Tales from the Shark Tank

Our son, being bored and in a mood to decorate a cake, asked that I make one. I, being of a mind to encourage the creativity but not wanting to overdo the indulgence quotient, decided to make angel food. We’re a small family (three humans), so I’ve invested in some appropriately sized cake pans. The 7-inch tube pan does half-size sponge and angel cakes beautifully, and a pair of 6-inch round pans will make a half-size layer cake. (I know, I could just bake a single layer instead of 2, but he likes the way a 2 layer cake looks, so I just make it smaller.)

So I went looking through my cookbooks for an angel food cake recipe. Each one used twice as much sugar as egg-white by volume. That meant that a full size cake would contain 12 egg whites, 1 1/4 cups of flour and 3 cups of sugar. No wonder it tastes of nothing else! Low fat it may be, but that is all that can be said for it. By comparison, my favorite yellow butter cake contains 3/4 cup of butter, 1 1/2 cups of sugar, 3 cups of flour and 4 eggs.

So just on a hunch, I pulled my grandmother’s 1957 Joy of Cooking off my shelf. And I was right. Same amount of egg white, a little more flour, and half the amount of sugar. So that is the cake I made. It didn’t bake up with the crackly macaroon-y brown crust of a modern angel cake recipe, but I consider that no particular loss. And it has an actual flavor. You can taste the lemon juice, vanilla and almond extract in it. In other words, it isn’t just sweet inflated cardboard. It’s an actual cake, and one I’ll enjoy eating.

1957 Angel Food Cake

Preheat oven to 325^o F.

1 1/2 cups egg white
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp salt
2 Tbsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. almond extract
1 tsp. vanilla extract (or 1/2 tsp. vanilla powder)
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted before measuring

In a large, clean dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy. Add cream of tartar. Beat until they increase in volume, then gradually add lemon juice, salt and extracts. Continue to beat until they just form clear peaks. Gradually add sugar while beating at medium speed, then beat a little longer, until lifting the beater leaves peaks that fold over a little at the tip, and the whites are still very shiny and moist looking.

Carefully fold in flour, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until no visible flour remains. Pour into an ungreased 9 or 10 inch tube pan. Run a butter knife through in a spiral to break up any big bubbles and to level the batter. Bake for 50-60 minutes, or until the cake starts to pull away from the sides of the pan and is lightly browned on top.

Invert the pan over a bottle and let the cake cool completely before removing from the pan. Enjoy.

Update: I made a half-size cake. I wasn’t sure Da Boychick would like angel-cake, nor if he would like mine since what he’d had at his grandparent’s house came from the grocery. General results of experiment: I need to make another cake for him to decorate tomorrow.

Not my cats, certainly.

Miss Cloud, who is not allowed outside, has suddenly taken to ducking past ankles at every opportunity to attempt to explore the Tall Grass Jungle and Land of New Smells. Today when she did that, her sister Tornado was out as well. Now, those two can’t manage a civil conversation at the best of times, and Tornado, experienced outdoorswoman that she is, decided it would be fun to give Cloud a hard time. So every time Cloud stopped to sniff something, Tornado would bounce at her, stopping just short of pouncing on her when Cloud jumped away. The problem is that she was doing that as I was trying to walk calmly up to Cloud with intent to pick her up and return her to the safety of the house.

After the fourth time I got close, only to have Tornado startle Cloud into running away again, I looked down at the little black cat looking up at me. “Tornado” I told her “you aren’t helping.” She sat down on her little butt, blinked at me, and said “Mreow?” with an unmistakable cat-smirk. Then she got up, chased Cloud one last time, and sauntered off with a glance over her shoulder at me.

The next time I tried to get to Cloud and pick her up, I was able to without any problem. I’m not sure, though, whether Tornado’s commentary translated best as “So?” or “And your point is?” I don’t suppose it much matters what the English is, though. The sentiment was clear enough in the original Cat.

Every so often I really listen to myself and hear my own habits of speech. The way I speak of my cats is a perfect case in point. Ever since Cloud stood on my hand and hissed defiance at the two adult cats, I’ve referred to Tornado and Sophia collectively as “the big girls”. Our son will come in from school and inquire as to the whereabouts of the cats, to be told “Both the big girls are out, and Cloud is on the bathroom windowsill.” Or at bedtime, I will find myself telling him “I don’t know where the big girls are. Can you make do with the baby-girl?” (It’s a make-do because Miss Cloud won’t stay to cuddle until he falls asleep. Sophia is the best about that.)

So my grey-scale cats are “the big girls”, despite the fact that Cloud is a quarter again bigger than either Tornado or Sophia. And since I don’t see myself changing the verbal habit any time soon, I suspect they always will be.

It was just pointed out to me that I haven’t written anything since the end of March. I’m sorry. I simply hadn’t anything to say. I feel like I’m just waking up from hibernation. But since I’m starting to think again, I should start writing again as well.

My lawn resembles a scene from an African veldt movie, with tall waving grasses through which slink graceful, deadly feline predators. Of course, the local feline predators are on a scale to be deadly to small rabbits, frogs, mice and birds, but the fact remains that the grass is as tall as only spring rains and returning sun can make it, and has yet to be mowed.

This is because when I went out start the mower, it was deader than the proverbial doornail. That takes doing, since a doornail was never “live” or moving to begin with, but that’s another matter. So I had to arrange to have it picked up and hauled off to the shop (transportation provided under the warranty, thank goodness), and let them figure out why it wouldn’t so much as click over.

It seems the problem was the battery, with bad gas a close second. Gas left to sit in freezing conditions gets sludgy, almost gelatinous. A car engine is big enough not to get clogged by that, but a mower is not. Normally I’d have put fuel stabilizer in the last time I ran the machine in the fall, but it got so cold so early and so abruptly last fall that it took me by surprise, and the planned final mowing and leaf-mulching never got done. (I’m going to be very glad we have a mulching mower when I finally can get out there.) So the fuel jelled, and had to be drained out and the carburetor cleaned.

But I should get it back tomorrow, or Wednesday at the latest. They have promised me it will run without need for carb spray or any other sort of encouragement. Given that it was new in fall 2007, that would be good. As soon as it comes off their trailer, I’ll be turning it on and taming the jungle back into a lawn. I wonder if my cats will still be speaking to me when I’m done?