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Angel Food Cake with a Cherry Red Wine Sauce

10 Aug

I love Angel Food Cake! It’s one of my all time favorites and you can’t beat the light, fluffy, yet sweet, cake! This is just one version of my Angel Food Cake, you can make any type of sauce for it, this one, I used Cherries that I had left over in my fridge. Now that my Strawberries are ripening in my garden, I think I might use those for a sauce next! Enjoy!

every day in april cake

Cake Ingredients:

  • 1¼ Cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ Cups sugar, divided
  • 1 ½ Cups egg whites (usually about a dozen eggs)
  • 1 ½ Teaspoons cream of tarter (sooo important, if you don’t have it, don’t make it!)
  • ¼ Teaspoon salt
  • 1 ½ Teaspoons vanilla (if you are using imitation, use 2 teaspoons) or ½ teaspoon almond extract

Sauce Ingredients:

  • 1lb or about 20 cherries cut in half
  • ½ – ¾ cup of sugar (to sweetness taste)
  • 1½ cups of red wine (I used a Pinot Noir that I had left over, but any red wine that you prefer will do)
  • 2  Tablespoons corn starch
  • 2 – 2½ Teaspoons of cumin (or less, to taste)
  • 1 tablespoon of vanilla

Cake:

Mix flour and only ½ cup of sugar in a small bowl and set aside.

Place egg whites in mixing bowl.

NOTE:  make sure that there are NO traces of egg yolks. If there is egg yolk in the mix, it will not work! My secret to separating eggs is cracking the egg and then pouring it gently into my hands. I transfer the egg gently back and forth between my hands letting the whites slip through my fingers while still holding the yolk, over a bowl, making sure that the yolk does not crack. I place the yolk in a separate bowl to save for later {you can make a pudding with the left over egg yolks}. If you are just beginning to learn how to separate eggs, be careful to not get egg shells into the mix by separating the eggs one at a time in a different bowl, once successful with one, transfer into your mixing bowl. Do this for all 12 eggs until you have mastered cracking and separating the eggs.

Whisk, beat your egg whites until you feel like your arm will fall off or that your mixer will burn up! Ha! Unless you are using a KitchenAid mixer, in that case keep your mixer on speed 6 and whip for about 30-60 seconds or until frothy.

Add cream of tarter, salt and vanilla. Turn to speed 8 or high on hand-held mixer and whip until whites are almost at a “stiff peak” but not dry.

stiff peak

Example of a “stiff peak”

Turn the speed down to low or level 2 and gradually add remaining 1 cup of sugar and mix for another minute.

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Add sugar slowly, 1/4 cup at a time

Once sugar is mixed in, stop and scrape bowl.

Remove bowl from mixer and spoon flour-sugar mixture, one-fourth at a time, over egg whites, FOLDING gently with a spatula, until just blended.

IMG_1196

spooning flour/sugar mixture by fourths at a time

NOTE: Do not mix, folding is the key! When you fold the mixture you allow the air to stay into the mixture which creates the light, fluffy aspect of the cake. If you mix, your cake will not turn out right!

Folding the mixture is the key!

Folding the mixture is the key!

Once it is just blended, pour batter into ungreased tube pan {typically a normal angel food cake pan}. With a knife, gently cut through the batter to remove any large air bubbles. Not too much though!

IMG_1200

Gently cutting through mixture to get rid of large air bubbles

Bake cake at 375° for about 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and cracks are very dry. I tend to like my cake a bit more brown on top, so I watch mine after the 35 minutes until It’s ready. Up to you!

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Golden brown and dry cracks!

Once done, IMMEDIATELY invert cake onto funnel or whatever else you can find. Some newer pans have metal pegs that stick out just for this reason. Check your pan! Mine does not, so I just inverted it on a cooking rack. I’ve seen some people invert their pans on wine bottles or a soft drink bottle!

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Inverting immediately on a cooling rack

Once cooled completely, remove from pan.

TIP: I place a plate over my cake pan and flip it upside down. So the top of the cake is facing down on the plate. I then take the plate I want to serve it on and flip it over again, so that the top of the cake faces up! 

Cherry Sauce:

Add your sugar and cut cherries in a sauce pan on the stove on medium heat. Stirring often, let sugar melt and cherries well coated.

While your sugar is melting, take about ¼ cup of your red wine and pour into a separate bowl and whisk in your corn starch and set aside.

Pour the remaining red wine into Cherry/sugar mixture on stove and bring to boil. Stirring often! Once to boil, turn heat down. Stir in your cumin and vanilla and simmer for 10 minutes. Red wine should reduce {thus, calling it a reduction sauce}.

Stir in your corn starch and red wine mixture you set aside before.

Simmer again for another 5-10 minutes. STIRRING OFTEN! We don’t want to burn the sauce! Sauce should be bubbling and thickening. Remove from heat and allow to cool to serving temperature. OR… once cooled enough place in an airtight container and refrigerate it until it’s time to serve. You can serve it cool, or warm it up again for a nice warm sauce.

I melted some white chocolate and poured in over the cake before I smothered it with the cherry sauce!

angel food cake 1

Enjoy!

