__ella Rita Helfrich Recipes

TUNNEL-OF-FUDGE CAKE

Steps:

• Place a heavy baking sheet or pizza stone on a shelf in the lower third of the oven. Heat the oven to 350 degrees (see note).
• On a large baking sheet, roast nuts in the oven for 10 minutes. Keep watch that they do not burn. Pour into a bowl, and add 2 tablespoons butter and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Toss well and set aside.
• Generously butter the inside of a large 12-cup Bundt cake pan.
• In a mixer, beat butter to soften until it becomes fluffy. Add sugar, then the brown sugar and continue to beat until airy. While beating, if the bowl does not feel cool, place it in the freezer for five minutes, then resume beating.
• Beat in 3/4 teaspoon salt, vanilla and vegetable oil.
• Beat in two egg yolks. Crack the four whole eggs into a large mixing bowl. With a small knife, cut yolks and barely stir the eggs, minimally blending the whites and yolks.
• With the mixer on the lowest speed, beat the eggs into the batter in three batches. Mix in confectioners' sugar and the cocoa.
• In a large mixing bowl, stir flour and nuts together. Then with a spatula stir the flour-nut mixture into the batter. Pour the batter into the Bundt pan.
• Bake for 40 minutes. You cannot use the toothpick test because the cake contains so much sugar that the center will not set but will remain a tunnel-of-fudge. You are dependent on a correct oven temperature and the 40-minute cooking time.
• When removed from the oven, the cake will have a runny fudge core with an air pocket above the fudge. About 30 minutes after taking the cake out of the oven, press the inside and outside edge of the cake bottom down all the way around to minimize the air pocket. Let the cake, still in the pan, cool on a rack for two to three hours. Invert the cake onto a platter and let cool completely.

__ELLA RITA HELFRICH

Steps:

• Did someone invent birthday candles? Christmas trees? Jack-o'-lanterns? If someone did, that someone deserves applause for introducing a whole lot of happiness into a whole bunch of lives.And who came up with taffy apples? Chocolate truffles? Pecan pralines? No one knows, but we know for sure that someone did invent the Tunnel of Fudge Cake, and that someone was Ella Rita Helfrich. She spent days of "trial-and-error baking" to come up with the distinctive treat, and her cake has become an American classic, one which hundreds of thousands of people make for their special celebrations.From "Pillsbury Best of the Bake-Off® Cookbook." Copyright 2004 General Mills. Used with permission of the publisher, Wiley Publishing, Inc. All Rights Reserved.