Rhubarb Sour Cream Cake

Tabitha likes pink.  Also cake.  Pink cakes are top of the list.  Moist, dense rhubarb cake, with a crunchy, sweet topping, dotted throughout with bright pink 'jewels' of rhubarb, is a favourite here.

It's a lovely cake, very nice warm, and also really excellent on the second or third day.  I found it here.  Now, I've never met a cake I didn't like, but this is certainly one of my favourites:

Rhubarb Sour Cream Cake

60g softened butter

300g brown sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Grated zest of one lemon

2 eggs

150g plain flour

150g self raising flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

350g sour cream

One bunch of trimmed rhubarb (around 350g), cut into 1cm slices

50g brown sugar, extra

1 teaspoon cinnamon, extra

Prepare a 24cm springform tin by lightly greasing, then lining the base and sides with baking paper, extending a few cm higher than the sides of the tin.

Beat together the butter, brown sugar, vanilla and lemon zest until very well combined.

Beat in the eggs, then stir through the dry ingredients with the sour cream.

Fold through the rhubarb.

Carefully spread the mixture into the prepared cake tin, smoothing the top.

Sprinkle the combined extra brown sugar and cinnamon generously over the top of the cake - it will be a thick coating.

Bake at 160 degrees for around 1 1/4 hours, or until a cake tester comes out clean from the middle.

Allow to cool a little in the tin, then serve either warm (with custard!) or at room temperature with cream.

It's a good cake to bake with a little helper, as it does not require a delicate touch, and stirring in the rhubarb pieces can be done with a good deal of firm stirring.

Sponge Cake

Sponge cake - I often think of it as a lighter, fluffier version of a scone, in the sense that its primary purpose, in my view, is a Best Supporting Food role, as a vessel for excellent jam and thick Chantilly cream.

I also like a passionfruit sponge, absolutely bursting with cream, and generously topped with sweet and tart passionfruit icing, which sets ever so slightly, cracking a little when you bite into your featherlight slice.

But for an accompaniment for a cup of tea, when the biscuit tin is empty, a sponge cake is really no effort at all, as long as you take the easy option and use electronic beaters!

I use a few recipes for sponge, depending on what mood I'm in, and what ingredients are in the cupboard.  Sometimes I add a drizzle of melted butter, with or without a little hot water, for a slightly more flavourful sponge, which will also keep a little better (possibly into the next day, but not much beyond).  Sometimes all of the flour is substituted with wheaten cornflour, or a custard powder is added.

For this cake, I kept fairly simple, but I flit between a few recipes - Australian Women's Weekly, Maggie Beer, Stephanie Alexander, CWA, even my old Home Economics textbook (Cookery the Australian Way) all feature excellent sponge recipes.  

Grease and line two round 20cm cake tins - I like heavy aluminium, I am not fond of non-stick for sponges, as the tins are too dark and lead to over browning.  Line the sides if you can be bothered, coming 4cm above the rim, to protect the tops from over browning (I didn't bother this time).

Whisk together 4 room temperature eggs with 2/3 cup caster sugar on medium high speed for about 7 minutes, or until very thick and will hold a ribbon when the beaters are lifted out.

Meanwhile, sift together 1/3 cup each of plain flour, self raising flour and cornflour.  Sift them three times.

Transfer the beaten eggs and sugar into a nice large bowl, and sift the flours over the top of the mixture.  Using an incredibly light hand, gently but thoroughly fold in the flour - you do not want to loose any of your air, but you need to make sure the flour is incorporated properly.  Cooking folk lore would have you do things such as folding the mixture in next to an open window with a light breeze, or whilst walking around the garden.  Some recommend avoiding talking while you fold.  Personally, I recommend just doing it and not worrying too much!

Using a scale if possible, evenly divide the mixture between the two prepared cake tins, then spin them on the flat bench, to use centrifugal force to even the tops of the mixture.

Bake at 180 degrees for around 20 minutes, or until a skewer comes out clean and they are just starting to pull away from the sides of the tins.  Do not open the oven door for at least 18 minutes, or you risk the sponges sinking into a disappointing pancake.

Remove from the oven, cool for just a minute, then run a sharp knife around the edges (if you haven't lined the sides).  Pop them out onto a wire cooling rack covered with a tea towel (to prevent the rack making marks on the cakes) then turn them over again onto their bottoms to cool.

They won't take long to cool.  Meanwhile, whip your cream, add a little caster sugar.  Place one sponge cake on a serving stand or plate, and spread generously with good jam (raspberry, traditionally), then a thick layer of cream.  Top with the other sponge cake, and sieve some icing sugar over the top.

A few additional notes...

A layer of berries (matching the jam, and either intact or lightly crushed) in between the jam and cream is always a good addition.

