Friday, May 27, 2016

So The Man works at Tractor Supply, eh?  They sell books at a discount--How to Farm Such-And-Such.  How to Live Off the Grid.  How to Make Happy Chickens Even Happier.  Ah, I'm mocking again, aren't I?  Shoot. Sorry about that.  Actually most of them are pretty interesting, and I always try to browse them when I'm waiting on him to clock out and go to Subway.  A good selection of the discounted books are cookbooks.  Anne Byrne--who I think is downright marvelous--wrote the classic baking tome, The Cake Mix Doctor and The Chocolate Cake Mix Doctor.  That particular one was $5, so I nabbed it, having been a fan of hers for years.


The idea is pretty basic for this cake:  add one more egg to a chocolate cake mix and a cup of sour cream. Done.  And it is The Man's favorite cake.  I think I've made it about 20 times, literally. I can mix and bake it in under 48 minutes.  I usually use 3 silkie (small chickens) eggs and a cup of sour cream.  I always use the Duncan Hines  Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Cake Mix.  I buy the FUDGE chocolate frosting.  Just FUDGE.  Not MILK CHOCOLATE.  Not that profane whipped stuff, either. 
Anyway--when cake is done and still warm, I heat the frosting in the microwave for about a minute and pour it over.  As for the cake pan, I highly recommend the Winn-Dixie brand flour spray. It works like a dream!  I let the cake cool on my glass top stove for at least an hour and it pops right out--every time. 

The frosting puddles in the middle, of course, and that is just awesome.  Sometime, I'll lift the cake with a knife and let the frosting leak underneath to keep the moisture.  It tastes spectacular, and keeps its moisture.

See how spongy the texture is?  It was super-moist and beautiful inside, too. 
You may or may not have noted that I have made this cake at least twenty times in two years.  Do you think, perhaps, that this over-experimental foodie might be a bit bored? Yaaaassss, she would be.

This week I made the cake out of quail eggs just to investigate what would happen.  We have two female quails and the eggs have been piling up--I have't known what to do with them, they're like... Barbie eggs or sumthin'. 

So it weighed them by grams and it took NINE quail eggs to equal three chicken eggs.  Here's the thing about quail eggs, though.  First and foremost, they are a pain pain pain pain pain to break. They shatter on impact, shell-wise, so you have to Dr. Pimple Popper out the actual egginess.  Second--and most importantly--they are almost all yolk.  There's very little white.  Which means:

This cake had a spongy, beautiful texture that was the best of the whole freakin' lot.  I texted Frances and said, "NO QUAIL EGG QUICHE FOR SURE!" but other than that, I highly recommend them for cakes.  Just. Fantastic. 
Now tell me, Samsung, how hard is it to put "Bundt" cake in the dictionary?  Every time I type in "Chris" you clowns suggest "Brown" as the next word, but not Budnt??? What's Bundesliga? 
Freak.  I'm Wiki'ing it right now. 
A football league in Germany.  

Bunchen brings up that model, whom, from the looks of things, has never tried a Bundt cake, ever.  I mean, look at those ribs.  Just LOOK at them. 


Good lord.  I'm mailing her the next cake.  Honestly. 



Another artistic shot to build your confidence in my recipe. Uh, well, Anne's recipe. 


Betty Crocker, I'm bored to death with you, but you sure look good, girl. It's on my North Carolina state plate.  Love state plates.  They make the best cake plates. And my commercial cake pan cover from the Salvation Army here in the Free State of Jones. 

So that's all for now.  But if you want recipeness, here it is:

One box Betty Crocker Triple Chocolate Cake Mix
1 cup sour cream
3 small eggs, or 9 quail eggs (as if, I know)
1 1/4 cup of water (or, 1 cup water, 1/4 cup Coffee Mate French Vanilla Creamer)
1/3 cup oil
Flour Spray (I've tried shortening and butter:  this always works best)

Frostingness:

1 container (well, not really the whole thing) melted in microwave.  Be sure to carefully peel off ALL of the foil.  Yes, it can be done, I do it all the time. 

Mix.  Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.
Let cool until it separates from sides. It will contract. 
Turn out on super-cool looking plate, and then cover with frosting, making sure it pools in the middle.

Cut slice of cake being sure to get that pooled stuff in the middle to be smeared over cake so you give your folks an extra heapin' helpeness of good schtuff. 

Enjoy.  Comment if you like it. Please.  I can't just have my brother-in-law be the only commenter. 

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Matty Matheson's Fried Chicken



About six months ago, I discovered a YouTube channel called Eater.  And I never, ever miss it.  This was on the cusp of me becoming a Serious YouTube Subscriber as opposed to just watching crap at random, particularly at either Devour.com or The Twisted Sifter.  (Nothing and I mean NOTHING beats the Shirk Report. I set aside at least an hour on Fridays for it.  I'm warning you:  old Shirk Reports are almost as bad of an internet rabbit hole as Cakewrecks.com and Engrish.com).  

When I realized that I could get intelligent, world-opening food coverage from Ye Olde Internets, I was hooked.  Here's the original Eater vid--and I highly recommend that you subscribe, they are always intelligent and enlightening.  (Except for that one from Memphis on BBQ--it was not worthy. Read comments section). 

I am dying to try the underwater salt.  I think I will put them on my "write and beg for ingredients for burgeoning going-to-be-tremendously-popular food blog."  Cause that just fascinates the heck out of me.  I wouldn't mind spending a day learning from them and just slogging away at it. 

Anyway, after I discovered Eater, I happened upon a channel that had a gadzillion (read: million) subscribers called MUNCHIES.  Since the first video I saw of them only featured pizza, I figured it was about... you know, weed-type munchies.  But no.  Munchies is a serious food channel, traveling the world. It is just about as classy as Eater, which is hard to do, especially with the likes of Lucas Peterson whom I think is just the classiest dude eating cheap food ever.  Here he is on his tour of Austin in his Dining on a Dime Series. 




ANYWAY this leads us to my latest FoodTube discover:  Matty Matheson.  He is hands down the most profane food experience on YouTube.  I really like, though, how he cooks in this tiny kitchen, makes no apologies, and by his own admission, doesn't like to eat his own food.  (He also owns 200 pairs of sneakers and never wears a watch, because he "doesn't like people to know how rich or poor I am."  This is stupid, cause, Matty darling, they can always look down and see how much you pay for shoes.

Anyway.  Love him.  Here he is explaining FRIED CHICKEN.  I say FRIED CHICKEN cause Matty, my friends, COOKS IN ALL CAPS. Which is a lesson for us all.  Sometimes, we need food to be a whisper, a gentle comfort experience.  But sometimes YOU NEED FRIED CHICKEN IN ALL CAPS.  Enjoy.