How to bake a cake..........

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mixfinder

You can tell a lot from a photograph. Your mother looks like a wonderful person. Take comfort in that fact she is still here and that you are able to be with both of your parents. I lost my dad several years ago, then I came home from work one day and found my 45 year old partner of 20 years dead, and he was not ill at all. A few months ago I held my mom's hand for many hours while she quietly passed away. Things aren't the same and they never will be. My dog Molly makes things better.

Your food photos are really great. There are many good cooks but it takes a real expert to bake all those cakes and rolls and have nothing burned. All those mixers! Are they yours or did you have a "bake-in" where everyone brought their own KitchenAid?
 
Amazing Grace

My dad was a mean father. Mom always ran interference and tried so hard to make sure there was time for us to have fun. We all have a great relationship with her, but as her gay son, I hold the trump card. I spent lots of time with my grandparents and as the gay grandson; I held the trump card for grandma, listening to her stories (she came to America from Holland)by the hour. It helps to visit with mom because I know names, roads, dates, and stories of all the people my mom went to school with as well as the ins and outs of the relatives.

Bought the Pink stuff cheap and resold it. Could have sold 20 of each.
My mom was still trying to soothe my dad after 58 years of marriage. When mom began to tip, she went to a place where she absolutely knows no stress. The first time in her life she could relax and let go. My entire life I did everything I could physically, materially and emotionally do to help mom's life become easier. I knew when she went to her new space, our relationship was cemented. She fundamentally knows I love her and I can assure her enough to get her to do or go just about anywhere or place its needed. Mom is very funny, still quick with wit, but now she cannot recall the last sentence you have just said to be able to answer in context. Its killing my dad whose every wish is to die first so he won't be alone. He neither reads nor writes and even in their business transaction mom would coach and prompt dad in such a way he got the gist of things and his ignorance was not revealed. This man cannot look up a phone number.

Shifting gears, I attach a note I sent to another member who asked the same questions.

Its been to fun to post and my life is hard to explain. I was 13 when I began buying, trading, finding and playing with appliances both large and small. The number of appliances I've had likely tops 5,000. In 2002, the year I retired, my wife wanted to move to Seattle. We left a small ranch, three story house, barn, animals, full basement and moved into a 2 bedroom 1,200 sq ft condo. All the collections and the stable of appliance were sold or gifted. (My cousin came to visit and asked why all my stuff was. I told her I had gotten rid of it all. She looked at me and said, "So you let her make you get rid of it all and now this is it, life in a box and then you die?" I replaced the condo appliances with new GE and it was then I made the shift from all Sunbeam counter top appliances to Kitchenaid. In 2004, I left my wife and for the first time since I was 19, I had my own place. I moved to an apartment with all GE and then a few months after moved into a condo on trendy Capitol Hill, whose kitchen wall I painted red which you see in some of the pictures. There I had all Maytag appliances. That kitchen shows some of the counter top appliances and the appliances were white. In 2006, when I was beginning chemo, I moved to much less expensive apartment in a small town near SeaTac airport. In this kitchen I first had almond Whirlpool appliances. I swapped to white Frigidaire and a Kitchenaid dishwasher. My Amana freezer on the bottom quit. I switched to all GE TOL kitchen appliances that Peter's neighbor gave me in a remodel. I have had a white, gray, red and copper Kitchenaid 620 as well as 100 or so other Kitchenaids that I find refurb and give to friends who want one. I bring home anything appliances and cookware, vacuums (elux and Hoover) etc that are too good to pass up. When I first arrived here all the counter top appliances were white. Kitchenaid did a warrantee exchange and I ended up with a black coffee maker so I have slowly swapped out the white for black. In my laundry room in the basement, I have a matching 1992 TOL Maytag set plus two vintage Maytags. I also have a very cool Frigidaire retro range I must take pictures of. Currently the GE products are far superior to anything I have ever owned or cooked with. I doubt I will ever go back to a total retro but will always have some on the side. The kitchen in Burien first had white walls and then I painted a metallic silver blue.

I bought the pink set off craigs in Decemeber. I relisted them and could have 20.

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Fudge Recipe

Kelly, thank you for sharing your recipe. I need to take the time to start photographing my creations and posting them here. People have been asking me to take pictures for years, to make for myself a portfolio of my creations. I have a digital camera and scanner and going learn how to stretch my computer skills a bit. You all make it look easy. This is my first attempt to attach a scanned image.

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Looks Easy

Trust me it has be easy. Everything I know about computers can be printed on the head of a pin with a felt tip marker. I use Microssoft Office Picture Manager and its very easy. Robert has done an excellent job of making the system user friendly. On the Kitchanid forum its required to use photobucket to upload any images. Its cumbersome and slow. I like Robert's way a lot better.

