Thelma's Chocolate Cake

My second attempt at baking a recipe from my Grandmother's collection promised to me the most difficult of all - because I'd have to do it without any help from my wife.

   That's because last week she celebrated a birthday - and since she was going to be out of the house for the day, I decided I'd surprise her (one way or the other) by fixing one of the cake recipes.

   This one promised to be difficult, because it only lists the ingredients (and a note to cook it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes). It also includes directions for making the icing!

   This effort drove home the fact that I don't know much about cooking. 

THELMA'S CHOCOLATE CAKE

   Here's a scan of the actual card - I love that it has assorted stains / splashes on it, indicating it was used many times.

    So first I ran to the store to pick up the ingredients, which includes:

Butter

Sugar

Chocolate

Eggs

Milk

Flour

Baking Powder

Salt

Vanilla

For the icing, you'll also need:

Powdered Sugar

And a real Lemon!

   So the challenge at the store was figuring out what kind of chocolate to buy. THERE ARE SO MANY CHOICES! Semi-sweet, dark, milk chocolate, and on and on.

   I finally settled on Milk Chocolate Chips, figuring I could melt them down. Yep, I'm an idiot.

   So I gathered the ingredients and starting mixing them in a big bowl. I melted the butter in a small pan to make it easier to mix. Then I decided to do the same thing with the chocolate. (On reading this, those of you who know how to cook are shaking your heads and saying, "Oh, Chuck.")

   I put the chips in a small pan and put it on the lowest possible heat. It almost immediately burned (and that was fun to clean, I can tell you). So I decided to just mix the chips into the mix as they were, assuming they'd melt in the baking process.

   I combined the ingredients and stirred them a lot. (I don't have a mixer. Yet.) It took much digging in the cabinets to uncover a couple of cake pans, which I washed, dried and coated with an anti-stick spray.

   I poured in the cake mix (doing my best to make them both even). Then into the oven for 45 minutes.

    While that was cooking, I mixed together the icing ingredients in a sauce pan. The instruction that threw me was the need for 1 tsp of "real lemon" - easy enough to squeeze out that much juice, but what do you do with the rest of the lemon?

    With no instructions for cooking / heating, I just put it over a low heat and stirred the ingredients together. It didn't take long at all to make - probably 10 minutes, so I had to keep stirring regularly while the cake mix finished baking.

   I had made a cake at least once before in my life. When I was very young (like, 10 years old) I made a cake for my Mom's birthday. I used a store-bought mix and followed the directions - but I tried to put it together as soon as it was out of the oven, so it slipped around on the plate and ended up a bit of a mess - but it was tasty and Mom seemed happy with my effort (though I probably made a heck of a mess in the process).

   So I knew, this time around, to let the cake cool a bit - about 10 or 15 minutes - and then started assembling. The big trick was getting the cake out of the pan intact - it stuck a bit to the bottom of the pan (which at least gave me a chance to sample it first).

   The icing went on reasonably well, and the finished cake looked pretty good - here's a picture:

    So, I won't be winning any cake decorating awards.

    Jeanette was surprised and seemed to be pleased - and the cake tasted good!

    My big mistake was using the chips - it ended up being more of a Chocolate Chip Cake, with lots of chips still intact in the mix.

   But all told, I'll label this one a success (and proof that it's good too be lucky sometimes).

   And no, I didn't try to write "Happy birthday" on the cake. A man should know his limits.

Welcome to Grandma's Kitchen (sorta)!

   I know almost nothing about cooking, which makes this blog a bit intimidating.

   Among the items I inherited from my wonderful mother Lucille when she passed away early this year was a large metal Index Card box loaded with recipes.

   They're mostly dessert recipes, and I thought for a moment they must belong to my Grandmother Lillian Hill. Born in Maryport (in the northern part of Great Britain), she grew up working in her family's bakery. She met her future husband, P.R. Hill, and he brought her to America. She made her way through Ellis Island and they were married right away, eventually settling down in Nitro, a small industrial town in West Virginia.

