Of colds and apples
Today I am home sick with a cold. This meant a lot of lounging around, listening to podcasts, and gagging down disgusting zinc “melt-aways.” I’ve never stopped being angry that, even as an adult, I still have to take gross medicine.
I did manage to drag my ass out of bed and go to the store, since I needed flour. I had sour cream, apples, applesauce, and apple cider in the freezer, and damnit that calls for baking! I felt a wee bit of trepidation, though, because this was my first attempt at freezing and reusing sour cream. Dairy and I have a love-hate relationship in general: I love it, but it hates me (damn lactose). Furthermore I never seem to use it up fast enough; hence I keep a lot of powdered milk in the pantry. Recently, though, I learned that most forms of milk and cheese freeze quite well, so long as you give them time to defrost slowly in the fridge.
But sour cream? Aint no way that’s going to keep it’s texture after thawing out! Still, I had a good cup leftover from the holidays that I couldn’t bear to throw away, and a quick google search confirmed that though it would be more like tiny-curd cottage cheese, it would be fine for baking purposes. So we experimented.
The recipe I used is one from a 70’s era cookbook belonging to my mom (I think Betty Crocker, but don’t quote me). I’ve had a lot of success with it in the past, so I was pretty confident experimenting with it. In addition to the defrosted sour cream, I tried using applesauce and baking soda instead of eggs. I know for a fact that I didn’t add enough baking soda (which I adjusted in the recipe below). It turned out denser than I remembered - far more like a banana bread than cake - but OH SWEET JESUS it’s tasty! I just wish I wasn’t sick, so I’d actually be hungry for more. :/
Other cooking adventures: I found a recipe for an apple cider glaze that looked good, but I added the butter right at the beginning instead of after the cider had been reduced! I blame the cold, I’ve made enough icing in my day to know that you never do that. The plus side is that the glaze now has a nice, browned-butter aroma to it. The down side is that it didn’t thicken up like it was supposed to. I added some more butter, I added some powdered sugar, hell I even through in from bran to thicken it up! It tastes good, but I fucked up. Still, I’m including the original glaze recipe since there was nothing wrong with it, it would have worked otherwise.
Sour Cream Apple Spice Cake with Apple Cider Glaze
Ingredients:
1 cup sour cream (reduced fat)
1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar for this, but white’s fine)
2 eggs lightly beaten OR 1/2 cup applesauce + 1 tsp baking soda
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional. I used walnuts in this one)
1/2 cup dried fruit such as apricots or raisins (optional. I used a defrosted frozen apple.)
Directions: Preheat to 350 F. Grease 8x8 baking pan. Mix sour cream, sugar, & eggs in one bowl; mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, & nutmeg in another. Stir these two mixes together, & add nuts &/or dried fruit. Pour into pan & bake 30 min. Cool on wire rack for 10 min in pan.
For Glaze: combine 2 cups cider, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice in a large skillet. Bring to a boil and cook until cider is reduced to about 1/2 cup. Stir in 1 tbsp butter. Set glaze aside.
This is the cake pre-frosting. Again, SO TASTY. It's pretty appleicious even before the frosting is added, but with it it tastes like full-on apple pie. I am always down with apple pie.
Bonus picture: this gives you an idea of how hilariously tiny my kitchen is. I live in an old duplex from 1910, and so the cupboards/pantry and sink are in one room (I stood in the doorway to take this photo), while the washer, dryer, stove, and fridge and lumped together in another. I can't really even open the stove door all the way, because it will hit the washer! Good times. :)
I did manage to drag my ass out of bed and go to the store, since I needed flour. I had sour cream, apples, applesauce, and apple cider in the freezer, and damnit that calls for baking! I felt a wee bit of trepidation, though, because this was my first attempt at freezing and reusing sour cream. Dairy and I have a love-hate relationship in general: I love it, but it hates me (damn lactose). Furthermore I never seem to use it up fast enough; hence I keep a lot of powdered milk in the pantry. Recently, though, I learned that most forms of milk and cheese freeze quite well, so long as you give them time to defrost slowly in the fridge.
But sour cream? Aint no way that’s going to keep it’s texture after thawing out! Still, I had a good cup leftover from the holidays that I couldn’t bear to throw away, and a quick google search confirmed that though it would be more like tiny-curd cottage cheese, it would be fine for baking purposes. So we experimented.
The recipe I used is one from a 70’s era cookbook belonging to my mom (I think Betty Crocker, but don’t quote me). I’ve had a lot of success with it in the past, so I was pretty confident experimenting with it. In addition to the defrosted sour cream, I tried using applesauce and baking soda instead of eggs. I know for a fact that I didn’t add enough baking soda (which I adjusted in the recipe below). It turned out denser than I remembered - far more like a banana bread than cake - but OH SWEET JESUS it’s tasty! I just wish I wasn’t sick, so I’d actually be hungry for more. :/
Other cooking adventures: I found a recipe for an apple cider glaze that looked good, but I added the butter right at the beginning instead of after the cider had been reduced! I blame the cold, I’ve made enough icing in my day to know that you never do that. The plus side is that the glaze now has a nice, browned-butter aroma to it. The down side is that it didn’t thicken up like it was supposed to. I added some more butter, I added some powdered sugar, hell I even through in from bran to thicken it up! It tastes good, but I fucked up. Still, I’m including the original glaze recipe since there was nothing wrong with it, it would have worked otherwise.
Sour Cream Apple Spice Cake with Apple Cider Glaze
Ingredients:
1 cup sour cream (reduced fat)
1 cup sugar (I used brown sugar for this, but white’s fine)
2 eggs lightly beaten OR 1/2 cup applesauce + 1 tsp baking soda
1.5 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup chopped nuts (optional. I used walnuts in this one)
1/2 cup dried fruit such as apricots or raisins (optional. I used a defrosted frozen apple.)
Directions: Preheat to 350 F. Grease 8x8 baking pan. Mix sour cream, sugar, & eggs in one bowl; mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, cloves, & nutmeg in another. Stir these two mixes together, & add nuts &/or dried fruit. Pour into pan & bake 30 min. Cool on wire rack for 10 min in pan.
For Glaze: combine 2 cups cider, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tbsp lemon juice in a large skillet. Bring to a boil and cook until cider is reduced to about 1/2 cup. Stir in 1 tbsp butter. Set glaze aside.
This is the cake pre-frosting. Again, SO TASTY. It's pretty appleicious even before the frosting is added, but with it it tastes like full-on apple pie. I am always down with apple pie.
Bonus picture: this gives you an idea of how hilariously tiny my kitchen is. I live in an old duplex from 1910, and so the cupboards/pantry and sink are in one room (I stood in the doorway to take this photo), while the washer, dryer, stove, and fridge and lumped together in another. I can't really even open the stove door all the way, because it will hit the washer! Good times. :)