Timing is completely off this morning.
I have no idea what's up with me today. I had a plan (because while I'm normally a very laid back Type B personality, when it comes to being the Hostess with the Mostess I turn into a Type A monster) to cook my menu so that it would be ready to serve at the exact time that my guests (AKA Mom and Dad) arrived. After last night's "Well, shit. I don't have ingredients to make this and this" episode, I decided to mellow out a bit today.
SO...still trying to go with a plan, but now it's downgraded into "At least it'll still be hot when it hits the dining table" instead of a mini Norman Rockwell portrait. Hey, it's Mom and Dad; they don't care. I'll pull up something on Netflix that we can watch while nomming on turkey and cheese crescent roll appetizers and it'll be cool.
While I'm waiting on the eggs to cool down so I can handle them in order to make a platter of deviled eggs, here's the rum cake I made last night. Taking a page out of reconnoiterer's most awesome cookbook Cooking with Chris, I bring you...
I'm using Betty Crocker's butter rum pound cake recipe with a few tweaks of my own.
The hardware: George, my KitchenAid mixer, a spatula, and my "You have to pry this out of my cold, dead fingers" Angel Food Cake tube pan.
The software:
1 box Betty crocker yellow cake mix
1 box instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup of milk (okay, so I over-poured and came out with a little more than 1 cup)
2 tablespoons of rum extract (which I didn't have, so woo hoo! We get to use real rum! I used orange rum to see if that would make a difference in flavor.)
Not pictured: 1 capful of vanilla extract (camera shy)
Step One:
Preheat yer oven t' 350.
Step Two:
Grease and flour your pan. This might be my Pry it out of my Cold, Dead Fingers pan that makes Awesome Cakes, but if I don't go overboard with the flour, then part of the cake turns out on the plate and the other part stays in the pan in pieces. Delicious pieces, but I'd rather have a whole cake, yaknow? I skip the butter/flour combo and go straight for the baking spray that already has flour in it. Put enough and it looks like a perfectly floured pan. Too much and it looks like spray insulation.
See? It oooooozes...
Step Three:
Everybody in the pool! I mixed on low speed until everything was incorporated (read: no cake flour floating up and coating the entire kitchen) and then switched to a medium speed until there were only a few lumps. The batter will get thick due to the pudding around this time.
Step 4:
Pour batter into pan. I usually tap the sides to make sure that everybody got an even coating (thanks, Logan for doing that for me) and then smooth the top out with the spatula for a semi-even bottom.
Step 5:
Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. This one took about 50 minutes, so check around that time for doneness. Shake the pan to make sure that the sides don't stick to the cake now.
Step 6: (the hardest step)
Wait for the cake to set for 30 minutes. This is the hard part because by now your kitchen smells yummy and you want to tear into it, but NO! YOU GOTTA WAIT! BETTY SAID SO!
While you're waiting, make the glaze. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of vanilla frosting and a 1/2 teaspoon rum extract mixed together and then zapped in the microwave until it was runny enough to pour over the cake, but my local grocery store was suffering from a shortage of vanilla icing. Instead, I used 1/2 cup powdered sugar and a splash of rum, (drunken cakes, FTW!) adding a bit more powdered sugar if it got too runny. After the 30 min. wait time was over, I poured it over the top of the cake, letting it run over the sides.
Step 7:
ENJOY! (But be careful; I don't know how much alcohol content actually got baked off, so your healing factor might not be able to compensate before you hit the floor.)
And thus ends the pilot episode of In the Kitchen with Wolvie!
SO...still trying to go with a plan, but now it's downgraded into "At least it'll still be hot when it hits the dining table" instead of a mini Norman Rockwell portrait. Hey, it's Mom and Dad; they don't care. I'll pull up something on Netflix that we can watch while nomming on turkey and cheese crescent roll appetizers and it'll be cool.
While I'm waiting on the eggs to cool down so I can handle them in order to make a platter of deviled eggs, here's the rum cake I made last night. Taking a page out of reconnoiterer's most awesome cookbook Cooking with Chris, I bring you...
I'm using Betty Crocker's butter rum pound cake recipe with a few tweaks of my own.
The hardware: George, my KitchenAid mixer, a spatula, and my "You have to pry this out of my cold, dead fingers" Angel Food Cake tube pan.
The software:
1 box Betty crocker yellow cake mix
1 box instant vanilla pudding mix
4 eggs
1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup of milk (okay, so I over-poured and came out with a little more than 1 cup)
2 tablespoons of rum extract (which I didn't have, so woo hoo! We get to use real rum! I used orange rum to see if that would make a difference in flavor.)
Not pictured: 1 capful of vanilla extract (camera shy)
Step One:
Preheat yer oven t' 350.
Step Two:
Grease and flour your pan. This might be my Pry it out of my Cold, Dead Fingers pan that makes Awesome Cakes, but if I don't go overboard with the flour, then part of the cake turns out on the plate and the other part stays in the pan in pieces. Delicious pieces, but I'd rather have a whole cake, yaknow? I skip the butter/flour combo and go straight for the baking spray that already has flour in it. Put enough and it looks like a perfectly floured pan. Too much and it looks like spray insulation.
See? It oooooozes...
Step Three:
Everybody in the pool! I mixed on low speed until everything was incorporated (read: no cake flour floating up and coating the entire kitchen) and then switched to a medium speed until there were only a few lumps. The batter will get thick due to the pudding around this time.
Step 4:
Pour batter into pan. I usually tap the sides to make sure that everybody got an even coating (thanks, Logan for doing that for me) and then smooth the top out with the spatula for a semi-even bottom.
Step 5:
Bake at 350 for 50-60 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the cake comes out clean. This one took about 50 minutes, so check around that time for doneness. Shake the pan to make sure that the sides don't stick to the cake now.
Step 6: (the hardest step)
Wait for the cake to set for 30 minutes. This is the hard part because by now your kitchen smells yummy and you want to tear into it, but NO! YOU GOTTA WAIT! BETTY SAID SO!
While you're waiting, make the glaze. The recipe called for 1/2 cup of vanilla frosting and a 1/2 teaspoon rum extract mixed together and then zapped in the microwave until it was runny enough to pour over the cake, but my local grocery store was suffering from a shortage of vanilla icing. Instead, I used 1/2 cup powdered sugar and a splash of rum, (drunken cakes, FTW!) adding a bit more powdered sugar if it got too runny. After the 30 min. wait time was over, I poured it over the top of the cake, letting it run over the sides.
Step 7:
ENJOY! (But be careful; I don't know how much alcohol content actually got baked off, so your healing factor might not be able to compensate before you hit the floor.)
And thus ends the pilot episode of In the Kitchen with Wolvie!