storming blackberry cake

Being very much a novice in the kitchen sometimes limits what we cook, so when we ask each other, "What do you want to cook this week?" we usually take a minute to consider the Tori Amos enveloped possibilities. This week's dish was inspired by Tori Amos's song "Police Me." This song is from Abnormally Attracted to Sin so we thought the recipes would flow well into each other. In this awesome song Tori says "Loaded full of winter, you are Storming Blackberry girl." It only seemed right that we make a hearty, delicious cake to appease a sweet appetite in this cold weather.



Initially when Manda and I decided to make this recipe that she found on www.101cookbooks.com, we envisioned it a sweet treat with a real punch in the gut. Something that made you hear the words sung in your head when you ate it. Unfortunately neither one of us had worked with molasses before. Truly it is something you either love or hate. I would like to state that we both fall into the category of "hate it." It smelled very much like a Robitussin junkie's worst nightmare.



However, this is not to say that the cake was very bad or so bad that everyone purged. My best friend's parents liked it very much and remarked it to be a "tart, coffee kind of cake." The cake came out looking dead on like the original recipe's picture. But Amanda and I decided to make another cake that was truly worthy of its namesake.



So we scoured the internet for a simple yellow cake made from scratch and decided to throw in our own tidbits. With good improvisation on mostly Manda's part, the cake came out delicious and sweet. I worried that it might be too sweet with the syrup drizzled on top, but everyone else assures me not so. If you're into sweet baked breads like banana or blueberry bread, this is just right for you.

We've decided to go ahead and post both cakes here, but I'm only going to give out the "storming blackberry cake" recipe. My only suggestion is that if you truly want to make the molasses-blackberry cake and are a bit unsure about the molasses, substitute honey instead.


Materials :
round baking pan
mixing spoon
strainer
whisk
Police Me by Tori Amos



Ingredients :

For the cake
1 1/2 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
1 egg
2/3 cup milk
1 cup blackberries ( frozen or fresh )
1 1/2 tbsp sugar ( seperate from the other sugar, obviously )

blackberry syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
3/4 -1 cup blackberries

1. Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Grease a round baking pan ( Mine is 9.5'' ).



2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in mixing bowl. In a smaller bowl, combine the butter ( slightly melted or softened ), egg, and milk. Whisk lightly. Pour wet ingredients into dry and beat until it's not so lumpy.



3. Shake 1 1/2 tbsp of sugar over your 1 cup blackberries and kind of mix it around half-hearted like. Now take a whisk or masher of some sort and proceed to beat those berries like a motherfucker. The main idea here is to smash the cores. No one wants to bite into those, says Manda. If you don't care to sweeten the berries, you can skip dumping the sugar in here.



4. Once you've successfully turned them from blackberries to chunky mush, pour into cake batter and mix for about two minutes.



(The batter should turn this beautiful purple color.)



5. Pour the batter into baking pan and pop that sucker in your preheated oven.



Syrup time? Perhaps you should read my thoughts.

1. This is where your masher skills come once again into play! It's time to rinse your blackberries and then take out all of life's daily frustrations on them, tranforming them into pulp. Once this is done, you can wipe your brow and set them aside for later.



2. Put 1/3 cup water to boil on stovetop. After a couple of minutes, add sugar and stir. Wait another minute, then add blackberries. Stir continuously and slowly bring to a full boil.



3. Get your strainer ready over a sizeable bowl and pour your syrup straight from the stove. Squeeze excess from berries with spoon through strainer and trash the remains. Now you have tasty blackberry syrup, albeit piping hot. Let it cool for at least five minutes.



You're Done! Perhaps, you should sit back and enjoy this cake, now.

abnormally attracted to apple crisp

This past weekend, my sister and I spotted this recipe on smittenkitchen.com and decided to try it out with a few tweaks. This apple crisp granola is relatively easy to make and delicious in the morning. The real labor is in peeling all of the apples and decoring them. After that, it's pretty smooth sailing.





Materials :
→ 9x13 baking pan
→ your favorite mixing spoon
→ Abnormally Attracted to Sin cd by Tori Amos



Ingredients :

2-3 lbs apples ( peeled, cored, and cut into chunks )
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3 tbsp. sugar
2 tbsp. cornstarch or 4 tbsp. flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
pinch of salt



( this part is for the granola )
1 cup butter
1 cup flour
4 cups oats
1 cup sliced almonds
1/2 cup honey
pinch of salt

Directions

1. Peel, core, and cut your apples into chunks.





2. Mix apple chunks with lemon juice, sugar, cornstarch ( or flour! ), cinnamon, and salt in 9x13 baking pan until apples are evenly coated.



3. In a bowl combine flour, oats, almonds, and a pinch of salt. Give it a few quick turns with a spoon. Set aside.

4. In a saucepan, melt the butter and honey. Dump in the bowl's contents and sit in until clumps form. Basically, you won't be able to stir anymore as much as just shift around mush with your spoon.

5. Evenly spread over apple mixture as best as you can. ( My sister used a fork to sort of twist into the granola and spread it. )



6. Stick in the oven for 45-55 minutes. About 25 minutes after, you may want to cover with foil so the granola doesn't overbrown and stays crunchy.



7. Cool to room temperature. Serve with a scoop of plain yogurt. You can also put this dish in the fridge and eat it in the morning, cold with yogurt.

hello mr. zebra

Last week my sister and I began toying with the notion of having a blog on our baking adventures. I say adventures because I am .. not very good in the kitchen at all and my sister is equally a novice. Each of us has many fine points, but making fabulous things in the kitchen is not one of them. So we decided to change this.

For the most part in our life when change has been known to readily occur, Tori Amos's music has been there to shoulder us through it. And that applies for both good and bad changes that just go along with life. We both agree that through Tori Amos, we have found our own voices.



Often times, I feel like I stayed out of the kitchen for so long because it was expected for me to be in the kitchen. The same way it is for most women in a male-dominated world. Women are expected to do domestic duties that are supposedly tailored to their gender. Anyone with enough sense will tell you that a man can stay home and cook and clean while a woman goes to work and makes the household income just as easily.



I guess what all this rambling lead to is that this is us tackling the kitchen for us, because we want to take up a new skill. Not to be able to cook my future prospective husband a meal. And I think I'm ready to see the kitchen as something to be embraced rather than hated. It's not the kitchen's fault that we live in an extremely patriarchal society.



We're going to bake something new each week in an effort to actually get better at this whole cooking and baking things. It has been decided that we will focus more on baking, than actual cooking.