Baker's Journal RSS

After standing on the tailgate of my daddy’s truck picking peaches in the hot august sun, my mother, Miss Geraldine, and i went straight home and baked the peach version of this good and really simple cake. of course, we did eat a peach or two, fuzz and all, standing over the kitchen sink with the juice running down our arms and dripping off our elbows.

I love this cake with homemade vanilla ice cream on a thick slice that is still warm out of the oven.

11⁄2 cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
3 cups self-rising flour
3 cups fresh (not frozen) sliced strawberries or peaches
1 cup toasted, chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan.

Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Whisk in the flour. The batter will be very stiff. Fold in the strawberries or peach- es and pecans.

Pour the batter into the prepared Bundt pan. Bake for 60-65 minutes, or until an inserted skewer comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Cool in the pan for 15 minutes before turning out onto a cake plate.

Serves: 16-20 people

For nearly two years, my mother, Miss Geraldine, and I baked cheesecakes for a local restaurant. We know they enjoyed them because they ordered forty cheesecakes every week.

The plain cheesecake can be changed to suit your taste by adding broken up pieces of your favorite chocolate, cream-filled cookies, or even your favorite candy bar. The crust can also be made using different types of plain cookies. Don’t forget that chocolate sauce poured over a plain cheesecake will make it totally irresistible.

Make sure you use a 10-inch springform pan. These recipes make large cheesecakes. When baking cheesecakes, we always bake them on a cookie sheet lined with foil.

Crust

3 cups vanilla wafers (12-ounce box)
1⁄2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons sugar
1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Combine all the ingredients in a food processor. Pulse until the wafers are broken into pieces. Continue to process until smooth.

Press the crust into the bottom of a 10-inch springform pan sprayed with non-stick cooking spray.

Filling

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese 1 1⁄2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 cups sourcream
1⁄2 cup heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract Pinch of salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer with the paddle fitted, combine the cream cheese and sugar until smooth. add the eggs. Blend. Scrape down the sides and around the bottom of the bowl and continue to mix until creamy. add the remaining ingredients. Blend. Scrape the bowl down again. Mix on high for one minute until smooth and fluffy.

Pour the filling onto the crust in a prepared 10-inch springform pan. Bake for 1 hour. Turn off the oven and leave the cheesecake in the oven for 1 hour. Do Not Open The Door!

Remove the cheesecake from the oven and let it cool completely. remove the springform part of the pan and chill until ready to serve.

Serves: 10-12 people

Each year for Ballet Spartanburg’s production of The Nutcracker, I bake 450 of these gingerbread cookies to be sold over the performance weekend. Rolling dough is like relaxation therapy to me.

I became involved with Ballet Spartanburg when my daughter Shelby took ballet classes for fifteen years. She went on to the University at St. andrews in Scotland. Fortunately, my family still has the privilege of being a small part of the ballet for this very special event.

Thank you, Trish Mccallister, for sharing your recipe.

1/3 cup shortening
1 cup light ordark brown sugar
1 1⁄2 cups molasses
2/3 cup ice water

In large bowl of an electric stand mixer, using the paddle, combine the first three ingredients. Add the ice water.

Sift together

7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix the flour mixture into the shortening and water mixture.

Roll the dough to 3/8-inch thickness and cut.

For the cookies

Bake at 350 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

For the ornaments

Bake at 250 degrees for 1 hour. Before baking, use a regular drinking straw to make a hole in the top of the cookie to put your ribbon through.

If the amount of this recipe is too much for your mixer to hold, cut it in half.

Makes forty 3-inch cookies or ornaments.

I know! I know! Fruit cake!
You have got to be kidding me! But wait...

My grandmother, Miss Nervielee, gave me the recipe for this delicious fruitcake. Cutting up the fruits and nuts is the hardest part of making this cake that has a delightful texture and is not overly sweet. If you like, you can wrap the loaves in cheesecloth and pour a little bourbon or brandy over the cakes each day for a few days. This recipe will change your opinion of fruit cake!

2 1⁄2 pounds candied cherries (green and red)
2 1⁄2 pounds candied pineapple
2 1⁄2 pounds pecans
2 cups (4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
4 cups sugar
14 eggs
5 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt
1 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 tablespoon lemon extract

Preheat the oven to 250 degrees. Thoroughly grease and flour two 10-inch tube pans orfourstandard size loaf pans.

Cut the candied fruit into small-diced pieces. Chop the pecans.

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar. add the eggs. Blend. Scrape down the sides and around the bottom of the mixing bowl. Mix well.

