Feb 03
A Piece of Cake: February 2011
A Word from Anne
What with horrendous weather and travel delays, winter book tours have their challenges. But they do make up for these inconveniences because I meet readers like you coast to coast. This week I am in Portland and Seattle, escaping for a moment the onslaught of snow and ice many of you are enduring, so please check my tour schedule to see if I am in your town soon.
I may bake and write in Nashville, but my cookbook community is a large one. It’s made up of chocolate lovers, Bundt bakers, cupcake queens, kids who cook, moms who need to get dinner on the table, and now gluten-free folks as well. And I never would have dreamed about writing a gluten-free Cake Mix Doctor had readers not asked me to do so.
While I am traveling you will no doubt be baking for Valentine’s Day, and in this newsletter I share ideas and recipes just right for the Valentine on your list. Chocolate isn’t the only cake to bake for the one you love, and you will find lovely ideas right here.
Recently I participated in my first ever Twitter Party with a few other Workman authors. And questions posed to me surrounded Birthday Cakes, the subject of my new Workman ebook. I was asked what is the best birthday cake, what was my favorite birthday cake, and what kind of birthday cake should someone bake. My answers were pretty sentimental. The best birthday cake is one baked by someone who loves you. My favorite cake was a tie – the chocolate cake my mother baked for me as a child and the big cupcake cake my daughters baked for me a couple years ago. And as for what kind of birthday cake – or Valentine cake – should you bake? You should bake the favorite cake of the one you love.
It’s no surprise that love and cake are often used in the same sentence. I love cake. You love cake. We love to bake cake. We bake cake for those we love. Short and sweet. Love it!
Happy Baking,
Anne
A Word From Workman
Be sure to check Anne’s tour schedule to see if she’s coming to a town near you!
For Anne’s best birthday cakes, get her new e-book, The Cake Mix Doctor’s 25 Best Birthday Cakes: Easy Luscious Layer Cakes, Plus Frostings, Icings, Tips, and More. Available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other e-book retailers.
Five Great Cakes for Valentine’s Day
It’s hard to name favorites when I am partial to so many cakes, but if pressed, here are my top recommendations for show-stopping, drop-dead gorgeous cakes for February.
1. The Best Red Velvet Cake – The Cake Mix Doctor Returns!
2. Fresh Strawberry Cake – The Cake Mix Doctor Bakes Gluten-Free
3. Perfect Chocolate Cake – Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor
4. Warm Chocolate Cupcakes with Molten Centers – Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor
5. Kiss Me Cakes – Cupcakes from the Cake Mix Doctor
Anne’s Cake Mix Coupon Offer
Thanks for all the great feedback from you about my new cake mix. It debuted in November on QVC, is heading into retail outlets and is for sale on my website. Just in time for Valentine’s we are offering a Chocolate Lover’s Special, in which you get two boxes of my yummy chocolate mix plus a personalized copy of my cookbook, Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor. In addition, we’ve got a new Birthday Girl or Guy item, a yellow cake mix, a personalized copy of the Cake Mix Doctor Returns plus a package of my favorite birthday candles – Celebration Candles. Just for newsletter subscribers we’re offering a 20 percent discount on orders through the month of February. The coupon code is CAKELOVE. Check out www.cakemixdoctor.com/annes-cake-mix. Enjoy!
Maple Flavored Cakes and Cakes with More Structure
Reader Valerie B. wrote to tell me she was planning to bake a wedding cake for a friend who is getting married in March. Her friend loves maple, but Valerie cannot use maple flavoring in the cake. She has to use real maple syrup because “my mother’s family’s from New Hampshire has their own sugaring house, so I’m a maple syrup snob!” How to tweak one of my recipes for maple syrup snobs like Valerie?
