The Joy of Cooking
Some day, some woman will thank me for all of the effort I’m putting into turning my son into a great catch. One of the areas I’m tackling with him is cooking, which is especially difficult considering my own skills are less than stellar. Apparently, my parents weren’t as concerned about turning me into a great catch.
About a year ago, Jesse and I discovered a book at the library that featured interesting facts about each state and an accompanying recipe highlighting one of the state’s well-known foods. Jesse is fascinated with geography, and we both love food. It was a perfect fit.
Over the next few weeks, we checked it out of the library so often that we decided to buy it. And so our cooking odyssey began.
Like many grade school kids, mine is pretty addicted to order and logic, so we had to start at the very beginning of the book (the East Coast) and make our way through the states one region at a time. So far, we’ve covered the mid-Atlantic states and most of the South, which sounds like a lot, but looking ahead, I realize there are many, many more states to go. I’m beginning to resent the Louisiana Purchase.
Whether by design or chance, the first few recipes were a breeze: a coffee milkshake (apparently popular in Rhode Island) and submarine sandwiches (thank you, New Jersey). Then came Alabama’s sweet potato biscuits.
I’m a big fan of eating biscuits, but I had never made them because, inevitably, there’s that point in the recipe when you have to roll out the dough. If that’s not bad enough, then you have to cut out the biscuits. That’s always seemed like a lot of work. But I was ready to break my cooking boundaries.
We mixed, we creamed, we rolled, and we baked. And out of the oven came biscuit-sized coasters. Absolutely no rise to be seen anywhere. Flat as a pancake. That didn’t stop us from eating them, though, and at least they were very tasty coasters.
We shook off our first failure and plodded on. Next up was Florida key lime pie. There were three ingredients and no baking required. We aced it.
And so the process continues to this day-mostly successes but some failures. And some head-scratchers. Whose bright idea was it to designate Boston baked beans as the Massachusetts recipe? What kid likes baked beans?
Buoyed by our increasing experience, we decided to branch out a bit. One day, Jesse’s homework included reading a story called "Thunder Cake" from his second grade literature book. The story included the recipe for Thunder Cake, and we thought we’d try it.
But looking through the recipe (it was essentially a chocolate cake), I became a teeny bit apprehensive. It seemed pretty complex, and one of the ingredients was pureed tomatoes, which seemed odd. But, hey, I’m sure carrot cake sounded like a bad idea at first, too.
It turned out the tomatoes weren’t the problem with this cake; it was the complexity that got us. The recipe called for separating four eggs, beating the whites to stiff peaks, and folding them in later.
As I was sliding the cake into the oven, Jesse pointed to the counter and said, "What do we do with the white stuff?" Oops.
The Thunder Cake looked fine as it came out of the oven, though when we tried to slice it, it crumbled all over the place. Apparently egg whites have something to do with holding a cake together. But we solved the problem by spreading half a can of chocolate frosting over each piece of cake that fell apart on our plates.
This wasn’t counted as one of our failures; in fact, I’d call it one of our best attempts ever. One thing I’ve taught Jesse over the years, much to my family’s horror, is that the best way to consume cake (or cupcakes or brownies) is to scrape off all the icing and eat it. Leave the cake; it’s really just a platform to showcase the frosting anyway.
So that’s what we did, and in our opinion, this Thunder Cake was probably the best one ever made, with or without egg whites. Much of the credit goes to the Duncan Hines frosting people, though. TPW
About a year ago, Jesse and I discovered a book at the library that featured interesting facts about each state and an accompanying recipe highlighting one of the state’s well-known foods. Jesse is fascinated with geography, and we both love food. It was a perfect fit.
Over the next few weeks, we checked it out of the library so often that we decided to buy it. And so our cooking odyssey began.
Like many grade school kids, mine is pretty addicted to order and logic, so we had to start at the very beginning of the book (the East Coast) and make our way through the states one region at a time. So far, we’ve covered the mid-Atlantic states and most of the South, which sounds like a lot, but looking ahead, I realize there are many, many more states to go. I’m beginning to resent the Louisiana Purchase.
Whether by design or chance, the first few recipes were a breeze: a coffee milkshake (apparently popular in Rhode Island) and submarine sandwiches (thank you, New Jersey). Then came Alabama’s sweet potato biscuits.
I’m a big fan of eating biscuits, but I had never made them because, inevitably, there’s that point in the recipe when you have to roll out the dough. If that’s not bad enough, then you have to cut out the biscuits. That’s always seemed like a lot of work. But I was ready to break my cooking boundaries.
We mixed, we creamed, we rolled, and we baked. And out of the oven came biscuit-sized coasters. Absolutely no rise to be seen anywhere. Flat as a pancake. That didn’t stop us from eating them, though, and at least they were very tasty coasters.
We shook off our first failure and plodded on. Next up was Florida key lime pie. There were three ingredients and no baking required. We aced it.
And so the process continues to this day-mostly successes but some failures. And some head-scratchers. Whose bright idea was it to designate Boston baked beans as the Massachusetts recipe? What kid likes baked beans?
Buoyed by our increasing experience, we decided to branch out a bit. One day, Jesse’s homework included reading a story called "Thunder Cake" from his second grade literature book. The story included the recipe for Thunder Cake, and we thought we’d try it.
But looking through the recipe (it was essentially a chocolate cake), I became a teeny bit apprehensive. It seemed pretty complex, and one of the ingredients was pureed tomatoes, which seemed odd. But, hey, I’m sure carrot cake sounded like a bad idea at first, too.
It turned out the tomatoes weren’t the problem with this cake; it was the complexity that got us. The recipe called for separating four eggs, beating the whites to stiff peaks, and folding them in later.
As I was sliding the cake into the oven, Jesse pointed to the counter and said, "What do we do with the white stuff?" Oops.
The Thunder Cake looked fine as it came out of the oven, though when we tried to slice it, it crumbled all over the place. Apparently egg whites have something to do with holding a cake together. But we solved the problem by spreading half a can of chocolate frosting over each piece of cake that fell apart on our plates.
This wasn’t counted as one of our failures; in fact, I’d call it one of our best attempts ever. One thing I’ve taught Jesse over the years, much to my family’s horror, is that the best way to consume cake (or cupcakes or brownies) is to scrape off all the icing and eat it. Leave the cake; it’s really just a platform to showcase the frosting anyway.
So that’s what we did, and in our opinion, this Thunder Cake was probably the best one ever made, with or without egg whites. Much of the credit goes to the Duncan Hines frosting people, though. TPW