Angel Food Cake with Chocolate Shavings

My best friend from high school, Lorraine Ott,  is the epitome of a home cook!  When you walk into her  home you are sure to be greeted with the aroma of something wonderful in the oven.  A pot of coffee goes on and we sit to enjoy conversation, friendship and homemade delights.  

Serves 8

1¼ cups cake flour

11⁄2  cups superfine sugar, separated

14 large egg whites, room temperature

1¼ tsps cream of tartar

1 cup  chocolate shavings (use a mixture of  a good quality milk, bittersweet, and semisweet chocolate shavings)

Heat an oven to 350°F. Prepare a bundt pan by generously spraying with baking spray. Sift flour into a bowl, and then resift with ¾ cup of sugar.

Beat whites until frothy, add cream of tartar, and mix until it comes to 3 times the original size (about 3 minutes). Slowly add ¾ cup of sugar, and beat for 2 minutes more on high until firm and glossy.

Gently fold in the flour mixture in 3 additions. Then fold in chocolate shavings. Pour into the bundt pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes or until the top is golden-brown.

*As an alternative, substitute 1⁄2 cup of white chocolate shavings and ½ cup of fresh raspberries or 1 cup of raspberries alone.

This recipe can be found in Country Comfort: Summer Favorites ~ enjoy!

Frying Pan Fudge Cake

Thanks to Ron Popp  of Wheat Fields Catering  in  Omaha, Nebraska for sharing the following recipe with us for Cooking Across America.  If you bake you will keep saying to yourself, "This doesn't look like anything I have ever prepared before?!"  But I can guarantee that after tasting it ~  you will preparing it again and again!  I would describe it more as a "Pudding Cake."

Serves: 6-8 

Cake

2⁄3 cup white sugar

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, room temp.

1 cup all-purpose flour

½ cup milk or heavy cream

3 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

Topping

½ cup brown sugar, firmly packed

2⁄3 cup white sugar

3 rounded tablespoons cocoa

1½ cup boiling water

1 tablespoon pure vanilla

Cake

Preheat an oven to 350°F. In a mixing bowl, mix the sugar and butter thoroughly. Then add flour and milk (or heavy cream), and mix, again. Fold in chocolate and mix thoroughly. Place this mixture evenly in the bottom of

a well-greased, deep, iron frying pan (7  inches) with iron handle for baking.

Topping

In a small bowl, mix together sugars and cocoa. Place this mixture atop the first mixture.

Mix water with vanilla, and pour atop the second mixture. Place in the preheated 350°F oven. Bake for about 40 minutes or until the top mixture sets up like a stiff pudding. Serve warm and top with fresh whipped cream. 

Country Cooks Across America - Carolina Sour Cream Pound Cake

"Since moving to South Carolina, I feel that the most Southern item that I have had the privilege to enjoy (besides great barbecue) is pound cake. Pound cake is everywhere in the South, and this recipe is from a dear friend, whom I have had the honor to meet since moving here. The top and side crust on this pound cake is crisp and crunchy—it is the perfect balance to the moist crumb of the cake. It is delicious and very different from my grandma’s  Northern pound cake". Chef Sherri Beauchamp

Yields: 2 loaf pans

2 sticks (1⁄2 pound) unsalted butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
1 cup sour cream
3 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
6 eggs
½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
 

Preheat an oven to 325°F. Cream butter and sugar together, and then add sour cream. Sift the flour and baking powder together. Alternate adding the dry mixture and eggs, one at a time, to the cream mixture, beating after each one. Add vanilla and almond extracts. Pour into "spray-paper-spray" pans*, and bake for 1 hour and 20 minutes.

*  Spray bottom  and sides of pan generously with baking spray, place parchment paper on bottom of pan (cut to exact size) Spray bottom and sides of pan again. 

Story and recipe is taken from  Country Comfort: Cooking Across America cookbook. 

The Weekend Cook ~ Carrot Cake

Everyone knows bunnies love carrots! Easter always brings to mind the "Bunny Cake" my Mom made.  Warn and tattered the template for the bunny's face, ears and bow tie, came out of a women's magazine. When my children and  nieces were young I would replicate it annually, decorating it with coconut fur and  pastel jelly beans to give it  a personality of  it's own. As the years past we graduated to making the bunny cake using  my carrot cake recipe.

2 cups  flour

2 tsps baking soda

1 tsp  cinnamon

¼ tsp  ground ginger

½ tsp  salt

3 eggs  (at room temperature)  

1 cup  sugar

½ cup  brown sugar

¼ cup corn oil

½ cup  mayonnaise

8 oz   unsweetened, crushed pineapples (do not drain)

2 cups  shredded carrots (about 4 large)

¾ cup  chopped walnuts (optional)

1 cup   shredded  coconut (optional)

Preheat oven to 350, grease pans

Stir flour, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and salt  together.  Set aside

In a large bowl beat eggs, sugars, corn oil and mayo.

Gradually stir in flour mixture until well blended.

Stir in  pineapples, carrots, nuts and coconut. Pour batter into prepared pans.

Bake @ 350 for 30 - 35 minutes.

Once cooled frost with cream cheese icing.