Christina's Top Ten Cake Tips

Someday I’m writing a book or blog – so consider this copyrighted material.

1. Always use the best ingredients. [cold AA large eggs, Mazola corn oil, (for icing) Pure Cane Sugar (regular or powdered) and Crisco.]
2. Always use purified water (I don’t like chlorine in my cakes!!!!)
3. Use pan grease* with a dedicated basting brush to grease the sides of the pans. Always use pan liners.
4. Wrap the outside of your pans with Wilton Bake Even strips – or a homemade product. This will prevent over baking on the sides of the cakes.
5. When you flip the cake out of the pan onto a cooling rack, immediately flip again onto a second cooling rack. This way the cake is cooling right side up. This will prevent the cake from cracking. Elevate one end of the cooling rack about 2” on larger cakes to promote cooling.
6. When cooled, put the cake on a saran covered board. Then completely cover with saran and let sit at room temperature ...

Christina's Buttercream Frosting

1 cup butter (Real Butter – not lite, not unsalted)
1 cup Crisco
Two dashes of salt

Mix well then add:

3 oz. Milk
flavoring (see below)
@ 1 lb. powdered sugar

Mix well, then slowly add while mixing:
1 lb. powdered sugar (the recipe needs 2 lbs. Total)

Flavoring choices:

2 t. vanilla (use clear vanilla unless you want an ivory frosting) or
2 t. almond or
2 t. maple (this is wonderful on spice cake – deep ivory colored icing) or
1 t. peppermint (scant)

Chocolate variation:

7 oz. milk instead of 4.5 oz.
2 t. vanilla
Add 1 ½ cup Cocoa powder with the milk,
mix well, then add powdered sugar.

Cream Cheese:
Instead of the butter use 1 cup cream cheese, and use 1 t. vanilla flavoring. This is a soft frosting, so some decorating techniques will be difficult and will droop. Don’t even try roses in this icing.

Additional Information about Einkorn Sourdough

This sourdough bread is not like any other bread you have ever eaten. Bread in many societies around the world is considered sacred and the Arabic word for bread is the same word as for life. Bread used to be very nutritious, made with whole grain milled with stone, soured for 24 hours – this pre-digests so much of the nutrients that it's easy for your body to digest the bread. When bread began to be made with active dry yeast it was to make the process faster and less expensive for factories to produce bread. Yeast reduces the process of proofing the dough to a couple of hours instead of 24 hours. This process makes the bread less digestible. The pale white bread you get in the store – even the ones made with whole wheat – even the ones labeled “sourdough” - pale in nutrition compared to the loaf of bread we had in class. You truly could live on this bread, but as the Bible says, man cannot live on bread alone, he needs the Word of God, too.
Why s...

Routine of Sourdough

When you take your starter home from class, refresh it either that day or the next day.  This is how you do it.

Put 10 grams of your starter in a small bowl.  Scrape it off the zip bag with a dinner knife.

Add 30 grams of warm water (no warmer than 100 degrees)

Mix this with a fork until it is MOSTLY dissolved and the water is creamy.

Then add 60 grams of einkorn all-purpose flour.  Stir with a fork until all the flour is absorbed.

This process takes maybe two minutes.

Set the bowl out on your counter for 5 to 12 hours until it has increased in size and bubbles a little.

When this happens, cover with plastic wrap and put it in the refrigerator in a dark spot until your are ready to make bread.  You can leave it their for up to a month, BUT it's better to take it out every week and make something with it or refresh it.

You're done with your starter.  

The nig...