One large layer pan
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 pint heavy sweet cream
1 1/2 cups Presto Flour (baking powder and soda added)
Mix ingredients in order
if using electric mixer do not over beat
bake moderate oven @ 350 degrees
30 minutes
ICING
3 tablespoons Crisco
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg white
2 cups confectionery sugar
3 tablespoons cream or top milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Use pastry bag or folded paper to make designs.
This recipe is over fifty years old and it is funny how times change. I still remember the General Electric display at the 1964 and 1965 New York World's Fair. I was delighted with the revolving circular building that displayed four periods of inventions from the first electric lamps to thoughts of the future.
Modernization! Modern inventions making life easier. I'm sure grandma loved Presto flour and Crisco.
Modernization has encouraged people to trust and believe in the system. A system of fast foods, fast cars and fast video games. A system that moves so fast itself it often forgets the pitfalls and ramifications of health and emotional well being!
Today, 2010, I've learned instant foods, high fructose corn syrup, excessive preservatives and additives might not be the healthiest. I am a vegetarian and mostly shop at our local health food store. I make my cakes with organic pastry flour from the bulk section and try to remember to bring my own recycled bags! Our daughter, also a vegetarian, makes her own granola while her daughter, six-month- old Zora, sits in her highchair, playing with measuring spoons and watches.
What would Zora's great-great-grandmother think watching her family move from the immediate to the simple...simple organic vegetarian ingredients. Homemade granola, homemade baby food, homemade pizza dough.
Michael Pollan, the U.C. Berkeley journalism professor and now food advocate, author of many books, including Food Rules An Eater's Manual also encourages simple. Rule 2 in this book, "Don't eat anything your grandmother wouldn't recognize as food" Rule 6 "Avoid food products that contain more than five ingredients"
NOW... you must be asking what does this have to do with KITCHEN ART?
A sub-theme of KITCHEN ART is simplicity---using simple ingredients with simple instructions to create spectacular results which enrich your family's creativity.
Another sub-theme is sparking your own creativity. Once you become familiar with my projects you will get your own creative juices flowing.
Spending time with my granddaughter and writing this blog have gotten my own ideas again flowing. The empty water bottle partly filled with rice to make an instant rattle is just one idea.
CHAPTER THREE of KITCHEN ART is PAPER BAGS. This chapter is perfect for Halloween. Using paper bags and paper plates you can create a multitude of costumes. You can also make trick-or-treat bags.
Look around your kitchen and your recycled bin. Paper towel tubes, tin cans, lint from the dryer, cupcake holders. Now recycle your brown supermarket bag. Cut two holes for the arms, a hole for the head and glue on your objects. A zombie, a robot or even make a Native American costume or Western Jacket. Cut fringe along the bottom and draw Native American symbols (lightening bolts are good) on the entire bag. To make a vest cut along the center fold from waist to neck and use additional fringed pieces glued to shoulders for extra zest.
A friend in Tarrytown N.Y. turned her entire pre-school class into fire-people using paper bags as the base when they went treat-or-treating to their local firehouse.
So if you need a quick costume open those kitchen cabinets. Red, blue and yellow icing can be painted on cheeks for war paint or stars. Cupcake holders can be used as flowers or added to a clown costume.
And if you want a special treat for those trick-or-treaters make your own candied apples.
Use your imagination...And Happy Halloween!
