—or heard of one. They are decidedly old-fashioned and that’s a shame since they are delicious

, easy to make, versatile and way healthier than butter cakes.

In 1927 a man named Harry Baker who was a Los Angeles insurance salesman and who also baked cakes for Hollywood parties, invented the chiffon cake—the first truly new cake in one hundred years. He kept his recipe secret for twenty years, preferring to bake cakes for his catering business that no one else could make, but finally sold the recipe in 1947 to Betty Crocker, owned by General Mills.

Attributes of this cake include a moist, richness like a butter cake but with the lightness of a sponge cake. The texture is soft, its trademark characteristic. The shortening in a chiffon cake is oil which not only makes it soft but tenderizes it and keeps it exceptionally moist.

The chiffon cake is also easy to make, is a good keeper and slices easily even when frozen, unlike its sister predecessor, the angel food. And, unlike angel food, it is not excessively sweet.

Here at the Candlelight Inn B & B, we make a lot of things with just egg yolks; lemon curd and chocolate pots de crème, to name two. I freeze my egg whites in a rigid container and collect them to make angel food, meringues and chiffon cakes. So, add another virtue to the chiffon cake—it uses up those extra whites you may have around.

Although it is easy to make, be sure to follow the directions carefully. As with all cakes, the measuring, oven temperature, pan size and oven placement are crucial to success.

The following two recipes are very different from one another; the first uses fresh citrus to perfection, resulting in a moist, billowy, light and refreshing cake. If you want to gild the lily, a citrus glaze (made by adding the citrus juice to powdered sugar just until it is of pouring consistency) can be poured over the finished, cooled cake. The second, chocolate, is a surprise: very chocolate-y and the texture is perfected by using both safflower (or other vegetable oil without silicates) and walnut oil.

Citrus Chiffon Cake

2 ¼ cups sifted cake flour (no substitutions)
1 ½ cups sugar (superfine is best)
2 tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
½ cup vegetable oil (preferably safflower)
7 large eggs, separated, + 3 additional whites
¾ cup freshly squeezed orange juice
2 Tbsp. grated orange zest
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ¼ tsp. cream of tartar

Preheat oven to 325 deg. F. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, all but 2 Tbsp of the sugar, baking powder and salt and beat 1 minute. Mix oil, egg yolks, orange juice, orange zest and vanilla together and add all at once to a depression in the center of the dry ingredients. Beat until smooth, about 1 minute. In another large mixing bowl, beat egg whites until frothy, add the cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Beat in remaining 2 Tbsp. sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Gently fold in egg whites until just blended. Pour into a 10-inch tube pan, run a small knife through the batter to prevent air pockets and bake for 55 minutes or until a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Invert pan to cool.

Variation: Lemon Chiffon Cake

Substitute ½ teaspoon baking soda for the baking powder and 2/3 cup water + 2 Tbsp. lemon juice (freshly squeezed) for the orange juice. Use 1 Tbsp. grated lemon zest for the orange zest called for.

Chocolate Chiffon Cake

½ cup +2 Tbsp. cocoa *
¾ cup boiling water
1 ¾ cups sifted cake flour
1 ¾ cups sugar
½ tsp. baking soda*
½ tsp. salt
6 Tbsp. walnut oil
6 large eggs, separated + 4 additional whites
2 tsp. vanilla
1 ¼ tsp. cream of tartar

*If using Dutch-processed cocoa, use ½ cup + 1 Tbsp. and 2 tsp. of baking powder in place of the baking soda.

Preheat oven to 325 deg. F. In medium bowl combine cocoa and boiling water. Wisk until smooth. Cool. In large mixing bowl, combine flour all but 2 Tbsp. of sugar, baking soda and salt and beat 1 minute. Add oils, egg yolks, chocolate mixture and vanilla to well in center of dry ingredients and beat until smooth. In another large mixing bowl, beat egg whites until frothy, add cream of tartar and beat until soft peaks form. Beat in remaining 2 Tbsp. of sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold 1 heaping cup of egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Gently fold in remaining egg whites until just blended. Pour into tube pan. Run knife through the batter to prevent air pockets and bake for 60 minutes or until it tests done. Invert pan and cool completely. (About 1 ½ hours). Remove from pan. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Homemade Sausage Classes

