When I was growing up my father used to speak in awe of old world cooks who were able to bake cakes without a recipe. That method of cookery was known in Yiddish as shit arayn, or put it in. Aside from the grade school amusement my sisters and I had at the word shit so close to cake like my father I have always been intrigued by the idea that a cake could be created without carefully following a recipe. A few summers ago I found an old cookbook in an antique mall that gave a series of proportions for cake making. it made me realize that the shit arayn method was indeed possible. I have been attempting such cakes for a couple of years now. The disadvantage of such a cake is that the results of these wild and wooly methods are not always completely predictable. I call my efforts at these no recipe cakes, fake cakes. A dear friend is coming for dinner. Her birthday was yesterday. I had thought I would make a citrusy cake to hono...
A blog, mostly about my work making Jewish ritual objects, but with detours into garment making, living in New York City, cooking, and other aspects of domestic life. A note about comments: I love comments from readers, from spammers, not so much. I approve comments before posting them so comments are not cluttered with junk. It may take a few hours before your posts appear. Be patient. If you are a real person with a real comment it will be posted.