sweet cuppin' cakes

I had some ganache left over from the first installment of The Great Yellow Cake Bake-off and Regional Pro-Am of 2038, and I needed to do something with it before it went bad. I didn't really have enough to fill or ice a cake, so I decided: Cupcakes! Yaaaaay!

This was Cook's Illustrated's "Yellow Cupcakes with Chocolate Ganache Frosting," which is only available on their website to subscribers but was easily found elsewhere via google.

The money shot:

Vitals:

Fat

Butter

Flour

all purpose

Leaveners

Baking powder

Ratings:

Flavor

Very good, but I wish it had a rounder finish. Maybe my vanilla is just too cheap.

Texture

Good. Tender but not too delicate. The tops were a little funky but hey everyone loves icing.

Moistness

Spot on.

Aesthetics

Very good. A nice golden yellow, not so yellow that it looks artificial. Consistent but not overly consistent crumb. Some of them were a wee bit misshapen on top but that's more because I'm incapable of using a spoon than anything in the recipe.

Miscellaneous notes:

• Last time I noted that my oven seemed to be running a bit cool, so I obtained an oven thermometer. I have not yet carried out an extensive experiment, but so far it looks like my oven's thermostat is actually pretty good.
• Dishers are great for cupcakes because you can scoop each one out to an identical size. Unfortunately, I am incapable of actually using one apparently because I ended up with 10 cupcakes instead of 12, and some of them had tops that were way too big.
• As we shall see in later installments of The Great Yellow Cake Bake-off and Regional Pro-Am of 2038, Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen is CRAZYGONUTS when it comes to cake baking. By which I mean they completely eschew this blog's eponymous method in favor of, well, tossing all of the ingredients in a bowl and mixing them together (their full-on cake recipe is actually only slightly more complicated than that). Results: delicious! I don't have a stand mixer, and I did find that with the hand mixer it was a little hard to mix in the butter when I wasn't creaming it with the sugar first.

So, in short:

Pros

Good product all around, easy to make.

Cons

Flavor not round enough at the finish; I can't use a spoon.

you may say that i ain't free, but it don't worry me

Alright, let's get it right out in the open: I am a heretic.

The Godfather is one of the most revered films we have. Consistently ranked number 1 on imdb, number 3 on AFI's list of the top 100 American films, lauded by critics and audiences everywhere, the crowning achievement of the glorious age of cinema known as the 70's.

There's a better one.

Nashville is, in my mind, far and away the best movie of the 70's. It is a film with realistic human drama, deep emotions, humorous satire and beautiful music. Perhaps most importantly, it expresses a singular vision and style betraying the mind of a true director.

Robert Altman died today. I believe he was one of the greatest directors, in part because the medium of film is intrinsic to the style for which he is so well known. There is no way to make an “Altmanesque” novel or video game. The Godfather basically never seems to be more than a film adaptation of a novel, however great that novel or its adaptation is, whereas Nashville achieves a transcendence by using film in a way that is more than just another a medium for telling a story.

This should not be read as a dismissal of the achievements of The Godfather, which in many ways is the acme of the classical Hollywood style in which the filmmaking itself is so perfectly executed as to be virtually transparent. But where Francis Ford Coppola is perfecting what is for very good reason a well established film vocabulary, Altman is creating one all his own, and on top of that, actually succeeds much of the time.

I say much of the time, as even Altman's obituaries seem to go out of their way to point out that his body of work is widely viewed as being “uneven.” Did he make bad movies? Of course he did. But to think that anyone could ever achieve greatness without the risk of failure is foolishness. Over his long career, Mr. Altman had the chutzpah to achieve greatness several times over.

And let that be my lesson for today.

yellow cake... fuckin' right

I have felt as if I've been neglecting the cake family of desserts in my sporadic baking endeavors. I was thinking about it, and I don't really have a good old reliable yellow cake recipe. I looked over a bunch of different ones, and many questions arose:

• Which is better: shortening, or butter?
• Does cake flour really make a better, more refined cake than all-purpose? Is all-purpose + a little corn starch a reasonable substitute?
• We know that a cup of flour is supposed to be 5 oz, but what is a cup of cake flour supposed to weigh?

and so on. therefore, gentlemen, behold: The Great Yellow Cake Bake-off and Regional Pro-Am of 2038!