Since maple syrup is both a sugar and a liquid, I would not add extra sugar if my recipe calls for it. And I might cut back a little on the liquid in the recipe as well. So, for a maple cream cheese pound cake, I would omit added granulated sugar and add 1/3 cup real maple syrup. I would still add a smidgen of maple flavoring – say ½ teaspoon – because the flavoring although artificial is concentrated and gives cake a better maple punch than syrup alone will do. I also might brush the cake with maple syrup as it cools.
Valerie, who bakes and decorates a lot of cakes, likes to use half regular cake mix and half pound cake mix and then proceeds with my recipes. The pound cake mix gives the cakes more structure. You can also achieve more structure by adding a couple tablespoons flour to a supermarket cake mix. Valerie, thanks for the question and the good advice!
Next Issue: March/April. Easter and springtime cakes, microwave mug cakes, your questions and my answers.
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The Books
The Dinner Doctor
The doctor's back, and now she's curing dinner woes! Anne Byrn, the award-winning food writer and author of The Cake Mix Doctor and Chocolate from the Cake Mix Doctor does for dinner what she did for dessert-shows how to take common, convenient supermarket ingredients and turn them into meals that taste like they're made from scratch.
Read More...Anne's Cake Mix
Anne’s Deep Dark Chocolate Cake Mix
Chocolate cake - warm fudgy layers topped with a creamy frosting - this is the cake I love most of all.
Read More...
How do you “doctor” a confetti cake?
Julie,
You can change up the liquid, adding orange juice for the water, possibly adding sour cream instead of some of the oil and water to enrich it.
Anne
Wow, don’t think I have been asked this question before. I would keep things pretty simple, maybe adding sour cream for some of the liquid and fat called for on the box. Or yogurt. Maybe could add a half teaspoon peppermint extract and frost it with chocolate frosting?
When will you come out with a sugar free cookbook ?
Nancy, No plans for one in the near future, but I can tell you I have had a lot of requests. I am not a big fan of baking with artificial sweeteners although I know they are helpful to folks on a sugar-free diet.
The recipes for Gluten Free cakes are the bomb. I made the cinnamon streusel coffee cake for a brunch and had people say, “But I thought you were going Gluten Free.” If you can fool foodies in San Francisco, that’s saying something.
Great book.
A safe alternate for an egg white is to use merigue powder in the confectioners sugar and add the amount of water stated in the directions in the can of merigue powder. Merigue powder can be used safely eliminating the need for pasturized eggs. You have to buy a dozen to get just one egg and they are more expensive, and not always on hand as merigue powder can be.
Thanks so much for answering my question, Anne! I’m looking forward to trying out the recipe. I have to give credit where credit is due, though — I’m pretty sure the tip for adding pound cake mix came from the CMD forum, and it’s made a big difference when it comes to getting the tiers to stack well in a big cake.
I tried the pound cake and it was not good. Can you give me a hint of what went wrong?
Eloise, what pound cake are you referring to?
Bought your Gluten-Free Book last week in Atlanta when you spoke to the Metro Atlanta Celiac Group. Made the Chocolate Chip Bundt Cake today, made it in three small loaf pans and my daughter loved it. I’m so happy to have
all of the wonderful recipes. Can’t wait to try another one soon. Looking forward to your next Gluten-Free Book. Thanks so much.
What are those yummy looking chocolate cookies at the beginning of this post? Are they made with a cake mix? I would love to make these!
My family LOVES the Chocolate Praline cake from the Cake Mix Doctor book! The first few times I baked it were great. The only problem is that suddenly, every time I bake it the parline topping sticks to the pan. What could I be doing wrong?
Tina, have you switched pans or switched cake mixes?
Julie Gower – to answer the question about doctoring funfetti cake, I use the cake recipe for Sour Cream Cake with lemon filling and cream cheese frosting from The Cake Doctor Returns (pg 75). I haven’t tried using the filling or cream cheese frosting, but the sour cream cake recipe works great with funfetti mix. It’s really not great for anything thicker than a 2 inch layer though! I tried it in a ball pan and it was like bread pudding!