Naomi Shulman

Get this Recipe: Fluffy Yellow Cake

A few years ago, back when I was working full-time at a parenting magazine, my darling husband's birthday fell right in the middle of the busiest deadline week of the year. Magazine deadlines can be harried under the best of circumstances. Let's just say this wasn't the best of circumstances -- everything was late and the stories were all complicated and tempers were, um, short. I remember sitting in my cube, my heart sinking. Chris's birthday was smack dab in the middle of all the crazy. And it wasn't just any birthday -- it was his 35th. A milestone.

Trying to be a good wife, I started a frantic email flurry, figuring out whom we could invite on the fly, what we could serve for dinner that would be easy. Restaurants? Catering? How to do this? Chris isn't a fan of surprise parties, so I kept him in the loop. He emailed me immediately and emphatically: "Don't bother with all of that. I don't need anything much. Just make me a cake. That's all I want."

Did I make it?

No. I was too overwhelmed. He forgave me, but I'll always regret it.

Now that I'm a freelancer, our paycheck situation is far less stable, but our home life is vastly improved. There was no doubt of Chris receiving a homemade cake this year, courtesy of me and Stella.

Chris is a fan of the classic boxed yellow cakes -- Duncan Hines is our favorite -- so we decided to go for something along those lines. "Fluffy" is always a good thing in cakes, too, so Stella and I picked this recipe for fluffy yellow cake. Stella dumped in all the ingredients. She had a little trouble opening the butter, but the steps were so simple she could do just about all of it by herself, and pretty much did.

The baking time took a little longer than indicated -- I think the oven wasn't quite preheated when we put it in. It came out really nicely -- we only made enough for one round layer, though, which was a mistake on my part. Had I doubled the recipe I would have had enough batter for a really beautiful double-layer cake.

There's a companion buttercream frosting recipe for this cake, which I planned to try making as well, but Stella resisted. "I hate frosting!" she announced. It's true, she does. It may be genetic -- I actually dislike it myself, and so does my dad. "Your daddy likes frosting, though, " I reminded her, "and this is a cake for him."

Stella paused to think. "How about we use whipped cream?" she suggested, an idea she got from one of the Ramona books. We agreed this was a good solution, and that's exactly what we did.

Chris got his homemade birthday cake -- a little bit low, thanks to the single layer, but all his. We sang him happy birthday, and he blew out the sparkler candles (nine of them, just a mere thirty fewer than his years). Stella's handmade card, addressed to "Cheris," wished him a happy "berth" day, with this postscript: "P.S. You are lucky Cheris."

I think he knows that already. But it never hurts to be reminded.

Make the Fluffy Yellow Cake recipe.

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).

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Naomi Shulman makes a Salted Caramel Pecan Pie recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

Are you sick of pie yet? Well, okay, I am -- a little. But that's because Thanksgiving was less than a week ago. I'll be jonesing for pie again before too long. And even if I'm over it, I have to make something for the scads of holiday parties we've been invited to between now and New Year's Eve.

There are several things about this salted caramel pecan pie that won me over: 1. It's not overly Thanksgivingish (as pumpkin and apple are). 2. It's got a fairly grownup, sophisticated flavor (salt!). 3. It looks harder to make than it is (admit it, it's a bonus). Finally, it reminds me of that scene in When Harry Met Sally -- you know, the one where Billy Crystal says he would be proud to partake of your pecan piiiiieee.

For all of these reasons, I made this pie for our Thanksgiving dinner. I used a different crust from the one Gail Simmons recommended, though, and next time I'll try using her method, because I found the normally flaky pie crust I made got a little tough in the prebaking stage. Also, can I just say, it felt strangely naughty to be cooking with corn syrup -- that maligned ingredient I'm always trying to avoid in any packaged foods! But I firmly believe that everything has its place, and if corn syrup has a place, surely a pecan pie is it.

The pie was utterly delicious, if I may say so -- rich and sweet with just enough saltiness to give it depth and character. Homemade whipped cream was a must, in my opinion, and luckily I had made a lot of it. The girls had nothing to do with this pie -- Stella can't eat nuts, and Lila objected on the grounds of the the word "salted," which she feels has no place next to the word "dessert." But all the grown-ups at our Thanksgiving were happy to partake of our pecan piiiieeee.

Make the salted caramel pecan pie recipe.

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).

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Naomi Shulman

Naomi Shulman makes a Homemade Pizza Dough recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

We've reached the point in the week before Thanksgiving where I cannot think about any other meals. Period. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next couple of days are going to have to practically cook themselves, because I don't have the head space anymore to do it. It's all about the bird, folks.

Which is why last night was pizza night. I realize I might be alone in this, but I actually find making pizza to be very nearly as easy as ordering it. Certainly as quick, especially if I've put the pizza dough together in advance -- which was the case last night. I usually make enough for at least two crusts at the same time, buying myself some time down the road. I tweaked the recipe here by using half all-purpose flour and half white whole wheat, which sounds like an oxymoron but isn't. I also usually cheat a little by kneading it mostly in the stand mixer, turning out the dough onto a floured surface for a little hand kneading. I then oil the mixing bowl and put the dough right back into it to rise, saving myself the extra cleanup. When it has risen, I punch it down, give it a quick final knead, then form it into a ball and cut it in half with a sharp knife. Half can be used immediately, and the other half goes into the fridge or freezer. Last night's dough was pulled out of the freezer.

