[Mike Nolan]

I've made it in a 10 x 10 pan several times. I make a half-recipe of batter but a full recipe of frosting.
If you made it in a 9x9 pan it'd be a bit thicker, but I think that'd be OK.

I use this recipe: Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake but with a few modifications:

1. I dust the greased cake pan with cocoa powder rather than flour.
2. I use 4 tablespoons of cocoa powder instead of 3 in the frosting.
3. I use more buttermilk in the frosting than it calls for (needed because of the extra cocoa powder.)
4. I make sure the butter/cocoa/buttermilk mixture for the frosting gets boiled for a minute or so. (The butter will separate a bit and the buttermilk might curdle, don't worry about it.)
5. I keep the frosting on low/simmer while mixing in the powdered sugar and until it's ready to pour on the warm cake. This also ensure that it doesn't cool down before I can pour it on the cake.
6. The cake should be quite warm when your pour the warm frosting on it, probably in the 140F to 150F range if tested with an infrared thermometer (my constant companion in the kitchen.)

I have made this cake using a gluten-free flour and although I could tell the difference, both were good. (The frosting's the real star, IMHO.) I add a little xanthan gum, because I'm never sure how much there is in a GF flour.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.

[Mike Nolan]

I don't think there's a way in WordPress for members to delete their logins, so I suggest you just not worry about it. We all hope she gets better enough to be able to get back online.

[Mike Nolan]

Considering I've had a 40 year career in designing and building computerized information storage and retrieval systems, I prefer to keep my recipes on paper.

What I've learned from building this site is that the hard part about storing recipes on a computer is an indexing and searching system that makes it easy to find the specific recipe you're looking for. With nearly 1600 recipes uploaded here in our first two months, finding a given recipe is sometimes a bit challenging.

I wouldn't say either my site or Zen's is thriving, but between the two of them we do seem to be keeping at least a portion of the KAF BC community together. I need to spend more time promoting this site and building traffic, both things I hope to be able to spend more time on after I retire around the end of the year.

[Mike Nolan]

I was at a grocery store here in Lincoln NE that I don't normally shop at today, and they have White Lily AP flour. I haven't seen that outside of the South before, I wonder if they're expanding their market?

[Mike Nolan]

I tried a new recipe for tilapia with capers and parsley, it was disappointing.

We've been eating a lot of fish lately, I usually have salmon poached in butter and my wife has orange roughy in lemon-butter sauce. But we've got a big bag of frozen tilapia to use up, too. Tilapia is often done blackened, covered with a fruit compote or breaded, but I'm trying to avoid adding carbs.

[Mike Nolan]

I definitely shop based on what's on sale where. Fortunately, I have two of the major regional grocery chains plus a WalMart nearby with a Sams a bit further away.

I find WalMart almost never has the low price on either butter or eggs, and they don't tend to go on sale there, either. Butter was $2.99 the other day at HyVee, but it was $1.99 on sale a couple of weeks ago, and this week they had eggs on sale.

[Mike Nolan]

I didn't see Cass's comments about bleached flour in the cake/kate flour thread. I remember him talking about recipes that have fat in them, like cookies.

[Mike Nolan]

Almost any bread makes a good French toast! I've even seen it made with a chocolate zucchini bread.

[Mike Nolan]

Check the expiration date carefully. The problem I have with buying foodstuffs from BigLots is that they buy surplus inventory from other companies, so it may be towards the end of its shelf life. You also don't know how it has been handled. (Of course you don't really know that with stuff you buy at the grocery store, either.)

I've used Hudson Cream unbleached flour, it's a decent patent flour. I've not used their bleached flour, but I don't use a lot of bleached flour anyway.

Did someone save Cass's thread on when to use unbleached flour?

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by Mike Nolan.

[Mike Nolan]

Thanks again for your efforts, and safe travels.

We should try to get David Lee's biscuit recipe in the recipes area here, it was never in the 'recipes' section on the KAF BC. It was in a thread that I think Sarah Wirth has.

[Mike Nolan]

I made 3 loaves of Vienna bread. 2 are in the freezer, I figure this will probably last me another 2-3 weeks.

[Mike Nolan]

If the dough wasn't sticky when you went to shape it, I'm guessing you'll be fine. When I make raisin bread I don't always soak the raisins but if I do, then I prefer to put them on a paper towel and blot them dry. I still sometimes get some sloshing around in the bottom of the bowl, which is why I generally don't add the raisins to the bowl. I pat the bread into a square on a lightly floured work surface, put the raisins on, and twist and knead it until the raisins are fairly evenly distributed in the dough.

[Mike Nolan]

Looking at the Cubano recipe, I see what looks like 2 attachments that may be identical, with one of them apparently 'inserted' into the text.

However, attachments ALWAYS go at the bottom of the page, and the attachment bbcode was also at the end of the text. I tried moving it up in the text, and now the graphic appears toward the top.

Otherwise, if you want to have a graphic in the middle or top of the text, you need to use the 'img' bbcode tag, which requires that you have the graphic stored somewhere on the net.

The options available under BBPress aren't always what I'd really want or obvious to use properly, but they'll have to do for now.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.
• This reply was modified 8 years, 9 months ago by htfoot.

[Mike Nolan]

I've always grown chives outside, and once you get them started they're very hardy from year to year, in fact the problem is they spread out and migrate to other areas of the garden. We have a big patch of chives in the front garden that, as far as I know, neither of us put there, we can probably thank the birds for it.

People say basil is self-seeding, I've never had much luck with that. I've had better luck with oregano, we've had a couple patches of it that have come up multiple years, though I'm not sure I've seen it this year (but I haven't specifically looked for it, either.)

[Mike Nolan]

With my wife on a 20 carb diet, cooking here has been greatly simplified, lots of steaks and fish and the occasional roasted chicken or ham steak for proteins, salad or broccoli for a side dish. No potatoes, no bread, no sandwiches, not even burgers.

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