Curious - why is it called Wellesley fudge cake? Was grandma-in-law at Wellesley College?
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Yes, there is an interesting story behind the naming of the recipe. Something to do with clandestine cooking in the dorm rooms to sastify sweet tooth cravings. I’m making it in honor of the grandmother-in-law, a student at Wellesley in the 1920’s, who was the cake baker in the family. She was gone before I came along. I may even get a picture of it…
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Chunky Lola Cookies from Joanne Chang’s cookbook Flour.
My first time making this recipe, I made a half-batch and got 9 big cookies using a #14 scoop. These are indulgent and so good! Love the oats and coconut. I baked them for DH, who is quite happy with them.
My next cookie to try from this book will be the milk-chocolate and hazelnut variety.
This week I also made my go-to: Dorie’s carrot cake, unfrosted, a half recipe in a 6 ½” springform pan.
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I was reading this KAF recipe today - they use clear jel for stabilizing cream. Just FYI.
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Apparently it was a big hit. Today I saw 3 coworkers polish off the rest of it during lunch.
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I saw that and have heard of that. Maybe I’ll try it
That makes sense, given that like Dr. Oetker’s Whip It, instant clearjel is modified food starch.
Pretty sure I heard about it from @sallyt !
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does the stella/freeze dried fruit method REALLY keep in the fridge for a WEEK, like she says? i’m gonna try a half batch today - the event is on Saturday. I’m in denial it’ll keep that long without weeping/deflating, but who am i to argue with stella the great!!?!
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I haven’t tested it for an entire week, but I have made it day one, used it to frost a cake day two, that was served day three, with leftovers consumed day four, and it didn’t weep or deflate.
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Never had it that long but it is quite dense , as even without the freeze dried fruit the volume is limited. Whipping a cup of cream with a balloon whisk or electric mixer doubles the initial volume. FP doesn’t whip very much air into the cream, so it’s denser. I would think three days would be safe.
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good to know.
i just whipped up a half-batch of strawberry. i had to dig the fruit and sugar out of the FP and transfer them to a mortar and pestle to really get the fruit ground up finely. Annoying step, but I didn’t want a grainy final product.
I’ll let it chill down, then do a piping test.
I use clear jel for whipped cream and pies - works well. I never notice its presence.
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That may be because you were doing a smaller quantity. In my experience, at least, the full-size FP doesn’t do a great job fully grinding or chopping fine smaller amounts of ingredients on their own.
The first time I made this, I didn’t have a problem with the amount of freeze-dried fruit and sugar grinding up fine in the FP, but I had to spend a lot of time digging it out of the corners where it stuck in the bottom before adding the cream or I knew it wouldn’t all get incorporated. So the second time, I ground them in my spice grinder, then added them to the cream in the FP.
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yeah, i knew this would happen because of the quantity. it worked out though.
I grind the fruit first in a dedicated coffee grinder and then sift it into the cream, sorry I didn’t think of mentioning that 
. It’s actually quicker and I also grind them with some sugar to keep them from clumping. It works much better as you found out!
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Update: I used a big star tip to pipe a test decoration on a little cakelet. It worked. The icing could use a tiny flavor bump, but it already improved from a couple hours in the fridge, so perhaps it’ll be perfect by Saturday morning. Inspired by the photo I posted upthread, it’ll be rhubarb cakelet + artistic blob of strawberry icing + sliver of fresh strawberry. It pains me to use out-of-season berries, but at the local farmers’ market we are getting Carolina berries now, so I’ll bite my lip and buy a pint.
Next up: shaping my final batch of blueberry scones. They’ll be frozen tonight, baked fresh for the event on Saturday.
Tomorrow I’ll bake all my victoria sponges, the rhubarb cakelets and the apricot scones. Final batch of soup was made this morning. Sandwiches will be assembled right before the event.
Let’s do this!
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This is quite the accomplishment, mig. I’m sure you will have a great success, everything sounds so wonderful! Hope we get to see some pics if you get the chance, best of luck!
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I know you’ll be drained, but PHOTOS PLEASE!!! ???
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