Bake Sale

Hey, y'all. I'm Paula Deen, and I'm so glad you're with me today because I'm off to a bake sale with a basket of goodies

You know, I just love local history, and these treats are my way of supporting the national landmarks like the one we'll be visiting today

So here's what I'm going to do. First, I'm going to show you how to make a cake that might just be better than loving itself

And then there's my stick-to-your-teeth chocolate cookies. And finally, I'm going to make the simplest sour cream pound cake

It's so easy, so burst out the beaters and heat the oven

because we've got a bake sale to get to. Hi. Y'all won't believe what I have in the basket

This is actually a graham cracker. Not as you and I know it, but the way that they were made hundreds of years ago

I was asked to donate some things for a bake sale for charity, and I said yes, I'd be delighted to

so I went in search of the best flour that I could find to make my items

I found a 200-year-old mill that is still water-powered and grinds the mill and the flour on the old stones

I think you'll be amazed at how it used to work. So watch

My old buddy Ralph Arenzo down at Tuttletown Grist Mill always gives me his best

I understand that you have the oldest and only operating water ground mill in the state of New York

Is that right? Did I say that right? Yes, you did. It's a stone grinding mill, a top-down mill

and it's the oldest continuously operating water-powered flour mill in New York. Well, take me inside and show me what you've got ready for me today

Sure, let's go. Well, I've taken out four different kinds of flour

Two of them are ground here. That's the graham flour and this rye flour

What makes these flours better because you grind them? They're stone ground

It's ground at a little bit lower temperature. And when the temperature rises, when it's ground in a steel mill

that rise in temperature destroys a lot of the nutritive value in the flour

So these retain most of that value because they ground with stone

Are graham crackers made with the graham flour? Well, our graham crackers are made with graham flour

And I have some here that I made today. for a sample for you

These are Tuttletown graham crackers. This certainly doesn't look like the graham cracker

that we know. I'll bet it doesn't taste like it either. Out of the store and I can't wait to sample it

It's delicious. Paula, what are you making today? Stick to your teeth chocolate cookies

that call for graham cracker crumbs. And I'm making my grandmother Paul's sour cream pound cake

Well, for the pound cake, you're gonna need all-purpose flour. And that's what we have right here

And for your graham cracker crust, you can use our Tuttletown grahams

Actually, I'm not making a crust. I'm going to, I need a graham cracker that I can grind up and put in the cookie batter

That's the ticket right there. So this is what I need. That sounds great

Hi. I went ahead and got started without y'all. I put my favorite boxed yellow cake mix in the oven

and you can see he's pulled away from the pan and he's ready

This is one that we have more fun with at the restaurant. The name of this cake is, Is It Really Better Than Sex

Everybody gets so tickled and everybody always has their own answer. I'm going to start by spreading just a little coconut on a baking sheet

and we're going to toast this. You'll want to be very careful because it will brown on you very quickly

It might not need but about five or six minutes. And while that's browning, I'm going to start the inside of the cake

Just a can of crushed pineapple and some sugar. And we're going to bring this to a bowl

And while that's getting hot, I'm going to come over here and I'm going to take my fork and just pierce my cake

But we want to make sure that when we put our topping on our cake

then it'll have some holes so it can sink down in there. And this is one of those recipes that you can just have fun with and make it your own

You could even come up with combinations to make a chocolate better than sex

or a lemon better than sex, or a strawberry better than sex

And all we're going to do is pour that over our cake. And see all that nice sweet pineapple juice that going to go into that cake where we stuck our holes and it gonna produce a wonderfully moist cake Just wanna evenly distribute that

over the top, just like that. And the next layer to go on is just your favorite instant

pudding. And we're just gonna pour that on top of our hot pineapple, and we're just gonna

to smooth that over so you can see how you can take an ordinary box cake and make it very

very special with very little effort. I remember my grandmother saying, these are the greatest

products. She knew how to take that product and bring it up to a homemade level. So there's a lot

of convenient products out there that I truly don't look down my nose at because they've made

life so much easier for us girls that live life in the fast lane. It's ready and it's

still warm. And we're going to put this in the refrigerator now and let it cool. And I

have another one here that's already chilled for me. And before I go any further, we need

to check our coconut because I smell it

and I think it's ready. You can see how it'll darken in some parts of your pan

and not in the others. So that's why you want to keep it stirred

So while we've got our coconut cooling, we're going to start with some fresh whipped cream

