[Baking] Olga's 11-layer Cake (aka 7-layer Chocolate Cake) or Torte

(pictures forthcoming)
This is my Baba's famed Eleven Layer Cake.  Also known as the Seven Layer Cake (we'll get into that)

I have no idea where she found this.  She says she found it in a cookbook, probably in the 50s.  She said it was a German Chocolate Torte.  What it is, to be honest, is divine.  A royal pain to make, but worth it.

It's an all-afternoon affair.  Since I hadn't made it by myself, I split it into 3 nights.


On the first night, I baked the 7 layers.  As I got better at it I figured out why it used to be an 11 layer cake and is now a 7 layer cake - even with just 7 layers it's an amazing-looking cake, and you probably don't miss them.  If you practice on the first couple until you get it right, it'll easily spread into 7 layers.  Once I'd gotten the hang of it, I see how you could conserve frosting and wind up with 11 - but it'd be a beating.  Next time I do want to try 11, just to see if I can.

On the second night, I made and applied the filling.

On the third night, I "glazed" (iced/frosted/coated/etc) the cake.

On the fourth night, I rested.

On the fifth night, PARTY!

Here's the recipe.  Originally in high-altitude, low-humidity.  I didn't have to change anything.
The ONE tip I would give: weigh the intermediate steps.  If I knew exactly how much batter I had to work with on each layer, it would have gone MUCH more smoothly.

 

1 cup sugar

3 jumbo eggs

2 sticks butter

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon (mexican) vanilla

1/2 cup cornstarch

1 1/2 cup flour

 

In mixer, mix butter and sugar until smooth.  Add eggs and mix well.  Add baking powder, vanilla and cornstarch and mix well.  Add flour and mix well (getting the picture-mix well!).  This will make 6 layers in a 9-inch cake round.  Spread the batter in a thin layer (with a super old blunt butter knife) in the bottom of the cake pan and bake at 350 degrees about 7 minutes.  It should be brown all over when you pull it out.  Let cool in the pan a few minutes then put on a colling rack to finish cooling.

 

Filling:

3 egg yolks

3 cups milk

1/2 cup Nestle Quick (Nesquik) chocolate drink mix powder 

3 tablespoon Hershey's syrup

1/3 cup sugar

8 tablespoon flour

 

Mix yolk and sugar until smooth.  Add Nestle Quick and Hershey's syrup and mix well.  Add flour and 1/2 up milk.  Mix well.  In a 3 quart pot, boil the remaining milk and add the chocolate mix.  Blend well and stir until it starts to boil.  Simmer for 1 minute.  Shut off stove and let cool.

 

Soften 2 sticks unsalted butter.  Beat well with mixer and add to cooled chocolate mixture.  Mix well.

 

Take 1 layer and put it on the cake dish.  Frost the top portion and add layers until done.  Leave the top portion unfrosted.  You will use the "Glazing".

 

Glazing:

1 1/2 cup powder sugar

3/4 cup chocolate chips

OR  1 1/2 squares semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 tablespoon butter

1/4 cup hot water

 

In small pot, add butter and chocolate together and melt on stove.  Add sugar and water.  Mix well.  It should be thick like syrup.  If it is too thick, add water.  If it is too thin, add sugar.  Frost cake.

Kulich - Russian Easter Bread

FINALLY, something baking related! It's been too long, I've been resting on my laurels.

I'll update this once I've made it myself. One other way to make it is inside a coffee can - I need to get details on that, since that's how I always had it - bullet-shaped, funnily enough, with a sprinkle-laden glaze on top.

6 cups sifted flour
3 egg yolks
1 whole egg
3/4 cups sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 and a 1/2 packages yeast (come in a pack of 3)
1 and 1/4 cups WARM (not hot) milk
1 stick (1/4 pound) melted butter. 
 (Let cool off so it's not hot.)


Put yeast and milk in bowl and mix.
put eggs, sugar and salt in another bowl and mix on low speed.
Put milk and yeast together with the flour.
Add the eggs,sugar, salt mixture in.
Add melted butter.
Mix well with a wooden spoon.
Knead the dough mixture about 10 minutes (maybe more).
Dough needs to be soft.
Put a cover over the bowl so it can rise.
Dough needs to rise for an hour or more.
Needs to become twice its size.
Separate into 2 loaves.
Put 1 cup raisens for each loaf
Preheat oven to 350.
Use loaf pan sprayed with PAM or greased with butter.
Let dough rise again for 40-60 minutes.
If you want a shiny crust, use the whites from the 3 eggs.
Beat the whites for just a minute with a fork and brush the mixture
over the crust before you put in oven.
Bake 45-60 minutes.
Check dough with toothpick at 45 minutes to see if ready.
Pull the bread out and put on a towel.

[Cake] Olga's Jam Cake

Okay, here's another from my Baba's trove. I was starting to think I didn't have anything useful to add, cooking-wise - then I realized that, at the very least, I have all my Baba's recipes. Which, if nothing else, you should go make the Borscht. Trust me on this.