Now that you have mastered breadmaking and yogurt making, why not try making sausage? I just purchased pork for the class for $1.29 per pound.  You will wind up with sausage comparable to Jimmy Deans ($3.48 for 12 oz tube) which comes to $4.64 a pound.  You will make up the cost of the class with your first 10 pound package.  Sign up through
Community Ed at the Red Wing High School: Class is from 6 p.m.
to 9 p.m. Thursday, April 11, 2013.
Cost is $28

Delicious Homemade Yogurt

I am doing a class through Red Wing Community Education next Thursday, March 14, 2013, at 6 p.m.  It will cover yogurt making (regular and Greek) as well as Ricotta Cheese.  Call 651-385-4565 or use this link https://ssl.dwebsite.com/secure2/ce_RedWing/php/public.php?action=listClasses&categoryId=9&programId=3&from=listCategories

Hope to see you there.

Nostalgic Cooking

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the state of the world and, especially, the state of our country. Every time I turn on the news there’s another story of a worrisome or tragic nature. The shootings at Sandy Hook school are a prime example of the tragedies taking place around us, but the clamor to change the gun regulations as a remedy is an example of the worrisome type.


When are we going to address the root cause of our problems? The change in our values has affected every aspect of our culture and has resulted, I believe, in this stressful, sad, and frightening new world. I’m very aware that older generations usually decry the newest generation’s behavior and ideas—but I think it goes deeper than that. If we look over the last 70 years the cultural decay has changed us for the worse in every area: education, family life, work ethic, patriotism, individualism, modesty, respect for elders and each other, materialism, health, and above all others, belief in and reverence for God.

What can one individual do? I’m not an advocate of “head in the sand,” but I think that turning to a simpler, traditional way of life is a step in the right direction. Since food and cooking are my areas of interest and expertise (as well as my job), I elected to start there with my resolution to turn back the clock.

My own childhood was early post-WWII. We lived in a large Queen Ann red brick house on Russell Avenue in Minneapolis. Although my parents owned the house, it was divided into four apartments. When I was four we moved to St. Louis Park to a brand new house on Vernon Avenue which my parents built. I still remember what a feeling of “having arrived” we all had about that house. It seemed like a mansion. In truth, it was a three bedroom colonial with a one-car attached garage, a very small screened porch, one bathroom and an unfinished basement. Today it would be considered a nice “starter house.” My parents were in a first marriage (and only marriage—that lasted 67 years before my mom died); my dad worked for Honeywell as an engineer and my mom, who had taught school before she married, was a homemaker (or housewife, as at-home women were called then).

Mom considered her role as a “real” job and put herself into it with enthusiasm. She was an especially great cook. As a young teen she had participated in 4H and won a week’s trip to the State Fair (she grew up in Mankato) for her talented bread baking. She could whip up a tall, elegant, delicious layer cake from scratch, caramel rolls to die for, pies whose crusts were so tender and flaky they melted in your mouth—all without recipes and, seemingly, without effort.

Most nights we had supper in the dining room—occasionally in the kitchen at our “nook” table. But we ate together as a family every weeknight. Saturday night we usually had hamburgers either at home—or as a special treat—at the drive-in. The only one I remember back then was Porky’s on Lake Street. I remember getting Chinese take-out once in a while (always chow mein which came in a brown bag that held two small cartons of white rice, one large carton of chicken chow mein, one large carton of subgum chow mein, a cellophane package of chow mein noodles, several packets of soy sauce and a small cellophane package of roasted and salted cashew nuts) and on three or four occasions we went to what is now “uptown” to the Rainbow Café or to a place on Lake street near France Avenue called the Colonial Inn. Sunday we had dinner after church and then my mom would put out leftovers in the evening and let everyone help himself to sandwich makings or some soup ( if Dad made it).

Unfortunately, the fifties have a bad culinary reputation in today’s circles. That decade seems to be best known for canned soup casseroles and packaged-mix-every-things that were certainly “the rage” for awhile. After all, they were new and so were all the appliances and grills and available ingredients (especially foreign ones) to be had. But at our dinner table and most of those of my friends, wonderful, healthy and delicious meals were made from scratch. I love to go through my old Betty Crocker and Better Homes and Gardens cookbooks that my mother used when she did need a new recipe or to check herself on old standbys. I also have a collection of old magazines from that era that jog my memory on what we ate.