You want to make sure it's whipped stiff enough that it will stay on your cake

but you want to be very careful that you don't whip it back to butter

because it doesn't take but just a second. We're just going to frost our cake with it now

Let's see if our coconut's cooled. And it has. We wouldn't want to put real, real hot coconut onto our whipped cream

because the heat would make it fall. But this is nice and cool

So all we're going to do is take our toasted coconut, sprinkle it over the top

And you can see how pretty and special that makes our better-than-sex cake look

Can't wait for you to taste it, and let me know what you think

What you say, let's try it. Ooh, I hear that coconut just crunching under the knife

You know, my favorite piece of a one-layer cake is the corner

It's crunchy. That's really taking a cake mix over the top

Is it really better than sex? Could be. Depends on how old you are

And it's even better when two people eat this cake. Next, stick to your teeth chocolate cookies

The next item I'm making is a rich little chocolate cookie

and the name of it is Stick to Your Teeth Chocolate Cookie

So can you guess how I came up with that name? I've started by melting our chocolate

and I'm going to add a sweetened condensed milk to it. Now, in melting your chocolates

most of the packages would tell you how to do it because different chocolates melt in different ways

but this way over hot water is really hard to beat. So I'm going to take this off of our heat now

See, that's looking good already. Now, I've run the homemade graham crackers

that I brought from the meal. I've run them through a food processor

and we're going to add those. This is an easy, quick cookie to make

And it's just different from your chocolate chip, or your peanut butter, or your oatmeal

And I can't wait to see what the homemade graham crackers do to this

All right, we're going to add a pinch of salt, half a cup of walnuts, and about a teaspoon

of vanilla. I'm just going to fold those in. and we're gonna drop them onto a very well greased cookie sheet

The most important thing about baking cookies is that they be made all the same size

because if you have a big cookie here and a little cookie here

they're not gonna cook in the same length of time. So make sure that all your cookies are the same size And I gonna put a rounded teaspoon down And you can see that these are gonna be kinda thin But I gonna work very hard to make sure

that every one of these cookies wind up the same size. And did you notice there's no flour in these cookies

Which makes them so fast and easy. We're gonna top each cookie with a walnut half

just in case there's not enough nuts in the center. Now you can use pecans or peanuts or almonds, any of your nuts

All right, these are ready to go into the oven now. We're going to bake them at 350 for about 10 minutes

I've been just baking away all day, so the first batch that I threw in the other side of my oven should be about ready

They look very, very good. And we're going to take these off while they're warm

and transfer them to a pan that's been lined with wax paper

And I'm going to resist the temptation because these cookies are best eaten after they've cooled

Let me check this one. Oh, yeah. He's a little stiffer. Let's see what we've got

It's definitely a stick to your teeth. Mmm. So good. And crisp and delicate

It's yummy. When we come back, I'm going to share my grandmother Paul's sour cream pound cake recipe with you

This is going to be the last of the items that I've got ready for the girls

And I've started my grandmother Paul's sour cream pound cake by creaming two sticks of butter

And I'm going to add sugar now. and we're just going to cream those together

And now we're fixing to add our sour cream. This cake is actually put together

just a little different from the normal cakes that I bake. But this is the way that my grandmother said to do it

so this is the way I do it. So we're just going to cream that together now

And while that's creaming, we're going to sift all-purpose flour. And a half a teaspoon of baking soda

Now, don't confuse that with powder. This is baking soda. Okay, this is about ready over here, so I'm going to cut the mixer off

And then we're going to add our flour with our eggs alternately

And you always begin with your dry product when you're in the final stages of your cake

