A Traditional Farm Life
By Shasta Hamilton
Greetings from Enterprise, dear friends! It’s the dog days of summer, and I’m
dog-tired. Triple digit temperatures
coupled with additional duties at the restaurant have left me dragging at the
end of the week. There simply aren’t
enough hours in the day!
I spent several mornings this week teaching my husband
Michael the finer points of making lunch specials.
We are bringing back a daily lunch special Wednesday through
Friday. Instead of trying to make a
completely different stand-alone meal each day, we will prepare an entrée that
can be served with our regular array of sides.
Not only will this bring an additional choice to those not hungry for a
sandwich, it gives our own family some more variety as well!
Fresh tomatoes are also adding a little variety to our
diet these days. The boys took some
beautiful slicing tomatoes to the Enterprise Farmer’s Market Friday
afternoon. I wish I had time to can the
extra ones they brought home, but, alas, there are just too many other things
ahead of them on the to-do list.
Here’s one of them.
Our oldest daughter was recently asked if she could bake a German
Chocolate Cake from scratch for a friend.
She loves baking cakes, but there was one small problem: We’ve never made a German Chocolate Cake
before.
We aren’t big coconut fans around here, so this time we
were really starting “from scratch.”
In typical Hamilton fashion, I put the cart before the
horse and started with the frosting recipe. It was easy to come by, as my
brother requests German Chocolate Cake for his birthday every year. My mother was more than willing to share her
recipe. She uses a cake mix, so it was
time to choose the right “horse.”
First I consulted our “Fanny Farmer” and “Better Homes
and Gardens” cookbooks. Fanny Farmer’s
recipe required separating the eggs and beating the egg whites--something I
avoid at all costs. The Better Homes and
Gardens recipe looked like a possibility. I was hoping to find a recipe that
used cocoa, but each one I found used Baker’s German’s Sweet Chocolate instead.
Since this was to be a learning experience, we went ahead
and bought the German sweet chocolate.
Wonder of wonders, there was a recipe right on the back of the box!
Now we were really getting somewhere. It looked a little short in the salt and
vanilla categories, so after consulting a chocolate cake recipe in my King
Arthur Flour Baker’s Companion, I increased the salt and vanilla, and our
oldest daughter rolled up her sleeves and got mixing.
The results far exceeded our expectations. The moist chocolate cake coupled with the
silky caramelized Coconut-Pecan Frosting was outstanding. Our oldest son declared it his “new favorite
cake” and requested another in a few short weeks when he has his next
birthday.
Because both the cake and frosting are from scratch, I’ll
share the cake recipe with you this week, and keep you on the edge of your seat
until next week for the final installment!
German Chocolate
Cake
1 pkg. (4 oz.)
sweet German baking chocolate
3/4 cup butter
1-1/2 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons
vanilla
2 cups all-purpose
flour, divided
1 teaspoon baking
soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
or sour milk*
Coconut-Pecan
Frosting (next week)
1. Preheat oven
to 350 degrees.
2. Cut parchment
or waxed paper to fit the bottom of two (9”) round cake pans or three (8”) cake
pans. Spray pans with non-stick cooking
spray, place paper on bottom of pan, and spray paper.
3. Place chocolate
and butter in a saucepan and heat until butter melts. Stir until chocolate is melted and smooth.
Move chocolate mixture to mixing bowl.
4. Add sugar and beat with mixer until blended.
5. Add eggs, 1 at
a time, mixing well after each addition.
Blend in vanilla.
6. Combine 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda, and
salt. Add to chocolate mixture; mix
well.
7. Add remaining
flour alternately with buttermilk, mixing well after each addition.
7. Divide batter
evenly between prepared pans.
8. Bake 30-35
minutes, or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 10
minutes. Carefully loosen edges with a
table knife, turn out from pan, remove parchment paper, and finish cooling on a
wire rack. Fill and frost with Coconut-Pecan
Frosting. Yield: 12 servings.
*To sour milk, place 1 tablespoon vinegar in a 2-cup
measure. Add enough fresh milk to equal
1 cup. Stir well and allow to stand at
room temperature 5 minutes before using.
Copyright © 2015 by Shasta Hamilton
Shasta is a fifth generation rural Kansan now residing
in Enterprise, Kansas. She and her
husband own and operate The Buggy Stop Home-Style Kitchen with their six
home-schooled children. You can reach
The Buggy Stop by calling (785) 200-6385 or visit them on the web at www.thebuggystoprestaurant.com.
