Criss-Cross Applesauce

For the second time this year, I moved across the city. In one McDonald’s-fueled 18 hour day, Howard and I combined two apartments with their own sets of pets into a large one-bedroom in Rogers Park. Unfortunately, neither of us have much in the way of kitchen supplies (tonight we ate dinner off of pie plates), but it’s great! Neither of us mind roughing it too much, and we’re having a great time together.

Yesterday I made two applesauce cakes, which are dark, moist, and sweet. Not to mention super easy to make! I purposefully picked a cake that wouldn’t cause a breakdown to make without a mixer (since I left that at my old apartment—will get it back soon!); a category that is quickly dwindling, after so many weeks baking. We had to buy a few things at the grocery store—applesauce, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, walnuts, and raisins, and then one more return trip when we realized the milk I moved with was bad. We enjoyed the cake after a tipsy burrito meal and then again as necessity for breakfast. It’s really good! I don’t know why I keep thinking of church coffee hours with these unfrosted cakes, but this would be perfect for one of those. Easy to make Saturday night, easy to travel with, slice, and share.

Lastly, I love living in an apartment with a dishwasher. It makes cleaning up so easy! Gosh, that is the word to use with this cake experience (so different from my last move/bake experience, when I considered giving up after realizing baking was actually inducing a minor meltdown). I am conscious of and enjoy the pleasure I take from the little improvements in my baking life—a mixer, a dishwasher, a silpat, a spatula thing shaped like a slice to serve cake with…

What a change I feel with my baking experience! I feel so much more confident than I did a few months ago. 

Vermont

This week I didn't have a specific baking goal, since I am on vacation in Vermont with my family. I assisted in the final stages of making chocolate chip zucchini bread, which turned out to be delicious (I ate five out of six muffins in a span of just hours).

My sister has been taking the lead on a lot of the cooking. This morning she made blueberry pancakes that were just a little zesty from a squeeze of lemon, and thin and crisp along the edges. They were complimented by the gen-u-ine Vermont maple syrup we drizzled atop. That isn't to say that anyone in my family is slacking. In addition to hikes, board games, and biking misadventures, we all have a night where we prepare dinner for the family.

Regarding this blog, I have a few new goals for this project. I want to:

1) Make cupcakes instead of a cake.

2) Try more vegan variations.

3) Use a contemporary recipe or two.

4) Work out. Not that I have a scale, but I'm pretty sure I've gained weight since I started baking (and eating desserts) so much. See above statement on muffin consumption.

UPDATE 8/29/2014

Just kidding! I did actually make a cake last week. Four people in my family have birthdays in August, and so I made a very simple white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. It was very traditional and delicious, and not at all fancy, though it did have pretty periwinkle sprinkles (or as my sister and I call them for some reason, “sparkles”).  It was scarfed down very quickly. I had a total of one small piece.

My sister Jessie and brother Luke

sweet picture of the cake (tiny piece!)

yet moments after this happened, and seemed much more honest

Perhaps the best thing about this cake is that I made friends because of it! The mixer at the house where we stayed was busted, so my Mom went door to door trying to find one for me. Eventually she found a couple who were home and lent her theirs—an old-fashioned hand one. It wasn’t all that much of a help, a fork worked fine, but when she came back she said: “Michael, you will love returning this. The man has an adorable accent.” When I returned it, I met a lovely couple who lived next door! We had dark and stormy highballs and they introduced me to their dog and showed me their garden. It was great to make friends while on vacation, though I wish I had seen more of them.  They had a gorgeous home and land, and seemed to live an idyllic existence. 

Going Bananas

After two weeks of not baking, I am getting back into the mess. There have been a lot of changes and stress in the last few weeks, with the decision to move neighborhoods and subsequent search, the death of one of my cats, financial worries, and for at least one week, a stifling heat. But I guess I am starting to expect this of life, and I may have that limited view like Jack Burden in All the Kings Men: it's made of "shreds and patches and old cog wheels held together with pieces of rusty barbed wire and spit and bits of string." So the only thing to do is take a break in the midst of it and bake. Oh, and listen to Patsy Cline. 

I woke up this morning on my day off and cuddled with my fluffy pillow of a cat, Georgella. She is an exciting pillow, all nuzzles and purrs with the constant risk of claws and teeth. It was a good way to start the day (really woke me up!).

I tried to pretend it was a Sunday morning. I am nostalgic for Sundays, when most people are off and slowly wake up, maybe cuddle with someone, maybe they're a little turned on, and then go to brunch with friends and have the whole day stretching out before them. Maybe they'll go to the beach, or maybe just stay home and do a crossword puzzle. Either way, it's Sunday, and it belongs to them.

Tomorrow evening I am visiting my friend Ben, who lives out in the suburbs surrounded by flowers and tending his bee hives. He's making a pot roast and I am making a banana cake with browned butter cream frosting for us. The banana cake, if you look up recipes online, looks like a carrot cake. I hope it will turn out "moist and luscious" like the mommy blogs say it is. After I woke up I made my grocery list (which aside from the cake ingredients includes just bread, cat food, and Ramen) and drank a cup of instant coffee, then headed to the laundromat with my fistful of quarters. While my clothes swirled in their sudsy bath, I did my shopping. I have it down now so I do a minimum of waiting around. Shopping takes just enough time for the clothes to wash, then I put them in a dryer and run the groceries home. Once those are put away, I head back out to pick up my dry clothes.

Banana cake, like most (all?) the recipes in my Good Housekeeping cookbook, is simple to make. In one bowl I combined all ingredients except for the bananas. In the other I mashed four bananas.

After mixing all the ingredients, I beat them on high for five minutes, until the mixture was smooth.

And then, with my beautiful bowls from Mitch, poured the batter into two round 8-inch cake tins. The smell of bananas and vanilla is delicious, and the mix is light and fluffy. I have high hopes for this cake!

The frosting I chose was a browned butter cream frosting, the making of which taught me that butter can go from browned to burned rather quickly. My second attempt worked out better, and gave the frosting a nice toasty color. I then cut slivers of banana, dipped them in lemon juice, and put them on top of the cake.

Here is a picture of a banana cake from a site called Wives with Knives (lawrd!):

this murderous housewife uses cream cheese frosting

Here's the equivalent of a selfie of my finished cake (taken from a good angle, as flattering as possible):

decidedly "cute," obviously amateurish 

And here's the truth of my cake:

whoa, buddy, where you off to?

And now for some Banana Trivia!

1) According to The Internet, bananas combat depression as well as help "cure" hangovers (like that's a thing). I wonder if it still applies when they are mixed with sugar and gluten and baked?

2) Bananas is also the name of a Woody Allen movie that I have never heard of. Currently it is not politically correct to admit you still like Woody Allen movies (but I do).

3) 5 companies control 80% of the banana trade, exploiting workers to keep prices low for customers in the US and EU.

Wasn't that fun?