LEMON CRUNCH CAKE

Last week I shared a recipe with you for some Banana Bread. Not just "some" Banana Bread but the "best" Banana Bread. I found the recipe in Mary Meade's Country Cookbook by Ruth Ellen Church who as Mary Meade was the food editor for the Chicago Tribune newspaper for twenty years. We and the volunteers at HPC Thrift Shop who managed to get a piece loved the bread so much, I just knew I had to find another recipe in the book to try.

I didn't have to go too many pages before I found this Lemon Crunch Cake. It sounded perfect for me to make and take to the thrift shop.  I also couldn't help but be encouraged by the personal note on the recipe. Ruth Ellen wrote, " After this appeared in my newspaper food column as a "Cake of the Week," it was adapted for large-quantity baking by the test kitchen staff of the Chicago Public Schools and has since become a favorite dessert in school lunchrooms." WOW!

I generally followed the recipe except for a few changes. (What else is new?!) I wanted to reduce some of the sugar calories so I used truvia sugar/stevia blend. I didn't have enough cake flour so I followed the emergency substitution directions in my Betty Crocker cookbook and used all-purpose flour and removed 2 tablespoons per cup of the flour. So instead of 3 cups cake flour I sifted and then measured out 2-3/4 cups of the all purpose flour and then removed 2 tablespoons of the flour. Another change I made is with the grated lemon rind. When a recipe for grated lemon rind, I always use McCormick's dried lemon peel - 1 tablespoon of the dried peel equals the rind of one lemon. I also use bottled real lemon juice for the lemon juice - 3 tablespoons of the lemon juice equals the juice of one lemon. The only other note I have is that the baking time was too long for my oven. She said to bake it 1 hour and 15 minutes. I set the timer for 75 minutes and went in and checked it at 70 minutes. The cake was brown and tested done with a toothpick. I would recommend baking it for 60 seconds and then check it. If it isn't done, continue baking but check it every 5 minutes.

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LEMON CRUNCH CAKE

3/4       cup butter or margarine, 1-1/2 sticks (I used unsalted butter and had it at room temperature.)
1-1/2    cups sugar (I used 3/4 cup of sugar/stevia blend)
3          eggs, well beaten
3          cups sifted cake flour (I sifted all-purpose flour and measured out 2-3/4 cups but then removed 2 tablespoons)
3          teaspoons baking powder
1/2       teaspoon salt
1          cup milk
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon (I used 3 tablespoons bottled lemon juice and 1 tablespoon dried lemon peel)
1          cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Generously grease/butter a 10 - inch tube pan.

Cream butter and sugar until fluffy.

Add eggs;

blend well.

Sift flour and then measure it. Resift the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add mixture alternately with the milk to creamed mixture beginning and

starting and ending with the flour mixture.

Stir in lemon juice and

rind/peel.

Cover the bottom of the pan with the chopped pecans.

Carefully spoon/pour the cake batter over the nuts.

Bake for 60 - 75 minutes, until done.

Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack,

before inverting it onto the wire rack to finish cooling.

PEPPERMINT CAKE

I'm not sure how I missed sharing this recipe with you. I made it  on the Monday afternoon before I went in the next morning to work my shift at the register at HPC Thrift Shop because it was going to be so easy. I intended to also make the American Flag Pie that we took to the fourth of July celebration with our MO grandchildren's godparents and friends, but was too tired and decided to just make the pie the next day after I got home from the thrift shop and before we went to the party. That post was so involved; I guess I just forgot about the Peppermint Cake.

I saw the recipe in the 101 Things To Do With A Cake Mix and thought I would use the leftover peppermint chips I had after I made the Heavenly Peppermint Brownies instead of crushed peppermint candy. OMG! It was divine. (I even ate the piece I had left at the house for my husband.)