Before I share some of those recipes with you, I want to add a footnote. Our evening meal consisted of 6 elements every night: meat, potatoes (or a starchy food), vegetable (sometimes 2), salad, bread and dessert. When I started making dinner for our family (around age 12), I was instructed that each meal must contain all 6 elements. And we were not a bit fat!! We were certainly more active than today’s kids, but I attribute the fact that we were not fat and ate a lot of courses to two main things: we didn’t have soda or sugary snacks between meals and our portions were much smaller than today’s.

Sunday dinner was almost always a roast: roast beef, ham, chicken, or pork. Throughout the week the remnants of that roast became wonderful meals—casseroles for supper, sandwiches for lunch, hash for breakfast; it never seemed that we were eating “leftovers” which my Dad loudly protested. He never realized that was what we were eating.

Baked Ham
Scalloped Potatoes
Orange Glazed Carrots
Pineapple Salad
Relishes
Yeast Rolls
Great Grandma’s Golden Sponge Cake

Baked Ham

1 bone-in half ham, fully cooked (6 pounds)
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
½ cup water or fruit juice
Whole cloves

Score fat side of ham in a diamond pattern. Mix sugar, mustard and fruit juice in a small bowl and spread over top of scored ham. Stick a clove in each diamond. Place ham on a rack in a shallow roasting pan; tent loosely with foil and bake at 325 for 30 minutes per pound (2 hours). Baste with remaining sauce last half hour.

Scalloped Potatoes

2 pounds potatoes (approximately 6 medium)
½ cup chopped onion (optional)
3 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. salt
¼ tsp. pepper
¼ cup butter
2 ½ cups milk

Pare potatoes thinly (should be about 4 cups). Spray a 2-quart casserole and arrange potatoes in 4 layers, sprinkling each of the first 3 layers with 1 Tbsp. flour, ¼ tsp. of salt, dash pepper and dotting each layer with 1 Tbsp. butter and 2 Tbsp. onion, if you are using them,. Sprinkle top with remaining onion, salt and pepper and dot with remaining butter. Heat milk to just below boiling; pour over potatoes. Cover; bake 30 minutes. Uncover; bake 60 to 70 minutes longer or until potatoes are tender. Let stand 5 to 10 minutes before serving.

Orange Glazed Carrots

2 ½ pounds fresh carrots
½ cup butter, melted
½ cup orange juice
1 tsp. grated orange peel
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt

Peel carrots; remove ends. Cut into strips. Place in sprayed square (8x8x2) baking dish. Stir together butter, orange juice and salt. Pour over carrots. Cover; bake 40 minutes until carrots are tender. (8 servings)

Pineapple Salad

Line small salad plates with crisp salad leaves. Place 1 canned, chilled pineapple slice on top of lettuce. Mound cottage cheese in center of pineapple ring. Top with a dollop of salad dressing (mayonnaise-type) and sprinkle with paprika.

Yeast Dinner Rolls

1 pkg. (2 ½ tsp.) active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water (105-115 deg)
¾ cup lukewarm milk
¼ cup sugar
1 tsp. salt
¼ cup melted butter
3 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 heaping tsp. gluten flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir in milk, sugar, salt, butter and 2 cups of the flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in enough remaining flour to make dough easy to handle. Turn dough onto lightly floured board; knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl; turn greased side up. Cover let rise in warm place until double, about 1 12 to 2 hours. Punch down dough; divide in half. Roll dough into a rectangle, 13x9 inches and ¼” thick. Place in greased 9x13 baking pan. Score dough ¼ inch deep into 15 rolls. Brush with butter. Let rise 1 ½ hours. Bake at 400 degrees. Bake 15-25 minutes or until golden brown.

