Milkymilk

Orange and Vanilla Scented Bundt Cake

I volunteered to make the desert for a dinner party tonight, and I've been nervous Nelly racking my brain about bringing just the right thing.  Hopefully this will be tastey and not contrast with the meal.

 

CAKE

3 cups all purpose flour

3/4 t salt

1/2 t baking soda

1 2/3 cups sugar

1 T orange zest

1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise

3/4 cup (1 & 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temp.

3 large eggs

2/3 cup fresh orange juice

2/3 cup buttermilk

 

GLAZE

1/2 cup fresh orange juice 

2 T sugar

2 T unsalted butter

 

ICING

1/3 cup powdered sugar

2 t fresh orange juice

 

• Preheat oven to 350, and grease and flour a 8 to 10 cup bunt pan.


• Whisk the flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl, and set it aside.


• In an electric mixer, beat the orange zest and sugar on low speed to release the essential oils from the zest.  The sugar will turn slightly orange.  Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the sugar and mix well.  Add butter and beat until light.  Mix in the the eggs one at a time.  Mix in the orange juice (mixture will look curdled.)  Stir in the flour mixture, alternating with the buttermilk.  Transfer batter to pan, and smooth the top.  Bake until tester comes out clean, about 50 minutes.


• While the cake is baking, make the glaze.  Boil orange juice, butter and sugar over medium heat for about 5 minutes.  When cake as finished baking, brush 3 T of the glaze over the cake.  Allow the cake to cool for 10 minutes.  Turn cake out onto rack, and brush with remaining glaze.


• Once the cake has cooled completely, make the icing.  Add the orange juice bit by bit to the powdered sugar, as you might not need that much.  It should be thick, but pourable.  Drizzle the icing over the cake, and let stand until icing sets.

Texas Sheet Cake

This is what was left of it.  I was not fast enough to get a picture before we ate up a half size portion of this recipe.

Years ago I asked Skylar what is favorite cake was, and he replied "Texas Sheet Cake!"  I am from Texas, and had no idea what he was taking about.  It is just a chocolate sheet cake with chocolate frosting that is always served from the pan.  I suspect it is more popular in the Midwest than Texas.  

This recipe is from Mike Mills & Amy Mills Tunnicliff's Peace Love and Barbecue.  It sounds more complicated than it is.  Really, I made it during Harper's nap.  I think because it does not have to be taken out of the pan and frosted like a normal cake, it is easy.  

 

CAKE

2 cups all purpose flour

2 cups sugar 

1 cup water

8 tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening

3 1/2 tbs coca powder

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup milk mixed with 2 tbs white vinegar)

2 large eggs

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp vanilla extract

ICING

8 tbs (1 stick) unsalted butter

1/3 cup milk

3 1/2 tbs coca powder

1 box (1 pound) confectioners' sugar

3/4 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

• Preheat the oven to 4oo degrees.  Grease an 18 x 12 inch sheet pan.


• Make the cake: Combine flour and sugar in a large bowl.


• Combine the water, butter, shortening, and coca in a small saucepan and bring to a boil.  Pour over the flour mixture.


• In a small bowl, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla together.  Add to the batter, and blend thoroughly by hand.  Don't use an electric mixer.  Pour into the baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes or until cake tester comes out clean.


• When the cake has baked for about 15 minutes, make the icing:  Combine the butter, milk, and coca in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil and stir in the confectioners' sugar and walnuts, if desired.  Pour the icing over the cake as soon as it is removed from the oven, and spread it out evenly.  Let the cake cool completely on a rack before serving from the pan. 

Solid Foods, who-da thunk it'd be so hard

So a while ago we started Harper on solid foods. I admit, I'm not a parent who reads about parenting. I do things on demand, and have a pretty demanding child.  (I have not idea where she gets it.) So who needs books, right? Solid food. I eat it all the time. They make it for babies, and sell it in glass jars at the store. Open the jar. Feed the baby. Yea! Solid Food!

If I had been a bit more cautious, like most first time parents that know where the parenting section of their local library is, frequent Barns and Noble or Borders or what have you, and look stuff up on-line, my child would not have had diarrhea for 3 DAYS! Her poor bum is red. I have been changing diapers endlessly. There is so much poop, green and clumpy or yellow and wet. Damn you multi-grain infant serial! Ugh. One grain at a time, one grain at a time. Not rice serial, and then multi grain.

Oops.

Husbands, whatch'ya-gonna do?

On Thursday, we went to watch Skylar play on one of Harper & my friend's kickball teams, the Rusty Wranglers. It felt good just to be out. I felt like part of a couple for a minute, and not just Harper's mom.

So at the end of the day, I was showering my husband with affection, and I say a phrase that I think ends up causing angst in most relationships:

"We should have date night."

"Umm... yea. We should have date night."

Gasp.

"It is just the logistics of date night, babe."

Ugh.

(This is were things get crazy long winded.)

And so, recently one of the mom's groups I'm a part of started going to get mom's mani-pedis at this place that has a nursery. A manicure is $30, a pedi is $50, and child care is an additional $5 every 1/2 hour. Gee freek'n' willakers! And it is not even a spa! It is not like you get access to a steam room, sauna, or any of that good stuff with those prices. It is at some place full of therapists and psychiatrists. What? Yes. Manicurists who are talented at using their feeling words. No thank you.

So I said to my husband, you should get together with some of the other dads, you guys can take the babies for a bit after work, and the moms can go to Twinkle Toes and get a mani-pedi for $35. Voila, you make buddies with daddies, Harper gets to hang with her fiends, we get our nails done, and save like $80. Skylar tells me he would have to meet the dads first. Hello, is he going to conduct interviews with these guys before they can hang out at the park together?

Recently, her met another dad, Dave.

Dave likes sports. Therefore, Skylar likes Dave. It is that simple. Really.

So Dave's wife, Tara, suggested the guys get together with the babies and watch Monday night football while we get mani-pedis. I shared this idea with Skylar.

"Monday night football! We could get wings. Or, you ladies could make us some food. We could do it every Monday."

"I don't need my nails done every week."

"You girls could go out drinking. Martini Monday, like your mom."

Do I have a point here? Yes, I do:

Logistics are a matter of perspective. A perspective that is changed greatly by sports.

Brown Sugar Cookies

My mom was in town recently, and she brought me a bag of brown sugar from Sam's. Now that she has gone home I have 7 lbs of brown sugar lurking in my pantry, waiting, watching, wondering what can anyone do with that much brown sugar. Brown sugar cookies, bisatch! They are light, too, and way tasty.

I think you could substitute brown sugar for sugar in any sugar cookie recipe, but this is the one I used:

1 cup all purpose flour

1/4 t baking soda

1/4 t kosher salt

1/4 cup butter, softened

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 t vanilla extract

1 large egg white

• Sift together flour, baking soda and salt in a bowl, and set it aside. Cream butter in sugar in a mixer until fluffy, or as fluffy as brown sugar will get. Add vanilla and egg white, and beat well. Add flour mixture. Stir until well blended. Turn dough out onto wax paper, and roll it into a 6 inch log. Wrap log in wax paper, and freeze it for 3 hours (until very firm).


• Preheat oven to 350


• Cut log into 1/4 inch disks, and place 1 inch apart on parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes. Remove from pan to cool. Yield: about 2 dozen cookies Calories: 60 per cookies & 2 grams of fat