PEPPERMINT CAKE

Cake:

1       white cake mix
3/4    cup water
2       egg whites
1/3    cup oil
1/2    cup peppermint chunks, chopped

Topping:

1       can vanilla frosting
2-1/2 tablespoons chopped peppermint chunks

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or spray a 9 x 13 - inch pan.

In a large mixing bowl, combine cake mix, water, egg whites, and oil until smooth.

(Combine on low til moistened, scrape the sides of the bowl,

and increase speed to medium and beat 2 minutes.)

Stir in chopped peppermint chunks

Pour batter into pan.

Bake 25 to 35 minutes, or until golden brown.

Cool completely.

Spread frosting over cooled cake. (I placed cooled cake in refrigerator to get cold before I spread the frosting on the cake.)

Sprinkle with crushed peppermint chunks.

I chopped the ones for the frosting with a knife so they would be a little bigger.

Here are the peppermint chunks I used in the cake...

and the peppermint chunks chopped I put in the cake.

BEST BANANA BREAD EVER

I managed to bring some crumbs home to my husband of this Banana Bread that I made and took to the volunteers at HPC Thrift Shop last Saturday. Later in the day I reminded him that the folded up foil contained the crumbs of the bread. He picked up the foil and then went downstairs to the family room. The next thing I heard as he is coming back up the stairs was, "That just might be the best banana bread you have ever made." I decided to rename it for this post title as the "Best Banana Bread Ever" to help me remember when I saw the title that it was that really awesome banana bread I had made that my husband loved so much.

I found the recipe in Mary Meade's Country Cookbook by Ruth Ellen Church. As "Mary Meade", food editor of the Chicago Tribune for twenty years, Ruth Ellen Church brought together hundreds of her favorite recipes. My husband had told me that the remaining bananas were ready for banana bread. So when I agreed to go in to the thrift shop Friday night for the next morning, I remembered the bananas and started looking though the seven or eight cookbooks I had out by my chair downstairs. I actually found another one that was so close to this one that I bet is good also. It was Dana C. Hochstedler's recipe in the Hochstedler Family Cookbook that I have been using so much lately. Since I hadn't made anything from Mary Meade's cookbook I decided I would try its recipe.

Ruth Ellen said that "This was the favorite of a half-dozen banana breads tested, time and again!" For once I followed the ingredients (well except I used buttermilk for the sweet or sour milk and I didn't have any bread flour so I used regular all-purpose flour). Can I still get credit for following her recipe?

I got up early so I could make it before I had to leave (9:30) and thought I had plenty of time since the recipe said to cook for 45 minutes. True - I was surprised it would cook in just 45 minutes because most recipes seem to cook more like an hour. As it turned out I had to cook it an extra 15 minutes. I took the bread out of the oven at 8:55, let it cool in the loaf pan for 10 minutes before turning it out to cool on a wire rack, and finished my last touchings to get ready to leave. It was still pretty warm, but I wrapped it in foil to take. I had to hunt for a knife to cut it with when I got to the thrift shop and the one I used wasn't great. (I was in a hurry when I was looking through the ones we were selling to use since I couldn't find where the knives were in the new community room.) The first slices of the bread ended up breaking up when I cut them, but that didn't hurt the taste. While it was fabulous warm, I can't wait to make it again and enjoy it after it has cooled.

I took the time when I was mixing the bread up to experiment with the sifted flour. Even though today when you buy flour, it says "presifted" on the package, I always sift it again if the recipe calls for "sifted" flour. I measured out two cups of flour the way I always do - spooning the flour lightly into the measuring cup and then sifted it into a bowl. Then I measured two cups of the sifted flour and would you believe I had almost 1/4 cup of flour still left in the bowl? That is the first time I actually measured the leftover flour to see how much extra I would have had in the recipe if I hadn't sifted it again. That makes a difference in the results of the recipe. Just FYI - you know the key is where the word "sifted" appears in the list of ingredients, don't you? Sifted flour means to sift before measuring and flour, sifted means to sift it after you measure. See pictures below recipe.