Great Grandma’s Golden Sponge Cake

1 ¼ cup sugar
1 cup water
7 eggs, separated
1 cup sifted cake flour
¼ tsp. salt
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 tsp vanilla OR almond extract OR lemon extract (your choice)

Boil sugar and water until syrup reaches the thread stage (233 degrees or until syrup “spins a thread” when spoon is picked up out of syrup and a thread forms as it falls)

Meanwhile, beat egg yolks until thick and lemon-colored (about 5 minutes). Slowly add hot syrup to yolks, beating all the while. Add cake flour. In separate bowl and with separate beaters, beat room temperature egg whites, salt and cream of tartar until stiff. Add flavoring and beat in. Fold carefully into egg yolk mixture. Turn into sprayed tube pan or bundt pan carefully and smooth top. Bake at 325 for 50 min to 1 hour. Cool completely upside down on funnel. Serve with sweetened fresh fruit or thawed frozen fruit and top with sweetened whipped cream.

Lynette's Cooking Class

On February 5th, I had my first class in the Red Wing Community Education classroom.  This is a picture of me and my "helpers" getting ready.  17 people attended and had a great time.  My next class is March 14 "Homemade Greek Yogurt, Yogurt and Cheese.  Call me with questions (651-388-8034) or Community Education at 651-385-4565.

In addition to cooking classes here at the Candlelight Inn, I am going to give a few Community Education Courses.  If you areinterested, please sign up.

Thanksgiving 2012

As we prepare for the great Thanksgiving feast, take a look backover our dining history. If, as Brillat-Savarin has said so famously, “You are what you eat,” the history of the American people can be revealed by the history of the foods they have and are eating. From the inception of the Jamestown colony in Virginia through the end of the first decade of the 21st century, we have shown profoundly how we have changed and what we’ve become, step by step, by the foods that we eat and even more by the style in which we eat.


From the beginning of colonization by Europeans in the new world, the character of the men and women who came to these shores was the defining characteristic that made America the greatest and most powerful country in the world. The great majority were men of morality and vision; a sturdy breed with a natural inventiveness, independence and courage. Above all, they were people of faith who depended on and credited God with their destiny. With all the natural resources: fertile soil, lush grasses, thick forests, coal and iron; the bison, bears, wildcats, foxes, elk, deer, beavers, birds and water fowl of every description, and the fish that teemed in its great clear and uncontaminated rivers, it wasn’t long before a bounteous American cuisine came into being.

That does not mean, of course, that the earliest white men who came to America’s shores were well-fed and prosperous from the start. As we have all learned in grade school, the pilgrims and other first settlers almost starved to death the first winter they were here. Only because of the Indians showing them how to plant corn and how to hunt wild fowl, such as turkeys, did they survive. It is not only a true story, but a deeply symbolic one as well that they shared their provisions with each other at the feast of Thanksgiving, that first harvest year.

A great deal of our food tradition emanating from these early settlers is English in nature, as it would necessarily be. Although the earliest settlers, both in New England and in Virginia had sparse provisions after crossing the Atlantic (none of the sea vessels were adequately stocked with food), it was not long before the provisions started coming. Rev. Francis Higginson, the first minister at Salem wrote,

Before you come, be careful to be strongly instructed what things are fittest to bring with you for your more comfortable passage at sea, as also for your husbandry occasions when you come to the land. For when you are once parted with England you shall meete neither markets nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you come: as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and linnen cloath, and leather for shoes, and all manner of carpenters tools, and a great deal of iron and steele to make nails, and locks for houses, and furniture for ploughs and carts, and glasse for windows, and many other things which were better for you to think of there than to want them here.” He next set down a catalog of necessary victuals per person for the first year, viz.: “8 Bushels of meale, 2 Bushels of pease, 2 Bushels of Otemeale, 1 Gallon of Aquavitae, 1 Gallon of Oyle, 2 Gallons of, Vinegar, 1 Firkin of Butter; also Cheese, Bacon, Sugar, Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Cinnamon, Nutmegs and Fruit.”

The English were not the only people to come, however. Throughout the colonies there was a mixture of people from Western Europe. There were the Dutch along the Hudson, the French in the Carolinas and the Swedes on the Delaware. Danes, Germans, Portuguese, Italians and Jews mingled with the Dutch along the Hudson Valley even in the early days of the colony of New Amsterdam. All of these ethnic groups contributed their cuisines to early America but it was the English that set the foundation of the new “American” cuisine and we still see that influence in many of our national dishes.