Anyhow, here's another of her recipes growing up. You might find it a bit dry - I don't. The combination of the crumbliness of the cake and the jam holding it together works really well. I used Raspberry Preserves this last time - go for seedless. Strawberry also works really well with this.

Baba's Jam Cake
Ingredients:
1 stick butter
1 stick margarine
1 cup sugar
3 cups AP flour
1.5 teaspoon baking powder (less if wanting a denser consistency)
4 egg yolks
1/2 cup sour cream
18-24 Ounce jar of Fruit Preserves (your choice of flavor)

* Set butter & margarine out so they soften
* Cream butter/margarine & sugar (aka put them in the mixer, and let them mix for 3-5 minutes on medium. The color will lighten and it'll get a little fluffy)
* Mix everything but the flour together
* Mix in flour with a spoon (practically, I do everything in my kitchenaid, paddle attachment, then add the flower in small installments, on low.)
* Take 3/4 of the dough and put in a 9x12 pan (or cookie sheet, but it needs to be 1-1.5 inches deep). Make it even with a knife/spatula/etc.
* Pour your preserves over this (1.5 pounds, aka 18-24 ounce jar) Using a knife, spread it evenly over the cake
* Take that last 1/4 of dough, add flour, and roll it out into strips. Make a lattice, taking care to include all 4 sides of the pan.

This was the hardest part for me, never having made it before. What I did was to take the last 1/4 of dough, put it on a sheet of wax paper, fold the wax paper over (so it's covered) then roll out to about the right length. Stick in the freezer 20-30 minutes. Bring it out, and quickly cut the strips with a pizza cutter, and lay them out. I didn't do anything fancy - one strip on each edge (yes, some will be too long. Cut them short.), then lengthwise, then widthwise. You're making a crisscross pattern. If you want to get fancy do every other stripe in one direction, then the other, then finish the first direction, then the other.

Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Watch it starting at about 40 minutes. One thing you're also looking for, besides being Golden Brown on the lattice, is that the jam/preserves "crystallize". It winds up being just a little crunchy, probably due to the jam caramellizing (is that how it's spelled?). The first time I did it it came out perfectly. The second time it didn't gel, and so you didn't wind up with that wonderful texture. My only other thought, besides "I pulled it out too early", was that I used Jam instead of preserves. Ironic since it's called "Jam cake", so I bet I just pulled it early.
-- TBD

[Cake] Chocolate Pound Cake

My wife has been going gaga over this recipe. Why, I'm not sure - the flavor is fine, but it's not amazingly moist, and not dense enough for me. But she likes loves it, and that's good enough. Bonus for all you aspiring bakers - this is a pretty simple recipe, and comes together quickly.

Not my recipe - I'm not that talented. Shamelessly cribbed from Paula Deen, here:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_36917,00.html

Two notes:
1) This is an _easy_ cake. The only downside is that it cooks for over an hour and a half. But it takes maybe 15 minutes to put together. The secret, for those of you new to baking (Baking DBAs in training, mayhaps?), is to make sure the butter/shortening & sugar are thoroughly creamed. What I normally do is let the butter hit room temp (or about 12 seconds in the microwave), toss in the mixing bowl of our stand mixer (which is getting so much more use these days now that I'm baking) along with sugar, and put on 4 for about 5 minutes. What you're doing is using the sugar to puncture the cell walls in the butter. That's what "creaming" does. The longer it goes, the lighter and fluffier it gets. Five minutes may be too long, and that may be why it's not moist enough. I don't know. But it comes out fine, so I'm doing it that way for now. Make sure that, after creaming, to turn it down to low while you add all the other ingredients - otherwise you wind up with a cloud of flouy/chocolate/etc.

2) A 10" bundt pan can mean many things. Our 10" (across) bundt pan holds 12 cups, which isn't anywhere near big enough. The first time I made it, we wound up having to pour some out into a second loaf pan. The second time, I went looking for this mythical "ten inch bundt". Um, yeah. Or not. Fortunately, it turns out that an angel-food-cake pan, which normally holds 14-16 cups, is big enough. And since it has the "smokestack" in the middle, can sub for a bundt without any problems. (This was told to me by the owner of the local kitchen supply store - nice guy, they're on Little Road, just south of I-20 but north of the Little Road exit, in Arlington, Texas). Practical upshot: make sure your cake pan is big enough. Yes, this will rise.

Here's the recipe.
"The Bag Lady's Favorite Chocolate Pound Cake"
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
3 cups sugar
5 eggs
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk [this is probably optional - the taste it imparts is fine but not great. However, since buttermilk is acidic you'll have to change the recipe to deal with the pH change - no easy feat - TBD]

Special equipment: 10-inch bundt pan [again, use an angel-food cake pan - TBD]

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan. Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and cocoa and set aside. Using an electric mixer, cream together butter, shortening, and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs, 1 at a time, and mix well after each addition.

Add flour and buttermilk alternately to butter mixture, beginning and ending with flour. Add vanilla and mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake for 1 hour and 45 minutes or until cake is done.

Remove from oven and allow cake to cool in pan for 10 minutes. Invert onto cake plate and serve.