Animal Wednesday - Yeast!

I know that yeast is not really an "animal" but in my book it's worthy of a post. I have spent my evening tending yeast - not an easy chore, but an interesting one. Now I look at this circle painting differently, it's bunch's and colonies of different yeasts.

Another potential yeast drawing - this is fun - reinterpreting artwork!


Here is the story.

Shown below is one of the recipes that I brought back from Florida last week, it's for Grandma's famous Yeast Cake - one that the whole family drools about. No one has tried to make it in years and if you look at the recipe closely you can see why. What is a "glass" of water? What is "1/2 glass" of sour cream. My mom's generation cooked casseroles of string beans and fried onions with a sauce of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. The recipe shown below requires too much thought, too much measuring and feel. It calls for handmade, and hand mixing, lot's of mess around the kitchen and just plain too much work.

But I always loved doing things the old fashioned way. At least trying it once in a while when time is on my side. So when I got these recipes I wanted to plow thru a few of them and I decided to start with this one.

First I decided that a "glass" was 1 cup; then decided it was 2 cups (about). As I was putting the ingredients together, it just felt right to use 2 cups; so I went with that. The directions were awful, but fun. Basically the recipe says "here are the things you should put into this cake, and you can figure out the rest". So I did. I mixed and added more flour until it felt like a cake that should be kneaded. ( I do remember that Grandma would call one of her son in laws or son to come up to the apartment to knead this cake - they were stronger than she was)

Here is a picture of the cake just before being set aside to rise.



It rose beautifully, filling the bowl and pushing up the protective plastic I had wrapped it in.



Then the recipe called for "walnuts - ground up" and "2 cups of washed, drained raisins" mixed with sugar and cinnamon.




How many walnuts Grandma? No answer from above, so I just used the same amount as the raisins - and there was alot of filling for this cake. Note Great-Grandma's rolling pin. Solid maple. Probably from when she was first married in 1898!




I have to admit that I did not use anything like "Splenda" in this cake, and there is about 3/4 lb of butter - between the batter, and cutting up pieces of butter while you roll out the cake, and drizzling melted butter across the top. Of course it's good - the ingredients alone will do you in - all butter and sour cream. Yum.


It made a hell of a cresent shaped thing - very organic and heavy and fluid looking. I don't know if I was supposed to make two cakes from this recipe or just one. I went with one this time but I think it's going to be the mother of all cresent shaped cakes when it comes out of the oven.



It's in the oven now..... all yeasty and sweet smelling.


Next unknown - how long to bake the monster. It's been in there for about 45 mins and the top is getting pretty brown, but I want to make sure that it's cooked all the way thru. So I'm giving it another few minutes then I'll do the first cut to see if it's done inside...or raw.



I'll let you know tomorrow how it tastes - but whether it's the perfect cake or not - it was fun, and a challenge and I already know what I'll do differently next time.

So HAW to all you animal and cake lovers!!!