Mad About Maida

Chocolate Applesauce Cake Source: Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 2006 ed.), pg. 79. You will have to forgive me for veering slightly off track with this recipe. I normally make everything exactly as written. There is a popular recipe website that I refer to often and I always read the user reviews because they have helpful tips from people who have actually made the recipe. Often, however, a person will have changed so many ingredients that it no longer resembles the original recipe. It drives me nuts! I made 2 changes for this and I feel they are slight ones. First, I decided to use chocolate chips instead of raisins. So many of Maida's recipe call for raisins but after all the holiday baking, I was sick of them. The second change made me wary but I decided to cut the sugar back and substitute applesauce. I do this on other non-Maida recipes and it works fine. This recipe calls for 2 cups of sugar (a lot!), so ...

Original Kentucky Whiskey Cake (S ource:  Maida Heatter's Cakes  (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 2011 ed. , pg. 157). One of the best cakes I made during the holidays was this one. I had my doubts at first - I had never heard of wrapping a cake in a bourbon-soaked handkerchief before - but since starting this blog almost ten years ago (!), I am still coming across unusual techniques in Maida's recipes. I first saw this recipe in Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts and in that book, it fails to give the baking time. It is reprinted in Maida Heatter's Cakes which does - it is 300 degrees. There is also a "Kentucky Cake" as well as several whiskey cakes so it gets a bit confusing - this is the  Origina l Kentucky Whiskey Cake. I used both dark and golden raisins and I soaked them in the bourbon one day in advance. She says to use a jar with a tight lid but I just put them in a bowl wrapped in plastic. You can also soak the raisins up to one ...