The New Englanders were an industrious group. They were extremely independent in nature, as is illustrated by the huge risk they took coming to this country in the first place. After a very few years of hardship and lack, they learned the pattern of the seasons and began to produce recipes we use today. Foods which spring from the Indian “corn” or maize, the exclusively new world poultry—the turkey—as well as shellfish, cod, mackerel, lobster and crabs formed their daily diet.

Cooking as we know it was, of course, unknown. Recipes or “receipts” were vague—most people learned to cook by watching their mothers. Terms like “butter as big as a walnut” or “a piece of fresh butter” were used and everyone presumably knew how much that was. Most of the colonial recipes were word of mouth or hand-written slips of paper; we don’t find actual printed cookbooks until the 18th century and these are very rare. Some cookbooks from the 18th century were published in England such as Hanna Glaffe’s, The Art of Cookery, Made Plain and Easy, 7th ed. (London, 1760) from which this Ginger-Bread Cake recipe comes:

Take three pounds of flour, one pound of sugar, one pound of butter rubbed in very fine, two ounces of ginger beat fine, a large nutmeg grated; then take a pound of treacle, a quarter of a pint of cream, make them warm together, and make up the bread stiff; roll it out, and make it up into thin cakes, cut them out with a tea-cup, or small glass, or roll them round like nuts, and bake them on tin plates in a slack oven.

After a shaky start, New England colonies had recipes that are still made and are delicious. They raised orchards of apples and pears, used the wild grape and cranberries to make preserves and made wonderful cheeses from their dairy herds. They adapted to the more plentiful wild game before their herds of domestic cattle grew large enough to slaughter for beef and made old English dishes to suit their native tastes.

Even in winter, the sea provided an abundance of fish and shellfish for their suppers. This abundant seafood was often made into chowders. As soon as the ships were commonly making their runs around the Horn to China, exotic spices were brought home, adding flair to many dishes; among them, turmeric, ginger, peppercorns, cinnamon and cloves.

Molasses from the West Indies (sometimes referred to as treacle), maple syrup and wild bee’s honey were used to make the many sweets that Americans have loved right from the beginning.

They also learned to make notable dishes from native foods which were indigenous to the new world such as elderberries, dandelions, wild turkey, quail, pumpkins, cranberries, and, of course, corn. There were some “new” foods, too that became popular. All of them originated in the new world, but the colonists didn’t use them until they had crossed the Atlantic and come back again.

After much trial and error the colonists of New England grew accustomed to corn, squash, pumpkins, some seafood, wild turkey, maple sugar, cider vinegar, an abundance of game such as ducks, geese, passenger pigeons and wild swans. Many of the wild game birds and meats were tough and every region of early colonists had its one-pot cooking recipe to tenderize them: New England boiled dinner; New Amsterdam (later New York) Hutspot; Pennsylvania Dutch Sauerbraten; and Southern Brunswick stew or burgoo.

Some (still) very popular recipes from the New England Colonists follow:

Indian Pudding

3 cups milk
½ cup molasses
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
½ tsp. ground ginger
½ tsp. ground cinnamon
¼ tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. butter

In saucepan mix milk and molasses; stir in cornmeal, ginger, cinnamon and salt. Cook and stir till thick, about 10 minutes. Stir in butter. Turn into a 1-quart casserole. Bake, uncovered, at 300 degrees about 1 hour. Serves 6.

Baked Beans with Maple Syrup

1 ½ pounds dry navy beans (3 ¾ cups)
4 ounces salt pork, cubed
½ cup chopped onion
½ cup packed brown sugar
½ cup maple syrup
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. dry mustard

In kettle rinse beans; add 12 cups cold water. Bring to boiling; simmer 2 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover; let stand 1 hour. (Or, add beans to water and let stand overnight.) Bring beans and water to boiling; simmer till beans are tender, about 40 minutes. Drain, reserving liquid. In 3-quart casserole or bean pot, mix beans, pork, onion, sugar, maple syrup, salt, mustard, and 1 ½ cups reserved bean liquid. Cover; bake at 300 degrees for 4 ½ to 5 hours, stirring occasionally. Add more reserved liquid, if needed. Serves 8.