   She was a terrific cook, and my Mom was also a good cook - but neither one passed that knowledge along to me - but then, I never showed much interest in cooking. (My oldest brother Mike apparently got those genes - he was a terrific cook.)

   I've been looking for ways to honor Mom's memory, and when I saw that recipe box - which I had picked it up almost as an afterthought - I thought for a moment it was filled with Grandma's recipes.

   There are some in there, but it's actually filled to the brim with recipes from a wide assortment of people. I assume these are recipes Mom and/or Grandma picked up from friends at church, or perhaps in other organizations like the Woman's Club.

   Most are hand-written, and many are marked with the name of the source - and a date.

   So I thought, why not create a blog where I can share these recipes with family and friends? (And anyone else who might be interested, of course.)

   So today was the day!

   (My lovely wife Jeanette, an excellent cook herself, offered to look in from time to time to see if I needed help. And I did.)

RECIPE #1: HOMEMADE ROLLS AND BREAD by Mrs. Hill

(That's my Grandma.)

   This seemed mighty straightforward, and the directions are clear, so I hoped there'd only be a small chance of failure. (Silly me!)

   First, here's a scan of the actual recipe (note the hand-written edits on the instructions):

   The ingredients include:

2 packages of Dry Yeast

Sugar

Flour (I went with the unbleached variety)

Crisco

Milk

An egg

Salt

You'll need a couple of big bowls, too, and assorted measuring tools (for cups and teaspoons).

----------------------

   I mixed the dry yeast with 1/4 cup of lukewarm water and a teaspoon of sugar. (What kind of spoon should I use to stir it? So many decisions! I went with a metal one.)

   So far, so good. I set it aside and let it rise. (Note that the recipe doesn't say how long to let it rise.)

   Next I put a half-cup of Crisco with 2 cups of milk, 1/3 cup of sugar and 2 Tablespoons of salt, and warmed it gently over the stove. Passing by, Jeanette warned me not to heat it too fast. After the Crisco dissolved I turned the heat off and let it stand for 15 minutes.

   While that was happening (and the yeast mixture continued to expand), I put 7 cups of flour in a big bowl (it was the biggest bowl we have, and I wasn't sure it was going to work - but it did, barely). I had an egg ready to add.

   After the 15 minutes were up, I mixed the milk mixture with the yeast mixture. (Had it risen long enough? No idea.) I made a well in the middle of the flour and added the egg and then the liquid mixture slowly. It said to do this until it was soft enough to handle. Deciding to go all in, I plunged my hands into the sticky mess to start pulling the ingredients together. (Yes dear, I washed my hands first.)

   As it was solidifying, I realized I'd made a mistake. I hollered, "Jeanette!" She raced to the rescue. I hadn't prepared a work space on the table to work the dough. She looked at the kitchen table. "Did you wash the table top?" I smiled and said, "Well... no." She quickly pulled out a large bread board and sifted some flour on it. (You sift flour?) I placed the dough on it and kneaded it for 10 minutes (she helpfully started the timer for me).

   Now I know why Grandma was so strong - kneading dough is hard work! Finally, after 10 minutes, it left my hands "clean" (it stopped sticking to them) and I placed it in a large greased bowl. I placed a towel over it and placed it on a rack above a pan of hot water. I walked away for an hour.

   When I uncovered the bowl, I was amazed to see that the dough had expanded almost double - it filled the bowl!

   I preheated the oven to 350 degrees, and cut the dough into three parts - I place the first part into a bread pan. The second I rolled out and added butter, cinnamon and salt and then placed it in the other bread pan. Into the oven for 35 minutes!

  The last third I cut into a dozen rolls.

   When the time was up I pulled the bread out and it looked great! I let it cool for a few minutes, and then tried some. 

   That's always a scary moment - will it work? Is it awful? Did I miss a step?

   I'm happy to report that it was very good - I especially liked the cinnamon bread.

   The rolls were baked next - 20 minutes at 400 degrees - and they turned out great, too!

   Of course, now we have a heck of a lot of bread to eat for two people - but I'm thrilled that the first experiment worked!

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   I'm not sure how often I'll be posting these efforts, but I hope to get to them at least once a week.

   Thanks for reading along!