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Kelly, Bless your mother and bless you for taking such good care of her. My mother used REX lard in the red box for everything. Frying, baking etc. She also saved bacon grease to fry pork chops and chicken fried steak. She was a wonderful cook and baker. Your rolls and cakes above made me think of her. Tuesdays was ironing and baking day. She got up early boiled a potato and started her bread. By 3PM I would walk in from school and she would have 24 rolls two loaves of bread and a pan of cinnamon rolls hot out of the oven. Sometimes a cake or pie. Ironing would be done and dinner going. She was bareley 5 feet tall and 98 lbs. She told my wife and I years ago (1974 or so) when she came to our house and saw crisco and imperial margarine to get rid of it. That stuff will kill you she said. Being a RN she probably had insght none of us had. We were all told how good hydrogenated fats were for us. At that time none of knew that my dads side of the family had a genetic traight to heart disease and moms side to cancer. Unfortunatly before she taught me all of the tricks to her cooking and baking at 56 she passed away. She always said one of these days. Those days slip by much too fast. My wife and I are so grateful for what she did teach us and have passed down to our son and his wife. My sons friends are amazed at what he can whip up. He likes to experiment more than I do. Your stories, recipes and help with the know how has brought back some great memories. Here is a Hershey Cocoa Cake recipe. It is easy and great for picnic or camping. Thanks Dano - Bendix 5

Hershey Cocoa Cake

¾ Cup Butter
1 ¾ cup sugar
2 Eggs
1 Tsp Vanilla
2 Cups unsifted flour
¾ Cup Hershey Cocoa
1 ¼ Tsp Baking Soda
½ Tsp Salt
1 1/3 Cups Water

While creaming butter and sugar combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in separate bowl Stir together

Cream butter and sugar -- add eggs and vanilla and beat 1 minute at med speed
Add dry mix alternating with water to creamed mixture. Bake 350 degrees, 40 minutes in tube pan. Ice with favorite butter cream frosting. This cake is dense and so good.
 
How to bake a cake

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Vapid Menance with the big lower jaw

My granddaughter Audrey loves this show. There is a German or Aryan red haired gymnast who drives a dirigible and is the good example for the kids and community. The villain has slicked back hair, giant teeth and a lower jaw you could park a 747 on. His every characteristic is gay, swishy, underhanded and cowardly. That said, it hasn't caused my grandkids to be fearful of me!

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Kelly,

Amazing Grace indeed. Bless you on taking on this challenge of taking care of your mother. Also, I very sorry Kelly for your situation. It will be six years this October since my mom's passing and I miss her every day. Just when I think things were bad when I was growing up in such an abusive home, Lord and behold, I see other people like you who probably had it worse than me. My mom wasn't one to indulge in anything fancy, just a simple women. However, all she ever wanted was a simple gold wedding band to replace the wedding set that my stepfather gave her some 40+ years ago. My mom developed major rheumatoid arthritis after age 50 which damaged her joints in her hands making her unable to wear her old set. After asking my Dad for a simple wedding band year after year, I finally purchased a white gold band for her one Christmas many years ago after I beginning making a better wage. I will never forget the sick, pissed off, sulked looked on my Dad's face when my mom opened up her gift. He never, ever made any comments on that ring to her or to anyone. My brother and I also had to purchase our mom a water heater (yes, I said water heater), her first automatic washer/dryer, and a portable dishwasher. Things that should have been bought through our Dad. But NO! I swear if I didn't knew better, I believed he was jealous of my brothers and I. This man never went to any of our graduations from high school or college or any of my brothers' weddings. But my mom was always there as well to pick up and calm away any bad feelings that were there. But on a lighter note now, I have a similar Sunbean Mixmaster mixer that was my mother back in the 70s' with the clear glass bowls and a dough hook that wasn't quite efficient in mixing dough. There is nothing like having a KitchenAid Mixer to do major dough jobs and especially the help of the spread of cakes and breads you have on that stove!
 
Chocolate Depression Cake

I meant to post this recipe right after I started this thread but I forgot...sorry.

Anyway, my Mom passed this recipe to me years ago and she got it from my Dads Mom. They always called it depression cake because it had no eggs in it and was cheaper to make back during the depression.

The batter is very thin - actually its runny.

But, this is the recipe that "humps up" in the middle on me.

3 cups of all purpose flour
2 cups of sugar
3/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup room temp water
1 cup cooled strong coffee
2/3 cup crisco oil
2 tsp vanilla

Put everything into a large bowl and mix well.
You can actually use a large spoon to mix this with.
You don't have to beat it to death.
Pour the batter into 2 prepared 9" round cake pans and bake
for about 30 - 35 mins in a 350 degree oven.
Excellent with choc butter cream frosting.
 
Butch thanks!! Anyone who needs to watch cholesterol, take note with no eggs!!! Also, anyone allergic to eggs (deathly allergic--have friends with children who are).
 
Depression

Oh My Gosh! Bruce are you telling me you cured humped cakes by baking one that has a depression?
 
Not a bad idea......

If one layer had a depression and the other layer had a hump then they'd fit together and you wouldnt have to worry about
the top layer sliding off.
You guys are SO smart !

LOL
 
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