Cake is a food that screams comfort, happiness and celebration! Cake recipes are found throughout the world and many traditional Jewish recipes are for cakes. Ethnic cake recipes usually focus on ingredients that the culture has easy access to, or that has seasonal access to, or that have symbolic meaning.
If you are just learning how to cook, or if you are trying to develop your own recipes for cakes, then here are a few tips to alter basic recipes to meet your tastes or dietary needs.
The first option that you have is to use something other than wheat flour as the base of your cake. You can use soy flour, rice flour, oatmeal, mashed potatoes or each pureed black beans. By changing the flour you change the texture and moisture of your cake. However, This alternation usually will not change the overall taste of the cake.
Finding new ways to sweeten your cake can also be fun to try. Instead of using processed sugar try using fruit juice, honey or alternative sweeteners like Stevia. You can also use artificial sweeteners that will not add calories to your cake. If you are diabetic then try a sugar alcohol like Xylotrol.
Adding items to your batter can also be a way to add texture and taste to your cake. Dried fruit is a great option. Tropical fruits like pineapple and mangoes add a punch of sweetness to a cake, as well as a chewy jewel to each piece of cake. Coconut is another item that you can add to your batter, this tastes great in chocolate cakes in particular. If you are looking for something a bit more healthy then considered shredded vegetables like carrots or zucchini.
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Today it is difficult to have your cake and eat it to. This is because many people are trying to eat more healthfully then they have before. Many diets that are popular right now prohibit the consumption, or restrict the consumption of wheat products like flour. If you know what ingredients are found in most cakes, then you know that baking a cake while on low carb or gluten free diets is nearly impossible. That is, unless you know how to replace the starch from wheat flour with a non-wheat starch.
Your first option is to replace wheat flour with a combination of non-wheat flours. Rice flour is a great option to start with. It comes in several varieties including brown rice flour, which has a nutty flavor, white rice flour, which has a more subtle flavor, and sticky rice flour, which can be used as a gluten replacement. Soy flour can also be used in cake recipes, however, soy flour has a strong flavor that you need to temper with rice or tampica flour.
Pureed black beans can also be used for chocolate cakes. I like to use pureed black beans to creat a flourless brownie recipe. This recipe includes one can of black beans, sugar, three eggs, chocolate and
oil. Black beans also work well as a wheat alternative in carob cake desserts. Generally you will only want to use black bean puree in dark cakes, other wise your cake is going to have a strange look from the dark pigmentation from the beans.
When working without wheat flour you need to experiment to find a wheatless flour mixture that you like the taste of. Each type of flour that is on the market has a slightly different taste and texture. To get the best results you need to mix a variety of flours and vegetable starches to find a mixture that will work for your recipes. This can be a lot of fun, especially when trying to create new Jewish recipes.
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FINALLY!! Sorry for the long delay in sending you this recipe. Please let me know if you
receive it. Comcast is notoriously anti-anything that doesn’t go along with the current administration’s master plan. Since I live in the Distrct of Columbia, which has no representation in either houses of Congress, the only way I could protest the lack of
coverage of their evil deeds (since the press wasn’t covering it) was to send assorted articles from Truthout.com or the N.Y. Times regarding their deeds. I have been routinely getting back much of the emails sent to friends who are Comcast or MSN users indicating that those addresses could not be found, reached or whatever…. Anyway here’s the recipe:
Jewish Coffee Cake (don’t know why it’s “Jewish”–maybe the sour cream or something. Anyway it’s very good) Ingredients
1 tsp. baking soda
I Cup sour cream—mix together and let stand
1/4 pound butter
1 Cup sugar—-cream well with butter and add 2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 – 1/2 Cups flour
1 – 1/2 tsp. baking powder
TOPPING
1/2 Cup sugar
1 Tbsp. cinnamon
3 Tbsp. chopped nutsPut half of batter in greased baking dish (8×10, 9×9 ??)
Sprinkle with half of topping & cut in.
Put in remainder of batter.
Cover this with remainder of topping and cut in.
Bake about 45 min. and 350.
joan pierotti
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