Sift together the flour and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, along with the orange juice and both extracts. Blend. Scrape down the sides and around the bottom of the mixing bowl. Mix on high for 2 minutes.

At this point, the batter will need to go into a very large mixing bowl. Fold in the candied fruit and pecans.

Put the batter into 2 prepared tube pans. If there is extra batter, you can put it into a loaf pan.

Bake 3 hours. Do not open the oven door. Cool for 30 minutes before turning out onto a cake plate. These cakes keep well wrapped in foil.

Hint: This recipe is much easier if divided in half and made in two batches/ mixings.

Each loaf will serve 8-10 people Tube pan serves 16-20 people

Carrot cake was probably first baked in Sweden. It became popular in Britain during the Second World War when sugar was rationed. Carrots contain almost as much sugar as beets and added a wonderful flavor to cakes. Carrot cake followed our troops home after the war and reached huge popularity in the 1960s when it showed up on restaurant menus. our carrot cakes always have cream cheese icing. This carrot cake has a few more ingredients than our 24-Karat cake. This cake was developed by my students during a cooking class at Cooking Up a Storm. I think you will enjoy baking and eating it as much as we enjoy sharing it with you.

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
11⁄2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
4 eggs
11⁄2 cups canola oil 2 cups sugar
2 cups shredded carrots
8 ounces crushed pineapple, drained 1 cup coconut
1⁄2 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 9-inch round baking pans. Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, oil, and sugar until well blended. Mix in the carrots, drained pineapple, coconut, and pecans. Add the sifted dry ingredients. Mix well.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake for 45-50 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cool completely before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, cold 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
2 boxes powdered sugar

In the bowl of an electric stand mixer, cream the butter. Add the cream cheese, vanilla, and lemon juice. Add the powdered sugar. Mix well and spread on the cooled cake layers.

Hint: Make sure your mixer is on its lowest setting. (You will only have to learn this lesson one time.)

Serves: 16-20 people

Not ready to make your own? Order Daisy's Carrot Cake made with love in Pauline, South Carolina!

This is my mother’s favorite cake. Her best friend, Mable, used to make this cake for us for special occasions. She would present it on a dome covered glass pedestal, swiftly removing the dome to oohs and ahhs of our family.

5 eggs, separated
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
1⁄2 cup shortening
2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup buttermilk
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, sifted two times
1 cup coconut
1 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 teaspoon coconut extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour three 9-inch cake pans.

Separate the eggs and beat the egg whites until stiff. Set aside.

Cream the butter and the shortening together. Add the sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add the egg yolks. Mix well.

Dissolve the soda in the buttermilk. Add the flour to the egg and butter mixture along with the buttermilk. Beat well. Add the coconut, nuts, and extracts. Mix well. fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Pour the batter into the prepared pans, using 2 cups of batter for each pan. Bake for 25 minutes. Cool for 15 minutes before turning out of the pan. Cool the layers completely before icing.

Cream Cheese Icing

1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
1 package (8-ounces) cream cheese, cold 1 teaspoon almond extract
1 box powdered sugar

Cream the butter. add the cream ch

Any Southern cook, worth his or her weight, has a stash of pecans in their freezer. It’s just as natural as having milk and eggs in the fridge. Cracking them and picking out the meat is no easy task. It sure is nice to have bags of pecans ready to use when you need them. They’re good to eat cold, too.

3 eggs, beaten
1⁄2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted 1 cup Karo syrup, light
1 1⁄2 cups chopped pecans
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
9-inch pie shell, unbaked

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together the eggs, sugar, syrup, pecans, extract, and salt. Pour into an unbaked pie shell. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes, or until firm but not hard.

Serves: 8 people

This cheesecake is wonderful plain. It is also good with caramel sauce drizzled over it or a dollop of bourbon whipped cream. Don’t forget the fresh ground nutmeg!

Crust

1 bag gingersnap cookies
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar
1⁄2 cup unsalted butter, melted

Put the crust ingredients into the food processor. Pulse until the cookies begin to break into pieces. Continue processing until the mixture is coarse, like cornmeal.

Press the cookie mixture into the bot- tom of a greased 10-inch springform pan.

Filling

3 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese 1 (15-ounce) can 100% pure pumpkin 1 cup granulated sugar
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar
1⁄4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour Pinch of salt
4 eggs
1⁄2 cup heavy whipping cream
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

In the mixing bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with a paddle, beat the cream cheese until smooth. Add the pumpkin and continue beating until combined. Add the sugars, flour, and salt. Mix well. add the eggs. Blend. Scrape down the sides and around the bottom of the bowl. Continue beating about 2 minutes, until smooth.

