[pct-l] simmer ring, cake

[goforth@xxxxxxx (Joanne Lennox)]

I made a "baking spacer" out of popcan aluminum.  This was tedious, and it
took me a while to drink enough pop to get the cans I needed.  I used the
dimensions and size strips that Robert Ellinwood detailed in one of his
last posts and it took me a while to figure out how to put the thing
together never having seen the gizmo (Thank you Bob!!!!!!).

In taking all the cans apart to get the flat stock from the sides of the
can, my eye lite on the tops and bottoms and I thought "well, here is a
simmer ring too!"

I got out my popcan stove out which I have almost never used because it
wastes so much more fuel than my Sigg alcohol burner.  It gets the alcohol
too hot and it just burns around the pan in an ever increasing yellow
flame.  I poured one full film cannister of denatured alcohol into the
stove and put my 1.5(?) liter much backened titanium pot with the baker and
half inch of water and my cake.  After the stove got going good , I put a
pop can bottom in which I had drilled a 5/8 inch hole in the center.(it fit
the stove exactly and covered all the holes).  The flame reduced
dramatically and was puffing some extra flame out the sides.  It reduced
little by little.  Occaisionally , I would flip the simmer top offf and let
the cake get hotter.  the cake cooked in about 20 minutes.

The flame is small and steady now after 58 minutes and half my cake has
been consummed.

I will give you my receipe waiting for the eventual demise of the flame:
take about a cup of Jiffy Baking mix (or Bisquick, Krusteaz , etc), and mix
with water until about like thick pancake batter.  Pour into plastic bag,
which is sitting on top of the baking platform with water.  My philosophy
is that when you have about equal amounts of topping as you have the base
cake mixture that you just put into the bag,  you are on your way to having
things turn out okay.  My topping is about equal amounts of the dry baking
mix, brown sugar, coconut, and butter (cut the butter in until it is the
size of small peas), add cinnamon.  Cover the top of the batter with this
powdery mix and poke it down into the batter every inch or so.  the only
problem that I ran into was that the cake mix took up much of the pot and I
left some air space and as the cake rose and as the air space expanded, the
pot lid lifted up.  So later I just pushed as much of the air out of the
top of the cake as I could and sealed the bag.

Flame still going after 63 minutes.  Hum, what else.  Oh, yes.  I also used
the pop can top as a simmer ring and it worked about the same as the bottom
- the pop top opening is a litle eccentric and not as pretty but it seemed
to work just about the same even though the holes were not completely
covered.  The botton of the pop can is a perfect match to the top of the
stove so that it also protects the stove top and as it nests to the top
there is very little space or weight to it.

Flame stoped at 69 minutes.

The "Baking PLatform" weights something less than 0.5 oz.  My scales are
not very accurate below 1 oz.

Joanne