Better cakes

I like to make most things from scratch, but I usually use a boxed cake mix when I'm baking cakes (unless it's some kind of crazy/special cake). Cake mixes are pretty good these days (so I'm told*), but there is a trick that will make your cake mix cake taste better. Instead of dumping in whatever amount of water the box calls for do this:

• Add a heaping teaspoon of yeast to 1/4 cup of warm (~110◦ F) water in a pyrex measuring cup
  
• Sprinkle on some sugar
  
• Leave alone for a few minutes, until a foam forms and it smells all yeasty. It's a good idea to do this before you start making the rest of the cake; it should be ready by the time you get all the other things up and running.
  
• Use milk to fill the measuring cup the rest of the way (to whatever amount of water the box calls for) - be sure to measure from underneath the foam NOT on top of it
  
• Proceed as directed
  

*My mom has a master's degree in home ec. This is a trick she picked up back in the day - I imagine cake mixes were much more nasty back then.

How to use fruit purees instead of fats in baked goods

I've always found this interesting, the idea that you can use apple sauce instead of oil or butter and everything will turn out great. Seems suspect. Not that I haven't done it before; I used apple sauce in place of oil in sugar cookies once. They weren't bad per se, they just weren't that good. And now I know why. I was listening to public radio on the way to my parents' house and the Splendid Table was on. I remember when this show came out, but I never got to listen to it because it's on Sunday mornings and I was being dragged to church; more recently I just forgot about it. But I found myself in the car on Sunday, and Lynne and I were cruising south. Anyway, a woman came on with a question about subbing apple sauce or other fruit/carrot purees in baked goods, and here's what we both found out:

• You should NOT sub purees for fat in recipes that use the creaming method. In other words, most cakes and cookies ("cream butter and sugars..."). These baked goods get their fluff from the sugar cutting through the fat and creating air pockets. No fat, no fluff, end of story.
  
• You should NOT sub purees for fat in recipes that use beaten eggs as the fluffing agent. I was thinking angel food cake...but that doesn't have any fat anyway...so, you know, other things with beaten eggs.
• You CAN sub purees for fat in recipes that basically don't fall under the other 2 categories. Anything where you can dump all the ingredients. Things like carrot cake and hummingbird cake are perfect candidates (I'm debating box cake mixes...maybe). Lynne was most excited about the possibility of brownies, especially using a prune puree. (brown-laxies. yum!) Seriously though, that sounds delicious. She said it works great with anything chocolate.
• On a final note Lynne (don't you love that we're on a first name basis) said that you shouldn't sub puree for all the fat, because, well gosh darn it (channeling Alton Brown), it tastes good. (and it serves other functions...)

So, let's review. No purees in cookies or anything else using the creaming method. No purees in egg-induced fluffiness. Go puree-crazy in brownies and 'dump' recipes. But don't leave out all the fat.