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Cool Whip, Cover Up, and What Do Candidates and Cookies Have in Common?

My daughters had peeked in the grocery bags and were twittering with excitement as they helped unload bright blue tubs of whipped topping. Cool Whip. You'd think in the home of The Cake Mix Doctor just about every convenience food known to a hurried woman would exist, but alas, these hungry children had been deprived of their Cool Whip since the last time I bought it to test a recipe. That was about a year ago.

Not that I have anything against Cool Whip. It's just that I prefer the flavor of real whipped cream. "Boy, the dairy farmers will love you," said the Wisconsin radio host today as I extolled the virtues of frostings made with butter vs. margarine. They hadn't heard me wax on about whipped cream... But the mission wasn't whipped cream, it was whipped topping, and if I could pry the Cool Whip from my children's hands I had a job to do - to test the famed Watergate Cake for this issue. What fun! A cake complete with it's very own Cover Up Frosting.

That pistachio-flavored, ultra-moist cake and its name led right into a history lesson as we discussed at the dinner table what Watergate was and how this 1970s cake came to be named after it. And that led to a discussion of the upcoming presidential election in which children really only want to know whom you are voting for and why their father hasn't decided. He's sitting on the fence. "No, he's not. He's sitting in his chair," chimed our 6-year-old. Glad someone was paying attention.

I love presidential elections because they only come around every four years, they lend themselves to great table talk, and because they are a lot like meringues - full of hot air. Which leads me into another great recipe I'm sharing this month, Fudge Snowtops. Right when I was testing a myriad Watergate Cakes sent in by many of you (my thanks), a Cleveland, Ohio, writer e-mailed a request for a cookie made with, what else? Cake mix and Cool Whip. Well, I had the Cool Whip, and the cake mix, so I got testing. These beautiful puffed up cookies, with lots of hot air trapped inside, are delicious and suitable for toting to election parties. When the returns don't look promising, ask everyone to guess the secret ingredient.

Better dash. Am busy testing cakes for my next book, due the fall of 2001. Want to thank all of you who so graciously sent in recipes, tips, suggestions and comments in the last two months. The newsletter is busting with news as the subscriber list has grown to nearly 5,000. And that's not a bunch of hot air!

Try to remember that kind of September... when last we were baking so many cakes! Fall is here and September proved to be the biggest Cake Mix Doctor month ever. (Of course, Anne's feature in the September 11 People magazine surrounded by her luscious creations helped.) The Doctor was the top-selling cookbook in stores across the country. And lest we think cake mix is not the stuff of higher learning: A community college is even teaching a mini-class on the book in December. Carpe Diu-mmmm, Seize the cake!

Q: How do I substitute the new chocolate confectioners' sugar in frosting recipes that call for adding chocolate?
—Meegan Gaffney, Brooklyn, NY

A: I have not been able to find the chocolate-flavored powdered sugar in my market lately. Just the lemon-flavored. I remember thinking when I tasted it a year or so ago that it wasn't very chocolatey tasting. I would be flexible with the frosting recipe, prepared to add all the chocolate called for or just cutting back by a third. I consulted with Cheryl Reitz of the Hershey's test kitchens. She agreed, adding that in their testing the sugar hadn't had enough true chocolate flavor.

Q: I will be doing a cake for my sister's 30th wedding anniversary. I want to make three 12-inch layers. Would you tell me which of your recipes would work the best? Could you tell me how much batter I will need per pan? Please help.
—Maureen Tameno, Seattle, WA

A: What a lucky sister you have. I suggest you use something like the Basic Sour Cream White Cake or the Basic Yellow Pound Cake. For the 12-inch pans you will need about 8 cups of batter. Since one box of cake mix will yield a batter of about 4 to 4 1/2 cups, you will need two recipes per pan or six recipes (and boxes of mix) for the entire cake. Bake these layers for about 50 to 60 minutes at 325 degrees. To save a little time, you can double batch a cake mix recipe, adding two boxes of mix and ingredients at once, but blending only the time needed for one recipe.

Q: Please let me know if I may substitute Egg Beaters for eggs in your recipes. How much should I use?
—Josephine Sarrantonio, Huntington Station, NY

A: Yes, you can use Egg Beaters as an egg substitute. Use 1/4 cup per egg in the recipe.