Our first entry comes from Marion Cunningham's classic tome The Fannie Farmer Baking Book. The cake is the basic master recipe for “Yellow Cake with Chocolate Butter Cream Filling and Frosting” (page 307). Please note that I only utilized the cake portion of this recipe; the filling was a different buttercream (also from Ms. Cunningham, specifically her "Uncooked Butter Cream Filling" on page 412) and the frosting was a simple ganache.

First, the money shot (photography by Laura):

Next, some vital facts:

Fat

Vegetable shortening

Flour

2.25 cups cake flour

Leaveners

2.5 tsps Baking powder

And now, we rate:

Flavor

Very, very good, which surprised me since there is no butter in this cake. Hooray for vanilla!

Texture

A very delicate, fine crumb with just a few larger bubbles. Very good over all.

Moistness

Poor to fair. This cake was just way too dry, so much so that I could tell from the moment I cut into it.

Aesthetics

This cake was very pale, not surprising since it was made with bleached flour and vegetable shortening, the vanilla and egg yolk as the only source of color. Marion prescribed the use of two 8-inch pans for this cake, which proved to be ill-fitting; I would have been better off with 3 layers, or maybe 9 inch pans. As it was, one layer had a very prominent dome, and the sheer height of the layers combined with a paucity of buttercream (it always seems like more when you put it on) just screamed "yikes, that's a big piece of cake!" Overall, acceptable.

Miscellaneous notes:

My oven seems to be running a bit cool. This led to an increased baking time, which I am concerned may have in turn led to a drier cake. It does however, confirm that there is too much batter in this recipe for two layers; a dome usually means that your pan is too hot or that there's too much batter in the pan.

So, in short:

Pros

Very good flavor, texture. Only medium difficulty level in preparation (assuming the cons didn't come from something I screwed up and didn't realize...).

Cons

Too dry, too dry, too dry. Also, I'd prefer a cake made with all-purpose flour because plain (as opposed to self-rising) cake flour can be both hard to track down and expensive.

tyler's ultimate human

Chances are you have a credit card. If you do, chances are you get some kind of "reward" on purchases, whether it's a cash refund, airline miles or some kind of elaborate point system. And chances are that your credit card company has two tiers of purchases: special purchases that give you extra points or savings or whatever, and everything else for which you get a tiny little pittance, usually worth about a half of a percent of what you spend. The "special" purchases usually give somewhere between 1 and 5 percent back.

The "special" purchases category pretty much always includes gasoline. Sometimes it's the only thing in the "special" category. Since I don't drive, I don't buy gas; at least, not directly. I do pay to use public transportation. In fact, public transportation is a major expense on my credit card statement; it's the one thing I always use my credit card to pay for.

One thing pretty much everybody can agree on is that we (as a country) use too much oil, and furthermore that effective public transportation is a good means of making economical use of that resource. Using public transportation is good for the environment, the economy, the social fabric of the city, and on a mass scale is even good for national security (dependence on foreign oil and all that). But our financial institutions specifically reward customers who choose to drive their own cars.

I'm not saying that they should get rid of the extra rewards for gas, but wouldn't it be nice to similarly reward the rest of us?

sherlell: are you yoda?

I was just struck with a thought: what is the worst song on my computer? Every time I see one of those itunes meme things, people are all ashamed of what they listen to etc, so i thought, let's make a list of horrible crap.

I was then immediately struck with another thought: that's a blog entry if i've ever heard one! And here we are.

So here are some pretty awful songs that are on my computer...

2 Nu - This is Ponderous

I'm starting in my WLIR shrieks-of-the-week file, because there's some stuff in there I definitely don't like. This song is one of them... no singing per se, just this guy talking over some really lame synth effects. it's like these guys played with every stupid sound their new expensive keyboard could make. the only one missing is that frog thing you can hear in the otherwise great New Order track "Perfect Kiss."

Adam Ant - Puss n' Boots

Ok, generally speaking I like Adam Ant, but any song that starts w/ the sound of an ill sounding cat meowing is just not so hot.

Band Aid - Do They Know It's Christmas?

I don't need to explain this.

Bob & Doug McKenzie (and Geddy Lee) - Take Off

Ok, this song is intentionally bad, but bad it is, eh?

Bronski Beat - Hit That Perfect Beat

Possibly the gayest song since Liberace stopped recording.

Crazy Joe and the Variable Speed Band - Eugene

2 ginger ales for my girls!

The Cure- Hey You!!!

Ok, I really like the cure but what the hell. I think I am including this on the list for the 3 exclamation marks alone.

