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Pistachio Cake with Orange Cream Icing December 5, 2003
Stephanie Ashcraft's mother taught her "that anything could
be made with a cake mix." It does seem to be true. This
tiny, easy-to-read cookbook has recipes for everything from
Chocolate Chip Cookies to Peppermint Cake. Stephanie teaches a
cooking class entitled "101 Things to Do with a cake
Mix" for Macey's Little Cooking Theatre in Provo and Orem,
Utah.
There are a few helpful hints on page 9 that teach you a few
tricks about baking cakes, making chewier cookies and keeping
fruit fresh. I've never used glass or stoneware baking dishes
for cakes, so that is a new idea for me. I've been buying my
cake pans from "Jane's Cakes & Chocolates." The
results were rather stunning when I used the pans she sells.
What amazes me about this cookbook is the sheer simplicity of
the recipes and the absolute beauty of the results. Some of the
recipes you might enjoy:
White-Chocolate Fudge Bars
Easy Snicker Doodles
Lemon-Lime Refrigerator Cake
Apple-Spice Cake
Valentine Love Cake (strawberry juice soaks into the cake)
Orange-Pumpkin Cake
Oatmeal-Raisin Muffins
Easy Ice Cream Sandwiches
It was quite by accident that I tried the recipe on
"page 101" and took the cake to our Thanksgiving
party. The recipe was for Pistachio Pound Cake and it turned out
to be "Moist, chocolaty, pistachio, dream cake." My
relatives were impressed. It is not every day that I try a new
recipe and then bravely take the cake to a party, but this book
looked like a winner. The ingredients are little more than a
white cake mix and pistachio instant pudding. In fact, I made
this so fast, I thought for sure I'd missed a few steps.
Well, there are really only three steps and 8 ingredients. It
is the easiest cake I've ever made and the instant pudding and
chocolate syrup take vanilla cake to new heights. Already my
husband has asked me to make this cake again and I'm planning on
making it and shipping it to friends and relatives.
While the cake is a pound cake, there is no reason why you
can't make a orange cream icing by mixing two cups of
confectioners' sugar with a little orange juice and cream until
it is a smooth consistency. Then, pour over the top of the cake.
A few sprinkles of orange zest and off to the party you go. I
think this cake will ship very well and plan to try to ship it
out to my homemade-cake-deprived friends. No, I'm not telling
them this is made from a box mix!
All I have left to say is, you will get requests for the
cakes in this book. I look forward to trying more of the recipes
as soon as I can get to the store to buy more cake mixes and
instant puddings.
LOVE the binding on this book as it allows the pages to lay
flat. This should be a "must" for all cookbooks.
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