Q: I would like to give gifts of mini loaves of cake at Christmas time and would like to know if your recipes can be made in several 5- or 6-inch loaf pans and baked together on a cookie sheet? How much time would be required for baking?
—Thalia Foster, Jacksonville, FL

A: Yes, I would recommend any of the Bundt cake recipes made with 4 eggs and a pudding mix for turning into miniature loaves. You can count on about 6 loaves of that size per recipe. Baked at 350 degrees, allow 35 to 40 minutes per loaf. I just baked Stacy's Chocolate Chip Cake as miniature loaves and they were delicious! Let cool, then wrap in heavy-duty foil and freeze until needed.

Q: What is the best way to get a crumb that most closely resembles a homemade cake? The doctoring masks the taste extremely well, but a lot of times the crumb is too smooth and the cake is almost too moist.
—Garth Roberts, Sharon Springs, NY

A: Substitute butter for vegetable oil. Increase the amount of fat in the recipes. You will have a decline in volume, how much the cake rises, but the crumb should be heavier. Also omit sugar in recipes as sugar acts as a tenderizer, making cake mix cakes even more tender.

PAN GEOMETRY

I should know better than to generalize that round and square pans hold the same amount of cake. Readers who were obviously more awake than I was in geometry class e-mailed me with their formulas for calculating pan size. But it was my cousin, the mathematician, Joe Brady of Nashville, TN, who set me straight. The best way to calculate how much one pan holds versus another is to measure by volume. Fill the pans with water, measuring it as you go along. I found a 9-inch round and an 8-inch square, both 2 inches deep, will hold about 7 cups. But those pans will bake differently. Round pans bake more evenly. Thus, a 9-inch round cake layer filled with 4 cups of batter will slightly dome but be somewhat level. The square pan, on the other hand, does not bake as evenly. Batter in the corners cooks most quickly, and the center will likely dome up because the heat distribution is not even. Because pans do not have tops to them and because a cake often doesn't bake to the top or seldom bakes straight across, you cannot measure the size of a pan by surface area. Genny Gibbard, an engineer, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Canada, adds, "If you use a 9-inch square pan you will get a thin cake compared to a 9-inch round, about two-thirds the normal thickness."

PUDDING MIX

Lois Forster, who lives in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C., and who has been doctoring cake mixes for 25 years, wants to know why some recipes call for instant pudding mix and others for regular pudding mix. She has a rum cake recipe that calls for regular pudding. I was intrigued by Lois' question and I set to work. I tested a yellow pound cake recipe with the instant vanilla pudding, the regular pudding and with the regular pudding made up and then folded into the batter. I also tested it with a pudding-in-the-mix cake mix. I found there is a slight difference in texture and flavor between the regular and instant pudding cakes. I preferred the cake made with the regular pudding. It seems less gummy in texture, lighter and yet very moist. The cake with the instant pudding was very good, but it got gummy after being frosted and stored for a couple of days. And the cake with the prepared pudding folded in was wet and heavy. It was a curious texture, like a true pudding cake. These three cakes baked up high, up to 1 3/4 in height, and golden. The pudding-in-the-mix cake, on the other hand, didn't brown and it didn't rise as high as the cakes that began with a plain cake mix and added pudding to it. So, to answer your question Lois, yes, there is a difference just as there is a difference in the ingredient lists of the two types of pudding. The instant pudding mix contains more starch (obviously to help it set faster) and also contains the preservative BHA. If a 3-ounce package of Cook and Serve (regular) pudding mix is available try it in your next recipe calling for instant. If it's not, don't sweat. And one reason so many recipes may call for the instant is that most of the pudding mix flavors on the shelves are instant!

DAIRY-FREE SOLUTIONS

Leah Paley of Richmond, VA, writes with a solution for those who can't eat or bake with milk products. Tofutti makes a milk-free sour cream and cream cheese, and you can find them in health food stores. "I keep kosher. Tofutti makes a sour cream with no milk. It's wonderful." And she recommends using nondairy creamer with a little vinegar as a substitute for buttermilk. Sue Buchanan of Jefferson City, MO, says her husband is lactose intolerant, and therefore she has read food labels for years. "Using imitation sour cream and non-dairy coffee creamer got us through many recipes that he couldn't eat with the real ingredient."