Happy Baking!

Have any questions or comments?! Email me!

I also give advice

8 Jul

I have discovered a new disciplinary action I can take on my “lets ever test mom” fruit from my loin, minions. Actually, It came to me in my “I have to come up with something better” brain storming session.

Well, maybe I can’t use it right now since where we live there aren’t any Seagull’s… but somewhere in the near future I see myself whipping this one out of my “mommy don’t mess around” pants pocket.

Seagull’s are from the Devil himself. I have reason to believe that they do most of his shitty work! {yes! pun intended} If you have lived or do live anywhere near these dreaded things, just move. Or in fact, just write this down under your list of PRO’s for these nasty, hateful doers.

I grew up going to the beaches on the West Coast and nothing scared me more than those damned birds, okay seaweed and floating diapers were a close second, but the birds win it hands down. So why not put a little fear in your kids. It’s healthy. Even if it means they are scared of birds for the rest of their lives {annnd most likely will have to go to hours of therapy because they can’t get the imagine out of their head}, it’s a risk I am willing to take.

I have come up with a very tactful and most highly achievable way to get your kids to listen to you. Say, for instance, little “I wipe my own butt” wasn’t listening to you and nooooooooooooo matter what you did nothing stopped him from finding it OH SOOOO funny to pee in the bathroom soap dispenser {true story}.Well, no more, little “I eat my own boogers because they are salty”, NO MORE! The time to listen to MOM; MASTER OF ALL THINGS, IS NOW!!

Here’s how it can go down:

You pull your child close, just so you and them can hear the words seeping out of your confident, sturdy mouth. You say something like this to them:

“Listen carefully and carefully listen riiiiight now… I am going to give you one more chance to start listening or else boiiiiiiiiii, your butt is going to be on that shore line with a bag of Lays Baked Potato Chips begging to the Lord that those Seagull’s don’t bite your hand off, tooooo fast. I have nooooo problem with letting them peck at your hand until it bleeds or if they are hungry enough, chew it right off. Seagulls marvel at the happiness that they will encounter by little boys who disobey, like you. I. Swear. To. You! You only get ONE. MORE. CHANCE. Or sooooooooooo help me GOD, I will go to Costco and get the variety pack and make you stand out there forrrrrrr HOURS and you just HOPE TO GOD that they have mercy on you because right now, it’s all up to them. Go ahead and test me on that oneeeeeee. If you want to live a future with all your appendages intact, I would listen, and listen NOOOWWWWWWWW! Do you understand?! I hope to God that you do, because those Seagulls have been watching your actions, and they are ready to attack!!!!”

If just the mere telling them this prospected horror doesn’t do the trick, well then ACTUALLY do it. I don’t know about you, but Seagull’s are vicious birds that apparently are high on Potato Chip CRACK {where can I get some?} and will fight to the death for one morsel of salty goodness {can you blame them?}. They scare the crap out of me and I am sure they will put a little fear in your kid.

Use this to your advantage.

th

You won’t regret it once you see the horror look on your kids face when the creature comes soaring down headed straight at your kids face squawking and screeching. Not just one, but a hundred will catch the attention of your chip-holding disobedient child, and once that happens, the plan has official been put into play. Make it even more interesting for onlookers and draw a circle in the sand and tell your child they can’t leave that circle and that they have to stand there holding out their hands full of chips until all the chips are gone. Once all the chips are gone, pour remaining crumbs in your child’s hand and set your watch to 3 minutes. Why? Because the birds are most aggressive once they find out that the food is almost gone. Threaten to set your timer for a longer period of time if they haven’t learned the lesson yet. Be strong even when your child starts to scream, cry, or bleed, it’s just the sounds and wounds of learning a hard lesson. Be patient.

And, maybe, just for shits and giggles, when you get home, show them the movie The Birds and see if that doesn’t seal the deal on your end.

Just see.

So there you are, say at the store, and little “I-pee-in-soap-dispensers” is acting up again. Merely threaten.

Do I hear seagulls? {hold your hand up to your ear} I believe that they are hungry today! Should we go seeeeeeee? ….. No? Okay, well then knock IT OFF before we magically end up in Seagull Hell!”

Their little heads will remember having Seagulls almost eat them, and they will almost immediately straighten up. I guarantee it. Then in the near future you should be on the path to just having to make Seagull squawking sounds to get them to be reminded of the horror and get in line. It’s really as simple as that.

But…

If you have learned that your child is not scared of Seagulls or birds, the probability of  you watching them get shit on by a couple of birds is hopeful and enjoying, which always makes me feel better about my kids not listening. So either way, it’s a win, win!!!! Winning!

seagulls_feeding 

Warning: please take my parenting advice with a grain of salt, in fact, take it with a grain of salty booger.
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Bar bets

25 Jun

I love bar bets. I’ve won a few and failed at many. But they always can lighten up a room, boring party, or your grandmas memorial service.

Here are a few that I plan on using in the near future. Who knows, you could even be on my targeted list, so pay attention. Smarty.

 

Annnd you should subscribe to that dudes YouTube thingy, he’s got shit tons more!