Some people turn the bottom cake upside down, so that the 'bottoms' of each cake are adjacent to the jam and cream.

For a passionfruit sponge, fill the cakes with cream, then top with an icing made from passionfruit puree (fresh or tinned) mixed with icing sugar, and a little orange juice or water if you need more liquid.

To slice, use a sharp serrated knife (such as a good bread knife) and wipe clean with a hot damp cloth in between cutting each slice.

Sponges don't keep very well, so please eat it all.  Pop a slice or two on a plate, and drop off to a neighbour if you really can't finish it yourself.

A competition sponge is supposed to be 4cm tall.  Of course, it doesn't matter one bit when you're just making a cake for home, but it's useful to have a rough idea of how much your cakes should rise.  Much less than 4cm tall, and you might want to think about why - did you over mix?  Was the oven hot enough?  The cakes pictured here are exactly 4cm tall.

A thick layer of excellent raspberry jam:

See how the bottom layer appears flatter than the top?  This is simply because I took this photo about half an hour after serving the cake, and a sponge cake is so light that the weight of the jam and cream compressed the bottom layer a little!

We're back! Have some fried chicken!

We've been back from the trip for a few weeks now.  I am just trying to work up the motivation to blog the holiday tales and photos!  In short: it was a spectacular trip, we all had a ball.  Photos will come soon, as will some more tips and advice based on our experience.

In the meantime, here is a quick recipe for Buttermilk Pan Fried Chicken, just because!

Marinate chicken parts (on bone, with skin - either a whole cut up chicken, or a bunch of thighs and drumsticks) overnight in buttermilk.  About 600ml with a good dash of Worcestershire sauce.

Prepare a spice mixture - I use roughly 2 tablespoons salt flakes, 2 tablespoons smoked paprika, a teaspoon of garlic powder, a heaped teaspoon of cayenne pepper, half a teaspoon of pepper, a teaspoon of dried parsley, and a tablespoon or so of mixed herbs (dried thyme, sage, rosemary).

Remove chicken pieces from the buttermilk and lightly shake them off.  Sprinkle liberally with the seasoning mixture - it's better to apply directly to the chicken, rather than mix into the flour, as some of the spices burn if they hit the hot oil right away.

Dredge chicken pieces thoroughly in self raising flour, shaking gently to remove the excess, then sit on a wire rack for ten minutes or so, to allow the crust to set.

Heat a large cast iron skillet (for preference, as it retains heat very well), or a large frying pan or enamel cast iron pan, and add enough shortening (such as Crisco) or oil (canola, peanut or coconut), or lard (from free range pork) to come about 2cm deep.  Organic, rendered lard would be my first choice, followed by Crisco (as it is highly refined, you don't really get an oil taste from it - advice from Alton Brown, and I would never argue with AB!), followed by the other oils.  Adding a good amount of saved bacon fat is a good idea, too, for flavour.

When frying, to minimise mess, use a mesh splatter shield, and if you can be bothered (it's certainly quicker than cleaning up oil from everywhere) shield your cooking surfaces with tin foil, and cling film on the splash back - see a photo below.

Bring the oil to 160 degrees celcius, then add the chicken pieces.  You'll probably need to do this in a couple of batches, but don't worry about keeping them warm - the cooked pieces will stay nicely hot for a good 15 minutes or so!  Besides, most fried chicken connoisseurs swear that it is best at room temperature, anyway (hence its popularity as a picnic food in America).

Don't raise the heat to compensate for the drop in temperature when you add the chicken - the pan should hold enough heat.  Cook on the first side for about 10 - 12 minutes, then turn and cook for a further 10 minutes, or until both sides are deeply golden and the internal temperature of the chicken reaches 74 degrees celcius (breast pieces, and pieces without bone, will cook faster, so remove them first).

Drain on a wire rack (or pull out your oven rack and use that on the bench if you don't have enough wire racks) - never on paper towels.  This allows the grease to drain away, and your chicken will stay crispy.

A word about fat - fried chicken is not fatty and unhealthy.  When foods are fried correctly (meaning that the internal temperature sits above boiling, so the liquid in the food forces its way out as steam, preventing oil from entering the food), fried foods absorb very little oil, particularly foods with a high moisture content (such as chicken, zucchini, fish etc).  Check out Good Eats: Fry Hard for really brilliant information about frying food in general.

Serve with buttery mashed potatoes, flakey buttermilk biscuits, peppery greens, cornbread, milk gravy or any combination.  Be sure to cook enough to stash some leftovers in the fridge!

Buttermilk marinade, seasoning mixture, flour and chicken:

Seasoned chicken pieces:

Dredged pieces, resting before frying:

My gorgeous 100+ year old Griswold #10 cast iron skillet, freshly seasoned:

Fried chicken and mash:

Crunch.