texasmesquite

Baking? Don't forget the food processor

By Marlene Parrish, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Source: Rocky Mountain News

Dessert was the last thing on my to-do list for Sunday dinner. I slathered an herb-and-garlic paste on the leg of lamb, set the table, prepped the vegetables, thawed the bread, cleaned up the house and was looking forward to a wee nap before starting the countdown to finish dinner.
Oh, no, the cake. I forgot the cake. I didn't feel like hauling my 35- pound Kitchen Aid up from downstairs and, anyway, there was no room on the counter. I needed a change-up - and fast.
After a quick eyeball of my way too many cookbooks, I yanked down an old companion, Classic Cakes and Other Cuisinart Desserts, by Cecily Brownestone and Cuisinart founder Carl Sontheimer, circa 1994.
In the time it took to preheat the oven, the batter for a Golden Three- Layer Cake was ready. During the 30 minutes that the cake baked, I used the processor again to make Maple Walnut Filling and Frosting.
I got the nap after all.
Lesson learned? I forgot how fast and easy it is to use the food processor to make all kinds of baked goods: cakes, cookies, pastry dough, even coffee cakes, puddings and sorbet.
Most of us learned that butter and sugar have to be creamed and frostings whipped by hand. Old habits die hard. It takes a leap of faith to break baking traditions and replace them with speedier, easier methods. But if the result is the superb taste and texture of an unmistakably homemade cake, what's to fear?
These few suggestions will add to your ability to use the food processor easily and effectively.
* It's important to have all the ingredients at hand on the work surface before starting. If the contents of the work bowl have to wait between steps, the result may suffer. Baking powder and baking soda wait for no man.
* When a recipe calls for cutting an ingredient into 1-inch pieces, no side should be longer than 1 inch.
* To make sure the metal blade doesn't fall out onto your hand or into the cake pan when you empty the work bowl, grip the metal blade from below, placing your thumb on the outside of the work bowl and your middle finger inside the metal blade holder.
* To remove the last little bit of batter from the blade and the work bowl, put the blade back on the machine and pulse briefly once. You can then remove the blade, which has been cleaned by the spinning force, and the remaining contents are easy to scrape out with a spatula.
If you don't already have a food- processor cookbook, keep an eye out. Anything by Chicago-based Abby Mandel is excellent. She's the grand poobah of food-processor recipes and was a pioneer of baking techniques.
As for my cake, I thought that a slice of three-layer cake was way too many calories after a big meal. I filled and frosted a two-layer cake. Then I wrapped the third layer and the leftover frosting and put them in the freezer for a rainy day.
Like money in the bank