WATERGATE CAKE WITH COVER-UP FROSTING

Serves: 20
Preparation time: 10 minutes
Baking time: 35 to 40 minutes

I quickly went from not knowing what a Watergate Cake was to an authority! It gets its name from being a 1970s cake popular when the Watergate scandal was taking place. Thank you for sending all your myriad variations, most beginning with a white cake mix and pistachio pudding mix (thus the green color) as well as oil, eggs and either ginger ale or other clear soda pop. Some of the cakes contained nuts. Some were baked in Bundts or layers. Most all the frostings contained pistachio pudding mix (thus the green color) and Cool Whip. I settled on testing and printing this excellent recipe from Ruth Duncan of Whitehall, MI., but I added the toasted almonds to the top. Ruth says this recipe ran in her local newspaper recently and suggested you call it either the Watergate Cake or the Whitewater Cake. How's that for a cake that crosses party lines?

1 package (18. 25 ounces) plain white cake mix
1 package (3.4 ounces) instant pistachio pudding mix
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup ginger ale
3 large eggs

Cover-Up Frosting:

1 package (3.4 ounces) instant pistachio pudding mix
1 1/2 cups lowfat milk
1 carton (8 ounces) frozen whipped topping (Cool Whip), thawed

Topping:

1/3 cup toasted slivered almonds

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 F. Lightly mist a 13- by 9-inch pan with vegetable oil, then dust with flour. Shake out the excess flour. Set the pan aside.

2. Place the cake mix, pudding mix, oil, ginger ale, and eggs in a large mixing bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 1 minute. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 2 minutes more, scraping down the sides again if needed. The batter should look well blended.

3. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, smoothing the top with the rubber spatula. Place the pan in the oven.

4. Bake the cake until it springs back when lightly pressed with your finger, 35 to 40 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and place it on a wire rack to cool completely, 30 minutes more.

5. Meanwhile, prepare the Cover-Up Frosting by whisking the pudding mix and milk together in a large mixing bowl. It should thicken up but not set, from 2 to 3 minutes. Gently fold in whipped topping.

6. Spread the top with frosting. Sprinkle toasted almonds on top. Store, covered, in the refrigerator.

FUDGE SNOWTOPS

Makes: 4 dozen 2- to 2 1/2 -inch cookies
Preparation time: 5 minutes
Baking time: 10 to 12 minutes

Cleveland, OH, writer Phillip Iannarelli first wrote asking for a cookie recipe containing Cool Whip, and then as we began exchanging e-mails, Phillip was able to remember that the recipe given to him many years ago contained a cake mix, 2 eggs and 4 ounces of Cool Whip. I took it from there. I began with a plain devil's food cake mix (after first trying a chocolate pudding-in-the-mix as he directed but the cookies were too soggy). Don't worry, the batter will become firm enough to roll in powdered sugar after you chill it. And the cookies take on this wonderful transformation, puffing up and then cracking like white tundra. They taste like chewy brownies. We settled on the name Fudge Snowtops.

1 package (18.25 ounces) plain devil's food cake mix
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups thawed frozen whipped topping (Cool Whip), or half of an 8-ounce tub
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar

1. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

2. Place the cake mix, eggs and whipped topping in a large bowl. Blend with an electric mixer on low speed for 30 seconds. Stop the machine and scrape down the sides of the bowl. Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat 1 to 2 minutes more, or until batter is smooth and thick. Place the bowl in the refrigerator to chill 30 minutes.

3. Spoon out teaspoonfuls of batter and form into balls. Roll in confectioners' sugar. Place balls about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets. Place in the oven and bake for 10 to 12 minutes, or until cookies puff up, are still soft in the middle but firm on the edges.

4. Let cookies cool on the pan for 2 minutes, then remove to a baking rack to complete cooling.

"To make cakes bake with more level tops, I wrap a water-soaked strip of heavy fabric around the pan and secure it with a pin before I pop the pans in the oven. These work because the sides of the cake do not bake before the center of the cake. I bought strips at a cake decorating store, but they are just worn out with years of use, and I'm going to make replacements by cutting up an old bath towel in strips about 1 1/2 inches wide and sewing about three layers together."

"Just a suggestion I have used for carrot cake, using a spice cake mix. I add two jars of baby food carrots. I have also used apricots and peaches in various cakes and breads. It honestly works and is so easy."
— Francie Barnes, Grand Junction, CO

"I am a busy mom with two kids under three, two part-time jobs and a home business, so I am definitely looking for the easiest possible solutions all the time. I find that a maple buttercream frosting or glaze goes very well with spice, pumpkin or nutty cakes. You make it with maple butter. You will love the rich creamy texture and although it is a bit more expensive than flavoring would be, it is so worth it."
—Christina Sylvestre, Courtenay, British Columbia, Canada

CMD Note: Maple butter or cream is a thick and spreadable form of maple syrup after it has boiled down and the water has nearly evaporated. It is going to be more available in specialty shops and markets in maple syrup-producing areas.

