How to Avoid Baking a Soggy Cake

Everybody has a flop once in awhile

No, this isn’t a recipe for peanut butter coffee cake; this is a story about a beginner trying her hand at baking without a recipe. My dad had a knack for making up recipes in his head, and I do too, but my creations didn’t always turn out the way I had hoped. This is just a word about leaving a cake alone while it is baking, and if you aren’t sure if it is done yet, leave it alone to bake until you are fairly sure it won’t bottom out on you.

I do a lot of baking with Bisquick. It is my fail-safe staple that never goes wrong when I am baking. Well, that isn’t exactly true; I can never say never. One afternoon I was making a peanut butter coffee cake. I expected it to turn out beautiful. It would have, if I had not opened the oven door.

I was anxious to see if the cake was ready to come out of the oven; it looked so good. The coffee cake had risen to be beautiful. Was it done? I couldn’t really tell, so I pulled the cake to the edge of the oven rack and tapped it lightly on the top. My beautiful peanut butter coffee cake took a nose dive. The center of the cake was now concave.

Thinking I could still salvage my creation, I left it in the oven on the slight hope that I could coax it to once again rise to its former glory. I was bitterly disappointed. Upon taking the cake out of the oven, I saw a pitiful sight. Thinking positive, I thought all was not lost. I remember my brother said one time that there was nothing better than a nice soggy cake. Hoping for the best, I cut a slice and placed it on a dessert plate. It looked utterly awful, and as it sat on my tongue it was thick, heavy, and sticky.

I didn’t have a recipe to go by, so I was experimenting. I experiment a lot, and usually I have good results when I bake, but not this time. Upon retrospect I know what happened to my cake. The heat was too high. The cake was rising beautifully and it was getting done on the top and the middle was still wet and unbaked. When I pressed in lightly on the top of my creation it fell. If I had had my heat lower, say 350 to 375 degrees it would have baked fine, but I had my heat on 400 degrees and it was baking on top faster than it was baking in the middle, so when it looked like it was done, it really wasn’t.

If you like to bake, and you like to experiment with food, don’t be discouraged if you have a flop. This particular flop was so hideous that the dog wouldn’t even say it was good. He took a smell of it, and pushed the pieces around on the plate and he just snorted and walked away. I cried and promised myself that I would never bake again. Of course, I continued to bake and on occasion I continued to have some flops. Looking back on my flops, I can appreciate when my cakes come out of the oven perfectly.

If you like to bake, and you have an occasional flop, don’t be discouraged. Think about what you did wrong and try again. Don’t ever give up!

Recipe Tips for When you Have More Month than Money

When it is nearing the end of the month, my pantry is usually pretty close to empty. I know there are many others who are in the same boat. You have more month than you have money, but you still have a family to feed. Many times I think I have nothing to make a meal with, and I go to searching. Some foods you might not even think would go well together to make a meal, but when you try it, you find out that the concoction you made is really very good.

I made something the other night that was really more of a science experiment. I had 6 eggs, and 2 red tomatoes and 2 green tomatoes and some scallions. I had some left over rice in the refrigerator, so I just put that in the microwave to warm it up. In a frying pan I sautéed the scallions, and the tomatoes with a tad of salt.

This is what you do. In a medium sized bowl whisk the eggs until they were nice and frothy. When the onions and tomatoes start cooking down, add the eggs and scramble them all together until they are soft and frothy. You will want the eggs to be moist and not really dry so don't over cook them. When the tomato egg mixture is done, you just put it over rice. It would be good with oven broiled garlic toast also.

Another thing that I have done with eggs is add cream of mushroom soup to it and scramble the eggs until they are soft but not hard. We have eaten this with garlic toast. There are so many ways you can make eggs where you don't only think of them as a breakfast food. When you have to make your food stretch, you add filler ingredients to make enough to feed everyone.

A few months ago it was really tight here until payday, and I had almost nothing in the house. I did have corn meal, and I had milk and bread. I could have made cornbread, but I didn't want to. I really wanted something else. I remembered what my dad made us kids when we were small, and money was short. He made a cooked cereal out of corn meal. We called it corn meal mush, but I don't know if that is the real name for it.
All you do is put some water and butter in a pot and bring it to a boil. Start adding corn meal slowly and stir it. It will swell up just like cream of wheat. Add enough corn meal until the texture is like cream of wheat. I use yellow corn meal, but you can make it with white corn meal also. When it
is done, pour it into cereal bowls, add sugar or sweetener and add milk. You eat it just like you would oatmeal or cream of wheat. I like to eat it with strawberry jam and toast on the side. This country breakfast is really very good.

So if you think you have nothing in your pantry or your refrigerator, look again. You just might find something there in which to make another meal. I am always thankful for the way I was raised. My dad was able to always put together meals to feed our family, when it seemed we didn't have anything.