My kids favor a very straightforward, no-frills cheese pizza, which is what I made last night. I used bottled sauce because, as I said earlier, Thanksgiving preparations have used up almost all my dinner-making oomph. (But I did grate the mozzarella by hand. Do I get a prize? No? Oh.) I put it all together on a large wooden peel (dusted generously with cornmeal), then slipped it onto a pizza stone, which had been sitting in a 500-degree oven for about an hour. It was done in 9 minutes: way faster than delivery.

And you know? I don't know why I bother to make anything other than pizza, because my kids love it so, so much. I think they would eat it every single day if they could get away with it. The pilgrims probably would have enjoyed this pie too, if I do say so. Happy Thanksgiving!

Make the homemade pizza dough recipe.
Meet our team of Family Chef recipe "test drivers."

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).

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Naomi Shulman

Naomi Shulman makes an Herb Stuffing recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

Guess what my favorite holiday is?

Thanksgiving.

Guess what my favorite side dish at Thanksgiving is?

Stuffing!

First of all, it's bread, which means it's essentially 99 percent carbs, which means I love it. Secondly, it's savory and herbalicious and has a nice crispy texture if it's been baked in the oven, or a nice soggy richness if it's been baked in the bird. It's all good. Just like Thanksgiving.

I haven't met a stuffing recipe I don't like, but I don't have one I'm absolutely loyal to, either. I decided to try the herbed one here at KitchenDaily because it looked easy and traditional, and I was making roast chicken anyway, and Thanksgiving can't come soon enough. I didn't use the prefab stuffing bread crumbs, though, because I actually happened to have a several-weeks-old loaf of rosemary bread in my freezer. I decided that was probably about the same as the herbed stuffing mix, so I defrosted that and sliced it to bits. My other deviation? I used salted butter instead of the unsalted one the recipe specified. I figured the saltiness would be welcome, since the packaged stuffing mix was probably saltier than my rosemary bread. (Plus, it was all I had.)

The recipe was as straightforward as they come. If I were making it on Thanksgiving Day, I don't think it would stress me out the slightest bit -- especially if I wasn't cutting my own bread cubes. And the result was a classic sagey, thymey, delicious stuffing. Neither Chris nor Lila were totally sold on the mushrooms -- both found them mildly slimy. They thought the stuffing would be slightly better without them, and I have to admit I wouldn't miss them much, although I certainly didn't mind them. Even so, we managed to do serious damage to a large pan of stuffing, just the four of us. I guess I'll have to double the recipe next week for the extended family.

Make the herb stuffing recipe.
Meet our team of Family Chef recipe "test drivers."

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).

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Naomi Shulman

Naomi Shulman makes a Homemade Pie Crust recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

Okay, true confession time. I'm a decent cook, all in all. If you come to my house, you will not starve, I promise you. I like to cook from scratch; I make homemade bread and chicken stock and tomato sauce. Heck, these days even my mayo is homemade. But for years there was one thing I never felt I could pull off properly, and that is a homemade pie crust. I've tried, I swear, but pie crusts seem so fussy and finicky, and I always got lost somewhere along the way; my crusts ended up tough and tasteless.

For years it's been a quiet shame. I continued to make pies, or course; what's fall without a good apple pie? But I used prefab crusts, the kind that you find in the dairy case at the grocery store -- the kind you unroll from their cellophane wrappings. The kind that happen to be filled with partially hydrogenated oils. They taste...fine. And they're easy and convenient. But I still had the nagging feeling that I should try to make a homemade crust again.

The other day I was reading a post by fellow Family Chef Heather Ryan, who said of making apple pie: "[I]f you've gone to the trouble to drive 10 miles out of town, load up the back of your car with apples, and then cart them home only to have to peel, core and slice them, then you can make crust." And I knew she had a point. So I decided once and for all that I would master the homemade piecrust before this Thanksgiving rolled around.

The "Piecrust 101" directions made it clear to me how crucial it is to keep the ingredients cold, and explained that using a food processor limits the contact of those ingredients with your hot little hands. The last time I'd tried to make a homemade crust I didn't have a food processor. In fact, I don't think I even had a pastry cutter; I think I attempted to cut the butter in with two dinner knives. No wonder it was a disaster. This time I pulled out the Cuisinart and followed the directions to the letter. Since those directions gave proportions but not actual measurements, I'll tell you what I used to make two nine-inch crusts:

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
2 sticks unsalted butter
a little less than half a cup ice water (I drizzled this in until the consistency looked right)

I formed the dough into two disks of roughly equal size, wrapped them in plastic, and refrigerated them for an hour. When it was time to roll them out, I was careful to use a light dusting of flour, as directed; they did end up sticking to the counter a little bit, but I was very careful in lifting them up, and it worked out just fine. After I trimmed them down to size, I even had a little leftover crust to create a little daisy in the the center.

