Email to Cilla      

The Cake Mix Doctor's Pantry

Source of Recipe

internet


List of Ingredients

With a cake mix and basic ingredients close at hand, baking great cakes is a snap. Here are some of the items I turn to.

Key Ingredients at a Glance

Cake mixes: Keep on hand two devil's food mixes, two yellow mixes, two white mixes, one spice mix, one lemon mix, and one orange mix.

Butter: I add lightly salted butter. Whereas unsalted butter is preferable in scratch cakes, I feel the salt in the butter helps balance the high sugar content of the cake mixes and, ironically, gives the cakes more of a homemade taste. Since butter is difficult to blend into dry cake mix, the recipes call for melted butter.

Margarine, on the other hand, is not recommended unless it is specifically called for in a recipe, such as the Old-Fashioned Cola Cake. That's because butter has superior flavor and in light cakes facilitates browning. Butter is a must for frostings. If you absolutely have to use margarine for health reasons, make sure it is a stick margarine that has more than 65 percent vegetable oil. Spreads will not yield the same results.

Milk: Many recipes in this book will simply say "milk." Others will list "whole milk." The reasoning is simple. When whole milk is specified, that means the extra fat in the whole milk is crucial to the mouthfeel of the recipe. If not specified, simply use whatever milk you have in the refrigerator. And in my recipes, the milk does not have to be at room temperature; it may be added cold.

Eggs: Keep a dozen large size on hand. You can add them to the batter straight from the refrigerator.

Nuts: Store almonds, pecans, walnuts, and other nuts in the freezer to extend their shelf life. If you plan on adding untoasted nuts to a recipe, add them straight from the freezer. If you plan on adding them toasted for more flavor, see Toasting Nuts, page 134), and thaw 10 minutes before toasting.

Coconut: The best coconut is fresh, but that's not reasonable for busy cooks. So keep the next best thing around -- unsweetened grated coconut -- in the freezer. It thaws in minutes and can be sprinkled on cakes for garnish or added to cake mixes to turn them into something quite exotic. The sweetened coconut in the can is okay in a pinch, but it doesn't have the flavor that the frozen coconut has.

Vegetable oil: The addition of vegetable oil is critical to these cake recipes. Oil works with the built-in emulsifiers to give you a moist, tender cake. But not all vegetable oils will do. Select the lighter, flavorless oils like canola and soybean oil, instead of heavier, more fragrant oils like olive.

Chocolate: A key ingredient to cake doctoring -- you just can't keep enough chocolate on hand. Semisweet or bittersweet is useful chopped, grated, or melted into a chocolate swirl. German chocolate can be grated into a batter with marvelous results. White chocolate, although technically not chocolate because it doesn't contain any chocolate liquor, melds beautifully into cakes and frostings. Chocolate chips are multipurpose and best for toppings and folding into cakes, bars, and cookies. Chocolate syrup, too, is a quick addition to marble cakes or cheesecakes. And unsweetened cocoa powder gives a mighty punch to devil's food cake mixes and impromptu frostings.

Extracts: Be sure to buy pure vanilla and almond extracts as well as pure fruit extracts like orange and lemon. Cake mixes contain a ready supply of artificial flavorings, so you must take care that what you add is of the best quality.

Spices: Keep your favorite spices on hand. I like ground cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg, and whole poppy seeds. Buy them in small amounts, for the longer spices sit on the pantry shelf, the less flavorful they are.


REFRIGERATOR

Buttermilk: Most often low-fat. If you can't find it in your supermarket, use buttermilk powder, following the package instructions for reconstituting.

Sour cream: Full-fat for a rich taste and velvety texture.

Yogurt: Plain, lemon, and vanilla full-, low-, or nonfat. Use your imagination when choosing the flavor; yogurt adds richness, moisture, and tenderness to these recipes.

Cream cheese: Full-fat works best, but you may substitute reduced-fat (neufchâtel) or fat-free.

Citrus: Oranges, lemons, and limes. Use both the juice and the grated zest.

FREEZER
Fruit: Keep strawberries, raspberries, sliced peeled peaches, and cranberries.

CUPBOARD
Sugar: Granulated, confectioners', and light and dark brown sugar.

Dried fruit: Raisins, cranberries, cherries, currants, and prunes.

Canned fruits: Varieties such as pineapple, blueberries, peaches, pears, or mandarin oranges, in light syrup (not pie fillings).

Instant coffee powder


Recipe