One of my favorite destinations online is King Arthur Baking Company.  It is owned by its employees as is many other grain companies. I found it during the pandemic when there was a huge shortage of rye flour, my favorite. I have been using their products ever since.

My Albuquerque son bought me the free shipping pass and my Texas son buys gift certificates for me. My favorites. This month their fruit fillings were on sale. So I decided to buy the apple and the blueberry. I would like to experiment with tarts and maybe make crepes. King Arthur has a huge library of recipes. All guaranteed to produce classic favorites.

The following vanilla cake is a good recipe for a woman with RA. Or a man with RA. It is amazing that something so simple could taste so good. There are no eggs or dairy. It requires no beating or no chopping of ingredients.

Preheat oven to 350⁰. Butter and flour an 8 inch square cake pain. I use unsalted butter. Sift the dry ingredients together. I always weigh the dry ingredients. I have my $10 scale from Bed and Bath that is very nice. Set aside. Diamond Crystal is the best salt for baking. If using Morton’s use only ½ tsp.

Mix the wet ingredients together with the sugar. Combine the two.  Beating is not necessary as it is with most cakes. Just mix it together quickly and gently. Pour into prepared pan and immediately put into the oven. Bake 30-35 minutes.

Sift together dry ingredients:

240g (2 cups) all-purpose flour

¾ tsp Diamond Crystal Salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

Blend together and add to dry ingredients:

1 cup plus 2 Tbsp (198g) water.

½ cup (99g) vegetable oil

¾ (144g) sugar

11/2 Tbsp vinegar. I used cider vinegar.

½ Almond extract

1 Tbsp Vanilla extract

Bake

A light, tender cake. Great with with fresh fruit. I also frost is with a

Ganache* frosting.

Melt 255g (11/2 cups) semi-sweet chocolate bits.  

In ½ cup half and half. Blend. Adding a little cinnamon is always good. Spread on cake. Quick and excellent.

*Ganache is simply melted semisweet chocolate blended with cream or half and half. I used to use a bowl over a simmering pot of water for my bain marie. I found a cute double boiler insert. I found a great one on Amazon for $10.