How to Live on a Budget

This article is written from my own experience as a woman that lives on a limited budget each month. I am writing from my own experience as a frugal shopper. I live from month to month just like everyone else, and I had to make some changes to feed my family. With the economy the way it is, you shouldn’t have to choose between eating and buying gasoline to get to work. So many families have to do without now, because they don’t know how to buy good food and still have money for the mortgage, bills and transportation back and forth to work.

Food shopping isn’t all that hard if you know what you are doing. It just takes a little ingenuity to shop smartly. You can learn to shop smart on a budget, and you can learn to be a wise shopper. Look for specials. Many grocery stores will mark down meats, fruits and veggies that will otherwise go bad. The store would rather mark these foods down to sell them, rather than toss them out. I shop for food bargains at Quality Foods when they have food items that are marked down. I also do quite a bit of my shopping at Walmart.

Don’t be afraid to haggle. Yes, you can haggle. I wanted to buy a case of Manwich Sauce, but I didn’t want to pay full price. I went to the manager of that section and asked for a better price. The Walmart manager gave me $5 off on the case from the original price. Haggling doesn’t make you look cheap or dumb, and makes you a wise shopper. Don’t be too proud to shop at the Dollar Stores. I get some really good bargains on food and merchandise at the Dollar Store.

Do you buy a lot of cold cuts? You can save lots of money to buy a piece of meat, cook it yourself and slice it for sandwiches. I like to buy a turkey every month. I roast it and slice it off for sandwiches, entrees, and sandwiches. I buy ham in the can and slice it for sandwiches. When considering the price of a pack of sliced ham or turkey, it makes so much more sense to buy smarter and cook, and repackage the meat in serving sizes for your family. I package, label and date the meat that I cook and then freeze them. Invest in a meat slicer. I got one at SAM’s Club. It was a good investment, and has paid for itself many times over in the last few years. You can prepare inexpensive meals if you are creative. Shop smart, and spend smart.

Before you determine how much money a month you can spend on food, take a look at your spending habits. What can you do without? Do you eat out frequently, or order pizza delivery? If you do, there is nothing wrong with that once in a while as a treat, but if your budget is so tight you have problems buying food; you might better rethink how you spend. If you work, and buy your lunch every day, consider bringing lunch from home. If you stop at a coffee shop every day you could save at least $60 a month just by bringing a thermos of coffee with you. The grocery store has some really great international coffees that you just add water and milk to, and they are just as good as the coffees for which you spend $2 to $3.

Do you buy tobacco products? I’ve lost track of the price of cigarettes. I’m told that the premium brands are up to $7 a pack in some states. Sure you can buy some off brands for about $2 or $3 a pack, but when you consider the cost to smoke for a month, that ads up to a lot of money. When I smoked I spent about $50 a month on cigarettes. I have not smoked now in 3 years, and from not purchasing cigarettes was like giving myself a raise.

We can often find where the money is leaking from our budget. I used to count cigarettes and soda pop as things I needed. These are not necessities. Eating out, stopping at Starbucks, and ordering pizza is not a necessity. Living on a budget, it is important to prioritize. What are your needs? What are your wants? Write them down in separate sheets of paper.

Where else is money leaking from your budget? Are you paying more than $80 a month on your satellite or cable bill? If you are, you may be paying too much. If you can’t pay your mortgage, rent, utilities as well as buy food and put gasoline in the car, you might better rethink how much you pay on your satellite or cable bill. It might behoove you to scale down, and ask for a smaller package to lower your monthly bill. You won’t have as many channels, but how many channels can you watch at once anyway? A lot of money is wasted on cable and satellite service.

Where do you get your Internet provider from? Some folks pay up to $150 a month for Internet service that is either connected to your phone, cable or Internet. Again, here is an opportunity to scale down. Call your provider and ask for a plan that will work for your budget. Chances are if you contact your provider and explain your situation they will lower their fee to accommodate you. For example, when my Internet provider was AOL, I was having trouble making ends meet. I asked them to lower their fee, and they said they couldn’t do it. I then said, okay, turn off my service. Do you know I got my service lowered to just $10 a month? They didn’t want to lose me as a customer, so they lowered the fee I had to pay each month. I was on dial-up at the time, and I just couldn’t make a payment of $27 a month. They offered to lower their fee to $17 a month. I told them I can’t afford it. Shut my service off. They then offered to cut their fee to $10 a month and I took it. I kept that dial-up at $10 a month for quite some time before I went to DSL through my phone company.

You would be surprised at how much you can save when you cut back on your spending. Save the going out to eat for special occasions. Retrain yourself to drive by McDonald’s and Burger King without having to turn into their drive through on your way home from work. If you are frequently hungry on your way home from work, bring an apple or a snack with you for your drive home. You don’t have to constantly buy something to eat or drink while driving home. Save that appetite for a home cooked meal when you get home. The key to having enough money to meet your needs is to live below your means.