Elizabeth Alston's Best Baking: 80 Recipes for Angel Food Cakes, Chiffon Cakes, Coffee Cakes, Pound Cakes, Tea Breads, and Their Accompaniments

by Elizabeth Alston

Overview

Indulge your sweet tooth with eighty of Elizabeth Alston's most beloved and delicious baking recipes. A compilation of her popular Tea Breads and Coffeecakes and Simply Cakes, Best Baking features such delectable delights as Brown Sugar—Brown Butter—Hazelnut Pound Cake, Tennessee Whiskey Cake, Plum-Walnut Kuchen, and Chocolate Orange Crumb Cake, as well as tempting toppings and sauces to accompany these treats. Alston's helpful tips will guide every baker, from the novice to the professional, and make home baking fun and easy. You'll be getting rave reviews in no time! So whether it's for breakfast, afternoon tea, dessert, or a midnight snack, you'll find the perfect recipe in Elizabeth Alston's Best Baking.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780060953294
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	02/02/2000
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.88(w) x 8.12(h) x 0.57(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Alston is the food editor of Women's Day magazine and the author of Tea Breads and Coffeecakes, Muffins, and Biscuits and Scones.

Read an Excerpt

Simple Sour Cream Spice Cake

Makes 9 Portions

8 tablespoons unsalted butter,at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup reduced-fat or regular sour cream
9-inch square baking pan

A satisfying cake that has a lovely flavor and texture. Sift a little confectioners' sugar over the top shortly before serving.

Heat the oven to 350 F. Grease the pan.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on high speed for 3 to 5 minutes, until pale and fluffy Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Beat in the eggs one at a time. Scrape the bowl. Add the baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Beat on low speed until well blended, continuing to scrape down the sides.

With mixer still running, add about 1/2 cup of the flour and, without waiting for it to be completely blended in, add about one third of the sour cream. Add the remaining flour and sour cream in the same way. Mix only until blended.

Spread the batter evenly in the prepared pan. Bake until the cake is light gold in color and a wooden pick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour.

Place the pan on a wire rack to cool for 20 to 30 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cake with a knife and turn it out onto the rack. Turn the cake over and let it cool completely. Serve soon, or wrap airtight and let stand at room temperature overnight.

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Orange and Lemon Chiffon Cake

16 Portions

2 lemons
1 or2 navel oranges
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1cup egg whites
1/2 teaspoon salt
10 x 4-inch tube pan (a removable bottom is helpful)

This has an absolutely delightful flavor, and no one will guess that it is made with extra-virgin olive oil or that the egg yolks found in a traditional chiffon cake have been dispensed with. Do use extra-virgin or virgin olive oil; it makes a serious contribution to the overall flavor. The cake looks pretty sprinkled with confectioners' sugar before serving.

Heat the oven to 325 F. If the pan has a removable bottom, do nothing to it. If it does not, lightly grease the bottom. Line the bottom with wax paper or parchment paper cut to fit, and lightly grease the paper.

Scrub and dry the lemons and oranges. Grate the colored part of the peel, taking care not to grate any bitter white part, until you have (loosely packed) 1 tablespoon grated lemon peel and 2 teaspoons grated orange peel (see Note). Juice the fruit and measure 1/2 cup orange juice and A cup lemon juice.

Put the flour, 1 cup of the sugar, and the baking powder into a large bowl. Stir to mix well. Add the oil, fruit juices, and grated peel. Beat smooth with a wooden spoon.

Put the egg whites and salt in a deep narrow bowl and beat with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, until they lose their yellow cast, greatly increase in volume, and begin to turn very white.

While still beating, sprinkle in the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar, about 2 tablespoons at a time. The whites will become very thick and very white and the beaters will leave a deep trail.

Whisk or beat about one eighth of the whites into the flour mixture. With a large metal spoon or rubber spatula, fold or gently stir in the remaining whites.

When well blended, pour the batter (8 cups) into the pan.

Bake until golden brown, springy to the touch, and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean, 50 to 55 minutes.

Turn the pan upside down on a wire rack. If the cake has baked higher than the rim of the pan, turn the pan upside down onto a beer or soda bottle (the bottle goes in the hollow tube). Leave on the countertop until the cake is completely cold. Loosen the edges (and tube) with a knife. Turn out the cake, loosen and remove the pan bottom, or peel off the paper. Serve freshly baked, or store airtight 1 day at room temperature before serving or freezing.

Note: Instead of grating the peel you can remove the peel of the lemons and one of the oranges with a vegetable peeler. Put them into a food processor or blender with the I cup of sugar and process 3 or 4 minutes (yes, that long) until chopped as fine as possible. The sugar will be moist. Add it with the oil, not the flour. Be sure not to try to whip it with the egg whites, because the citrus oils will deflate them.