Birthday Archives - 10 Cents of Dates

We are deep in the middle of birthday season at our house. Entrenched in what feels like constant present buying, cake making, perfect day planning. We have a great many discussions about who wants what to eat, to play with, to do. I can meet some of the requests like Shrimp and Olive Pie, even if I have to make it up. The request for “chocolate cake with pink frosting” was a no-brainer. I immediately found the cookbook I had made for grandma with her mom’s recipe box and turned to the cake and frosting section. It was time to get serious.

There were multiple recipes for Devils Food cake. I chose the one that looked like it made the most cake because I had visions of a layered cake with some sort of fluffy pink frosting. Because it was a special occasion I got out my cocoa powder from Penzey’s. It was one that I had gotten free with another purchase. It was perfect in this cake.

There is a difference between homemade cakes and cakes from a box mix. Making a cake isn’t a terribly difficult to do. But you do have to have a basic understanding of the science before you can look at a recipe like the one I had. First, in order to make a cake, you have to figure out how to create the lift. There are, of course, the normal leavening ingredients, baking soda and baking powder, especially combined with an acid like buttermilk. But it needs more fluff. Creaming the butter and sugar creates volume. Whipping the egg whites to soft or stiff peaks and folding those into the batter adds more air. Air=lift.

This cake is a very nice chocolate cake. A little dry in texture, but you know that you’ve eaten cake by the time you are done with a piece. It cries out for a thick creamy frosting to balance it out. This is not a glaze and go sort of cake. It’s not a cake that you could just sprinkle powdered sugar on and be content. It would hold up to soaking syrups, jam between layers, or really anything that you wanted to do to it. In this case, what I wanted to do was marshmallow frosting.

My inheritance from Great-Grandma included 3 recipes for marshmallow frosting. I chose the one that did not require melting marshmallows because I didn’t feel like figuring out how many small marshmallows equals one big marshmallow. I’m sure there is a conversion table on the web somewhere…

I am not sure that I’d ever had marshmallow frosting before. Perhaps I did as a young child, but I don’t remember. And this isn’t a choice that you get from bakeries. You probably see it more frequently at cupcakeries, but most bakeries will offer you a choice of whipped cream frosting or buttercream and that’s a shame. Marshmallow frosting is transformative. It’s life changing. It’s sweet and fluffy and a little spongy from the gelatin. It holds its shape and can be swirled and streaked. Marshmallow frosting makes it look magazine perfect (if I’m not the one decorating it because I’m just not that good). Because the recipe said I could “flavor as you wish”, I decided to flavor it using some homemade strawberry jam since it needed to be pink. I stand by this decision. Ooey, gooey, subtly strawberry pink fluff. On top of chocolate cake. In between layers of chocolate cake.

You know those Sno Balls made by Hostess? The ones that you may pick up on a road trip when you are craving something overly sweet? The ones that come in packages of two and are vaguely neon-colored? Cream filled, coconut covered balls of chocolate cake and marshmallow fluff? This is the most grown up, best tasting version of that (minus the coconut). It’s also the version where you can control the quality of the ingredients.

This is important. Good ingredients well prepared makes good food.

All in all, the princess declared her cake delicious. Between that and learning to rollerskate, I think she had a perfect birthday.

The Recipes:

Devils Food Cake

2 cup sugar                            1/2 cup shortening
2 egg yolks                              1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup water                         1 tsp soda
2/3 cup sour milk                   2 cup flour
2 egg whites stiffly beaten     1 tsp vanilla

Icings
Marshmallow Icings

1/2 envelope Knox Gelatin
1 cup granulated sugar, Boil sugar with 5 TB of cold water until it threads well.
Dissolve the gelatin in 5 TB of cold water and let set while syrup is cooking.
Pour boiled mixture while hot into gelatin stir gently and let set until lukewarm.
Flavor to suit taste and beat until stiff.

You asked for it and here it is.

While eating dinner the other night, we a

sked the kids what they would like to eat for their birthdays. This year, I intended to make them whatever they wanted instead of going out for it. We discussed the merits of this favorite dish and that one. My oldest mentioned having a pie birthday. Nothing but different types of pie all day long. Including chicken pot pie, apple pie, and pizza pie. My middle wanted red beans and rice. The youngest’s favorite foods are shrimp and olives, but she thought having pie seemed like a really good idea, so jokingly I suggested she have shrimp and olive pie.