Add the whipping cream and vanilla. Blend on low speed. Scrape down the sides and around the bottom of the bowl. continue beating about 1 minute, until smooth.

Pour the filing onto the crust in a prepared 10-inch springform pan. Shake the pan back and forth to evenly spread the filling. Bake 11⁄2 hours. cool completely. Refrigerate overnight for best results before removing the springform side of the pan.

Serves: 10-12 people

Excerpt from "Share a Slice of Love" by Kim Nelson

In my family, we never called a cast iron skillet a cast iron skillet. it was always called a black frying pan. My mother, Miss Geraldine, still has her grandmother’s black frying pans and uses them regularly.

Pie Dough

1 1⁄2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold 1⁄4-1⁄2 cup ice water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

in a food processor, pulse together the flour, sugar, salt, and butter until the mix- ture is coarse like cornmeal. add 1⁄4 cup ice water to blend. add the remaining water a tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together into a ball. lightly flour the work surface. Knead the dough a few times and flatten into a disk. Wrap and chill until filling is ready.

Topping

1⁄4 cup (1⁄2 stick) unsalted butter,
at room temperature
1⁄4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed 2 cups pecans, coarsely chopped

in a bowl, blend the butter and sugar together. Mix in the pecans. chill.

Filling

6 apples (Fuji or Gala), peeled and sliced 1⁄2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1⁄4 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour Juice of 1 fresh lemon
1⁄2 - 3⁄4 teaspoon cinnamon

For crust after 1 hour in the oven

2 tablespoons whole milk
1 tablespoon granulated sugar

Peel and core the apples. cut the apples into slices about 1⁄2-inch thick. Toss them with lemon juice and the remaining ingredients to coat.

flour your work surface and roll out the chilled dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Put the dough into a 7-or 8-inch greased cast iron skillet or a 9-inch glass pie plate with deep sides. let the dough hang over the sides. Spoon the filling into the skillet or pie plate. fold the overhanging dough up over the top of the apples, leaving the center uncov- ered. Bake 1 hour. remove from the oven.

Brush the crust with the 2 tablespoons of milk and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon sugar. crumble the pecan topping over the center of the pie, not on the sugared crust. return the pie to the oven for 30 minutes, or until the crust is golden and the filling is bubbly. cool on a rack. Serve warm.

Serves: 8-10 people

Excerpt from "Share a Slice of Love" by Kim Nelson

This recipe is from my mother Miss Geraldine. She loves to use red jewel sweet potatoes in this pie. She buys them at a roadside stand on her way home from Myrtle Beach, Sc. The local farmer grows them in the field behind his produce shed.

Ingredients

4 small sweet potatoes, baked and cooled 1⁄2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
one 9-inch pie crust, baked

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Peel the potatoes. Put them in the bowl of an electric stand mixer fitted with whisk. add the melted butter and sugar. Mix until smooth. add the vanilla extract. Mix well. Pour the potato mixture into a baked pie crust and bake for 35 minutes. Brush the top with butter when the pie comes out of the oven.

Serves: 8-10 people

Excerpt from "Share a Slice of Love" by Kim Nelson

In our eyes, autumn couldn’t begin until The Ladies had their annual apple picnic. each year we would designate a weekend in the fall to make our pilgrimage to the mountains, filled with laughter, baking and, of course, delicious apples. after stuffing our picnic basket and loading up the car, Miss Geraldine would drive us to the picnic site that our family had been going to for ages. The table sat along the roadside and you could hear the running water of the stream in the background as you finished up lunch. We piled back into the car and eventually arrived at the orchard for the annual apple tasting. We tasted every type of apple that the grower had. finally, we decided on two bushel boxes of Winesap apples, which we believed to be the best for both eating and baking. We loaded the boxes of apples into the trunk of the car. We couldn’t wait to get back home to begin baking.

Cake

11⁄4 cups canola oil
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract 4 apples (firm & sweet), peeled and finely chopped
1 cup toasted pecans

Whisk together the oil and sugar. add the eggs, beating well. Sift the dry ingredients together and fold into the egg mixture. Stir in the vanilla, apples and pecans.

Pour the apple mixture into a greased and floured 9 x 13 x 2-inch glass baking dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes. Pour the glaze over the cake while warm.

Glaze

1 cup sugar
1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1⁄4 cup (1⁄2 stick) unsalted butter 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine the sugar, baking soda, buttermilk, corn syrup and butter. (Use at least a 2-quart pan, as the sugar mixture bubbles up during cooking.)

Cook the sugar mixture over medium heat until the soft ball stage. Remove from heat. Add the vanilla. Pour over the cake and let cool.

Serves: 12-16 people