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BANANA BREAD

1/2         cup butter or margarine (I did use unsalted butter)
1            cup sugar
2            eggs, beaten light
1            cup sieved bananas (about 3 large) (My bananas were very ripe so I just mashed them with a fork)
1-1/2      tablespoons sweet or sour milk (I used buttermilk)
1            teaspoon lemon juice
2            cups sifted bread flour (I used all-purpose flour)
1-1/2      teaspoons baking powder
1/4         teaspoon salt
1/2         teaspoon soda
1            cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I did use pecans)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or spray an 8-1/2 x 4-1/2 inches loaf pan.

Cream butter and sugar;

add eggs.

Prepare bananas and add milk and lemon juice to them.

Add banana mixture to the butter mixture.

Add sifted flour, baking powder, salt, and soda. (I did mix these ingredients together in a small bowl first with a whisk.)

Stirring just to blend. (Since I still had to add the nuts, I stopped before the ingredients were completely blended. I ran the mixer just a bit on low.)

Finally add nuts stirring only enough to blend.

Pour batter in pan and bake for 45 minutes.

(I had to bake mine for 60 minutes before the toothpick came out clean.)  Cool in pan for 10 minutes before

removing to cool on a wire rack. Wrap loaf in foil to keep moist.

When I remeasured the 2 cups of flour to sift...







and then remeasured what I had sifted ...

The almost a fourth of a cup extra flour I would have been adding...

PEACH COBBLER

I didn't use all of the fresh peaches that we bought when we were in CO visiting our older son Jeffrey and his family when I made the Skillet Peach Pie last week. I hope you saw that post. Besides just making a really terrific looking peach pie, it tasted just as terrific. 

I am glad that I started using little stick-on post-its to mark recipes I wanted to try in my latest seven or eight cookbooks. It makes it so much easier and faster to find recipes that I remember seeing but not necessarily where I saw them. It also keeps me from writing in the cookbooks. I had marked this recipe for Peach Cobbler in the Hochstedler Family Cookbook, a Collection of Edible Treasures from the family of Emanuel and Mattie Hochstedler. I have made quite a few of the recipes from this cookbook (and still have plenty more to try). This recipe was shared by Marilyn Hochstedler, the wife of Lewis, the sixth child of Emanuel and Mattie.

I followed the recipe except for the substitution of truvia, a sugar/stevia blend for the sugar. It uses only half of the sugar amount and thus half of the sugar calories. I was making it for just us and didn't want all of the calories. We also don't like a lot of sugar in fruit dishes. We prefer to taste the fruit and if you use a lot of sugar in the recipe, you lose some of that flavor. The result? It was probably sweeter than I prefer. The next time I make it, I will reduce the amount of sugar or just use stevia alone. If I had followed the recipe and only used 1-1/2 cups of peaches, I would have had a single layer of peaches. Then the "batter" might have cooked up over the peaches and have covered them more. Something to think about.

PRINT just the recipe.

PEACH COBBLER

1       cup flour
1       cup sugar (I used 1/2 cup stevia/sugar blend)
1       teaspoon baking powder
2       tablespoons butter
1/2    cup milk
1-1/2 cups sliced fresh peaches (I used 2 peaches that measured closer to 2 cups of sliced peaches)
1       cup sugar (I used a scant 1/2 cup stevia/sugar blend)
1       cup cold water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease or spray an 8 x 8 - inch square baking dish.

Mix the flour, sugar, and baking powder in a mixing bowl and

cut in the butter until

mixed throughout.

Beat milk into the flour mixture until

batter is smooth.

Pour/spoon batter into pan.

Put peaches on the top (I made a single layer and

then filled in spaces with the rest of the peaches.),

then sprinkle sugar over the top.

Finally pour the cold water

over the top of it all.

Bake for 1 hour. 








Serve warm or cold. It had cooled when I was ready to eat some so I heated it up in the microwave on HIGH for 30 seconds. (I didn't have a big serving, but big enough for me.)