Let me reach around here and get my little scoop, and we're ready to start

For some reason, when you add your dry ingredient last, it creates a real, real smooth batter

where if you add your moist ingredients last, it has a real grainy look to it

So we've got our flour. Now we're going to go to our egg. And just mix that up good

And then we're going back to our flour. You keep adding your eggs and your flour

until you've added them all in. We've got everything in our bowl now

except for our flavoring. At this point, you can use rum, maple, pineapple

You can use any flavor that you wanted, but vanilla flavoring is just really one of my very favorites

And, you know, I can't help but think about the first time I really found out about vanilla flavoring

Oh, it smells so good. I think I was about three and a half or four years old

and I was in my grandmother's kitchen when my little Aunt Trina came in

who was about three years older than me. She came in and caught me sitting up on the counter

sniffing the vanilla flavoring. And with her worldly self, she walked over and she said

Pauline, you really do like that vanilla, don't you? I said, yes, I do

She said, well, let me get you a spoon so you can taste it

Well, I should have known something then, because she was never nice to me

Well, she poured me a big old spoon, and I was sitting there like a little bird with my mouth open

and I took in every drop of it, and I almost choked the breath

I had never tasted anything so nasty in my whole life. So it really is deceiving It smells wonderful but you don want to taste it straight up I so crazy about vanilla flavoring that I always make my own because it so easy

All you need is the vanilla beans and either good vodka or bourbon, and you're all set

So we've got our vanilla in, and we're just going to make sure that that's incorporated into our batter

And that's it. All we need at this point is our pan that we're going to bake it in

Now you can bake this either in a bunk pan or a regular tube pan

You want to make sure that you have greased it and floured it real well

because there's nothing uglier than a pound cake that you've taken out of your pan

and half of it is stuck to the bottom. So you'll want to make sure you do that real well

Okay, so we're just going to take our beaters out and put these aside

I bet somebody will be licking them in just a matter of minutes

So we're just gonna pour this around our pan, and I'm just gonna rotate the cake pan until

I've got all my batter evenly distributed. So we're ready to go in the oven now

We're gonna put this in a 325 degree oven, and we're gonna bake it for about an hour and

20 minutes. Now this one I've had sitting out cooling for just a few minutes. They usually

don't have to sit for too terribly long. Like I said, sometimes when I'm in a hurry, five

or ten minutes is all I give it. But I'm going to just simply take my cake plate and invert

it onto my pan. And hopefully I did a good job when I floured and greased my pan. So

So we'll see. I heard it. Beautiful

I won't be embarrassed by this one at the bake sale. I think we have to sample this one

It looks so good. What do you think? Looks perfect. I've got some fresh berries and some whipped cream over here to top my cake with

I love blackberries, and I love blueberries, and I love strawberries. Oh, he looks just delicious

Can't wait to taste it. I want to make sure I get some of all the berries

Mmm. Thanks, Grandmama. When we come back, a few more hot bacon tips

to make your day in the kitchen a real success. Can't tell you how many times

I've started making something, gone to my cabinet, only to find that this particular ingredient was not there

And that's sweetened condensed milk. So I'm going to show you how to make your own

It's quick, easy, and cheaper. We're going to take white sugar, powdered milk

four tablespoons of butter, a teaspoon of vanilla, and a third of a cup of boiling water

And we're going to beat them until they're thick. And that's all we do. You can store this in your refrigerator for up to a week. What a

great substitute that is. Now this one's really important. Always check for your expiration

date. If it's past your expiration date, you're playing with fire. But the most important

thing about baking is check your oven, get a temperature thermometer, put it in your oven

turn your oven on to 350. If your thermometer does not register that

then you need to call someone out and have your oven calibrated because without the proper heat

you're not gonna have the perfect dessert. I finally got everything together

and ready to take over to the girls to the bake sale, and it just looks so delicious

I've got my, is it better than sex cake? my grandmother Paul's sour cream pound cake

these delicate little stick-to-your-teeth chocolate cookies, and I even had time to make an Old South jelly roll cake

just for good measures. If you ever need to raise money at a bake sale

I promise you, these are cash on a plate. So until next time, America

best dishes from my kitchen to yours. you