Our Reluctant Secret

We’re finally willing to admit it. We are addicted to angel food cake … and we take it straight. We don’t need no stinking strawberries and whipped cream or mystery fluffy filling or frosting. Just give us a big glass of milk and a spongy ring of nirvana.

We’re not talking about the pale, puny stuff you buy at the grocery store or make from a box at home. We mean angel food cake made by someone who really knows how to do it right. We have found such a place. No, not a place, THE place.

We’ve had to think long and hard about this. In Bountiful Cupboard Magazine We had no reservations about telling you where to find great beer, wine, bison, cheese, berries, picnic supplies, mustards, Scottish Highland beef, and heritage turkeys. We’ve told you where to go to get the best and what to buy when you get there. We’ve told you where to go for food events and festivals.

This is different. In telling you, we run the risk of upsetting the logistics of angel food cake supply and demand. But we are dedicated to telling you where to get the best food so, as reluctant as we are to tell you, here goes. The best angel food cake on the planet comes is from Fosdal Home Bakery in Stoughton, WI.

Since 1949, Fosdal Home Bakery has been a prime source for Norwegian baked goods like berlinerkanser, sandbakkel, fattigman, rosettes, krumkake (all types of cookies for those who don’t live in a Norwegian town), lefse, and kransakaka (Norwegian wedding cake). They also make a mean and tasty kringle.

That would be enough to bring most bakeries to the attention of the Bountiful Cupboard crew but as you have probably guessed already, what makes Fosdal Home Bakery immortal is angel food cake. The first thing you notice when you take bite is how incredibly moist it is, as well as its body. This is a cake with substance. Next is a light yet distinctive flavor of vanilla. Toppings are unnecessary; Fosdal angel food cake is a dessert unto itself. Any additions would lessen it.

Angel food is one of the more basic cakes with only a few ingredients but in the hands of a master they transcend their humble beginnings. Fosdal Home Bakery at 243 E Main Street in Stoughton, WI has this remade humble cake into an art form. There, we told you. Just be sure you leave a cake on the shelf for us.

This was too good not to pass on. Only in the Midwest:

First Man on the Moon to be Commemorated in Cheese

(Wapakoneta, OH) -Since ancient times, man has been pondering the moon, dreaming of exploring its surface. Some of those dreamers envisioned a cheesy terrain, while others confided in the “man on the moon.”

July 20 marks 40 years since man first realized that dream by landing on the moon and exploring it for himself. Although the traditional 40^th anniversary gift is ruby, Sarah Kauffman, the “Cheese Lady,” is commemorating the event in true “moon” form – with cheese.

Kaufmann will be carving a life-size astronaut out of 1,800 lbs. of Wisconsin mammoth, white cheddar. Appropriately, the astronaut will be holding a wheel of “Man on the Moon,” Swiss cheese.

Sarah will begin carving at a pre-event celebration on July 17 and 18, at Kroger, at 475 Fortman Drive, in Saint Marys, Ohio, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Customers are invited to stop by the store, watch the carving, and purchase their own “slice of the moon”. They can also enjoy wine tasting from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day and guess the weight of the completed astronaut for a chance to win a Kroger gift card.

On Sunday July 19, the astronaut carving will be moved to and completed at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum at 500 Apollo Drive, Wapakoneta, Ohio (at the 111 Exit for I-75). The museum will be open from 12 p.m. to 10 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, and 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, July 20.

This special “cheesy” tribute to America’s man on the moon will be on display at the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum on July 19 and 20, alongside the world’s largest MoonPie^®, as part of their Wapakoneta: First to the Moon Celebration.

When American astronauts landed on the moon in 1969, it was a source of pride for Americans. This year, Sarah Kauffman will continue that heritage, carving her own mark in astronaut history.

The start of it all

Once upon a time, a group of people got together and said, “Hey, let’s put on a magazine.” They wanted it to be about food, but not just any old food. They noticed that there were lots of publications and websites that told you what to do with food, but no one was telling readers where to get the best and most interesting food and equipment in the Midwest. They imagined a magazine that would tell people in Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois where to get the best quality products, equipment, and services to cook and entertain at home. Thus Bountiful Cupboard was born.

Bountiful Cupboard quickly found a readership that not only appreciated the wealth of information presented every month but also the fact that it was free. Advertisers covered the cost. Alas, it was not to be. When the economy tumbled, the readership was increasing but the advertising dwindled and publication was suspended.

Bountiful Cupboard, however, proved to be the idea that will not die, which brings us to this blog. We have continued to receive requests for more information on the types of sources we covered in the magazine, so along with reworking our website we have launched this effort. Our purpose here will be to keep you posted on great sources along with our opinions, ruminations, diatribes, and brain dumps. We hope you find Bountiful Cupboard useful or, at the very least, entertaining. On we go . . .