Recipe Secrets: Chocolate Cake

Another thing that my MIL makes that is a hit in my house is something she calls "Obscene Chocolate Cake." Obscene in the sense that it is REALLY chocolate-y. Everyone here will eat it, and that is saying something, as i generally make at least 2, if not 3, different meals for dinner, and rarely does anyone eat dessert at all.

Not an original recipe, i don't know to whom the credit goes, but here is my MIL's recipe:

Obscene Chocolate Cake
350 degrees, 50 minutes
1 package chocolate cake mix (in the box, brand does not matter)
1 small package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 package chocolate chips (semi sweet or milk chocolate)
1 3/4 c. water 2 eggs
1/2 c. oil

mix all ingredients thoroughly. Bake in bundt or tube pan, do not overbake! Cool thoroughly before removing. Ice with commercial (canned) chocolate icing.


A very simple recipe. Pretty fool-proof, unless you disregard the instructions: do not overbake! Cool thoroughly before removing. These are the "secrets" in this recipe. If you overbake, it will be dry, and if you try to remove before cool, the little pieces of chocolate chips separate, and your cake falls apart. Ooops!

By learning these little secrets in this recipe have enabled me to learn more "secrets" that have taken my cake-baking to a whole 'nother level.
Ask the teachers at my children's schools how good my cakes are...

Here are my chocolate cake secrets:


1. use sour milk. Not kidding. Finding sour milk in your refrigerator is like finding treasure...it is just that good in baked stuff! Time to make a cake! I know that sounds awful, but it is like buttermilk that you did not have to go out and buy. Sour milk is so fabulous in a cake recipe (or most baked goods,) not only do i save sour milk, sometimes i MAKE sour milk. Put a couple of tablespoons into regular milk (just what is going in the recipe) to make it sour. Of course, buttermilk will do, too, if you want to spend money on it. Don't use milk if it is GREEN. Otherwise, it just keeps getting better, the more sour it is. I substitute this for water or milk in any cake recipe.

2. Retain heat while cooling, cool quickly. Even if i overbake, i can sometimes "save" a cake this way. I like cakes to be very moist. So when a cake comes out of the oven, i only let it sit in the pan on the stove for maybe 10 minutes. Then i cover it with foil or plastic wrap and put it in the fridge or freezer...until it is really cool. This makes the cakes really moist and wonderful.

These two "secrets" help me turn my MIL's chocolate cake into a whole different animal. I bake it in a snack pan (you know, long and flat, like you would make lasagna in.) I don't even bother with the icing. I like a cake that i can cut into squares, like brownies, and people can eat with their fingers. I often bake one like this and take it to school to put in the teacher's lounge (and one in the admin lounge.)

Try it, and let me know what you think! Next post will get back to basketry, I promise! But i have already been told i need to publish my banana cake secrets too...
pamela

to see more posts in this series, click on the label "recipe secrets" below.

Recipe Secrets: Mother's Bean Soup

My mother in law makes this soup that my husband just loves. It is called, simply: "Bean Soup." It has ham and little dumplings that she makes called "Rivels." My husband just LOVES this soup, it is his favorite thing of anything she cooks. Now, my husband is not one to complain about my cooking normally, but there is nothing i make that compares to his mother's bean soup. (I am not sure it is THAT good, but it really is pretty good.)

So i asked her how to make it. She told me she just put ham, water and beans in the pot, and made the rivels and that was it! Rivels are egg and flour. Well, how hard can that be? Duh.

After a few tries, i realized there was a secret somewhere. How many times have you asked someone for a recipe, which they readily shared, only to find YOUR carefully executed dish tasted NOTHING AT ALL like theirs? More than once have i heard people accuse others of purposefully leaving something out, changing the recipe or just "not sharing the secret."

I could not very well accuse my mother in law of any of these things, but to tell the truth, i just simply could not render a soup like hers from the proscribed ingredients. After awhile, i started making a point to WATCH CAREFULLY when she made this soup. I have to tell you, it took me a few years to get it down...I am not one to haunt people, and making soup takes hours. But I have it now! I haven't told HER that yet, because my husband STILL loves it when she makes it for him.

I have come to the conclusion that when people have recipe secrets the secret is sometimes kept because it is not even known to the originator. The best kept recipe secret is the cooks' own idiosyncrasy or habit that s/he is not even aware of, the little methods used by the chef that are so much a part of their cooking routine that they are not even articulated, because they are beneath mention. MIL's bean soup "secrets" were like that.

Here is my MIL's Bean Soup recipe, complete with SECRETS:

Ingredients:

1 package dry beans
ham bone preferred. Ham hock or knuckles acceptable, but a whole ham bone is best.
ham bits
1 egg
3/4 c + flour
lots of water

Method:

1. Use Navy, or Great Northern beans or a combination of the 2. No other types of beans will do. Navy beans, though they are smaller, actually take a little longer to cook than the Great Northern.
2. soak the beans overnight, or at least 6 hours. Discard the soaking water and rinse
3. Boil a HAM BONE for a long time, until the meat falls off. Several hours at least.
4. Strain the ham bone water and remove all traces of bone. Separate the meat and return it to the broth.
5. Add reconstituted beans and cubed ham to the broth and cook until the beans are tender. This will take anywhere from 2-3 hours.
6. The time to make rivels is when the beans are tender, but there is still plenty of thin broth in the pot. The beans need to be at a rolling boil, and there needs to be no danger of the bottom scorching from overcooked beans.
7. Lightly beat egg and add about 3/4 c. flour, stir with fork. A stiff dough will begin to form, but should not make a ball. The amount of flour will vary depending on the moisture in the air, how large the egg is, etc. The mixture should lots of little pieces of dough, but have alot of DRY flour on the outside. There should be extra flour that will not mix into the egg and still be powdery.
8. Pick up some dough in your clean hands. Scoop up some loose flour with it. Hold your hands over the boiling pot, so the steam rises into your hands. Roll and pinch your hands together to make little pinches of dough, little twisted bits, and drop them into the pot. The dough is too dry to stick together on it's own, but the steam rising from the pot gives just enough stickyness to allow it to make little dumplings. There will be alot of little powdery flour falling from your hands, as well, do not worry about this. This thickens the soup to a lovely texture. If the dough feels sticky at all, you need more flour.
9. Simmer the soup for about 15-20 mins, to allow the Rivels to cook. Perfectly cooked rivels have a slightly chewy texture and are irregular in shape.

I have never been one to leave vegetables "out" and since i have learned all the secrets to my MIL's soup, i have been brave enough to add veges in. I like to put in a chopped or grated carrot and some celery, sometimes some onion (during the bean cooking stage)...but they are erroneous to my DH and he has not complained, so i think the essence remains pure!

Since learning her 'secret,' my method of query when asking for a new recipe has changed dramatically. When someone gives me a recipe, i read through it silently, then i read it out loud to them. I ask alot of questions. Little things...do you let the ingredients come to room temp? HOW do you clean the collards...cut or tear? What brand butter? etc. Amazing. Next post, i will share MY cake secrets...

pamela

to see more posts in this series, click on the label "recipe secrets" below.