"When baking a cake that doesn't need frosting, I grease the cake pan with vegetable shortening and then dust it with granulated sugar instead of flour. It comes out of the pan just as easily."
—Sandra Swan, Andover, NY

"I have been doing wedding cakes for over 20 years. A bride asked me to do a Duncan Hines Walnut Brownie wedding cake last month. I did it and whipped the Chocolate Ganache and it turned out to be a big hit. It was very dense and all of us really liked it. For the whipped ganache, I made a ganache you could pour but chilled it and then whipped it. I got a craving for something really chocolatey last night and hit the freezer for another piece of that cake!"
—Marida Binsted, Herndon, VA

CMD Note: To whip ganache, do just as Marida says. Chill the Chocolate Ganache recipe in my book about 30 minutes. Chill the electric mixer beaters. Whip it as you would cream and you will have the most delicious and light frosting imaginable.

"I have a suggestion about the Rum Balls on page 332. You describe frosting them as 'messy.' Years ago a friend told me she made petits fours by freezing the pieces of cake on a cookie sheet first and then frosting them while still frozen."
—Anita Nelson, Georgetown, TX

Try These Fall Cakes

Old-Fashioned Pear and Ginger Cake (page 98)
Upside-Down Apple Skillet Cake (page 100)
Carrot Cake (page 109)
Tennessee Jam Cake (page 116)
Snickerdoodle Cake (page 121)

Siobhan Mullen of Virginia Beach, VA, wanted to make her husband a Snickers cake because he's crazy about the candy bar. She made the Incredible Melted Ice Cream Cake using chocolate chip ice cream. She poured half of the batter into the prepared Bundt pan, and then she swirled on caramel ice cream topping and placed pieces of two chopped Snickers bars on top, and next she poured in the remaining batter and baked the cake. And that's not all! She made the Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting and drizzled it over the cake. "WOW, he really loved it."

Rosalind Jacobs of Indian Shores, FL, a transplanted New Yorker living in a tiny beach town, made Susan's Lemon Cake with an orange cake mix and orange gelatin. No longer a lemon cake. "It was a hit!"

Barb Brown of Flint, MI, says she made the White Chocolate Pound Cake with 3/4 cup white chocolate chips instead of bar chocolate. "Everyone loved it. They all wanted the recipe."

Allison Green of Wilkesboro, NC, doctored up my Lemon Chip Picnic Cake by substituting an orange cake mix and vanilla pudding mix. She added a teaspoon of orange extract to the batter, and for the chocolate glaze she used orange extract instead of vanilla and added a tablespoon of freshly grated orange zest (peel). In hindsight, she says she would add the zest to the batter and not the glaze. "The cake is remarkably delicious and has a definite Halloween look to it being orange and brown."

Meet Helen Reynolds of Wellingborough, England. Helen loves to travel, tend to her cats, and bake cakes once she is home from work on weekends. Her first baked cake came from a Betty Crocker mix. But mostly she has been exposed to from-scratch cakes. "On Saturdays we would always have cake for tea, so we would have angel food or devil's food." She says The Cake Mix Doctor cookbook makes her think of a "country-style kitchen filled with the smell of fresh baking. The table is loaded high with baked cakes. I can almost taste it. I have yet to show it to my Mum...My only real problem is that some of the ingredients are so alien to me. For example, I cannot buy frozen coconut. What is pudding mix? It comes in so many flavors? What am I to use when yellow cake mix is called for? It's like a different language. However, I have bought a Betty Crocker devil's food mix and hope to be doctoring something this weekend. I guess I will have to pick USA as the theme for the evening meal."

Sherri Goodwin of Milwaukee, WI, is a veteran cake baker and decorator who offers these suggestions for baking cake mix cakes in molds:

• Most cake molds or shaped cake pans will tell you how much batter to use in the pan, either by cup measurements or by boxed-mix measurements.


• They also tell you how long and at what temperature to bake the cakes.


• Follow the baking instructions to produce the best cakes.


• Grease and flour the pans carefully to get the cake to unmold.