For the filling, I used the family recipe I always use:

8 Macs, peeled, cored, and sliced
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1/4 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (this is a lot -- you may want less; I like a nutmeggy pie)
1 tablespoon cornstarch

I sprinkled the apples with the lemon, then mixed all the dry ingredients together and added them to the apples, stirring them well with a large wooden spoon. Once I've placed the apple mixture on the bottom crust, I always add a couple tablespoons of salted butter diced into small cubes; I just dot them here and there on top of the apples.

After assembling the pie (complete with ornamental flower!), I gave it a teeny dusting of granulated sugar and baked it at 450 degrees for ten minutes, then 350 degrees for another 45 minutes or so. I tented the edges and the flower with foil after about twenty minutes or so; it's worth keeping an eye on those.

The result was, as Chris put it, almost pornographically good. I mean, look at it. Have you ever seen a nicer-looking pie? And I am very happy to report that it tasted every bit as good as it looked. I know, because I rewarded myself with two healthy slices at dinner. (I even had another slice for breakfast the next morning.) And now I can add pie crust to the list of things I make from scratch. Check me out!

Make the homemade pie crust recipe.
Meet our team of Family Chef recipe "test drivers."

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).

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o. Browse all pie recipes.
o. Learn how to roll out and bake a pie crust.

Naomi Shulman

Naomi Shulman makes a Roasted Pumpkin Seeds with Lime recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

More on Pumpkins and Pumpkin Seeds

• Get additional pumpkin seed recipes.
• Read Naomi's post about pumpkin bread.
• Get pumpkin recipes, including pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin soup.
• Read more about the health benefits of pumpkin seeds and other superfoods from AOL Health.

Naomi Shulman

Naomi Shulman makes a Butternut Squash Flan recipe in this installment of KitchenDaily's Family Chef series, in which home cooks make recipes from our database and tell you how it went -- what they changed, what they kept and who was in the kitchen helping.

"Mommy, what are you going to do with all those butternut squash?"

It's that time of year: An army of bottom-heavy squash are standing at attention along the back of my kitchen counter, waiting for their orders. I've roasted them, braised them, pureed them, made soup with them, even managed to make a delicious bread with them. Leftover squash sit in both my fridge and freezer. I felt ready to widen my squash repertoire, however, thinking that maybe I could start experimenting with something to present at Thanksgiving -- which we always host for the extended family. When I happened upon this recipe for butternut squash flan, I felt I'd hit pay dirt. It was new, it looked easy, and it was fun to say. Just try it: Flan. Flan! Flaaaaan.

Anyway, I often play fast and loose with the instructions in recipes, but this one I followed pretty much to the letter. I even made sure to use the specified nonstick skillet and heatproof spatula. I strayed on only one teeny-tiny detail: I used ground nutmeg instead of freshly grated. I went to the trouble to chop up fresh sage and grate some fresh Parmesan, and I hoped those strong flavors would be enough to carry along a somewhat stale nutmeg.

While the directions did micromanage my cooking utensils, they left a few other things open to interpretation. For example, they didn't tell me exactly what stovetop temperatures to use, so I'll tell you how I did it: I cooked the onions and garlic at medium, then turned the flame up to medium-high for the squash so it could get nice and brown. Also, they didn't indicate that the squash should be peeled and deseeded before it was diced. Perhaps this is so obvious as to be unnecessary, but when I was weighing every squash in the house and finding them all a half-pound larger than called for, it suddenly occurred to me that they'd lose a little weight after those steps. So, just in case you're as literal a reader as I am, there's that.

Despite the ambiguities, the result was a really lovely twist on a fall staple. I didn't miss the fresh nutmeg one bit. I do think the dish could stand a tiny bit more salt -- I'll up that by another teaspoon or so. But I consider this a success, and I plan to serve this as a side at Thanksgiving.

P.S.: I didn't expect the girls to go for this. I wasn't even intending to make them eat any, beyond the usual just-one-bite dance we perform when we introduce new dishes. But when they came into the kitchen in their Halloween garb (Halloween starts in mid-October now, or hadn't you noticed?), Lila commented on how good something smelled. I leaped out of my seat to give the girls a taste.

"What's in it?" Lila immediately asked, suspicious at my enthusiasm.

"Cheese..." I said.

"And?"

"Eggs."

"And?"

"Just try it, honey."

And she liked it! Just goes to show you, ignorance is bliss, because when I revealed the secret (main) ingredient, she shrugged her shoulders and said, "It was okay. But I won't want any more."

Make the Butternut Squash Flan recipe.

Meet our team of Family Chef recipe "test drivers."
Learn how to peel, seed, and cut a butternut squash.
Browse all butternut squash recipes.
Find out what secret ingredient Gail Simmons adds to her butternut squash soup.
See how to create butternut squash bowling pins over on Holidash.

Naomi Shulman is a blogger and freelance writer. She lives and cooks with her husband, Chris, and daughters Lila (9) and Stella (6).