Wacky Cake

You know what makes this cake wacky?  No eggs or milk!  So... I guess it's a certified vegan dessert.  (Except the frosting, which originally didn't have butter or milk, but my family added them at some point for taste.)

We've been making Wacky Cake in my family since I can remember, and it's always been the go-to dessert  for every birthday.  My aunt learned it in her childhood from a school friend.  Apparently, Wacky Cake is a  US depression era dessert, when people had to rely more on their pantry non-perishables.  Curiously enough, even though my aunt grew up in Peru, her school friend had US relatives, so I'm pretty certain my Peruvian family has been making an American dessert classic all these years, without knowing it.   I love the idea of recipes being passed through oral tradition, and it goes something like this  Person in US --> Peruvian relative --> daughter --> my aunt -->  my mother  --> me  --> you

This is also a great dessert to make with  your kids, since its a pretty straightforward single bowl concoction.   Babygirl is still too young, and doesn't have the attention span, but she did stir the wooden spoon a few times, and thus did participate.

One of my favorite things growing up was decorating the cake.  I would use Lentejitas (the Peruvian M&Ms) and make all sorts of visual patterns and pictures using the different colors.  Sometimes it was geometric, sometime we'd spell things, but it was always festive.

Cake a la mode

Cake 

Ingredients

• 3 cups of flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cups water
• 2 Tbsp white vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 °F
2. On a large mixing bowl, mix all the sifted dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, cocoa).  Mix with a wooden spoon.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the bowl, in no particular order (oil, water, vinegar, vanilla).  Mix thoroughly with a large wooden spoon as you add each one.  (you don't need to use any electric blenders)
4. Put mixture on a buttered 9" mold, and bake for 50 minutes.  At that point, check with a knife if the cake is made, otherwise, leave inside for 10 - 15 more minutes.  The knife should come out streak free.

Chocolate frosting

Ingredients

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 Tbsp corn starch
• 1 cup milk
• 1 pinch salt
• 2 tbsp salt
• 3 Tbsp butter
• 1 tsp vanilla

Instructions

1. On a small bowl, sift sugar and cocoa.  On a different small cup, mix corn starch into milk
2. Melt butter on a small pan, under low heat
3. Add dry ingredients to butter and mix vigorously with a wooden spoon, and quickly add milk/corn starch mixture.  Add vanilla and salt
4. Keep stirring on low heat for 15 minutes or more until mixture feels thick, yet still liquid.  You do NOT need to see the bottom of the pan when you stir.  This frosting will not have the consistency of store-bought hard frosting
5. While still warm, pour frosting on cake, it should move like a liquid.  After it cools, it will harden.

Toddler Ratings    heart healthy: no, but it's a special occasion dessert, all part of a balanced diet      spicy: no      easy to chew: yes      ease of preparation: simple      reheating: not necessary     food groups : sweets

Banana bread

Hands down, the easiest solution to the dreaded browning-banana problem.  I don't know about you, but we end up with a surplus of bananas in this house.  Mostly because Babygirl loves bananas, and it's our panacea for all food related issues.  In fact, she even takes a banana to preschool every day, just in case she doesn't like the lunch/snack and needs something to eat.  We average one banana per day.  

So why so many extras?  Well, it's simple.  When you know your toddler needs their daily banana, you end up buying a bunch every time you go to the store, and sometimes we buy too many.  Also, I'm discovering that not all bananas are created equal, and some brown much faster than others.  (Mental note: look into why this is, and how to keep bananas fresh longer.)

I'm a fan of single-bowl baking projects, and this bread is as easy as they come. The recipe is pretty low in sugar and fat (considering how bad it could be), and we've liked it as a transitional sweet.  In fact, this was the first "dessert" Babygirl ever tasted, when we had a playgroup goodbye picnic before our last move.

what happens when your toddler attacks a loaf of banana bread

The recipe came from some Internet source, I believe Cooks.com.  Who knows, it's been transcribed to paper, to a shopping list, and then to email, and this is my latest copy of it

Ingredients

• 3 bananas, well mashed
• 1 cup of sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 2 cup flour
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Mash bananas in mixing bowl.  Add sugar, eggs  and oil, making sure to mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon each time
3. Mix dry ingredients together and add to the banana mixture
4. Pour in greased loaf pan and bake for 60 minutes

Toddle ratings: heart healthy: yes     spicy: no     easy to chew: yes, finger food     ease of preparation:very simple     reheating: not necessary, easy     Food groups: carbohydrate, fruit?

Monkey Cake

We made this cake for Babygirl's first birthday party, and it was a smashing success.  See what I did there?  "Smashing", because toddlers smash pastries on their face?  Folks, I'll be here all week.

This is a great dessert because it's tasty, but is also a good "first" cake since it's more banana based and thus lower sugar.  Do you like banana bread?  Then you should like this.  I think I'd been looking forward to making the first birthday cake since we brought Babygirl home from the hospital.  And I'm not even a good baker!  Funny how we fixate on certain things

In the end it was pretty straightforward to bake, and the Smitten Kitchen instructions were flawless.  I needed some help with the actual face decorating, since it takes a smooth grip to make straight lines with frosting.  Luckily, Babygirls's uncle (also known as my younger brother) was more than happy to take over the final decorative touches.  He's got nerves of steel.

Monkey cake

Cupcake smash cake

I'm not even going to attempt to transcribe the recipe, since baking can be really complex. And really, it's a science,and you should never (never!) mess with baking ratios.   The link below will take you to the original recipe, and also 3 different ways to approach making the monkey face.  For what it's worth, we did option 2 - two 9" layers for main face, ears made of cupcakes and extra cupcake smash cake.

http://smittenkitchen.com/2010/09/monkey-cake/

Low Fat Blueberry Frozen Yogurt

Babygirl just got diagnosed with her first ear infection, and the doctor prescribed her antibiotics.  Apparently,a antibiotics can wreck havoc on a toddler's digestive system, and we were recommended yogurt to help balance the side effects. Any flavor, and any fat content, so long as it has a live culture.

Ahhh... yogurt.  Unfortunately, Babygirl decided to be a picky eater today and refused the Greek yogurt she usually gobbles up for breakfast.  So what's a creative parent to do?  What's that thing Mary Poppins says?  Just a spoonful of sugar.... right?

We have a single serve ice cream maker that we'd been dying to use.  The system is simple: pre-freeze the bowl for at least 8 hours, place ingredients on bowl, and place lid on it.  The lid comes with special blades that blend the ingredients into ice cream.  Turn contraption on for 6 - 12 minutes.  Enjoy.

This recipe is adapted from Hamilton Beach, the company behind the ice cream maker.  The recipe was originally for the 1.5 quart model, so we had to adjust the quantities.  We also substituted blueberries instead of mixed berries, since Babygirl is a blueberry fan.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cups frozen blueberries, thawed slightly and mashed
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 3/4 cup low fat plain yogurt 
• 1/4 cup half 'n half

Directions

• Mix all ingredients into pre-frozen bowl.  Follow ice cream maker instructions.

Not bad for our first time with the ice cream maker, though we still need to tinker with the recipe a bit.  The flavor was great, but the consistently was too mushy.  This might just be an issue when using yogurt, but we'll experiment with different amounts of half 'n half, and how long to keep blending it.