Yum - Jam Cake

What’s that? A cake with Jam in it you say!

 

By

Neil Waring

Revered Wyoming Chef, outdoor cooking expert, admired woodsmen and honored citizen.

I do not often post recipes for baked goods, I am a BBQ and smoker type of guy, but today am making an exception. This one is old school, really old school, could have been made by my great-grandmother back in the 1870s. A Jam Cake and you saw it here first, well maybe not, since it has been around forever. Wow a cake made with Jam, bet you can hardly wait for this one. Lots of calories, but great taste, so many calories maybe the previous sentence should have said, “Bet you can hardly weight for this one. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

It’s not even hard to make, letting this old cowboy cooker make it in only about, well forget that, it is easy to make, but not quick, no sir, not quick at all.

 Here is what you need

Ø  1 1/2 cup butter  (You can use margarine but they didn’t have it in the old days)

Ø  2 cups sugar

Ø  6 eggs

Ø  3 1/2 cups flour – double sifted (Today you can use cake flour if you have it)

Ø  2 teaspoons baking soda (Baking soda, not drinking soda, no Pepsi in this cake)

Ø  2 teaspoons ground allspice

Ø  2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Ø  6 tablespoons buttermilk (Or make your own with milk and a bit of vinegar)

Ø  2 cups raspberry or strawberry jam (I used raspberries as we have a great and productive patch out back, hey we also have strawberries out back, still producing. Trouble is I eat them as I pick, they never)

Put It Together

Ø  Stir-up soft butter. Add sugar, not too fast, I like to pour it in all at the same time but it doesn’t work to well here. Keep stirring and beating until creamy. Toss in the eggs. Then add, slowly stirring the already mixed up dry stuff. Forgot to tell you to mix up dry stuff up above. As you are doing this keep adding the buttermilk. Do this all very slowly, it took me 15 minutes to get it right. When you have it all mixed add the jam, I used frozen berries instead. Thaw them in fridge overnight then add. I chop them up soom first so the pieces will not be too large.

Ø 
  Pour into paper cupcake holders
 

Ø  Bake at 350-375 about 15 min – or until they look done to you.

Ø  These are great with your favorite muffin or cupcake frosting

Note to You Bakers

There is a secret to these little cakes. Age them some – don’t eat it until tomorrow or the next day. I did eat one as soon as it was cool. Okay two – three.

Gratuitous sunset photo from my favorite place, Guernsey State Park, Guernsey, Wyoming.

Cowboys, Chocolate and Corn on the Cob

Two old Wyoming Cowboys were sitting around the bunkhouse on a lazy Sunday afternoon. After a couple of hours they tired of talking about the weather, politics and sports and the conversation drifted to cooking.

   The first guy said, "I bought a cookbook once but I could never

do anything with it."

 

  "Too much fancy stuff in it, eh?” asked the other.

 

  "You said it", the first guy replied.  "Every one of the

recipes began the same way, 'take a clean dish'..."

  

A  Sunday food riddle - What food do you, Peal off the outside, Cook the inside, eat the outside, And throw away the inside? Answer below:

 

 Corn on the cob

Did You Know? Chocolate has always been included on every American and Russian space flights

Sour Dough Starter

By revered Wyoming chief, outdoorsman, historian, writer and all-around good guy.
Neil Waring

Easy to find sour dough recipes, especially on the western sites I frequent. Here is a good Old Time Sour Dough Starter recipe.

2 cups flour

2tbsp. sugar

1 tbsp. salt

1 ½ cups water

1 tbsp. vinegar

Mix up all the white stuff in a good stone crock. Pour in the water and mix-er-up

When is pretty well smoothed out pour in the sour stuff – the vinegar.

Cover with a dish towel or if you have it the new-fangled cheese cloth.

Set in a warm place, on the stove or fridge works well. It will sour in 8 to 12 hours, I like to leave it for 12. You will know when it is ready because you will smell the yeast.

There you have it Sour Dough Starter

After using add more water and flour  (at a ratio of about a cup to a cup)and it should last, if refrigerated, for years

Sourdough has also been called Chuck wagon bread, Cellar biscuits, Yeast dough, Forever dough and even Magic dough

SOUR DOUGH BISCUITS

1 1/2 c. sifted flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 c. softened butter
1 cup of your good ol’ starter

Stir dry ingredients together - add butter, then add starter and mix. Roll dough 1/2" thick, cut  

Let rise about an hour  bake hot about 425 degrees for 20 minutes.

Should make about a dozen, unless you cut them real big

SOUR DOUGH HOT CAKES

1 cup starter
2 cup flour
2 cup milk
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
3 tbsp. melted shortening
2 tbsp. sugar
2 eggs

About 12 hours before serving hot cakes, mix starter, flour, milk and salt

Makes about 30 nice small cakes

 Enjoy!

Cowboy Potatoes

Cowboy Potatoes

This recipe is a takeoff of the old time Sheppard’s Pie, but no self respecting Cowboy would ever eat something named after a sheep herder-So here it is Cowboy Potatoes, could have named it something more like Sheppard’s Pie but somehow Cow Pie just didn’t have the right ring to it.

4 - 6 Slices of bacon

One cup bacon bits

One good sized onion sliced and chopped

A couple 2 or 3 pounds of taters (6 or 8 big ones)

 One cup of frozen corn - more if you have a taste for it

Salt and Pepper to taste (I don’t like much salt as the bacon takes care of the need for salt)

Paprika to taste

Brown up the bacon, but do not cook fully – save for the oven

Leave the bacon grease in the skillet (you will need the big old black one today)

Fry Potatoes and onions in bacon grease-when the potatoes have stated to soften remove from burner and stir in frozen corn and the bacon bits.

Place in oven for 20-25 minutes or until the corn is hot, soft, and yummy.

*If it is warm enough to grill you can mix everything together, wrap in foil and put on the upper rack of the grill. Let it cook while you are grilling; just remember it needs some closed lid time to cook through.

You can experiment with other stuff in this also- we add chopped carrots, pretty good and if you like some color a little parsley sure looks fine.

Happy Cookin’

*In no way does this fit any kind of heart friendly diet!

For my tongue in cheek look at a heart healthy cowboy diet click here

http://crazy-cooking.blogspot.com/2007/11/original-heart-healthy-cowboy-diet.html