Dee Dee King - German Kid

a.k.a. The rap persona of Dee Dee Ramone. I think I might as well stop here. this is really just about as horrible as they get. really, if i have anything worse than this i will be amazed. this song is really, really bad. wow. oh my god i want to smash my head into the keyboard listening to this.

Duran Duran - Wild Boys

I've decided to limit myself to one Duran Duran song, and I'm picking this one. At first I thought it would be a tough call between Reflex and Union of the Snake, but this one is worse.

Electric Guitars - Wolfman Tap

“Man,” you were saying to yourself just the other day, “I wish someone would write a song about a tap-dancing werewolf.” Well my friend, have I got a song for you...

Erasure and Lene Lovich - Rage

A synthpop protest song about vegetarianism.

Meco - Star Wars (disco version)

and it's the first one not in the WLIR file. Really a crime against all humanity. i actually have a bunch of star wars techno remixes and etc, and they are all quite awful, but this one blows the hardest.

Napoleon XIV - They're Coming to Take Me Away

My dad used to sing this song for some reason. In the actual recording, the guy's voice gets progressively higher and higher and i find it rather frightening.

A*Teens - Take a Chance On Me

This is an Abba cover group in the mold of a european manufactured teen band like S Club 7. This is maybe the worst of their covers - it's really fast for no apparent reason.

Billy Joel - Time to Remember

Sappier than sap from a sap maple on the day before the great sap harvest of 1973.

B.J. Thomas - Hooked on a Feeling

This song is AWESOME for exactly 37 seconds, and then it becomes total crap.

Chris DeBurgh - The Lady in Red

Are you paying attention Vh1? This is what an awesomely bad song sounds like.

Go West - King of Wishful Thinking

Sort of sounds like Fine Young Cannibals, sort of sounds like, well, everything and nothing at the same time. Commercial dreck of the highest caliber... possibly written by Martin Page... and I'm right! Google Martin Page some time, he basically wrote every pop song in the history of the world.

Johnny Mathis - Brazil

Ah Napster... I remember fighting to download this song from someone, because I heard about 10 seconds and HAD to hear the rest. This has to be the most ridiculously over-produced version of this song ever. Johnny Mathis, what a tool. Sorry mom.

Kenny Loggins - Return to Pooh Corner

I like the Pooh books, and even the Disney cartoons, and I think that's why I downloaded this song. I think I actually liked it for a short period, and then came to my senses and realized it was complete shite.

Meatloaf - Life is a Lemon

mwahahahahahaha. when i was in junior high i thought this was what rock and roll anger sounded like.

Michael Jackson - Black or White

Surprisingly, even compared with all of Jacko's disco-inf(l)ected stuff, this has aged far worse. The production is more gimicky and sounds really dated.

New Order - Blue Monday (DMC Mix)

I was surprised to find that this mix is only 7:11, shorter than the regular 12" blue monday. It is just filled with all sorts of retarded little clips, starting with Thunderbirds, going through "there is nothing like a dame," cutting crew, a bunch of other random crap, and ends up with Bugs Bunny.

The Nylons - This Island Earth

What the hell is this, an eco-friendly song by some bad imitators of the Starlight Vocal Band?

OMD - Electricity

And people say that Falco is cheesy. C'mon.

Styx - Mr. Roboto

A friend of mine in college told me her sister did this in show choir, which is just perfect.

Thompson Twins - Don't Mess with Dr. Dream

Well this song is just a total mess.

Toto - Hold the Line

Fun Toto fact! John William's son Joe used to be their lead singer!

Was Not Was - Walk the Dinosaur

And in the file of songs I completely forgot existed... somewhere between Wang Chung and Kung-fu Fighting is this song, which includes the following lyric: “The sun was spitting fire, the sky was blue as ice, I felt a little tired so I watched Miami Vice.”

Well, in the end, I didn't find a song nearly as bad as Dee Dee King. That song is awful. I mean it's bad. Really, really bad.

By the way, you know what song is actually awesome? “David Duchovny” by Bree Sharp. That is passion my friends.

Some other thoughts brought to mind by looking at basically every song I have... has anyone ever seen a movie where John Malkovich makes a clone of himself to send to space? I haven't, but i think it exists. Oh well. Stay tuned for “songs that i have just decided are awesome” and, if i remember in a month or so, “what's the worst song on brian's computer: special holiday edition!”