So what's this?
A recipe node. For an All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom.
You're doing a recipe node in the made up FAQ-discussion style?
Yeah, so what?
It's lame.
Shut up.
See? You're just talking to yourself, now. Worse, you're noding to yourself. It's sad, really. So what, pray tell, is an "All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom"?
I think the name speaks for itself.
No it doesn't. What the hell does "all purpose" mean?
"All purpose" means it's all purpose. It looks cool and it's original so you can serve it to guests, but it's also easy to make so you can make it for yourself. You can serve it as an entrée with a salad or it can make an entire meal. You can keep it for a few days without too much damage. You can serve it warm, or cold. Also, you can put pretty much anything you want in it.
That's the point. It's easy to make, good, and versatile: it's an all purpose cake.
Why "cultural"?
Because, er... Because it like promotes cultural exchange or something. Look, I don't know.
What the hell is a "salt cake" anyway?
It's what you eat at Salt Cake City! HAHAHAHAHA! Oh boy, I kill myself.
Anyway, most cakes are sugary desserts, with fruit: sweet. This cake isn't a dessert: it's made with salty ingredients, those which come before dessert: meat, cheese, etc. But in every other aspect, it's still a cake.
Why "of Doom"?
...Er, let's get on with the recipe, shall we?
All right. So, what do you need?
For the base for a medium sized cake, you will need
- three eggs (which kind? I hear brown eggs are better, but then again brown is dark and that suggests evil. Choose wisely.),
- about 150 to 200 grams (5 to 7 ounces) of flour—I measure by eye,
- a couple teaspoonfulls of baking soda,
- 12.5 cl (4 oz) of milk,
- 125 grams (4.5 ounces) of salted butter,
- and 100 grams (3.5 ounces) of grated cheese.
Mix those together (with your hands, preferably) until it makes a nice, homogenous, elastic dough with a beautiful yellow color. My advice is to leave the butter out for a while or slightly microwave it so it's very soft. You can also gain time by melting it, but then the cake won't be as light. Then you can mix your ingredients in.
What ingredients? I thought you just listed them?
No. This is how you make the base of the cake. Then you can put pretty much anything you like in. All purpose, remember?
So I can just mix anything in the dough and stick it in the pan?
Anything.
Well, anything which doesn't give out water when cooked, which rules out most (but not all) vegetables and means you have to precook meat. What I like to do is put a sausage in. Either a big sausage through the middle or, if you don't have a big one (nobody blames you, it's not your fault), cut up little ones into chunks to mix in. Nuts. Fish. Celery. Peppers which have already been baked so they give out their water. Go wild! Then msg me what you put in so I can add it here.
All right. Sounds cool enough. So, how do I bake it?
Put it in a pan and stick it in a preheated oven, at about 210°C (410°F). If you look at it you might notice the butter is leaking out of the dough: this is okay, it'll be sucked back in.
For how long?
Until it's ready. When it starts to smell really good in your living room, go check it out. Stick a knife in: if it comes out dry, it's ready. If not, leave it in for a couple more minutes. Repeat.
Hey, wait a minute! You didn't tell me to butter the pan or anything! The cake's going to stick!
Yeah, there's a whole bunch of tricks to keep cake from sticking to the pan, but this is the modern era. Just buy a teflon pan and wait. Cakes stick to pans because they expand because of the heat; if you wait for about twenty minutes it will cool down and retract. Then you can just upturn the pan and the cake will fall right out.
Bon appétit!
The funky TenMinJoe says re All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom: After reading this w/u yesterday I actually had a DREAM about the all purpose cultural salt cake of doom last night.
His training is nearly complete. Soon he will be one with the salt cake.
The adored yclept thinks she can disturb my grand masterpiece:
(r) $ (2 s) yclept says re All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom: That isn't the *only* reason cakes stick to a pan. And teflon is not a cure all, y'know. Still, this looks great.
(r) $ (2 s) yclept says re All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom: Y'know, these probably don't stick because 1) no sugar; 2) lots of oil.
Disregard everything but the "this looks great" part. Thank you.
The beloved Ouroboros asks if this is a recipe for a brioche. An All Purpose Cultural Salt Cake of Doom is not a brioche. It is a cake. A brioche is a kind of bread. A cake—is a cake.
The motherly momomom has my endless gratitude for helping me out with what will undoubtedly go down in history books as "the yeast fiasco."
Mad props, yo:
- My mother, who extracted the recipe from a friend with pliers.
- Google, for the logical God-fearing grandiose metric system - to - weird ass backwards imperial system conversions.