I should’ve realized that she was going to latch onto the idea and not let it go. It’s the sort of girl she is. The problem was that I had never heard of shrimp and olive pie. I threw those exact words into Google, hoping there would be a brilliant recipe. There wasn’t. I asked some friends and relatives and mostly got “ew” as an answer with a few helpful suggestions. It was edging nearer and nearer to the date and I still hadn’t had a brilliant inspiring flash as to how this was going to work. Even more so, My oldest declared he hated shrimp, the middle and my husband hate olives, but I don’t cook more than one meal. I just don’t do that.

The day was getting closer and I still had no idea what I was going to do.

One day, while in the shower, washing my hair, I had the brilliant realization that Mediterranean cuisine had to include shrimp and olives. Right? I consulted my Mediterranean cookbook for confirmation of recipes that used both shrimp and olives. I found nothing, but I found fish recipes that used olives. Seafood is seafood, right? At least now I had an idea.

I imagined it in a tomato based sauce, except I didn’t think the kids would appreciate that. Time to re-evaluate.

I got stuck on the idea of a potpie and found a recipe in Great-Grandma’s book for Never Fail Pie Crust. It sounded like what I need because I can make pie crust that tastes delicious, but I always have trouble rolling it out. Every pie I make has a patchwork crust.

I made the Never-Fail pie crust. It was easy. I divided it into 4 pieces and threw them in the fridge. It wasn’t going to win me points on the Great British Baking show, but it seemed to be a pretty decent pie crust. It was malleable, had a decent texture, you know, the stuff you look for in a pie crust. I could immediately tell that it would be much easier to roll out than other pie crust. As long as I floured my counter and rolling pin properly, it didn’t seem like this was going to be a terrible mess.

With the pie crust made, I was just down to figuring out the filling.

I started by sauteing some onions because onions go into these sorts of things. Right? As they were cooking, I contemplated the contents of my fridge and freezer.

I found a bag of frozen vegetables from Trader Joe’s. Misto Alla Griglia. It’s a mixture of marinated and grilled eggplant, red peppers, and zucchini. I had been contemplating just putting some random herbs from the garden into the pie, but this made it much easier. I chopped the veggies up into bitty pieces and threw them in with the onions. When the mixture was warm and the onions were tender, I threw in some flour and stirred. I added a generous splash or 6 of white wine, a bit more butter.

It was at this point I realized that I hadn’t added the olives yet. I was wondering if it was a good idea to just chop them up and add them to the crust, but the birthday girl would not recognize them as olives, so I threw big pieces into the sauce with the rest of the ingredients.

To make everything creamy, I added some milk. After that, I added the shrimp and threw it the mixture into the pie crust and added the top crust after rolling out with some Romano cheese (inspired by Beverly Goldberg’s Shrimp Parm) and baked until it looked done. About 45 minutes.

Because this was all done on the fly, I don’t have an exact recipe for anything except the pie crust. I just added things until it was right.

The question is then, is this good? Should I try this at home? Yes, please do. I was the only one that ate leftovers. The crust didn’t microwave well, but as a concept this worked out really well. Despite everyone claiming to dislike one or more of the ingredients in the dish, everyone ate it without complaining. I could easily see it made more like any British fish pie recipe with some peas and thyme. I recommend not using pre-cooked shrimp because it overcooks during the length of time it needs to be in the oven.

The Recipe:

Never Fail Pie Crust

Mix together in a large bowl:
4 cups flour
1 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 T sugar
1 1/2 cup lard or shortening

Mix well, then add:
1 beaten egg
1/4 cup of cold water
1 T vinegar

Blend well, roll out. Makes 4 single crusts or 2 double crusts. Keeps 2 weeks in refrigerator.

For other great pie recipes, check out Breakfast Pie, Apple and Pecan Pie, and Pumpkin Pie.

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Tag: Birthday

Devils Food Cake with Marshmallow Frosting

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Birthday Edition: Shrimp and Olive Pie

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