• Rely on extracts and flavorings to enhance the batter without adding a lot of liquid to it. She also recommends citrus oils, which are sold at specialty stores and in baking catalogs. Add just a little, however. "They pack a powerful punch in just a few drops."

Debbie Purdue of Freeland, MI, used to work at a nursing home and has some ideas as to what cakes to bake the elderly:

• The elderly have trouble chewing. Either chop nuts very finely or omit them. Use extracts for flavor instead.


• Older people do like their sweets (even the diabetics), so I suggest that any cake a young person will like they will like also.


• Angel food cakes and yellow cakes were the most popular where I worked. Chocolate not so much as it aggravated heartburn in some of the folks.

"I almost feel I am betraying my profession by using a cake mix! I am an Extension Home Economist in Louisiana. I was enticed to commit this heresy when I saw your Banana Cake with Caramel Icing. It was beyond delicious! I can't remember enjoying a cake as much as that one. Now my dilemma: Do I lie to
the friends I feed these cakes to about them being from scratch or do I destroy my reputation?"
—Debbie Melvin, Thibodaux, LA

"I'm baking up a storm, and cakes sure do make people happy! I think it brings us all back to the time when we were little kids and life was more innocent."
—Elda Minger, Antioch, IL

"I work at a soup kitchen and often prepare desserts using some of their donated institutional cake mixes. They always seemed dry and artificial tasting. We often had a lot come back to be thrown out after serving. I tried your recipe given in the paper for Fresh Orange Cake and nearly every piece was consumed. It was delicious! Very moist and rich and no trace of that stale artificial flavor we used to notice."
—Mary Jo Hill, Loaves & Fishes Soup Kitchen, Bloomington, IL

"It's fun to feel connected to so many gals all over the country by cakes!"
—Ann Hilemn, Tucson, AZ

"I brought the Darn Good Chocolate cake to work and it was a hit! I used a cream cheese frosting to decorate the top of the cake. One of the persons at work said that the cake was 'inhaled' - it was gone in half an hour."
—Carmen Taeler, Martinez, CA

"My son celebrated his 2nd birthday and we celebrated at my dad's house with one of the best cakes not bought from the store that I have ever tasted. After complimenting my dad's wife Janice profusely, she admitted that she had a little help from a book called The Cake Mix Doctor. The cake she served us was Mom's Layer Cake with Fluffy Chocolate Frosting… I really love the premise, and although I was skeptical at first, maybe even a little snobbish, I have softened and am prepared to bake my heart out. Your book provides me with the perfect opportunity in my busy life to share with my family something special, made by me."
—Anna Morrison, Fontana, CA

" I bought this book at a book fair at my kids' school. I can't begin to count how many times I've used it since then! I bake and decorate cakes as a home based business so I am always looking for new cake recipes. This book is terrific… I refuse to lend it out!"
—Sherri Goodwin, Milwaukee, WI

Many thanks for all the Watergate Cakes that came my way. I also received many 7-Up Cakes and Lemonade Cakes, which I will share in the next newsletter. So many recipes and so little space! On to the next round of recipe requests. Please send these to anne@cakemixdoctor.com. Hands on your recipe files. Ready, set, go...

Nelson Wong of Irvine, CA, is looking for a peanut cake recipe that was sold in many of the bakeries in San Francisco's Chinatown when he was a child. It was a two-layer yellow cake with peanut flavor and a peanut frosting. "The Chinese are very fond of peanuts, but I don't think it was a Chinese thing."

Jackie Garza of Monterey, CA, is searching for a brownie recipe that you make from a box of chocolate cake mix.

Lynn Chaumont of Austin, TX, is desperately seeking an Apricot Nectar Cake with a coconut and cream cheese filling. It is baked in a Bundt pan. "I had the recipe for about 25 years or more. I misplaced my recipe card about a year ago. For some reason I think it was from a Pillsbury Bake-Off."

Carol Thomas of Greenbelt, MD, would love a Black Walnut Cake recipe. Gene Kevorkian of Hollywood, CA, wants a banana and peanut butter cake using a yellow cake mix.

And, Susan Jessico of Duluth, MN, has been searching for Neapolitan Bars, made with a chocolate cake mix, a cream cheese filling and fruit preserves. Joanne of New York City is looking for a Neapolitan Cake for her aunt who lives in Florida. It was from the 1960s and was colored by adding strawberry and lime gelatin to a cake mix.

Again, if you have any of these recipes, you'll make these folks mighty happy. Send them to anne@cakemixdoctor.com